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Plans being finalized as Plymouth prepares for The Wall That Heals

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First Vegas-themed gaming room opens in Western Pennsylvania

<p><em>&#8220;Don&#8217;t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.&#8221;</em></p><p>&#8212; <strong>Alan Jay Lerner</strong></p><p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Every year at this time, I get a hankering to go shopping for school clothes.</p><p>That&#8217;s what we did, back in the day &#8212; in Camelot &#8212; also known as Plymouth.</p><p>My mom would say &#8220;let&#8217;s go overtown, we&#8217;re going shopping for school clothes&#8221; and off we would go to Wilkes-Barre to American Clothing on South Main Street, or to The Hub, or Fowler Dick &amp; Walker &#8212; The Boston Store. On the way back, we would stop at Mitchell Plessett&#8217;s Men&#8217;s Store on East Main Street in Plymouth. It was a routine.</p><p>We would get new pants, new shirts, matching socks, maybe a belt and, always, new underwear. I still remember pestering my mother to find me yellow socks to wear when I donned by yellow button-down collar shirt. Which, of course, was worn with very light-colored pants. Somehow, my mom found yellow socks. I was very happy.</p><p>My mom would be determined that I was to look presentable to my teachers and fellow students.</p><p>That was the mindset back then. Going back to school was a big event that we actually looked forward to &#8212; my mom would welcome the time to do more cleaning, baking, cooking, while kids would want to resume friendships with classmates, perhaps meet new ones and, of course, get to know our new teachers.</p><p>We also wanted to learn. We wanted to do homework, write book reports and play sports. We enjoyed the in-school experience.</p><p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong, we enjoyed summers off as much as any other generation, but we were all-in on walking the halls of our hometown school.</p><p>And yes, we walked to school in the morning, back home for lunch, back down for afternoon session and back home after school. But no, not uphill both ways, but it was a lot of walking. And we still managed to have more than enough energy to play with our neighborhood pals until darkness arrived.</p><p>It was hometown schooling. Neighborhood elementary schools. My first was Nottingham Street School &#8212; it&#8217;s still there. It&#8217;s falling apart, but it is standing. I went to first grade there, the final year before it closed. We had first and second grade in one room. Miss Shovlin was our teacher. I got all As.</p><p>For second grade, it was Central Elementary School on Shawnee Avenue. Went there through sixth grade. We had championship basketball teams there, battling Franklin Street and Vine Street for the elementary title. I have a picture of me wearing knee pads even back then.</p><p>Then it was Plymouth Junior High School, which was connected to Plymouth Senior High School &#8212; Ward P. Davenport, it was called. There was a bridge on the second floor that connected the two buildings. And it was one of the most beautiful campuses in the area &#8212; winding sidewalks, large trees that offered plenty of shade on hot days. It really was a picture postcard.</p><p>So seventh through 10th were awesome &#8212; then the merger of Wyoming Valley West came. Consolidation, those learned academics felt, was the way to go. Crowded schools, school buses, chaos and major adjustments were the way of our new school order.</p><p>We didn&#8217;t realize back then what we were losing. We lost that hometown, small school familiarity that was so much a part of the fabric of our lives. We knew everybody, from students to teachers to coaches to custodians to, as Coach John &#8220;Snoggy&#8221; Mergo would say, &#8220;the big bosses.&#8221;</p><p>We lost our identity to a large extent and we struggled to find a new one. No matter how we as student tried, we couldn&#8217;t convince our parents that the Spartans were our hometown team now. Gone were the Sailors, the Lions, the Flyers, the Huskies, the Eagles, the Green Wave and, yes, the Shawnee Indians.</p><p>We were now the Spartans and we wore burgundy and gold and we sang a new alma mater and we tried &#8212; oh how we tried.</p><p>But, frankly, it just wasn&#8217;t the same. We could see the differences. We knew that instead of seven high school teams in sports, there would now be one &#8212; do the math &#8212; less kids playing varsity, less chances at scholarships, and far less chance of ever again being a BMOC &#8212; big man on campus. There was only one campus now and plenty of BMOCs that were now relegated to intramurals.</p><p>It was a long time since those days of shopping for school clothes and searching for matching yellow socks.</p><p>We know now that it was our first taste of the real world and disappointment. It also was a challenge for us to get along and become unified as the new era of consolidation began.</p><p>We got through it. So many years later, we enjoy each other and we reminisce about those days, remembering things we never had the time to learn.</p><p>It&#8217;s kind of a reverse approach, but we&#8217;ll take it.</p><p>It&#8217;s all we have left of our Camelot.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Bill O&#8217;Boyle </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_Oboyle_Bill-2-1-4.jpg</photo0><caption0>Bill O&#8217;Boyle </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_PLYMOUTH-HIGH-SCHOOL.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">This was the campus of Plymouth High School. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_PLYMOUTH-HIGH-SCHOOL.jpg</photo1><caption1>This was the campus of Plymouth High School. </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Bill O&#8217;Boyle</p><p>boboyle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Bill O&#8217;Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle, or email at boboyle@www.timesleader.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Beyond the Byline: School days in the time of Camelot