The year was 1924, my grandfather was on the Seaside school board that hired Mildred. My mother was in the second grade the year Mildred started teaching at the one room school that sits on the northwest corner of our ranch.In those days they always had a problem keeping a teacher, a new teacher would work a year or so, get married and quit. Mildred took a room at the old hotel that overlooks the schoolhouse in this one horse town. The next year, my grandparents left the ranch and moved to town. Grandma had gone to school there too. The school district consolidated in 1953 and the school was closed, the kids being bussed 10 miles into Half Moon Bay. Mildred married Pat, the hotel owners son. When I got out of high school and came back to the ranch, I worked for Pat one season (heres where the tractors fit in) he was farming about 1000 acres of grain down the coast with 3 AC HD-5's. Pat retired from farming in about 1966. My mom and dad bought the schoolhouse from the district about that time, just to preserve it. There is a couple of acres of land around the old hotel that needs to be kept up, every year Pat would have me come over with my tractor and work up the ground. He would have me drag every piece of equipment I had over there. It got to be a major pain in the ass sometimes. By the mid seventies, I had learned a hell of a lot about dryland farming from old Pat scratching up that piece of ground every year. In 1978 old Pat leased me the old Saloon on the hotel property. It was the first building built in town, the year being 1865. The old place needed a lot of fixing, I worked on it a few years and got all the permits back. Pat died in 1983, Mildred hated all the rif-raff the saloon attracted to her front yard, I was no good as a saloonkeeper, so I closed it up and went farming again. Mildred died in August. I could see I had no choice, so I opened the place up again. I am running a farmers coffee shop in the mornings.Now it looks like I might have to buy the damn place,or if they sell it, they will have to buy me out and I can buy antique tractors the rest of my life. The schoolhouse still sits on the hill. My mom still comes over and hangs out there twice a week. Now she has all the old attendance books that Mildred left in the hotel. They date from 1882-1953, she shares them with former students that stop by. I still never got my shop built, its raining cats and dogs here. I'll have to put a clutch in the D-2 this year so I can get over there and scratch up that piece of ground again. Pat and Mildred srill talk to me, they were quite a pair of teachers. TomA