Winchester, Massachusetts is a small town located roughly eight miles north of Boston. With roughly 20,000 residents the population of Winchester could fit into the TD Garden, if you grew up in this town, you're likely to know that you're going to school with kids whose parents went to school with yours. Growing up in this town has many advantages. Now many of these things existed before the high school was torn down...
1. You couldn't go to math class because of the mold infestations. And trust me, that happened more often than not. This was probably the most scarring experience you has while walking through WHS. Going up the yellow staircase to go to math class to find out you had to turn back around to go to the auditorium for study hall.
2. Mrs. Branley always let you go if you were 5 minutes late on a daily basis. The sweetheart herself. Wether it was that you were 5 minutes late for school or came in for lunch late, she was always there to cover your tracks. And lets not forget how she would never give us a hard time about needed to leave bags behind the desk for other sporting teams to pick up.
3. The staircases were identified by the colors and not locations. Red, Orange, Blue, and Yellow. You always knew to sneak in through the red staircase when running late. And always knew not to go down the red staircase when seniors were decorating during pep rally week.
4. Mrs. Rockhold was a second mother to you on a daily basis. Before Mrs. Rockhold got kicked out of her library you knew not to go to behind her desk unless you were her TA or one of her favorite kids. You knew that stamping passes was a privilege and not an activity to due when you were bored.
5. The colored library passes ... enough said. You knew that getting these were pure gold. If you didn't have one, you did everything in your power to get one.
6. Male beauty pageants. The entire town was at Mr. WHS and if you couldn't get your ticket, you saw who was crowned on the front page of the newspaper that following week.
7. You understand what 21-19 means. 21-19 is the proudest moment we had in years. You understand why the song "Backstreets Back" was played at pep rally.
8. Mrs. Takacs was a angel sent from heaven above. She was always there to make sure you were okay, to cheer you up, and to help you with your problems. When she was your sub she would mark you present even though she knew you weren't there. And she sure as hell would kick you out of the lunch line if you cut (even if you were a senior)
9. The parking lot was actually a parking lot. You had pure concrete to park on and not rocks with a tarp covering them. Also, the parking lot didn't turn into a swamp when it rained.
10. Hanging in the gym hallway after school. As soon as the bell rang at 2:15, you could find yourself fighting the traffic to get to the gym for practice or simply standing there talking to your friends about your day.
11. The gym was the nicest part of the school. Unlike the newbies who are getting the brand new school, we got the gym. The gym was nothing special, it was actually kind of a mess but it was the best thing we had.
12. Mrs. Bolles taught you in more than one class. The woman was an angel. She was probably the reason you got into college. Between the word ID's, talking about dreams in psychology class, and the extra candy questions she had the power to make your day 10 times better. She also showed you her graduation speech more than one time.
13. Sports Marketing with Downs. He gave you an A if you showed up to class. You never really did much besides watch the yip-yip martians from sesame street, shark tank, Jerry McGuire, or argue with him about gorilla suits. Oh and he always gave you a pass to go there and covered for you when you got in trouble.
14. Project Mills. You knew what it was, you were there, and you experienced Winchesters very own Project X.
15. Soccer ball. The best part of the year until it got banned. Soccer players and cheerleaders (when they had them) caused the biggest mess of the year, but made the best memories.
16. The smell when it rained. On top of the mold, you knew on rainy days that you had to be careful of where you walked due to the smell from the Aberjona River. The school was a swamp, and you could feel it sinking lower and lower as time went on. You'll miss the stains on the side of the school showing where the ground was once level.
17. You knew who Evander was. He was the high schools cat, although he was missing a chunk of his ear, we adopted him into the WHS family.
18. You couldn't go to Andreas and not get a buffalo chicken calzone. Lets be honest ... their food was a gift sent from heaven above. And the two weeks in the summer they go to Greece, are the hardest two weeks ever.
19. No Lights Knowlton. You experienced Friday night lights at away games only with the exception of thanksgiving and when you played Lexington.
20. Team dinners at Gloria's. Gloria's provided food for every sporting team in Winchester, and they also loved seeing everyone walk in together after a long practice.
21. Away "home" games. The hockey games at the Ned O'Brien rink in Woburn just didn't feel natural to say thats where your "home" game was.
22. The rivalry. You grew up with the kids on the Woburn teams by playing football, hockey on select teams, or any other way. But when it came down to it, when Winchester and Woburn faced off you had nothing but the want to show them who's better.
23. You had your eighth grade graduation on the turf and not your high school graduation. Unless it rained, you didn't get either of your graduations on the turf ... Class of 2015 is still bitter.
