Little Boy Lost: Volume One

Chapter Five

     Back in those days, all three of us kids attended the Fort Hill Elementary School, though not necessarily all at the same time. I'm fairly certain that, by the time I finally started Kindergarten, my brother had already moved on to the John Adams Junior High School, which was a little bit further away and not within easy walking distance. The Fort Hill Elementary School, on the other hand, and as I've already mentioned earlier, was within easy walking distance. Even for us little kids. And it seems like I remember being driven to school in the mornings but always walking home in the afternoons. The morning "going to work" traffic was a bit heavier and more intense, and none of those more residential streets had any sidewalks. But by the time the final afternoon bell rang, those neighborhood streets were pretty much all safe and clear. And I can still close my eyes and remember the entire walk home from school over forty-five years later, too. After leaving the school, we would walk down a short hill, cross a busy intersection that was shaped like a "T," and then stroll up a great big hill and back down the other side of it. It seems from the time that we crossed that first (and only) busy intersection; we would be on Wilkey Way if I remember correctly. I seem to remember there being an official adult crossing guard at the busy intersection that was perhaps an older woman.

     One of the things that stand out in my mind about those neighborhood streets back then is that they were all actually paved with concrete instead of asphalt, the way most streets seem to be surfaced today. So, instead of having one long continuous black ribbon of unbroken roadway, the streets were laid out in large rectangular concrete sections that all met each other as seamlessly as possible. I remember how the car would always make a rapidly and perpetually repeating paternalistic sound as its front and rear wheels went from one concrete section to the next as it went along, "Bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump..."

     They were nice, friendly, well-maintained streets, too. None of the houses were empty or abandoned, none of them were run down, and all the yards were well kept. Everybody would smile and wave as we walked by, and we never heard any screaming or shouting from the homes as we passed by them. And we most certainly never heard cussing or any other obscene language. There was nobody selling drugs, there was nobody doing drugs, and for the most part, we didn't even know what "drugs" were. Nobody was stalking us, nobody was acting dangerously reckless around us, and people tended to look out for us and help keep us safe whether they knew us or not. Our parents never had to worry about us walking home on our own, and none of us kids ever had to worry about whether we would make it home or not. God, I miss the 1970s so much.

     I do remember my sister walking home with me because she was still attending Fort Hill when I myself started there. It seems like she would walk with her friends either a little bit ahead or a little bit behind me to where she could keep an eye on me while I walked with my own friends. After coming down the other side of that big hill, we would then all walk in the same loosely knit group for the remaining length of Wilkey Way together. When we reached the very end of it, we then took that left-hand turn onto Rockford Court, and we were home.

     As for the school itself, Fort Hill was an old but very well-kept red brick school building. Each of its six grades being allotted only a single room, it would be teeny tiny and rather minuscule by today's standards. But back then, such smaller structuring within elementary schools was still quite common in a lot of areas. There was a gymnasium/cafeteria at the head of the building, located just to the right of its two main front entry doors. From there, a hallway stretched out with all of the classrooms, library, and small school office suite branching off of it. The two Kindergarten rooms were located under the building, and this was where I would begin attending classes there.

     Most of the classrooms were rather similar in nature and design. The front of the room was pretty much covered by one giant chalkboard, and the inner wall held multiple bulletin boards. Usually, there would be a bulletin board themed after whatever season or month it might be. And there was generally a real large calendar of whatever month we might have been in on one of them, as well. The very back of the classrooms was generally taken up by individualized wooden "cubbies," which were kind of like today's students' metal school lockers, only without any doors.