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When Rose Ann and I woke up, a lot of times it was to the smell of cinnamon toast and scrambled eggs. We had to brush our teeth first and put on our school clothes before we could eat breakfast. We ate and went out the back door on our way to John Small School.

John Small School was on Fifth Street, so we had to walk around the high school first. That was a task, but we had no bus to ride back in the day. Buses were used to pick up the country kids, but we didn’t mind walking.

After we got around the high school and we had talked to Horace, who was stoking the coal in for the high school, we headed to Harvey Street. We came to the ditch and looked for turtles as we went. The town ditch faced the mill houses and Blount’s Road. The people in the mill houses sat on the porch rocking in their swings. They weren’t a bother to us either. We walked alongside the town ditch mostly looking for turtles to catch after school.

We looked forward to getting to Swindell ‘s Store where we could catch glimpse of the cat eyes marbles that they had. They had clog knockers we used to bust the circle of marbles with. Sometimes we used ball bearings and clog knockers. We used anything that would work busting up the circle.

On a morning that our dad felt sorry for us, he would leave enough money for us to buy few packages of marbles. That didn’t happen many times.

When we walked across John Small Ave., we were at the marbles capital of Beaufort County! The ground was smooth with black dirt, so it was easy to draw a circle on the ground with a stick.

We would get our knees dirty and knuckles dirty and we had better beat the bell inside!

They were best of times with the best of friends and in the best of places of Washington, NC! The Original Washington!

Harold Jr