February 1,1965
T stayed for supper tonight. We went across the track for the Soph. Tal. Show rehearsal and both of us must have great colds now - we had to walk back through the snow. It was called off! Ay-y-y-y-y! Oh, pain! I've got a cough. It's snowing now - I hope we have no school tomorrow. Poof - no school! Oh, well, it won't work! Bye! Bye!
February 1, 2006
Since we lived in the largest town (in area) in Connecticut, most of the students at my school rode buses to school. The dozen or so of us who lived next to the school in Sunny Valley Estates (no kidding, that was the real name) were the only walkers. Unfortunately, the only route to the school was through a break in the fence on Sherwood Drive and across the track. When it rained, it was soggy, and when it snowed no one shoveled it. Who shovels a track?
The aerial photo, from the 1965 yearbook, shows my house -- 23 Sherwood Drive -- in the upper right, with the open garage door. The closest entrance to the school was the side door right under the tall smokestack in the lower left.
February 1, 2023
Of course, I had to look up my old school to see what it looks like now. It was opened in 1962, to accommodate the influx of baby boom teenagers. Of course, in the SIXTY years since then, it has been replaced by a new high school and the old building is now home to an intermediate school (Grades 3-5) named after Sarah Noble, the first (white) female settler of the town. Picture this: she arrived in the area at the age of eight with her father, a trapper, in 1707. He did the hunting while she acted as his housekeeper (!!!!!!) until the rest of the Noble family (mother and six more kids) joined them from Massachusetts.
Well-known children’s book author Alice Dalgliesh won a Newberry Honor Award for her "true story”, The Courage of Sarah Noble” (1954). It’s just the kind of American history that will probably find a warm welcome in certain places these days, with a plucky little Anglo girl making friends with the local Schaghticokes and giving them all nice new Christian names. The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation is still in the area, and has a very fine website.