February 19, 2018 at 6:28 p.m.

Judge Haynes left great memories

Letters to the Editor

To the editor:

After reading Jack Ronald’s column in Wednesday’s edition of The Commercial Review, I began to remember some things about my tenure there.

I went to Judge Haynes Elementary School from the first grade through the fifth grade. Upon entering the sixth grade, I was transferred to the brand new school located just to the west side of the old building.

During Christmas time, I remember standing in the very big open area around a Christmas tree singing carols. When we were singing “We Three Kings of Orient Art,” it sounded like “We Three Kings of Orange and Tar.” Evidently I had poor hearing at the tender age of 7 to 10.

I remember the sound of the big ventilation fans in the building close to the restrooms, sucking in outside air. And, if I remember correctly, you had to go to the basement to go to the restroom. I also remember seeing some older classmates go up the fire escape on the outside of the building and hang upside down by their feet from the very top of the building.

One day while going to school, I saw Mardy Logan trip on the cement steps on the north side of the building. He dropped a coin box that spilled money and lunch tokens all over the sidewalk. Being someone who sees an opportunity to get in some brownie points, I went over and helped him pick them up. A few days later, my teacher, whose name escapes me, told me I was to go to the principal’s office. On the way there, I thought, what the heck have I done? Where did my brownie points go?

It seems the new school had a very sophisticated, for the first time, intercom system. In the main office, there was a control panel for the system along with a turntable to play vinyl records. Mardy, remembering my helping him, asked me if I would like to play music at lunch time and switch it to different rooms, upon the request of the teacher assigned to a particular room. The thing was, the only music they made available was “The Nutcracker Suite.” To this day, I still really like to hear selections from “The Nutcracker,” and also like music systems with lots of buttons, switches, knobs and dials. My wife wants one button that does it all.

All in all, my experiences at the old Judge Haynes were most pleasant, which makes for great memories.

Charles Tague

Portland
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