I took these photos on Easter morning. It was chilly, windy, bright. I went to my old grade school – which is no longer an active school (sniff) – but the ghosts remain. You can see how Mother Nature is taking over … the weeds in the sandbox, the empty basketball hoops, the rust … but this place is alive. I went to school here. I am everywhere I look. So is Betsy. And Michele. And Andrew. And Keith. And J. And Greta and Leo and Dee Dee and Kevin and … my siblings … This was where we grew up.
The door. This isn’t really the front door – that’s over to the right, off-camera. This is a side entrance – the boiler room to the left.
This is where the fabled FORT used to be – a huge two-leveled wooden structure – which could be a pirate ship, a fortress, a castle, whatever. Now of course … it’s just bushes and trees. The fort is where I attacked poor Keith, age 9, after chasing him at recess, and kissed him on the cheek. A terrifying moment for both of us. We laughed about it last week. He could not get away from me. And then of course I had to run away, shrieking. I had gotten what I wanted, but what was I supposed to do with it??? No idea. Must run away.
Here’s one of the sandboxes. This one was right next to the fort. We would sit on those triangular wooden sides, our feet in the sand. When we were older, say, 10 or 11 … we didn’t play in the sandbox. But the girls would all convene there – to gossip, plan our attacks on the boys, chatter away. I also remember that Betsy used to know how to make herself faint – she would hyperventilate, then hold her breath, and keel over. This was a huge draw – kids would run from all sides of the playground to “watch Betsy faint”. And she would do it in this sandbox – so that she wouldn’t crack her head open on the cement. Good times, good times.
This just struck me as very desolate and poetic.
I love this.
Alaska. Off to the side and up around the corner.
The Great Rift Valley of … er … Oklahoma?
A bubblah. This is out the back door and to the right – we used to play ferocious dodgeball in this small brick alcove. The bubblah is kid-height – everything makes one feel like a huge giant.
Target practice!
This picture is full of ghosts. Ghosts of a bazillion 4-square games, many many years ago.
Through the glass darkly. Over to the left was my 6th grade class – where Andrew gave me the Valentine – way down at the end of the hall is the “multipurpose room” – where we would have gym on rainy days, lunch every day – and where plays would be put on on occasion. I also remember seeing The Computer who wore tennis sneakers there – on some rainy day. Huge screen pulled down … all of us in the darkness … who knows why some things stick in the brain.
Old messages. Hieroglyphics of a bygone age.
Florida. Georgia. Alabama.
Gather ye rosebuds.
My boys’ school had that same map of the US painted on the sidewalk in front of their school! How weird is that? It must have been some project suggested by Scholastic back in the day.
Ours is gone now, thanks to a remodel. I miss it.
“This place sucks”
Hahahaha.
A photo post! With your new camera! YAY!!
Loved the pictures, by the way. I can feel the ghosts of the kids, too! What’s to become of the school, do you know? I also love the fact that there seems to be a forest right by the schoolyard… the naked trees look beautiful (to my eye at least!).
My favorite pics are the one of the basketball hoop, the three-state pic (Florida, Georgia, Alabama) and the one you took through the glass.
Emily – i know – hahahaha and also: LOSER. ALIEN. You know … epithets that never lose their power.
Ceci – my friend Beth (who taught at this school) probably has an update – it was really upsetting when this school closed … and there is hope that it will re-open again. I’ve been feeling some urgency about taking photos there – just because – I would HATE to come home, and see that the whole place had been torn down – and generic condos going up … without me having captured some of it.
And yeah – the woods around the school were KEY during recess. For wars between boys and girls, for make-believe games, for all that stuff … you almost could forget that the school was right close by.
In the early 1970s, the population just boomed in the area where I lived, so all of the schools were overcrowded. At my school, they just kept adding portables until there was room for no more, so all five sixth grade classes were taught in these portables way out on the edge of school. We loved it, because we were so far away from everyone else that it felt like we were in our own little world.
I took my kids back to see the old stomping grounds a few years ago, and of course the portables are now gone, enrollment having stabilized and the school having returned to its natural size. But what was really strange was that they left the asphalt paths leading to the portables there, so now you have these paths that lead to literally nowhere. It was an empty feeling, and it made me wonder what the kids there today think those paths were for.
the first elementary school I went to _became_ condos… the building is still there, but now people live in the classrooms. (or so I imagine, since I can’t step foot in there for the weirdness)
Those pics make we want to cry a little bit, and it’s not even my school. The lack of children’s laughter makes the silence deafening.
There’s an old school in Little Rock, melissa, that was bought and made into artists’ condos. You get certain grants and you can live there and compose, or sculpt, or paint or whatever, for minimal rent.
They left as much original stuff as they could; some people’s living rooms have blackboards that span the walls. It is VERY cool.
Wow – it’s funny because I only went to that school for two grades (and two weeks of Kindergarten), but almost all of my elementary school memories are there.
Just an FYI to my dear friends (my computer is down) – Sam and his wife have a son – Conner Gilmore Hall was born on Good Friday and weighed 9lbs. 1 oz. – I’ll e-mail a picture when I get my computer back!
Bets – Yay!! Yes definitely email a picture!!
Alas, all elementary schools must eventually be replaced… Then again MY elementary school and middle school were buried under 4 feet of ash from Mt. Penatubo, but the picture of the map of the US and the 4-square courts reminds me of fond memories
Lisa – wow, that does sound cool!!
Lisa, that does sound amazing… I don’t think my old elementary is quite that cool (lets say I’d be amazed if my hometown would have managed that. I think they gutted it.)
mine was old as dirt, no airconditioning and the pine floor wavy as the ocean. dark in the troughs, and then light and splintery at the crest where the laquer wore off. (you’d think it would want to spread out. nothing wants to be close to anything else when it is that hot.)
the floors creaked and moaned, and when the classes changed, everybody sounded like a herd of elephants.
same map of the country, too.
i’m willing to bet the crack goes east to west on ours, though.
Auntie Betsy- Congratulations! (Great name, by the way!)
Update on the school: Currently it is being used as an “alternative school” by the local mental health center as a diagnostic type of place. So, if a child has mental health needs and needs evalutations that can not be carried out in the regular public school setting, that is where the child can attend school while being evaluated. That is my understanding.
The mental health center has contracted to rent the space from the district for 3 years. I personally believe that the school will reopen in a few years because the population waxes and wanes. But that remains to be seen.
Damn, this just made me realize I really should have taken photos before they tore down Garfield Elementary to put up some new tract homes. I did go over and look around a few times in later years – I suppose if I ever do an exhaustive search through old negatives it’s conceivable I might find a few pictures. The ghosts of childhood are powerful things. Guess that broken Oklahoma is more appropriate than I would have preferred…
So, on a whim, I google my 6 week old son’s name… and end up here! Since then, I’ve been blowing off work and reading stories about my sister and all her SK friends. Much fun.
Thanks Sheila! I’m now a little sad about the school though.