Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Old Places, Old Friends




Old Places, Old Friends




The year was 1902.

The first Rose Bowl game was played in Pasadena, California – Michigan won over Sanford 49-0.
Denmark sells the Virgin Islands to the USA.
The YWHA organized in New York City.
The American Automobile Association, the AAA, was founded in Cleveland, Ohio.
Enrico Caruso became the first well-known performer to make a record.
The first motion picture theater opened in Los Angeles.
The Texas Oil Company, Texaco, formed.
The first JC Penney store opened in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
Marie and Pierre Curie isolated the element radium.
The first science fiction film was released. It was called A Trip to the Moon.
Cuban gains its independence from Spain.
The Boer War ends.
The U.S. buys the concession to build the Panama Canal from the French for $40 million.
Edward VII of England is crowned after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.
The Trans-Pacific cable linked Hawaii to the U.S.

And...

The Walnut Street Elementary School was built in my hometown.

Fifty-two years later I began my formal education as a kindergartener in that school.

Let me try to give you a sense of how it was in those days. Unlike today, they didn't have half-day kindergarten, so us young 'uns were in class for the whole day whether we wanted to be or not. They did take pity on us, however, because of our tender ages, by allowing us a nap-time once a day. Or maybe it was twice a day? We all brought in little woven rag rugs to lay on the floor upon which we lay so we could catch our nap time zzzz's. I supposed if kindergarteners brought in rolled up rugs nowadays someone would probably call CNN, say the school was a madrassa and all the kids would be identified as Muslims. The use we actually put to our rugs back then was not to pray to Allah.

At least mine wasn't.

The school building itself was aging even when I started there – it was over 50 years old – and had seen its share of children passing through. Several generations of kids at least. The school conducted classes from kindergarten through 6th grade as most elementary schools did. I attended there until about half-way through the 4th grade when my family moved and I was transferred to another grade school.

Walnut Street School was and is a beautiful old structure. They call that type of building Renaissance Style architecture. The formal definition of Renaissance Style is this: it places emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of classic antiquity and in particular ancient Rome. Orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings. What that meant in more rudimentary English is that the left half of the building generally mirrored the right. And as far as what aedicules are, that's anyone's guess. Its exterior is a pleasingly configured use of dressed stone and brickwork – another definition. It's a doggone handsome building when you view it from almost any angle, solid and imposing-looking. It looked as if it was built to stand for a long, long time. It had 3 stories, the first were some steps down from the entrance, the second and third up its wide oak stairs. The building's office was straight ahead when you entered and the classrooms ran along the right and left sides on all three floors.

I remember being in the first classroom to the right on the 2nd or main floor for my fourth-grade class. The teacher was named Emerson Miller and I recall that he liked to sit on the wide window sashes and play with the sash cords while he taught, kind of a nervous habit of his. In those days the windows all opened wide to allow any available breezes to come through them. There was even a large transom above the classroom doors that could also be opened to help the ventilation on hot days, as it got quite warm there early in the school year and again in the spring as the year was winding down. Mr. Miller was a nice man, as I recall, and I enjoyed the way he taught. He wore a dress shirt and tie in the classroom and wore a sport coat when outside. The women teachers then all wore dresses. Teaching was a professional career and they all dressed appropriately. I'm not sure if they do that now. I was lucky enough to have Mr. Miller as my teacher again for sixth grade as he was reassigned to my new school.

Sometime in the '70's the old school conducted its last class and then sat empty. Talk was that it would be demolished as a lot of older buildings were. For some reason that was never accomplished and it remained empty until 1984 when its lease on life was renewed. It was rehabbed and made into the new home of the Wayne Center for the Arts.

That organization was formed in 1973 and was formerly housed on the campus of the College of Wooster. Through a gift from the Rubbermaid Foundation and with the support of the community, the Arts Center was able to move into the newly renovated Walnut Street School.

I remember the renovation proceedings quite clearly as my father had a hand in it. He was working at the time for an electrical company and they'd won the bid for doing the electrical work for the rehab. He'd talked quite a bit about the challenges of bringing an 82-year-old building (at that time) up to modern electrical code. He also talked about working in the huge attic of the building doing wiring and how terribly hot it was up there the summer he was doing the work.

The Art Center now presents exhibitions, performances, community activities and special events all year round. Some upcoming activities include: a wood-turners exhibition, a youth theater, a summer stage production, a watercolor exhibition, a jazz fest, pottery exhibition, a camera club exhibition, a potter's guild sale, a holiday artisan market and many other “arts and craft” sort of things. There are also many classes taught in the building throughout the year including drawing, working in clay, world art studies, pottery, music instruction in voice and many instruments and many dance classes in ballet, tap and others. These classes are for pre-school kids through adults.

Since I was planning on attending an upcoming theatrical performance there a week or so ago, I went down to the old school a few days early to purchase my tickets. As I climbed the old dressed-stone exterior steps and pulled open the original heavy wooden doors I almost felt transported back to my childhood again. There was the creaking oaken stairway ascending to the main floor from my memories, there were the classrooms on either side of me, their transoms and doors swung open showing the polished wood floors and the high old-fashioned windows in each room. You could see the new desks and tables where the art classes were taught. As I walked up the old steps I met dozens of little pre-school girls heading down from the upper floor where they had obviously just finished attending a ballet class. I made this assumption as they all were wearing little ballet tights and tutus. Their mothers followed along talking “mommy” talk as the little girls laughed and chattered and scampered down the stairs like a flock of brightly-colored fledgelings just leaving the nest.

After passing the gaggle of little girls I walked across the floor and up to the office's window where I purchased my tickets for the upcoming performance. While standing there I looked around the hallway and let the interior of the building soak into me, letting its present condition vie in my mind with the way I remembered the place. The conclusion was that the rehabbers had done a marvelous job. Things were very close to the way they were years and years ago, if memory serves. Everything was ship-shape, clean, the woodwork shining, the hardwood floors all polished. Those floors still creaked, I noticed, as I walked across them, the same as they did in my younger days. There was a comfortable sense of a new thing which had grown out of an old thing, the new parts intermingling with the old parts and creating a new thing altogether – an amalgam of the best parts of both.

It brought back many memories.

Which leads me, circuitously perhaps, to my next topic.

I get into discussions with a dear friend of mine on many occasions, in fact you might even say we make it a habit of confronting each other about this and that. We've known each other almost forever, we're of the same age, give or take a year or so, we work together and we share many memories of the past – the Glory Days if you will. Some of them we experienced together, others we acquired on our own over the years. Our present-day discussions most generally will evolve (or is it devolve) into good-natured disagreements on how things should be done and how things have or have not been done in the past. He is of the mind that old things should almost always be left alone and kept as they were. To keep the discussions lively I usually take the opposing side and discourse on how new things are always needed for the new generations and to keep us moving forward. The words the old must give way to the new, I've been know to utter. This generally results in a head shake from my friend and more explanations on how the old ways were the best ways.

Sooner or later, if we talk long enough, our discussion will end up about schools. Two particular schools, in fact. (You see, we did finally tie into the first subject, didn't we?) Our discussions normally go something like this:

Near the center of our town sits the “old” high school. It was built back in the dark ages of the city and served as the edifice of higher learning for a long, long time. Not counting our local college, of course. It was built on part of a city block, sharing that block with a junior high school, an elementary school, a small park and a practice football field. Some years back the population of the city and, hence, its high school-age progeny had increased and that increase in kids had resulted in putting a definite overcrowding situation in the old school. The technology of the modern age, computers, the internet, etc., had also created problems in the old building vis-a-vis its electrical capacity and its inability to accommodate computer facilities. It also had what were named “landlocked classrooms”, classrooms that were only accessible by walking through other classrooms. The varsity football field was even a couple blocks away and had been for ages.

It had reached and exceeded its capacity in a lot of areas. Most everyone agreed with those facts.

This problem seemed to have two possible solutions, both of which had their proponents.

One was to “fix up” the old school and continue onward on that property. The other was to build a new one somewhere else where there was room to grow, room for a full-sized football field on the property, room for parking, room for... well, room for everything that a modern high school should have and modern, up-to-date facilities to give the kids of the city as much advantages as possible for them to compete in the modern world.

With those needs in mind, one of our hometown's local philanthropists purchased a large lot in the north end and bequeathed it to the city if it would be used for a new high school. The caveat was that if no school, no property bequeathment. It was a very substantial gift. If I remember correctly a bond issue was voted on not long after that and a majority of the residents gave their approval for the new high school.

And so it was built. The design of the school was modern – long, high hallways, lots of skylights. An airy and cheery and bright place. They attached to the school an Olympic-sized swimming pool which was owned by the YMCA but the high school students used it as if it were their own. They also attached a large field house with an indoor walking track and 4 basketball courts. They soon added weight-training facilities there also. This was available to the general population of the town as well as the high school. It was, as they say, state-of-the-art.

I used some of the facilities myself, namely the walking track and pool, and liked the appearance of the rest of the school.

Some folks didn't. Some folks absolutely hated the place. You can probably guess that my friend was one of the vocal ones.

He was a proponent of the original plan A, fixing up the old high school, which had been shot down in flames. To add further insult to his injury, the old high school was partly demolished after the new high school was built and the remaining portion was rehabbed into our town's newest elementary school. It was apparently just the right size for a grade school and could be brought up to standards in that capacity. Of course my friend thought that if it could be used for an elementary school, it could have been rehabbed for a high school.

We disagree about this. A lot. And we'll probably continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

I remember talking to him just today about some stuff other than the old high school vs the new high school. At one point in our discussion I said something like I know you, alluding to what I assumed he would do or say for whatever circumstances we were yammering on about. He replied that I did not know him and I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was stating an important and serious fact.

I shut up for a minute and then realized that he was correct. I knew him in the context of when we were together and what we talked about, which was a miniscule portion of his life. I'd made the mistake of stereotyping him, of putting him in the box I'd labeled with his name and assuming that he would do or say what I thought he would do or say. He no more belonged in that box than I did in the one I'm sure other people have created with my name on the outside.

For that faux pas I am truly sorry.

But for goodness sakes don't tell him! He'd just use my mea culpa as a tool the next time we discuss the situation of the two high schools. Can't have that! I need every advantage I can get.

And another thing we can just keep between us, dear reader. I love old places! Hell, I got the goosebumps just walking around the old Walnut Street School the other day. I love the way it looks, the way the woodwork glows and the old wooden floor creaks. I love the way the sunlight shines through the high windows and the way the air seems to buzz with the footsteps and voices and laughter of its inhabitants, both those of today's users and those of the ghosts of yesterdays. And I love that it now provides a home for the community's artistic endeavors as it once did in the older days as a school.

So I guess my antiquarian proclivities must at last be acknowledged publicly. As much as I really, really do like new things – seriously – I also really dig the old places.

But don't spread that around, OK? I have a reputation to uphold!