Nurse Hodges

I went to Menard Elementary school for eight years (1-8th grades). I quess, honestly, I was there nine years as they held me back a year in first grade due to to many absenses.

The town's population was around 1,500 people. There were two classes for each grade level and around twenty students per class. The building was old and didn't have air conditioning. The entire school yard was covered in concrete and a thick rock wall surrounded the entire thing.

One of the most memorable people in the school, was the school nurse, Mrs. Hodges. She wore a solid white nurse dress and ugly white shoes every school day that I attended there. She even wore the little white hat.

But she was far from your typical school nurse.

To begin with, she smoked. Inside the school. In the nurses office. Anytime you had to go in and see her, she'd be standing by a window with a cigerret in her hands. She'd stub it out in an ash tray and take care of you. She also had a coffee pot she kept on.

She was a loud, rough, thick skinned, outgoing woman in a tiny size 3 body with to many age spots and a smokers deep voice. She also had a heart twice the size of her body. She loved all the children, but seemed to have a special place for those of us that needed it.

I can remember when laying out on the brick wall during recess with my mouth wide open so it would get hot -- I was in 1st or 2nd grade. Then I'd complain to the teacher of having a fever and she'd send me to the nurses office. My temperture was always a little elevated, so Mrs. Hodges would let me stay with her until it went down. If she wasn't busy, she'd pull out a deck of cards and we'd play.

In those days, we recieved all our vacinations at school. There was no health department, clinic, or hospital in town. Every vacination I ever got, she gave me. And after every one of them she gave me a cube of sugar.

Which in todays terms sounds kind of funny. But back then candy wasn't as readily available and I don't imagine she made much. She always had suger cubes for her coffee though.

No twist to teh story. No funny ending. No moral really. Just a good memory.