#septemberchallenge #NaBloPoMo 4 - Lessons

  

Friday, September 4, 2015

How did/do you get to school: bus, walk, drive, or bike?

I have been to four schools in course of my public school 'career':

I started at Johnson Heights Elementary School in Cumberland, MD, in 1966.  I tried using Google Earth to look it up a while back, but apparently it was torn down.  It's certainly not listed on the school district's website.  Anyway, we were only a couple of blocks away, so the vast majority of the time, I walked to class and back.  There was one street "Old Town Rd", I think it was called that was a little busier, that I had to cross, but there was a crossing guard.

The next school was Fortuna Elementary in Salt Lake City, UT.  My family moved in the middle of my 5th grade year, due to my father being transferred by the defense contractor company that employed him.  School was a little farther away, and about as far up the mountain (Mt. Olympus) as development went at the time.  Some years after I grew up, and the neighborhood aged, the school was closed and turned into a ballet school.  Later still, it was torn down and they built up scads of those cookie cutter large homes that were so close together you could hand things out the window of one house into the window of the neighboring residence.  

I walked there and back as well.  There was a short-cut placed between two homes a few streets away to the bottom of the school property which saved probably 5-10 minutes of walking time, giving the most direct route.

Next there was Churchill Jr. High School for 7th - 9th grades.  It was on the other side of the house.  I would walk to the end of the block, cross Brockbank, cut through the LDS Seminary lot and be at the circular track on the school property.  (I believe every middle and high school in Utah has an LDS Seminary building just off school grounds, where during the school year, the Mormon students would have religious instruction M-F as part of their regular school day).

Finally there was Skyline High School.  This was about 1.5 miles away, and again, most of the time, at least until I started to drive, I would walk back and forth.  I think it was supposed to be character building or something like that.  This is the school from which I walked home in sandals in 2' of snow, after an early-season freak storm.  I remember taking the driver's education course required by state law as an elective which was taught on school grounds.  I even took the motorcycle driving range portion of the class, even though there was little or no chance I would ever be at the controls of a motor bike after leaving school.

After my mandated schooling, I proceeded on to the University of Utah.  There was at the time, a fine public bus service in Salt Lake City and the metropolitan area.  A bus would come in the morning, at the end of our block (about two houses away), and drop us off on campus before proceeding downtown.  I imagine these days, what with it being nearly 40 years later, and after the 2002 Olympics, the public transportation has only gotten better.

~~~oOo~~~

So how do you get around during your day?