Running for Rolls

Running for Rolls

I went to an ancient high school, so old that it had four stories. When I was going to the old Jordan High School, the school district was building what was supposed to be the new high school. But then tremendous growth happened and both schools remained open. It was eventually torn down and a new Jordan High School was built, but it just isn’t the same. I’ve been to the new school and even sit at this moment wearing a hoody I bought there, but I still miss the old school. I guess it’s the same with any old building.

One of my favorite memories was when lunch was served. The bell would ring and a mad dash would begin to the lunchroom, which was formerly the basketball court. With four stories, that meant you had to hustle if you wanted to get some of the delicious, fresh rolls they served every day. I remember dashing down four sets of stairs as fast as my little legs could carry me. It probably wasn’t very safe, and in today’s risk management society, I’m surprised more people didn’t break their legs back then. Maybe we were just more coordinated.

As I sit wearing Jordan High School memorabilia proudly, I wonder what it was that made those rolls so good we would risk life and limb. One of my friends didn’t like the rolls, so each day he would throw his roll into the air for the rest of us to grab at. This means four or five people were fighting over the roll, and we would each end up with a smashed scrap. But we didn’t care. We were getting bonus bread, for free.

Once a school has reached a certain age, the additions begin. There were so many passages to the same place it really was easier to just take someone where they wanted to be. Telling them the directions would take twice as long. This is a building that lasted a hundred years, and besides having four floors and a basement, there were wings out to the side. There was a courtyard converted into some classrooms and a counseling center. We also had an ancient stage which I remember as especially small.

The best part of the school was the tradition my family had of attending there. Just before it was torn down, I was in a movie at the old school. I got to sit in the front office for several hours, and I wasn’t even in trouble. I used the time to thumb through several old yearbooks. I found myself, my dad and several of his siblings and took a picture with them all spread out on a desk.

Now that I teach high school, it’s hard to imagine I was as young as my students when I went to school. The guy who used to throw his roll in the air was prematurely bald, and so he looked like he was forty when he was a teenager. I saw him 30 years later and he still looked the same.

This is the same friend I tortured every year by making him squirt milk out his nose. All I had to do was wait until he was drinking his milk and deliver a well timed funny remark and out would come the milk. He had enough manners not to spit it out all over us; he would simply laugh it out his nose. I thought it was hilarious. He was cautious around me, trying to make sure he was drinking his milk at safe moments. But once every year, I was able to get him.

Then he started drinking pop. You may call it soda. I don’t know if you have ever snorted carbonation through your nose, it is not a pleasant experience. Milk is bad enough, and water hurts. But any carbonated drink passed through your nasal passages it excruciatingly painful. It hurts for quite a while.

For some reason, we feel ageless when we are in high school. I was talking to my father-in-law about this a while ago. Though in his eighties, he told me he still feels the same way he did when he was in high school. It’s such a defining time in the development of our personalities; it becomes our definition of ourselves.

I guess it can be good and bad. One of my students from a few years ago dropped by this week. When I asked him what he had been doing, he said he just got out of jail. He was a student who didn’t really like school, and probably felt he was being punished with an education. I wonder if my friend remembers the good old bad old times, and then is grateful not to be drinking anything at the moment.

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