To and from that small school on Logan Drive Sandy Gleysteen My sister, Andrea, and I attended DSW from September 1968 until January 1971. We were in the minority as American kids at the school back then. But I, in particular, loved it. I loved how small the school was, how well we all knew one another, how we were in a makeshift, non-air conditioned, prefab building in the countryside, how everyone spoke half English/half German, how kids came in and out of the school year depending on their parents0 tours of duty. Potomac back then was real horse country, and most days, neighboring dogs would wander onto the campus during Pause, anxious to have us play with them and often gross each other out by removing their ticks. All of us students shared the same teachers, the same gym equipment, the same need to bring a paper bag lunch. There was no cafeteria, no vending machine. If you forgot your lunch, you had to bum from someone else. I loved that we shared a school where some brought Leberwurst on brown bread and some peanut butter and jelly on white. Most of all, I loved our long bus rides from Washington out to Maryland. For over an
hour every morning and every afternoon, a group of kids of all ages got to know each other, tease each other, learn from each other and grow up together. The kindergartners shared the ride with the 12th graders (no Abitur class had yet made it through the school.) Boys flirted with girls. Homework got done. Dares made. Judgments passed on everything from wardrobes to the latest gossip on the yard. There was real solidarity between all those of us who drove the bus from inside the District out to Potomac. We were an odd assortment of ages and backgrounds, even languages. Yet we all shared a similar journey. But the greatest impact for me of riding that bus every day was meeting my best friend for life, Barbara Thomas. She and I were inseparable from 7:30 in the morning when she got on at Reservoir Road until 4:30 pm when she got off. I lived only two stops and three miles away from her, but until she got on in the morning and after she got off in the afternoon, the bus ride to me was empty, wasted time. On the rare
Photos courtesy of Sandy Gleysteen (2010), Marianne Karper (1968), & Eva Hendriks (2007)
Clockwise from upper left: Barbara Thomas and Sandy Gleysteen in a recent photograph (2010); gymnastics on the Logan school grounds (1968); a class trip to the Washington zoo (1968); horsing around on the Logan parking lot (1969); paradise lost: the demolition of the Logan campus and construction of a typical Potomac mansion (2007).
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Fifty Years German School
