Today marks the passing of an era.
The school of my childhood is closing its doors for good.
I attended Small Town School from seventh through twelfth grades. Classes ranged in size from seven students to thirty. Every grade was comprised of one class, thus it was a small school. Kids had gone to school together since kindergarten.
May 22nd will mark twenty three years since I graduated.
Time has really flown by.
The school was originally opened in 1966. Many students have passed through its doors from then to now. So have a number of teachers.
The year that I graduated, my math teacher retired. She had been hired the second year the school opened, making for a grand total of twenty-one years of work in one place. This was especially amazing because this teacher drove almost an hour to work each day. She was the senior class sponsor. Truth be told, I think my class did her in and made her finally throw in the towel.
LOL
I’m finding it rather difficult to image Small Town without the school. So much of who I am today is a result of what happened within those walls.
I’ll never forget huddling by my locker with my first boyfriend. I remember the day that he hid behind me in an attempt to obscure the principal’s view of him. He had just gotten his ear pierced, and in those days, boys did not pierce their ears. It was quite shocking.
I remember the year I had Mr. H as my PE teacher. We spent our class time walking laps…around his pecan orchard/back yard. The goal was to never let him pass you because if he did, you owed him an extra lap.
I hated PE from that year forward.
It was also in that backyard where I grew to despise the game of softball after one of my classmates struck a ball that hit me squarely in the knee. I’ll never forget another classmate picking me up and carrying me up the huge hill.
Mr. H doubled as my typing teacher. He had been in the military, and let me tell you…the military does not fool around. We were never allowed to look at our keys, and perfection was demanded out of us. I lived in fear of Mr. H’s watchful eyes.
His method worked.
I won the state typing championship in 1987, I think…on a manual typewriter.
There are so many, many memories of Small Town School…
Dinner theaters, getting out of class for weeks on end to decorate the gym for prom, football games, dances, making muffins in Home Ec, getting dragged around the school yard while holding onto a mop (I was mature even in my youth…HA!).
Home basketball games were so much fun as was traveling to away games. Basketball players were required to dress up for away games. I wonder if they still have that rule. I remember running one suicide after another in that old gym. I sucked at running, and I always came in last, which meant I had to run the most suicides as the drill was repeated endlessly.
I’ll never forget losing a classmate in the eighth grade. It was one of the most devastating experiences of my young life. Attending her funeral with my classmates was one of the saddest days during my time at Small Town School. Her parents stayed active in our lives, threw us a graduation party, and created a scholarship their daughter’s honor. Graduation was a tearful experience as another of my classmates received the very first endowment.
I’ll never forget the day when some of my male *cough* classmates poured superglue on my science teacher’s chair and watched as the teacher sat there, permanently affixing himself to the chair. That was a bad day for everyone involved.
I remember listening to tales being told of paddlings that had been doled out. Back in my day, this was still allowed. Even girls got paddled. I didn’t. I was a teacher’s pet.
I remember when my best friend and I visited a classmate in the hospital after he broke his leg during a football game. I think we were seniors. We bought him a sketch pad and colored pencils. This guy had tortured me endlessly since the seventh or eighth grade (all because someone had seen me looking at him like I “liked” him on his first day of school, told him, which led him to hate me and treat me poorly for years). He looked me squarely in the eyes and apologized that day.
Small Town School was a time of much growth in each student’s life, you see.
I remember my first Christmas at the school. I did not know that the girls bought gifts for everyone.
And I mean e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e.
I was mortified.
I made up for my lapse the next year and bought all kinds of goodies for the girls.
I still treasure one of the gifts I received one year. One of my classmates was very artistic, and she decorated plastic plates for everyone, writing their names in the middle.
I still have mine, and I don’t like when other people eat on it.
Tight bonds form when you attend a school that small.
For a school that, in my time, didn’t have internet, cable, or texting, we still managed to stay connected to one another.
Time marched on, I graduated, and so did twenty three more classes.
Over the course of the last year, through the wonderful invention of Facebook, I have been able to plug in to what’s been happening at Small Town School. It’s been interesting to see pictures of my childhood friends’ children as they enjoyed many of the same activities that generations of children had experienced. Although the styles of clothing might be updated, the school spirit, joy, and closeness has been exactly the same.
And so I bid a sad farewell to the school of my youth, and I offer up prayers for those who will disperse to other schools, separated from the friends they have grown up with.
Saying goodbye is never easy.
Remember, though, that no matter where we may go, we’ll always share the unique experience of having been a part of Small Town School.
Filed under: This-n-That | Tagged: school, teenagers | 5 Comments »
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