The End of an Era

This is the H.T. Wing School in Sandwich was built in 1927 and then various additions over the years.  The below pic is the old part.  Back when I was growing up, everyone K-12 fit into the one school.  In the fall of 1976, a new high school was opened so this old high school reverted to the elementary school.  It closed down a few years ago because it's old and needs so much work that the town is kicking around tearing it down either in full or in part, keeping the original 1927 brick building.

When I found out that there was going to be a holiday market in the cafeteria, I seized the opportunity to get inside and take pics of our old school before it's torn down.

When I went here, the high school kids entered in this area, and we entered a little farther down.

That box in the hallway was built to accommodate my growing 2nd grade class.  I started the year 1971 in a classroom down the hall.  When I returned after Christmas, in January of 1972 I was one of about 15 kids that got reassigned to a different teacher and put in this room.  Beyond it is the door to the library which was built in about 1974.  That boxy classroom originally had windows that faced the playground before the library was built.

This is the original wall tile in the bathroom.  It's been there since I went to SES, and that's coming up on 50 years now.  I admit I was completely shocked that this school wasn't renovated and upgraded over the years.  I now see why it's past the point of no return as it relates to renovating it now.  

When I refer to places in this school, it's as it relates to my memories of it.  Hallway from the high school part to the elementary school.

This actually was my first grade classroom. Dry erase board now instead of chalk, different chairs and tables but it's as I remember it for the most part.  

Lobby looking towards where I had my 5th grade year.  The school office is on the left, and the entrance to the cafeteria is on the left past that table.  The cafeteria was originally the 2nd and smaller gym for the little kids while the high school had the run of the big gym up the hall.  But they converted the small one into a cafeteria around the same time as the new high school was being built. There used to be marble tournaments in the lobby in the early 70s.

This little garden area hasn't changed one bit since I was there except it's more overgrown.

Looking at the doors to where I had 5th grade.  The school thought it was a good idea to combine the classrooms into giant spaces separated only by bookcases.  In 5th grade (74/75), we were lumped into that room with one 6th grade class and two 4th grade classes.  The following year we were moved into yet another new addition called 'Cluster 6'. 

Looking at the front doors.  It was always so pretty at Christmas with the tree in the lobby and in class we'd always make decorations and paper chains, colour Santa Claus pics and paste cotton for beards.  Making simple gifts or decorations in art class.  And the class party on the last day before break.  

The cafeteria that was the elementary school gym.

The stage where a couple Lions Club Minstrel Shows were held in 75 and 76.  My dad sang in the chorus and did a couple of solo songs.  

Exact door with exact window and signage as when I was there.  

The high school's lobby and their office.

Mr. Zion was a beloved teacher and coach in Sandwich.

This was the high school's gym during school hours, or places for assemblies, chorus concerts, school plays, basketball games and various and sundry town gatherings like a white elephant sale I remember going to when I was about 8.  

Words cannot describe how much I dreaded the rope climb.

Love the street signs.  Nice touch.

This would have been the corridor to the high school rooms and also the school nurse.  There used to be lockers along the walls and bare, dim bulbs hanging from the ceiling and this really weird smell that I could never quite pinpoint.  The walk to the nurse was very long and very scary for a little kid.

A teensy chair in the hall way.  I put my bag there for scale.  Actual chairs we used in the 70s.  I never realized how small they were at the time of course.

Looking back down the hall through the door that leads to the elementary school lobby.

This old radiator.  A real surprise to see it.  I assumed these were long gone.

That was my kindergarten classroom.  

 Entrance to the elementary school that we used when we got off our buses.

Looking towards my old kindergarten room.  Except there was no a/c unit in the window!

I'm really lucky that we had the chance to explore it one more time before it's closed down for good.  I hope they don't tear it down but I get why the town is pushing for that option. I think one of the best parts of this night for me is that Russell has the exact memories of going here that I do, since he was only 2 years ahead of me.  Hopefully the town will compromise and at least keep the 1927 building.

Mystery Solved....Kind Of

You know it's true what they say that the quest is always more fun then finding what you are looking for.  On the other hand it's nice to have some of life's little mysteries resolved.  This happened recently, kind of.

When I was in kindergarten, we had split sessions.  For the first half of the year, I was on afternoons and the second half of the year, on mornings.  This is my kindergarten class picture.  I know every name by heart, including the kids who moved away after the first year or so together.  My memories of kindergarten itself have faded....just a few fragmented images here and there remain.  Extra points if you can find me.  ;-)

I knew there were kids in my grade who were on the opposite schedule as me, but I never saw their class picture.  I didn't think about it back in school....I mean why would I ever ask anyone to see their class photos?  Flash forward to the present and now that my classmates want to see them, no one can find them anymore.  Most people's parents retained the class photos and after moves and deaths and divorces, many have been lost forever.  I was lucky that my mom kept them and let me have them when I got out of college. 

I was on Facebook and stumbled upon the corresponding photo to mine, completely by accident.  It solved some of my questions on who all else started from K and graduated with me in 1982.  It also surprised me because some of my fragmented memories of K are of the girl 4th from the left in the 4th row in the blue jumper, Beth.  I could have sworn she was in my session, even though her pic wasn't included in my class pic.  All these years I assumed she moved to Sandwich during the year and after the photos were taken.  Instead of a group shot, our K class photos are a compilation of our individual school photos, which were always taken in early September, when students were still transferring in and out.  According to this photo, it's clear our paths never crossed during K, despite my memories.  The other thing is that while some of the kids are easily identifiable to me, some of them are not.  I wonder who they are?  The photo on Facebook wasn't tagged with the names.  And who is the sad looking little girl in the bottom left corner?  Do I know her?  I can't tell.  Could she be a girl that I thought I met in 2nd grade?  The boy on the far right middle row looks familiar....I thought it was my friend Doug but he insists it's not him.

In 2nd grade, the town was experiencing significant growth, so halfway through the year, a bunch of us were removed from our original classrooms and placed into an expansion class.  A temporary classroom had been built in a very noisy hallway right smack in between the elementary and high school parts, and my new teacher (back row far left; our teacher's aide, on the right, was awesome) was unable to retain control of our room and she was also cruel.  Because it was so disruptive to be ripped from my original class and placed into utter chaos with students I didn't really know, I have way more clear memories of January to June 1972, than I do of September to December 1971. As a side note, my parents always pinpointed my plummeting math ability to when I was changed to this class, due to the disruptions.  BTW, that's not my underwear showing, it's the white slip under my dress.  

I've always wondered about the photo from my original class.  I thought that it would help me to recover memories of the first half of that year if I could just see the picture.  Unbelievably, the person who posted the picture of the K class, also posted a picture of my original 2nd grade classroom!!!  Again, I can ID some of the kids, but where is Traci? I clearly remember being in trouble w/ my teacher....something about having done an assignment wrong....and I at my desk, very upset and trying hard not to cry.  She sat in front of me, and I remember her turning around and doing what she could to cheer me up.  Yet she's not in this photo, and she wasn't moved into the expansion class with me either.  She was, however, in my 1st grade class pic....could I be remembering something from 1st grade?  And I remember there was a girl in 2nd grade named Wanda Brannikins and she had almost white blonde hair, and there is no such girl in this picture, but could possibly be the blonde girl 3rd from the left 2nd row.  I remember the boy on the far left 2nd row but I don't remember his name.  And Beth is in this classroom, so are my alleged K memories of her really from 2nd?  I also seem to remember that my first 2nd grade teacher didn't like me; I still have my report cards from back then and she never had anything nice to say about me.  I've always wondered if that's why I got transferred.  

The Class of 82 started in the Fall of 1969 with only 61 students.  When we graduated, it had swelled to around 150.  There are approximately 32 of us, that I can positively identify, that made it all the way through together in the same school (2 of the original 61 studets were held back a year).  My bff since K, Sheila (2nd from left front row, dark hair) moved to Orleans during 3rd grade and was also class of 82, but at Nauset High.  A few of them made it as far junior high before moving or possibly transferring to Upper Cape Regional Technical School.

So many moved away and I wonder what happened to them, if they remember their time in Sandwich at all and if they look at these class photos and remember any of us?

Shared Memories: The Bad Kind

All these years, I thought it was just me.  36? 37 years now?  Convinced it was just me.

I had a 5th grade teacher who was.....odd.  It's nothing that I can pinpoint, but it's just a feeling I had.  I didn't like being alone in the class with him, if I was staying after for extra help, or had gotten to school early, before most of the school buses arrived.  He made me uncomfortable.  He never touched me, or did anything overtly inappropriate, but it was just a feeling I had.  He kind of...leered.  He sometimes made strange comments which were subtly inappropriate.  I just wrote it off as me just not clicking with him.  I liked a lot of my elementary school teachers, but not all of them, and he was one that I disliked.  

I will, however, share a story with you about that year, to give you an idea of what he could be like.  It's something that has stayed with me my entire life because I was so scared, and he seemed so wickedly amused by what he had asked me to do.  A bit too amused.  I had been having trouble with a bully that year.  She was in the 6th grade.  She never actually hit me, except sometimes punching me in the arm or shoulder, or shoving me.  Mostly she terrorized me with words and threats, extorting my lunch money or making me sneak candy to school to give to her, or else, and she seemed to take great pleasure in the fact that I was scared of her.    Back then the elementary school classrooms were divided into "Clusters", separated by 'walls' of bookcases.  That year my Cluster included my 5th grade class, the bully's 6th grade class and 2 4th grade classes.  We had the same teacher for all subjects from the second we arrived in the morning till the second we left in the afternoon, except for gym, art and music.  So this girl and her 2 toadies, also girls, got great pleasure in tormenting me at recess.  They were tough girls, the kind you knew would end up as the hardcore partiers once they hit their teens.  

I never understood why this one girl chose to despise me, b/c I actually was close friends with her sister and brother who were in my class, and they were constantly telling her to leave me alone, but she wouldn't.  One day the 3 of them hadn't come back to their class after recess.  My 5th grade teacher told me to go check the Girl's Room for them.  Why me?  Why a 5th grader?  These girls are in the 6th grade! Why the same 5th grader who is being actively bullied by these girls?  I didn't want to go.  I remember my eyes widening at the request, but I was mute, unable to speak.  I got up from my desk and stood there, all eyes on me, my face getting hotter and redder.  He came over, smiling in that creepy 'sweet' way.  He told me it would be alright, and gave me a shove towards the door to our Cluster.  I went out and went into the bathroom.  There they were, and I was trapped.  They came at me slowly, the ringleader in the front.  She put both hands on the door on either side of my head and got up in my face.  She hissed through gritted teeth that if I told that they were in there, I was dead.  I don't know if I nodded or spoke or what.  She left me go without the pounding I was fully expecting.  I went back to the class room, sick, stressed, pale, shaking. I sat down without making eye contact with anyone, hoping that I was invisible. Wanting to be invisible.  My teacher asked me if they were in there.  I whispered, "no", and stuck my nose in my book, my face burning, heart racing, sweating like a pig.  He knew damn fucking well what he was sending me into.  He knew they were in there.  He knew they were bullying me on the playground.  Just a wee bit sadistic, don't you think?  The girls were busted and somehow, miraculously I was left alone and didn't face sure death at the next recess like I thought.  I often wonder if they were told to stay away from me.  I don't know.  But it wasn't my 5th grade teacher who stuck up for me.  

One of my dearest friends, who was also my babysitter in the 70's when I was in elementary school and she was in junior high (we're only 4 years apart and we rode the same school bus) has been posting photos of her old yearbooks from Sandwich from the mid 60's through the mid 70's.  It was a small town then, so we all knew the teachers and staff, as class after class would make their way through the same teachers on their way up.  It's been so cool to see the pictures of everyone the way I last remember them.  Names long dormant in the deepest parts of my mind are coming back as easily as if it were yesterday.

My friend made a comment about the 5th grade teacher that I also had, 4 years after her.  She was afraid of him and he'd been pretty abusive.  That opened up a dialogue between several fellow female students who also had him for their teacher too.  As it turns out, we all had the same experiences with this man.  He was 'off'.  He terrified.  He was abusive.  He threw one kid up against a cement wall.  Passive-Aggressive. He really did say the strange, veiled inappropriate things I also experienced.  None of us complained to anyone.  We were all too scared.  We didn't want to make waves.  We thought it was 'just me'.   

Can you imagine the sense of relief I have right now?  All these years I thought it was 'just me'?  But it wasn't.  These are other women who were in various graduating years, not just mine.  We all drew the short straw when we were assigned to his 5th grade class.  I don't know what happened to him after I finished the year.  We 6th graders moved into a different part of the school the following year, then it was off to the 'new' high school after that.  I didn't think about him unless I saw my 5th grade class photo, which was fairly often because I've always had easy access to all my class photos.  Those feelings would come back and I'd just dismiss it as me misinterpreting things he was saying.  I assumed that I was the only person who thought they'd heard what they'd heard, and that no one else felt that way.  That I was the only one. 

The thought that, deep into the 20th Century, into the mid 1970's, abusive teachers were allowed to keep their jobs shocks me.  Kids weren't encouraged to rock the boat.  I never told my parents about the things he said because they wouldn't have done anything.  Even at age 10, I knew it would do no good. It would have been a scandal.  I would have been told to suck it up and the school year would be over soon.

I'm glad that times have changed.