Edward Costar

If you’ve lived in Fall River long enough, and attended some of our older elementary schools, sooner or later you get to see them turned into condominiums. Thus it was with wistful nostalgia that I learned of the plans to rehabilitate the Leontine Lincoln School, into “high end” apartments.

This was not the first time for me. My beloved Pine Street School was transformed in a similar fashion many years ago. The Lincoln proposal hopes to emulate the manner in which the Pine Street building was preserved. The Pine still resembles the school I attended from kindergarten through fourth grade. When I pass through my old neighborhood, it is comforting to see it looking very much like it did when it was the last wooden school house in the city to close its doors.

Still, seeing these schools brings back memories of a time when life was simple, teachers were creative, strict and loved, and school was the center of childhood.

My family lived next door to the Pine Street School. Age affects memory but I recall my teachers: Ms.’s Lovett, Kennedy, Pelton and Cote. I was a good student but could still not escape the occasional “rattan.” For the ill-informed, a rattan was a pointy stick used to inflict punishment for misbehavior or failure to complete one's work.

My third grade class was the last to learn penmanship using pens that drew up ink from wells on our desks. (A messy problem for a boy with allergies who frequently touched his itchy nose or eyes.) In fourth grade we were happy to receive a more modern learning implement, a ball point pen. Nonetheless I earned the only D of my educational career in Handwriting, having never mastered the Palmer method using those problematic ink wells.

Today school attendance is an obsession that uses many programs to ensure that children come to school. There was similar sentiment in the 1950s, although one program didn’t work so well for me. The Pine Street School rewarded perfect attendance in a given term by conferring upon the conscientious attendee an afternoon off from school. Thus it happened that one sunny May afternoon I was dismissed. No school! Oh Joy! At least it felt joyful until I looked up at the 3rd grade classroom and saw that my class was having an unannounced party. One boy, sitting at an open window on the second floor (imagine that happening today), was eating a Dixie cup. He taunted me, “Hey, you picked the wrong day to miss school.” That forever ended perfect attendance.

After the Pine, we walked to the Lincoln School for grades 5 and 6. Miss Miller was my sweet, sharp, progressive teacher. She put up a large chart on the wall which listed the names of every student. If you performed well on a task she would place a sticky gold star next to your name. At the end of each month the student with the most stars would ceremoniously march up to the front of the class to select a reward that the teacher had placed on a table. These rewards were old books of hers that she thought might spark a love of reading. I won a few times, and this method worked for me, although those with less interest in reading usually received fewer starts. (I’ve sometimes wondered if Miss Miller knew that she was using what today might be called behavior modification.)

Most of my Lincoln memories involved recess in the huge concrete play area behind the school. Back then recess was usually divided into the “boys” side and the “girls” side. One special day the yard was cleared out for the infamous “match race."

It started when my friends from the Ruggles Park area bet the boys from the Harbor Terrace neighborhood that our fastest runner (me) could beat their guy in a race from one end of the yard, down to the fence, and back. (Perhaps a distance of 60 yards). And so it was that the entire school population cheered us on as I lost by a step to the Harbor Terrace 5th grader. Afterwards we shook hands because that’s what good sports did. The victor, my opponent, was Ernie Fleming. As any local basketball fan knows, he went on to lead Durfee High School to the 1966 State Championship, and later played college and pro basketball.

We now have larger, modern, and more sophisticated elementary schools. Yet when I pass these new condos on different ends of Pine Street, I’ll always remember those neighborhood schools, where teachers were treasured, friendships forged, and our characters developed. A simple time. Not perfect. But something that stays with you forever.

Edward Costar is a educator and a frequent contributor to The Herald News’ opinion pages.