Pipi’s Pasture: The aroma of Rabbit Brush

Jun 01, 2023

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It’s not the displays of back-to-school supplies in local stores that trigger memories of my childhood days or the conversations with area residents about the year’s first day of school either. It isn’t even the sight of the school bus as it turns the corner here in front of Pipi’s Pasture. Odd as it may seem, memories of my childhood days at the Morapos School are triggered by the aroma of rabbit brush. But first things first.

I finished grades 1 through 8 (no kindergarten back then) at the Morapos School, a country school just down the road from our ranch house. Then I rode a school bus to Craig and finished high school there. My siblings, Charlotte (Allum), Darlene (Blackford) and Duane (Osborn) also attended the Morapos School, but in later years the county schools were reorganized so Darlene and Duane didn’t go there for all eight grades.

The first Morapos School was a log building that was heated by wood and coal. That’s where I attended first and second grades. Then it was replaced by a new cinderblock and stucco, one-room building with windows along the south side. Pupils entered the building through an anteroom. A teacherage, where the teacher lived, was not too many steps from the school. In those days there were no bathrooms so everyone used an outhouse. The new school was heated by natural gas.

School enrollment varied from year to year. I believe there were only two students when I was a second-grader, but some years there were as many as eight or nine pupils. The teacher had to prepare lessons for lots of grades.

In those days each country school had its own school board (as far as I know anyway). There was no janitor so the teacher swept the floor and kept things in order. The parents took care of most maintenance, such as hauling drinking water and, in early days, wood and coal for the stove. So when school was set to start each fall, the parents gathered to clean up. That’s where the aroma of rabbit brush comes in.

Over the summer, vegetation, including rabbit brush and sagebrush, grew up around the schoolhouse, teacherage and the swings and slide. My sister Darlene remembers that Dad mowed it all off. When rabbit brush (sagebrush, too) is cut it gives off a wonderful aroma. My siblings and associate this aroma with the start of school, (aren’t the senses wonderful?)

On a designated day, the school moms filled buckets with warm, soapy water and gathered up brooms, rags, mops and other cleaning supplies and set out to clean the schoolhouse and teacherage. They cleaned the two furnished rooms of the teacherage, washed dishes, aired the mattress and checked the gas stove, among other tasks.

At the schoolhouse they knocked down the cobwebs, washed the windows inside and out, dusted the bookshelves and books, washed the blackboards, checked the gas stove and cleaned inside all the desks. The anteroom got a good going-over, too, and someone, possibly Mom since drinking water came from our house, took the water crock home to be cleaned. Last, the floors were mopped.

Even the outhouse was cleaned. At last, everything was ready for the start of school. It’s been many more than 50 years, but whenever I catch a whiff of cut rabbit brush, it takes me back to the start of school.

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