Going Old School

I work in the "new" high school in Urbandale, Iowa. The building looks like this.

The "old" high school was torn down around 2009. This is what it looked like.

Originally built in 1959, the building was showing its age when I arrived in 1992. Seventeen years later, UHS was full of band-aid fixes. Plumbing pipes and electrical wires were exposed and hanging from the hallway ceilings. Snow and rain leaked through the skylights. The foreign language hall reeked of urine, and so did building's one elevator. Few of the bathroom stalls had doors. The difference in temperature between the first floor classrooms and the second floor classrooms could vary as much as twenty degrees.

Speaking of temperatures, the building's heat was lowered during the winter weekends, and that change often caused the posters taped to the walls to fall off. Did you know that cockroaches are attracted to the adhesive layer on tape? It was not unusual to walk into your classroom on Monday morning and find a poster on the ground with cockroaches stuck to a tape hoop. My hallway had a cockroach catching contest. The winner found five insects on one "You Can Read!" poster.

The building was also victim to several senior pranks that left a permanent mark. The crickets and mice that were mischievously released checked in, but never left - welcome to "The High School California."

The fact that large insects and rats lived in the walls of UHS made the rumors about the tunnels beneath the school even scarier. The tunnels were real. Throughout the building there were trap doors in the floor that lead to the spaces below. The tunnels were a way to access plumbing and electrical problems, but in the 70s when the building was cleaner, students would skip class by hiding in them.  Custodians would find candles, flashlights, playing cards, and cigarette butts down there.

Thirty years later, no one dared to even open the trap doors. The tunnels were said to be infested, full of rodent skeletons, and flooded in many areas. Just the smell could knock you out.

Mr. Bachmann teaches Japanese at the high school, and he made a movie trailer that spoofs scary movies by playing with the tunnel mythos. The video also features various UHS staff members. Bachmann did a great job on the trailer, and I want you to watch it. Actually, I want you to watch it twice.

During the first viewing, enjoy the trailer. During the second viewing,  look at the hallway floors and classroom carpet. Check out the pipes that hang next to the ceiling lights. Check out the rats nest of wires next to that printer. Look at how dark and depressing the place could be. UHS was actually a pretty good location for a horror movie. I suppose most old schools are.

I tend to be nostalgic, but I'm not when it comes to that old school.

(I do miss my old classroom, though...)