Just a couple of days ago, I joined up with Facebook. Basically, it's a minimal information site, like a picture book of people one may or may not know from the past. I was encouraged to join by my sister, who mentioned that another of our sisters had already joined. With two of my sisters and (unbeknownst to me at the time) my husband and brother already members of this site, I decided to join.
I entered in the information for my high school and colleges. On the first page popped up a bunch of pictures of people I may already know. One of the pictures was of a friend of mine from high school, a girl named Noelle. It was very exciting to see her again after fourteen years! And back to my mind rushed memories of times we hung out together.
In sophomore English, we had class on the first floor of the oldest building of the school. It was my favorite building, in fact, the only one I felt at home inside. I hated high school with a passion, but I didn't mind it when my classes were in the Weatherwax Building. The ceilings were so high, the windows were large and ancient, and the glass was thicker at the bottom of the panes. The stairs were worn in the middle and looked as though they sagged, and I could imagine how many students and educators walked on them. It gave me a feeling of belonging, knowing that I was one of the historical people walking the halls in this great old place. The library was my favorite place in the world. So many books, so much room to study, and the massive windows and high, inlaid ceiling made it seem like a world all its own. I loved that building.
Our English class was only made bearable by the fact that it was in that building and that many of my friends were there with me. We all dreaded Mrs. Bennett's lectures. She used a phrase so many times that it was immensely distracting. "Very definitely," she would say. We, being in an English class, would be critical of anything our teacher said that might be bad English. "Definitely" was already a pretty solid word, but using "very" with it seemed ridiculous. Mrs. Bennett would get after us for being redundant, and we would use this against her - behind her back, of course. English had to be somewhat exciting for us! And since we were all nice kids, we wouldn't badmouth our teacher while she knew about it. Oh, the rebelliousness in us!
I remember hanging out in front of the Weatherwax building just before class one day, and Noelle complimented me on my clear complexion. I was baffled, because my face has suffered from acne since I was thirteen. I thought I must be doing something right with my makeup application!
That same year, my friend Joann and I would mosey around the block and just chat during lunch. One day, while we were in front of the Weatherwax Building, we saw some unfamiliar kids driving up. We realized they were kids from Hoquiam, a rival school. They began to throw eggs at MY BUILDING. I was so upset that I could barely think, but Joann and I called for help. I don't remember everything that happened, but somehow my brother Aaron (a senior then) showed up and chased down one guy who subsequently gave him a black eye, which he proudly wore as a badge of war.
I also remember that a couple of my friends had a crush on one boy a couple of years later, when I had senior English in a classroom two floors above Mrs. Bennett's classroom. Our teacher was Dr. Carter, a unique man with curious views who I respected very much. The boy in question was a new boy to our school, and he was obviously one who fit in well with our "nice girl" group. When I first met him, I liked him, too, but I didn't say anything about it to the other girls. They proceeded to take turns dating him. One day, as I was sitting outside the building and this boy walked by, I thought, "boy, is he cute." And I realized that he was trouble. He was deliberately playing my friends against each other. They were so taken in by what he looked like that they didn't see who he really was and what his motives were. I wrote my thoughts into a journal that I kept for English class. Each student was assigned to write a certain amount of entries in it for Doc to get to know us better as well as see how we write without a subject. Doc gave me some relationship advice and asked me some questions (via comments in the journal) that helped me to think about how I could be a better friend. What he said was so simple and objective. I think that he was the influence I needed at the time.
Some time ago, and I'm not sure when, some kids broke into the school and burned down my building. I nearly cried when I saw the ashes. The memories and the history cannot be rebuilt. Structures are not built in the fashion of the Weatherwax Building anymore. Only time can make it what it became by the time I got there. But I'm happy that I could walk those halls and sometimes at night dream of climbing the stairs and feel that some old contented spirit was following me around. And I'm happy that I will never have to relive high school ever again.
