My high school was legendary for its crowded hallways.
In eighth grade, when my friends went on their high school visits, they would return to school the next day talking about the cafeteria food, the uniforms and the classes of course, but a visit to Good Counsel invariably resulted in the same comment about congestion in the hallways.
When I went to Good Counsel for the first time, I too returned with tales of a school bursting at the seams. But I decided to venture into the rush.
Walking through those hallways required skill. You had to deftly maneuver through crowds of people going to class and retrieving books from their lockers. Propelling myself through hundreds of high school students in matching uniforms is not something I miss, but it is a fond memory I have of my high school days.
When I visited Good Counsel over winter break, I moved through the hallways effortlessly. The surging masses were nonexistent, because the hallways were much wider. The reason for the breathing room - Good Counsel relocated to a different town and a larger facility over break.
So I went to GC to walk through a school I graduated from but had never attended. Everything was bigger and better. The cafeteria was nicer, the labs were larger and the technology in the classrooms was impressive. I had a half-sized locker during my high school years, but all the lockers at this school were full-sized.
The place looked pristine as I walked around it. There were no scuff marks on the floor, no crumbs on the carpet.
For the money it costs to attend a Catholic high school, this was a much improved facility over the old Good Counsel. But when my former teachers asked me if I wished the new school had been finished a few years earlier, I could honestly say no.
The school was nice, but it had no character. No one had made any memories there yet. They had picnic tables in the courtyard, but they were missing the messages and notes written on them from years ago.
During junior year, my daily drive to school ended in a brief moment of panic as I tried to maneuver my car in the poorly designed junior parking lot. Now every student who drives can get a parking pass that assigns them his or her own numbered parking space. That should cut down on the number of car accidents that occurred each day at the old Good Counsel, but I would rather take the memory of pushing my driving skills to the limit every day to make it in and out of that parking lot with no scratches over the day I pulled into my very own parking spot.
In a few years though, the new Good Counsel will mold its own character. Future students will probably not have to walk through the crowded hallways of my day, but classes will be taught, students will graduate and memories will be made.
And my memories will stay with that small school long after it has been torn down.
