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The Pass By Daniel Wilson Email: dwilson36316 at hotmail dot com (above email address formatted to reduce spam) March 20, 2008 I recently started a new project of documenting the decay of structures. Sadly one of these is my former school. Coffee Springs is and always will be home to me for as long as I live it will occupy part of my heart and mind and forever a piece of my soul. It saddens me to see it in a state of disrepair and sadder is the knowledge that no one seems to care. I have photos of the school in wonderful days of my youth, wonderful days! Days filled with the laughter of people that were more than fellow students more than friends they were family. You see Coffee Springs wasn't a rich school and the Geneva County Education System didn't have tons of money coming in, but the faculty made due the best way they could and when they didn't have the necessary supplies to enrich our education they gave us a gift that was the greatest gift of all, the gift of caring?.. They taught us (the ones that wanted to learn) how to treat each other and how to make the best out of a bad situation. They instilled in us a sense of ethics and morals that will last a lifetime. In a way those of us that went to Coffee Springs are still going even after all these years after leaving we discover that Coffee Springs has never left us. They become more and scarcer. One day there will be no one left from there. The school is closed and the alumni die year after year, one day the memories of that wonderful place that we called home will forever cease. It's rather sad. I walked there the other day following the old side walks and I could almost hear the voices and the laughter. I stopped at the old kindergarten building and tried to look through the boarded up windows and get a glimpse of a world that seems a lifetime ago, but I couldn't. As I walked past the first door I grabbed a pole and almost instinctively swung around it like I did those thirty-three years ago. I stood there dumbfounded looking in my hand at the flakes of thick silver paint that had came off the squared metal pole, and wondered how many times that ritual was done. As I walked down the covered sidewalk towards the lunchroom I couldn't help but notice the wear pattern on the concrete, a pattern that you can see in one of the photos. I wonder how many children through the years have walked that way to eat at the Lunchroom or to go get on the bus; I wonder how many times I did for that matter? At the lunch room door I stood knowing that there was no way to enter, I put my hand on the wood screen door and pulled and it opened with a creak of a worn spring, the worn metal handle was smooth to the touch, time and the countless hands has wore it thin. I closed the screen door gently out of respect, and I remembered an incident from my past... And here now is the closed door... spider webs in the glass panes...rust on the hinges...the paint is cracked and flaking off like leaves falling off a tree in the Fall of the year, This isn't Fall there's no Spring; it's the final shedding. the buildings of my youth are dying and there's nothing that I can do. I turn and look back towards where the High School building once stood before the fire that ended it. Even if you've never been there before you can tell that there's something missing. The concrete side walk ends abruptly ends dropping off onto to dirt, I walk the vacant lot in my minds eye I see the classrooms, bathrooms I hang a left the sound of hard crusty dirt crunching beneath my shoes. The trophy case is gone I look at the spot and all I see is the deserted softball field. All the trophies burned up, all the senior portraits that lined the walls gone...my portrait with my family burned...Jamie's football jersey encased as a shrine gone. I step forward towards the invisible double doors of the auditorium and I can see the hard wooden chairs see the stage smell the old musty wood and I pause and close my eyes and I hear Felicia singing she could sing so wonderfully—I miss her voice. I walk away straight through the stage out the back wall through the propane cylinder. I hang another left and there I stand face to face with the gym... I stand next to the locked door and close my eyes and I can almost hear the high pitched sounds of tennis shoes on the basketball court. I remove my hand and look at my palm and there it is the same off-white chalky paint that so many of us walked away with; some things never change even after eighteen years. I remember seeing my fellow students that didn't pay attention leaning against the wall and walking away with their arses marked. You could always tell who was prone to prop against the gym, their arses and backs where always white. I want to go inside I don't want to go inside I want to leave I want to stay. I left. I'll always come back to this place. In years to come when the names are forgotten and the buildings are gone I'll stand in the middle of the street and remember as will others that once called themselves Golden Bears and called this school home and their fellow students... family. About the author: My name is Daniel L. Wilson I am 38years old and a firefighter with the City of Enterprise. I enjoy photography and hiking. | | | |
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