When I heard that the parish where I grew up was demolishing my former high school - my alma mater - I was like Priscilla Lopez in A Chorus Line. I felt nothing.
The building in question was no longer St. Anselm High School when they decided it needed to come down. It was only used as a high school for about 20 years, and graduated its last class 35 years ago. Reportedly the building had some major problems that made it unusable, including a problem with asbestos, and the parish could not afford the repairs it needed.
They also tore down the freestanding gym, which had an unfinished ceiling of fully- exposed fluffy asbestos which would fall in clumps onto our heads when a lot of physical activity took place in the building where our gym classes and basketball games were held. I'm pretty sure that the gym was never technically usable. The physical activity they forced onto me there was bad enough; the asbestos falling on me while it happened was like pouring salt into the wound. I couldn't really be sorry about the gym coming down.
To me ultimately they were both just buildings. When buildings are destroyed through acts of terrorism or through natural disasters like hurricanes or tornados, especially when accompanied by loss of life or the loss of people's homes, that is tragic. But when an unoccupied building that happened to be my high school 35 years ago comes down I can't really get that excited about it.
All of this has had me thinking a lot about my high school years. I can't say they were the best years of my life, because I'm in the best years of my life (which began in my mid-forties) right now. I actually feel sorry for people who experienced their best years in high school, because for them life went downhill after the age of 18.
High school may well have been the longest four years of my life, though. So much happened to me, and to my friends, in those years. Some of it was good, some of it was bad, but it was all very eventful. If you asked me, I could write a book -or at least a couple of blogs - about my high school years. Actually, come to think of it, it might make a pretty good mini-series.
When I do think back on high school, I don't think about a building. The people with whom I shared my high school experience come to mind. The good, the bad, and the eccentric teachers. My friends and all my classmates, some of whom weren't friends at all. Some of my best friends today I met in kindergarten and we were in school together through 12th grade.
I have reconnected with many friends from high school in recent years, and because of social media we are able to stay connected in ways that just weren't possible when we graduated. We meet for dinner, get together for casual mini-reunions at Sparky's Spot, (a great little family restaurant owned by one of my old neighbors and classmates), and of course keep in touch on Facebook, where we share life events and photos from all over the world.
Many of my friends and fellow St. A's alums are much more upset about the high school and the gym coming down than I am, and I feel badly for them and their pain. But among the countless photos they are posting on Facebook featuring the high school and the gym before, during and after destruction there are photos of us when we were there.
The class photos from grade school. The French Club photos. A group of us on Senior Day when we got to leave our uniforms at home and wear "regular" clothes (which turned out to be colorful mini-dresses for most of the girls). The picture of my friend and me going to the Prom with hairdos that I suppose were fashionable at the time. And a couple of pictures from one of my favorite high school memories of all- one of our English Department field trips to the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, which happened in Canada far from that high school building in Swissvale,
In the one French Club photo, my eye fell on my pretty friend Debbie, one of my best friends who started attending St. A's with us in the fifth grade. Debbie and I remained close friends as adults and stayed in touch even when we lived in different states without the help of today's social media. We lost Debbie seven years ago. I would give you any building on earth to have her back.
For good homemade food at reasonable prices check out Sparky's Spot (owned by St. Anselm alum Joe Schaffer) on Route 8 in the Glenshaw/Allison Park area- http://www.jjnkids.com.
