At my age, I’m having to accept the fact that “old school” can be applied to just about everything about me.
One such case in point: I own a lava lamp.1
Most of my furniture was built before 1965 and has been reupholstered.2 My adulthood has been one long treasure hunt, collecting tables, chairs and lamps from my midcentury childhood. I bought it all for a song years ago, before the “Mad Men” television show made midcentury furniture hip again — and subsequently expensive.
One of life’s strangest phenomenona is to walk into an antiques store and see your childhood toys on display with tags that say “vintage.”3
It happens to all of us if we live long enough. If you’re in your 40s and you haven’t been to an antiques store in a while, give yourself a heart-aching treat, and ask to see the toys.
As an “old schooler,” my home is now sufficiently stocked with furniture that evokes warm childhood memories, reflections of my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles. My estate sale is gonna rock.
I brew my coffee “old school.”4 As an artist, I paint and draw with pencils and brushes. I read actual books and magazines. And I record my music “old school.”5
I am fairly proficient at computers, but I swear I am just one more forced password change away from typing in ALL CAPS and screaming, “SO, THIS IS WHAT WE’VE COME TO?!” into the walls. (Obscenities omitted. You’re welcome.)6
I like a lot of life’s modern conveniences, but I’m beginning to grow bewildered at unnecessary complexity in the things we use. The dashboard of my car has 327 functions. I only use three. My television remote has 36 buttons, 32 of which are a complete mystery to me. My kitchen is filled with electronic gadgetry that is nice when it all works but is a major aggravation when it doesn’t.7
I’m so “old school,” my first days of school started after Labor Day weekend in September. My summers lasted three long months, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The summers were so long, that by July 4, we were all complaining about how bored we were. This was before video games, so of course we were bored. All we had were bicycles. There is only so much you can do with a bicycle.
That first day of school was filled with excitement and anticipation. Who had new haircuts? Who had a growth spurt over the summer? Who had a cast on their arm that we could all sign? The newly polished hallway floors, as yet untracked by our Keds and Buster Browns, still carried the scent of industrial-strength Mr. Clean. And the new clothes smell, when carried by hundreds of kids at once — before recess when we all took on that playground funk of sweat and preteen optimism — is a force to be reckoned with. Our mothers had spent late summer afternoons at Kmart,8 taking advantage of the back-to-school sales. I was prone to accompany her on those shopping errands to prevent the recurrence of The Lunchbox Debacle of ’71.9
Aside from my cousin’s hand-me-downs, my grade school wardrobe consisted entirely of off-brands. My jeans were labeled with close-but-no-cigar names like “Rangled” or “Lee-Vy’s,” and my ill-fitting tennis shoes had the name “Comvurse” sloppily embroidered on the outside ankles. My G.I. Joe was actually “G.I. Moe.” His hair was molded plastic like the rest of him, not that amazing swatch of G.I. Joe fiber that felt like a cat’s tongue. These brands — a mere fraction of the cost of the real deals — undoubtedly passed my mother’s muster, but my preteen peer group saw through it all like plastic wrap. I was covered in counterfeit clothing made of denim, polyester and shame.
I totally recognize my youthful misappropriations now, of course. Obsessive devotion for name-brand clothing is shallow and ultimately meaningless. But I was a kid, and peer pressure was real. I was raised in trailer parks. Dad was a truck driver. Mom sold Avon. I never went hungry, and I always had what I needed, but we didn’t have the money for name-brand toys or clothing, so we had to get creative.
When I got to high school, I wanted to wear the popular Izod sweaters — you know, with the little alligator on the breast — but I didn’t have that kind of money. I could, however, afford a $14 pair of Izod socks, and two Kmart sweaters for $10. I persuaded my mom to remove the alligators from the socks and sew them onto the cheap sweaters. Mom loved me, and she was excited to be my accomplice in this clandestine, teenage scam. I’m not proud of this, and I’ve never shared this with anyone, but I wore those impostor sweaters that whole year, even though they were quickly unraveling in places and had shrunk in the wash so much, they could have fit my kid sister. (My first realization that you really do get what you pay for.) But an alligator is an alligator, and I was dating a pretty girl from the suburbs with a discernible taste for preppy guys.10
Well, that was then, and this is now, as they say. When I was a kid, I looked at guys my age now and thought they were ancient. Now, I look at guys my age and see contemporaries. On good days when the back and knees don’t hurt, we all still think we’re 19. I look into the eyes of my friends and remember the teenager. It’s not difficult to see the child in there, even still.
To our beloved young readers, welcome back to school, and remember that time keeps marching. It’s another year with growth, accomplishments and disappointments. You’ll crash through school year after school year until one day you’ll realize you’re an adult. Someone will call you “sir” or “ma’am” in the checkout line, and you’ll be speechless, stunned. Every “old schooler” remembers the first time that happened. Adulthood seems to creep up on us by accident.
And one day, not long after that, mark my words, you’ll be called “old school” by a younger generation.
And when that happens, I hope you’ll feel the way I do. I look back with wide-eyed wonder at all the miles I’ve accrued, the love I’ve known, even the pain I’ve felt. And I marvel at how far I’ve made it while staying (relatively) sane and in one piece.
When someone calls me “old school,” I smile and say thank you.
A Few Actual Old Schools
Fairview Elementary School, Maryville
Fairview Elementary School is nestled against the misty foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Maryville. It has changed a lot over its 100-plus-year history. Originally named Mt. Emory School, it was nicknamed Shake Rag because the teacher would stand at the door and shake a rag to signal the beginning of each school day. Now a state-of-the-art, modern building, it started as a two-story framed schoolhouse with a modest gymnasium on the second floor. Children would carry coal from their homes to be used in the stoves to heat the four classrooms on the first floor. Fairview received its name because of the beautiful view of the Great Smoky Mountains from the school’s playground.
Oak Hill School, Jonesborough
Oak Hill School was built in 1886 to serve the community of Knob Creek, near Jonesborough in the northeast tip of Tennessee. The building served local residents as a school and as a center for community events until it was closed in the 1950s. Except for a few bales of hay, remnants of the “old school” history, Oak Hill School sat unoccupied until the development and expansion of nearby Johnson City. Property owners, in partnership with the Jonesborough/Washington County History Museum, saved the structure from demolition and relocated it to Jonesborough. In its current location, Oak Hill School has been lovingly restored to the way it appeared in the 1890s. Builders used paint analysis to find the original wall color and collected oral histories from living alumni to ensure that those who enter the doors today can see what students in Knob Creek would have seen over a century ago. Today, Oak Hill School invites students and adult chaperones to come for day-long field trips and enroll in the class of 1892–93. Reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography — even the Pledge of Allegiance — are all taught just as they were prior to the turn of the last century. The program lasts about five hours and is available from March to November. To schedule a field trip to Oak Hill School, call the Heritage Alliance at 423-753-9580 Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. or email [email protected].
Lee-Buckner School and the Rosenwald schools
In the early 20th century, Southern public schools were segregated, and many African American children attended makeshift schools in churches and barns, without sufficient books and supplies and, in many instances, even without teachers.
Booker T. Washington (founder and president of Tuskegee Institute) and Julius Rosenwald (philanthropist and president of Sears, Roebuck & Co.), formed a partnership in 1913 to bridge the educational divide by building “Rosenwald schools” to help support educational equality for African American children in the southern United States.
Rosenwald schools modeled progressive theory and practice, provided sanctuary and secured educational opportunities for those who would have otherwise been overlooked.
Between 1912 and 1932, thousands of Rosenwald schools sprung up across the South, educating an estimated 663,625 students, including poet Maya Angelou, civil rights activist Medgar Evers and U.S. Rep. John Lewis.
Today, only about 10% of the 5,357 schools, shops and teacher homes remain. Lee-Buckner is the last remaining Rosenwald school in Williamson County. It was one of Tennessee’s 375 Rosenwald schools when the doors opened in 1927.
The Heritage Foundation of Williamson County purchased the schoolhouse in 2018, preventing its demolition by developers who had bought the property where it originally stood. It was relocated to Franklin Grove Estates and Gardens, and plans are for the building to be restored “old school,” using materials and techniques of the day as well as installing an exhibit detailing the school’s history. It will be completed by early 2026.
Footnotes to answer life’s hardest questions
1 Actually, I have never not owned a lava lamp. It was one of the first things I bought with my own money when I was 14. I currently own five, so I can be reminded that I am old in every room of my house.
2 I love most midcentury furniture — except for the sofas. Midcentury sofas were designed not like the spongy, almost-beds we have in our living rooms today. They were once thin, bony rest stops for “drop-in guests,” a strange and curious bygone breed — now, thankfully, extinct — who would appear at our front doors, uninvited and unannounced. It was customary to make them coffee, serve them cookies and chat for an indeterminable length of time on any given afternoon. Midcentury homes were equipped with front rooms, called sitting rooms, for the express purpose of entertaining drop-in guests, insurance salesmen and, if you lived in my house, the occasional police officer who “just needed to ask a few questions.”
3 A fancy word for “old and used,” like me.
4 I actually have a new coffee maker, and it’s the most complicated of all my kitchen appliances. The microwave and dishwasher require but one button to operate. My coffee maker requires a litany of choreographed ritual akin to an orthodox wedding ceremony. It needs a new filter. Every time. It needs fresh water, poured into a specific reservoir. The coffee needs to be ground in a separate machine before I put it into the filter. And a cluster of illuminated buttons at its base resemble the decorated chest of a war hero. Apparently I can program a pot of coffee to brew on Tuesday, May 18, 2032. The irony is I have to deal with all of this before I’ve had coffee!
5 I record my songs “old school,” meaning I use analog (real) instruments and I eschew Auto-Tune, the software that makes everything “pitch perfect” until everybody sounds like computerized chipmunks. It sounds cool for a few minutes, and software can do amazing things, but I like my music to sound like it was made by humans. I prefer hearing “evidence of the hand,” a little mistake here and there, the squeak of a string, the light thumping sound a piano makes when fingers have attacked appropriately. Some might call that “old school,” but I’ve always just called it music.
6 I scream at my computer every three days whether it needs it or not. I often scream in a voice I don’t recognize. My neighbors, whose homes are a good 20 yards away on either side, frequently text me to ask, “Did anyone else hear Yoko Ono just now?”
7 Show of hands, how many of you are happy with your refrigerator’s ice dispenser? I don’t know anyone who is if their fridge is more than six months old. I keep 1970s-style ice trays as backup for those nights I might need more than two and a half glasses of ice, which in my house, is every afternoon by 5:30. I’ve gotten so used to the dry, grinding drone of the ice maker that I’ve made up a song to go with it. I use a melody from “Fiddler on the Roof” and sing it almost like a prayer: “Ice maker, ice maker, make me some ice …” But mostly it just grinds, grunts, pops out one little cube and sighs satisfyingly as if it just passed a kidney stone.
8 Kmart was a pre-Walmart chain of department stores that flourished when I was a kid in the 1970s. As of May 2024, there are only 12 Kmarts left in the United States. Considered a pioneer in modern suburban-style shopping, Kmart was the first department store to have a bakery and an optometrist’s office. It even had a dentist on site. My dental check-ups and fillings were conducted at Kmart Dental, located inside our local Kmart store. I remember one day heading home from Kmart, my mouth swollen and numb from the dental ordeal. Mom and Aunt Sandy lit their Kool menthols and gushed about the Blue Light Special deals on toaster ovens and half-price hunting socks they put on layaway for Christmas gifts. I can still taste the Novocain, dental paste and cigarette smoke. I have two cousins who were proposed to at Kmart, one in the jewelry department (divorced after three years) and the other in the parking lot under some trees (still married). If you removed Kmart from my formative years, all that would be left is a worn tire swing, chicken pox and sad, unrequited love.
9 Mom had returned from Kmart with a scratch-and-dent, nonreturnable lunch box bearing the over-coiffured likenesses of the Carpenters. I had started to exhibit some interest in pop music and might have mentioned a fondness for their song “Close to You” while listening to AM radio in the family car. And it’s a great song, probably a perfect song by most songwriting standards, but I would never have asked for a Carpenter’s lunchbox. Karen and Richard Carpenter were very hip in 1971 if you were an adult homemaker with two kids. But if you were a 9-year-old boy carrying a Carpenters lunch box through your elementary school, you were just begging to be bullied. The lunchbox did, however, lead to a conversation with my favorite teacher, Ms. Stevens, upon whom I had a major crush. I beamed as she commended me for my good taste. Then she told me “We’ve Only Just Begun” was played at her wedding. I smiled, fighting back a sharp pang of jealousy toward Mr. Stevens. I tried to hide the sadness I felt in knowing I would never taste the exquisite joy of a life with this beautiful, intelligent English teacher, and I resented the lunchbox even more. I “lost” the Carpenters lunchbox one day in a garbage can in the school cafeteria. From that day forth, I carried my lunch in a wrinkled brown paper bag, the color and texture of my sad, 9-year-old heart.
10 For “preppy,” see Kevin Bacon in “Guiding Light,” 1980, or Rob Lowe in “About Last Night,” 1986. Or don’t. Seriously, it’s not worth the trouble. Forget I even mentioned it.
