Lake Central all provided us students with a unique set of memories. Some of us hated it, some of us loved it, some of miss it, and some of us never turned back. Some of us even have a mix of emotions when thinking back to our experiences at Lake Central High School. However, the new kids behind us will never experience what we got to at the original building. Even the people before us who experienced LC without the freshmen center could provide with a few stories from their days spent there. Yet, there are a few signs that distinguish us from the rest.
1. To start off, our very, very old pool.
Since I spent a lot of my days in pool at Lake Central, its cloudy, over-chlorinated musk has followed me to this day. (I still feel like I smell like that old pool.) Whether you took the generic pool class, decided to challenge yourself with the two life guarding classes offered, or actually joined swimming and diving, the stench of that pool followed you everywhere. You never could know what you could find in there either, sometimes. Even the locker rooms had their own aroma...
2. The colorful lockers.
Old Lake Central had yellow lockers, red lockers, orange lockers, and blue lockers. When first arriving at the school, if you didn't know the name of the hallways, you could distinguish them by the locker color. The school offered a whole other vibe with the brightly-colored lockers.
3. The "Wall"
Located near the stairs to Upper-E, this was where a lot of students would chill between classes until the infamous one-minute bell would go off. Students would laugh, talk, and hang out while they could and catch up on any gossip or see their significant other before class started. There was even a mural painted on the wall!
4. Speaking of the infamous one-minute bell..
Every LC student knows about this. The quick ding that would end the music playing during the passing period let everyone know they needed to hurry up and get their butts to class before they were late. Some teachers stressed being in your seat before the bell, while others knew sometimes the crowded hallways were just too much some days. The one-minute bell also put some fear into the students walking all the way from the freshmen center to C-hall if they heard the bell while still being in the cafeteria.
5. Lower-E & Upper-E
Incoming freshmen would hear horror stories about E-hall and its magnetic attraction to large amounts of LC students. With lockers alongside the walls, classrooms, and idle groups of students, lower-E and upper-E were horrible to try and walk through. (I even had a locker in E-hall.) Students these days definitely don't have to experience the frustration I did with E-hall.
6. C-hall / Pool Foyer
C-hall was always the coldest hallway in LC and it always smelled like the pool, due to its location being right next to the pool foyer. It was the brightest (it was the hallway with the yellow lockers) and its location got a lot of traffic because most people were parked by C-hall or were dropped off and picked up by the buses in front of the C-hall doors. C-hall was one of the less busy halls, due to most people hanging around E-hall and their daily schedule of rushing to C-hall once the one-minute bell would go off.
7.The walk from the freshmen center to C-hall
Ah, the dreaded walk from one end of the high school to the other. Some days, this walk was a piece of cake, especially if you got out of your previous class on time. However, if you got released late and then had to rush through the endless crowd of students, it would take a bit longer. Most teachers would give the students who had classes farther away an extra minute or two for a head start, but most just thought students would lollygag and get into trouble.
8. The old M-hall
For the people who remember these AND had classes in these, to some they were the modules and to others, they were M-hall. The modules that Lake Central had placed near the band room in the freshmen center offered extra space for the continuous growing student population and class size. They were removed around 2011 or so and I only had one or two classes in them. They had low ceilings and were kind of cramped, but they made do for the short time they were around.
9. The football field
Everyone knew our school by its size and its weirdly-placed football field. Lake Central's football field was perpendicular to the high school and Wicker Avenue. The bleachers were on the left and right side of it and it threw a lot of outsiders off. However, us LC students knew it and loved it and it was full of people once our football team got a little better.
10. Last but not least, graduating at The Star Plaza in Merrillville.
Our gym was so old and so small, no graduating class could fit in it, let alone their friends and family. The Star Plaza Theater still only allowed limited guests per student, but it allowed more space for the students and their guests. It was near the Radisson Hotel, so any family members from far away could stay close by. This year's graduating class graduated in the new gym at LC and I was happy to say I was one of the last classes to experience a Star Plaza graduation.
Lake Central gave us all different experiences. Whether we were the typical nerds, jocks, theater kids, or band geeks, we all loved and hated LC. I can't say I miss it, but I'm glad I got to be a part of the different quirks of the original Lake Central.
