Category: McKinley High

After a year, my mother found it was no easier living with her mother than it had been with her mother-in-law and we returned to Niles, to the old neighborhood. Although there were other houses available in town, my father got along very well with Mrs. Andrews, the landlady who owned our old house on Cedar Street and who, no doubt, offered a rental he could easily afford, both in dollars and in the time he contributed taking care of her yard and repairing odds-and-ends around her own home. So, we moved into another house she owned that was previously rented by my music teacher on Seneca Street.

The front room, once occupied by Mrs. Corbett’s piano, was now filled with a red couch, stuffed chair, knickknack table and left-over dining-room chair. The adjoining room served as a place for meals, if relatives ate eat with us. The first floor of the house was completed by a small kitchen, yet one large enough for a table and chairs, allowing us to eat daily meals there instead of in the dining room.

The kitchen was equipped with a gas stove and a real Frigidaire. Refrigerators in lieu of ice boxes had now come into vogue for city living. The grandparents’ houses up-the-hill and on-the-farm had them, therefor my father could not complain too much about this modern appliance in our current home. Now my glass of water could have ice cubes from aluminum trays with a pop-up lever for releasing them. I could also make my own popsicles from flavored Kool-Aid and the flat sticks bought in the grocery store.

The usual pantry and sink adjoined the kitchen. Enclosed stairs from the kitchen led past a landing for the backdoor and down into the basement with its modern washer. We did not yet own a drier. Depending upon the season, wet clothes still hung on lines outdoors or in the cellar.

Access to the second floor was from the front room. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom with the usual claw-footed tub. The house, itself, had been built only three feet away from a two-story apartment building next door. The window-shade in our bathroom was consistently pulled down to preclude a too-intimate communication with our neighbors.

My bedroom gave a view of the Lincoln schoolyard. My desk was located so I could see what was happening outside at any time of the day or evening. Over the next four years, I spent many hours staring out that window and, on many sleepless evenings, listening to the moaning of the train passing through Niles to places I one day wanted to see.

The best feature of my room was a very low, but long, closet under the eaves that contained all of our out-of-season stuff, and a lot of my precious junk, including boxes of comic books my mother later discarded while I was away at college. The collection had been in mint condition, since I did not allow any of my friends to borrow them. My favorite, of course, was Mad Magazine which cost a mere dime! I sometimes wonder what Captain Marvel and Action Comics might be worth today.

Nothing physical had changed since I had left the neighborhood a year ago and reappeared at age fourteen. I missed the new friends I had found in the country. In both locations, no friends my age lived close-by. Nevertheless, in the Ridge the days at school and on the farm had passed pleasantly. I learned there was a difference between being alone and being lonely.

A Freshman in a junior high building designed for grades seven through nine should have a magnificent year. I could have been a top-dog and not an underdog or some sort of bottom feeder subject to the predation of upperclassmen. My own experiences do not confirm this conclusion.

The beginning of my freshman year in high school in Mineral Ridge had been great. I had been readily accepted by upperclassmen, even Seniors, as well as my fellow classmates. Returning to Washington Junior High School, I was a Nebbish, even if this word for my “nothingness” did not exist, at the time, in my vocabulary. This role may have been the result of my entering the ninth grade after classes had begun for the academic year. Although I had been at WJHS for my entire seventh grade, my absence in the eighth made me an invisible kid to my peers, only fourteen months later. My teachers welcomed me back. Once more they had someone to respond to the questions they posed. Maybe that was part of the problem.

The language of junior high had not yet included the word, geek, but the concept, none-the-less, existed. I gradually learned that the only way to turn geekdom into an advantage was to help other kids get through their own classes. At reunions many years after high school graduation, I was informed by fellow alums that they had made it through Latin only because of the ponies I had trotted out for them.

No doubt the content of the classes I took was relevant to my later studies, but I recall little about them or the teachers who taught them. I did like study halls. They were not overly supervised and so it was possible to whisper to others assigned to the same open-period. However, given my social standing, my own whispers were limited. I had plenty of time to complete my homework during school hours and, thus, free myself for other events after school.

Yet, there was little for which I needed the time I had earned. Although I knew the jocks who took part in under-varsity sports and I attended their football, basketball and track events in season, I never became part of the group who gathered around the popular ones. I was, also, not readily welcomed into other extracurricular activities and seldom thrust myself upon them in junior high. A couple of years later, I attempted to fit in with other students.

So, my freshman year slowly dragged on, making limited memories of what a dreary time I was experiencing. There were hopes that next year, as a sophomore in high school, things would be different. I would be moving to Niles McKinley High School. In this new location the size of the class would expand by our joining with kids from Jefferson Junior High, which served the other side of Niles. I recognized I needed to change, perhaps become more assertive in meeting new people. I knew the life being expressed during my freshman days could not be endured for another year.

When does the new year begin? For most people the answer is January 1. Not for me. For almost all of my life, the year begins in September, with the start of the academic year; it results from my time spent as a student and in my career in higher education.

Back in 1950, when I was fifteen, I looked forward to changes that would commence when the leaves turned to reds and golds. I was anxious to begin my sophomore year, the year of the “wise fool.” It was then that I transferred from Washington Junior High School to the 10th grade at Niles McKinley High School. It was supposed to have been a year of change, of improvement. There would be new kids to meet, those from the southwest side of Niles who had not gone to WJHS. And it worked, more or less.

This was also the time when my Journaling began. I had purchased a thin, brown, spiral-ring Engagements book. Each page had space for multiple days but little room for any extensive entries, which was actually a good limitation. The first entry I made was for Monday, January 1, 1951, halfway through my sophomore year. It read: “HAPPY NEW YEAR, family played Canasta ‘till 1 A.M., went to 12 Mass. About 5:00, Mom and I went to Camerino’s.”

Canasta was a family card-game I played back then, along with Hearts. My father and uncles were avid Pinochle players; I never learned how to play the game. Given that January 1 is a major Holy Day, back then called the Feast of the Circumcision, I had to attend Mass. An obligatory holiday dinner was mandated for going up-the-hill for the evening.

The entry for January 30 stated that for the first semester of my sophomore year I received 3 A’s and 1 B, but omits what courses they were for. My guess would be that the B was in plane geometry, since Miss Galster, who taught everything she had learned directly from Euclid and Archimedes, seldom, if ever, gave an A to anyone for any mathematical course.

During the first days of February, classes were cancelled because of a foot of snow. The cold I picked up led me to Dr. Williamson’s office for a penicillin shot, no doubt part of the reason I’m now allergic to this antibiotic.

Another entry that month indicated I was nominated for president of the sophomore class and that Bob Wick was elected. Bob was probably the most popular kid in high school; he was elected class president every year.

One of the items of interest was a trip to Kent State on May 5 to take the district test in Biology. A week later I learned I’d placed seventh in the northwestern Ohio district. The only real social event worth noting was decorating the gym for the Sophomore Class Party with the theme “Old Shanty Town.” Evidently I did attend and reported that I “had a lot of fun.”

Wednesday, June 6, 1951, was the last day of the year, once more I ended up with 4 A’s and 1 B. The notation for that final day included the statement: “Miss G was nice today.” The additional class was personal-use typing. It would seem, on rereading this Engagements book, that the year of the wise fool was less boring than I thought it was at that time. There may not have been events of any special nature, but I did survive it, being “alone” much of the time, but not feeling overly lonely, a true wise-fool.

“Nothing happened today” are very sad words for a teenager. Being an adolescent suggests something important must occur each and every day. Surveys tell us how young adults text, snap, tweet and message one another 24/7. It’s even essential to transmit photos of what they are about to eat.

Seven decades ago, technology did not exist to document these desires, these needs, but they occurred, none-the-less. Instead, personal events were recorded in diaries, a method going back to Samuel Pepys in the 17th century, if not even to the time when “all of Gaul is divided into three parts.”

My own efforts began, formally, on January 1, 1951, when I was fifteen and a sophomore in high school. Each day there were notations on classes I took and kids I knew; mostly on those I envied, because they always seemed to be “doing” more than I could and were involved with friends I lacked. My own life beyond classes and attendance at basketball games included movies I went to several times a week.

Visits from aunts, uncles and cousins merited comment. More frequently, I went to my paternal grandparent’s home, which I found to be very boring. There’s not much enjoyment in listening to full-volume arguments in Italian when you don’t understand the language, even if the body speaks very eloquently, especially during games of pinochle or hearts.

In addition to visits and battles with relatives, the entries included comments on stamps I bought from the Post Office or from the Jamestown Stamp Company. My other hobby was writing to foreign pen-pals in England, Germany, France and Sweden. What a treasure it would be if only I had kept them, the letters; I still have the stamps.

An even greater treasure would have been if I had made personal comments about worldly events, such as two occurring that fall. Without elaboration, I noted I had listened to the signing of the Japanese Peace Treaty in San Francisco on September 8. Shortly afterwards there was another note about the peace treaty talks beginning on October 24 at a place called Panmunjom , or as I had spelled it: Panmunjun. Instead, I was more inclined to record receiving the latest copy of Open Road, a monthly, teen-magazine, costing ten cents. How I longed for my own “open road!”

The beginning of my make-believe adventure is mentioned for June 26: “Keys of Murder.” An ageing, yellowed-page copy of this uncompleted mystery I began writing that year is probably buried in some box in my closet. Although events, personal and public, were occurring, they held no validity for me. As far as I was concerned, “Nothing happened today.”

In the teen-years to follow, this phrase became almost a daily reference in my high school diaries. There are days when the words were repeated in fancy twirls or strangely formed letters to fill up the vacant space. Back then, the unquiet reader in me wanted a life like the ones lived by Tom Sawyer, the Hardy Boys, and the heroes found in Ellery Queen mysteries, e.g., The Chinese Orange or The Siamese Twin.

Yes, events, real and imaginary, comprised my daily life. It’s possible to visualize them as fog, itself, or objects fogged in by other mists, being alone or being lonely, with all of life ahead of me or all of life behind me. The events of my life can be tasted, in memory, with sweetness or with bitterness. They may be salty or bland. Everything depends upon the truth of the conclusion: “nothing happened today.”

Before the days of Netflix and streaming videos, films were shown in movie theaters, the rundown sites for more than cinematic entertainment. Teenagers in the early 1950’s had to leave home if they wanted to participate in this visual world.

Although many teens were able to drive, I had to walk two miles to spend a few hours in the Robbins Theater, in the business center of town, or in the McKinley Theater, located at the edge of Niles. The Robbins, next to the Grill, our high school hangout, was preferred to the McKinley, even though its quarter admission was a nickel more expensive. Both showed double features; the Robbins had first-run films rather than mere Westerns. I usually went to the movies several times a week.

In January of 1951, I saw such stars and films as: John Payne in Tripoli and Howard Duff in Shakedown; Judy Garland and Gene Kelly in Summer Stock and Robert Young and Barbara Hale in And Baby Makes Three; James Stewart and Barbara Hale, again, in The Jackpot and Randolph Scott in The Nevadan; Bill Holden and Barry Fitzgerald in Union Station, along with Joan Davis and Andy Devine in The Traveling Saleswoman, a very good mystery and a very good comedy. The month ended with Mario Lanza in The Toast of New Orleans and Broderick Crawford and Glenn Ford in Convicted.

I seldom missed the shows on Wednesday; that was “Bank Nite” at the Robbins but not at the lower-priced McKinley. Between the two midweek films, the theater lights would be turned on, revealing a stage with ragged, burgundy curtains and a small, round wire-cage tumbler, wheeled out for the drawing of the names of winners from an original sign-up list of patrons. The prizes amounted to 5, 10 and 25 dollars for each of the three drawings. You had to be present in order to win; unclaimed dollars were carried over until next week’s event. The largest awards occasionally reached a final, magnificent bounty of $400. So those who came were often less interested in the movies, themselves, than in the chance to become a big winner. The intermission was not the time to buy another bag of ten-cent popcorn, those chewy kernels soaked in a yellow fluid held all of the buttery, salty taste one could consume and not be completely satiated.

“Bank-nite” was not the only method for increasing the sale of movie tickets and popcorn. Alternative evenings would offer free pottery, a different dish each week. It was possible to get six dinner plates and all of the dining accessories, including gravy boat, if you went on a regular basis, as I did. Not all enticements were free, however. In addition to bank-nites and dish-nites, opportunities were presented for the purchase of books, one or two dollars a piece, making up the current Collier’s Encyclopedia. My extended education depended, in part, on the twenty-volume set purchased throughout the year at the movie theater.

Netflix and other media sources provide modern entertainment, but the Robbins Theater offered money, dishes and an advanced education, all for a very reasonable price. You can’t get that by streaming productions onto your cell phone.

Summertime in my sixteenth year was boring. I tried to get a job at a local Isaly Dairy store and thought I might be lined up for one in Girard, a few miles from Niles. I never heard the reason why it did not turn out. I didn’t really try very hard to find anything else. Summer employment of teens in the early fifties in northeastern Ohio was scarce; all the openings were filled by young adults seeking full-time work.

I did envy my friend, George Davies, who landed a job as an usher at the Robbins Theater. It would have been great earning money instead of spending it there. I must have attended a movie three or four times a week. I’m not sure where I got the money for it, other than from donations from my mother, with a hope I might be there for bank-nite winnings. It certainly wasn’t from my father, who ignored me most of the time, or at least when he was not threatening my mother and me with financial or bodily harm.

I did, however, start writing my mystery novel that June. By the end of the summer I’d completed four chapters of The Keys of Murder. It was a locked-room mystery at a large country estate. I may still have a copy stuffed away in my closet.

I also spent hours working on my stamp collection. I focused on US stamps and made trips to the Niles Post Office. It’s a good thing each stamp cost only three cents back then. In the forties and early fifties, it seemed that the color of almost every stamp was a variation of purple-violet. I’m not sure why I collected stamps, other than FDR did. I did not know any collectors, personally.

I also had time for continuing my correspondence with foreign pen-pals. I wrote a letter to someone almost every other week. A friend gave me the addresses for two Japanese boys he was writing to, but my mother forbid me to correspond with any “Japs.” For some reason, “Germans” were OK. That summer my favorite uncle, Bill Moransky, did take his family and me to a baseball game in Cleveland when they were playing Detroit. The Cleveland Indians was the team to see in person or listen to on the radio. I seldom did either; my father was the one who listened intently to them on the radio and went with his buddies to the games in Cleveland.

On our return trip from Cleveland, Uncle Bill stopped at Nelson Ledges with its rock trails and a few caves where I felt like Tom Sawyer. Since then I’ve enjoyed the occasional chance I’ve had for spelunking in Pennsylvania and west Texas or in Mammoth Caves in Kentucky and Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

Another attraction was to visit a shrine, a past-time my mother and her relatives enjoyed. Another uncle, Frank Borecki, took us along with his wife, Rose (my mother’s sister) and their son, Frankie, to Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine near Euclid, Ohio for the Labor Day weekend. I was able to escape the confines of Niles and the Mahoning Valley only on very rare occasions.

I felt a continuing sense of boredom that summer. Since then, I’ve learned I created my own boredom, as did many teenagers who expected the world will freely give them magnificent adventures, like the ones found in the books I read. Nowadays, they use virtual reality and X-Box games to attempt to eliminate that feeling. Nothing much really changes. My boredom was of my own creation, or my own lack of creativity.

Niles, Ohio is my hometown. At least that’s the response I give when asked the question. Technically, it’s not the place where I was born, although I often state, even officially, that it is. As noted elsewhere, I was actually born in my grandparents’ house in Mineral Ridge, when my own parents were living above a hardware store on North Cedar Street in Niles. For most people, their hometown is the foundation for their lives, often the place of their favorite memories. While this might be the site of my own foundation, it is not the focus of my favorite recollections.

Although I have alluded to several particular sites in Niles, perhaps an overall compilation would be useful, even if the locations are few. The central building found downtown is the McKinley Memorial with its library and auditorium. I spent many hours in the library while I was a student in the nearby Niles McKinley High School. The baccalaureate services for my graduation from Niles McKinley, along with other citywide assemblies, were held in this auditorium. The second floor, above the library, housed a memorial collection for William McKinley, twenty-fifth President of the United States, who was born in Niles in 1843. However, he spent much of his life in Canton, Ohio, where he was buried following his assassination in 1901.

Other than the memorial building, itself, not much about McKinley’s life and political career were evident in his hometown. His name was incorporated in the designation of other structures, e.g., the McKinley Theater, which showed second-level movies, and the McKinley Grill, next to the Robbins Theater, that served as a local hangout for teenagers. There was also the McKinley Savings and Loan, of which my cousin Fremont was later the CEO. A suburban division of Niles was McKinley Heights, where my mother worked in the local mall, built when I was in highschool.

The tallest structure downtown was the seven-story Niles Bank Building. I never went above the first-floor lobby where the tellers were located. Nearby, between the Niles Bank and the McKinley Memorial were the Post Office and the Fire Station. A block away was the Police Station. Several churches, including St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church, were commingled with other surrounding commercial buildings. The only other business building was for the Niles Daily Times, owned and managed by the Wick Family. The local department store, a few drug stores and furniture establishments were part of the downtown collection of businesses along Main Street and its primary crossings, State Street and Park Avenue. I do not remember there being a single restaurant among them. Other than the McKinley Grill, the only place to eat downtown was at the Niles Luncheonette and the Dairy Queen.

There may have been one or two disreputable bars on the outskirts of the downtown area, but I was too young to know much about them. The only comparable place I occasionally visited was the local newsstand/magazine shop which had its backroom I could not enter. I had to be satisfied with the covers on the open stands in the front of the store. I was led to believe the material in the backroom was for “adults-only.” I also understood this was, also, the place for “playing-the-numbers.”

Long before stateside lotteries or nationwide Power Balls were known, my father would choose three numbers he hoped would be called so he could win five or ten dollars, based on a twenty-five or fifty-cent bet. Almost all of my adult relatives played-the-numbers. My maternal grandmother used her dreams to determine, in some mysterious fashion, which three numbers she should play. Occasionally, the pot would grow, as a result of winless rounds, to be almost one-hundred dollars. I never knew anyone who won that much.

The southern end of Main Street was marked by the Viaduct which passed over the Mahoning River not far from its juncture with Mosquito Creek. The pavement consisted of red bricks which rumbled as cars passed over them. Their sound always assured me, when I was being driven home in the evening from relatives living in Mineral Ridge, that we were, indeed, back in Niles, and only a few minutes from our house. Under the Viaduct was the Train Station, which I seldom saw, except when Uncle Joe went off to war. I never had a reason to use the railroad system out of Niles. The Greyhound Bus Terminal was near by and more frequently used. On the north end of Main Street, on the way to Warren, was the General Electric factory where my Aunt Mary worked, making light bulbs.

The Central Park, on the outskirts of downtown and not truly “central,” was the only remaining feature of downtown Niles. The park had a pool and fountain, usually without any water unless there had been a rainstorm. There was seldom anyone in the park. This was a time long before the day of homeless sleepers and to-be-feared wanderers. Nevertheless, I usually walked rapidly under the trees as I ventured from my house into the downtown section of Niles.

Today, almost all of the buildings downtown are empty and boarded up. I would be more reluctant to walk on Main Street late at night now, than in the 1950s. Niles is truly in the nation’s “rust-belt.” Its current claim-to-fame, if there is any, is being the home of Congressman Tim Ryan, who has been a candidate for the U.S. Presidency. Niles is the birthplace of Number 25; it is unlikely to be the birthplace for Number 47.

School, itself, was not the major site for extracurricular past-times. For many classmates, hours were spent at the local YMCA. Before the tenth grade, for many young Catholics, this “Y” was out-of-bounds. The approved, alternative “Y,” Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, my local parish, was devoted mostly to the jocks. The parish priests, with their limited command of English, were not interested in catechism as much as they were in sports. It wasn’t until the year I was in tenth grade that the parish reintroduced religious classes for Catholic teenagers and a fuss was no longer made if we participated in events held at the YMCA.

I was not part of the gang of boys who hung out with the Mt. Carmel CYO. I did go with friends to the YMCA housed at Jefferson Junior High. This was my place for playing ping-pong, the only sport at which I sometimes was able to win a game. During my junior year, I was pleased to have helped design and build the group’s float for the town’s Halloween parade. I went to “sock hops” there, where I enjoyed myself even if I did not really know how to dance.

I did try to go to the religious classes held in the parish, but they often did not have enough participants for a session, and we would leave without beginning. I’m not sure if St. Stephen’s had the same problem.

During the late forties and early fifties, the separation of Mt. Carmel’s parish and St. Stephen’s parish was a result of classic, socioeconomic divisions. Mt. Carmel was attended mainly by those of Italian descent; St. Stephen’s was for Irish and wealthy Italians. Back then, St. Mary’s in Mineral Ridge was for the Polish, the third major ethnic group in the area, but their youth program was minuscule and not available for car-less teens like me.

In addition to supporting teams for church leagues and a place for teen-dances, my parish was also the site for the annual Italian festival, held in honor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, whose feast day was July 16. The days surrounding this date became the time for the major summertime, social event for those in high school, regardless of their religious background, as well as for many adults, even the Irish. Carnival rides, centering around a Ferris wheel, as well as the booths for games-of-chance and others for ethnic food like pizza or hard-rolls filled with fried-peppers-and-sausages, provided nine days of merriment in midsummer.

The only competition the festival had was the annual town carnival. The Niles-wide event had more mechanical rides than the festival had, and more games-of-chance, with larger stuffed prizes, even if fewer were ever won. One year, I came back with a gold-painted ceramic box with a mermaid sitting on the lid! I do not recall how I won her. For many years, she guarded my small treasures, even if my mother made me cover her with a white, plaster-of-Paris brassiere!

The Mt. Carmel Festival also had much better food and a more intimate atmosphere than did the town carnival. Nevertheless, the Niles carnival had a large, teenage attendance. Most of us got there on foot. The gathering was held on a field at the edge of town that much later became the grounds for the current McKinley High School.

Back then, it was safe to venture out in the evenings and walk to places that now would be of a doubtful nature for any sensible adult, let alone those in their teens who do not yet drive. Today it’s called “free range parenting” and often in large towns or cities parents may be fined for the illegal action of allowing their kids to venture forth on their own. In the fifties this was the only way to go.

My junior year in high school was more rewarding than I would have expected from my previous years in Niles. The classes that year were the beginning of what would become part of me for the rest of my life, even if I did not realize it at the time. Latin III was taught by Miss Evans, called “Birdie” by her students when a reference was made about her. The name came from the general view that she was somewhat “flighty.” Or nervous. Or easily distracted. Miss Galster was again the one for Algebra II and I could look forward to a B in this subject no matter how much I prepared. Mr. Scheler taught Chemistry, a subject I enjoyed, even with hydrogen sulfide experiments in the lab. Miss Campana, the most popular teacher in high school, had her own group of favorites, which I was not part of; she gave interesting takes on American history and current events.

Then there was the fragile-looking Mr. Bond, who taught the Speech classes. Technically, I was enrolled in Speech II, but the class had both juniors and seniors, the latter of whom were enrolled in Speech III. The class served as a substitute for English. For most of the year, we wrote compositions for debates and for individual forensic events. My own preference was for ex temp. Others chose humorous or dramatic declarations, which they wrote and delivered in class and for competition.

Extemporaneous topics came from current events found in news magazines. When in competition with students from other schools, I’d be assigned a topic on which I had to compose a ten-minute response. It was a valuable lesson on how to organize my thoughts. It also meant that, during my junior and senior years, I spent considerable time in the evenings reading Time and Newsweek in order to be up-to-date on national and international events. On a Saturday morning at a high school somewhere around Cleveland or Youngstown, I would learn if I had read the right articles during the preceding week. Since each school lugged its own magazines to every speaking event, those of us who competed in ex temp had access to recent copies of the articles from which the judges might have made their selections, in case we had not read the right ones. I became adept at scanning and speed-reading under pressure.

I was also responsible for maintaining my own debate box with its three-by-five index cards which had notes on the affirmative and negative sides of the semester’s regional debate topic, or “resolution.” I was assigned as “second negative” for my junior year but have forgotten what the resolutions were for that year. However, one year, probably my senior year, the topic did involve the future of the United Nations, an international organization recently formed in New York City!

Going to other high schools in northeastern Ohio each Saturday was challenging. For me, the “NFL” was the National Forensic League and a reference to my own inter-school rivalries, even if I never earned a varsity letter and had little interest in the “other NFL.” Each weekend I looked forward to seeing friends from other schools with whom I would compete.

The only disadvantage in taking Speech, rather than English, was this limited my knowledge of literature. We did not have the chance to read, in depth, “the great books” by American or British authors. On the other hand, there was a focus on grammar, per se, and on diagraming sentences.

The fundamentals of writing and practicing for debates and ex temp presentations allowed me, later, to pass the state entrance exam, thereby omitting a need to take Freshman English in college. Instead, I enrolled in courses in which I read short stories as well as classical plays. On my own, I read whatever students found to be currently available in the university bookstore. Liberal reading has had advantages over what might be limited to years of high school and college reading lists. I must admit, however, that it is even more rewarding, in today’s electronic world, to have on-line access, at no cost, for all of the classics ever written!

The most rewarding events of my junior year in high school were associated with weekends devoted to interscholastic debates and ex temp presentations in forensic competitions throughout northeastern Ohio. There were also new adventures in social settings. Although I never felt I was truly part of the “in group” of Niles McKinley, I really wasn’t completely excluded. I attended events on my own, and many times I was lucky enough to infiltrate existing groups and do some “riding-along.”

Riding-along was the mainstay of being an adolescent. My father refused to buy a car for his own use, let alone for a teenager like me. Since he walked everywhere he needed to get to, including his work in the local steel-mill, I had to do the same. He had his own driver friends who took him to gambling places. I should find friends who had access to their dads’ cars to get to places to which I could not walk. And so, I did.

I frequently went on ride-alongs with Scott Garrett, who was a close friend and closer rival. The word wasn’t used at the time, but “frenemy” would have been very descriptive, even then. Scott was the only son of the school superintendent for Niles. He was bright and we always tried to outdo one another in all of our academic work. Debate and forensic events served as a primary battlefield. He also played basketball, baseball and track, areas in which I was vastly deficient. Scott, also, had access to his father’s car and allowed me to join with him and his buddies, especially Bill Smith, when he thought the result would improve his standing in our competition. He later became a nuclear engineer in Seattle. Later, at high school reunions held every five years by our graduating class, we have said “hello,” but have never had a real conversation.

Back then, we were always taking opposite sides in most of the verbal interactions we had, even while driving. Our destinations were places like Hat-o-Mat or Isaly’s or that new place on Route 422, McDonald’s with its twenty-five cent hamburgers. Sometimes, a group of four or five of us would attend a movie at the McKinley Theater which routinely showed second-rate films such as House of Frankenstein or Jungle Headhunters. Audience participation was part of the fun.

Scott and I became members of the usual leadership groups such as Student Council and the newly formed Ductorian Society. Neither of us would be elected President of any of them, but we did vie for the lower offices in both the prime groups and the secondary ones, like Social Studies Council.

School-wide sock hops were the major sites for social gatherings. I would attend but usually volunteered to take tickets or do other busywork, so I did not need to have others notice I was not dancing. I had “fun” participating and being there, but usually wished I was “really” having fun and “really” participating instead of merely “observing.”

The year of 1951 passed quickly enough, and Christmas was upon me. Once more I received my Christmas present before the day actually arrived. That year it was a proper student desk, one I used throughout the remaining years of high school and college, when I returned home for vacations. It had a built-in clock! My journal has a note that my father gave my mother a can-opener and some candy. Once more, we spent the evening “up-the-hill,” where I received a five-dollar bill from Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe. I looked forward to the second semester of my Junior year, even to further interactions with my frenemy.