Charles Carroll Closing

 I took the images late in the fall while walking around Charles Carroll Elementary School. I wanted memories before they close the school.

I start this by saying I attended Charles Carroll, as did my seven brothers and sisters. The teachers knew who you were on the first day of school as they had in my case my sisters before me. To be honest, I wasn’t the student Margaret, Barbara and Mary were.

After many years working in the media, I know decisions are made on facts not emotion. I had the pleasure last week of sitting in traffic backed up on MD.  97 to John Owings Road and could see in the rear view mirror that vehicles were stopped at least to Stone Road. I don’t see how elementary age students will sit for such a long period from the Mason-Dixon line to school and be ready to learn. I hear from folks that MD 30 is just as bad if the students would go to Ebb Valley. At school you will be able to tell the students from the Union Mills/Silver Run area by their sleeping bag from sitting in traffic. The traffic in the afternoon is just as bad, only the drivers are more aggressive.

The school had a tradition of May Day events. I remember I believe in the third grade as dressing up at little Tommy Tucker. My grandmother took me to Dorothy Elderdice for the costume. It was the first and only time I wore tights and they were purple. The top grade in the school got to dance around the May Pole. I missed out on that as I had the measles.

Also in the third grade, Mrs. Arter had us plant a tree on Arbor Day. Something she did every year. I saw a line of trees while I was walking around taking pictures in the back of the building, which would have been around the area where we planted the trees.

Speaking of Mrs. Arter, the teachers seemed to have been there forever like Mrs. Lawyer, Mrs Brown and Mrs. Haines. The Welty children all had Mrs. Haines, who was the best friend of our grandmother while growing up in Gamber. I have an image of them together as children.

 The school brought us together and is the voting place for the Myers District. Usually communities are brought together by a fire department, but these two have the school, as they are covered by the Pleasant Valley Fire Department.