Farewell to my old high (school)
A brief moment of retrospection. Soon, in a matter of a couple of months, my old high school will close its doors. For the youth of the area, this will lead to the excitement of new facilities, but in my case… my school days are nothing but distant memories with a supporting building. Soon to disappear into a cloud of rubble. If all goes well, and my commaodo team is prepared, I might get a brick. That’s it. The address where I spent five long years will quickly turn into something very different, and my attachment will disappear. Like my memories, probably. Age tends to blur the edges.
But on the way out, I won’t be alone. Someone has created a group on FB, and my sister “joined” me to another 2,600 and growing. The school (which was open for over fifty years) sheltered a lot of people. At its peak, I believe the enrollment hit 1400+ (which means that the number of interested will continue to grow between now and the reunion weekend a month hence. Not likely to make the roadtrip, but seeing those names from more than four decades ago is a trip down “memory street”. Even now, I have a map of the facility etched in a block of memory, and the teachers who did their best to keep me on course are still cherished phantoms.
This will be the last of my schools. All the others have disappeared through the years. Consolidated. Deconsructed. Replaced by newer facilities. My kids now have to endure my pointing and saying “that’s where my school USED to be”.
