Messages in a Cyber-Bottle between a Couple of Old Marooned
Pirates
June, 2002
by E
W,
Do you wonder why a high school in the blue-collar quadrant of Spokane
has such fine, durable physical infrastructure? I'm talking about the actual
building, right down to the bricks. Each orange brick is a quality
thing of beauty. Have you looked at ordinary bricks? They would break
if you dropped one. Those orange-glazed Rogers beauties appear to be
fired extra-hard. The bricks do not simply form the outside walls.
Look at a picture of the building. There is gingerbread craftsmanship.
Even the smokestack is topped with a decorative brick treatment.
Do you remember the bits of Rocco or art deco trim in and near the
auditorium? Even the "elevator doors" to the balcony were
art deco bass relief. That kind of detail costs money. It does nothing
for the education of students - or does it? It must have had a
positive effect on me, or I wouldn't be discussing it. The ticket
booth is a classy addition. Was it ever used for anything practical
but a small display window? Speaking of the auditorium, doesn't it
seem smaller now? This may be because I'm now twice as large.
The stairways were covered with some kind of dark-brown terra cotta. I
remember that each step had a valley in it from years of traffic. I
was not impressed when I visited in 1989 to find that the stairs had
been stripped down to bare concrete. This single component of Rogers'
physical plant didn't stand the test of time.
The green tiled walls are a durable hallway treatment. They made an
impression on me. Bob Parry and I used to lean back against them with
a foot on the wall, knowing that they were impervious.
Sixteen years after Rogers I found myself in a dissection room at the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. It was 2 a.m., close to
Halloween, in a dissention room! I remember the right half of a human
head in a jar, body parts in refrigerators, and three cadavers resting
in metal cases. I was on a blind date - another entire story. The
walls were familiar green tiles. Thirty four years later I waited near
the ticket booth for the tour of Rogers during the 2000 reunion. The
Mayo horror scene came rushing back. Green tiles. Do you suppose they
hose down the hallways of Rogers after-hours?
My mother attended Rogers. Her brother graduated from Rogers, but
attended Hillyard High. He was part of the last class of Hillyard
High. They used the newly completed auditorium at Rogers for their
graduation ceremony. My mother and I shared Rogers staff: Mr. Beecher,
Miss Budwin (Mrs. Frisbee), and Mr. Purdy. Rogers is durable.
My mother and uncle grew up near the corner of Perry at E 1318 Rich.
When I was small, there was nothing between their house and Rogers but
prairie. I would stare out my grandparents' window at Rogers when I
was five. There was actually a cow with a bell nearby. Indians had
reportedly pitched teepees next door. Yet here was this modern, regal,
orange, three-story building a few hundred yards away.
The old and the new. Rural giving way to urban. I asked my mother,
"What is that place?" She told me that it was Rogers, a
school. I asked her if I would go there the next year. She said not
yet, because it was a high school where big kids attended. Big? High?
I pictured huge kids sitting on high stools.
I eventually did attend Rogers, as you noticed. The building is still
there in 2002. What a testimony to its quality and adaptability! I
admit that I was lost at times during the 2000 tour because of its
adaptability. I've seen other buildings get constructed and then
eventually go under the wrecking ball. Our Spokane Coliseum graduation
venue comes to mind.
-E
E,
When you think of it and describe ol' JRR so well as you did, it's a
monument to the durability of generations. One generation, almost
lovingly, crafted (and that's the word) a monument to the education of
countless future generations of Hillyard. It wasn't
slap-dash-keep-the-costs-down construction; no, it was built to last.
I have not seen any other school that still looks so good. It's old,
but it doesn't look old. That's what I always feel when I see it...it
still looks so clean, so sturdy, so grand.
Look at the sister schools in Spokane that preceded Rogers: Lewis and
Clark. Now that's shabby and almost gaudy. North Central. Gone. Not
worth saving, apparently. Look at Shadle, the new school down the
street. It has that 1950's look. Rogers has a look that still fits,
seventy years later.
In Hillsboro, the "old Hilhi" is now a middle school. It was
built in 1929. It, too, was built out in the country as you described
Rogers once was. While it has some of the same elegance, it just looks
dark, old, tired, and just a building. Not an inviting place to learn.
Rogers was built pre-New Deal, so it wasn't a WPA or PWA project.
There was one government depression program under the Hoover
administration. I doubt they would have used the meager funds to build
a school in Hillyard/Spokane Washington, though. It must have been
built with local monies. It's really a testament to the spirit and
generosity of the people of Spokane to have built a school like that.
It must have been good planning, knowing Spokane would grow out in
that area. But then, perhaps the Great Northern chipped in, since they
were headquartered with their yards in Hillyard, from which Hillyard
was actually named, after James J. Hill, Mr. GN himself. Just
historical speculation on my part, but I betcha I'm on the Monitor
Beacon!
You questioned if such non-functional additions served any educational
purpose. A rhetorical question, yes. It's probably where we all got
our first appreciation of architecture as art. Education by silent
example. Inspiration by beauty. A sound and proper place to learn.
Those green tiles in the hallway downstairs, though. Frankly, I always
thought of them as inappropriate in that place. They seemed like
something that would better be a lavatory, or "the lab" as
we called it. Didn't like the mint green. However, they left an
impression on me. I can see them clearly, with you and Bob Parry
holding court every morning watching others parade by in the daily
check-it--out. It was worth getting to school early. No day at Rogers
was ready to go without a few laps around the first floor.
Good time for adolescent high jinks. Barry Robinson always
successfully would come up behind someone, tap on the right shoulder
and zip around the tapee on the left, who looked back to see who was
there. No one, of course. Another coup by "Sophomore" Barry
Robinson. Slapping a note on someone's back saying such things as
"I need a date," or some other nonsense but with a little
more thought than "kick me." Just a higher level of
juvenility. Fun, though. As it was a fun place to go to school.
