An old, outdated photo of those little metal lockers in the upstairs of the Depression Era Warren High School, really set the only tumblers of my mind racing recently.
A Pastime of memories, of numbers on a small combination dial and the hijinks of yesteryear.
Ron Mosley, I am pretty sure, posted the photograph on Facebook.
It, as I have said, began a cascade of memories from the deep recesses of my brain – between 1969-1971.
The upper story of the old high school also elicited fond memories of favorite teachers, hideaways, the library and yes both the Science/Chemistry/Physics lab and the fondness of a real learning center – the homeroom of Mrs. Mary Culp.
Wow!
Back to those old metal lockers.
They were eerie painted with whatever color of surplus paint the late Superintendent James M. Hughes found at the Army/Navy Surplus Depot in North Little Rock.
The many different metal fittings, door frames, desks, and other excess furniture not in use by the federal government was there on sale to schools, county governments, hospitals and the like.
The long time Bradley County Hospital Manager – Joe Carmichael – was also a frequent shopper at this federal overstock supply house. If one looked underneath many of the metal and wooden desks used by the teachers at WCHs the old standard, U.S. Military Use Only, was often stenciled in large, flat black letters.
And so were many of the sections of these lockers at WHS.
They were mostly painted a drab olive green and later touched up into a dark gray and some were even in later years given a flat black coat of paint to hide the scratches, rust and frequent use of words written in magic markers (all permanent of course) back then on the lockers.
Most of these lockers did have a small bass plate with a corresponding number to the sets of 16- or 32- which were stacked as a unit.
It was not unusual for the second set of lockers to be totally numbered in a different sequence and not sequentially.
But it all worked out for us at WHS.
You could store most of your text books for the day, a good sized three-ring binder. But if you had a winter coat, even folding up the jacket and try stuffing it in the locker was almost impossible.
Many of the lockers, once students began driving their own cars to school and parking up and down Cherry Street (down the band room) or in other spots – became less of a necessity.
I can still recall two of the three numbers in my locker combination lock – the lock was separate from the locker. The locks and locker assignments were divided up at orientation prior to school actually kicking off.
The first number was 9 …. Then turn to the right one time all around the cut little center point part of the dial to the second number, which for me was 17….
And there I remain stuck even today.
I cannot for the life of me remember the third and final number…
It was somewhere in the mid-20s but the exact combination number to make that little lock snap open, eludes me.
As a real stinker of the day, we knew many classmates who locked their locker headed back to class, but then pre-dialed the first two numbers and all they had to do was quickly turn the dial back to the left to the third and final digit and boom – their locker was open.
If I, or my partner in most innocent nefarious activities of the day, witnessed that being done – we would stroll by twisting the dial in another direction – thus ensuring the locker owner would have to start all over in opening the locker.
The lockers also had a small vent on the front of the doors, a small, tightly folded love note could be inserted therein.
Just make sure you have the right locker before depositing your “I really like you note.”
Some mistakes were made back in the day, often to the good-natured ribbing of the mistaken locker owner who received the “love note.”
The lockers, were not new, also took a lot of teen punishment from all of us boys and girls. A stubborn or misdialed combination lock, often elicited pulling, kicking and beating on the door with the fists.
And once opened, if things were not going well, we would often fling the little metal doors back and WHAM!
They were durable, used less and less as you got farther up in the grades, but the little school lockers were indeed a rite of passage back then at WHS.
I am glad the lockers were not big enough for the upperclassmen like John Burch, Rick Roper and others to cram my skinny little self in back then.
A Pastime with a third number yet to be dialed…. but one of lockers and the upper floor of WHS to remember.
