I also remembered the middle school days when I went to school with my bun on my back
Text/Ma Qiguang
A few days ago, I accompanied two middle school veterans who had worked and lived in other places for 40 years to return to their alma mater, Caocun Middle School, and everyone was moved. Yes, the "Gong" character auditorium and the row of brick and tile school buildings of the former alma mater are gone, only the two diamond sky poplar trees that are the same age as the alma mater are still there, more vigorous, tall and tall than before. Everyone hugged and hugged the poplar tree, kissed and kissed, and everyone was full of tears. To tell the truth, the buildings in front of us, the first-class teaching facilities, and the beautiful campus cannot replace the good memories of our middle school era and the thoughts of so many good teachers and good classmates.
The greatest wish is to eat a full meal
I spent my middle school years at Caocun Middle School. This is a rural complete middle school located at the foot of Jin urn Mountain, built in the 1950s. Although it is just a row of brick and civil school buildings, dirt playgrounds, and roads paved with cobblestone bricks, it is the highest local school, and it is a sacred place that rural children dream of. I was admitted to Caocun Middle School in January 1973 from Majiapo Primary School. At that time, the middle school was still "two-two system", my junior high school was seven or four, and the high school was seven or six. Because it is a rural middle school, the students are basically the children of peasant families, the gap between the family economic conditions is not large, the rich and the poor are not very obvious, the harmony and harmony between the students, even if there are contradictions and disputes, they can resolve themselves, and there are very few fights and fights.
But after all, the gap is still objective, and this difference is first seen from the buns carried by the students. The school has two meals a day. At that time, the school had a water stove. The students' stoves were full of corn grits in a large pot, and there were no dishes. Another function of the stove is to give the whole school a hot steamed bun, with a four-foot square bun cage per class. Every day after morning exercises and afternoon self-study, two students on duty gathered up the steamed buns of their classmates and carried them to the student stove. Before the two meals, bring the hot bun back. The steamed buns in the cage are varied and varied, including white, black, yellow, green, green, and red; wheat noodles, corn noodles, grain noodles, millet noodles, sorghum noodles, red amaranth noodles, and several kinds of miscellaneous noodles and vegetables mixed together. In addition to steamed buns, there are also cornmeal dumplings packed with nylon nets, red amaranth dumplings, red amaranth and so on. Girls' buns are generally packed with net pockets, while boys use two or three buns with a string of chopsticks. Many students understand in their hearts that it is such a quality of miscellaneous steamed buns that their parents have made a lot of difficulties.
Meal time is the most lively. First of all, the boys preemptively took the steamed buns from the cage, the girls squeezed in to find their own, some took the wrong ones and asked for a change, some picked up others to share food with themselves, noisy, and only dispersed for a while. At this time, a group of sparrows rushed up, chirping, grabbing the debris in the steamed cage, not afraid of people at all.
After getting the steamed bun, some students bought a bowl of boiled polenta porridge for a few cents, and the aroma was steaming. What didn't make porridge was a large porcelain jar of boiling water. Two or three people gathered together and opened the canned bottled white radish and carrot pickles brought from home, or radish sauerkraut and red amaranth leaf sauerkraut, if anyone can eat the oily spicy belly pickles, it is really delicious. Some of them did not bring vegetables, so they took out a small bottle containing chili salt noodles from their arms, tore a piece of homework paper and poured it on it, ate a steamed bun and dipped it, and drank a mouthful of boiling water, which was also relished. Later, after reading Lu Yao's "Ordinary World", the description of Sun Shaoping's lack of food and hunger when he was a student was really the truth of student life in our time. The difference is that one of my classmates, due to eating sorghum noodle buns for a long time, often caused severe constipation, and several times he could not pull down and cry, and it was the classmates who helped him to pay for it.
At that time, the school organized students to pull manure, pick cotton, break grain, and dig red amaranth for the surrounding production teams when the farmers were busy. Whenever this happens, the production captain will often give the students a little reward, that is, a full meal. Although it's just steamed sweet potatoes or boiled corn on the cob, that's really good. Once, because I copied the physics materials for the class teacher Ji Pingxian and mistakenly went home to get steamed buns, Teacher Ji bought me a 4-two white-faced bar steamed bun with belly pickles on the teacher's stove, which was so delicious. How I want to eat wheat noodle bun twice a day.
Chase shop is warmer
Students are divided into boarding students and general students. Tongsheng refers to students who eat and live at home or around the school, and the other students are boarding students who have food and accommodation in the school.
The school gives each class a dormitory for boys and girls, a dormitory for boys in each class, a dormitory for each class with fewer girls, or a dormitory for two classes. The dormitories are both rows of solid earth kang in the north and south, which were later replaced by bed boards. Each person is 1.5 feet wide and divided into strands, one by one. On the wooden sleigh of the earthen wall hangs a bun bag of different colors and shapes. Futon sheets are varied and mottled in color. The dormitory has a house leader, who arranges daily students to clean up and supervise students to make beds, so that everyone can get along harmoniously.
The staying students' favorite is, of course, summer. We punctual and disciplined boys, with the special approval of the class teacher, can sleep on the desk of the classroom, the front and back windows are open, both ventilated and cool, no mosquito bites, can sleep well. However, after the wake-up bell rings, you must quickly get up and set up the desks and stools, otherwise it will affect the early reading of students who come early.
Of course, the students who slept in the dormitory were not so comfortable in the summer. People are too hot to be hot, and the earth kang is annoying fleas. Especially the students in the most advanced dormitories after the evening self-study, they must raise their trouser legs, and soon, the fleas the size of black sesame seeds will scramble up along the legs and stomachs. If the catch is not timely, it simply runs to the open space outside, and the hands are smeared down hard while jumping away like a rabbit. Otherwise, the hateful fleas can carry people to the bottom of the kang and give you a full body of "red packets". Of course, the school will arrange for someone to spray the dormitory every week to kill fleas.
Winter is the worst. Residential students have to live in dormitories. In order to keep out the cold, the school will buy a certain amount of wheat straw from the production team every year before the winter and spread it on the kang, which is much warmer to the touch. The family conditions are better, there are warm kettles, warm water bags, and generally students use glucose bottles to fill with fried water. After the evening self-study, everyone sat in the quilt while eating cold steamed buns and chatting, more to preheat the warm quilt for sleeping. In the class, there are two active members of the school's literary and art propaganda team, surnamed Lu and Lu, who take advantage of this gap to perform a pulling board and playing a flute. Some students do not have a mattress, or the quilt is too thin, often two or two free combination, together a quilt cover a quilt through the legs to sleep. Some of them tie the end of the quilt with a long scarf and make it into a sleeping bag. Others slept with hats on them, socks on them, quilts over them, and some simply did not take off their cotton pants. In short, everyone used their brains, innovated their thinking, and thought of ways to withstand the cold. But it is very annoying that there are too many classmates who annoy lice, and lice like to make small movements in tandem between the beds, which often bothers people to sleep badly.
For some reason, in such a harsh environment, the voice of resentment can hardly be heard, and the students encourage each other, help each other, and be happy! Compared with the Red Army climbing snowy mountains and crossing meadows, what is this suffering?
It would be nice to have a bike
At that time, the school stipulated that boarding students should go home to carry the steamed bun once every 3 days within 10 miles, and carry the steamed bun once a week 10 miles away. The students all have a good pair of feet, the road is measured by two legs, and the students jokingly call driving the "No. 11 car". I was just 10 miles away from home, and half a day after Wednesday I let us go home to carry the buns, and I used a yellow satchel printed with the words "The Red Army is not afraid of expeditions" to carry twelve or three buns at a time, and returned to school that day. Everyone is looking forward to the day of going home, and our mother's fragrant hot meal naturally seduces us, and there is a secret, that is, we can sharpen along the way. Our hometown of Caocun is a well-known persimmon town, along the hillside, large persimmon trees can be seen everywhere. Autumn red and sweet persimmons are our favorite, relieved and full of hunger. Diao kong plucked the young alfalfa of the production team, wrenched the sweet poles in the cornfield (empty poles that do not bear corn), stole the pea horns in the field, and the red amaranth in the planing field. In short, as long as it is a job that can be fed and relieved, even if it is a little risky, everyone is willing to do it. In my impression, the steward of the production team never seemed to be too serious with the student doll.
There are also several students in our class in the Baimiao Mountain District, the farthest is in Xiaoyuan and Dujia, near Yaozhou District of Tongchuan City, to walk more than 40 miles of mountain road. I went home for breakfast on Saturdays, and I couldn't get home in the winter when it was dark. On Sunday, he left early to return to school, with two large cloth buns on his shoulders, and crossed the mountains and mountains, and when he arrived at the school, it was almost dark. Think of today's middle school students, a day hand walking 30 miles flat road may not be able to walk down. Besides, these students have ideals in their hearts and strength under their feet. It is also a place called Chenglu in the Baimiao Mountains, there is an alumnus Cheng Tianliang, every time he goes to school and after school, he has to climb over the majestic Moon Cave Mountain, he does not take the Yanggu Mountain Road, climbs from the steepest place, usually practiced extraordinary mountaineering skills, and was selected by the national mountaineering team to become a famous mountaineer and mountaineering captain. Teachers also use this typical example to educate us.
But in my hometown, a place of half-mountains and half-plains, the most ideal means of transportation at that time was bicycles. Teachers in schools basically have bicycles, which are rare in rural areas. If anyone has a bright flying pigeon, permanent, phoenix, even if it is a red flag bicycle, it is equivalent to driving a Mercedes-Benz and BMW car now, pulling the wind. There is an old colleague on the front slope of our Banling called Dang Gaowang, thin and tall, ma ma li li. He was at his disposal of an old bicycle. To what extent, there is a slip of the tongue: the front belt is a card, the back belt has no flowers, the ride is fast, the chain is dropped, and the egg is grinded slowly. It is such a broken car, under his crotch, but like a good colt BMW, he listens to the call, does not get off the car uphill, does not hold the handle downhill, and there is a gust of wind on the flat road, and I can do whatever I want in the nest. On the way to and from school, it was a sight to behold. At that time, I always fantasized that when I had money, I would buy a bicycle first.
When can I have a cotton coat?
People often say: The past years have been good. Somehow, I always think that the winter of the student era is the most difficult. At that time, the winter seemed to be particularly cold, the north wind cut the face, the snow built the house, the eaves, the ice sticks on the wheat straw were often hung upside down in long and short lines, the little friends exhaled a breath of heat, and the hair tips and Liu Haihai would immediately form a thin layer of white ice, and the cold raged and dominated the northern land.
The students' winter clothes are simple and rich, and they are varied. The main colors of the boys are black, blue, and occasionally yellow. Cotton jacket cotton pants are home woven soil cloth, cotton wool is more years of old sleeves, some panicked families even old sleeves are not enough, cotton clothes are thin, warm performance is worse. Most of the students have no shirts inside, no overcoats on the outside, and wear cotton coats in hollow chambers, and the cold wind will go in unscrupulously, making people shiver with cold. Fortunately, at that time, the cotton pants were all large crotches, front and back, not divided into wearing, the waist of the pants was high and the chest, and then the cotton jacket was twisted, and the large belt was wrapped around the outside for a few circles, tightening, and the cold wind would not break through from the middle, and also blocked the cold wind passage. If you don't have a big belt, use a long scarf. Later, when I became an adult, I learned that there is a custom in our hometown, when marrying a daughter, there must be a 9-foot long belt in the dowry, which means long and long, don't you know that its use is more than a mile! Boys generally wear hats, some wear cotton hats, some wear locomotive hats, some do not wear hats and wrap their heads and ears in a long scarf and then tie a knot around their necks, and some ask their mothers to temporarily change single hats to cotton hats. They usually wear nests (cotton shoes) or threaded socks, or cloth socks made of home woven cloth.
Female students dress a little more carefully. Cotton jackets are generally foreign cloth surfaces, or red or green or flower, not flower cotton jackets will also have a gown on the outside, with cotton sleeves. The color of cotton pants is more casual, but it will generally have a headscarf on the head and a cotton nest on the foot.
Since the classroom does not have a stove, it is dry and cold. When waiting for the teacher before class, they will sing, and everyone's cold and numb feet will often involuntarily beat the beat, not only loud, but also make the classroom dusty, choking people cough. At this time, it is inevitable to be criticized by the teacher, but the students often accept the criticism sincerely with laughter.
In addition to the "stomping exercise" before class, there are also table tennis, shuttlecock kicking, jump rope, cockfighting for heating between classes. Boys are more enthusiastic about "squeezing the hot nest for warmth", that is, one person leans sideways against the brick pillar of the wall, the other students squeeze hard in one direction one by one, and the one who squeezes out of the queue runs to the end of the team to squeeze forward, the cycle repeats, giggling, lively, and the body is warm. It seems that this sport was only played in the first year of junior high school, and then stopped doing it as I got older.
But cold, still cold, indeed cold, really cold. Frostbite faces, frostbite ears, frostbite hands, and frostbite feet abound among classmates. Even so, there are very few people who take time off. Alas, The Township Is Pisit.
That eye-catching yellow cotton suit is a very good boy in our class, and his father is a demobilized soldier, so he was given a military coat, worn during the day and covered at night. I'm so envious, when we get a cotton coat to wear.
A good teacher is a good teacher
The main reason why we love campus life in such a difficult environment is because we have met a group of good teachers who love students. These high-achieving students who have graduated from famous schools are all extremely skilled, not only selflessly imparting knowledge to us, but also being the mentors of our lives. The teacher's following and teachings have profoundly influenced my student years and have continued throughout my life.
Teacher Liu Wangping, who has a rigorous teaching style and loves his students, Mr. Wang You, who is funny and humorous and has a good hand, Mr. Zhi Bingyan, who is knowledgeable and exports into chapters, Mr. Zhang Tianqi, who is known as "Zhang Huahua", who has a strict teaching style and exquisite teaching skills, and is known as "Zhang Huahua", can use only a few colored chalks to swing the maps of various countries and provinces and regions in class, Teacher Wang Chuanjin, who has opened his mouth to his knowledge of human geography, Teacher Ji Pingxian, who has painted a lot of color and a circle in physics class, a black tweed suit and gold wire glasses on the nose frame, and Mr. Gao Bochong, who has been a senior translator for Soviet experts Teacher Wu Fengying, who has beautiful hair and can sing and dance, Chen Hongxiu, a fierce tiger and a sports athlete, Wu Chengmao, who is diligent and studious, and is a strong and energetic teacher, and so on. More than 40 years later, most of these outstanding teachers have passed away, but their smiles and the image of the spirit in the classroom often appear in my dreams and live in the hearts of students. Even in that special period of criticizing the "dignity of the teacher" and advocating the "hero of the white scroll" and the "anti-trend fighter", these teachers still did not forget their mission and responsibility, and conscientiously attended every lesson. Mr. Wu Chengmao, my first-year class teacher in high school, quietly encouraged those of us who love to learn: "National construction still needs high-end talents." This sentence is still in the ear and has lasted for a long time.
Of course, as soon as the teacher is mentioned, he can't get around the principal Zhang Yongxin. Before joining Caocun Middle School in January 1973, he had served as the principal of Ducun Middle School and Yishan Middle School for several years. At that time, Principal Zhang was in his early 30s, free and arrogant, walking with his head held high, speaking like a bell, showing his handsome demeanor between his hands and feet, and hundreds of students in the school were not disrespectful or afraid of disobedience. Principal Zhang has been in charge of Caocun Middle School for 12 years, and has managed the school well, managing a remote rural middle school in an orderly manner, and the quality of education has risen steadily, ranking among the famous schools in Weinan area. Many of his own anecdotes are talked about after tea and dinner. In the 4 years I studied at Caocun Middle School, there are two things that I remember deeply: one is that the school has not expelled a single student; the other is that there are three or four apple orchards on the campus, and there are many apple trees next to the road, and every autumn, the ripe apples will bend the branches, and some will touch people's heads, but no one will pick them casually, and everyone will walk around.
In 1977, the state restored the college entrance examination system, and the society cheered. In that year, the alumni of Caocun Middle School were admitted to a batch. Like Bai Zhuanshi, a grade 73 student, he was admitted to Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and later became a senior engineer and researcher of AVIC Baocheng Aviation Instrument Factory, and won the AVIC Outstanding Contribution Award. Grade 74 student Chen Jiyang, a student of Hanmen, was sent to study in Switzerland after graduating from a university in Xi'an, obtained a doctorate, and became a top talent in the domestic industry. Zhao Pengmin, a seventh-fifth-grade student from a poor family who loves to learn, was selected by the military academy as a fighter pilot, and is now the deputy chief of staff of the Air Force at the rank of major general. Guo Yanlin, a grade 76 student, went to Germany to study after graduating from a university in Xi'an and is now a doctoral supervisor in the Department of Civil Engineering of Tsinghua University. My classmate of the first class of the seventh and sixth grades, who lost his mother at an early age, came from a poor family, and loved to learn, while some of his classmates were racking their brains to write critical drafts, he was immersed in the study of analytic geometry.
The above list is only a few alumni classmates I knew well in middle school, who did not fail to live up to the education and training of teachers, jumped out of the farm, and achieved a career. Later, the teaching quality of the alma mater sang all the way, in 2014, the second book was as high as 576, and several of them were admitted to Tsinghua Peking University, and the school was named Shaanxi Provincial Standardized High School, Weinan Demonstration High School, becoming a shining star of the city's rural high school.
Forty years, at the stroke of a finger. Recalling the middle school days when I went to school, the sour, sweet, bitter and salty enriched the life experience; the wind, frost, snow, rain and dew tempered the strong will, laying a solid foundation for me to engage in the education cause I loved all my life.
I miss my middle school life, and I can't forget the yellow satchel that was used to carry buns and load books, and the words "The Red Army is not afraid of expeditions" were printed on it.
2019.12.16
About the author: Ma Qiguang, a native of Caocun Town, Fuping County, is an old educator who likes to deal with students and words.