This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American

people. Up next, a story from Scott Jones. Scott is a pastor and the author of Growing Up Rural

Lessons Learned for a Lifetime. Today, he shares with us a story about a childhood experience

from that book entitled

Dinky Boots. Take it away, Scott.

Transitioning from fourth to fifth grade for me was very difficult.

Our school in Zering, Iowa consolidated with the neighboring town of McCallsburg

and became known as Nesco, or Northeast Story County.

Since we lived out in the country, a school bus would pick us up early in the morning,

and we would be on the bus 30 to 45 minutes, stopping at other houses along the way to pick up other kids.

We would be let out at the Zering School Building and then get on to another bus that would take us to McCallsburg,

which was 10 minutes away. After school, we would go through the same procedure to arrive home.

There were new kids in the class from McCallsburg whom I had never met, and our fifth grade

teacher, she seemed to be very strict and uptight, which was much different than my fourth grade

teacher, and to top it off, we had to learn something they called new math, and I got my very

first failing grade the first nine weeks.

Now that did not sit well with my parents.

So mom and dad tried working with me on this new math,

and I limped along for the entire year.

Now sometimes in the morning, before the school bus arrived to pick me up,

...