East Wilmington Baptist Church

I lived  only a few house down from the church that we attended. During the summer we always had Vacation Bible School. This was during the day not at night like many churches do today. During these Vacation Bible Schools along with learning about what God had to say to us in the Bible we also got to make projects and have snacks. Snack time was my favorite, it was always grape Cool Aide and Jacks cookies. The projects might be a shadow box and we had to cut and measure the wood ourselves and no one lost a figure or maybe a mat to set a hot pot on. I found the mat I made when I was going through some of my late mothers thing. It is amazing what us parents will keep to remind us of our kids.

A very special place in time.

I have been reminded lately that I grew up in a very special place in time.The era I grew up in was probably the zenith of this countries time in history. If you were a child it didn't really matter if you were poor, middle class or rich you pretty much had many of the same experiences growing up. We all went to the same schools, there were almost no local private schools and really not much need for them. Back then public school still taught and taught you how to learn what wasn't taught. I have always said I'll put my first 12 years of schooling up against any high school graduate of the public school system turns out today. Give us a 100 question test that covers all the basics and I'll come out on top and this is probably true of any of my old class mates. How did the teachers ever make it through the year having to grade and figure grades by hand and no teacher work days back then. They didn't cancel school every time bad weather was predicted ether. If it rained you put your rain coat on, if it snowed you put warm closes not that I ever remember it snowing during school. I'm sure it did. It still amazes me at what some of our high school graduates don't know these days. The biggest thing we had to worry about was the A-bomb. Remember getting under your desk or going to the hall and tuck your head between you legs? How about all the buildings that had the air raid shelter signs on them. Thank God that it never came to the point in the Cold War that we needed any of that stuff.

A bike ride to Renovah Circle

After reading some posts about my second-grade class and remembering how many kids were from the Renovah Circle area, I was brought back to those days. I recalled a summer morning when my friend, now passed away, who lived behind me on Wayne Drive, and I decided to ride our bikes through Forest Hills.

That summer, after school had let out, we took off down Wayne Drive toward the school to play in the creek beside Forest Hills School. As was typical for us, our competitiveness kicked in quickly. Each of us began pedaling harder as our speed increased. We turned off Wayne Drive onto Renovah Circle, and as we rounded the curve back toward Wayne Drive, my friend started pulling ahead. He kept looking back and teasing me about being in the losing position in the race.

Halfway between the curve and Wayne Drive, I noticed a parked car right in front of my friend. So, I did what anyone would do while in second place: I pedaled as hard as I could while also talking loudly to keep his attention on me. It worked! As he crashed into the trunk of the car, I passed him. I have to admit that after I saw he wasn’t hurt badly and that his bike was only scratched, I felt a little guilty, but the main thing was that I won. Don’t feel too sorry for him—he paid me back more than once! The bike in the picture is the one I was riding that day, about a year later.

Chestnut Street Jr High School

I was not there during the 54- 55 school year but the
school was the same in 63 -65 when I was there.

Finally made it to Junior High School. 7th grade was a whole new adventure. For one thing Chestnut Jr High was at least 2 miles further from our home on Mercer Avenue. Forest Hills had been about a 2 mile walk but Chestnut was closer to 5 miles. My cousin lived the next street over and was what we called "in the county" so she could ride the bus though it was still a half mile walk to the bus stop for her. I lived in the city limits so I wasn't allowed to ride the bus. These days the kids can’t have the bus stops more than a block a part and even then the bus has to wait on some of them to come out of the house. The bus drivers back when I was growing up left you behind if you were not at the bus stop, no waiting. Maybe that is why this country has got so fat and soft. That’s another blog though. In any case if I got out of school and started to run straight home I could beat the bus because they had to wait for it to get there from another school and I did like running back then. Besides there were lots of things to do on the way home. First there was Pappy Gay’s grill for the best hot dogs in town, then on down Market Street there was Beaumont Grill and Mr Brocks Store and the park on Wayne Drive and on really cold days we could stop at the Carolina Motor Inn to get hot chocolate out of the vending machine. There were also several service stations we could stop by and watch the mechanic work on cars, two of these old buildings are still standing and there was always Burnt Mill Creek to play in on warm days just depended which way you took home and how fast you wanted to get there.

Student
Telephone Directory

Each school had sports teams and mascots, Chestnut was the Bears and the school colors were red and white. There were 5 Junior High School in the school system and we played our teams against each other. Many of the kids from these teams made it on to pro sports. Football was played at Legion Stadium  and if my memory is correct it was always a double header.  Each school had a baseball diamond and gym for basketball, so we mainly had 3 sports later when I was in the 9th grade they added track and field.

Each year there was a student telephone directory issued for a small fee. I wonder if anyone still has the same telephone number?

Chestnut had a special place the 9th graders could go that the other students were not allowed. If you were in the 9th grade you could cross the creek at lunch. If you tried that and you were not a 9th grader there was a good chance you might "fall" in the creek. Don't know if any other Jr. Highs had anything like that.

The Junior High system was a great system, you could make life long friends and you did a lot of growing up before you were thrown into high school. It was kind of like a farm team for growing up.