At a recent meeting of the Lay Eucharistic Visitors at St. Mark’s in Mystic, someone asked what the memory care unit at Academy Point was called. The answer was the Harbor, which is on the lower level of the building.

I commented that when I was a student there in the 1950s, we called it the basement.

Everyone visited the basement. That’s where the boys’ lavatory (and I assume the girls’) was located. It was also the location of the coal furnace.

Mr. Schram, the custodian, had a desk near the furnace. He also had a radio, and when the World Series was underway, boys seemed to need to use the facilities more often than usual.

I assume that some other of Groton’s older schools, such as Eastern Point and Groton Heights, also had coal furnaces. For many years the school system employed a night rover to go from school to school ensuring that the furnaces were running.

Coal was delivered by the truckload and was sent into the basement via a long metal chute. When the school got coal, lessons pretty much stopped!

The boys’ room at Mystic Academy consisted of a trough urinal, a couple of stalls with single sheet toilet paper dispensers and a communal sink. The cafeteria, such as it was, was also located in the basement. What I remember most about the cafeteria food was that every Friday was fish sticks. Some kids walked home for lunch.

While I was a student there the principal was Amelia Palmer. She was also principal of the new S.B. Butler School and preferred to spend her days there. I remember some of the other teachers. Esther Collins taught second grade and Madge Albro third. My fourth-grade teacher was Miss Sebastian and my fifth-grade teacher was Paul Rigopoulos, who later became a lawyer.

I remember in fifth grade that the class was saving up for a field trip. Mr. Rigopoulos would send me down to Hartford National Bank from time to time to make a deposit into the class account. Roger Santora, with whom I later worked at Fitch Junior High, also taught at Mystic Academy. My aunt, Virginia Peterson, taught sixth grade. My sixth-grade teacher was Joseph Franzone, who was also the head teacher. Thus, the school telephone was in his classroom.

As a sixth grader I was able to serve on the safety patrol with the white belt and a badge provided by Triple A. We had to take a test to get on the patrol. Mary Smith got the best score, which surprised no one, so she was captain. Jimmy Edmonstone and I both got the same score, but Jimmy got to be the lieutenant because the lieutenant raincoat fit him.

I was a sergeant. As such, my duty was to escort the morning kindergartners to the top of Academy Lane and help them cross High Street at noon when they went home.

The ‘50s were Cold War years, and much as Groton kids now have Code Red drills, we also had air raid drills. We went into the very wide hallways, knelt facing the wall and put our arms over our heads. We also had fire drills. My job on those days was to check all the rooms on our floor and make sure everyone was out, and then close the fire door and come down the fire escape.

I remember many of these things when I bring Communion to church members at Academy Point and I’m a little sorry that today’s kids don’t get to play on the jungle gym and merry-go-round as we did, but I can only imagine what the Board of Education’s lawyer would say if someone suggested putting those play devices on a modern schoolyard!

Robert F. Welt is a retired Groton Public Schools teacher who lives in Mystic.