With an agility almost forgotten, I step onto the old school slide … woosh! I’m at the bottom in seconds. My feet hit the dirt and I almost tumble face first.
“I can’t believe you did that,” my sister-in-law gasps in amazement.
“I can hardly believe that I did it myself,” I answer back with a grin. It had been 50 years since I’d slid down that slide but the delight was still the same.
The old school looked exactly as I had remembered it, as we furtively peered into the empty windows. It was summer holidays and there was an unnatural silence about the building.
Feeling more like small children playing hookey than the seniors we were, we sneaked around the perimeter. We sat on the south lawn to rest and I remembered our art class, pencils and drawing paper in hand, looking across the valley and sketching Mount Baker. Then, I had taken the view for granted. Now, looking at the beauty before me, I was overwhelmed by the magnificent setting of my small home town.
As we rounded the south east corner, two small boys on bikes appeared. I couldn’t resist sharing with them, that we had once attended the school.
They listened politely then rode off; no doubt telling their parents in amazement, “We met these two old ladies in the school grounds who said they’d gone to our school. Is our school really that old?”
Before we knew it, we were back at the parking lot. The school seemed to have shrunk and the memories stirred, sifted back into repose.
When I visited again last year, I was shocked to find the school had been demolished. I still have the photos I took and a box full of memorabilia from my years there. But best of all is the memory of Joy, sheer joy that I can still feel, when I remember the way it felt to go down the old school slide.
