| Cruisin' the Past |
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| Cruisin’ the Past by Ed Dooley |
A Tour of Disneyland
In previous articles, I’ve talked about us -- who we were, what we looked like, and how we
spoke. It’s time now to pause and look around the immediate environment in which we
spent those high school years, Catalina High School itself. It’s time to take a quick tour of
“Disneyland.”
From my present vantage point, nearly 50 years and 2,000 miles away from CHS, most of
the details of that environment appear fuzzy in my memory, but the main elements remain
clear enough. Those of you who still live in sunny Tucson and can visit the school will no
doubt detect in my descriptions the distortions of memory, nostalgia, and a certain
tendency to romanticize those days. But because today’s CHS is not the school we knew
fifty years ago, perhaps memory is the best guide for this virtual tour.
Begun in 1953 and designed to accommodate 1,500 students, CHS opened for classes in
1957 with an enrollment of 2,000. By the time it was completed in 1959, the year before
we graduated, it had cost $2,496,619, an enormous sum for the time. Critics dubbed the
school “Disneyland” from the moment that plans for the buildings were made public by the
architectural firm of Scholar, Sakellar & Fuller, of Tucson. It was built, according to
architectural historians, in the “post-World War II modern architectural vocabulary,” which
is to say that it had vast expanses of glass, gracefully curving walls and roof lines,
uncluttered brick facades, multi-level stories that seemed to float over open passageways,
and landscaped courtyards. There were exposed, curved steel girders and enough
aluminum in the handrails to build a small fleet of aircraft. It was, in a word, “futuristic.”
There had never been another high school campus like in it Tucson – nor, perhaps,
anywhere in the United States – and the Tucson Unified School District would never build
another on its model.
To the left of the entrance, on the outer wall of the boys’ gym, were three large angular
lights (from which one day a worker fell to his death) and three tall desert fan palm trees
that had been trucked in and planted as mature trees. Another indication that CHS was a
very special place was the student parking lot, directly in front of the school, which
contained hundreds of automobiles, many of them late models or expensive sports cars,
and even a carefully restored 1929 green Model A Ford roadster. A visitor in 1960,
accustomed to traditional school buildings, might well say to himself, like Dorothy, “I’ve a
feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore…”
Entering the main building, one passed from the dry heat of the desert into a cool
mountaintop climate produced by gigantic air-conditioning units. Once inside, a person
unfamiliar with the school’s layout needed a map to get around. Hallways went off in
several directions, to several levels, and extended great distances. How students were
able to scurry between classrooms separated by such distances in the short time allotted
is still a mystery to me. But one of the reasons was that there were few staircases to slow
our progress. Many of the routes passed up and down ramps that remind one of modern
airports and shopping malls. The hallways were wide and often brightly lighted by walls of
glass or skylights, through which the brilliant Arizona sun shone. Bulletin boards here and
there announced upcoming concerts, plays, athletic events, and student government
news. Between classes, which were announced not by ear-splitting bells or buzzers but
the melodious sound of chimes, students moved quickly to their next destination.
It was good that the hallways were wide, as they provided one of the principal social
gathering locations in the school. Changing classes afforded excellent opportunities for
friends to meet and, even more importantly, to make dates for the football or basketball
games on Fridays or to drive-in movies, parties, or picnics on weekends. More often than
not, walking the halls included a quick stop by a hall locker, often decorated inside with
photos and other souvenirs, to pick up textbooks and supplies. These little pieces of
private or personal “real estate” were also meeting places where friends traded news and
gossip (was there a difference?). To some, it was not the break between classes that
interrupted the important activities of the day – class time – but the classes themselves
that interrupted the important social activities that took place in the hallways.
At all other times, students were not supposed to be in the hallways without special
passes. And even then, they were supposed to be challenged by students acting as hall
monitors. This tactic did not always work, much to the chagrin of the administration, as
monitors often used this time to socialize.
Although hallways were important, the main social gathering place was the cafeteria.
There, under arching steel girders and rows of large globe lights, flanked by a wall of
glass panels looking out on a courtyard and another wall of cafeteria serving stations,
were long rows of tables so closely positioned that they scarcely left any room for chairs.
Thus squeezed in and crowded together, we ate square pizza, mystery meat, vegetables
boiled almost beyond recognition, chocolate cake squares topped with white icing, and
other delicacies prepared by the cafeteria workers. As a drink, there was the obligatory
pint of milk. But the din created by hundreds of students trading news, joking around,
flirting, complaining, and just generally “carrying on” made the situation seem more like a
boisterous convention than a noontime meal.
Ultimately, all paths – all hallways -- led to classrooms and the main business of the
school: an education that prepared students for college or work and a successful and
fulfilling life. There you would find those extraordinary men and women who tried to mold
our lives: our teachers. They will be the subject of the February article in this series.
(PS. As always, I welcome your feedback on these little articles, and especially your own
memories and recollections. Send me an email.)
In previous articles, I’ve talked about us -- who we were, what we looked like, and how we
spoke. It’s time now to pause and look around the immediate environment in which we
spent those high school years, Catalina High School itself. It’s time to take a quick tour of
“Disneyland.”
From my present vantage point, nearly 50 years and 2,000 miles away from CHS, most of
the details of that environment appear fuzzy in my memory, but the main elements remain
clear enough. Those of you who still live in sunny Tucson and can visit the school will no
doubt detect in my descriptions the distortions of memory, nostalgia, and a certain
tendency to romanticize those days. But because today’s CHS is not the school we knew
fifty years ago, perhaps memory is the best guide for this virtual tour.
Begun in 1953 and designed to accommodate 1,500 students, CHS opened for classes in
1957 with an enrollment of 2,000. By the time it was completed in 1959, the year before
we graduated, it had cost $2,496,619, an enormous sum for the time. Critics dubbed the
school “Disneyland” from the moment that plans for the buildings were made public by the
architectural firm of Scholar, Sakellar & Fuller, of Tucson. It was built, according to
architectural historians, in the “post-World War II modern architectural vocabulary,” which
is to say that it had vast expanses of glass, gracefully curving walls and roof lines,
uncluttered brick facades, multi-level stories that seemed to float over open passageways,
and landscaped courtyards. There were exposed, curved steel girders and enough
aluminum in the handrails to build a small fleet of aircraft. It was, in a word, “futuristic.”
There had never been another high school campus like in it Tucson – nor, perhaps,
anywhere in the United States – and the Tucson Unified School District would never build
another on its model.
To the left of the entrance, on the outer wall of the boys’ gym, were three large angular
lights (from which one day a worker fell to his death) and three tall desert fan palm trees
that had been trucked in and planted as mature trees. Another indication that CHS was a
very special place was the student parking lot, directly in front of the school, which
contained hundreds of automobiles, many of them late models or expensive sports cars,
and even a carefully restored 1929 green Model A Ford roadster. A visitor in 1960,
accustomed to traditional school buildings, might well say to himself, like Dorothy, “I’ve a
feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore…”
Entering the main building, one passed from the dry heat of the desert into a cool
mountaintop climate produced by gigantic air-conditioning units. Once inside, a person
unfamiliar with the school’s layout needed a map to get around. Hallways went off in
several directions, to several levels, and extended great distances. How students were
able to scurry between classrooms separated by such distances in the short time allotted
is still a mystery to me. But one of the reasons was that there were few staircases to slow
our progress. Many of the routes passed up and down ramps that remind one of modern
airports and shopping malls. The hallways were wide and often brightly lighted by walls of
glass or skylights, through which the brilliant Arizona sun shone. Bulletin boards here and
there announced upcoming concerts, plays, athletic events, and student government
news. Between classes, which were announced not by ear-splitting bells or buzzers but
the melodious sound of chimes, students moved quickly to their next destination.
It was good that the hallways were wide, as they provided one of the principal social
gathering locations in the school. Changing classes afforded excellent opportunities for
friends to meet and, even more importantly, to make dates for the football or basketball
games on Fridays or to drive-in movies, parties, or picnics on weekends. More often than
not, walking the halls included a quick stop by a hall locker, often decorated inside with
photos and other souvenirs, to pick up textbooks and supplies. These little pieces of
private or personal “real estate” were also meeting places where friends traded news and
gossip (was there a difference?). To some, it was not the break between classes that
interrupted the important activities of the day – class time – but the classes themselves
that interrupted the important social activities that took place in the hallways.
At all other times, students were not supposed to be in the hallways without special
passes. And even then, they were supposed to be challenged by students acting as hall
monitors. This tactic did not always work, much to the chagrin of the administration, as
monitors often used this time to socialize.
Although hallways were important, the main social gathering place was the cafeteria.
There, under arching steel girders and rows of large globe lights, flanked by a wall of
glass panels looking out on a courtyard and another wall of cafeteria serving stations,
were long rows of tables so closely positioned that they scarcely left any room for chairs.
Thus squeezed in and crowded together, we ate square pizza, mystery meat, vegetables
boiled almost beyond recognition, chocolate cake squares topped with white icing, and
other delicacies prepared by the cafeteria workers. As a drink, there was the obligatory
pint of milk. But the din created by hundreds of students trading news, joking around,
flirting, complaining, and just generally “carrying on” made the situation seem more like a
boisterous convention than a noontime meal.
Ultimately, all paths – all hallways -- led to classrooms and the main business of the
school: an education that prepared students for college or work and a successful and
fulfilling life. There you would find those extraordinary men and women who tried to mold
our lives: our teachers. They will be the subject of the February article in this series.
(PS. As always, I welcome your feedback on these little articles, and especially your own
memories and recollections. Send me an email.)
To see that Catalina High School
was a very special place, one had
only to look at the main entrance,
with its wall of glass shaded by an
immense veranda supported by
three round columns. Hanging
from this ceiling was a group of
eight multi-sized lights in the form
of globes, a decorative detail in an
otherwise completely plain and
clean façade.
was a very special place, one had
only to look at the main entrance,
with its wall of glass shaded by an
immense veranda supported by
three round columns. Hanging
from this ceiling was a group of
eight multi-sized lights in the form
of globes, a decorative detail in an
otherwise completely plain and
clean façade.
The cavernous cafeteria was also the place
where proms and dances – like the
Freshman “Bongo Bounce” -- student
government meetings, and contests (Rodeo
Queen, Dear of the Year, and others) were
held. It was, in fact, the center of our little
world.
Surrounding the core of the school were
modern, fully-equipped, spare-no-expense
facilities that included an auditorium large
enough to seat most of the student body, a
“green room” for actors in plays, a library,
metal-working and wood-working shops, an
automobile repair shop, an office for the
weekly newspaper, The Trojan Trumpeteer,
a boys’ gym for basketball, a girls’ gym, a
football field with concrete bleachers and a
cinder track, tennis courts, a baseball
diamond, and a large open field, all
encircled by a mandatory (in Tucson) chain-
link fence.
where proms and dances – like the
Freshman “Bongo Bounce” -- student
government meetings, and contests (Rodeo
Queen, Dear of the Year, and others) were
held. It was, in fact, the center of our little
world.
Surrounding the core of the school were
modern, fully-equipped, spare-no-expense
facilities that included an auditorium large
enough to seat most of the student body, a
“green room” for actors in plays, a library,
metal-working and wood-working shops, an
automobile repair shop, an office for the
weekly newspaper, The Trojan Trumpeteer,
a boys’ gym for basketball, a girls’ gym, a
football field with concrete bleachers and a
cinder track, tennis courts, a baseball
diamond, and a large open field, all
encircled by a mandatory (in Tucson) chain-
link fence.
