The blog is languishing. Time to give it some pep.

It snowed today, which is a good thing because I was beginning to wonder whether global warming had driven away the white stuff for good.

And while it snowed, I was hard at work. The past couple days I have been cleaning out the rooms in my old Catholic grade school. The institution closed about two years ago--shut down most unjustly by the archdiocese--though some would say it was only a shell of its former self and that it was time for it to close. Debatable.

Either way, large school building and all its contents were left undisturbed this entire time. Now the parish has found someone to lease the building--a good thing, to be sure. The new leasers will be doing a whole heap of remodeling, which means it's finally time to haul out 60+ years of school-themed junk.

It's strange to haul out bags and bags of either your childhood mementos or someone else's. It's strange to walk the deserted halls you spent 9 years in, where everything still smells the same. On one hand, I would say I'm not the right person for this job, but then again, it's almost like the death of a relative. Who better to clean out the old building than myself? It's almost like a responsibility.

One rarely thinks too hard about dead schools, at least not about their innards. Of course, there are some things you expect to find, like hundreds of small desks:


great old vinyl-covered furniture:


or the remnants of a chess club:


Then there are the more odd items. Things locked away in cabinets for a couple decades. Things such as old educational film-strips with accompanying record:


abandoned girl-scout craft projects:


an old cigar box filled with monopoly money:


or an entire cabinet filled with glass laterns made from ashtrays:


All in all, a lot of memories come back to you, embedded in the hallways and classrooms. There was something eerie about walking into the old boys locker room and instantly remembering where everyone used to stand as we dressed for gym class.


There are melancholy images:


and cheerful ones:


In the end, however, everything has to go to the same place:


May it rest in peace.


Happy 2007, everyone.