School Janitors Ago

The Janitors of the old days were figures of mystery. They were silent and serious. I saw them dimly in old educational institutions but never knew one personally.  They came out early in the morning to get things warmed up and opened up, then disappeared into the dark depths during the day to turn up mysteriously in the eves of the night, cleaning the floors. We pupils, all pretty much took them for granted but feared them secretly. These denizens of school basements when they had them then as dank, smelly, rainy day play areas, were hidden behind doors that led to their furnace rooms. They appeared only occasionally, saying nothing and going about their business of tapping thermostats and nodding with disapproval at various visible vents. The school principal could be seen through class windows, conversing with them and gesticulating mid play field or in quiet huddles around corners speaking authoritatively to school administration officials. After my school years, when I became a teacher, the janitor and I were on verbal terms, but only "hello and how are you today?". Janitors were always going somewhere they were needed in a hurry and had little time to waste on trivial chat. In my early teaching days, when I was first assigned to a school, the room was in the lowest floor. It was a dark basement classroom opposite the janitor's den off the Boys Basement. The former teacher in the room with its ground level windows overlooking the gravel soccer field, had died during the summer. I learned that she and the ancient janitor had been on very friendly terms. Eyebrows aloft. It answered my wonderings about the number of empty bottles in the back desk drawer. I requested permission to put some bright curtains on the wire covered windows, and was asked why  I would want curtains of all things. The asker had a sunny upstairs classroom on the third floor.  In another school, another janitor  appeared only at recess outside where he chased little girls at play who screamed with laughter. He was released  and left quite suddenly one day. The elusive teacher aide in the school, missed him greatly. Apparently, they enjoyed frequent games of poker in the furnace room on days when no one could find the aide. I did, in fact, know one janitor a little better. He resented the term "janitor", preferring the word "engineer". He was the father of one of my friends and was British originally, he told us proudly. His hobby was flattening English coins and punching holes in them to sell reasonably, as pendants to his daughter's friends. I have the tupence to this day. Another janitor in a school up the coast, frequently offered me fish recipes. I had a large gold fish named Bilbo Baggins in the library, and allowed the kids to handle him. The janitor didn't like the fish tank with all of its slimy algae dripping over the side. What with electric heating, janitors are replaced now with  sweepers who come into classrooms and converse with teachers acting as amateur advisers and counselors. Why? They know everything and everyone. They are greatly respected and thus, you do what they say when vacation time rolls around. You stack the desks just as they tell you. Many a sweeper leaned on a broom and counselled me over the years, with wise and useful words even though I never came to know a single last name of any.  But none of them had the same mysterious aura as those janitors who strode silently about amongst the pipes of the mysteries in the dim, dark school basements of the past century.