I just came across the story of Roosevelt Elementary School being cleared for demolition. Apparently there’s been an ongoing legal fight for the past few years between the West Bloomfield School District and residents over tearing down the school. The Court of Appeals just OKed demolition.

I don’t have anything to add to that debate. But I did attend Roosevelt for two years and the news triggered a wave of memories.

Let’s stroll down memory lane…

I attended Roosevelt in fourth and fifth grade. That would have been 1988-1990.

Physical building: I remember the building feeling old when I attended it, though it was roughly the same age as the building I started school in, Scotch Elementary School. Think brick facade and cinder block construction faced with tiles along the interior walls.

• I remember echoing staircases at each end of the rectangular building where we would tromp up and down to go from our classrooms on third floor to the gym/cafeteria on the first floor.
• The playground extended from two sides of the school with lots of fields where we played kickball, soccer, and football. There was a decent asphalt area for wet days where we played wall dodge ball, foursquare, and basketball. One corner had a caged in asphalt area where kickball tournaments were held.

History: The school opened in 1920 with kindergarten through 10th grade and eventually hosted K-12. By 1955, Roosevelt became an elementary school with K-6. With the introduction of 6-8 middle school in 1971, Roosevelt became the K-5 elementary school that I knew it as. (Thanks to the Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society!)

Magnet program: Roosevelt hosted the district’s magnet program, a gifted and talented setup for kids in third through fifth grades.

• We had a main classroom teacher, but would move around among the other three magnet teachers for math and social studies.
• I remember plastic totes we could slide into rails under each table so we could carry our supplies to each classroom. They were an orangish-yellow color, heavily scrawled in pen and ink.
• While the magnet program pulled kids from all over the district, it seemed specifically designed not to integrate with the rest of Roosevelt. Recess was the lone time we could interact, but I remember it being highly segregated—seemingly by student choice. My impression as a kid was that Roosevelt was the poorer side of the district, and busing richer kids to Roosevelt only highlighted the class differences. Most of the Roosevelt kids seemed rougher and tougher, pretty much the opposite of me at that age. Being new and lost as a fourth grader, I was the last person to consider crossing that unspoken divide. I clung to the familiar and accepted. I’m curious if any of those impressions were accurate or if I was just a clueless kid.
• I do remember stand out moments of learning, including a mass election (I missed the day we picked groups, so I ended up with an annoying kid and we tried to sabotage his primary campaign, only for him to advance to the general election), a model town (it seemed to focus on the environment, so as a representative of the power company, I tried to cut to the chase build a solar power plant, only for the town council to start debating my plan as if they had any say in it), and being really fascinated by social studies lessons about exploring the new world (I wonder if the video game Pirates! was fueling my interest). I remember not being in the highest math class, where the smart kids seemed to skip grades each month.
• Fourth grade is when I wrote my opus, Fredd and I the Spies, which became one of the last sprawling epics I wrote in elementary school.

Sliding into awkwardness: I remember this time as a slow descent into awkwardness. Third and fourth grade were likely the high points of whatever social standing I had in school (which isn’t saying much), at least until later high school when I had a better sense of who I was. I wasn’t exactly cool, but I was comfortable in my skin and easily made friends. But just a few weeks before school started I was moved into the magnet program, which meant the horror of a new school. I went in knowing nothing—my mom had to drive me to school on the first day because we didn’t even know my bus route. I was horribly nervous, but it ended up being fine as I was reunited with friends from second grade.

• Acceptance was forged on the playground as boys played sports. And this is where my slide began. I could barely dribble, let alone shoot a basketball. I didn’t know the rules of football, never mind actually catching a pass. Soccer was at least more manageable. I tried. I spent a lot of time not trying very hard to get open for a pass in football or basketball. I remember feeling moments of triumph when I could actually catch a flyball in kickball. But more often it was getting hit in the face with a rubber dodge ball. My glasses went flying (yeah, I started wearing glasses about the same time). My nose started bleeding. I went to the bathroom to get cleaned up and a head start teacher chewed me out for cutting the line of preschoolers, even though blood was pouring down my face.
• For fifth grade, I ended up in the split fourth/fifth grade class, separated from most of my friends. It wasn’t cool to be friends with younger kids, so the fourth graders were out. Likewise with girls (though that was starting to change, which felt, um, weird?). That left just three other guys in the class. They already seemed like good friends, and I was quickly the odd kid out. You could just feel the slide toward middle school awkward.
• In fourth grade, one of those girls you weren’t supposed to be friends with started called me Nevinin and constantly picking on me. I hated it. But also kind of liked it? Middle school was just waiting around the corner.

In the end, I don’t remember that much about the building itself. Roosevelt was just a container, a crucible for that descent into adolescence.

(The photo is me in front of Roosevelt in 2006, the last time I was in the area. I did a bit of a nostalgia tour, taking photos of myself in front of the house I grew up in, various schools I attended, and more. Even 20 years ago I was being nostalgic. Now it seems perfect.)