Glad to see the Rocky Springs School Preservation/Restoration effort.
We moved to Cherry Hill Drive (Near Edgewood Church/Rocky Springs Rd intersection) in 1966 when I was 7 years old, and lived there until 1972 when I was 13 years old. I consider this area to be the place where I grew up. I was good friends with Mike Koehl and spent alot of time at his house, which is directly across the road from the Rocky Springs School. What a childhood we ALL had in that area during the ’60s/early ‘70s. Mitch Kemp and Timmy Main on Old Receiver Road and Dave Roberts on Edgewood Church Road were my classmates, little league teammates, and great friends. Mike Atherley was my next door neighbor and is that one in a million life-long best friend.
It doesn’t seem that long ago, but it truly was a different world. It was common for us to roam over to Bowers Road and down to Dutrow’s Honda on Rt 40 long before Rt. 40 became what it is today. Used to be farmland and open fields all the way to the Redhorse Steakhouse and State Police Barracks. Other times we’d wander through the woods from Rocky Springs to Gambrill State Park by various routes beginning on Old Receiver Road, Edgewood Church Road, or Etzler Road to name a few. No marked trails, just kids out playin’ while looking for snakes and pretending to be Daniel Boone. Never got lost and always home for dinner. What a life!
So ya see, Rocky Springs School is more than just an old stone building. It fired the imagination of kids like me wondering what it might have been like to gather the stones from the surrounding area and construct that building. Women wearing long dresses and sun bonnets performing what would today be considered hard labor for a man, with food and shelter being the priority of every day life. So we’d dream of Daniel Boone, and wander the countryside pretending to be Indians. All the while developing a certain type of independence and strength that would later be required as adults. Thank God for no cellphones and growing up when it was safe to let kids be kids.
If we don’t preserve these old structures that to some appear to have outlived their usefulness, where does that leave future generations of kids that won’t have the opportunity to see what life used to be like, and possibly imagine that there is something more interesting than their cellphone? Picture a housing development built around an old, possibly civil war era building and a kid asking his parents about that seemingly out of place structure. A perfect opportunity to explain a lttle bit about how the settlers lived and possibly inspire the child to build a fort and pretend they’re outlaws on the lam from a posse or Lewis and Clarke holed up during a blizzard. Who knows? Use your imagination. bridesmaid

Thanks to Don Mackenzie for everything he does to keep my beloved old stompin’ grounds alive.