My 8th Grade & High School, etc.

For 8th Grade, two smaller 7th grades came together but we had two teachers, Miss Modeste DuBay, and Miss Murphy. We would always begin the school day, with the teachers and the students repeating the Lord's prayer. Our teachers were both Catholic, so they didn't say the last part of the prayer that the Protestants did, but we said it all, and they remained with bowed heads until we finished. Our one Jewish student simply remained quiet. No one had a problem. We would sing vaarious songs and hymns, including "Come Thou Almighty King".

Maybe about this time or a little later, Dad bought an old, but quite fancy used car. Maybe it was a Studebaker, but I can't be certain. Here he is with the car, parked under the Norway spruce tree. In the background you can see our shop.

Crazy things we used to do: I remember one night we all went bowling in East Hartford. We rode in Dick Niederwerfer's car. We were driving along Main Street, and one of us (for fun, (not me)), pulled out the throttle. Dick was driving. His quick reaction was to push the hand throttle back into the dash, but he accidentally pushed in the headlight switch instead, so there we were, travelling at high speed down Main Street in East Hartford with our lights out at night! But not for long; it all came out O.K.

We would regularly go bowling in Rockville about once a week. One time afterwards we went to the "Diner" for some ice cream. On some kind of a dare, I think it was Dick Niederwerfer ate his ice cream with ketchup on it.

Once we saved up sparklers from 4th of July, and on Haloween night put a row of them in the tar across the state highway, and lit them, then hid to see what would happen. Nothing happened.

One 4th of July I bought a few rockets. I had in mind to tie a thread to one, send it over a very tall maple tree on Skinner Road, and use it, with increasing string sized to put up another antenna. The first rocket didn't do the job because the thread wouldn't unwind from the spool fast enough. So for the second attempt I laid out a large amount of thread in a zig zag patern on the ground (in the chicken yard). It worked well for the first second or so, but then the thread snagged on a weed, the rocket did a U-turn in mid flight and plowed down into the chicken coop roof. Dad wouldn't let me make a third attempt.

Summers we spent an awful lot of time hoing asparagus, cabbages, strawberries, everything. Once or twice a year, when we least expected it, and it was very hot, Dad would come out, and say, "It's too hot to work, lets go down to the shore and go swimming!" We would always go to Rocky Neck State Park. (Note that is where Barbara took my picture in knickers sitting on a monster size rock).

Many summer Sunday afternoons I would take our dog and go for a very long walk, straight south across the pasture, across Gunthers lot, and thence into Gunther's woods. Sometimes I'd be gone several hours.

In my first two years of high school, I was getting mostly C's, maybe a B, but also one or two D's. I failed Sophmore Geometry and second year Latin. My Geometry teacher was an old Normal School classmate of Mother's, and Mother made a deal with her for me to study through the summer and take a make-up test in the fall. I did it under Mother's control. I wouldn't have done it by myself. Sitting at a card table in the living room on a wonderful summer's day, studying Geometry? Of course not! But I was forced to, and in the fall, I passed it.

I remember once during the school year, Mother had me sitting in the evening at the dining room table to study Latin. I was so angry that I just sat there with the book open in front of me, and I just looked at it for 1/2 hour but didn't study. Then it came to me that since I had to sit there anyway, I might as well study, so I did.

My second year high school was not too good. I was abscent sick almost a month because I first had the flu, and when I recovered from that I came down with the mumps. But something happened to me, I don't know what, and for my last two years of high school, I had all A's and B's. One incident: There were two Algebra classes, that started out about even. As time went on during the school year, the class I was in, taught by Coach Chatterton, started to dwindle in size without my noticing it. Eventually there were only a few of us in it. About that time Mr. Chatterton laughed and said "well I guess no one here will be going to college". I piped up and said that I was intending to go. It seemed that all those who had left our class had transferred to the other Algebra class and were being prepped for college. So I spoke up just barely in time.

Speaking of college, Dad used to pay me in cash for the work I did, and I saved up $50 on the top shelf of my closet. When I got that much, I went out and bought an old 1931 chevrolet coupe. At this development Mother said "I thought you were going to go to college!"

Well, I guess that's enough for now.