Edgar. most of the things you talked about I have experienced,from tack in the shoe to carrying my school lunch in a Karyo syrup bucket. My first cousin used her lunch bucket on my head once and I was glad it was a bought one instead of the Kayro bucket. I think we called them dinner buckets. I still eat breakfast, dinner and supper. There is one thing that don't make for a good dinner and that is a buckwheat cake wrapped around a cake of sausage.
Buckwheat bread is not much when it gets cold.

One thing you left out about the smells in the school room and that it the odor from the shoes of the person that had been hunting the night before and had caught one or more skunks. We didn't have an extra pair of shoes to save just for hunting. The closer to the stove the boy sat the stronger the odor

I once heard of some boys getting some"skunk cabbage" in the spring and rubbing it all over the stove. When the fire was built the whole school had to leave.The odor must be somewhat like what Ole Paul smells like after a week or two
with out a bath.

Kinda wonder what school children would do if they had to bring in the wood or in some cases the coal to heat the room, carry the water from a spring or a well and drink from a common dipper. I have forgotten how to make a drinking cup from a piece of tablet paper.

Do you remember the penny pencils?

jist ole clyde