Breeze Elementary School

Take a journey with me, if you will. A journey back in time to Craig, Colorado; the year is 1967. It was time for me to start the 5th grade. I had begun my school years at the newer Sunset Elementary on the West side of our small little town. Sunset had newer buildings, a huge playground area; it was a well designed modern (for it's day) educational facility. Sunset Elementary was all I knew of schools. I had attended Kindergarten through the fourth grade at good ole' Sunset Elementary. We moved to a different part of town during the summer between my fourth and fifth grade years of schooling. We moved to an old house on Yampa Street in the center of Craig, and that meant I would be changing schools.

There is good news and bad news in this scenario. I would be attending Breeze Elementary School. The good news was that it was only about one block to school. No more riding the bus, just slip out the back door, cross the alley, kitty corner through a neighbors yard, cross the street and wall-ahh...I was at school. The bad new was that Breeze Elementary was located in a very old school building, and my teacher would be Mrs. Potter.

When I say it was an old building, we're talking OLD. Like maybe it was the first school ever built in Craig. It was a large square 2 story brick building. The entrances were in the middle of the building, with hallways in the middle of the building, and classrooms on the North and South sides of the hallway. In the middle of the hallway were the stairs, which seemed like a giant staircase in my memory bank. I can picture them rising North up to a platform at the half way point; that platform running back to the West, and then another flight of stairs back to the South and eventually one would reach the 2nd story of the old school. My classroom was on the South side of the 2nd story. A very large classroom where I would experience the joys of 5th grade learning. Breeze Elementary had the old radiator heating. I remember the stench of it the first time they cranked on, and the crackling noises they made as the heat filled them during the cold Colorado winter. I can't help but think of the Movie 'Sixth Sense' when I reminisce about Breeze Elementary. That large hallway and staircase reminds me of the scene where he looks to his left and sees the 3 bodies hanging from the rafters. That was the feel of Breeze Elementary. Breeze also had a fire escape for evacuation purposes. It was not the traditional staircase on the side of the building, it was the slide on the side of the building. Yes, a large metal tube, probably 3 to 4 feet in diameter and about 30-40 feet in length. Students would climb into the tube and slide to the safety of the ground below. I loved fire drills at Breeze Elementary! WEEEEEeeeeee.

Breeze Elementary had a gymnasium as well. I believe it had been a High School or Junior high at one time; and now it was being used to relieve some of the overcrowding at the other Elementary schools. The gymnasium was a typical older school gym. There really was no sideline or seating area. There was just a big basketball court in the middle with a stage on the south side of the gymnasium. That was the year I learned how to determine which was my left hand and which hand was my right hand. It had never been that important to know which hand was the right and which was the left prior to 5th grade. But in PE class, in the gym, the instructor would make us do exercises and we had to know which hand was right or left for certain calisthenics. We were always facing the stage for the exercises, and so I knew that the East side of the Gym was my left hand and the West side of the gym was my right. After that, for years, if I was trying to determine my left from my right, I would picture myself in that gym, facing that stage, and knew that 'this hand' was my left hand because I was facing the stage. Determination by Association I guess.

The lunchroom was on the West side of the school. I don't remember much about the lunch room itself, but I remember what happened inside the lunch room. They had a rule that we had to eat everything on our tray if we had eaten the hot lunch. There was no throwing food away! I, like most 5th grade boys did not like vegetables that well. Actually, not at all! But mostly, I really hated the peas. I could not force myself to eat those nasty old green pellets. So, I ingeniously devised a plan to drink my milk and stuff the peas into the milk carton, and then throw the peas away with the milk carton. It worked to! I can't remember ever getting caught disposing of my peas. So it was bye bye peas. Yaaaay... 'cause peas are yucky!

My 5th grade teacher was Mrs. Potter. Ugly, old hag of a teacher who was nothing but mean. I can still see her face, with that big old mole on it. Why couldn't I have gotten the other 5th grade teacher like my friend Andy got? It just wasn't fair! Mrs. Potter yelled at us, made us work, work, work. Classroom wise, I hated that year. But, when it was all said and done and the year was over, I could honestly look back and say "I learned more that year, than I ever had before". Mrs. Potter may have been a mean old hag, but she taught us a lot of good stuff.

When the weather was nice enough, our PE class would go outside and kitty-corner from the northeast corner of the school was a vacant lot where we have our PE class. I remember that we played flag football for a while. I remember that they had tryouts for the position of Quarterback. Each student would throw passes at receivers, and surprising enough I was chosen as one of the quarterbacks. I think I was more lucky than I was good, but nevertheless, I made the final cut. Something about those practices makes me think of my friend CoCo Cliften...though I can't remember why.

Today, Breeze Elementary School is gone. It is just a City Park with grass and a few trees. The radiators no longer creak or stench. The clatter of the lunch room trays is silent. I can no longer tell my left hand from my right hand, 'cause the stage is gone. The Breeze is now silent.

Well, there you have it. My exciting year of education at Breeze Elementary. I learned a lot, I had some new experiences, and I survived that scary old building and that scary old teacher. I learned how to tell my left from my right, and I learned the 'art of deception' regarding pea disposal anyway. The year was nearly complete. I recall that on the last day of school on a sunny springtime day, we went for a little field trip. It was the last week of school, where everyday you just do fun stuff. I can't even remember where we were going for the field trip. I remember it was very sunny. I remember a long line of kids walking down the sidewalk. I remember holding the hand of my 5th grade girlfriend Edie as we walked. It was my first awkward attempt at a PDA.

We moved away from Colorado that summer.

I never saw Edie again.