Most of us know by now that the Macarthur we attended has been leveled and replaced by a new state of the art two-story building arranged around a quadrangle.  The only parts of “our” school that remain are the cafeteria and auditorium above it.  It is a bit freaky to drive down Bitters Road and see it for the first time.  See my entry in these user forums about our tour of the new campus in October 2011!

Many of us should remember the huge remodeling of “our” school that took place in the summer and fall of 1968, in the beginning of our sophomore year.  MacArthur was built in the 1950s and a few various wings were added on through the years, but she was a pretty tired and run down old lady when we arrived in 1967.  There was not even air conditioning.  No school was air conditioned before that time.  But we had those huge windows that could be cranked out and good ventilation, plus pedestal fans.  But  I don’t recall ever being uncomfortable.  Those windows were not even screened.  Anything could fly in and around the classroom, and In fact, a sparrow did fly in the window one day of Mr. Kuykendall’s class.  A nasty group of boys immediately set on it to kill it.  I was on them in a heartbeat, snarling my way through the mass so I could rescue the little creature and free it.  We were also lucky we did not get ARMADAS of mosquitoes, but San Antonio was a little too dry for that.

Before the remodel, the offices and clinic were located up by the Boys’ gym (where we did have those fabulous pep rallies where the football dudes came marching in like triumphant gladiators AND often went on so long that they got us out of first period …), and the library was a dark, dreary afterthought in the very back parking lot in the north corner of the property.  No one went to the library and no one wanted too.  Miss Ryan, our freshman English teacher, took us once by necessity and all I can remember is hideous steel shelving that looked like it might cave in on us any minute.  We never returned.  That must have been one boring job for the librarians.  Maybe they slept through the day.  They certainly could have gotten away with it.

Construction began that summer after our freshman year and continued until the following December, I believe.  Today, it would be unheard of to send students back into a school with active construction, but come we did.  The long wing with the Boys’ gym at the end of it was still partially draped in plastic.  Drywall plaster dust floated in the air and hard hat construction crews were still milling all over.  I think they were still using heavy machinery too.  The classes at the other end of the wing were still useable, though, and they sent us on in.  It was really something to sit there and listen to the pounding of the machinery, plus those jets in the descent path of the San Antonio Airport just above our heads.    Heck, why should that stop anyone?

I felt very sorry for Coach Martin and the other displaced science teachers who had to be set up in little pods in the auditorium.  They did without classrooms from September to December.  There were about five or six pods arranged around the auditorium.  They rolled in a blackboard for them, and a periodic table of the elements and that is how we learned chemistry:  sitting on top of each other in those hard old auditorium seats trying to balance our books and papers on our knees or that ridiculously teeny little fold up and down desk thing.  These were open classrooms at their worst.  But the teachers and the students bravely carried on and even managed to learn.  It was almost as bad as one year at Garner when a group of us were pulled out of our Language Arts classes and told to report daily to the teachers’ lounge off the cafeteria.  We were piled in that tiny space, smelling of cigarette smoke, for six weeks learning all the names of the states, and their capital cities.  It felt like six weeks learning in a broom closet.

While we picked our way around campus, trying not to fall into holes or wet cement, the new school began to take shape.  That’s when we got the beautiful new plaza in front of the auditorium (the home of all pep rallies the rest of our stay), the new main office and the new carpeted library where we actually WANTED to go and enjoy the ambiance.

But the crowning glory was that brand, spanking new two-story science building!  I will never forget entering it for the first time that December when it was finally finished.  No more pods!!!  We walked in like a bunch of bumpkin tourists, craning our necks so we could look all over the place.  We could hardly believe it.  Was this REALLY for US?  We located Coach Martin’s new chemistry classroom, which was far more than a classroom.  It was spacious.  There was room for everyone!  And there was a fabulous lab in the back (where we were soon to be lighting up bunsen burners and creating noxious gases in glass bottles that we stuck lit matches into).  Coach Martin would walk around in his white lab coat trying to appear nonchalant but I am sure he was as excited about it as we were.

I am sure there were more improvements to the old girl through the years after we left (like carpet, that breeder of head lice, allergies, and asthma …), but that construction was a major one and we were the ones who got to go through it.

As an aside, one of the young teachers at my present school is a Mac alum, and she lived through the razing of “our” school and construction of the present campus.  Tara was in one of the last classes to walk that old campus.  She has promised to bring me her annual from those years so I can see what went on again with them.   It must have been even worse.