Back When School Really was Cool

For the majority of my life, I've lived in Fairfield. I attended kindergarten through 12th grade in Fairfield, and then returned after college when I got married. The town has experienced some major changes through the years (goodbye Fairfield Store and Mercurio's, hello chain stores), but one thing always seems to stay the same: If you want to push people's buttons, talk about the schools.

One of the draws of the town is its excellent school system, but it's also one of the thorns in its side. The current bugaboo is classroom overcrowding, with many of the elementary schools having to get creative about space. A few months ago, a modular classroom was installed at Roger Sherman. Mill Hill School is making use of portable classrooms to deal with over-enrollment. This past year alone, there's been talk of redistricting from Stratfield to McKinley, McKinley to Jennings, Jennings to Burr. It all gets so technical and sterile when you talk about it in terms of numbers and maps, but in reality, the school situation in Fairfield - overcrowding, redistricting, consolidation - can really do a number on a kid. I know, because in the early 1980's, I lived through it.

Once upon a time in Fairfield's history, there was a school called Oldfield, and I went there from kindergarten through fifth grade. Located on Oldfield Road on a tract of land between the town dump and swampy wetlands (what better place for a school?), Oldfield catered to the southwest end of town. Students came from (roughly) a jaggedy part of Southport to South Pine Creek Road, east to Reef Road and north slightly above the Post Road. It was a little school that children actually walked to, toting their lunch boxes and book bags and waiting at intersections for the crossing guards.

For a long time, I thought that I was perhaps the only person who pined for those days when Oldfield was a live, bustling school with happy shouts on the playground, chalk outlines on the pavement for hopscotch and the sweet excitement of bake sale days and assemblies. But, interestingly enough, I was wrong.

Through the magic of Facebook, I got in contact with some former Oldfield students and was quite surprised, really, to find that they held that same sense of bittersweet nostalgia that I did.

"I guess I was probably already gone when they closed [Oldfield], but I know it had a pretty profound effect on me," said George Fraser. "Heck, that's where I spent my childhood. I have a lot of good memories of those days."

Memories like the grandfatherly Chuck, who was part crossing guard, part recess monitor. "He was the greatest," said Fraser. "Every time I saw him, he would grab the hair on the back of my neck. It was all in good fun, though." Fraser isn't the only one who loved Chuck. "One of my best memories was our crossing guard Chuck," said Alan Conley. "What a great guy he was. He loved kids and man, he also loved tweaking our ears too. What a great man Chuck was. He was always there for us whether we needed help crossing the street or running from someone who wanted to beat you up."

Other staff members figure prominently into stories of Oldfield. "I remember certain staff who I adored," said Meredith (Malasics) Santarcangelo. "Chuck, Mrs. Wright, and the lunch lady with the red hair."

That lunch lady was Mrs. French, whom Leah Kardamis, a 1981 graduate, also remembers, along with Mr. Barker, the janitor, and Mrs. Gura, the school's secretary.

Of course, everyone had their favorite teachers. Kyle (Smith) McCarthy said, "I remember singing with Mr. Coviello and his 70's mustache. The warm, loving teachers who were very attentive." Mr. Coviello also got high praise from George Fraser. "One of my favorite teachers," he said.

For me, it was Mrs. Wilson, one of a handful of new teachers hired in 1978. She was beautiful and nice and always had a kind word for all the kids. She made school fun. I still have a thank-you note she mailed to me for the end-of-school present I gave her. What I wouldn't give to find her today.

But it wasn't just the people that made Oldfield memorable. There was a certain "specialness" about the school itself.

"I remember the smells of Oldfield," said Santarcangelo. "Tempera paint, paste, baked fish on Fridays. Burnt swamp, garbage and smooshed caterpillars. There's certain scents when I walk into my son's school that take me back to the Oldfield days."

Ask any former Oldfield student who lived east of the school to recall a memory, and undoubtedly they'll mention "the path." Behind the school, past the baseball diamond and through a chain-link fence is a path that winds through a wooded area and opens up onto Veres Street.

"I remember walking to school along the path, worried some boogeyman would jump out at me," said McCarthy. "That was a time when children were allowed to walk alone."

Janice (Ruddy) Higgins remembers the path well. "The path!" she said. "They would never have gotten away with that today."

"It was such a simple time," said Santarcangelo. "I think our only fears were of the bigger kids in the grades ahead of us beating us up if we took the path home."

As for myself, I didn't even know about the path until fourth grade, when I was allowed to go to a friend's house afterschool. As we walked through the shady path, I felt as if I'd discovered some great secret.

There were so many other things that were unique to our little school: the playground with the giant metal pipe jungle gym and the bright yellow "swinging gates," (which surely would not meet safety standards today), the student-made tile mosaic in the entryway, the year the Gypsy Moth caterpillars invaded and all recesses had to be cancelled because there were just too many of them crawling on the playground, "dentist day," when you'd go to the nurse's office to have your teeth cleaned, and the end-of-the-year talent show.

Things looked bright for Oldfield in 1978 when a new gymnasium and library were added to the school, but the good times weren't meant to last. It was only a year later when it was announced that the school would be closing and we'd all have to attend a different school. To this day, I cannot get a straight answer as to why the town would build two expensive additions to a school they most likely knew they were going to have to shut down.

Imagine that happening today. I think there'd be riots on the Town Hall green.

Most of the kids at Oldfield found their new classrooms at Roger Sherman. But for a very small few, Riverfield was to be their new home. Andrea (Alexander) Peterson lived in the Southport end of town and had to take a bus to Riverfield. "It was actually very traumatic for me," she said. "I'd moved to Fairfield in the middle of fourth grade, had finally made some friends by fifth grade, and then...gone. Seven of us were sent to Riverfield instead of Oldfield...none of my friends. It was a rough time."

Things weren't necessarily easier for those of us who went to Sherman. Most of us had been used to walking to school and now had to take a bus. Many of the teachers from Oldfield (including the beloved Mrs. Wilson), were let go, and the kids from Sherman didn't exactly make us feel welcome. "You always felt like you were visiting and it wasn't 'your' school," said Santarcangelo. "Not to say friendships weren't made, but the majority of my childhood friends, who I am so fortunate to say are still my friends today, were from Oldfield."

I remember it as a tough time. We were assigned "pen pals" from Sherman who were supposed to make our transition easier. I got stuck with a boy who happened to be the class wiseass, while the rest of my friends were paired up with girls who sported designer jeans and were already wearing makeup. The Sherman crowd was a tough bunch.

Yes, we all adjusted and survived our new situations. We moved on to junior high where we had to get used to a whole new environment once again. But lest we get too comfortable in high school, the Board of Ed decided to give us one last hurrah and they closed Roger Ludlowe High School in 1987, forcing us all to go through the consolidation craziness one last time.

It's been almost 30 years since the closing of Oldfield School, and every now and then, someone brings up the idea of re-opening it. Feel like stirring up the pot? Just mention Oldfield as a possibility for a new grammar school and watch the sparks fly.

Should Oldfield be reopened to alleviate the overcrowding at the other schools, or are modular classrooms the answer? Who knows. If I had children in the Fairfield school system, I might feel a bit more passionate about the decisions that need to be made, but the fact is, my Oldfield, the Oldfield of the past can never be re-created. I will always have fond memories of that school, as will so many others. I think Meredith Santarcangelo said it best: "Although life changes after grammar school, it seems no matter how many years go by or who was friends with who throughout the teenage years, if you went to Oldfield you somehow have a magical connection."

She's right. It was a magical place in a magical time and the best we can hope for is that our children will find their own sense of wonder wherever they may go, even if it is a modular classroom.