Crosby Again

While we were in Ontario for our son’s graduation last month, I took the opportunity to drop by Crosby Hieghts public school to pick up one of their 50th anniversary t-shirt’s and also to take a quick look around. I wrote about rediscovering some of my grade one classmates and Crosby’s 50th anniversay planning here and so wanted to hear a bit about how the event had gone. Sounds like they had a great time, and walking around the place brought back many memories – once I found the entrance ! The old entrance where the principal’s office used to be (I seem to recall spending quite a bit of time in there ….) was locked as a new office facility had been built, together with a new parking lot and a completely new entrance off of the east side – the school has grown quite a bit and is considerably larger than when I attended !

Once I managed to find my way in, the staff were very accomodating, and I was asked to speak to one of the grade 6 classes in what is now the library, but which used to be part of the north playground when I was there. It was an interesting experience, and there were some good questions from the kids, but as it was pretty much the last day of classes for them I tried to keep it short and let them get on with their summer.

As a part of the preparation for the 50th anniversary event, I had been interviewed by a couple of the grade 6 students (Phyllis and Jansen), and that material had been included in a multi-media presentation the class had put together for visitors to watch during the 50th anniversary event. The class had done quite a number of interviews, and I was impressed with just how well it turned out – they did a really nice job.

As I left, I walked by my 1st grade classroom – yes its still there, and if you took away the TV and the other modern additions perhaps not surprisingly it really doesn’t look much different to how it looked when I was in that same room in 1959. Just like 50 years ago it was filled with the bustle and noise of small children – and I wondered what they will recall of their experience 50 years from now, and whether they will have the honour of being interviewed for a 100th anniversary ………….

Grade One Revisited

Crosby Heights Public School in Richmond Hill opened in 1958, and I was in one of its Grade One class rooms under the tutelage of (I think) a Miss. Spence. Many of us went on to high school together at Bayview Secondary High School, and then went our many separate ways in life, but my formal schooling started at Crosby Heights and after 50 years there are a few folks from those days I’m actually still in contact with after all this time. I’m fourth from the right in the back row in the photo to the left.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I attended our older son’s graduation from Trent University, and as may be imagined there were several hundred parents, all in open seating watching the event. The guy sitting in front of me seemed familiar and just to prove yet again how small our world is, incredibly it turned out he was one of those folks from 50 years ago – in the class photo of Miss Nighswander’s class to the right, he is the young lad on the right in the second row !

Terry and I have been doing a ‘roll call’ of sorts, and think we can name: Bob King, Rick Haas, Ed Kay, Diane Jamison, Paula Triance, Ann Whitworth, Gail Hitchenson, Steve Marshall, John Smith, Paul Fountain, Bob Bradley, Bob Imeson and perhaps a few others. As it turns out, Crosby Heights is planning a 50th anniversary this year, so It would be interesting to see how many folks can be located.

I had lost touch with Terry after high school, but when we were 17 or 18 we actually both had the same model of first motorbike (Yamaha YA6’s) and we used to compare notes and information on how to fix them when they weren’t working – which seemed to happen frequently ! He and his wife were vacationing in Western Canada this past week, so last night we met up to swap old motorcycle stories here in Calgary before he and his wife returned to Toronto.

Lots of only slightly embellished stories (!), and quite a pleasant evening.