It's all relative.
Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 01:40 AM

Here's something that's a little strange and probably says something about aging that I wouldn't want to admit to if I knew what it was. 

What do you call the new high school?  “The new high school”?  I’ve been calling it that since it was built.  I suppose I use that description mainly to distinguish it from our high school building, but the new high school does still look brand spanking new.  It’s been a few years since I was in it, but I think both the architecture and lack of wear and tear could pass for something that was just completed yesterday. 

When we were in high school, I thought our building had been there since the beginning of time.  It just had that big-shouldered look of solidarity and permanence.  The architecture had depression era written all over it, a time so far in the past that even our parents were young.  It even had an old building smell.  It was built in 1938.  That would have sounded like a date from the dark ages when we were in high school, and it still does. 
 
So our high school was 20 years old when we were freshmen and 24 when we graduated.  The “new” high school was built in ’62 or ’63, so it’s 47 or 48 years old, more than twice as old as our ancient alma mater was when we were there.  
 
Most of our parents were in high school before ours was built. Did they call our building “the new high school”? It was a lot newer when we were in high school than the “new” high school is now, but I don’t remember hearing anybody calling it that.