To the editor:

With all the news of school budgets, cutting back, paying for school bus rides, possible school closings, and now, the suggestion of possible demolition of such structures as the Liberty Memorial High School building, my thoughts keep going back to a much simpler time.

At 7:50 a.m., up went the window in old Manual, and out came Principal Ralph Graber’s head for a look around! Then Cathy Gurtler put on the scratchy record, and the “Star Spangled Banner” played loudly over the assembled children. School at Lawrence Junior High at Ninth and Kentucky streets was in session. There were maybe 500 students housed in three old and cold (and hot at times) buildings. Who could forget the gyms on the third floors, and you had to take a cold shower, according to Nanny Duver and Barbara Maxwell. You could see your breath up there on winter mornings. We wore sweatshirts in cold weather, as I recall. Somehow we survived.

We walked to school, home for lunch, and we walked home again after school. Our first school lunch was in the third-floor cafeteria at Liberty Memorial, then later at Lawrence High. Those were good days. Those were simpler days. But then, Lawrence was a much smaller city.

Pete Anderson,

Lawrence