In September of 1969, I was five years old, and I started to attend kindergarten. This was the first school year for the newly organized Mid-Valley School District. The new proper name of our school was the Olyphant Elementary School, but we commonly referred to it as the Mid-Valley Elementary School in Olyphant. My classroom was in the part of the building that used to be the Olyphant Central School; the part that was dedicated in 1910. This was the same school building in which my great-uncle John and my grandfather attended seventh and eighth grade. My father attended the tenth through twelfth grade in this building as well. Albeit, they had classes in the annex.
The Olyphant Elementary School was a majestic brownstone building with …show more content…
The walls were painted a dull beige or pale light green. Placards with the alphabet were hung directly above the blackboards. Above the placards, there was a United States flag, a framed black-and-white print of a painting of George Washington, and a framed photograph of the school’s first assistant principal, Miss Mary Jane McHale. The same two pictures were hung in every classroom in the school. Near the top of the wall near the ceiling was a vent. Around Christmastime our teacher told us that Santa Claus’s helpers were hiding there. She said that they were there to report to Santa if we misbehaved in school. 1984 as foretold by George Orwell was fifteen years away; perhaps she wanted to get us mentally prepared.
There was low nap carpeting on the floor. The first day of school, I remember overhearing one parent saying in disgust to another parent, “So this is where my school tax money goes; to pay for wall-to-wall carpeting in the classrooms.” Actually, only the kindergarten and a few other classrooms had carpets on the floor. The remaining classrooms had oil-soaked wooden floors. The carpet in the kindergarten classroom covered the oil-soaked wooden …show more content…
It was a red-brick structure that was square in shape and extended from the floor to the ceiling and to a chimney on the roof. There was a black metal door about five feet from the floor where they dumped the trash that was to be burned. Next to the incinerator were cardboard barrels filled with the trash from the classrooms. All of the trash, whether it was flammable or not went into the incinerator, even discarded glass-lined thermos bottles. The ashes and non-burned remains were put into metal cans for the weekly trash collection. I remember seeing the trash without lids at the curb for collection. There were blackened ash-coated soda cans on the
The Olyphant Elementary School was a majestic brownstone building with …show more content…
The walls were painted a dull beige or pale light green. Placards with the alphabet were hung directly above the blackboards. Above the placards, there was a United States flag, a framed black-and-white print of a painting of George Washington, and a framed photograph of the school’s first assistant principal, Miss Mary Jane McHale. The same two pictures were hung in every classroom in the school. Near the top of the wall near the ceiling was a vent. Around Christmastime our teacher told us that Santa Claus’s helpers were hiding there. She said that they were there to report to Santa if we misbehaved in school. 1984 as foretold by George Orwell was fifteen years away; perhaps she wanted to get us mentally prepared.
There was low nap carpeting on the floor. The first day of school, I remember overhearing one parent saying in disgust to another parent, “So this is where my school tax money goes; to pay for wall-to-wall carpeting in the classrooms.” Actually, only the kindergarten and a few other classrooms had carpets on the floor. The remaining classrooms had oil-soaked wooden floors. The carpet in the kindergarten classroom covered the oil-soaked wooden …show more content…
It was a red-brick structure that was square in shape and extended from the floor to the ceiling and to a chimney on the roof. There was a black metal door about five feet from the floor where they dumped the trash that was to be burned. Next to the incinerator were cardboard barrels filled with the trash from the classrooms. All of the trash, whether it was flammable or not went into the incinerator, even discarded glass-lined thermos bottles. The ashes and non-burned remains were put into metal cans for the weekly trash collection. I remember seeing the trash without lids at the curb for collection. There were blackened ash-coated soda cans on the