A SLICE OF WRY by Anna Breslaw
I don’t know about you, but nothing jumpstarts my day like a flying potato. Projectile vegetables are a non-issue at pretty much any other school, but Hightstown High School is a little weird.
OK. A hot zone of weird.
"Heads up!" a janitor yelled from his perch on the ceiling. I ducked and the spud sailed over my head, smashing into a locker. I turned to the kid next to me.
"Um, did you"
"Yeah."
I’m a senior, which means I’ve developed a tolerance for Hightstown’s peculiarities, but that’s not to say I don’t sometimes wish I went to a more "white bread" high school. After all, Peddie is just around the corner and obviously encompasses both the "white" and the "bread."
That said, I’ll miss the flying vegetables. Their hazardous presence gives Hightstown students a strange sense of camaraderie.
Plus, on a broader scale of Hightstown oddities, they’re small potatoes. (Sorry.)
My freshman math class met in the affectionately nicknamed "trailer," a flimsy addition to the main building with tinny acoustics and a narrow, hot hallway. Halfway through the year we were informed that the trailer was hosting so much mold that it could be the new school mascot.
The fightin’, fightin’ Hightstown Spore.
The library had the same problem that summer, but apparently neither rain nor snow nor hail can prevent it from hosting band students. Unfortunately, "this one time, at band camp, there were guys in sterile white suits trying to scrape hazardous waste off the ceiling" doesn’t quite have the same ring as that oft-quoted "American Pie" line.
It’s been three years, during which the dawning of a new era has begun: The Age of Asbestos. Of course, this is Hightstown, so we’re talking about sprawling, monstrous child-eating asbestos that could serve as a highly effective biochemical weapon.
I recently threw a quarter at the ceiling of the auditorium, and let me tell you, that’s a quarter I’m never getting back.
Still, I’ll miss the extraneous toxic growth. After all, it’s kind of cool getting your secondary education in a Petri dish.
In first-period economics class last month, students were shocked as what was later described as a "flaming ball of tar" plummeted past the window. They watched, captivated, as a construction worker attempted to quell the flames by beating it with his sweatshirt and only succeeded in setting his sleeve on fire.
This class serves as a microcosm of students’ reaction to Hightstown’s perpetual construction: mildly amused and very, very distracted. Like everything else at Hightstown, construction is intense, never-ending and relatively ineffective.
The extension cords and wires that hang through our patchwork missing ceiling tiles are so reminiscent of the "Donkey Kong" video game that I wouldn’t be surprised if students swung from class to class. The gaping hole in the band hallway’s ceiling is a legend eventually a tarp was attached to catch the liquid waste leaking from the ceiling fixtures. The tarp sagged, ripped and began dripping unknown neon-yellow fluid on unsuspecting students before a janitor placed a trash can under the tarp to catch the dripping liquid.
The effect of the liquid on the splashed students is as of yet unknown. However, my personal hypothesis involves future two-headed babies and some very, very disgruntled Hightstown alumni.
The flaming ball of tar is only the most recent development of the Hightstown construction saga that began my sophomore year. Ironically, the Class of 2005 won’t benefit from the finished product the projected year of completion is 2006. But for me, a large portion of the school’s charm is the smog, weird construction noises, exotic smells and leagues of dusty, wifebeatered construction workers who keep their mouths closed when they see you cut class.
I know a girl who wants to take one to prom.
Whatever. I’ll miss the construction. Griping about our toxic waste problem makes me all indignant and Erin Brockovich-y, and that just gives me this warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Besides, there are a few cute construction workers around if you look hard enough.
Just like high school. If you look hard enough, you can see the good in anything Hightstown is just an example. Its eccentricities, hazards and occasional pointlessness lend it character, ensuring that I always remember my high school experience. Plus, I’m strange enough to get the occasional kick out of its inherent weirdness and decided to take it for what it is with a sense of humor and a grain of salt.
A bucket of salt. OK, an inordinate amount of salt.
Naturally, due to an excessively cynical disposition I’m only successful half the time at least the effort is there, unlike a large portion of the student body that harbors an unreasonable hatred of Hightstown and their years here.
They don’t take into account one of the most valuable lessons that our dilapidated, crumbling, dripping, infested mess of a school has to offer…
Sometimes you just have to appreciate a flaming ball of tar.
Anna Breslaw, chewing rocks and spitting out gravel since 1987.

