Another brick removed from my wall of memories
My sense of personal history got gobsmacked this last week. We are, in one sense, where we’ve been. Our experiences with places and things are part of an equation, and right now I feel a little bit older, because my schools have been marked for closure.
My high school was a new building when I started my five year stint. A new name, a new campus, no sense of history to colour things. We were the kids in the new school (the farmers’ school, according to the sneering brats from down the road with their century old pile of bricks). We had lockers that hadn’t suffer the slings and arrows of a decade of students, and the sinks in the bathrooms ALL worked. Pretty nice.
Here we are, just over four decades later. The school board has voted to close the school, because it no longer meets the specifications of a good educational facility. They’ve voted to close the other school as well, and then to construct a shiny new factory of learning (if the government provides the funds in a timely manner). No sense of what the marriage would mean in terms of identity.
It shouldn’t matter; I am not planning to go back to school. My children won’t be going there, either. It’s just that the memory set that goes with burgundy sweatshirts, a too-small band room, a library with some decent books must now change. When I go back for a visit, assuming a new school IS built, my murmurings about my old school won’t mean very much.
On the other edge of the country, the school where I first taught is closing next week. There will be a new school construction, just in a different community. Times change; memories don’t.
