Thoughts on: Endings and Beginnings

To the Editor:

Thoughts on: Endings and Beginnings.

The first year of the 60s would be a year of change in Mattapoisett. Of course, you could still get your shirts cleaned for 20 cents at Bush Cleaners and they would clean your American flag for free. A gallon of milk was 49 cents at Sylvia’s Market. A haircut at Al’s Barber Shop was only $1.25. If you fished, Dick Cobb’s bait shop on the wharf would hook you up with the best worms in town. The Grange Hall’s activities dominated the Presto Press’s weekly coverage. The library was open three days a week from 2:00 to 5:00 and 7:00 to 9:00 pm. And, you could still buy (or steal) penny candy at E. A. Walsh’s General Store across the street from Center School.

But it was the beginning of the end for that venerable old school’s junior high. A new … as yet un-named … junior-senior regional school was under construction. The Class of 1961 would be the last 9th Grade to graduate. The final 56 to call Center School their alma mater.

There would be no more field days or science fairs. Mrs. Root’s History Fair with students dressing up as famous inventors, presidents and explorers would be no more. No more Mrs. Delano’s lunches. The legendary shooting range in the basement where the boys would hone their marksmanship and learn how to safely use a 22 caliber rifle would disappear, and the girls would no longer learn to sew in the room next door.

Lou Corey’s Manual Training class, where everything a boy would ever need to learn would exist only in old men’s memories. Like the time all the boys came to school dressed in red pants (perhaps a foreshadowing of the future when the new school’s colors would be red) only to be sent home by the principal with orders to change into something more appropriate.

That would not be the last time the boys sartorial style would cause changes. In a noble gesture, the 9th grade male contingent decided that to honor the school and show respect for its history they would wear ties for the remainder of the year, a gesture the administration would notice and later pass on to their cohorts at the new school who would institute a dress code that made tie wearing mandatory.

The basketball team would play their last game. The Marion team with Bill Garcia and Roger Quelette high scorers and Tony Mello and Ronnie Barrows leading the defense defeated the Bill Gerry-led Mattapoisett team 48 to 45. Soon they would all be teammates and fast friends. Football would disappear, too. Though not an official school team, we did wear old leather helmets and shoulder pads from the 1930s found in the storage room next to the clock tower of the school … and generously donated by the Center School administration. The team got trounced by Dartmouth Junior High and disbanded when the coach suddenly left town.

In June 1961, we would gather at the front stairs of the school, boys in our suits and girls in their white dresses, to have our picture taken as 62 classes had before us. The final class of Center School would gather on the tiny stage of the auditorium for the last time. Ann Figueredo would be named class valedictorian, and Sue Perry would cry a flood of tears into my loaned handkerchief.

In September, we would be off to a new school, now called Old Rochester Regional, which was a wonder. It was big and bright and clean with separate stairways, ones to go up and ones just to go down. It had a cafeteria that didn’t double as a gymnasium and a library so big that half the shelves were empty. And lockers to store your coats and books. There were seven sports teams, not just one. Of course, the dress code with its mandatory ties was enforced and even the lengths of the girls’ skirts were measured to be sure they were below the knee. Everyone rode to school on brand new busses, and you had to ask for something called a hall pass just to go to the bathroom.

By the time we graduated in 1964, there would be more unexpected changes to come to the students, the school and to the three towns that supported Old Rochester Regional School. Walsh’s General Store would be torn down and Cobb’s Bait Shop would be replaced by Suzan’s Fish Market. A gallon of milk cost 95 cents and Sylvia’s Market would eventually become a house. Center School would one day be rebuilt to hold only Grades 1 to 3 and new beginnings for yet another generation.

Dick Morgado, Mattapoisett

 

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