Solid Oak View Memories

January 13, 2006

Solid Oak View Memories
By Jim Banholzer

I attended Oak View Elementary only one year, for fourth grade, but I remember it well. It was the fall of 1969, just after Hurricane Camille ravaged the East Coast. Rabbit Run raged as a wide and fast muddy river; bringing downed oak trees to the brink of Whitefield Street in Kings Park West. The Lake in the center of the community had not yet been built.


We were a lively group of excitable students, new to the world and most of us new to the area -fresh faced kids raring to learn. I, too, had Mrs. Adams as a teacher, but was not always the apple of her eye –as they would say back then. During idle moments in class, Tim Broberg (who I still keep in touch with) and I would quietly construct elaborate mazes on notepaper, each of us trying to invent, a never thought of trap to stump our opponent. We often played a board game called Stratego in the class. I recollect that we used to have races to see who could look up a vocabulary word fastest in the dictionary, after the teacher called one out. I remember the “Pods” also. We compared the pods with something that you might find on “Star Trek” a hit TV show of the day.


We did watch a lot of films back then during class. There were no VCR’s yet. A few hobbyists may have owned one (The NFL had instant replay), but I understand that a VCR cost $100,000 then. Probably equal to a million dollars in today’s money. In Fairfax then, you only had to dial seven numbers on the phone to connect to anybody. Some people even shared “party lines” for their telephones and you could actually get an operator quite easily. Nobody had answering machines yet either. And there was no call waiting. Postal Zip codes were only a few years old too. And the Washington Senators baseball team had a winning year with Ted Williams as their manager. I still have Ted’s baseball card from 1969. I bought this at the Burke 7-11, which was the closest store at the time. A Saturday Tom Sawyer-like adventure would be riding bicycles to this lonesome 7-11 and then trying to collect frogs, tadpoles and minnows from the creek into a bucket. One Sunday morning in the mid-seventies Greg and Scott Burnette and I rode our ten-speeds up the two lane route 28 to Dulles Airport to watch airplanes. Sometimes you could see the Supersonic Concorde. My dad sold Volkswagens at the H.B. Lantzsch dealership in Fairfax and Herbie the Love Bug movies were just coming out.


At Oak View there used to be a test called the Presidential Physical Fitness test for all fourth graders. We ran various shuttle races and threw softballs for measurements to be recorded in a national database somewhere. The Olympics seemed very important for the United States back then. I remember Giselle Abernathy out-leap-frogging almost all of the boys with a six foot long standing broad jump. I remember this well; because I recall thinking that she was as athletically gifted as a gazelle. I wonder if the administration of Oak View has kept these records deep in an archive file. I recollect being taught about war over in the Middle-East back in fourth grade, but I don’t remember Indochina being talked about so much. I do remember the Vietnam struggle being brought into Family living rooms evenings in living color. Then more so than today’s combats are.
I remember the physical education teacher Jim Moyer quite well also. Apparently the circus club he founded still exists and the gymnasium is now named after Jim. The Oak View students traveling shows, demonstrated sky-high unicycles and stilt walkers -some over ten feet tall at the foot-pegs. Students directed huge medicine balls around under their own steam, along with various other interesting Rube Goldberg-type contraptions. It was almost like having a group of The Flying Wallendas in your own backyard. I think that it’s important for today’s Oak View students to gain a sense of this history, realizing how much of a positive impact this one man had on the community. Through Mr. Moyer’s encouragement, students started believing in themselves and accomplished amazing feats of gymnastics, instilling a sense of self-worth which carried over to whatever they else they did in later life. Sometimes the student’s aerial tricks performed during halftime shows would outshine main features of high school and college ball games throughout Northern Virginia and even the Capital Centre.


I remember as we attended Robinson Secondary School, several of us would journey back to Oak View and play epic basketball games on the lower baskets there. The nine foot basket was our favorite since most players could dunk on it. Our seemingly invincible bodies would crash against each other like gladiators against the boards. I can’t stress how exhilaratingly enjoyable our pickup games there were, hundreds of afternoons on Oak Views playground. We also prepared incredible trick shots in games of “Horse” on these lower baskets. I remember these courts going into disrepair around the first time that the United States did not win the Gold Medal in basketball (except for the time they got rooked by Officials back in ’72.) I wondered about the condition of basketball courts at elementary schools across the country. Soccer was started to catch on more. But video games followed soon after, sometimes making it tough for some little tykes to ever want to leave the comfort of their cyber caves. Again it’s refreshing to see that a circus club still exists at Oak View, to teach empowering core values through physical well being.



Traveling through the woods one day in my youth, I discovered poorer people living in ramshackle homes along Zion Drive. Later as a boastful adolescent I seem to remember snickering at these houses, while driving much too fast around the corner where the Greater Little Zion Baptist Church stood (stands?). Ironically, I now live in an abode even smaller and humbler than the ones I used to deride. However, living frugally so, inspires me to leave the house and enjoy the great Idaho outdoors-where I now live- more so than if I had to be tethered to running the large types of operations that McMansions require.


Looking back at it now, those of us who attended Fairfax County Public Schools grew up in an enlightened age. We were lucky to have some of the best teachers in the world. Many came from varied backgrounds, encouraged students to think critically for themselves and overall were long-lasting inspirations. I hope that the same holds true today for students and teachers.


After graduating from Flint Hill Prep in Oakton, I went on to work on dozens of blue collar backbone of America type jobs. I moved from Virginia to Idaho in January of 1993. There’s less hustle-bustle here in Idaho. Boise reminds me a lot of the up and coming Fairfax County of thirty-some odd years ago. The growing pains that Boise faces are markedly similar to those that Fairfax has gone through. Hopefully both cities can hold onto their strengths of character.


Only several years ago did I come into a job for the first time with a desk, phone and computer, becoming the circulation manager for the Idaho Mountain Express newspaper. I eventually started a monthly column that often features some of those varied past occupations. Those columns may be found via this link: (link has been airbrushed into history -as of 2007)



For another piece of writing forthcoming about Fairfax Schools, look here after March 15 for an article entitled, “Dribbling Basketballs through Math” featuring Robinson Secondary algebra teacher Mr. Kluge.


The best advice I was given in fourth grade was by my Father. He told me, “Son, I don’t care whatever it is that you choose to do in your life, as long as you always give it your best.” Another piece of advice I would have like to have listened to better back then would have been. “Some mistakes that you make will be remembered for a long time”.

Best regards to all of you Oak View students and alumni,

JB