[MG1]

School life was great back in those days. We had so many things to do during lunch hours. When it rained, we had the covered play areas - the basements. I remember the ceilings being low and the lighting was poor. Four square, cards, and dodgeball were favourite games. The play areas were segregated. Boys on one side of the bulding and girls in the other. I remember the elephant stampede. Some of us crazier boys would run into the girls play area with our pockets pulled out of our pants and our penises sticking out.... elephant stampede. Hilarious. Supervision must have been hard at Strath, because there were so many hidden hallways and corridors in those old buildings. We got a way with all kinds of shit. I remember being on the third floor of the senior building. I think I was in grade 6. Our homeroom was at the southeast corner of the building. We dropped waterbombs on people (balloons filled with water). Since it was a corner, we had a good vantage point. We could see people coming from both sides. One day, the look out person was not doing his job, because just when we dropped one, the VP came around the corner. The water bomb hit the intended target, but also got the VP wet. The VP was a really old dude. I think his name was Mr. Warkentin. He knew who we were and he came up the stairs. We thought we were dead. He let us go, but not without giving us one of his "deadly" stares. Which was funny, because it wasn't scary at all. We just played along and pretended to be uber scared. It made him feel powerful. LOL. During weekends, we played roller hockey at the school. Most of Strathcona was blacktop. Around the building in between the buildings - all smooth blacktop. It was great. Some of us were really good skaters considering the kind of skates we used. I think my mom still has a pair of those old metal skates put away somewhere. You wore the skates over your shoes/runners. No matter how many kids were out there with skates, keys were always in demand. Most kids either forgot to bring them or lost them. I could always count on my sister, because she never lost hers. Do they even make skates like that anymore? Most of the kids just slammed their runners into the skates and that seemed to work. My skates always came apart and I had to tighten them all the time.