When back home in August the Wombie, Holly and I took a road trip to Seaton. We cruised the Mole Man's old building, the grain elevator and drove up to the old school, or what is left of the old school.
It's just a big vacant lot now, but there are telltale signs of the activity that once happened at the site.
The front sidewalk once directed tiny feet, and not so tiny feet when it was also the high school, to the front door of the Seaton School. Big, dark-bricked and imposing which was the architecture of the early 20th century.
Follow the sidewalk to the right if you are facing the cornfield and it will lead you...
...down the bluff toward the creek below and to the town. This would be the path we little kids would take dressed in our Halloween costumes. We would all trundle along in a neat row, properly organized and protected by our teachers and parade our frightful selves to those lucky souls downtown. Excited to be out of the classroom, on an adventure, we would show off our scary best. Back then I don't think scary was "in". I think we dressed as cowboys, firemen, and maybe soldiers. Scary back then wasn't what it is now. More like mutant lobsters and space creatures.
The old swing frame remains. Forever silenced. There was a slide if I remember and perhaps monkey bars, but on that I am a bit fuzzy.
This was the hill we kids would go to after a good snow to slide down. Doesn't look so steep now, but back then it was the place to go. Of course, after a snow nothing beat being driven around the block by Dad with all of our sleds tied to the back end.
All that remains of the school now is this tasteful decorative wall across the driveway at the ball diamond. The inscription, Consolidated School, Established 1928 is from the front of the school high atop the front center windows in the picture below.
Our old neighbor in town, Roy Rader, my Uncle Ed's dad, used to ask us kids about school and he always referred to it as the "hill". Here you can see it actually is. The highest spot around, and about a quarter mile from town, you can see my Dad's old grain elevator in the center.
This was where Ivan Ewing waited for the time bombs to go off on Buster Board's house we rigged with cherry bombs and cigarettes. It was where we climbed atop an old utility building out back and looked at barn swallow nests in the chimney. This was where we played softball, and Marj would honk the car horn when one of her son's did something good. In the creek below we would wade into the shallow waters and catch tiny pale crawdads.
When it was the only world you had, it was world enough.
The tiny feet grow into big ones and take us on our life's journeys.
Very well done Mike!
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