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!
