Jill's Journal: If these walls could talk ...

Although I never attended school in Valley Springs – or Brandon, for that matter – I have somewhat of a connection to the 100-year-old school building in Valley Springs.

I attended a school that was similar in structure and size for my fifth and sixth grade years. The school, a two-level, four-square, stood atop a two-tier hill. The landscape provided levels of wintertime fun for kids from all across the town. The long hill on the backside of the school was the real draw for serious sledders. And at almost any time of a day off of school for Christmas vacation or a weekend, you could be assured to find someone there relishing in the slippery slope.

Obviously, it was always more fun to go down that hill than it was to trudge back up. But we did. Over and over and over and over.

The school housed the fifth grade on the first floor – four classrooms full of kids – and it was a similar scenario for the sixth-graders on the floor above. The school didn’t have a lunchroom or a gym or a band or choir room. As for the library, well, it was as tiny space nestled in a room in the basement of the building with boiler pipes decorating the ceiling. There were shelves and shelves filled with books, and there was just enough space for a handful of tables and chairs, and of course, a desk for the librarian where she kept close tabs on any mischief that may be ensuing.

As for gym, we either high-tailed it outside for games of kickball, but most times we had to make the short walk from the school to the nearby high school, which is where we ate lunch, too. Most days, that short walk to the high school was a line of squirrely kids doing what kids do: talking, laughing, skipping and likely getting into some form of trouble along the way. 

Rainy days and those oh-so-chilly winter days were no fun at all.

We didn’t have lockers. Instead, we had cloak rooms, just like the kind we’ve all read about in the history books. If I recall, it was a place where a lot of coats didn’t stay put on the hooks its owners had intended them to hang on, a mitten here and stocking cap there, and of course, those always-popular – and somewhat resourceful – bread bags that most kids put their feet in first before sliding into their boots.

The playground that surrounded the school was tarred, which set us up for plenty of skinned knees and bruised elbows. It was outfitted with swings that seemed to touch the sky, four-square game boards and a makeshift kickball diamond, that if you were playing in the outfield, it meant plenty of trips to go fetch the ball as it rolled down the massive hill that the school stood strong and sturdy on for decades.

It was in the middle of our sixth-grade year that we moved across town to what is now known as “Armstrong School.” It’s the same school I attended my elementary years at, but now it had a new addition that included a sparkling new library, shop and art room.

I imagine the kids who have attended school in Valley Springs have an attachment to the building. There is charm in the sturdy multi-story building, and if the walls could talk, it would sure be interesting to hear the secrets they would have to tell.

Happy 100th anniversary, Valley Springs School. You are truly a gem.