Turning back time

Fifty years ago this school year, 44 rag-tag students, clumped together primarily because of the year they were born and where their parents chose to live, became the latest group of kids to form a community and claim the desks in Room 17 at Mars Estates Elementary School in Essex.

After five years, we were finally at the top of the heap — sixth-graders at last — and to cap it all off, we had the cool teacher that everyone wanted — Ernest C. “Ernie" Nuetzel himself!

Mr. Nuetzel would be the first male classroom teacher for most of us, though there was a group blessed to have him for fifth- and sixth-grades.

That group of kids that moved on to junior high school in 1969 had largely been together since first grade. A few kids transferred in and out of Mars Estates over the years, but the school’s population was relatively stable. And while some kids moved in and out of groups from time to time, most of our sixth-grade class had been together a majority of those six years.

Ernest C. Nuetzel's sixth-grade class at Mars Estates Elementary School, 1968-69. Note the class size of 42 students with  two absent that day, according to Mr. Nuetzel's impeccable class list carefully printed on the back of his copy.

Our parents were mostly blue-collar workers, with many at Bethlehem Steel, General Motors and similar places of employment. We were a down-to-earth bunch, most of whom lived in the nearby brick row home community of Country Ridge or elsewhere along upper Back River Neck Road.

Yesterday, 11 of those kids gathered to celebrate the passing of 50 years since we were those sixth-graders — many of whom, regardless of education later attained, still consider Mr. Nuetzel their all-time favorite teacher.

And again, to cap off the gathering of old friends, we were graced with the attendance of both Ernie and his wife of 57 years, Gail.

Fifty years later, some of those kids gathered to reminisce with teacher Ernie Nuetzel (front row, third from the right) and his wife, Gail (second from right). Photo by Don Wright.

Most of us graduated from Kenwood High School, so we have seen each other over the years at various high school reunions. And connecting on Facebook has really allowed us to keep up day-to-day with both concerns and celebrations. 

But meeting in person with a group of folks with a concentration specifically on our lives as 11-year-olds was special, to say the least. I had not seen several of these folks since high school, and like any group, I was closer to some than others in school.

So to say that it was fun and interesting and fascinating to see those kids after all these years and hear their life stories is an understatement. It was fun to hear stories about life in Mr. Nuetzel’s class that stuck in some folks’ minds but apparently were completely erased from the minds of others.

At one point, later in the afternoon, I sat back and watched folks interact as if they had last seen each other just the previous day. A comfort level settled in and these “kids” laughed, shared stories, hugged, cried, remembered and cared.

Ernie, who retired from Baltimore County Public Schools as a principal, cried or teared up several times as students shared with him the impact he had on their lives. To be certain, and just to provide some balance, he was not perfect in the classroom (find me anyone who is) and most of us have a story about him we’d just as soon forget. But he was a young educator at the time, and the positive anecdotes and life lessons learned in Room 17 far outweigh the negative. 

Many of us have our first memories of Mr. Nuetzel as being the man who, on Nov. 22, 1963 — when we were in first grade — ran around the school yelling the president had been shot.

In the days before universal kindergarten and widespread preschools, we were clean slates with relatively little knowledge of the world outside of our small communities when we started first grade. I remember us as 6-year-olds looking to Mrs. Higgins and asking what a president was. We received out first civics lesson that day.

So on Saturday, Terry, Sharon, Lillie, Debbie E., Tracey, Joann, Debbie W., Carol, Charlie, Mike and I gathered to honor Ernie Nuetzel and reminisce about life in Mars Estates’ Room 17 during the 1968-69 school year. We laughed a lot, remembered a lot, cried a little and learned a lot about the adults we have all become — all while erasing a half-century that somehow has passed since those innocent times.

It was, in a word, magical.