When a Hot Lunch was 40¢ and Men Walked on the Moon

Click to enlarge: This is an floor plan of Vernondale Elementary School on Watkins Road in Millcreek, PA.

On the right is a floor plan of Vernondale Elementary School in Millcreek, PA as it appears today. (Click to enlarge).

The red box outlines the school prior to 1971. My earliest memories are of the school inside that red box, perhaps through 2nd grade.

The blue lines are windows. I draw them here because I spent a lot of time looking out of them, especially as weather warmed with spring and we opened classroom windows and could hear lawn mowers and birds and other outside noises.

Here is a list of the rooms and teachers that I remember...

K - Kindergarten
P - Principal, Mr Luscheon.

Mr Luscheon's secretary was Mrs Nickel. Mrs Nickel was the mom of my closest friend all the way through 6th grade, Rich Nickel.

1 - 1st Grade, Miss Minucci (sp? pronounced min-OO'-chee)

I spent time in both rooms labeled #1. I like to joke that I flunked 1st grade. Actually, I was what you'd call a "young 5" today, but there were no provisions for kids my age then, and so I ended up going back to kindergarten for another year, which was fine by me. (There's a story there for another time. I still dream about being in those classrooms; strangely, in each dream, without fail, I'm a teenager in a 1st grade classroom.)

2 - 2nd Grade, Miss Leopold
3 - 3rd Grade, Miss Anderson
4 - 4th Grade, Mrs Budzynski (homeroom, math)
4b - 4th Grade, Mrs Southpaw[1] (reading and geography)
5 - 5th Grade, Mr Veith (homeroom, math)
6 - 6th Grade, Mr Locke (homeroom, science)
6b - Mrs Fuhrman (née Roslanowick), (English)
a - Before 1971, the cafeteria, after 1971, the library

There were two books I remember quite well in that library that I read cover to cover many times: Small animal life in a field, and the daily routine of a police officer. Rich Nickel and I wanted to get a couple acres someday and raise small animals like that. And we wanted to be policemen. I've lost track of Rich completely.

b - Courtyard; this was locked and unused the entire time I was at Vernondale.

This may be because a number of classroom windows looked out into it and activities would have been distracting.

c - The front of the lunch line where you picked up your food and milk.

The line sometimes extended down the corridor next to the courtyard, (b). A hot lunch was 40¢. Milk was 5¢ for a half pint. Chocolate or whole. Luke warm.

d - Cafeteria during lunch, otherwise the gymnasium.

There is still, as far as I know, a spot of mustard high on the brick interior, placed by yours truly when someone challenged me to smash a mustard packet with my fist. I did, and the end of the packet facing the wall exploded. I vaguely recall the lunch monitor (who was also the recess monitor) scowling.

This is the room in which I watched one of the Apollo moon landings. I reviewed the dates, days of the week, and times of day that each took place, and I don't think I actually watched any lunar landings; I think what I remember seeing was a telecast from the moon surface, which could have been broadcast any time during the mission.[2]

e - Music room

I learned to "play" the recorder in 4th grade in that room.

I was especially fond of Miss Anderson and Mr Locke.

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Click to enlarge: Theseus fighting the Minotaur, by Jean-Etienne Ramey, marble, 1826, Tuileries Gardens, Paris

[1]
Her name was not Mrs Southpaw, but she had a delightful soft Southern drawl and a name that had an "s" and "th" in it (if I recall correctly) and "Southpaw" became an affectionate name for her. She was the gentlest, kindest teacher I ever had, though to this day I can't picture her very well, even though I can picture the others; I learned in her class that the alphabet had 26 letters in it. (She insisted I count them until I got it right.) She also taught us art and Greek mythology. It was in her room I first encountered the Minotaur.

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Click to enlarge: Crew of Apollo 16, L-R: Thomas K Mattingly, John W Young, Charles M Duke

[2]
As I recall, that day we were enjoying what we called "spring jacket weather" - clear, warm and breezy; I remember running all the way home from the bus stop to tell Mom I'd seen men walking on the moon.

The weather that weekend actually was unseasonably warm; temps started out around 70°F on April 21, 1972 in Erie (source >).

If my memory of the weather is correct, the moon mission I watched could only have been Apollo 16, which landed in the Descartes Highlands on April 21, 1972 at 2:23 UTC (source >).

Unfortunately, that's about ~9:30pm Thursday April 20 in Erie, PA, and the lunar module was only on the moon's surface for 3 days, so they would have lifted off Sunday about 9pm. That means I could not have been watching a live landing or live moon walk in the Vernondale gymnasium in April of 1972.

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Click to enlarge: John Young, commander of Apollo 16, salutes the American flag on the lunar surface.

However, there are a few possible explanations that still make Apollo 16 a good candidate:

1) TVs were not as common as they are today and most homes had only one if they had one at all. TV networks (there were only three big ones - ABC, CBS, NBC) may have been broadcasting the moon walk on the next day, a Monday, when children had returned to school.

2) If I'm wrong about the weather, it could have been one of the other Apollo missions during the school year, but none of them landed during school hours either, so I'm faced with some of the same questions.

3) Vernondale may have taped and replayed it. There were no VCRs in those days, but there were reel-to-reel video recorders. They were very large and had to be rolled from class to class on wheeled carts. Vernondale had two. My best friend Rich Nickel was on the "AV Team." Everyone on the AV team had to have very good grades so they could be excused to set up the equipment in other classrooms when needed. Rich was very smart. I applied but was not accepted for the AV team.

I don't think #3 is possible, as I don't recall anyone from the AV team getting it started. Whatever we were watching, we were there on someone else's schedule, not our own.

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