{"id":1631,"date":"1998-10-11T22:42:05","date_gmt":"1998-10-11T22:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lisabravermoss.com\/?p=1631"},"modified":"2022-06-07T20:31:35","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T20:31:35","slug":"childhoods-wrecking-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisabravermoss.com\/childhoods-wrecking-ball\/","title":{"rendered":"Childhood\u2019s Wrecking Ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published in the S.F. Chronicle<\/em>, Sunday, October 11, 1998<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thousand Oaks Elementary School is gone now, and I suppose one could argue that the field of dirt on which a new structure will ultimately be built is already an improvement over what the place had become.\u00a0 Years of neglect had ravaged the once majestic main building.\u00a0 Tacky pre-fabricated portables, stained with layers of graffiti, had replaced the honest, sturdy bungalows we had when I went there.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019d rather look at the old Thousand Oaks in any condition than at the empty lot now bordered by a National Rent-A-Fence, with a yellow sign that reads \u201cThank You Berkeley for Fixing Our Schools,\u201d blue spray paint and dandelions obscuring the fine print below.<\/p>\n

For years, I\u2019d drive past Thousand Oaks and think of getting out of the car to look around\u2014then come up with a reason why not.\u00a0 It was after hours, or a weekend, or I was in a hurry to get home.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t bear to confront the decay close up.<\/p>\n

But when I found out last year that Thousand Oaks was being torn down because it was cheaper to build a new school than to earthquake-retrofit the existing one, I was sick over it.\u00a0 Why hadn\u2019t I visited when I\u2019d had the chance?<\/p>\n

Superstition crept up the back of my neck:\u00a0 had my negligence made me in some way complicit in the demolition of my beloved school?\u00a0 Then outrage took over.\u00a0 This gracious, pale yellow building from 1920, its entire southern wall lined with two stories of French windows, with terra cotta roof tiles and wood cabinets whose brass latches gave a satisfying \u201cclick\u201d when they were shut\u2014this<\/em> they were going to destroy?<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have many memories of academics at Thousand Oaks.\u00a0 What I remember is solidly built classrooms connected by wide, high-ceilinged halls whose brown floors were polished to such a sheen that you could see the lights in them.\u00a0 Outside, the younger kids had their own wooded yard, referred to as the Grove, while the older ones had the rest of the well-maintained seven-acre grounds in which to play four-square, hopscotch, hoppitaw, tetherball and kickball.<\/p>\n

On Halloween, we\u2019d put on our costumes in the classroom closets after lunch, then parade up and down the nearby Solano Avenue business district.\u00a0 And every spring, the sixth graders were given the honor of weaving colorful banners of fabric around the maypole while dancing to music in the annual parade, the boys hanging their heads at the indignity of having to participate.<\/p>\n

I remember, too, the day I stood outside my bungalow with the rest of my fourth-grade class, all of us wondering why Miss Miller was so late to come back from the 11 a.m. recess, all of us bewildered by her messy hair and watery eyes when she finally arrived.\u00a0 \u201cOur president has been shot,\u201d she said simply.<\/p>\n

But in general, things were wonderfully predictable at T.O. (as we called it).\u00a0 It was a place where I was consistently rewarded for being an obedient child and a dedicated student.\u00a0 More to the point, it was a refuge from the terrifying whims of my household, in which my parents fought loudly and explosively.<\/p>\n

At school, order prevailed.\u00a0 Nothing ever made the adults angry enough that they would throw large objects, or use their fists, or shout so hard that the veins stood out in their necks.\u00a0 Things kept going no matter what.\u00a0 I could check the monthly cafeteria menu for the day when my favorite side dish, \u201ccubed\u201d baked potatoes, would be served.\u00a0 If something broke, our crusty old gray-uniformed janitor, Mr. Shaw, would fix it.<\/p>\n

Even my parents, usually skeptical of authority, seemed to grasp the sanctity of the place.\u00a0 My mother sent me and my three sisters to school with the correct amount of money for cafeteria meal tickets, and turned up on time for parent-teacher conferences.\u00a0 My father, who normally dressed in slacks and T-shirts, wore a suit and bow tie to my graduation.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a heartbreaking black-and-white photograph of him and me in front of the school on that day, heartbreaking because as bad as things were at home, they would get worse afterward.\u00a0 My parents\u2019 divorce, as stormy as their marriage had been; racial tension and violence at my junior high school; the loss of my father\u2019s retail store and livelihood; then the custody fight that split my family apart when I was sixteen.\u00a0 But the photo was taken before all that:\u00a0 my father is spry, fashionably bearded, smoking a pipe as dark as his glasses, his left arm around me, everything pulled together for the happy occasion.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure it was my mother who snapped the picture.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

When I first heard the news about Thousand Oaks, I avoided the place.\u00a0 Then one day, after an errand on Solano Avenue, I was suddenly ready.\u00a0 I drove up Tacoma, bracing myself for the worst\u2014a noisy, obscene construction zone with no trace left of the elegant edifice I\u2019d once called my school.<\/p>\n

But Thousand Oaks was still standing!\u00a0 A huge series of yellow tarps covered it; there was scaffolding all around.\u00a0 Men were working on the building; could they be saving it after all?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t dare to hope.<\/p>\n

I pulled up in front of the school next to the flag pole, thinking of the carnival that used to be held every fall.\u00a0 Most of T.O.\u2019s 600 students would attend, bringing younger brothers and sisters along.\u00a0 Our principal, Mr. MacFarland, would volunteer to be dunked in water as the target of a pitching game set up on the playground.\u00a0 In the cavernous, wood-paneled auditorium, there were indoor activities\u2014bean bag toss, fishing for prizes, and most impressively (though I was too cautious a child to try it), a giant rolling machine set up on the stage, consisting of two massive padded cylinders through which children took turns being \u201cironed\u201d and released out the other side.<\/p>\n

In the years after I left Thousand Oaks, I had thought of coming back for the carnival: it may have been in the back of my mind to try the rolling machine.\u00a0 But every time I asked my mother about it, the event had already taken place.\u00a0 The carnival was always held earlier in the school year than I remembered.<\/p>\n

I got out of the car and asked a young worker if there were any way to get in the building.\u00a0 \u201cYou could talk to the project manager, I guess,\u201d he said, motioning vaguely toward the playground.\u00a0 I made my way down along a makeshift Cyclone fence toward the Grove, past the driveway where Matt Pollock had once walked by me on his way to traffic duty and had let a trace of a smile escape his lips, trigging months of hopeful speculation:\u00a0 had he meant to smile at me?<\/p>\n

There was an open gate in the fence, and I suddenly saw that not twenty feet away, the southwest door to the school was propped open.<\/p>\n

Just get me in, I begged inwardly.\u00a0 I promise to be grateful.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care about the years of corrosion\u2014that\u2019s all cosmetic.\u00a0 I just want to orient myself.\u00a0 I just want to recover whatever is in there that\u2019s still mine.<\/p>\n

The vinyl flooring had been stripped off the familiar steps just inside the door, the tarry black underneath covered with pebbly grit.\u00a0 Breathlessly, I climbed to the top of the stairs, where the project manager suddenly appeared. \u00a0\u201cCan I help you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to go to school here,\u201d I told her.\u00a0 \u201cI know you\u2019re working on the building.\u00a0 But I was wondering, is there any chance I could look around?\u201d\u00a0 I gasped as I recognized the south hallway of my school.\u00a0 There were two large flood puddles on the floor, the ceiling had been disemboweled, and there was rubble everywhere.\u00a0 It was like a wrecked ship, still magnificent under water.<\/p>\n

The project manager eyed me.\u00a0 \u201cOK,\u201d she conceded.\u00a0 \u201cYou can look around.\u00a0 But don\u2019t go upstairs.\u00a0 They\u2019re working up there.\u201d\u00a0 I had especially wanted to see the second floor, where I\u2019d spent one of my happiest years, fifth grade.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t betray my disappointment.\u00a0 \u201cThank you so much!\u201d I exclaimed.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Unsupervised, I meandered through the halls, peeking into the spacious, once lively classrooms.\u00a0 There was broken glass on the floors, piles of debris everywhere.\u00a0 One of the classrooms was filled entirely with uprooted carpet, bent window blinds and other compiled ruins.<\/p>\n

I made my way downstairs, past the spot where two impeccably coiffed ladies used to sit behind a table and punch our meal tickets or put our money into an army-green cash box before handing us half-pint cartons of milk.\u00a0 The low-ceilinged cafeteria was smaller than I had remembered, and after a glance at the desolate kitchen, I wandered back up to the classroom area.\u00a0 Thousand Oaks was a shell, its life force gone.\u00a0 How was it that I had been unable to accept the external signs of disintegration, yet found myself strangely peaceful, happy even, at the opportunity to view the wreckage from the inside?<\/p>\n

There were still unlocked crevices\u2014an all-wood closet tucked away in an intriguing non-rectangular space, a white hexagon-tiled bathroom (I could nearly feel the cold water and scratchy pink powdered soap), built-in greenish wood drawers the perfect size for art projects.\u00a0 Wondrous nooks and crannies that will never be reproduced.<\/p>\n

At the end of the hall, a torn clear tarp was all that separated me from the upstairs.\u00a0 I touched it, looking behind me to see whether anyone was watching.\u00a0 I could probably have gotten away with it.\u00a0 But I had never been disobedient in this building, and somehow, I couldn\u2019t change now.<\/p>\n

I wandered back down the hall and peered in through the stage entrance to the stately auditorium.\u00a0 Unlike the cafeteria, it was much bigger than I remembered.\u00a0 A familiar light flooded the platform where I had avoided the rolling machine but had led my team to victory in the fifth-grade class debate.\u00a0 From that angle, my view was clear of any rubble, or any hint of disaster, and I could imagine my mother and father in the audience, applauding with the rest of the parents at the end of the contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in the S.F. Chronicle, Sunday, October 11, 1998   Thousand Oaks Elementary School is gone now, and I suppose one could argue that the field of dirt on which a new structure will ultimately be built is already an improvement over what the place had become.\u00a0 Years of neglect had ravaged the once…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nChildhood\u2019s Wrecking Ball - Lisa Braver Moss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lisabravermoss.com\/childhoods-wrecking-ball\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Childhood\u2019s Wrecking Ball - Lisa Braver Moss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Originally published in the S.F. 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