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!