Posted by: |
Joe D. |
On: |
10/1/2005 |
ID: |
239 |
At OLA on 12/1/58? |
Born before or after 12/1/58? |
Where Lived on 12/1/58? |
No |
Before |
900 block of Hamlin ave. |
Who knows how these things happen. I happened to come across the OLA fire website by accident, while looking for, of all things, firefighting equipment. As I began to go through the site, I was transported back to that December day. I was only 4 years old, but I can still clearly remember that afternoon as though it were yesterday. My family lived on the same block as the school, on the 900 block of N Hamlin. In fact, I can pick out our building from the aerial shot of the school fire. The school was clearly visible from our back porch window. My first inclination that something was horribly wrong was when I heard my mother and grandmother yelling about something. Seizing this as an opportunity to not have to take a nap I ran to the back porch to see what all the fuss was. At 4, I was too short to see out the window, but I can remember pulling myself up over the window sill to see the horrifying sight that had yet to be fully played out. I saw the flames, the smoke, the sound of the fire trucks going through the alley to get to the back of the school. I remember one of my uncles along with any other able-bodied males who happened to be home, running down the alley carrying ladders in an effort to help with the rescue efforts.I can remember being mesmerized by the sight of the flames and the smoke, the fire trucks, the smokey smell that seemingly permeated the neighborhood for the next few weeks. But at 4 years old, I could not even begin to understand the enormity of the event that was unfolding before me. Later that evening, I can remember most of my family congregating downstairs at my grandmother’s house, trying to take in the events that had just transpired, and trying to understand how it could be possible that something so horrific could happen to so many innocent people. I attended the new OLA from 1961, graduating in 1968. I can still remember the television news camera crews that seemed to show up every December to shoot footage for the evening news when they commemorated the anniversary of that day’s tragic events. Many of the kids I went to school with were the younger brothers and sisters of those who were in the fire. I honestly can’t remember any one of those kids talking about the fire, or the fact that they had lost a loved one. Back then, I think everyone internalized everything, and when something bad happened, you put it behind you and tried to live your life as best as you can.As for me, I graduated OLA, went to high school, college, married and had a family, and life took hold of me as it does to most of us. It wasn’t until I read “To Sleep with the Angels” that all the dots connected, so to speak. The one thing that stood out in my mind the most was a particular story in the book about a family who lost a child. I don’t want to get too specific, but there was a friend of mine who lost an older family member in the fire. While we didn’t actually become friends until about 6-7 years after the fire, I couldn’t help but noticing that his parents always seemed to be on edge. I can remember his dad always seemed mad about one thing or another. As an 11 year old, I just chalked it up to his personality.Many years later, as I read the book, and went through all the different heart wrenching scenarios the writer had pieced together to tell the story, one particular story hit me square between the eyes. I immediately recognized the name and I read the horrible circumstances under which they lost their child, which up until that point, I had never known. Today, as a parent looking back on that day, I’m not sure I could have got through what they and all the other families had to go through on that terrible December day, let alone the days and years that followed. I still can’t go past the section in the cemetery where all the fire victims are buried without stopping and gazing at all the grave sites. I look at all the decorations, and part of me is comforted by the fact that someone still thinks of all of them. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder how each of them would have grown up and how different the world would have been for them and their families if December 1, 1958 would have been just another day.
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