school day memories - originally blogged; August 25, 2004

Dear Friends,
To some of you, this may be a very special story. Others of you may find it of interest too. I am sitting in my car, in the parking lot of Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in San Leandro, California. Now those of you who are the special ones know that I am talking about you.

What has happened tonight is a full story that I will tell more of in another piece of writing, but lets call it fate that brought me to this parking lot tonight. Driving by, at midnight, I saw lights on in one of the classrooms that a couple of us had classes in together; when we were between the ages of 6 and 10 years old. I had decided to drive by here consciously but I was not intending on stopping. that was an unexpected surprise.

I pulled in off of Williams St. in the lot behind the old cafeteria building. I paused and looked over at the building of classrooms that flanks off to the left. There was a class room, right there, that I had a class in when I was 10, in 6th grade with Mr. Schneider. He was the teacher I had the day my father died.

I don’t know if you remember the picnic tables that were there where many of us used to eat lunch. Outside of where the music class rooms were? I walked out onto the large courtyard, the playground where we used to play dodge and tether ball. Back further to the left of the playground there used to be an older part of the playground where the monkey bars and those low bars you girls used to do those circle rolls on. Remember? You’d put your sweaters on the bar, swing your leg over and hang by your knees? And then take a little jump to start a swing and you would build up this momentum that would get you spinning faster and faster going all the way in circles around the bar? and do you remember that us boys would stay far away and look on, disillusioned? Personally I was rather amazed by the phenomenon, especially the fact that you did it while you wore dresses... oh yeah, that was back in the 60's when girls didn’t wear pants.

I walked by classrooms that I remember having specific teachers in for particular grades. See now if any of you remember these... Mrs. Veehorn? she taught a split 3rd and 4th grade class. Miss Carlson for 2nd grade? Mrs. Anderson for 5th grade? There was a very special teacher I had for 4th grade but I can’t think of her name right now. she was super. I remember me and several other boys in the class were heartbroken when she told us she was getting married.
The buildings are the original buildings. The original plaster. The original windows. And get this. You can see the very faded old paint on the playground where four-square and hopscotch games were played. I’d swear it’s the original, 39 year old paint!

Between this first building and the next one over, the building next to the old playing fields I looked for an old friend. The bike rack that I used to lock my bike to on the days I’d ride to school. guess what. it’s still there. and this is definitely the original; it is dinged and rusty and bent by the years. Touching it brought me even deeper into this reverie of pure youth. In fact I remember another thing. I remember my first transistor radio and riding onto the school grounds on a Saturday morning, stopping at that bike rack and tuning in KFRC to listen to with another old school mate I saw there that day; Rocky Proffer. I don’t know if any of the others ever had to do this but he made me watch out for teachers when he tried to smoke a cigarette on campus one day.

The doors to the hallways of the buildings are the original doors. there is no doubt in my mind. oh, and the light was on in the cafeteria. the main reminder there is of the old stage. It looks exactly the same. I particularly remember that there were certain days that we had certain things to eat for lunch there. Like spaghetti day, and pizza day. I also remember the cozy feeling the cafeteria gave us all on rainy days.

Lets see, what else do I remember. I have two particular pictures in my mind. I remember one day during recess playing a ball game of some sort with a group of girls. Some boys I knew teased me by calling out that I was "a girl" because I was playing with "the girls". Not realizing this, I spoke from the innocence of my heart and said, "but I want too play with them!" Never occurred to me that I couldn’t play with the people that I wanted to if someone else’s opinion differed from mine. I think I was in 4th grade when that happened. And in particular I remember Linda Seagul being one of the girls in that group.

I have another memory from 1st grade on a rainy day at recess of climbing up the ladder on the slide, and then when I got to the top got scared because some boy behind me was pushing. So I climbed back down the ladder. There was a teacher from the 2nd grade whose looks scared me and I remember that we had nicknamed her Mrs. Spider. She yelled at me for breaking the "slide rule"; that if you go up the ladder you had to go down the slide. She made me sit out the rest of that recess on the steps. Remember those brick steps? I sat down on them tonight.

I also particularly remember some being in a lot classes with some of you girls from those days; in particular Jeannie Smith and Cindy Elia. I also remember a girl that I think I had my first crush on, in 1st or 2nd grade. Her name was Colleen. I don’t remember ever seeing her after that grade though.

Well, after I found the bike rack I decided to walk around the building by the field because I had my last 6th grade class in that corner room. I remember the last day of school when we graduated and I walked out across the field home with Gerry Searcy and Louis Da Silva. I remember too taking our first French class in that room, and hearing about Paris for the first time (And falling in love with the idea of the place. how many of you ever made it to Paris?)

As I was turning around to go back to my car I saw off towards the end of the building that there was an opening between the fences that separated Woodrow Wilson from John Muir, our junior highschool. I had a burst of a thought (maybe inspired from watching gymnastics in the Olympics this week) that maybe the old chin-up bars that I used to work out on during brunch and lunch with Nelson Medeiros could still be there. I rushed forward searching that edge of the field area where we spent hours doing muscle-ups and kip-ups, and on brave days when we could gather a crowd, half-giants, to see if they were still there. But no, the ground looked freshly tilled like they are getting ready to build something there. They must have torn them down just in this last week. hehehe...

But getting that far, I decided to walk around the junior high grounds in the same reflective manner. You won’t believe it but the school looks EXACTLY the same. Same old plaster. same old windows and doors. Same old sun worn tarmac on the basketball courts. The swimming pool is still enclosed in that prison-camp, barb-wired brick wall. And it STILL gives me the creeps. I swung wide of there. But I walked over by the door to the old boys locker room. It’s like looking back on somewhere that I see myself being very small, and old at. Like that youth is actually my old age, and that I am young where I am alive, now. I remember that when we stood in line for roll call during P.E. that if "coach Vaeth" could tell we weren’t wearing our jock straps we would get a "swat" with that mean old paddle. I don’t know if you girls had to suffer any such fate for some similar fashion error or not.

Lets see, what else... Oh yeah, I looked down the hallway of the building where my locker was. guess what. the original, tan colored lockers are still there. I don’t remember the number of my locker, but I do remember my old locker combination! 15-33-8. And I remember one afternoon in particular when I told my friends Louis and Gerry that I had a huge, huge crush on Jan Wilson. so what does Louis do? Right that moment he goes across the hall to where Jan is standing next to her locker and he asks her to "go steady" with him. And I’ll be damned to this day that she said, "yes". I never shared such intimate feelings with those guys again after that. And I never, ever had the courage to tell Jan the truth about how I felt about her.

Do you remember the annual "Turkey Trot" cross country race? I remember one year in particular, probably 8th grade when Frank Duarte came in first for the boys and Jan came in first for the girls; both winning a turkey for their family’s Thanksgivings. I also remember a really nasty black eye that Jenny Arce got when her older brother either hit a line drive into her face or he let go of a bat on a swing and the bat hit her in the eye. I remember thinking that she was such a small girl and that she was so tough to have taken that without crying. I remember too that during the summer of being in the 7th grade Jenny gave me my first kiss. But that is another story...

Another kid I remember that I spent a lot of time with was Corky Flores. Jenny told me that he became the mayor of some town in rural California after he grew up.
I remember being introduced to gymnastics by coach Rhett Butler and asking if I could come sit in on the P.E. class he taught during my lunch hour. I fell in love with the sport right from the start. I remember that on Tuesday nights there was an evening open gym, from 7-9pm. I begged my dad to let me attend. He agreed and sent me off in the dark to walk down to the end of Wainwright Ave. to walk through the field to the gym on my own. Boy those were the days when it was safe to do something like that. I remember that I learned something from Bill Cosby; to keep your music with you when you were afraid. I whistled all the way home on those nights.

Still sitting here in the parking lot, seeing the amber night lights fall on the buildings, the light looks like sepia toned photographs that falsely age the appearance of photographs. My memories here are of "old times" but the connecting thoughts feel very young to me. it’s 1:16am and I really should be home in bed. I’ll write more to you later. Oh, and if you noticed that I spoke specifically to girls that I knew in those old days, that is because those particular girls are people that I have found again in recent months. I’m glad that we’ve found each other again, Jan, Jeannie, Cindy and Jennie. We should all get together for a meal or a drink sometime to reminisce. To still know old friends like this is a thing we should treasure.

I should mention Max Martin as an old schoolmate that I’ve found too. My first memory of him was in what must have been kindergarten at an old school I’m sure is not even there anymore. over off of Wayne Ave.? Do any of you remember that place? And I always remember that Max loved to talk about airplanes and flying. Maybe you all would like to write out some memories that you have of your lives back then and share them with us all? I could open up a special BLOG that we could post our writings to. Maybe then if we come in contact with other people we knew then we could ask them to tell us their memories too. Let me know what you think of the idea.

Daryl