Did You Attend Carleton Elementary?

[Norwalk]

My Brother in Law currently teaches at Carleton and has for the past 10 years at least.

[grumpyoldlady]

EMG....Yes....I believe the band room was on the Roxbury side. That small room off the gym had the teacher's desks in it, and a cot for ill students to lay down on. I do believe there were a couple of lockers in there. It wasn't normally accessed by students unless they needed to use the cot.

Norwalk.....PLEASE ask your brother-in-law where the access to the band room we speak of is located. It may not be used for band any more.

I just looked at my Carleton photos and if you look at the photo of the Roxbury entrance, the 3 windows to the right of the door, or at least the top two, were in that band room....I think, lol.

[EMG]

I don't remember there being a cot in there when I went there. I would have thought anyone ill would simply have been sent to the office to wait for family to pick them up and take them home [[back in those days it wasn't nearly as common to have both parents working!!!)

"To the left right of the Roxbury door?" So which was it? I think it would have to have been to the right, making it north of the Roxbury door. If I'm right, then the band room was up over that east-of-the-gym, north-of-the-Roxbury-door area, and if so there must have been a staircase originating at or near that locker/cot room that went up there. If on the other hand it was to the left, that would have put the band room over the auditorium, which I REALLY don't think it was.

UNLESS....there was an overhead projector room over the rear of the auditorium [[as commonly seen in movie theatres), in which case such a room would logically have been connected to the band room if there was one in that area. But as I'm reasonably sure that movies, if any, which were shown in the auditorium were shown from reel-to-reel projectors on carts on the aisle of the auditorium, I don't think that was the case. I really think the band room was on the second floor, over the gym locker room and to the north.

This is now starting to sound like a game of Clue. Can anyone prove me wrong?

[grumpyoldlady]

Yes, I meant to the RIGHT of the door.

I am part of a group that is planning a reunion for the June '63 class. A letter was sent to the principal requesting a tour of the building, but there has been no response. If the tour does happen, although I won't be able to go, I will ask someone to clarify the location of the old band room.

You are right...there was no projection room. The movie projector sat on a cart near the rear of the auditorium...in the middle where some seats were missing if I recall correctly.

[EMG]

Ok, now that that's settled, let's not let this die out! We've dredged up a lot of great old memories and need to keep it going with some other thought-starters! What else can we think up?

- The orange "E" or "hand" signs that people put up in windows signifying students could go to those houses for help in the event of problems encountered to and from school?

- Particular sights or businesses encountered along the walking routes?

- Favorite subjects and/or particularly memorable classes and classroom experiences?

Let's keep those thinking wheels churning!

I remember one of my favorites was science with Ms. Franke, especially the rare occasion when we got to go out into the conservatory [[pictured well in my photo of Carleton Between Casino Doors).

Sometimes some of the best learning occurred when teachers talked about things other than purely the curriculum. I remember Mrs. Theresa Wells, my homeroom and math teacher in third grade, one day telling us all about her daughter, who was twelve years old at the time and an insulin-dependent diabetic, and what she went through in terms of monitoring and self-injecting and so forth. We got quite a lesson in the ramifications, care, and treatment of that disease, and at the time it never even seemed like learning because it was all a fascinating story.

[grumpyoldlady]

I remember the "hand" signs! Hadn't thought about them in probably 40 years, lol. In those Carleton photos...the gym sure looks bad...the floor was a nice, light colored wood, and the lines were that reddish brown color. Now it just looks dirty, worn and neglected. The rest of the school looks tacky, too..with signs stuck all over the place...especially the ones by the stage in the auditorium. The risers for the choir to stand on that you can see on the stage look like the same ones we stood on way back when. The seats are the same ones, I'm sure. There wasn't carpeting in the aisles.

Back to gym class....that rope that reached to the ceiling. Very few kids could climb it, even half way up. We had one girl in class who asked to be allowed to try...back then all the girls wore dresses...and she wore shorts to school the next day under her dress. She made it to the top and made the boys look silly.

At lunch time those tables folded down and we'd eat our lunches accompanied by GLASS bottles of milk. Lunch cost 35 cents. Wednesday was always chop suey day, which I hated. I rarely stayed for lunch since I could walk home in about 5 minutes.

[EMG]

I lived with my grandparents on Nottingham; every day my grandfather would drive me to school in the morning and also pick me up to take me home for lunch and then drive me back to school afterward. He worked at Ford on the afternoon shift so I walked home at the end of the school day, taking Roxbury to cross Morang at the light and then Morang to Nottingham. On the south side of Morang between Beaconsfield and Nottingham there was a playground/field which was part of St. Brendan's Church property, and it was known at least in later days as "Fr. Downing Field." There was a small church credit union building on the southeast corner of Beaconsfield and Morang.

That's all been torn down now and replaced by a mini strip mall featuring a video store. Guess the church needed the money and sold it.

Maranatha Baptist Church was [[and still is) on the south side of Morang between Roxbury and Beaconsfield. In the winter, when the snow was plowed from the parking lot, it was left in piles right beside the sidewalk. Sometimes these piles would reach HUGE heights [[at least relative to the height of elementary schoolkids) and it was always fun to climb up there and walk along the tops of the snowpiles, especially after they'd been packed down by dozens of other kids who had already done the same thing.

You really note a deterioration in the floor between my picture and the time you were there, but I wonder if you perhaps simply have built up the memory in your mind to over and above what it really was. I was personally there to take that picture and while I agree that the gym [[as well as the halls and auditorium as you mentioned) are cluttered with a lot of junk which certainly wasn't the case then, I didn't think that the floor itself looked that different from the way I remembered it. I would definitely agree though that the brown tables [[which pulled out of the wall like Murphy beds to provide the tables as the Gym was transformed into the Cafeteria at lunchtime) were definitely in better condition back when I attended in the '60s and '70s.

I remember the ropes but I didn't notice or remember that girls didn't equally participate in the activity. But come to think of it now I don't remember girls ever attempting rope climbing. I do remember that I was terrible at it and could never get more than perhaps one or two handpulls up and THAT was THAT. I used to feel really jealous of those who made it to the top.

Another thing I remember is regular calisthenics periods in most gym classes, and students would take turns each day leading and directing the exercises. We would do jumping jacks, situps, etc., and one activity was "arm circles" which involved standing with arms extended fully out to the sides and then moving them in small circles. We usually did about 10 or 25 of them but one day the boy leading the class that day decided to be a wise guy and assigned the class to do 100 of them. Mr. Ignasiak stepped in immediately and excused the class from that - but made that boy do 100 in front of the class on his own! And he did manage to do it! This same kid one time was showing off when Mr. Ignasiak was having us do chin-ups - he easily went through probably 50 or more - but then when marking down the count in his book, Mr. Ignasiak simply waited until the kid was done and said simply, "Zero." He hadn't followed the directions; we were supposed to be doing them gripping the bar with our palms facing away from us, and he had done them the opposite way!

As I was picked up for lunch as described above, I never had a meal in the cafeteria so can't comment on the menu. [[I might have liked the chop suey as my family often had take-out chop suey from Pagoda's on Morang and Riad which I enjoyed!) However, when diagnosed with hypoglycemia in fifth grade in '71, I was put on a diet that required having a protein snack in the middle of each morning and afternoon, so I would go to the school cafeteria behind the gym and buy an individual half-pint CARTON [[no bottles in my day) of milk. The price was three cents.

Another fun thing we did once or twice a year was go on field trips to hear classical concerts at the Ford Auditorium, or to see the Detroit Institute of Arts.

And a final random memory - the observances of Veteran's Day each November 11 - they would play taps at 11 a.m. I also specifically remember Mr. Ignasiak one year making the announcement that that would be the last year Veteran's Day would be celebrated on Nov. 11, as the change to a Monday observance would be going into effect.