Reunion - Campus Tour

I got my wish with Shonelle at the campus tour. Shonelle is living in LA and doing, among other things, some stand-up. No, I didn't tell her to say something funny. I did encourage her to try out for Last Comic Standing sometime, though. There were some other people there I remember vaguely; I suppose that's not surprising anymore. I also finally got to chat with James a little.

The campus has changed a lot. The B building, which used to have offices, the library, and a few classrooms, is gone (apparently torched by students), replaced by a nice looking courtyard. The "round room" cafeteria and the steam plant are gone. In their place, are a very long building along a half or more of the East side of the campus. This new building has the offices and library, a practice gym, a pool and locker rooms, as well as a round cafeteria that seems to sit precisely where the old one did. This one, rather than being a concrete monstrosity is a tall, open silo with nice wood and lots of windows. The practice gym and pool are very nice looking and drew a lot of praise, and not just for not smelling like dank, moldy, sweaty gyms.

The gym that was new when we were students is still there and in decent shape, though unlike the new gyms, it smells of ... insufficient ventilation. The G and H buildings were gutted and remodeled a few years ago; they still have shops, art, and science, along with some humanities, but they also have a very fancy health center. When we were there, the nurse's office had a cot and you might be able to get band-aids. This place has a mental health office, real first aid gear and more. Impressive.

The C building remains pretty similar to what we remember. Smaller lockers (apparently all the lockers are in this building) and a small art gallery where one classroom used to be were the only changes I noticed.

From there, we moved to the theatre, which basically hasn't changed. I don't remember the gallery of famous people who went to BHS over the years. Jack Lalane, Ursula Le Guin, Belva Davis, Elihu Harris. There were several others I recognized but can't think of now. Of course, Chidi Ahanotou is listed in the gym as a member of the BHS Athletics Hall of Fame... And he's from our class. I remember seeing his first NFL game, lo these many years ago. He was with the Bucs then and played Joe Montana and the Chiefs - I love Montana but boy was I shouting for Chidi to get 'I'm when he got close to Montana!