Last call on the Franklin playground, let your kids know?

[Michael Halle]

If any ex-students or parents from Franklin want to relive any memories of the playground and fields, they should act now!

I just went by, and everything is pretty much still intact and the site is open. However, Josh Morse has said that the construction fence will go up imminently and the playground and fields will no longer be accessible. I don't know the exact timing, but it's very soon.

Lots of memories there, many only appreciated through the eyes of a child and the past.

--Mike

[Josh Morse]

The team is putting up the construction fence tomorrow. 16 months from now we'll be wrapping up the new school building, getting ready to move the staff and students in, and preparing to start demolition of the old school and construction of the new fields.

Josh Morse

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[Michael Halle]

From Josh Morse, who confirms that the construction fence will go up Monday (tomorrow).

"The team is putting up the construction fence tomorrow. 16 months from now we'll be wrapping up the new school building, getting ready to move the staff and students in, and preparing to start demolition of the old school and construction of the new fields.

Josh Morse"

[Julia Anne Malakie]

What a nice idea! Alas, I don't have any specific memories of the playground, and it's probably changed since the early '60s. My memories are indoors: mainly my kindergarten teacher Miss Laganas and how happy I was when she wore her purple dress. I would go home and tell my mother "she wore the purple dress." As a kid I thought she was Hawaiian and her first name was Tallulah; it was actually Toula and she was Greek-American. I ran into her again decades later covering a Christmas party in Lowell when I was getting spellings of names of women in a photo, and found myself suddenly asking "are you my kindergarten teacher" -- and she remembered me, like teachers do!  Saw her several times more over the years at events in Lowell, until she passed away 10 years ago. She seemed to be quite a social butterfly in her long retirement, and active in the Greek community there. The other thing I remember about kindergarten was always trying to get a yellow chair (those little kid chairs), because there weren't many of them compared to other colors, and I liked yellow.

I don't remember much of anything about 1st grade at Franklin, except being happy that my seat was in the back row, right in front of a windowsill with books on it, and I could reach around and grab a book if I'd finished a worksheet or something and didn't want to be bored. I remember wondering if they let me sit there so I could do that. That was my last year at Franklin. Once my sister a year behind me finished kindergarten, we both went to St. Bernard's (which didn't have kindergarten). That's a whole 'nother set of memories, nuns, tag on the asphalt parking lot playground for recess, and Nancy and Boots, sweet neighborhood dogs that used to wander onto the playground in those pre-leash law days. 

Regards,

Julia