The place that I come from.

[OldBaldy1701E]

19. I hail from about the most rural area on the eastern seaboard.

I was born in Ahoskie, North Carolina. That is because it was the closest hospital (at 34 miles away).

I lived in the swamps and on the coast. Since becoming an adult, I can say I have lived in every part of the state, excepting Wilmington, as I never did get to work at De Laurentiis.

I can say that, after some Google Earth searches, every single school I attend is gone. The last high school is still in existence, but it has moved, so the location that I attended is not there any more.

That is a bit unsettling, that none of the schools that I attended exist anymore (with the aforementioned exception).

One of them, however, is famous and should be always remembered and recognized.

Southwestern Elementary School is named after Southwestern High School, which was initially Nansemond Training School, the first high school for African American students in the then Nansemond County, built in 1924. (Nansemond County no longer exists as a Virginia county. It became the independent city of Nansemond in 1972 and 18 months later, on January 1, 1974, it was merged with the independent city of Suffolk.) The original building held seven classrooms and one auditorium. In 1956, a new building was constructed, and in 1968, the name was changed to Southwestern High School, which graduated its last senior class in the spring of 1970. In the fall of that same year, the school became an intermediate school serving grades four through seven and later transitioned to a middle school and then to an elementary school before closing in 2014.

(The times spent on that playground, or in that cafeteria, or waiting for the bus along that lane in front of the building... it was a long time ago. The bigger building is gone now, but the original one still stands, along with that cafeteria.)