The Forgotten School Orchard
(A Very Delayed Essay)
I began writing this essay last October but never got around to completing it–what with other life obligations: two jobs, maintaining my website, ErieCulture.Guru, and handling the closing of my father, Robert Knepp’s estate. But now, one year later, it’s October again, I feel compelled to finish it and offer it to any curious readers. I hope someone finds it worth the wait.
Up until October 2024 I worked part time at Conneaut Valley
Middle School, which to me, since I graduated from there, will
always be Conneaut Valley High School.
As locals know, it was closed down due to a declining
population of middle school children within our district.
As is, the building is now a hollow shell. Most of its items and
equipment were sent to other schools. Anything not needed is
currently sitting gathering dust in the gymnasium, where for
decades since 1954, kids, parents and cheerleaders cheered the
Conneaut Valley Indians to victory in whatever sport was being
played there. Applause was heard for the plays, music recitals and
graduation ceremonies that were once held there, too.
Now, all is silent. No kids in the hallways; no kids or teachers
in the classrooms. The only sounds to be heard now are from me
or another contracted employee: whether opening and closing a
stepladder to take down American flags, codes of behavior posted
on the walls, waxing the floors, vacuuming the classrooms’ rugs
or operating a power tool.
Though classes ended in June 2024, there’s still much to do.
Boxing up of textbooks, student files, office equipment, yearbooks
and much, much more. Even now in October.
Recently I was dusting and wiping down the bays that hold
each room’s fluorescent lights. Kids had a habit of throwing
pencils, erasers, pennies, candy–you name it–up there for their
own amusement. This time I found a plastic black-and-white girl’s
bracelet with CVMS on the white beads. Unlike everything else I
found up in the lights, I just couldn’t toss it into the garbage can.
It was kind of touching; a remnant from the school now gone. I
kept it and planned on leaving it somewhere, where maybe
decades later, it’ll be found by someone who’ll scratch their head
and wonder “CVMS? What does that stand for?”
However, there are still living remnants of student activity
here.
During my lunch break, I often take a walk to get some fresh
air, stretch my legs and clear my head. It’s not doctor’s orders or
anything; it’s simply one of the few good habits I have.
One day I went off my usual route and walked up to where
there once was a greenhouse behind the school. I knew about it
when I worked here several years before.
The greenhouse at the time wasn’t much to look at. No glass
windows like you’d expect. Only a metal framework covered with
plastic sheets constituted the structure. It was raggedy when I last
saw it, with torn plastic sheets blowing in the wind. Inside, wooden
counters held languishing or dead unidentified plants, long
abandoned in their containers.
Truly a sad “site.”
But this time, when I wandered to its locale, I was surprised
to see…nothing. A few feet of a bygone cement foundation and
taped off electrical wires sprouting from a tube in the ground.
Besides that, the structure had disappeared.
“Did someone dismantle it and take it to another school?” I
wondered, “Or did the neglected greenhouse end up in the
school’s dumpsters?”
As I walked further past the site though, I saw several trees
planted evenly apart from one another, sprouting different
varieties of fruit. An orchard.
Apparently, like the former greenhouse, long ignored and
now long forgotten.
Within it, were two sets of smallish red apple trees (I couldn’t
tell you the variety), spaced evenly 10 feet apart from its mate,
followed by two sets of not fully grown green apple trees (again, I
couldn’t guess the variety), 10 feet away. And after that? A sad,
lone pear tree, its mate must’ve perished years ago, with no sign
of it remaining. Beyond that, two more red apple trees.
Apparently, I hadn’t walked the full length of the orchard the
first time. For on a more recent trip, I spied a widowed dwarf
cherry tree. Just like the pear tree, it must’ve lost its mate, long
ago, too. No remnants of it existed, either.
My mind, always in “wonder mode,” raised these questions:
*Who created this orchard?
*When?
*And why?
Since the orchard was on school grounds, I deduced it had to
be a Future Farmers of America project. Why else would an
orchard be here?
And these were full-grown trees, planted—what?–30 or 40
years ago?
And I wondered again: In all this time, did anyone–such as
any former FFA-ers–ever return to pick fruit from the trees and
enjoy it?
I picked several of the different apples and a few pears,
though I’m not a big pear fan, took them home and eventually
began eating them over the weeks.
The last time I went back there a week later, I was surprised
to see that the trees were almost bare of fruit, yet there was none
on the ground. The wildlife must be consuming it, I thought, and
doing a good job of it.
But still my mind wonders: Do any of the Future Farmers of
America who created this orchard remember it now?
Anyone, anyone…?
Perhaps one of the readers of this essay could fill us in on the
forgotten orchard?
Has someone who helped create it ever go back and admire
their labor decades later?
I, sentimental fool, would.
Okay, we’re back in the present: October 2025. I didn’t visit
the orchard this year as I occasionally drove by the vacant school
with a For Sale sign near the road. But I wish I had.
I think the only thing that kept me away was the thought that
I’d be trespassing since no one is allowed there except Conneaut
School District maintenance people. And, for some reason, I
imagined they’d come out and yell at me.
But realistically, I doubt it.
Next year, harvest time 2026, I will go there and walk the
forgotten orchard that teenage boys and girls—now much older
people (maybe even senior citizens?)—once planted.
I think it’s good that someone remembers the place. Even if
it’s just me.
Yeah, I’m funny that way.
G. Greenleaf-Knepp
End
