The big red schoolhouse is coming down.

Voters in Mansfield have agreed to tear down the last of its neighborhood schools.

Back in the early 1950s, my father looked at the balance sheets of the clothing store he and his brothers owned in Mansfield, Mass., and realized that the cash was rolling in. Really rolling in, in fact.

So he did what countless other sons of immigrants did during the postwar economic boom -- he strove for a better life for himself, his wife, and hopefully, a new generation that would eventually be coming along. He bought some land.

In the Mansfield of that era, many of the Italian families that came to America and then to our little town at the turn of the century were still clustered in what was called "the North End," very close to the huge Lowney Chocolate Factory on the railroad tracks that had offered employment and even housing to the newcomers so they would gladly do the jobs that none of the snooty white Anglo-Saxon Protestants on the other side of Chauncy and Pratt streets wanted to do. Those folks envisioned themselves as the rightful heirs to those that stepped off the Mayflower. My forefathers, on the other hand, were the spaghetti benders that stampeded en masse out of steerage.

My dad in front of the bakery in 1936.

But the Italians and Sicilians were resourceful and hard-working people. My grandfather opened a bakery to satisfy the taste buds of the town's ruling class, and his sons delivered the fresh rolls and loaves all over the region on bicycles. Then when they got older and longed for a better life, they seized the moment. My Uncle Santino crossed the imaginary dividing line between the ethnic groups, bought a decaying old stable at an important intersection, turned it into a clothing store that would be expanded and reborn several times over the next 60 years, and his brothers followed him into the business and started raking in the loot.

Step Two was assimilation. And the easiest way to achieve that was to buy land in parts of town where no Italians had gone before. Before long, all four Farinella brothers made it past that border and put down roots in what had been the strongholds of the Anglos that had settled the town. 

For my father, the plot of land he coveted was close to a swampy marsh on sparsely-built Dean Street. There was a large man-made pond to the east of it, dug out of those Rumford River-fed swamplands by a knifemaker and metals forger in the 1700s. My dad's parcel was almost fully dry and the rest easily reclaimable -- there was no such thing as "wetlands protection" in those days -- and by 1953, construction would begin on a five-room, one-bath, three-bedroom ranch to house him, his wife, and a player to be named later that was on the way.

Mom and little me in the unfinished garage.

By January 1954, construction on me was finished. In August, the house followed. We moved in, and my parents lived there for the rest of their lives. I spent most of the first 17 years of my life in that house, then the next 45 years or so wandering around the Hockomock League, and I returned to the house upon my mother's death in 2015 -- and here I remain.

I mentioned earlier that there weren't many houses on this street when my father bought the land. Most that were here were built between World War I and the 1930s on the higher-and-drier section at the northern terminus of the street (only a few tenths of a mile away). But one feature that stood out louder and prouder than all the other structures was a tall, red-brick schoolhouse that was probably the pride of a growing Mansfield when it opened in 1923.

In the background in 1955, the Roland Green School.

For all of my life, the Roland Green School has towered over Dean Street. I say "towered" loosely, as it is only a two-story building -- but in the architectural style of the day, it rose well above the houses surrounding it, each story was far taller than it needed to be, and the high-peaked roof made it look like an imposing skyscraper -- especially to the first- , second- and third-graders that attended it for most of its existence.

Mansfield was always big on neighborhood schools. There were schools in every part of town for every age group. Generations were born and raised with pride that they attended the Roland Green, or the Paine, the John Berry, the Spaulding or the Central schools and didn't interact with the other kids in town before coming together at Mansfield High School eventually. But one-by-one, almost all of those have been repurposed (the John Berry in West Mansfield became a satellite YMCA facility, and the Park Row, itself a former high school, became Town Hall), or met the wrecking ball. Mansfield consolidated today's schools in a complex that includes a high school, a former high school that's now a middle school, and two large elementary schools, and the need for satellite schools diminished.

Roland Green, however, clung to life. Elementary grades were phased out, but the building found new purpose as a pre-school facility for many years before it closed with no fanfare at all after the 2025 school year. The building is old, environmentally inefficient and in increasing disrepair. Upon moving the pre-school classes out to other school buildings where space was now available because of declining enrollment, town government immediately set to the task of planning the Roland Green's demise.

That was set in stone at a special town meeting Tuesday night. Before the bare minimum of a quorum and with hardly a peep of public discussion, the meeting voted to turn the building over from the school department to the control of the Select Board, which will immediately set to the task of demolishing it. The remaining property will then be carved into three lots for the building of three duplex houses.

This took me by surprise, and it really shouldn't have.

Quite matter-of-factly, it was explained at the town meeting that these plans had been discussed in public meetings for quite some time, and all that was now needed was the rubber stamp from voters to start the wrecking ball rolling and the cash rolling in from the resale of the property to developers. I had heard nothing of it, but the newspapers never cover municipal meetings anymore, and the first mention I saw of it was in a preview of the town meeting in the local daily that ran on the very day that the meeting was to take place.

Yes, I know that municipal meetings are shown on local cable. No, I don't watch them. I don't have any axes to grind with anyone else at the present time, and I'm convinced that the only people that watch municipal meetings on a regular basis are those with specific and obsessive grievances. Go ahead, try to convince me otherwise.

And no, I didn't attend the meeting. Call me a bad American if you will -- I know at least one guy in town that revels at that opportunity -- but I have all of four days left in which I can prepare for the next 10-12 weeks of announcing high school sports on the cable systems of three local communities. I'm busy. My car has left the garage only once since I got back from the Feehan-CM football game on Saturday night, and that was to pick up a pizza tonight.

But I did watch the meeting on my iPhone and witnessed the death sentence for the Roland Green being delivered. It wouldn't have helped if I had gone. I would have just sounded like a NIMBY objecting to six new housing units going up on a plot of land not much larger than my own, and I would have come across like a curmudgeonly codger shaking his fist at the moon. Unlike others I know, I actually can read a room. Anything I could have said would have fallen upon deaf ears.

I can't imagine Dean Street without the Roland Green School being a part of it. But to be totally honest, I don't really know if any remorse I feel is actually genuine.

You see, I never attended it.

The late, lamented Dominican Academy.

My parents sent me to a Catholic elementary school in Plainville in 1959, the long-since-closed Dominican Academy, which was sort of regarded as "Bishop Feehan Prep" in those days. But I was too much of a hell-raiser and free-thinker for the shellshocked Dominican sisters, and they basically threw me out of the place after I made it through six of eight grades. My parents grudgingly sent me to Mansfield schools (and by that time, the brand-new Robinson Elementary was open), and I survived and thrived and became the solid citizen I am today.

Mansfield was a different town in my elementary days, however. I remember how I would see lines of students my age being led by teachers past our house and up Dean Street as "field trips" to the river that flowed through both Fulton and Kingman ponds, and then maybe stroll to the library near the South Common. Kids were also let out on their own at the end of a school day, and they'd stroll past the house on their way home. Life was a lot safer then. Buses took you out to the sticks, but if you lived within a mile or so of the school, as most of the kids did, the walk was usually pleasant and safe.

But in the less-trusting 2020s, with pre-schoolers in the building, there were no field trips and no carefree walks home. All of the streets in the grid around Roland Green became parking lots for countless SUVs waiting in line to pick up their precious little cherubs around 2 p.m. You could tell inside the house that it was time for pickup, too, because of the incessant and ear-piercing screaming by the children with separation anxiety that would refuse to go gently into those giant Yukons, Tucsons and GLE 450s.

I remember quite well my first day of school in September 1959, when I was 5½ years old. My parents walked me the eighth of a mile from our house to the bus stop at the corner of West Street and Copeland Drive. The yellow Ford bus (No. 3, I recall) stopped, the doors swung open and my folks basically told me that I was on my own and not to be bashful. I sat down, looked out the window most of the way and then got off the bus in Plainville and asked the first white-robed woman with a long black cape that I saw, "Which way to the first grade?" Every day thereafter, I did it all myself.

True story. Pre-school? I didn't need no steenkin' pre-school.

Not only was there way too much traffic near Roland Green in recent times, the soccer moms in their suburban commando vehicles would floor the accelerator pedals once the kids were belted in, and they would try to get from 0-to-60 by the time they reached West Street -- and with no regard whatsoever to anyone else trying to make it to their driveways. And the teachers, with no parking spaces available in the playground behind the school, took to parking their cars in front of my house, often practically blocking that driveway entrance.

I complained to the former schools superintendent, who had graduated from MHS just a few years after me, but she said she couldn't do anything about it. But then once the school year was over, the pre-school closed and the problem was solved. And now, the "final solution" will be a permanent one.

Frankly, I don't think I've ever set foot inside the building. I wasn't a student, nor was I a parent of one, and otherwise there's no reason for an adult to be roaming about an ancient elementary school if sports aren't being played there.

My pitching dreams ended
during my Legion career.

The only use I had for the building, in fact, was when I was in my early teens and I had made the junior varsity baseball team at MHS. I harbored dreams about being a pitcher, but with no brothers or sisters and few children my age on the street, I didn't have anyone to throw the ball with -- especially at higher velocity. But the Roland Green's side walls were solid red brick with no windows, and a foundation of concrete that began right where the middle of the strike zone might be on an opposing batter. I'd mark off a spot roughly 60 feet away (no mound, so I wasn't really helping myself), put down a bucket of balls and strap on my cleats, and I'd start firing full-windup throws at a small rectangle-shaped vent hole in the foundation that I presumed would be a perfect strike.

I'd do that for hours on end, usually on weekends when the school was closed. My accuracy got better, but the velocity never got much past 60 mph from my estimates and occasional throws with a radar gun nearby. The thwack ... thwack ... thwack noise of the ball striking the wall must have been annoying to neighbors, but no one ever complained ... which is amazing, when you think of it.

And on those very rare occasions when I would put the ball right into that rectangular hole in the wall, it would jar loose a metal wire grating inside it and send both it and the ball bouncing to the basement floor of the school. I'd beat a hasty retreat hoping to avoid discovery and accountability, and a few days later I'd return to see that the grating had been replaced. It would be time to start the process anew.

In some ways, I hope that maybe I can take a stroll inside Roland Green School just once before it becomes a pile of rubble, just to see what's inside. I always wondered, because I never attended a school that wasn't of recent construction. It has been a noble backdrop to significant portions of my life, but it's hardly worth re-purposing. Starbucks would not be interested, I'm sure.

It's all part of the march of progress. Tradition and history walk when money talks. I get it. Besides, the Roland Green has had a long and useful life. I hope I can say the same thing when that march of progress overtakes me -- and to be honest, I suspect the Roland Green doesn't have that much of a head start.

Farewell, old friend.

MARK FARINELLA fully understands that nothing lasts forever ... although he's going to try his damnedest to prove otherwise. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

The King Philip Warriors celebrate their Super Bowl victory over North Attleboro.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering after the soothing effects of the icebags on the knees wore off in the middle of the night:

** I've reached the end of another fall season of calling high school sports on North TV, my seventh as a play-by-play announcer, and it's entirely appropriate that I offer a few thoughts on the topic.

First and foremost, what an impressive accomplishment it was that all four of the football teams we cover at North TV -- North Attleboro, King Philip, Bishop Feehan and Tri-County -- all reached their respective state championship games. For North and KP, it was the MIAA state Division 3 title game. For Bishop Feehan, it was a berth in the D2 title tilt. And for Tri-County, which opted out of the MIAA D6 Tournament despite the prospect of having a No. 8 or 9 seed, it was a third straight trip to the MVADA state vocational bowl title game -- this time moving up to the middle of three enrollment-based divisions.

King Philip, making its fifth straight trip to a Super Bowl but first in Division 3, ended North's D3 reign with a 21-10 victory at Gillette Stadium last Friday. Bishop Feehan, making its first visit to a title game in 13 years, had the unfortunate task the next day of falling to the Catholic Memorial juggernaut, 41-14. And Tri-County, which had split the last two MVADA Small championships with Blue Hills Regional of Canton, won the rubber match decisively, 28-6, at Greater New Bedford Voke last Wednesday. 

I was fortunate to call all but two of KP's games this year -- the North Attleboro crew did both KP-North games, but I was there for both -- and I've been the voice behind the vast majority of their past seven seasons, which has been a memorable ride indeed. Yet only once have I been able to call their actual Super Bowl victory, and that was two years ago when KP hammered Marshfield in the final. Still, I've been on the scene for both of their recent 13-0 seasons, and you can't ask for a better memory than that.

It's been a hell of a team to follow. Both Keigan Canto-Osorio and Tallan King went over 1,000 rushing yards this year. Ryan Greenwood, Zach Gebhard and that rock-solid offensive line did their jobs all season long. Liam McGrath pulled in eight of KP's 23 interceptions -- not too shabby for a pass defense that was totally rebuilt from last year. And the list goes on and on.

Frankie Strachan was a total stud.

Still, I'm sure that every athlete and coach on that KP team feels a lot of empathy for at least one member of their vanquished opposition. In the first quarter of KP's victory over North Attleboro on Friday, the Rocketeers' powerful 250-pound running back, Frankie Strachan, was at the bottom of a pile near the goal line and he couldn't immediately get up. Word from the Boston papers was that Strachan had suffered a broken foot, and he was done for the night.

The burly back had put North on his shoulders over the second half of the season, gaining almost 1,000 yards in the last five games alone as well as carrying the ball well over 30 times a game. I still believe KP would have won the Super Bowl -- it would have been tougher, for sure, but KP was one of the best teams I've seen in a while -- but to be the best, you generally need to believe you beat the other team's best. Nobody was happy to see Strachan limp to the sidelines on Friday night.

Storybook end for T-C's Walker.

Perhaps the most joy I gleaned from this championship season, however, was from Tri-County's march to the win over Blue Hills. Three seasons prior to this one, I announced the first game played by T-C quarterback Declan Walker; he had been called upon in a pinch by new Cougars' coach Andy Gomes to start just in his second game as a freshman, with very little preparation for the job. In that game against Nashoba Valley Tech in Franklin, Walker marched his team confidently to a touchdown in his very first possession.

It's not often that you get to put the bookends together like that, but there I was Wednesday, watching that young man play the last varsity game of his career and throw for 146 yards, going over the 2,000-yard passing plateau for the season, and leading his team to a second straight voke bowl championship.

Both Walker and fellow senior and North Attleboro native Nick O'Brien had magnificent seasons, the latter going well over 1,000 yards in both rushing and receiving as the Cougars finished 11-1. And they did it without being able to play at home. Construction of the new Tri-County RVTHS on the current site has rendered the football field unusable, but Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood (where former Norton High coach and AD Ted Currle is the athletic director) stepped forward and let the Cougars play in the Hawk Bowl all season long. There was definitely a storybook quality to the Cougars' season, and I was happy to see the ending turn out as everyone had dreamed it would.

And that brings me to Bishop Feehan. I had the privilege of announcing their big win over BC High at midseason, and I've always kept an eye upon the terrific career of Owen Mordas, the Norton lad that started at quarterback for his entire four-year career. I, like many others, were hoping for the Sisters of Mercy to provide a miracle on Saturday against a school that seemingly pulls in its athletes from all corners of the state (and then some), and had won three of the last four D2 Super Bowls when everyone on the planet knows that the Knights really should be playing in D1.

A rare moment of joy for Feehan against CM.

Despite a brief glimmer of hope when Mordas spied Andrew Orphanos open in the end zone for a 7-yard score and a 7-7 tie early in the game, it was not to be. CM took control of the game, as it always seems to do, and won 41-14 in what was probably the least competitive game of all eight played at Gillette. Lucky me, that was the one I got to call.

I have a strict policy not to be overly critical of high school kids playing sports. They are not pros and deserve in almost every circumstance to be cut some slack for just about anything -- except maybe the most egregious departures from sportsmanship and fair play. So I will bite my tongue and restrain my typing fingers over what I am about to say.

Maybe it was the slap in the face of surrendering an early touchdown to a team they didn't take all too seriously, but it was obvious for all to see in the stadium and on live TV that the Knights didn't like it. And they started playing like it. Watch the replay again, either the version on patriots.com or our North TV version once it's archived this week, and you will see plenty of instances of taunting and dirty play by the winning team as it reclaimed the momentum and built the blowout. 

It was embarrassing and infuriating. It certainly made the D2 game the worst of them all. And at one point in the telecast, I did go off on an angered soliloquy about the behavior I was seeing -- but I made a point of assigning the blame exactly where it belonged.

Squarely upon the shoulders of the head coach.

You see, I remember the days when CM was just another struggling football school, its program mired deeply in the shadow of its very successful basketball program. CM was the school you called if you needed to fill a hole in your schedule with an easy win, and many of our local schools did just that a few decades ago.

Well, obviously, there was a segment of the CM alumni cabal that wanted to change that. So they lured John DiBiaso away from Everett High, where he had built a D1 powerhouse, and gave him a blank check to build a winner.

DiBiaso did exactly that. He has been at CM for eight years now and has a 77-10 record there, bringing his career record of wins to 381 over 30 head coaching seasons. Obviously, the guy knows what he's doing. 

But I and my fellow observers in the North TV booth at Gillette also observed that he clearly didn't give two shits about the behavior of his team. I could use all sorts of adjectives to describe it, and because of the multicultural makeup of the CM roster, some might accuse me of racism for being even remotely critical. Think what you will, folks, but this is now the fourth Super Bowl I've seen from Catholic Memorial and it's not the first time I've seen that behavior -- although this was clearly the worst example of all. And during the game, I practically screamed that it was time for DiBiaso, as the authority figure in charge, to get control over his team.

I don't think the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers teach that sort of public comportment in the classrooms.

I will also note that I was thoroughly impressed with the play and the demeanor of CM quarterback Kise Flannery, a very talented and successful young man that will be taking his talents to Harvard next year. I watched video of four of his games in preparation for this one, and each time I came away fully in awe of his skills and his leadership. There's the fellow that should have been the poster boy for CM's victory on Saturday, and in my opinion, it's a damned shame that the undisciplined play of some of his teammates tarnished the effort even in the slightest.

Maybe it's time for the MIAA to take a stand. I don't think the state association has the sack to stop CM from looking all over creation for athletes as if it was an independent prep school, but it should simply force to CM to play at the same level as 99 percent of the rest of the Catholic Conference, in Division 1.

And if that sounds like sour grapes that Feehan didn't win, so be it. I don't see Feehan as "another cheating Catholic" as some might claim -- its co-ed enrollment of about 1,100 students is made up quite differently than the all-male behemoths that raise eyebrows in D1. In fact, if not for the MIAA rules that force Feehan to play up a division because it is a faith-based regional school, the Shamrocks should have been doing battle with like-sized schools such as North Attleboro, Mansfield, KP, Marshfield, Barnstable and Hingham in D3.

Sad it is that the last game of the year left that sour taste in my mouth, but I'm still very pleased and proud that the Shamrocks got to the last game, as everyone in the Feehan community and our area in general should be.

** I'm hoping someone might answer a question for me.

Ever since I was a mere tyke, the TV station at the top of the VHF dial (and I know nobody knows what that is any more) was Boston's Channel 2. WGBH-TV, or what we called back in the day, "educational television." Obviously, that station still exists as one of the anchors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, an association of television and radio stations of like mission that provide news, information and entertainment that some would call "highbrow" in content. PBS gave us Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theatre and a lot of intelligent programming in-between, including magnificent documentaries such as Ken Burns' recent look at the American Revolution. 

Even if you don't pay attention to its programming, PBS probably rang a bell for you because it's been in the news lately. Our lord and master, King Donald the First, managed to yank all federal funding away from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 

Trump hates any sort of independent voice that would accurately point out that he is rapidly turning the United States into a dictatorship, and his only recourse with PBS was to pull federal support away from it -- which is why the lists of supporting corporations and foundations that you hear before every PBS program has grown longer and longer in recent months.

GBH, fighting the good fight.

Anyway, as I said, WGBH has been one of the founders and driving forces behind the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- or, as they call it these days, just GBH. And that has puzzled me a little because as far as I know, it's still a broadcast station governed by the rules and regulations of the Federal Communications Commission -- another federal entity that has been weaponized by Trump against what he calls "wokeness," although that's a complaint for another day.

What puzzled me was why they have removed the "W" from the call letters -- and, given the changes in broadcasting these days, if you don't know what call letters are or why they exist, in a nutshell, they are the three- or four-letter identifying names given to North American broadcasting stations. In the U.S., most radio and TV stations on the eastern side of the Mississippi River start with W, such as WBZ, WCVB, WJAR and so on. In the west, most start with K, such as KABC, KCBS and KTLA in Los Angeles (although one of the oldest broadcast stations in the country, KDKA, hails from Pittsburgh).

Canada and Mexico have their own similar call-letter system, too. Canada uses CF, CH, CJ and CK and just two more letters as identifiers, holding to the four-letter format as there are far fewer broadcast outlets north of the border. Mexican stations similarly start with XE or XH.

(An aside: I do work in TV these days, but because North TV is a local cable station and not a broadcasting entity sending our signal out to Alpha Centauri via radio waves, we don't have call letters. I think it would be cool if we were WNTV, but those are apparently the call letters for a real TV station which operates out of Greenville, S.C., and carries PBS programming over Channel 29.)

New swag! Be a winner!

Anyway, because I am sometimes inexplicably obsessed with finding answers to questions of dubious importance, I was relieved to find that, for the purpose of legality, WGBH is still WGBH in the eyes of the broadcasting powers-that-be. I looked on their website to check that out. But I could not find out when or why they dropped the W from their corporate branding. It's probably because for as long as I've been around, people just referred to the station in everyday parlance as "'GBH," dropping the W out of convenience or haste.

If someone knows the reason why, please drop me a line at the email address that always appears at the bottom of these missives. If you'd like to include your name and mailing address in the email, the first one that responds correctly (and I will check with GBH to confirm) will receive one of my spiffy new green-and-gold "The Owner's Box ... After Dark" winter hats in return.

** Speaking of the Asshole-in-Chief, it just seems to me that every time I believe we've reached the limit of the embarrassment that can be caused to this country by President Donald von Shitzenpantz, he tops it. 

The latest bad joke: The "FIFA Peace Prize."

The most recent example was the international soccer federation's presentation to him of the "FIFA Peace Prize" by the organization's president, Gianni Infantino -- whose name I confused in an earlier typing with that of the late and great Carmine Infantino, the comic-book artist that brought The Flash to life in the pages of DC Comics when that character was revived and re-envisioned in 1956. Many apologies to THAT Infantino family.

Talk about your all-time suck-ups! FIFA, apparently terrified that Trump's anti-immigration policies will threaten the success of the upcoming World Cup games in the U.S. (seven of which are to be at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro), seized upon the Mango Führer's disappointment at again being rejected for a Nobel Peace Prize by creating one of its own to massage the fragile ego of our Cheeto Benito.

Indeed, they have reason to be fearful about waves of ICE thugs yanking individuals out of the stadium waiting lines and sending them to gulags in the dark of night. There are already rumblings that international ticket sales will suffer (as well as associated travel industries) from the climate of fear Trump and his evil minions created in what used to be the Land of the Free.

But the "FIFA Peace Prize?" REALLY??? From one of the most corrupt organizations in the history of this planet? This is supposed to be something that anyone should take seriously? 

You know, there's a reason why they're called "soccer riots."

Better it should have been called the "FIFA Piss Prize," as that was probably what was running down Donald's leg when he received it. Besides, that's the way Melania would pronounce it anyway.

** I now have three things at the top of my list of things that make me immediately turn off the sound on whatever I'm listening to at the moment:

        1. The "1-877-Kars-for-Kids" jingle,

        2. Any commercial that starts with, "Hi, it's your favorite president, Donald J. Trump ..." and,

        3. Any mention at all of "Lane Kiffin."

** The North TV winter sports schedule came to me this morning, and I'll be a busy boy.

Alex Salachi and I will bring you four King Philip basketball games, two apiece from the boys and girls, and the North-based crew will have two others for those that follow the men and women of Metacomet. Del Malloy and I will also have two Bishop Feehan girls' games for you, for which I've been lobbying for some time now. And I've got quite a few hockey games as well.

Other than those, Alex and I will be bringing the bulk of the Mansfield High home basketball schedule to the world via Mansfield Cable Access, both boys and girls. And we'll even show up for a few games of the Foxboro girls over the course of the season. Not bad for a couple of codgers -- one of whom turns 72 tomorrow.

Hint: It's not me. Not yet, anyway,

See you around the gyms, my friends.

MARK FARINELLA climbed many more rows of bleachers to reach press boxes this season than his aching knees would have preferred. Send along advice about knee replacement surgery to him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.