To be awakened by a telephone call at 4. a.m. is a frightening thing. To be told that the schoolhouse almost in our backyard is burning is a frightening thing. To turn and see through the window an ominous orange sky is equally frightening. To learn that this building, less than a block away, has been burning for two hours and to think that not siren, nor smoke, nor odor, nor noise had awakened us, is even more frightening.
There we stood - a small band of neighbors - helpless to aid the situation, unable to leave the fiery scene. The crisp night air and the piercing excitement chilled us to the bone.
The orange and red and yellow flames would leap high out of the roof and then die back, only to leap up again and again. The black and gray and white smoke huffed and puffed its way through the flames into a sky sprinkled with stars. The charred skeleton of the structure was illuminated by the very flames that brought death to the aged building.
The scarlet red, constantly revolving, warning lights atop the fire trucks flashed eerie lights on all reflective surfaces. With trucks surrounding the building, the lights flashed and flashed and flashed again. The rhythm of the flashing lights beat off the long minutes of the neighborhood vigil. Steady water streams arched from hoses to the rooftop. Glass shattered loudly; pieces of the roof crashed inward with a deadening thud; the fire popped and crackled - and acorns dropped lightly from the trees all around. We strained to try to hear the shouts from fireman to fireman.
We watched and praised the firemen; we watched and mourned the loss of irreplaceable records and collections from lifetimes of teaching. We watched and pondered the relocation of seventh and eighth graders. We watched and asked, “How can you teach without books?” We watched and speculated the cause. And we watched.
One neighbor started and completed his public schooling in that very building - his watch endured three hours. And a younger neighbor, a recent graduate of the “old junior high,” wiped tears from her eyes. She was watching the death of an alma mater - and perhaps, she saw fond memories burning, too.
Early morn brought countless calls from student to student. At first, there was momentary joy at the unexpected holiday. And then, the shock of reality set in. Surely, the friend was teasing; he had to be. But a brisk walk in the misty fog to the campus proved that it wasn’t a joke. It was gone.
This morning throughout the yard, I found, black, crispy remains of textbook pages. The once white pages, black; the black print, silver. A scrap from a Georgia History; a remnant from a Lit book; bits of a science page declaring “the greatest single cause of preventable death in the USA Today is cigarette smoking.”
…And helpless drawn, we stood…watching an eerie, enticing, frightening fire. I wish there hadn’t been one to watch.
Early Monday morning of November 13, 1972, the old Jesup High School, then housing seventh and eighth graders, burned to the ground.
Comments