School is on the right.
I learned the other day that my old grade school building in Cooperstown has been torn down, and, after they fill in the hole it left, they will pave the lot and put up a parking lot.
I’m guessing that the parking lot will serve the church that purchased the building and the gym next door a few years ago. Last I heard, they were using part of the gym as their sanctuary.
They are the Cornerstone Community Church. Previously, they were the Bethlehem Evangelical Free Church, the church I attended when I was growing up and within whose walls I would occasionally hear sermons that filled me with the fear of God, at least for a couple days. There’s more about this in a previous post .
I’ve been told that the church got approval from the city council to remove the building, but they may not have followed state and federal law and regulations regarding removal and control of asbestos that may have been in the building. The church may now be praying that the regulators go away.
I don’t remember much about the years I attended grades one through six in that building. I can remember that I didn’t like being there much, and I can remember the name of only one teacher. I don’t think I was very much inspired by any of them. My most vivid memory of those years is the trouble I got into when I broke a classmate’s glasses with a snowball.
By today’s standards, that school was very unsafe. I’m lucky to be here.
There was a small merry-go-round in the front of the school. During recess, we would get that thing going as fast as we could to see who would have the guts to try to get on or off. Some who would stay on for a long time would get motion sickness. We had a centrifuge running before NASA did.
My class. Maybe 3rd Grade.
Numerous skirmishes would start on and near that thing. If there was a teacher monitoring the yard, they usually couldn’t care less. The fights were harmless anyway. Usually just shoving and mouthing off. There was nothing to fear. Kids weren’t bringing weapons to school back then.
In the winter, large icicles would form from the rain gutter at one corner of the building. When conditions were right, these things would be 3 to 4 feet long and be about 6 inches thick at the top. During recess, some of us would try to knock them down with snowballs, and we didn’t think about what bad things would happen if a falling icicle landed on someone. I don’t think we actually knocked one down with a snowball though. Lucky! Bet they never did fix that rain gutter.
At the back of the school, there were two fire escapes. Between the platforms at the top of each stairway, there were two large ventilation hoods. When we tired of the merry-go-round, or trying to impale someone with an icicle, we would climb one fire escape and use the hoods to make it over to the next fire escape. This was a forbidden activity, but what the heck.
High school students would take a shortcut to their school a few blocks away that would take them through the yard of the grade school. This usually happened during their lunch break when they would go to Stone’s Cafe for a burger and a smoke, or when they were going to or from band practice in the gym. Some of them and some of us would taunt each other as they passed. Many times, those doing the taunting were siblings or cousins, and they were continuing what they were doing at home. Here again, this was all harmless. We learned skills that would come in handy later in life. Remember, this was Cooperstown, North Dakota, and most of the fighting was going on in Europe and the Pacific.
One of my favorite things about the building was the tunnel that went between the gym and the school. There was an area in the tunnel that contained a large boiler that heated both the school and the gym. It had a mechanical coal stoker that was fun to watch. At least I thought so. I’ll bet that boiler and the steam pipes going to the radiators in the rooms had plenty of asbestos in them.
I’m sorry that the old building is gone. I hope they enjoy the parking lot.