While visiting my dad this weekend, I passed by Robert Frost, the junior high school I attended in Hazel Crest, IL, which covered the 7th and 8th grades. It was my second experience with school integration. My first was at Woodland School in Hazel Crest in the 5th and 6th grades. On the north side of 167th Street is where Robert Frost was located, which was the Black People’s side of the street. To cross over to the south side was to enter a different world — the white world — and as a black kid, I’d better be ready for a fight!
Seeing Robert Frost brought waves of pleasant memories, faces of friends, and experiences grounded in puberty, identity, and becoming. It brought memories of music in Mr. Himmel’s class. He was a DJ who taught junior high on the side — or was it the other way around? I memorized “I, Too,” a Langston Hughes poem, in an English class held in a trailer on the side of the school. We’d run out of space in the building. Welcome to education as a baby boomer!
Robert Frost Jr. High School. Photo by Craig Howard
As I drove by Robert Frost on Saturday, however, I was surprised to see that it was being torn down. The partially demolished structure was split open like a pomegranate, showing its colorful walls, stairways, and halls. The demolition of this school is not the first among the schools I attended. I spent grades 1 through 4 at Shirley Forbes. It, along with Woodland, is gone.
Growing older is like watching my world become a dissolving memory. I drive through my hometown, remembering factories, schools, and people no longer there. Experiencing the ghosting of life reminds me of the phrase my dad imprinted in me: “Son, you must continuously reinvent yourself.” Dad turns 95 in April, and his philosophy has served him well.
The end of the calendar year lends itself to reflection. Advent calls for pausing and setting direction as we follow the star to the Christ child. Now is the time to plan for 2025. For some, it means tearing down, but we tear down to build up. I pray that God helps us be realistic about who we are, what we need, and what God is calling us to do and be.
Christmas blessings to all!
Rev. Dr. Craig M. Howard
