Slide 3

The Slide: Arnold Ave. Elementary School

The Date: Summer 1967

The Photographer:  My sister Sally

 

           The Arnold Ave. School was built in the late 20's and it was built to last.  Constructed from yellow brick the two-story structure had large, lovely arching windows both front and back providing wonderful natural light for four classrooms on each floor.  At one end was a small cafeteria/gymnasium.  At the other, as I remember, a grand auditorium with impossibly squeaky wooden seats.  At any assembly of students we were not only required to behave.  We were forbidden to move.  The flagpole stood in the front lawn which was the greenest in town and meticulously maintained as were the hallways of heavily polished Terrazzo reflecting walls of yellow gloss.  I don't recall the ceilings. They were probably too high to be seen.

          Behind the school were large fields for Kickball and a designated area packed with delightful, deadly playground equipment.  Here by the Merry Go Round, it was not uncommon to see a flying first grader flung centrifugally before cutting a teacher off at the knees.  I remember waiting in a long line so Mr. Hughes, a rotund third grade teacher, could buck me on the Teeter Totter.  At the top I had the choice to hold on to the bar grip resulting in a dangerously high handstand, or I could let go and just… fly!

Our swing set was constructed of heavy welded steel with chain links the size of a child's hand.  We took turns while classmates wound us round by the legs until we were hunched over, six feet off the ground.  If our fingers happened to be caught in the chain we were, at this point, nearly unconscious.  When the chains could be wound no more we were released to spin for long minutes at eye popping speeds.  I once watched a sixth grade girl jump off at the bottom, stagger three steps and dive head first into the Monkey Bars. It was great fun.  Even children who preferred to play alone were at risk.  The plastic coil spring horses were known to toss a shy child upside down and head first for no reason at all.

          I loved my Arnold Ave. School. Our town had few other public buildings so we grew up with very little sense of architecture.  For this reason, though I could not put it into words, I thought my school was beautiful.  I thought of it as "dignified". 

          All of our homes were of four types.  Old factory housing looked like it was designed by preschool draftsmen.  Four walls were topped with a two-sided pitched roof.  In the front there was a door and a window or two - maybe the same on the back- and that was it. Over time many of these homes had fallen but there were still a few on North Main in a section my grandfather called Tannery Row.

          The newly built homes, that replaced the fallen, were mostly ramblers or ranch homes as they were called. My neighborhood, of perhaps a dozen homes, sported Frank Lloyd Wright inspired flat roofed structures.  The neighborhood was designed by a Lloyd Wright protégé who also designed our new high school.  The architect's own home and office hung to the side of a hill, high above us all, barely visible so naturally was it wedded to it's environment.

          I remember being very taken by the modern flat roofed homes and was disappointed that ours was the only dwelling on the street that had an old style pitched roof.  But my father said,  "No, no.  Wait and see.  We're the lucky ones." Within fifteen years all our neighbors, frustrated with the leaking, gave up and built pitched roofs on top of the flat ones.  In most cases the results looked awkward and self-conscious, like the local guy who decides to wear a toupee.  Everyone knew they didn't quite fit.  Frank Lloyd Wright must have rolled over in his cantilevered tomb.             

      The fourth type of home in our community was the grand mansion of which there were only a few.  They were built by the lumber, tannery and natural gas barons and had names like The B.C. Taber, The John A. Weinman and the grandest of all The A.M. Benton which, when I was a boy, was called Isherwood's. Isherwood's graced an entire, cast iron-fenced in block along Main Street. Maples and Chestnuts filtered sun dappled shade onto the stately grounds accented with Mountain Laurel, cement ponds and playful fountains.   The squarish house had wide elegant porches wrapping three sides and a covered carport on the fourth. Most impressive to me the building was topped with a glassed in cupola. Our old mansions were the only buildings that surpassed the Arnold Ave School in architectural beauty.

      Arnold Ave, as it was called, was built as the high school and remained so until 1955.  Both my mother and father attended there graduating in '45 and '46 respectively.  Dad was a star football player, number 75, whose team boasted a perfect record his sophomore year.  No team would again go undefeated until my sophomore year a full generation later.  One Saturday evening, following an uninspiring defeat of a winless opponent, I sat at the dinner table with my family. "How 'bout that Dad?" I said, "I scored a touchdown and I'm only a sophomore."

          "That's really great," he said with obvious pride.

           My mother looked at my father and smiled. I thought she smiled because she was pleased for me but she kept smiling and staring at my father. He avoided her gaze.

          Finally she said to him in mock exasperation, "Bob, are you going to tell you son or should I?"

          "What?" he said. "I told him that's really great."

          "Bobby," she said to me, "when you're dad was a sophomore…" I cut her off.

          "I know Mom, " I said.  "I know they went undefeated and we're going to do it too."

          "Well, I hope so," she said. "But what your father didn't tell is that when he was a sophomore he scored every touchdown!" 

         I refused to believe it, not to spite my father but because I simply didn't think it was possible.  Only recently while moving my parents out of their home did I find the newspaper clippings and learn that it was true.  His old yearbooks failed to give him credit but the yellowed newsprint held the proof.

           By the time I entered first grade my father was teaching at the high school and later became the principal. Because of his position, I felt I was held to a slightly higher standard than other children.  I noticed, for example, that other kids were absent more often than I.  I once asked my buddy why he stayed home and he said, "I thought I had a stomach ache."

          I was incredulous.  "What do you mean you thought you had one?" I said.  "You either had one or you didn't. Right?"

          "Right," he said, "I sure thought I did."

          This would not fly in my family. I understood that to miss school I either had to have a fever or I had to be "losin' it" from both ends.  Anything less, any other malady was considered tolerable. I could never have said, "Mom, I think I'm throwing up." I either was throwing up, in which case there was evidence on the hallway carpet, or I was going to school.

          Even when I was ill there was little motivation to miss school knowing I would suffer my mother's home remedies, the worst being a procedure call the enema.  This practice, dating back to the ancient Egyptians, was "popular" -if that word can possibly be uttered in reference to such an act- until the late 1950s.  One can hardly imagine how the idea first occurred but I'll give it a try.

Cyrus: You know I've been suffering severe intestinal             

  distress, diarrhea and debilitating nausea.

Curt:   Well, I'm sure sorry to hear that.

Cyrus:  Thanks.  Say, I'd like to run a little idea by you.

Curt:  Sure go ahead.

Cyrus:  Okay well… I've been thinking a lot lately about             

  sticking a hose into the bottom of the city cistern.  And         

  then maybe I'd stick the other end into my butt. What do

  you think about that?

Curt:  Well what can I say? I imagine that will become very "popular".    

          It's interesting to note a similar theme in every alien abduction ever reported. I believe there is no greater evidence against such occurrences than this very fact. Consider that nearly all abductees were raised in the 40s and 50s, well within the enema era. If you are in that age range you could hardly imagine a more disgusting, less dignified thing than being probed by a spider fingered alien.  Yet I'm guessing if these beings, from light years away, were intelligent enough to get here then they're probably sharp enough to keep their digits out of our butts.  My mother, by the way, told me that she has no recollection of administering her soapy remedy.  To which I said, "Well Mom that's either a mercy of your growing old or I've been abducted by aliens."

          I attended Arnold Ave. from first grade through sixth.  I enjoyed learning.  I did well. Then, when I was preparing to change schools for the seventh grade, my family moved to State College so my father could pursue his doctoral studies.  My new jr. high had more people than my entire former town.  Since this new school did not know me, the administration gave me tests to determine where I should be placed. Apparently I performed poorly and was placed in "lower" level classes. I, however, did not understand this.  I seemed to experience a great year academically.  Never had my classes been easier.  Never had I so excelled.

          My father finished his studies and we returned to our little town.  Now, home again, the administration looked at my excellent grades and placed me back with my high level friends.  This was, of course, exactly what I wanted.  But then the struggle began. Actually I never caught up.  I lived from one six-week grading period to the next, happy for the first three weeks and a nervous wreck for the last knowing I was in trouble. My parents said I just wasn't applying myself and no doubt that was true but it seemed foolish to study when I knew I couldn't succeed.  I remember some of my senior friends deciding to "slide" through the last months until graduation.  I would have enjoyed that had I not already slid for years. I did not find my footing academically until well into college when finally, again, I began to enjoy learning.

          As a young adult I visited Arnold Ave. several times. Once after returning from Africa I spoke to the children about my experiences.  They filed into the old auditorium, the screeching seats sounding like a flock of gulls. But when I spoke the children did not move.  A couple times, while back in town, I stopped by the school to visit with my fifth grade teacher Mrs. Saiers.  She was my favorite and remained in her classroom many years after I'd moved away. Always when I went there, I found the school more beautiful, more dignified.

          With the passing of new laws, Arnold Ave. could no longer meet code.  Renovation was considered too expensive and the school was abandoned for a new, very nice modern building across the street from the high school.  For a while my school sat empty.  The lawns were not maintained as well and in winter the walks remained unshoveled but still it stood like a jewell - a beautiful monument to four generations of students who attended there.

         Unfortunately much of the town did not fare as well. Many of the older homes and particularly the stately mansions required heavy maintenance. For some owners it was impossible. Green Astroturf -always a good design choice- was added to the porch of one home.  Another home was covered with vinyl siding.  It looked good for a year or two, and then faded the same color as every other piece of vinyl in town.  Saddest of all, the porches began to fall off the old Isherwood.  For a while they were propped up with construction jacks but eventually those were removed and the porches fell away one side at a time. Most of the stately trees grew old and died.  The cement ponds were filled in.  A back corner of the property was sold for the construction of a duplex and the front for a Dollar Store.

        Like the dead coalmine canary, perhaps the demise of our old homes was warning of worse to come. I returned home several years ago and found Arnold Ave. School in ruins, not having fallen but demolished to enable the construction of six rather ordinary homes.  It broke my heart. When I asked my dad how he felt he said, "There oughta be a law."

          I know time passes.  I know things change. Still, remembering my old school, I'm sometimes overcome with nostalgia.  It is my weakness.  Often by mid-afternoon I experience a sweet melancholy recalling breakfast. But the loss of Arnold Ave. is terribly sad.  After all, though it is unlikely, the old mansions could be brought back. They could be restored.  Arnold Ave. School has been lost forever and with it some of our town's beauty and some of our dignity.