Wow,
writing about second grade suddenly brought a few other memories to
mind. The lower primary grades had bathrooms in the classrooms for
the students. Of course, the teachers did not use them. They
had the Faculty Lounge.
When we walked, in single file, and quietly,
of course, from our class to the other end of the school where the
cafeteria, gym, and auditorium were, we went down a long hall that
had the library on the right side of the hall, and a door that said
Faculty Lounge on the left side. The faculty lavatories were
actually to the left of this door, and the school nurse was the room
to the right of the lounge.
I
was always intrigued with the thought of what was in the
Faculty Lounge – did the
faculty actually lounge in there, did they laugh and party, relax and
let their hair down?
There
was a cartoon in the comics one time that showed reptiles in
the faculty lounge of a school – and the reptiles were putting on
their human faces before going to their classes. That was the kind of
thing I wondered about – something like reptiles is what I
suspected!
If I could have somehow finagled an excuse to enter the Faculty
Lounge, just to quench my curiosity, I imagined that the aura
of the forbidden territory would have made me uncomfortable enough to
turn around and run out. But even today, fifty plus years after second
grade – I would still love to just have even a peek inside
the Faculty Lounge.
Alas,
when I returned to Boston Valley Elementary School in 2009 and begged
to be allowed to read Harold's Purple Crayon to the
kindergarten classes in the library – I discovered that the library
had moved across the hall where the faculty lounge had once
been! The librarian and students had no idea they were
treading in formerly forbidden space! My eyes dashed across the
hall to the site of the old library – I forget now what it has
become, but it is not the faculty lounge.
How do you like that, now that I am old and could probably swing the
clout, the Faculty Lounge of my elementary school days manages to
elude me still!
54
20150223 the faculty lounge
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