Yvonne Gone

Yesterday was a big day for the J Man.

First day of school for Grade Six. Not Big Man On Campus just yet – he’s got two more years for that – but it reminded me of my sixth grade year back at Yvonne Avenue Public School in Downsview.

Grade Six was the senior year for us in 1970 in the wacky world of the North York Board of Education, where junior high extended to the ninth grade, even though we were in the high school system by then. I (ahem) suffered through two teacher strikes in my high school days and during the first strike I stayed home while the other, less fortunate, Beverley Heights Junior High School kids had to go to school.

But I digress.

The reason I was reminiscing about my own Grade Six year is my old school has been reduced to a big pile of rubble. And I hate it.

I shouldn’t be surprised. The school has been closed for many years. A real long time, actually.

The school was occupied for brief periods over the past couple of decades – it was a temporary Catholic school for a while, and the community – where my Mom and Dad still live – made use of it for a spell as well – but mostly it was vacant, looking all the while like the Lord’s Manor, sitting up on the hill and gazing down on its subjects.

Truthfully, the school always looked bigger than it really was. There were maybe 120 of us in my final year – my happiest year in school (at least until college) – and enrolment was down to about 80 in the years before its closure. The neighbourhood got older and when new residents did move in they tended to gravitate to Catholic schools.

It happens.

But in all the ensuing years the school stayed in its noble spot: a reminder each time I came home of my childhood and its cherished memories.

Yvonne P.S. is where I grew up. It’s where I played on all the sports teams – two years on the soccer team, in fact – and I wore the school’s shiny gold jersey proudly. Yvonne is where we played shinny on the outdoor rink in the winter. It’s where I had my first kiss. Almost, anyway.

It’s where so many of the best memories of my youth spring from.

And now it’s gone. Yvonne is gone.

In its place the Toronto Catholic School Board will erect a new building to replace two local schools scheduled for closure: St. Gerard Magella, which opened across Black Creek from Yvonne after I finished Grade Six, and St. Phillip Neri, which has a history dating back to 1942.

The new school will be called St. Andre, commemorating a man of the cloth from Montreal who had a special connection with the sick and suffering and was so popular that more than one million people – virtually the entire population of Canada’s biggest city – viewed his funeral procession when he died in 1936. Brother Andre was beatified by Pope Benedict in 2010, the first Canadian male and the second Canuck overall to achieve sainthood.

So that’s good, I guess.

An old pal saved the school’s address letters from the demolition team, and a plaque honouring a long time janitor will be restored to its place of honour when the new school is built.

Also good.

That, and our memories, is all we have left.