Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Reflection #59 (Only 1017 to go): The Submarine Room

 
                        I open this reminiscence on a sad note.  I recently found out that Ron Sipowich has passed away.  Ron was a Latin teacher at Saint Ignatius from 1968 to 1974.  He was a good guy…funny, enthusiastic and inspiring.   Those who were around in those days will recall that, for Open House, he and a group of his students would build gigantic structures related to the Roman times.  One year, in the hallway on the second floor, they constructed a galleon made up of chicken wire and tissue paper.  Another year, he supervised the construction of a catapult that took up about half of a classroom.  
                        Please keep Ron and his family in your prayers.
 
            Since I’m retired, I don’t get to school very often these days, but when I do, I thoroughly enjoy visiting with …some might refer to it as “pestering”…the teachers who are around.  I suspect that it’s an occupational hazard of getting old that everything reminds me of something from my past.  I’m OK with that; there is some comfort in rooting through the attic of my memory, and recalling events and the changes that have occurred since I was a young teacher and coach.
            One such reminiscence occurred recently as I walked past the windows that look out over the small yard which lies between the school building and Holy Family Church.  Back in 1961, when I started, that yard was the parking lot for the lay teachers.  In ’61, there were only 15 laymen, and not all of them drove to school.  The rooms on the ground floor adjacent to that yard, now the art classrooms, were where lunches were served and the students ate.  Because of the paintings of ships that hung in that room, it was called the “Marine Room”.
In the early ‘60’s, Fr. Koch, the president of Ignatius at the time, had a Quonset hut      built in the afore-mentioned  yard so that the boys would have more room to eat.  Since its floor was slightly lower than the floor of the Marine Room, it was named the Sub-marine Room.  (If you remember the “Submarine Room”, you might want to make sure that your retirement paperwork is in order.)   That room continued to serve its purpose until the “new” gym was completed in the fall of ‘67, with the “Commons” which has served as the lunch room ever since, although now it’s called Tully Hall.
Once the Commons was built, the Quonset hut was converted to a theater, and finally a storage area for construction equipment.  Eventually it was torn down and made into a garden. Father Rowe expressed the wish that it would be used by the students to study and/or visit in a comfortable and serene setting.  To this day, this area remains a beautiful part of the campus, nestled within the confines of the school grounds.  It’s formal name is “The Daniel F. and Ada L Rice Garden.”
            As I muse about the changes that have occurred to the land around Ignatius since ’61,  I’m inclined to write about so many other changes that have occurred.  If you haven’t been back since the ‘80’s, it might be a worthwhile visit.