Comments on: Back to School

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:23:15 +0000

Matt and Wendy – Your memories are better than mine. I think you’re right. (I forwarded the post to Steve – he was my memory-checker – but he didn’t saying nothin’.)

Just now working on a coda in poem form, which I’ll post today. I guess it did affect me!

Your mom, of course, was a teacher at Non-Graded in, I think, its second year. I remember really acting up in her class, and all the other students imitating me and calling her Aunt Linda. That was harsh.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:12:25 +0000

Thanks for the hike down memory lane. I must say, Matt’s right on this one; the gym was in the back. Oddly enough, I remember my days there like they were just last year. I must admit, it saddens me to see it torn down. The pic with the pillars looks so… ominous.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:01:50 +0000

Hmmm, was it really the gymnasium that was on that side of Lincoln? I seem to remember it being the auditorium, and the gymnasium was at the back of the school.

But I must admit, the memories are hazy… Thanks for the pics.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:06:08 +0000

Hi, Cadymay – long time no see! Glad to hear you’re still living in the hollow. It’s always fun to compare notes between central PA and KY.

By: cadymay

cadymay — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:23:45 +0000

“the sun-struck forest exhaling into the crisp morning air.” aw Dave, that is lovely and perfect. It happens here in the hollow most every morning, but I never could have captured it with words. Now I will try out that sentence into the silence of the morning from up on the hillside looking down and see how it sounds in situ.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:49:07 +0000

marja-leena – Your kids are lucky, then. Being from a real place isn’t so easy any more, from what I here. Have you ever tried to revisit any of your childhood homes?

dale – As I was just saying… And yeah, it’s a little frightening to think that parts of the web are becoming homey places for some of us who spend way too much time online.

beth – Thanks. That’s one thing I meant to mention, but forgot. The trees on Logan and Pennsylvania Avenue are few, small, and recently planted. Only on the “right” side of the tracks – Lincoln Avenue, for example – do you find big trees in front yards or between the sidewalk and the street.

SvenWaring – Thanks for the great story! I remember those days, barely. My friend Jim Conrad, the valedictorian of our class (’83) was one of those cruisers, though the borough had already outlawed cruising by then. Sometimes he went up to Philipsburg, where it was still legal. I always thought it was a shame they stomped on one of the few creative outlets teenaged boys had, modifying old muscle cars. Surely they could have found a compromise. (Jim’s made it as far as Reading, by the way, but his job takes him all over the world. So yeah, he got out.)

By: SvenWaring

SvenWaring — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:11:06 +0000

Back in the day, in a mythic sense, teenagers cruised up Pennsylvania Ave. during summer nights, drove to the area where the railroad museum is now and did a U-turn, drove through town and repeated the process again and again.
The maneuver was called, a “hard man.”
Eventually, you would pull into the drug store or Burger King parking lots to hang out and drink beers. Occasionally get arrested for doing so, or just shewed away by store managers.
It reminded me of a fly on the window or a mouse in a cage, feeling for a way out, a way to escape.
True story: I was in the drug store parking lot when a girl approached in a Chevelle with mag wheels and yelled at a friend. He jumped in with her. A few months later I heard they were married and it was 10 years before I saw him again.
He escaped.
Or did he just get captured?

By: beth

beth — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:23:46 +0000

Yeah. I was happy to see the photos, Dave, and hear your stories. That brick building is a gem. Not too many trees in your pictures of residences – is that the case, or are they out back?

By: dale

dale — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:05:40 +0000

Wow. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a past so accessible. Nearly everything about my own is long, long vanished, and anyway scattered among half a dozen towns. There’s no place where anyone knows much about me. Except our corner of the web, I guess :-)

Anyway. A very moving post, somehow.

By: marja-leena

marja-leena — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:28:25 +0000

You’ve sparked a few memories for me too, school days in Winnipeg. The block with the first house we lived in became the site of a children’s hospital. We moved a lot and I imagine a lot of those houses no longer exist, and some of the schools are probably gone too. It’s a nice feeling to have lived in one place a long time, something we’ve only done in our married life so our kids really are the ones with lifelong roots here.