Above the Storm

Ole Booker T

My three brothers, my baby sister, cousin Lodie Carter and I  were born in New Braunfels, Texas where we attended an all black school. The name of the school was Booker T Washington, where it still stands at 511 North Street.

I think it took the name, or was given the name of an old black man back in the seventeenth or eighteenth hundreds. I really never knew what the T stood for; I think it carried the name of Booker Theodore Washington or Booker Thomas Washington. As far as I know, it has always been Booker T. Washington to me.

The old building is still standing, after all those years. It was once said that the old building had been turned into an old Wash House for a union, or Trucking Company.

Now it’s a Learning Center for the handicapped. The big old faded out rock building is still located at the same place, and the same ground I walked on as a child.

The old building seemed to be haunted, because as we were sitting on the ground we could see the windows opening and closing by themselves. And no one was in the building; we would be sitting outside on the grounds eating our sack lunches. We had no modern cafeteria or no hot meals to eat; we had only what we brought, and along the way, whatever we could find to eat. So anyways, as we walked up and down the doorway, it was so creepy because you can just feel someone walking beside you.

We had a big Cow bell that Mr. Professor Johnson would ring for us to come inside. And at one time the bell had rung by itself; he never had ringed it because we just had walked outside on the grounds.

Some says at first, before it was Booker T. Washington; it used to be an old Army Barrack House for the old veteran soldier of long ago. And that’s where the wounded soldiers would be taken, as they can be helped, and then taken care of; and most of the very bad wounded ones that were too bad off didn’t make it, they just died in the building. That’s the reason for it being haunted.

It has many of body’s and spirits of the wounded that lives on, and walks the grounds day and night. But they won’t really bother you, if you don’ upset them, if you feel a composing chill. As you feel the hairs rise upon your neck and arms, don’t look back just keep walking as fast as you can and get the hell out because someone disturbed them, or interrupted their sleep.