THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509080240
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
There's a picture of Melanie Old that a Clipper photographer took as she entered the first grade at Hickory Elementary School in 1984. On her face is a lamb-to-the-slaughter expression. In her hand is a Gremlin-decorated lunch box.
In this September of 1995, Melanie is entering her senior year at Great Bridge High School. She, of course, looks a lot older than she did in that 1984 picture. The Gremlin lunch box, which she still has, does not.
Melanie's mom, Sandy, ran across that old Clipper story about Melanie the other day. I wrote it, so she asked if I would like to do an update on Melanie's school career. Yes, ma'am, I would, and I am happy to report that Melanie has had a very successful 11 years.
As she enters her senior term, she is co-captain of the Great Bridge band drum line. She is doing well with a variety of subjects that include brain-busters like calculus and physics.
And she is pondering the range of possible career choices that a bright and capable kid might choose from. Her band director, Robert Carroll Jr., calls her ``an outstanding student in all academic areas, one who has a great love for music, coupled with unlimited potential and talent.''
Melanie remembers being kind of scared that first day in 1984, more of having her picture taken for the paper than anything else. But waiting for her in her classroom was Mrs. Gladys Friedlin, obviously a woman with a true gift for teaching. ``She helped me get through that first day, and she ended up being one of my favorite teachers,'' Melanie says.
Like daughter, like mother, to put a twist on an old phrase. Mrs. Friedlin, still teaching, was Sandy Old's third-grade teacher in 1956. ``When you left her class, you had learned what you were supposed to learn,'' Sandy says. ``She was a no-nonsense teacher, but she had a lot of love, and you knew that she cared for you.
``I remember that her husband had built a kind of loft for the classroom, and the kids would climb up there to read. Naturally, everybody wanted to climb up, so everybody wanted to read.''
Melanie, a slender, pretty youngster of 17, plays the ``quint'' in the drum line. That's a set of five drums of varying sizes mounted on a frame. She started playing drums in the sixth grade even though they were originally her third choice behind trumpet and trombone. Her then-band director convinced that she was best suited for the rhythm section, and she's glad he did.
Now that her high school career is closing out, she's thinking about college, maybe a place called Belmont in Nashville. It specializes in music, and she's thinking about becoming an audio engineer in a recording studio. Or maybe she'll go to George Mason here in Virginia. They have a good Russian program, and she's considering a course of international studies. After all, if she became a diplomat, she would certainly be able to drum up support among America's allies.
(Sorry, Melanie and Sandy and all of y'all. Making puns is an incurable disease I have suffered from since childhood.)
Looking back on the 11 years since she took a nervous dive into Chesapeake's educational system, Melanie says she has enjoyed school. The crowding at Great Bridge High has been a tad bothersome, she says, but she likes the chances she's had to meet and mingle with a lot of different people. And then she smiles and says she's not sure she's ready to get out in the world at large. ``In high school,'' she says, ``life is sort of planned for you.''
Well, I wish her and I wish all you kids starting the school year a happy trip to next June. Especially my grandchildren, Garrett Daly at Great Bridge High and Lisa Daly at Great Bridge Middle School North. It all takes me back to my school days and, no, they weren't still writing with goose quills on parchment.
I must confess that what I remember most about Hewlett Elementary School in Hewlett, N.Y., was being punished in kindergarten for throwing blocks back in the box instead of dropping them gently. That and Dorothy Benz, the blonde goddess of the sixth grade. I mooned over her so much that I never really got the hang of long division. I loved her desperately, at least until I met Ann Lowy, the brunette goddess of the seventh grade.
Kids and schools have changed a lot since my time at the iron-and-wood desks with the hinged tops, but the magnificence of dedicated teachers hasn't. All across the city, there are teachers ready for another school year to offer love and learning and loving discipline. They are pure gold. by CNB