Old School!

It was May, 1988 and I had just gotten home from my first year in college. I needed the car for something so I dropped my brother off for his last day of school. I was aware that St. Mary's was scheduled for demolition over the summer so I gave it a good, long look before driving away. The city of Phoenix had determined the property was way too valuable to be wasted on a small Catholic high school so they swapped some land and took over the campus.

I noticed someone standing over near the front door not wearing a school uniform. This person had a backwards baseball cap and a sweatshirt. A little hot for a day in late May in Arizona. As I drove past I saw the video camera sitting on the ground next to her.

“Hm.” I thought. “One of the stations must be doing a story on the last day at this campus.” As you can tell, I was pretty astute back then.

Later that night I watched the newscasts as best I could, watching for the story. I was lucky enough to catch it at the end of the newscast on channel 12. It was a nice, quaint look at the last day of school, touching on the tradition and spirit of the school and the people. I watch it, enjoy it and soon forget about it.

I finish college where I develop a passion for video and film. I get a job in TV in the Portland market and then get a job shooting in Salt Lake City.

It is now about a dozen years later. I am attending a professional seminar on TV news photography in Utah. One of the speakers is from the Phoenix market so I chat her up and mention that I’m from Phoenix and went to Saint Mary’s.

“Hey I did a story on the last day of St. Mary’s!”

The gears in my head start their usual slow cranking. The doors to the memory sections of my brain creak their way open. I start to remember watching the story. Then I remember seeing her outside the school that morning.

“…Wait a second. I saw that story. That was a great story.”

“Thanks.”

“I saw you. Outside the school shooting that.”

We kind of give each other incredulous looks for a couple of seconds.

“In fact, I have that story on one of my tapes here,” she explains.

She pulls an old tape out of her bag and we go back to an edit bay and watch the story again. I see people I knew back then, the old stinky gym, the classrooms with the painted cinder block walls. I can smell the campus again. I remember sitting out in the courtyard eating. I see the tree where I found a kitten that became a family pet.

Wow. What an odd set of events that brought me to watch this video again. I pull out one of my tapes and make a dub. Since then, it’s been sitting in a box in my garage. I had to find an old video player that still worked to even view it again. So I made my dubs again and converted it.

Enjoy…