1989 | Old Site of Deer Park Elementary School, Fairfax, California
For me, Deer Park Elementary School was the crystallization of the good old days; I could walk the mile to first grade, and on the way home I could stop at the “Little Store” and use my pennies to choose from the candy box the proprietor kept behind the counter. If I walked to school with my big brother, we could cut across on our secret back route, jump the creek, and make it to class early.
I remember one day, on the way home with my pal Al Mellow (he was!), we stopped at the tiny triangle park with its grove of redwoods. We discovered that though tall, they were easy for us to scale to a significant height, as this species grew with fine child-hand-sized side branching. Arriving home, my mother noted we were later than usual, and asked what we had done on the way home.
“Oh, nothin’.”
Demographics have changed, rising property values have priced out young families, and Deer Park has been re-purposed as a community center. This is what I saw when I took my kindergarten-age son for a visit to the dear old place.