I attended Carnell Elementary School from 1956 (Kindergarten) to 1963 (6th grade). I'm sure much has changed since then. There are a few things that stick out in mind from way back in those days. On some occasions during recess, I would see coal trucks delivering coal to the school. The trucks would unload their coal into large metal chutes accessible from the outside of the school building in the schoolyard. Coal was the fuel used to heat the building. As a matter of fact, I think that Pennsylvania required schools to use coal back then. Makes sense, since Pennsylvania was a major resource for coal. I wonder if that's still the case today. I also remember that teachers would ask kids to take erasers filled with chalk dust down to the boiler room to clean them by clapping them together. I'm sure today those chalkboards have been replaced with whiteboards.
Nowadays most kids commute by school bus, but back in the 1950s/60s, most kids walked to school. Only handicapped students would take the school bus. Along the path to Carnell from my home, I remember there were couple of old street vendors selling soft pretzels from their white pushcarts to kids near the school. I'd also pass by Tarken playground. Those were days when the playground was clean and a decade or two before they build a hockey rink there. I played baseball in a "peanut" league when I was perhaps around 7-8 years old.
I attended Carnell Elementary School from 1956 (Kindergarten) to 1963 (6th grade). I'm sure much has changed since then. There are a few things that stick out in mind from way back in those days. On some occasions during recess, I would see coal trucks delivering coal to the school. The trucks would unload their coal into large metal chutes accessible from the outside of the school building in the schoolyard. Coal was the fuel used to heat the building. As a matter of fact, I think that Pennsylvania required schools to use coal back then. Makes sense, since Pennsylvania was a major resource for coal. I wonder if that's still the case today. I also remember that teachers would ask kids to take erasers filled with chalk dust down to the boiler room to clean them by clapping them together. I'm sure today those chalkboards have been replaced with whiteboards.
Nowadays most kids commute by school bus, but back in the 1950s/60s, most kids walked to school. Only handicapped students would take the school bus. Along the path to Carnell from my home, I remember there were couple of old street vendors selling soft pretzels from their white pushcarts to kids near the school. I'd also pass by Tarken playground. Those were days when the playground was clean and a decade or two before they build a hockey rink there. I played baseball in a "peanut" league when I was perhaps around 7-8 years old.
