My wife and I went to high school together, one final time. We attended the Woodward High School Sock Hop, AKA checkouttheoldbuildingonelasttime, back on April 16.
It was great to see so many people there, from so many years. The history of that school is so much more than just the four years WE went there, or even the six combined years. It’s mind-boggling to think about how many students have been through those halls. It makes one feel small and yet infinitely important. It will be sad to see the building fall.
We arrived early, for the least of considerations – parking. The Streicher entrance near the office was unfamiliar to me 22 years ago, but Jen knew it well. After getting name tags and signing a registry, we wandered toward the trophy cases in the main hallway. Of course I found the chess trophies right away. The label on one had fallen off and lay face down, but I knew it was the 2nd city championship trophy. We were the only championship team that Woodward had in my 4 years, I believe. There was also a single chess trophy from 1975, labeled “Runner up - Voreshevsky division”!
We then made our way up to the 2nd floor, where we walked through the boy’s gymnasium. Fits of memory recalled the games in which a waffle ball hit into the balcony stands was a home run, and sitting in lines on the gym floor at the start of freshman year, paralyzingly self-conscious. From there we sidled into the girl’s gym, where, in search of myself, I had played a lot of basketball with two friends (you know who you are), one of whom would often beat us 2 on 1!
From there we went on to the cafeteria. While the halls and the school itself seemed pretty much the same size as I remembered (if not a little larger), the lunch room seemed smaller. Perhaps it was the arrangement of tables or the added vending machines near the kitchen. I have few specific memories of the lunch room, most likely because I sat at the same table all four years, trying to avoid the trouble that often sprouted in the densely populated centers of the room. Jen and I had a good laugh at the shared memory, from different perspectives, of a certain friend’s ceaseless, asthmatic laugh.
We went on to the library, adjacent to the cafeteria. As an atypical student, I had spent a fair number of lunch periods in the library, often just reading a book. Now, my present career path had brought me back. We chatted with the librarian, with whom Jennifer worked in her stint as a substitute teacher. The librarian has done a lot of work to maintain the archival collection of yearbooks and student newspapers. Among the yearbooks on display, I saw the cover of one that looked vaguely familiar, but I knew that it was way before my time. It took a moment, but I soon recalled perusing my aunt and uncle’s Sagas when I was a kid, and a thumb-through quickly confirmed 1981 as my aunt’s senior year!
We eventually found the 3rd floor corner where I would often hang out with my girlfriend at the time, who would soon enough become my ex-wife. Although I spent most of my time at Woodward with her, memories of high school do not exactly revolve around you-know-who, save for the punching of a locker outside Mr. Taylor’s on the first floor after a breakup.
Ah, the fickle nature of recall! Whether capricious or merely careless, our memories are peculiar entities, sometimes certain, on occasion nebulous, always altered by the now. Earlier, we couldn’t seem to remember where our lockers had been, which was a comment we had heard from a few people that night. That took us to recalling our home rooms, which led to trying to remember where certain classrooms were. Herr Hanna’s was the easiest to find, and I think we found Gantzos’ room, my very first class freshman year. I remember certain fun-lovers setting pennies at the top of her door, and the helpless contempt on her face when they rained down on her as she rattled the door with her key. I also found Mrs. Amberg’s room, my final and most influential English teacher. That door is still labeled “language arts” in the tiny metal art deco sign at the top of the jamb.
Jen and I wandered around the 3rd floor then, but the memories there were more muddled. I had wanted to find Mr. McMurray’s room, but it was impossible to differentiate, despite significant quiz bowl time there! We easily found the science triad – Attie, Duvendack and Baldwin - and around the corner Mr. C’s math classroom.
Soon after we had first arrived, I had seen Mr. Cieslewski, though I would not have recognized him if someone else hadn’t been greeting him. He was, of course, much older, yet far thinner, than in junior year geometry. Later, we greeted Mr. Duvendack in his great, old sweater. He hasn’t changed much, except for his speed perhaps. Mr. Wilusz, on the other hand, looks EXACTLY the same as he did more than 20 years ago, right down to the same black and white saddle shoes! Even my uncle (class of ‘75) remembers him looking pretty much the same. Uncanny!
The building itself has not changed a whole lot either. There is some deterioration, and the concavity of the worn steps deepens every year, but the halls have the same paint, the same maroon tile floors. The interior paint is still the same in many of the classrooms, and they still have the same old wooden cupboards. One of the oddest things that stood out was the trash cans – the large square bins with flat blue tops like a steel umbrella. Not something one thinks about when one recalls high school years, but mercurial memory made me notice the same trash cans that have been there for at least 25 years!
Later in the evening, we met up with my uncle (‘75) and aunt (‘81) and then my brother (‘86) and his family. My uncle pointed out the new plastic seats in the auditorium – which had been there since at least ‘79! The passing of ten years seemed to be more significant back then. My brother, though, was kind of connected to the last vestiges of that dissimilar decade. When he was a freshman in ‘82, there were seniors who had attended in the 70s! I asked him about the donkey basketball game; though ultimately sad, the story feels legendary, like the passing of an era. In ’83 or ’82, one of the teachers died of a heart attack during what would ultimately be the final donkey basketball game ever held at the school. That game was, in retrospect, the delineator between the troubling 1980s and the far less worrisome 1970s.
My brother then told me another legendary tale. He pointed out a small speaker hanging from the approximately 12’ ceiling. He said that after a basketball victory over rival Central Catholic, he and some buddies were whooping it up in the halls. He was so pumped with adrenaline that he jumped and touched that speaker! I do remember him dunking a tennis ball back in the day, so the tale is believable, but as we stood under the speaker that night, gazing up and up, it may as well have been a low hanging cloud, or a mile-high jet!
I took some photos that night, and some short videos, but not a lot - I‘m not really sure why, other than not wanting to look foolish. I guess I was taking it all in. I was absorbed by the moment – and by the moments that seem so disparate now, so connect-the-dots. I used to be the kind of person that looked at my yearbooks all the time. When I had kids (sometime between their ages of 3 and 10), I seemed to forego all that stuff, without intention or awareness. A lot of memories just went away. Returning to the school when Jen taught there brought a flood of it back, but it was always a shock to recall something I hadn’t thought about in nearly 20 years! I’m often surprised at how little I see people from back then. I’m all around Toledo and Bedford, but I rarely see anyone I knew back then. Then I wonder - would I even recognize them? There are people friending me on Facebook that I don’t even remember! And THEN I wonder, have I changed that much!?
My own social clumsiness often interferes with reconnection. I find myself wanting to know what happened to some people, but not quite willing to strike up a conversation. I’ve seen one classmate at local pharmacies, but can’t bring myself to say hello - and we ran in the same academic circles. That’s why Facebook is so easy. I can say hello and not have to worry about tripping over my faux pas! I’m still friends with a handful of people from back then, and I guess that’s all that I really want. The rest is just a strange benign voyeurism.
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