Arrowview Junior High School, 1952-55
In the normal course of events (I don’t recall any elementary-school graduation festivities), I enrolled as a 7th-grader at Arrowview Junior High School in the autumn of 1952. It’s now Arrowview Middle School, still doing business at 2299 North G Street, in San Bernardino. They seem to have torn down the old-style 3-story main building in favor of this windowless brick fortress. Not clear (I haven’t been moved to enter and investigate) what they did with the other structures that had accreted around the old main hall.

G street was quite a bit farther from home than Bradley, but they gave me a book of bus tickets, so that I just had to walk the half-mile (six blocks) north on Waterman to the corner of Highland Avenue (the equivalent of 22nd Street in the “Mormon”-style grid system).
We kids used to refer to the Waterman/Highland intersection as Gloomy Corners. With Saint Bernardine’s Hospital on one corner (SE), the cemetery (NE), a gravestone factory1 (NW), and even a florist across Waterman (SW), one could (and we did) imagine a complete one-stop final disaster.
1We’d wait for the bus among the display stones in front of the monument works. They (the stones) were set up to lean slightly back against low concrete curbs. The triangular spaces thus defined seemed irresistible to black widow spiders, one of the dominant local fauna. With a few minutes to kill each morning, how, pray, were we boys to resist the temptation to take a few of our wiggly neighbors with us, to impress our female classmates?

Back a Page
(Choo-choo)
Such a Life
Contents
Page
Indexes:
Chapter 1
(1941-46)
Chapter 2
(1946-58)
Chapter 3
(1958-72)
Next Page
(Arrowview)
Welcome Stories Sections Such a Life People Places Site Search Do You Know?
Updated Dec 2013 [2070Arrowview.htm] Page 2-090