You brought back memories in your latest Downhome magazine when I read the essay on one-room wonders. The picture of the old school bell certainly rang a bell with me. Many times I had the opportunity to ring an old school bell just like this one at a school in Victoria Village. The teacher at that time gave all of us a turn ringing that old bell. We were in a classroom of three grades, nine through 11, and yes, we did have a pot-belly stove. I'm enclosing a poem I had written a year ago about the old village school house. I'm now 77 years old, but still have a vivid memory of my childhood and that precious Isle of Newfoundland. Many thanks for the Downhome magazine. It helps me relive many memories. The Old Village School House I guess you could say it was the school of hard knocks, because it didn't have paper or pencils or blocks. It had the old blackboard and a piece of white chalk and a fussy old School marm; all she did was talk. The old pot belly stove was the way we kept warm; in winter or summer with some wood from our barn. We didn't have money to help with the cost, so the wood would suffice to help melt the frost. There were no school busses to take us to school and no soccer moms to form a car pool. We flung the old book bag over our back and followed each other through the snow tracks. At the end of the school year you were called to the front; to receive your diploma for the time you had spent. In reading and writing and doing your math, we knew at the time we were on the right path. There were no graduations with parties and such; just a paper rolled up and a wish for "Good Luck." The cost was too great to buy caps and gowns; but we left with a smile and not with a frown. Oh those happy days of yore.   Submitted By: NULL