“There’s more to life than increasing its speed.”
The morning is damp and chilly. Rain is predicted for today and for the next few days. Tomorrow is my busy day. Today is whatever I want it to be. I’m leaning toward a relaxed and quiet day at home. Outside is uninviting. I’m plenty comfortable right now.
My first school was old. It was built in 1910. It is still used today. The outside is brick. I always think most schools should be brick. The inside of the building had, in my day, wood everywhere. The wood shined on the tops of railings and the tops of the stairs. The stairs had a bit of a sag in the middle. I used to love standing on the bottom floor and looking up and seeing the winding staircase all the way to the top floor.
We outgrew that school so the parish built a second school. The two schools became forever the old school and the new school. I checked the parish history today, and it said the new school was erected in 1961. My memories differ. When the new school opened, I was in the fifth grade. It was 1957. I finished the sixth, seventh and eighth grades in the new school and graduated in 1961. The dates don’t jibe.
I love old buildings. That first school of mine was so neat and so beautiful, it started my love for old buildings. I live around many of them. Sometimes in the summer I take tours of the old houses. I’m always a bit embarrassed when I say Dennis to the docent’s question,”Where are all of you from?” I love to ride on 6A. It doesn’t matter up or down cape or the season. Many of the houses are on the historic register, especially the captains’ houses. The shops along the road are unique. I have a few favorites where I usually stop. I often take a ride on Route 6A. It is one of my isn’t life grand places.
I haven’t left the cape in a while. Every week three days have bookings: two uke and one PT. They break up the week. They make me feel busy. This week I also have a doctor’s appointment, just a regular check-ups, in Hyannis. That makes me really busy. I’m not a fan of busy.
Explore posts in the same categories: Musings
January 3, 2023 at 5:51 pm
We also had an old school building (early 20th century) and moved into a new building in 1977. The old building still exists and is used by another school but they currently take down the new building because it was built badly. The new school was actually quite ugly but it was sad to see that all trees around this school were logged when I saw it the last time.
Not too far away a village from the 12th century with basically protected historic buildings will be torn down next month to mine even more lignite. Many people already lost their homes and villages for open-pit mines in that region. Lots of protest here and this coal is actually not really needed anymore but government(s) and industry decided that we should heat up the planet even more.
January 3, 2023 at 7:00 pm
Hi Birgit,
The new school is on the same parking lot as the old school. I haven’t been inside since I left in 1961 so I don’t know how it is faring over time. I probably wouldn’t be going to St. Pat’s if I were a kid now. The tuition is quite high: close to $7000 in grades 1-5 and over $8,000 in grades 6-8.
How can the village be torn down if it is protected? The hue and cry here would put a stop to that. The historic register does protect the old buildings. I don’t the coal thing, of mining for no reason.
January 3, 2023 at 8:24 pm
Hi Kat,
Yesterday we didn’t get any rain only a few drops on the windshield. We tied a record for January 2nd of 78°. Today’s high was only 70°. 🙂
I’m not fond of just saving old buildings without them having any historical significance. My former elementary school, which was hit by the tornado in October 2019, is being rebuilt as some kind of magnet school. Luckily, they are keeping the original building’s Spanish style adobe facade while tearing down the newer addition which was just plain beige brick ugly. The infamous jungle gym, upon which I broke my arm in the third grade was destroyed by the twister. The school was built in the 1940s and has sentimental value for we who attended classes in the old building. Otherwise, it’s just an old school building.
I just looked up Dennis on Cape Cod on Apple Maps. I was looking to find where you lived and if your town was close to the Kennedy Compound. But I couldn’t find the Kennedy Compound. 🙂
January 3, 2023 at 9:14 pm
Hi Bob,
We had rain pretty much all day. It stopped just a sort while ago. It is a warm night at 51°. It is supposed to rain again tomorrow. I’ll be around and about going to appointments so I’m hoping I won’t run into traffic. After tomorrow, I’ll be free until Monday.
I need to put Christmas away so I’ll do a little each day starting on Thursday. I got everything up the same way, a little at a time. I’ll miss Christmas.
The Kennedy Compound is a distance from me. It is in Hyannisport right on the water. We used to take our company sightseeing, and we’d get as close as we could to the compound, the end of the street. I don’t know how many Kennedy’s still own those houses.
I always tell people Dennis is at the elbow.