Going Going Gone

     My daughter will be marching with the high school band this year.  30 years ago I was getting ready for my first year marching.  I was going into the 8th grade at Summerville Junior High School at the time.
     Summerville Junior High School was made from the old Summerville High School.  It became the Junior High School when they consolidated the high schools and made Chattooga High School.  My Mom went to Summerville High.  It always gave me pride knowing I was walking the same halls my Mom walked at one time.

SHS chattoogaphotohistory.com

     Some time ago they decided to do away with the junior high school and build a middle school.  I don't know who it was that decided that middle school was better than junior high, but I'm convinced it was some bigwig in Atlanta.  The junior high sat around unused for years, until the roof fell in and the building fell apart.  Finally they tore the old girl down.  A church was built on the old football field, apartments made out of one of the buildings, and a hamburger joint was put in the parking lot.
       Back then if you got in trouble, you got paddled, and I stayed in trouble.  The list of teachers that warmed my hide at that school reads like a Teacher's Hall of Fame.  Rodney White, Melvin Mosley, Becky Meadows, Alma Lewis, and David Jones all had the pleasure of guiding me to the right behavior.  Ms. Lewis was the worst, a fireplug of a woman that worked after school as an EMT.  She could paddle harder than anybody.  I'm sure that in some secret file I hold the record for most paddlings from her.  My wife jokes that I don't have a backside.  I know what happened to it, I left it on the paddles that they used there.
     My 25th high school reunion is coming up, and we are having a cookout at the park across from where the old junior high was.  I'm hoping that when we are sharing memories that the memories of those paddlings don't come back.  I don't want to have to stand up that long.