“You know, my children go to a local, local catholic school just down the road.”
Mother Nature is especially kind today. It is already in the 70’s. The sun is so amazingly bright everything shines. The sky is a deep blue and not a cloud is in sight. A slight breeze ruffles the leaves on the oak trees. It is time to put my flannel shirts away and almost time for the door screens.
When I was a kid, my grammar school wasn’t all that far away. I always walked no matter the weather. The school is still there and is still in use. It was built in 1910. The building is brick with wood around the doors. It has two doors but we only used one. A statue stands in front of it. The school was too small for all of us. Every classroom was filled. My classes had at least 40 or 45 kids, but there was never noise or chaos. All it took was one nun to keep us in line. Sometimes she didn’t even have to say anything. A look was enough. We didn’t have a gym or a cafeteria. The only bathrooms were in what I always thought of as the cellar. It was a long run from the second floor. I loved the inside of that school. It was all wood, everywhere wood. The stairs dipped a bit from age and made creaky noises the way old stairs do. Each classroom had a cloakroom, also too small for all of us. The coats were hung on the hooks, but there were so many coats on one hook I could push my coat between the hooks, and it wouldn’t fall down. The windows were tall. A long pole was needed to open and shut the windows from the top. That was a boy’s job.
I spent my first and second grade in that school. For my third grade, I was in the cellar of the rectory. There were just too many of us for the school to hold. In fourth grade we did double sessions. I liked sleeping in when I had the afternoon session, but I hated having little time to play after school, especially in winter. For the start of the fifth grade we were bused to the next town over. I remember my nun sitting in the middle of the back seat of the bus. She had her eyes on all of us.
We moved into the new school in the spring. I remember it looked huge with wide corridors and bathrooms on each floor. I was in a room on the first floor. I sat next to the windows. My nun, who was huge, always sat at her desk. She didn’t move. We did.
I graduated from that school three years later. I have never been back.
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May 24, 2024 at 4:04 pm
Hi Kat,
Today is mostly cloudy with a high predicted at 93°.
The elementary school, Walnut Hill, where I spent the third through the sixth grade was destroyed in the 2019 tornado. It’s no longer an elementary school, but a leadership academy, whatever that is. The E.H.Cary Jr. High School, where I attended the seventh and eighth grades, was also destroyed in the tornado and was torn down and replaced by a new elementary school which replaced the one I attended. The high school were I would have attended, had I not moved to New York, was partially destroyed.
All of my teachers that I can recall from elementary school were mostly middle aged ladies who sold World Books in the summer months. In those days the schools were segregated and I didn’t know any students who was African American, or Hispanic American, until I moved to New York in 1960. The only black people I knew were the maids that my mother hired to help her with keeping house clean. They came once a week and my mother would pick them up and drop them off at the city bus stop. I remember that the blacks had to sit in the back of the buses. They mostly lived in the south Dallas neighborhoods. Those areas were also reserved for black families.
May 24, 2024 at 7:50 pm
Hi Bob,
Today stayed short sleeve warm. It was in the low 70’s, the expected high for the rest of the week. I was glad I got out for a bit.
That is amazing that both schools were destroyed by a tornado. My grammar school went to the 8th grade so it and my high schools were the only schools I attended. All of them are still around with the grammar school being the oldest by far. The first high school I attended before moving to the cape was brand new, only a year old. They started with one class and added another every year so it took four years for all grades to attend. When I moved to he cape, I attended a school built in 1957. It is where I ended up working for almost all my professional life. It has had two remodels. Now they have moved the 8th grade there as there are fewer students than at any other time.
The elementary school used to be loaded with women teachers. Now there are men but still more women. The only person I knew who sold encyclopedias was a high school male teacher.
There were a couple of Black families at my second high school, and that was all. Even my college had only a couple of Blacks students. That was just the way it was.
May 24, 2024 at 9:36 pm
It was the same tornado that knocked out both both buildings.
May 24, 2024 at 9:42 pm
Wow! That was really amazing, two schools in one storm.