Alma mater, our dear old Glendale High

Since I graduated back in 2001, I've made it a point to drop by Glendale High whenever I'm in town. To satisfy my conscience, I tried checking in at the office the very first time to get a bona fide visitor's pass, but an overprotective volunteer mom shot me down. Undeterred, I resorted to just walking into school. Winters when I was in college were easy, since all my teachers remembered me (and would thus vouch for me), and I could wear one of my sister's extra ID badges with the first name erased. Mrs. Calvert was especially helpful, and Mrs. Maslowsky, Sensei, Mr. Fotsch, Mr. Collins, Mrs. Adams, and Mr. Sly couldn't have cared less that I didn't have a visitor's pass.

In the years since, those teachers have retired or otherwise left the school, and my sister has graduated, making it a lot more difficult for me to fly under the radar at Glendale. The last couple of times I've tried to visit, I've had to bite the bullet and check in at the office. While the office workers aren't nearly as vicious as that volunteer mom was, they still consistently (and, in my opinion, with an unnecessary degree of sternness) tell me that unexpected visitors are only allowed on campus after dismissal.

On Wednesday, sometime in midmorning, I dropped by Glendale. I knew school wasn't going to be back in session for another week, so nobody much cared that I just walked into the building. They've done some pretty impressive remodeling since I graduated in 01. Central air conditioning was finished a few years ago, and this time they were in the middle of gutting the area around the Circle Drive. There used to be a continuous hallway running from the auditorium and gyms all the way to the second-floor wing of classrooms. Due to the construction, almost that entire hallway was sealed off, which made a hassle out of getting from one side of school to the other.

The room that Coach Keltner abused us in* for Driver's Ed in 98, and Sly used for Calc in 00-01, has been converted into the guidance office. The room next door, where Brian, Nick, and I dinked around in Fotsch's Programming 1 class in the winter of 2000, is another office-type room. The room at the end of that hall--in whose adjoining office Chris, Brandon, Shobutsu, Taylor, and I did a little reading and a lot less Japanese work--is being used as the interim office.

Like I said, with no students for whose sake to be on alert, nobody really noticed I was there. I took full advantage, walking every bit of the school, including a couple of small hallways I never walked when I was a student. With no teachers in their rooms, I decided to try the library, where Mrs. Maslowsky is headquartered now. Mrs. Maslowsky taught me how to use MS Office--which I use for several hours every day now--before taking over Glendale's A+ Program, which is Missouri's well-intentioned if inferior attempt at a HOPE scholarship. A very sweet and talkative secretary, Mrs. Johnson, told me that Mrs. Maslowsky was in a meeting that would last until lunch. She thought I looked familiar, and we decided that she must have known my sister. She checked on a few other teachers for me, to see if any were around, but nobody was. I left a note for Mrs. Maslowsky, thanked the secretary, and strolled out. On the way, I passed by the meeting, and noticed that Mrs. Calvert, another teacher of mine, was in on it. They looked terribly busy, so I didn't linger, and decided I'd swing back by next week when classes resumed.

*No, seriously. Apart from the tedious but necessary explanation of the Missouri driver's handbook, he made us watch an hours-long history of the American auto industry. Afterwards, he tested us on it. On the test, we had to correctly match the brands--Pontiac, Cadillac, Lincoln, Mercury, etc.--with the manufacturer.