Old Jerome

I’ve been crunching numbers at work most the day – trying to measure which intervention strategies are most effective in increasing student retention and promoting transition from non-credit or college prep classes into college level work. Sorta tedious, but intriguing at the same time.

As usual, I’ve got tunes playing on Pandora while I work. Many thanks to Papa Herman for turning me on to the GREAT service. Free music from your computer and you get to give feedback to customize what sort of music will be played.

Anyway…there I was just crunching away with Excel data analyzer, generating random samples of student numbers and building tables to illustrate enrollment status of various groups when a song came on I’d never heard before….

“Old Jerome” by Kate Wolf

This is a song about the little mining town clinging to the mountainside in Arizona where I went to High School. The line about Cleopatra Hill and the copper left no doubt.

So many memories of that place came tumbling back…from partying in the Spirit Room to hanging with the hippies in the Gulch. And yes, even some good times at Mingus Union High School as it slowly but surely worked it's way at sliding down the side of the mountain along with the rest of the precarious town.

From copper mining boom town, to ghost town, to hippy hang out to thriving artist community and funky place extraordinaire, Jerome, Arizona was quite a place. I haven’t been back for many, many years but I will always carry fond memories of the place.