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Today, January 2005,
the heavy stone buildings jut up into the air lending a mystery about the
secrets they hold. The people of the small towns around them ask why and
what happened to this place? It was a township registered under the states
legal status as such. How did it become stark and desolate as it now is?
Pigeons fly in and out of the inside spaces of the old stone structures and
this adds to the strange loneliness. There is something in the nature of
people to want to know if there were dark secrets of abuse or mistreatment
to the students. Those who walk about and through the buildings on a rare
occasions are still kept out of what is now almost like sacred ground with
only ghostly records of steps and dreams of so many people.
“There must have been
dark secrets?” Some come right out and ask.
In my mind I go back
over my days there as a student and try to remember something that could
have been considered deficient in some way. In the year 1956 as I went from
the job of at the principal's office to working in the infirmary would be
the closest to anything considered a bit “off the wall.”
I walked up the wide
steps, across the very broad front porch of the old colonial type
architecture of the building housing the clinic and what was called the
hospital for the school. The extra wide entry door was suddenly thrown
open. The person standing inside the door swung it wide before I could turn
the door knob. This left me immediately in front of the older woman who was
head-nurse. When I was a student there were many times we had to go through
the place for this or that inoculation or physical and it was then I became
acquainted with the woman. Her always sharp nursing cap stood stiffly away
from her wisps of grey hair beneath it. A person as snow white in complexion
as the cold climate of her Norwegian landscape everyone would sooner or
later know about greeted me this morning. The thick heavy accent of her
native land came through in almost guteral speech at times and her favorite
expression was, “my little dar links,” as she liked to call the student
patients who came through. She turned away from me to walk toward the office
where I was to work and her age became obvious to me. She had a gait telling
of arthritis in her hips or back. If not for the sturdy, low, nurse's shoes
it might have been a problem. She never married but now somehow or another
one wanted to believe she was an old grandmother with buxom stature and
heavy hips. This was all a studied, brilliant way of covering over what was
probably the most despotic personality one might ever know. She was old,
angry, unmarried, about to retire and just generally at a bad place with the
world.
I had fought my way
through the in's and out's of the school to keep a good record. The time
spent in the junior college was even more of a struggle with no money,
second jobs and working to keep up the same pace I had at Chilocco. Taking
part in school activities wasn't as easy. I was always having to rely on
people for rides to choir practice, working in the concessions stands at the
ball games or any other activity. There was no arrangement or scheduled time
for a student on a working scholarship for eating at the cafeteria simply
because I was never there at the right time. At times the activities and the
studies left me in precarious situations but somehow or another there was
always someone there to help me get through it. If I was bitter toward the
other students who sailed through so easily I don't remember it. I was just
satisfied to have a warm room at Chilocco where I could sleep and study.
Even though there might be several days before I could find a way to eat it
didn't matter. The moment always happened and sooner or later there would
be food.
Here I was again with
the same thing happening. There was no way I could have known about this
head nurse but in my youth it didn't matter. It was a job, I had a place to
stay and I was helping my family since my Dad had been injured at work
resulting in him being literally on his back in bed. There was no such thing
as workman's comp. in those days. A man without work was just that; without
work and without income.
Consequently, my
youth, sense of humor, my family and friends were there for me and the time
spent at the clinic was just one more unpleasant little experience. I
wouldn't have missed it for the world. |
