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Reunion |
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Jacksonville, Illinois |
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It is Nancy's
40th high school reunion. I
attended the same school a year behind Nancy, and I know many of Nancy's
classmates. Thus it was, in
a way, my reunion also. We
flew from California to St. Louis, rented a car and entered a couple of
days of reminiscing. We renewed old
acquaintances, and took note of how life had treated our friends.
We thought of all the deceased classmates, taken by accident and
illness over the years. Later,
we had to add one more classmate, Kenny Wright, to that list.
Tragically, he died in a traffic accident on his way home from
this reunion. For me, the
high point of the reunion was visiting the old high school. The high school had been condemned to be torn down some years
before, and bought by a local entrepreneur for a rumored $25,000.
It had been repaired and converted to apartments.
We were invited to tour our old high school on the day of the
reunion. We visited some
empty apartments, and by special arrangement, a couple of occupied ones.
As the tour progressed, our feelings built.
Same old terrazzo tile floors in the halls and stairwells (it'll
last forever). Here are the
funny stairs on each side of the front entrance that figured in my
late-to-class dreams for years. And,
let's see, this was part of the girl's gym, and this, the cafeteria.
The apartments are turned out quite nicely, some even with
skylights, thanks to preserving the old airshafts. Early in the
tour we came to the auditorium. The
auditorium had a sloping floor, and the stage had been two stories high.
Tall stained glass windows looking out into airshafts on each
side had been preserved. Two
stories of apartments have replaced the stage.
We got to inspect one of those second floor apartments.
The ceiling of the apartment was the original auditorium ceiling,
finished with filigreed, gilded plaster and ornate light fixtures. I recalled that the great violinist, Heifetz, had performed for our school assembly once when he was touring. He had remarked that he liked the hard plaster ceiling, because it made the acoustics "nice". Sound absorbing
ceilings were popular then, and he said he almost had to saw his violin
in two to be heard with those ceilings.
Others remembered Heifetz' remark.
We wandered on, reflecting on the other wonderful assembly
programs we had all witnessed in there, expositions on science and art,
plays, musicals. We started to
recall the specific classes, in specific rooms, and the teachers who
taught them. " Look,
this apartment used to be Emma May Leonard's creative writing classroom.
Here's first year Latin! Remember?
And this, why this was Pop Hickle's chemistry classroom.
By golly, look! The
chemistry lab is a Laundromat!" (They're making good use of that
indestructible plumbing.) We recalled how, when chemistry got too tough,
we would all try to get Pop talking about World War I -- that would kill
the rest of the hour. Physics,
Math, American History (Mr. Moffet was a real character, loved to spit
out the window!). We looked at
one another in surprise. What
a gold mine this place had been! The
rules had really been pretty simple.
Behave yourself, (some of us not so well!) and take everything
with you that you can. What
we took was a remarkable lot. The
class ranged from retired millionaires to struggling divorcees and gas
station operators to doctors. The
looks on our faces at the end of the tour showed our awe at what this
place had been -- to us and to thousands of others, in dozens of other
classes. The old
building is, in its way, very beautiful.
It was built to last -- to earn its space.
To ever contemplate tearing it down just to get rid of it was a
ridiculous thought. It is
being put to a terrific second use.
I hope my retirement is as successful!
Now it is
occupied by a spectrum of inhabitants.
From young couples who look like they belong in a high school, to
retirees. It is a wonderful
use for the old school. But
they'll not get from it anything approaching what we got!
They have a home, but we had...magic. John Pearson |
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