One 'n' only
November 13, 2003
Not many
people in town can remember when we only had one public school in town. Now we
have nine. I had the pleasure of attending the only school in town, at least in
kindergarten, first grade and a snippet of second grade.
It then was known as San Clemente Grammar School. Today it's Las Palmas
Elementary. Last week I was honored to witness the school's 75th birthday.
You can only imagine what the neighborhood looked like in 1928. All that was
there was the plaza (now Plaza Park) and the school, both gifts of town founder
Ole Hanson. Soon, St. Clement's would go up next door. For miles around,
all you'd see was a sprinkling of houses.
When I showed up in the 1950s, it still wasn't crowded. You could play
baseball on Avenida Esplanade and not have to worry about breaking windows. Lots
of vacant lots.
But growth was under way. A second school was being readied. As I recall, all
of us who lived south of Trafalgar Canyon would go to the new school. Everyone
north of the canyon would go to what would be known as Las Palmas.
If memory serves me right, we packed up and moved to Concordia School on
Halloween. What a sight, a shiny new school with nothing around it except
Elmore's horse stable.
I still had friends at Las Palmas. I wouldn't see much of them again until
ninth grade. Schools went K-8. At eighth-grade graduation we performed a musical
pageant of U.S. history that we practiced months to perfect for our parents.
By ninth grade, the town was hopping. The freeway had just gone in, slicing
our town in two. Houses were popping up like toast on a hill behind the newly
built City Hall. More homes sprung up in a new beach enclave, Shorecliffs.
There was pressure on the schools. I spent two years in double sessions at
Capo, the area's only high school. My older brother had morning classes. I had
afternoon. I got to surf in the morning while he had the afternoons at T-Street.
Our beach was getting crowded. The Beach Boys had just recorded ``Surfin'
USA.'' Inlanders with bleached-blond hair and attitude were invading us. At
least there was no Mission Viejo. Not yet. The Capistrano Valley was still noted
for its orange groves and the Mission.
My final two years of local schooling were at San Clemente High, a new
campus. The yearbook pictures are amazing. There was nothing around, not even
McDonald's or St. Andrew's on the hill.
Last week at Las Palmas, I studied piles of San Clemente Grammar School class
pictures. Mine weren't there. I probably have them in a box at home somewhere. I
did recognize lots of faces.
Onto the 1970s. In came Mission Viejo, the antiseptic megalopolis being built
up the road. We surfers made jokes about the ``Missionites'' who had begun
crowding our beaches.
And then Las Palmas was gone. Or most of it. As a rookie Sun Post reporter, I
took pictures as most of the old school was leveled to make way for a modern
campus. Sad day, especially as the old auditorium came down. My last memories of
that auditorium were when John Severson, founder of Surfer Magazine, showed his
surf movies there. We'd all hoot as the world's best surfers flashed across the
screen.
Today we still live in a mighty nice place. There's a lot to be said, though,
about living in a one-school town.