Such widely scattered and seemingly unrelated incidents as that crack in the north wall at Ella Darling Elementary School, and the passing of Dave Cohn in Copenhagen, have combined to the “Nostalgia Editor” into reverse gear tonight.
So we are recalling a similar crack in the wall at Archer High and the immediate evacuation that followed the discovery of same. This, of course, was in the days when David Cohn was about five months out of high this school, cum laude, and Old was midway of the tenth grade.
The building itself wasn't that old, being of vintage 1885 thereabouts, and its location has been often noted here, the short block bounded by Percy, Hinds, Johnson and Shelby Streets. Nor had the laws of symmetry been served in its fashioning, although there were after-thoughts a-plenty, such as classrooms added here or there, sometimes brick and sometimes board, plus an edifice, several paces removed from the school house proper, which housed the plumbing.
So Archer was emptied and condemned, in say the twenty-seventh year of its age, which was the late autumn of 1912 and, to this very day. Prof. Herman Solomon, principal of Bass Junior High School, insists that it was Old Stuff who first found the break in the wall.
Be that as it may, Central (Now Darling) opened its doors to us orphans from Archer High, and the additional payload, with its concomitant strains and stresses, has been increasing ever since. And now, some forty-eight years later, there's small wonder that crack has appeared in Ella Darling's wall.
Less than two years after the doubling-up at Darling, Greenville voted approval of a bond- issue to build a new high school at the northeast corner of Main and Starling. The building was finished in time for the graduating class of 1916 to spend a portion of its last semester in same. And this building still stands, being used today as an annex for the overflow from Carrie Stern and Junior High.
One of the extra-curricular activities in our day at the old Archer High School, along with the newly founded Boy Scout movement, was the Woodcraft Society. Both these "babies," but naturally, had been parked upon the lap of our principal Mr. Ben L. Hatch. And one day Mr. Hatch was called in to settle an argument between this writer and Everett Darnell as to who made the best handsaw on the market. E.C. Atkins or Henry Diston? Everett (whose people ran a dairy on Main extended and lived where the Burns family lives now) stood up for Diston, while Old Stuff insisted he'd never even heard of such a saw, and that as far he was concerned, there wasn't but one saw made and that was an Atkins.
Like all arbitrators, Mr. Hatch tried to save a little face for both of us. He admitted, for Everett’s benefit, that the Diston was a mighty good saw, but indicated his preference for Old Stuff's choice by pointing out that the Woodcraft Society's three hand saws carried the Atkins trademark.
Where and what are we leading up to, in all this processional and recessional, circa 1912 and even earlier?
Well, there's another bond issue in the offing and Greenville and the Third Supervisor's district will vote on same next Tuesday, September 20th, 1960. And the bonds are to be sold to provide funds with which to build a factory for the Atkins Saw Division of Borg-Warner Corporation.
We are told that five hundred jobs are at stake in this special election, and are reminded that the incoming industry will retire the bonds, both principal and interest, in the monthly rentals which will pay the third district for the use of the building.
At stake also is Old Stuff’s reputation for picking a winner, when he first championed the Atkins saw, nearly fifty years ago.
BC.
