And I'm Never Goin' Back To My Old School

Back to School Night.
Does anyone actually benefit from it?

Let me ask that question a different way.

Does anyone besides the completely clueless, neurotic, not sure they can do anything right as a parent actually benefit from it?

I have two (that I am under tremendous social pressure) to attend this year. One for 6th grade and one for 7th grade. Both in the insane asylum that is Middle School.

And two because there is such an appreciable difference between 6th and 7th grade. And between last year's intro to 6th grade and this year's.

And so for two nights in a row, I am back at the very school that I attended so long ago it was still called Junior High. It is as though I have stepped out of a time machine. Only not in a good way.

First, the place is being "renovated." Renovated instead of knocked over to start from scratch. As a matter of money.

As if there aren't thousands of graduates, particularly from the 70s and 80s who wouldn't happily shell out a king's ransom for a raffle where the prize is that you get to put your name and a smart-assed comment and maybe a few pictures of some especially despised classmates or teachers or coaches on the wrecking ball. Throw in a champagne toast to sweeten the pot.

So we have to gather in the gym because the wing with the auditorium is condemned for the moment. I enter through one of the few doors that is not obstructed by heavy machinery and find myself in what is still known as "The Connecting Corridor." So called because back in the day it connected the Junior High to the High School. Purgatory to Hell itself.

I have traveled that far back in the Wayback Machine.

And to demonstrate just how little things have changed, as I step into the Connecting Corridor, I am face to face with the mural that was painted by the guy I dated in High School who went on to become a favorite local mural artist beautifying depressed neighborhoods across the city. An artist who painted this particular mural as his senior project in Art School. An artist who, like myself, will soon be getting AARP literature in the mail.

I traipse the oddly unchanged route to the gym and am disturbed but not exactly surprised to find the same peeling paint in that same institutional shade of yellow often used to brighten spaces that lack even a single ray of natural lighting. And the same exposed plumbing and wire work that is painted black in an attempt to minimize the assault to one's senses. And the same icky damp gummy-looking spot in the corner where the hallway turns from the cafeteria section to the gym and shop section. The source of dampness evidently still under investigation all these years later.

I am struggling to thwart the impulse to run screaming from the building.