For elementary school I attended a private Christian school in the ghetto of Louisville. And when I say ghetto, I mean it. I remember coming home after school one afternoon, getting a snack, and turning on our 6" black and white tv that my mom kept in the kitchen. The news station was on, and there was live coverage of a murder scene, which turned out to be at the liquor store right across the street from my school. I just made sure it wasn't one of my friends and then turned the channel.
Everything about that place was so old. You should know the building first functioned as a hospital during WWII, complete with a dungeon and concrete staircase from the 3rd floor that was to be a fire escape, added some time in the 60s? 70s? The dungeon, where we had recess during winter, may have been the creepiest place ever. Our sick-minded librarian, Mrs. Moody, would tell us ghost stories every now and then during library time, and whoa, I just experienced a flood of memories I haven't thought about in a really long time.Wow. You know that show The Magic School Bus? And crazy old Ms. Frizzle? Yeah, take her character and add the 60s, a lot of pot, and that is Mrs. Moody. Needless to say her ghost stories were wacked out, and if only I had half the memory of a donkey I would give you some good ones. But blast it, I can't remember a single one.
As a 3rd grader, everything seems to bigger than it actually was. But I swear, every window in this hospital-turned-school was at least 10 feet high, the doorways were at least fifteen feet tall with extremely heavy doors, the wooden panels in the floors were outlined in thick black lines from decades of filth collection, every footstep squeaked, the halls echoed, the pipes in the ceiling were exposed, and all furniture could have been found in old movies. The place was heated with hot water heaters and there was no air conditioning. Cobwebs actually took up some of the corners. All the faculty were my grandma's age.
And that brings me to Mrs. Browning, my 70 yr old music teacher who taught us all about classical music. She was also obsessed with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and had all of their vinyl in her classroom. She occasionally would have them playing on her ancient turntable record player while we did worksheets. I remember feeling like her classroom was a sanctuary from the anti-Mormon vibe I would get elsewhere during school. At the time I didn't realize that vibe was intentional, but a few years later I got smart. She knew I was LDS and would smile at me when she caught me humming along with the hymns I recognized. I never heard of her dying, but I'm pretty sure she'd be almost 100 yrs. old if she were still alive. I'm sure she's still teaching 8 yr. olds about Bach and Schubert with her old records and cork board she would decorate that spotlighted a composer for the month. If not in this life, definitely the next.
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