When Falls Church became a city and the town’s schools were split between the new city and Fairfax County, there were unintended consequences.

I was first made aware of this on a June day in 1953, the last day of school that year.  I was then finishing my freshman class at George Mason Junior-Senior High School – and Mason’s first year as a school.

The school building was of course brand new, having opened for the first time for the 1952-53 school year.  It was much smaller than it would eventually become, having only one wing connected to the main structure that paralleled Route 7.  That main, single-story structure had the library at its east end and a tool shop (for shop class) at its west end, and students’ lockers all along its length.  The wide hallway had a relatively low ceiling, comprised of acoustic tiles.

I had just cleaned out my locker and was talking with a friend when the incident occurred.  A strange, unfamiliar boy came running down the hallway, whooping and yelling.  As he ran he punched his raised fists into the hallway ceiling, striking and dislodging the acoustic tiles, leaving a pathway of destruction behind him.  When he got to the west end of the hallway he used an exit door to leave the building.

“Who was that?” my friend asked.  I had no idea.  But we soon found out.  It was a kid from Falls Church High – then still located on Hillwood Avenue at South Cherry Street in the city of Falls Church. This was the first salvo in a new, previously undeclared rivalry between the two schools.

To the best of my knowledge, no one at George Mason (now Meridian) was aware of or interested in this rivalry.  We, in the first year of a brand new high school, felt no hostility or enmity for those who were attending our old high school.  We were still establishing ourselves, still launching our school publications (The Lasso and The Penman’s Palette) and fielding our first sports teams (who did surprisingly well).  But obviously some who were attending Falls Church High felt hostility and maybe enmity for us.  That came as a surprise.

I had a reminder of that hostility the following school year.  As it happened, I had childhood friends who lived south and east of Seven Corners – in Fairfax County.  They still went to Falls Church High, and I had to meet one of them after school…at Falls Church High.  I was waiting in a lobby area when a Falls church High student (whom I did not know), came up to me and asked me if I went to George Mason.  I said I did.  And he immediately and without warning threw a punch at me.  I dodged the blow and he put his fist into the bulletin board on the brick wall behind me.  Fortunately for me, my friend showed up then and we left without further incident.  My friend confirmed the animosity some at his school felt for mine, but couldn’t explain it.

That same year – my sophomore year at George Mason – we had a far more serious incident.  It occurred during the second period.  I was in study hall (a class-free period for me), then being held on the stage at the north end of the “cafetorium.”  The main doors to this large area opened onto that same hallway where we had our lockers, fronted by a lobby area and the outside doors directly opposite.  When I went out to that hallway at the end of the second period to access my locker, I encountered the aftermath of the incident.  

There was blood everywhere, but mostly around the outside doors.  An ambulance was out front.

It wasn’t hard to find out what had occurred.  Two boys from Falls Church High had showed up during second period.  They’d walked in the front doors and made a bee-line for the close-by side hallway that bordered the east side of the “cafetorium” and then taken that hallway’s door into the girls’ gym-class dressing room, a room with showers and clothes lockers.

As it happened, there were two hall monitors on duty then.  One of them was the same bully who’d given me a gut-punch on my first-grade orientation day.  And by some coincidence, the girlfriends of both hall monitors were taking gym that period.  So it was no coincidence at all that both monitors chased after the two intruders, grabbed them, and threw them out of the school.  

Physically threw them out.  Each monitor picked up an intruder and tossed him through the outside doors.  At least one of those doors had been open when the first intruder was thrown through it, but his foot kicked against it and it was swinging shut when the second intruder was thrown.

Those doors had a lot of glass in them, but it wasn’t just glass. The glass was double-paned, with what looked like chicken-wire fencing laminated between the panes.   The second intruder went through that laminated glass.  It cut through one of the boy’s arms – some rumors had it entirely severed – resulting in all that blood.

Well, that wasn’t just a few ceiling tiles.  That was serious.  Falls Church High’s principal came storming into our school to demand retribution – only to be asked what his students were doing out of class and at George Mason.

My last, senior, year at George Mason, the school played its one and only football game against Falls Church High.  All the adults held their breaths, fearing the worst, maybe a riot.  Fortunately for all concerned, the game ended in a tie.