I don't remember much about those walks — there was a bully, Trent Caruthers. There was a large weeping willow whose branches we'd break off, strip of their leaves and make into whips that would whistle through the air.
After I left Berea, I went back to Fairwood a couple times on visits to my hometown. There was the same Winslow Homer reproduction of New England fishermen, the same brown and beige floor tiles. The place was very small. To drink out of a water fountain, I had to fall to my knees, which is quite symbolic — the person you are now, humbled before the person you were then.
Then Fairwood school was gone. Berea was changing, populations shifting. When we went back on our way out east for Thanksgiving, there was a new school, huge — our host said seven former elementary school districts funnel into it. The name stunned me.
"Grindstone Elementary School."
I don't have to say anything more, right? It would be too obvious for Dickens. I suppose I should point out that Berea was known for sandstone — to this day, there is a Berea sandstone. The town's lakes — Baldwin Lake, Wallace Lake — started as sandstone quarries. The sandstone was made into paving stone, building stone, and grindstones, large circular discs, bigger than a manhole cover, used to grind grain. If you were a longstanding Berea family, you showed off with a grindstone in your front yard.
Still. Grindstone Elementary? Really?
On the upside, the kids must have a field day with the name.
To "keep one's nose to the grindstone" is an idiom that means "to do hard, continuous work"... as in: "You'll do well at school if you just keep your nose to the grindstone."
ReplyDeleteWould not apply to today's Grindstone Elementary kids. Like kids everywhere else, they're too busy keeping their noses near their phones. Probably not allowed in classrooms, though.
Phones are so totally ubiquitous. In an extremely busy airport, I noticed one, maybe two people, who were NOT staring at their phones, in rows of fifteen seats each. On the flight itself, my wife and I were the ONLY people still using the personal overhead lights, in a totally darkened cabin containing well over 200 occupied seats. Easy enough to explain. Reading a book requires an overhead light. A phone does not. Grizz...the guy in the TV western who doesn't wear a gun. A walking, talking, book-reading anachronism. Maybe I should update my handle to Grizz 77...
But I digress. Getting back to those kids...they are probably clueless about grindstones, and about keeping their young noses near them, and even about what a grindstone is used for. Or was. Even though Berea was once known as "The Grindstone Capital of the World." Or at least the country, anyway.
I know it’s amusing to denigrate the young. But GenZ Is actually pretty into boooks…physical books. https://theweek.com/culture-life/books/gen-z-reading-book-club-booktok. Did you know there’s something called “booktok”. Tick tok postings dedicated to postings about books. But young people are also smart enough to know that traveling with a heavy book is not a wise choice. Though both my Gen Z kids have kindles where they read on vacation. Not phones.
DeleteI ride the bus here all the time. At least 50% are on the phone the entire trip. I once rode Metra in from Elgin to Union Station, about 20 years ago & a woman across from me was on her phone the entire trip, only putting it down when the train went underneath downtown at the old John Plain mail order buildings which cut off the signal.
DeleteYep. Who wants to schlep around a heavy book wjen on public transportation
DeleteThree little words: Paperbacks. Thin ones.
DeleteLaura B. Sprague Elementary School in Lincolnshire will turn 60 next year. Mid Century Modern design. Functional in 1965. Designed to accept future additions. I was in the first class of 3rd graders to come over from Half Day School. It took my friends about 90 seconds to figure out how to climb up on the roof without a ladder. The building had a design flaw that provided a perfect hand-hold for boosting yourself up. An entire generation of Lincolnshire kids ran around on that roof and even camped out on the Sprague School roof without ever being caught. I'm almost 70. I've driven by Sprague recently and I see the design flaw is still there. Hiding in plain sight as it were. Do today's kids run around on the roof? I'll bet I could still climb up there. No problem.
ReplyDeleteMy old school in Skokie is still around, two blocks from where I grew up. Opened in 1955, without a lunchroom. We brought our lunches from home, starting on that very first day, and ate in the gym until it was finished. Two or three additions since the late Fifties.
DeleteMy junior high is now a middle school, and was renamed to honor its very first principal...a lanky and bespectacled Missouri mule who took no shit. Gave him a lot of headaches. He got to know my father pretty well.
And my old high school? WPA-built...a classic 1938 Art Deco gem.
Gone for thirty years. Drove by while it was coming down.
They gave me two bricks. Should have thrown one through a window.
Would that be Niles East High School?
DeleteGo to the Mr. S Facebook page. Read the label on the lovely linen postcard.
DeleteA bit sad when our old schools close.
ReplyDeleteGrade school kids should keep their noses to the grindstone?! Really Grizz?! Kids learn as much from play as they do from schoolwork. Get them off their phones with playing outdoors, doing art, reading books, too, but noses to the grindstone...there's plenty of time for that later.
ReplyDeleteDo kids still play outside? Do they still have recess? Never see or hear any kids playing in my neighborhood. Ever. No shouts and laughter...just shrieks...when they go outside at all. I'm guessing they're mostly inside, in front of screens...big, small, and teensy..
DeleteHave to wonder if kids still interact much with one another. Phones have put the kibosh on much of that activity. And kids need to learn how to apply themselves. Maybe not exactly slaving away, but a happy medium.
You can be damn sure that Chinese kids aren't goofing off. Back in the day, we were warned about learning math and science and languages, to "beat the Russian kids". Some things never change...just the name of the enemy.
The answers are yes and yes. I live near a public school and a Catholic school, and I see kids at recess. I also see-and hear-them playing in yards in my neighborhood. I suppose it depends where you live, but there are still kids playing outside, drawing on the sidewalks with chalk, manning lemonade stands, tossing a ball with a parent, riding bikes, etc.
DeleteOnly time that ever happens in my neighborhood is when there's a summertime blackout, and kids have to go outside. No AC, no TV, no screens, no video games, no electronics at all.
DeleteOnce they're forced out of the house, they play catch or ride bikes or hang out on the porch. or they congregate on the sidewalk, at the corner, while waiting for the ice cream guy. And he cleans up. Otherwise, I never see or hear any kids at all. It's creepy, Wally.
Not sure where you live (altho I'm pretty sure you mentioned it in past posts), but my neighborhood in the city (rather near a park) is full of kids, making noise, having fun, and being ... outside kids!
DeleteEven without knowing what an actual grindstone is, the name is ominous. On the south side, there's the James R Doolittle Academy. A lot of corny jokes with that.
ReplyDeleteMy elementary school in Chicago, Wildwood, is still standing, same name. I went there K-8th grade, graduating in 1967. I lived across the street. Looks like they added a 2nd floor to what had been a very small school. Think it was built before WWII.
ReplyDeleteI assumed from your headline, of course, that Grindstone Elementary was a metaphor. Once again, life is stranger than fiction.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this post will get back to Trent Caruthers.
ReplyDeleteAll 3 of my elementary schools have been repurposed (offices, apartments). Even my high school was converted to a middle school. Memory Lane isn’t much of a destination any more.
ReplyDeletethe jokes just write themselves
ReplyDeleteI can't get "Grindhouse Elementary" out of my head.
ReplyDelete