The Community Of The Little Red School House

When I think of the word "community," connotations of school and work don’t quite count. The sense of a community is a collection of intangibles away from mandatory attendance in advisory and Dave’s deli – little memories and fleeting moments in your favorite places. For anyone who lived near Greenmeadow Circle, Little Red School House (now known as ) was nothing more than a field, some sand and one house.

It’s a small space, not bigger than your average backyard and certainly not that nice. It has swings, a slide, a jungle gym and some green tubes you can crawl through. There’s a picnic table, an exposed septic cover, four enormous trees and one red school house.

For the kids surrounding Davisville Elementary School, it was Gillette Stadium. That patchy grass and uneven ground saw legendary games of football, soccer, wiffle ball, rugby (only for two weeks due to far too many injuries) and every other sport we decided to play on a daily basis.

But School Street's Little Red wasn’t just about sports. It was, in many ways, my community. It holds my memories, from fifth grade to senior year of high school, of finding friends and keeping them. It seems that when I talk to my parents or their friends, every child has a place of their own – some piece of territory that embodies their childhood friendships.

I remember my first weeks of living in North Kingstown, sitting in front of my white bay window watching the neighborhood kids play across the street. It was a close-knit group and took weeks to infiltrate. After suffering the tribulations of being the new kid, I started to become one of them, part of their community.

It’s ironic how school friends and neighborhood friends are oftentimes very different. Being years younger than most members of the Greenmeadow clan separated my friends into two different age groups. But, when push came to shove, with no license and parents who were averse to driving me across meant my neighborhood friends came first.

This is community – the day-after-day interaction after school and before dinner that leads to incredibly strong friendships. The movies we made, the mock commercials, the bets, the pranks and even the fights in the shadow of Little Red. It was different than chatting in class or having a sleepover once a month. It was better.

Yet if life has taught me anything about communities, it’s that some of them are destined to fall apart. My Greenmeadow gang is gone. I don’t hear from them collectively or individually and haven’t for five years. For all the memories and laughs and stories, now there is nothing.

It’s naïve to think that growing up has been all smiles and block parties. The fact is, aging means making friends and watching them go. It means creating memories to remember, not relive. It means forming a community, watching it develop and then letting college and careers rip it apart.

Whenever I visit home, I’m sure to drive by Little Red. There’s no kids playing in its field anymore, no tennis balls flying over its fences and hitting passing cars. For now, Greenmeadow is without teenagers terrorizing its landscape. For now, Little Red is just a school house.