A New School Year

First Day of Fifth & Second Grades
August 11th, 2011

Paulette Elementary
First Day of school ever on August 8th, 2011

My children returned to school last week. They were excited to be going back to familiar surroundings - friends, teachers, classrooms.  Several hundred miles away, Paulette Elementary held it's first day of classes in Union County, Tennesse. Paulette Elementary was built on the piece of property where my grandparents house and store once stood.  It's also the first elementary school to be built in Union County since 1970, fourty-one years ago.  I tried to find a picture of the completed school building, but so far I've been unsuccessful.  I did find a photo of the almost finished building though.  

     At the risk of throwing too many important milestone dates in at once, I feel the need to mention that last week (August 10th) was also the third anniversary of my grandmother's death.  My grandmother, Cleo Hurst, died peacefully in her sleep in the house she had called home for over 60 years in the same room where my grandfather, LJ Hurst, died peacefully in his sleep in the summer of 1982.  I haven't driven out to see the new school.  I could blame it on logistics - it's a long drive from Nashville to Union County - but the truth is that I just haven't had the strength to do it.  I know that all of the places that I love are gone - the house and barn and the store building where I spent so much of my childhood with my mother and grandparents.  I can't imagine driving around the bend in the highway and not seeing the roof of my grandparent's house and the circle drive and the walnut trees and the green stretches of open fields.  It's good that the county has a new school - they desperately needed one - and I hope nothing but the best for all the new Paulette Panthers who are excitedly walking the halls of their brand new school building this week. I am sad for what I have lost in the process though. 

The Hurst Place
May 2008