Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 20, 1993 TAG: 9402180010
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARSHALL FISHWICK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
When JHS closed in 1974 it was like a death in the family. For years, the once-bright and teeming halls were dark and decaying. But never underestimate the power of magic. The old school has been given a second life, and is being opened again.
Why not go back, I thought, to walk the halls and peek into the classrooms where so many of my ideas and friendships were formed? As I went up the front steps, looking at the stately brick towers, I thought I'd try a little magic of my own: Let it be the 1940s instead of the 1990s.
It worked. The halls were alive with students in long skirts, saddle shoes and monogram sweaters. Standing sternly at the principal's door was John D. Riddick, a quiet but resolute Southern gentleman who believed in discipline and decorum. En route to my old home room I passed the gym, which was bedecked with a big maroon sign: ``IN OUR FIRST 5 GAMES THE MAGICIANS SCORED 112 POINTS TO OUR OPPONENTS' 6.'' Go Magicians!
Inside, I thought I could her coach "Hunk" Hurt blowing his whistle, and cheerleaders practicing some new yells. Jean Fulton and Sugar Baker yelled the loudest. After all, we were the best.
As I got to my home room, I could hear Clara Black rehearsing the chorus of "Pinafore," our next operetta. Since there were 70 in the chorus, they filled the auditorium. Outside, Sally Hayward, the head of the English department and adviser to our magazine, The Acorn, was admonishing a hesitating student: ``Do it dead wrong, but do it!" When you studied with Miss Hayward, you did it.
The Friday edition of the Jefferson News was out - the first extra edition ever. What was the occasion? We were going to get a nickelodeon in the gym! I put a nickel in my subconscious and the big band music flowed out: "In the Mood" ... "Star Dust" ... "Celery Stalks On the Highway" - and a love song by Frank Sinatra.
The paper's startling story of the day told how a traveling magician had hypnotized two students at the Kiwanis Ladies' Night Banquet. The reporter observed that while they were "in a more or less unconscious state," they later returned to normal and ended up fighting mosquitoes.
Then I headed for the third floor, and Room 303 - a sacred shrine in my memory. There, at her desk, sat my beloved Latin teacher, Miss Sally Lovelace. She was just as I remembered her, looking like a Roman empress on a well-minted coin. Ever since she graduated from Randolph Macon Woman's College she had been teaching Latin, extolling and explaining Caesar, Virgil and Cicero. They must be listed in order, for that is how they marched through Latin II, III and IV. To Miss Sallie this order was as definite as the seasons and (like Caesar himself) as constant as the North Star.
Most students had other seasons in mind (football, basketball, baseball) and avoided Latin. So much the worse for them. They missed a truly great teacher - the most influential one I ever had. She was tough and tender, always encouraging, never letting us avoid the subtleties of the language on which all Western civilization would be built. Those Latin phrases rolled from her tongue like the drums of destiny: honey sweet, then foreboding, then thunder claps as she became Cicero addressing the Roman Senate: The republic must be saved! Cataline must be brought to justice! Rome must remain free!
I always knew Miss Lovelace would finish her life with a Ciceronian flourish, and win special preference from Charon when he ferried her over the River Styx into the Other World. She must be chatting with Caesar or Cicero at this very moment.
The hard part came in class after her reading. When she finished it was our turn to read and (worse yet) to translate. That required careful preparation. Who could find time in one's senior year - full of clubs, parties, politics and trips to the Dairy Fountain or the Coffee Pot? And didn't we have to work hard to "get somewhere'' - which meant reporting for the school paper, carrying water to thirsty football players (the safe way to win a varsity letter) or lining up a date for the junior-senior prom? Who could hope to squeeze in any time for the third declension or passive periphrastics? So we all tried to look small and inconspicuous during recitations, lest the ax (she preferred the Latin ascia) fall on us.
After all these years I remembered when it fell on me. As I stumbled along doing what we called "winging it," she asked why I had not prepared the assignment, one of the most beautiful in all literature? I explained I had been up half the night working on the special issue of the Jefferson News.
"The one about the nickelodeon?"
"Yes ma'am.'' (We still said "ma'am" to our teachers in the 1940s. And we held the doors when our teachers were entering.)
"Well, I'm sure Cicero can't compete against a new nickelodeon. We'll ask Becky Cooke to translate. But some day, Marshall, I hope you'll find time for Cicero. ... " That day has come, Miss Lovelace. I'm hard at work on a book called "Cicero and the Popular Imagination."
But right then I heard loud voices outside, and went into the hall. Four of our leading power-politicians were having a heated discussion - Bev Fitzpatrick, Jack Coulter, Sig Davidson and Sidney Weinstein. How should we dress for the upcoming "Gone With the Wind" ball to be held in The Hotel Roanoke? Where else? Those wonderful Old South murals and spacious hallways were the only place in a 20th-century railroad town where you could feel part of our 19th century.
"Gone with the Wind!" We had all attended the gala opening at the American Theater on Jefferson Street. The girls could wear long skirts like Scarlett O'Hara, and we could dress up like Rhett Butler. Now, if only Dad would let me borrow his gold watch chain. ...
Suddenly I was back in 1993 with a happy thought - the magic had extended to the once-closed Hotel Roanoke as well. It, too, will reopen, more splendid than ever, the jewel in Roanoke's crown. So I left JHS and headed downtown to take a look at the hotel.
I was proud of being a Roanoker and a Magician. I remembered the motto of our school magazine, The Acorn: From Acorn to Oak, Watch Roanoke."
It's a good motto and a good city. And this is a good time to wish us one and all a very merry Christmas.
\ Marshall Fishwick is professor of humanities and communication studies at Virginia Tech.
by CNB