High school in the rear-view mirror

High school in the rear-view mirror

Sherbrooke Record · 4 days ago
by Matthew Mccully · Commentary

Linda Knight Seccaspina

There was a time when going to high school did not require a password, a charging cable, and the ability to remember where you left your fancy water bottle. You went to school with a handful of pencils, a lunchbox, several textbooks and the vague understanding that if you got into trouble, your parents would hear about it before you even got home. High school in the 50s to the late 60s was a different universe. I also remember not having Google, no online assignments and certainly no artificial intelligence to write our essays while we sat back eating potato chips. If you wanted information, you had to find it yourself. Education was considered serious, and I always remember the parental word “Buck Up” when it came to school.

One of the great marvels of our school days was the wall-mounted pencil sharpener. You simply inserted your pencil, turned the handle and produced a noise that sounded remarkably like a small aircraft attempting an emergency landing. Naturally, this was done during class—and preferably when the teacher was talking. The louder the grinding became, the more students suddenly discovered they desperately needed to sharpen a pencil. One pencil became two, then three, because apparently we were all deeply committed to maintaining a perfectly sharpened writing instrument. Teachers, of course, seemed to believe we were sharpening pencils because we were conscientious students.

Remember the real chalkboards? I can still hear the sound of Mr. Bradford wielding a piece of chalk—not only across the board, but occasionally through the air in the direction of anyone who wasn’t paying attention. Those old chalkboards came with their own soundtrack: the dusty squeak of chalk dragging across slate, the steady cloud of white powder, and, worst of all, that occasional fingernail-on-the-board screech that could send an entire classroom reeling. When the felt erasers became so clogged with chalk dust someone was sent outside to beat them against a brick wall. Today, that might result in a trip to the office and a meeting with the principal. Back then, it was simply considered a job—and probably an honour.

School supplies were equally primitive like our textbooks that were protected with brown paper grocery bags. You folded the bag, cut it, taped it and tried to make it fit around your textbooks. If the cover survived the school year, you felt like an engineer. If it ripped, you simply added more tape, as nobody threw anything away. Book straps were another marvel. Instead of carrying books in a backpack with seventeen pockets for things you didn’t need, you tied the books together with a strap and hauled them around like a travelling librarian. There was no lumbar support, there was only just pain at the end of the day.

Lunch was an entirely different affair. Metal lunch boxes ruled the day, often decorated with television characters, superheroes or other images that made you feel important as you walked down the hallway. Inside was a sandwich, a piece of fruit and a thermos. The thermos was glass-lined, which meant that dropping it could turn lunch into a small archaeological excavation, and heaven help the student who brought something embarrassing. Your mother might have lovingly packed an egg salad sandwich, completely unaware that the entire classroom would know what you were having for lunch approximately six minutes before you opened the lunchbox. There were no concerns about organic ingredients, sustainable packaging or whether the sandwich had been assembled according to the latest nutritional philosophy. You ate it unless you were one of the lucky ones that had a cafeteria hot lunch. To this day, I can’t remember whether Monday was Beef Stew Day or Macaroni Soup Day. Each week, the cafeteria menu appeared fresh from the mimeograph machine and was studied for the week. For 50 cents, we received mystery cuisine, white or chocolate milk from Cowansville Dairy, and 15 minutes to eat it. The teacher guarding the garbage can was the real menace. Waste too much food and you receive a lecture longer than lunch. Somehow, nobody ever started a food fight as some of those hot dogs could have reached the gym rafters.

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