Can you imagine waiting for the monthly Fire Drill as a school kid? Well, if you were lucky enough to attend Hamilton School, be one of the 'big kids' in a class-room on the second floor, you watched the calendar for Fire Drill practice. Once the bell sounded you lined up at the teacher's instruction and followed (walked not ran) to the small door that opened to the metal-tunnel that you slid down to a sand pile. The first kids sat on squares of wax paper to make the slid faster. Another teacher from one of the lower grades, with classrooms on the ground floor, stood at the bottom to pull each kid out of the way of the next one sliding down. Sometimes we landed on the kid in front of us or got landed on by the kid behind us.
All in all it was great fun. After lining up outside behind our respective teachers another bell sounded and we marched into our classrooms. Of course Saturday, for those of us who could sneak away from home for an hour, was a chance to bring along our own square of wax-paper, climb up the inside of the metal-tunnel (hands and feet stretched to the sides like spiders) and slide down from the top. If caught doing this we were scolded and sent home. It would be several Saturdays before we had the courage to try again. By the time I graduated from High School someone burned down the old Hamilton brick school.
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