School days

Forty one years ago, with that ubiquitous name tag dangling from my neck and little pink glasses on my face, I climbed aboard Mrs. Gassner's big yellow school bus to begin life at Uplands Elementary. For the next 13 years, I started my day on the bus she ran with an iron fist that was pure gold on the inside, allowing only the rarest attempts at wayward behavior.

From Uplands Elementary to the junior high up the hill, to the high school just across the road, this tiny corner of the world was filled with the stuff I love -- people, activity, and new things happening every day. Now, as I pass by on my way to and from work, its subtle presence fuels my certainty that it's still a magical place.

This week as the summer sun lingered, and teachers and kids returned to their fresh, welcoming classrooms, no one arrived at Uplands Elementary. The blinds in the windows remain drawn. After 50 years of existence, the school has closed.

It was built in 1961, a low one-story building crafted from long, thin, orange-hued bricks.  The playground and fields are surrounded by a deep woods of maple and fir, much denser and darker today than in my day, when even then, we were certain that incidents of woe and doom surely happened within. But the true magic was always outdoors.

Every day, about ten minutes in advance of recess freedom, the secret negotiation began. High, middle or low. Which bar would we stake our claim to. Who got it first.  Who would take over in the middle. This was followed by the torturously slow walk down the hall, the push on the solid double metal doors and the sprint towards our chosen apparatus of exhilaration.

We secretly wore shorts under our dresses so we could hang upside down by our knees for minutes on end, swinging back and forth as wide as we possibly could before we daringly flipped our feet back over onto the ground. Then we'd fold our skinny hips over the unyielding metal, encircling the back of our legs with our arms to spin rapidly, over and over and over, dozens and dozens of times in a row.

Last week I followed the curvy, tree-lined road right up to the school because I simply had to know whether this all still existed. Before I even got out of my car, I could see that they were still there after all these years, darkened with age, but not even leaning one tiny bit.

It was amusing to discover that the high bar is not very high, no taller than me.  And the field that seemed so vast when we were out running and playing, now feels quite small and rather contained by the bordering woods. But I imagine, still the perfect size for any grade schooler with a wild imagination.

It's wistful to contemplate that the wondrous days of growing up will no longer happen at Uplands Elementary School except in memory. But today's children will undoubtedly find marvelous experiences to connect them to the place they now belong, and they'll never know the difference.