In the late sixties and early seventies when Doug's folks had a very nice 3 bedroom cottage in Bailey's Harbor Wisconsin and Doug's mom ran an art store called the Red Geranium there, Doug used to spend a lot of the summer up there. I used to ride up on Thursday sometimes with Doug's Dad and we would stay the weekend.
The drive was rather long from Chicago so Mr. Armato used to play opera 8-track tapes so we could enjoy the music. He would give me a brief introduction to each opera, since I didn't know any Italian except for a few curses, and then we would enjoy the tapes. We would stop to eat somewhere along the way and the food was usually quite good because Mr. Armato knew the fast but good places to eat. I was appreciated as a passenger because I didn't drink very much so I rarely slowed things up by requiring a bathroom break.
Sometimes during heavy rain storms, rather than pull off the road, Mr. Armato would open the driver side door and drive by looking down at the divider line on the highway, to keep the car
headed in the right direction. He apparently learned of this technique from truckers who did this. Fortunately, no one was ever injured and it did save time to some small extent.
Fridays in Baileys Harbor meant eating at a local bar where they prepared fresh lake perch that was breaded and oven baked. This was served with rye bread, Cole slaw, french fries and for Doug and me sodas. To this day I have never eaten a better fish dinner than we had there.
Douglas's Uncle Al and his family would occasionally join us as did his brothers Keith and Phillip when they were in town. Phillip had his own place up there. Douglas's Uncle Lenny also showed up a couple of times, though he had ex-wife problems and was considered a sort of black sheep of the family. For a kid eating with a large group of mostly adults, I had never had more fun then dinner at Vi's.
Doug's folks had a motor boat that we could take out on the lake. By the time we got to high school his Dad upgraded and got a really nice fibreglass boat. We would take the boat out on Kangeroo Lake and even though it was a small lake we could easily spend an hour or two on the lake enjoying the cool breezes and some what reduced insect population. Occasionally we would fish. I was given the opportunity to learn how to clean fish, which mostly meant fighting off flies that would come in droves during the cleaning process. Doug's brother Keith enjoyed pan frying the fish though we usually had to supplement the catch.
Sometimes, to give us something to do, Doug's parents would take two cars to the local drive in movie in Sister Bay and leave us in one car to watch the movies even though we weren't old enough to drive. This was very popular with us. Doug even drove the car out to the side of the road one time, as he was learning to drive, while we waited for his folks to come and get us. We used to critique the movies in the car and spy on local teenagers who were making out. There were snacks available at a snack shack and a good time was had by all.
There was also a small movie theater in a converted metal building that looked like a airplane hangar in Bailey's Harbor. They showed mostly more arty films there and Douglas and I enjoyed going there. I recall watching several films there including the twelve chairs.
Another activity was to go to a local animal refuge/zoo/torture chamber. Here you could put 10 cents into a coin slot and a chicken would pound on a small fake piano to get some feed. You could also fish in a pond the size of small swimming pool and catch fish that you had to pay for whether you wanted to keep them or not. Best of all there were a few bears in cages that you could feed a soda like substance to. Two of the bears were cubs who we nicknamed the Slanick twins after Eddie Slanick who was a Wildwood student who was older than us, who a thick mane of unkempt dark hair and who was a major grump and quite mischievous. Rather tragically some years later, Eddie's car broke down out in the Chicago suburbs in a snowstorm. He wasn't too far from home and he was walking home. A driver didn't see him in the snow storm and his car struck and killed Eddie. Eddie left left behind a wife and children.
Another fun activity was playing a game Douglas and I invented in the yard that his parents had. We strung up a badminton net at about 6' and used shuttle cocks and aluminum tennis rackets. The object of the game was to keep the shuttle cock from touching the ground and to return it to your teammate on the other side of the net who then was to do the same. Instead of competing we trying to find a why to turn it into a team sport with no one to compete against. Credit was given for great running saves and steady play. When we needed to rest there was a hammock adjacent to the court. The only problem was we could hit that shuttle cock quite hard and we had a tendency to go through shuttle cocks at a rather rapid rate. It was great exercise.
In doors we played a naval game using WW-II ships whose facts we typed up on 3"x5" slips of paper including a weapons list, armor information, speed and range information etc... plus phony Captain and First Officer names (so we had someone to blame or give credit to). The ship information we got from volumes of Jane's Naval Ship guides that Douglas had collected.
Douglas came up with idea for this from some War games he had. We liked the less restrictive rules we came up with and the ability to select whatever ships we felt like using. We ended up with over 1,200 allied and axis ships though most of the time was spent creating the navy rather than actually having battles. The battles were a lot of fun until people got annoyed with us and told us to pick up all those little pieces of paper. To create the navy we spent many nights typing well into the night and listening to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass records.
Another favorite was a fantasy baseball league that Douglas started again based on a major league baseball dice game that he had. We created our own factitious rosters with players and managers (again so we had someone to blame or give credit to) and teams. We played numerous games. The only change to the rules was that walks were treated as singles as we liked high batting averages and this way we had a few players batting in the low 0.400's.
Douglas also had a Bebe gun and we'd shoot that off in the yard once in a while, aiming at miscellaneous targets and chipmunks and squirrels. Happily we managed not to shoot each other or anyone else though I did injure a chipmunk, possibly fatally as he a tear in his fur. The guilt has weighed upon me to this day and I have never shot anything since.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
What ever happened to Wildwood?
I wondered if anyone really gives a rats ass about Wildwood any more?
Its still there at:
6950 North Hiawatha Avenue
Chicago, IL 60646
So I checked and they have a website up at:
http://www.wildwood.cps.k12.il.us/community/community.html
There are some parents and staff there who are trying to do something for Wildwood.
If the CBOE hadn't turned the place into an educational toilet, given it's location, it might still be a good school.
We can only hope for the sake of the children that Wildwood is now a good school and if not that it will be soon.
Its still there at:
6950 North Hiawatha Avenue
Chicago, IL 60646
So I checked and they have a website up at:
http://www.wildwood.cps.k12.il.us/community/community.html
There are some parents and staff there who are trying to do something for Wildwood.
If the CBOE hadn't turned the place into an educational toilet, given it's location, it might still be a good school.
We can only hope for the sake of the children that Wildwood is now a good school and if not that it will be soon.
Lyrics to As We Bid Farewell to Wildwood
Amazingly after over 30 years, Douglas remembers most of the lyrics to Wildwood's own graduation song.
Here are the words to
"As We Bid Farewell to Wildwood,"
lyrics by Marcella Smith and Jack Cronin:
As we bid farewell to Wildwood
And the scenes we knew so well
It is with deeper feeling
Than mere words can ever tell
For within those walls we've treasured
And the friends we knew so well
We've strived and worked without measure
To prepare for life's role (for most of us in Hell - hey, it ryhmes)
Today as we depart
Our high school lives to start
We pledge to strive for honor and reknown
For country, god, and peace
We'll work without surcease
A credit to our schools and homes to be . . .
Though our work here is now completed
In memory, you'll remain (could we use reign instead?)
And in our hearts, our love for you
Will long, long remain
----------------------------
Here are the words to
"As We Bid Farewell to Wildwood,"
lyrics by Marcella Smith and Jack Cronin:
As we bid farewell to Wildwood
And the scenes we knew so well
It is with deeper feeling
Than mere words can ever tell
For within those walls we've treasured
And the friends we knew so well
We've strived and worked without measure
To prepare for life's role (for most of us in Hell - hey, it ryhmes)
Today as we depart
Our high school lives to start
We pledge to strive for honor and reknown
For country, god, and peace
We'll work without surcease
A credit to our schools and homes to be . . .
Though our work here is now completed
In memory, you'll remain (could we use reign instead?)
And in our hearts, our love for you
Will long, long remain
----------------------------
Mr. Snyder's Bucket of Magic Sawdust
In 3rd grade we used to march around Mrs. Sundberg's 3rd grade class, marching and singing selected songs as she played the piano. On such occasion as we sang "Oh my eyes of seen the glory of the coming of the Lord", Carl Dierkowitz shook a rather freshly manufactured deposit out of his right pant leg (I was tragically only a few feet behind to witness the unveiling event) much to the terror and chagrin of the class.
Mr Snyder, our janitor, was summoned to deal with the crisis that lay before us and like the Superhero he was (not counting the drooling and the constant stream of blasphemous vulgarity) with only broom and bucket of sawdust in hand, he made that streaming load completely disappear. This was our first scientific evidence that sawdust had the same property of a black hole. Unfortunately we couldn't apply the sawdust to Carl himself to get him to disappear as he was a victim of childhood measles and the result was that he himself was quite a mess.
Douglas Adds: Ah, childhood measles, not acne. That makes more sense. I should mention that I don't recall the deposit as"steaming," but rather as dry, somewhat ovoid turd-lets. But Edward was closer to the scene . . .
In my memory, the Wildwood janitor at this time was "Munchy" Myers, who didn't have a tooth in his head but was constantly working his jaw up-and-down with his lips partly open so that you'd see his horrible grayish bleeding gums. Unlike Mr. Snyder, who Ed describes to a "t," Munchy Myers was never heard saying even one word. Both Myers and Snyder were highly adept in the wielding of the magic sand.
Edward Adds: I certainly defer to Douglas on the actual texture and content of the droppings as after witnessing the delivery I was swiftly on my way to the door. Had I known I'd be chronicling the event 40 years later, I would have performed a more meticulous analysis of the effort, assuming one could do that and still keep a sufficiently safe distance. You just don't realize the significance of events like this when your kid.
Doug may also be right when he said it was Myers who wielded the sand/sawdust of life to remove the contaminate. Snyder was such an iconic figure that I suspect I may be giving him more credit than he deserves. Clearly he was a dominate force, one of the most memorable janitorial staff of all time. He certainly had a significant effect on the faculty (who avoided him like the plague except for Jack Cronin, his drinking buddy) and students (who feared him as well loathed him). Clearly if there is a janitorial hall of fame, it will be Snyder who set the standard for disgusting eating habits and in the foul language department. Someone had to keep that boiler popping all winter long and he certainly was the man. And with regard to the use of magic sawdust, no one made vomit, urine and feces, that students tended dispense from time to time, vanish into thin air (and the air was indeed thin and in short supply) with less style then Snyder.
Mrs. Sundberg marvelled that, "The floor was now so clean you could eat off it", prompting the now famous Harry Temple quote of "go right ahead" This then lead to heated exchange in which Harry's Man from UNCLE paperback books that he was keeping in his desk were confiscated, forcing him to tell her to "Go to Hell" and resulting in a dreaded trip to the principals office. Sadly, if it wasn't for the paperback books that we could buy through the student book club magazine, providing Man from UNCLE paperback books and other popular reading materials of the day, I am quite certain that at least another third of the 8th grade graduating class would have been illiterate (we know that Antonia Vinerotos the Greek girl that only Maria Vosnos could communicate with was illiterate as was Maria Vosnos herself, Mark Alveshire, by choice as for some reason he was a devout Viking, and several others whose names we cannot say - sort of like Harry Potter only in this case because we'd break out laughing).
Douglas Adds: The seizure of Harry Temple's Man From Uncle paperbacks clearly was an abuse of power on Mr. Sundberg's part and may even rise to the level of "High Crime and Misdemeanor."
An additional tie between us and Mrs. Sundberg was that Mrs. Sundberg's daughter was later to be our waitress at the Sandpiper restaurant in Bailey's Harbor Wisconsin. The tie was considered detrimental to our futures when after paying the bill Doug realized we were a bit short and had to tip her a Mr. President Coin Game token from the Shell gas station and one cent. Unconfirmed reports were that her low earnings from that tip forced her into a life of prostitution, drugs, gambling and a series of bad relations with local black men. However, we later discovered that there were no local black people as it was colder than hell there in the winter so we inferred that she made a full recovery.
Douglas Adds: Still, Sundberg's daughter got off easy -- at least from us -- compared to whoever at the Howard Johnson restaurant at Touhy and Caldwell had to clean out the "bottomless" coffee pots into which Ed and I ritually deposited our left-over dill pickles and ample amounts of pepper and salt.
Edward Adds: An excellent point though who is to say whether the coffee pots were ever actually cleaned. Given the clientele of said Howard Johnson, the additional of a relish to the coffee may have actually added to the dining experience. Howard Johnsons at that location was well known for numerous cases of food poisoning. Until now, I never realized that we may have played some small part in that, though I feel we shouldn't rush to grab credit without being able to substantiate the claim.
Douglas Adds: To fully appreciate the scene, you have to visualize that we were marching and that, when the deposit came shaking out of Dierkowitz's leg, there was immediate disarray with all the 3rd graders piling into each other as the ones in front broke ranks to avoid stepping in it. You also have to picture that Mrs. Sundberg, banging away at the piano, was totally oblivious.
Carl Dierkowitz was mentally retarded and though he was in 3rd Grade with us at the time of the infamous turd drop, I wonder if he was actually older -- for one thing, he had an unbelievably bad case of acne for an 8 year old boy.
Carl Dierkowitz was mentally retarded and though he was in 3rd Grade with us at the time of the infamous turd drop, I wonder if he was actually older -- for one thing, he had an unbelievably bad case of acne for an 8 year old boy.
Mr Snyder, our janitor, was summoned to deal with the crisis that lay before us and like the Superhero he was (not counting the drooling and the constant stream of blasphemous vulgarity) with only broom and bucket of sawdust in hand, he made that streaming load completely disappear. This was our first scientific evidence that sawdust had the same property of a black hole. Unfortunately we couldn't apply the sawdust to Carl himself to get him to disappear as he was a victim of childhood measles and the result was that he himself was quite a mess.
Douglas Adds: Ah, childhood measles, not acne. That makes more sense. I should mention that I don't recall the deposit as"steaming," but rather as dry, somewhat ovoid turd-lets. But Edward was closer to the scene . . .
In my memory, the Wildwood janitor at this time was "Munchy" Myers, who didn't have a tooth in his head but was constantly working his jaw up-and-down with his lips partly open so that you'd see his horrible grayish bleeding gums. Unlike Mr. Snyder, who Ed describes to a "t," Munchy Myers was never heard saying even one word. Both Myers and Snyder were highly adept in the wielding of the magic sand.
Edward Adds: I certainly defer to Douglas on the actual texture and content of the droppings as after witnessing the delivery I was swiftly on my way to the door. Had I known I'd be chronicling the event 40 years later, I would have performed a more meticulous analysis of the effort, assuming one could do that and still keep a sufficiently safe distance. You just don't realize the significance of events like this when your kid.
Doug may also be right when he said it was Myers who wielded the sand/sawdust of life to remove the contaminate. Snyder was such an iconic figure that I suspect I may be giving him more credit than he deserves. Clearly he was a dominate force, one of the most memorable janitorial staff of all time. He certainly had a significant effect on the faculty (who avoided him like the plague except for Jack Cronin, his drinking buddy) and students (who feared him as well loathed him). Clearly if there is a janitorial hall of fame, it will be Snyder who set the standard for disgusting eating habits and in the foul language department. Someone had to keep that boiler popping all winter long and he certainly was the man. And with regard to the use of magic sawdust, no one made vomit, urine and feces, that students tended dispense from time to time, vanish into thin air (and the air was indeed thin and in short supply) with less style then Snyder.
Mrs. Sundberg marvelled that, "The floor was now so clean you could eat off it", prompting the now famous Harry Temple quote of "go right ahead" This then lead to heated exchange in which Harry's Man from UNCLE paperback books that he was keeping in his desk were confiscated, forcing him to tell her to "Go to Hell" and resulting in a dreaded trip to the principals office. Sadly, if it wasn't for the paperback books that we could buy through the student book club magazine, providing Man from UNCLE paperback books and other popular reading materials of the day, I am quite certain that at least another third of the 8th grade graduating class would have been illiterate (we know that Antonia Vinerotos the Greek girl that only Maria Vosnos could communicate with was illiterate as was Maria Vosnos herself, Mark Alveshire, by choice as for some reason he was a devout Viking, and several others whose names we cannot say - sort of like Harry Potter only in this case because we'd break out laughing).
Douglas Adds: The seizure of Harry Temple's Man From Uncle paperbacks clearly was an abuse of power on Mr. Sundberg's part and may even rise to the level of "High Crime and Misdemeanor."
An additional tie between us and Mrs. Sundberg was that Mrs. Sundberg's daughter was later to be our waitress at the Sandpiper restaurant in Bailey's Harbor Wisconsin. The tie was considered detrimental to our futures when after paying the bill Doug realized we were a bit short and had to tip her a Mr. President Coin Game token from the Shell gas station and one cent. Unconfirmed reports were that her low earnings from that tip forced her into a life of prostitution, drugs, gambling and a series of bad relations with local black men. However, we later discovered that there were no local black people as it was colder than hell there in the winter so we inferred that she made a full recovery.
Douglas Adds: Still, Sundberg's daughter got off easy -- at least from us -- compared to whoever at the Howard Johnson restaurant at Touhy and Caldwell had to clean out the "bottomless" coffee pots into which Ed and I ritually deposited our left-over dill pickles and ample amounts of pepper and salt.
Edward Adds: An excellent point though who is to say whether the coffee pots were ever actually cleaned. Given the clientele of said Howard Johnson, the additional of a relish to the coffee may have actually added to the dining experience. Howard Johnsons at that location was well known for numerous cases of food poisoning. Until now, I never realized that we may have played some small part in that, though I feel we shouldn't rush to grab credit without being able to substantiate the claim.
Student council skits and the Violet Milner Era (Wildwood enters the dark ages)
For 8th Grade Student Council elections, students were encouraged to put on a skit that were performed to the entire school in the Gym/Auditorium to familiarize students with the candidates. It was a big event. Every student, 4th grade and above, got a vote but it may have been 5th grade and above.
Douglas Adds: For a long time, it was just 7th and 8th graders who could vote in Wildwood School elections. When my class was up for election, I argued to Mrs. Cundall and the inimitable Mrs. Lanus, who together managed the Student Council, that 5th and 6th graders should have the vote as well -- and then focused my campaign for "Assistant Mayor" on the 5th and 6th Grade vote, a strangely Machiavellian strategy for an 11 year old.
My opponent, Harry Temple, was very popular among 7th and 8th graders, but wasn't motivated to get out the underclass vote -- or any vote, really, as he was not in any way ambitious. I made friends with some needy 6th graders, Nicky Karras and Jimmy Boardeman, and they managed my campaign with the young kids. Electioneering at Wildwood was with posters and, more importantly, "buttons" made of construction paper. I taped (or, more accurately, made Nicky Karras and Jimmy Boardeman tape) Jolly Rancher candies to my buttons, which made them very popular -- again, especially with the 5th and 6th graders. Cruelly, I sort of "dropped" Nicky Karras as a friend after the election; in some other post, I'll write about my strange "friendship" with Jimmy Boardeman.
I still remember being amazed that I won against someone as popular as Harry -- I also remember feeling a bit guilty about it, because I really liked Harry. Thinking back, I find it hard to believe that I could have been so calculating in my campaign strategy, but I distinctly remember when I argued for giving the vote to the 5th and 6th graders that I was thinking I could get them to vote for me.
Douglas skipped a grade and so he was in 8th grade when I was in 7th. Douglas wrote most of the skits people used when he was in 8th grade. No one else was really clever enough to come up with anything original and Douglas's skits were quite original.
Douglas Adds: Some of them were pretty closely adapted from comedy records that Ed and I played obsessively, particularly one by "The Old Philosopher" but also The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart as well as Johnny Carson's Tonight show skits. There was a United Nations themed skit written for, I believe, Patty Coken that was almost entirely original. I think I did most of my writing while home "sick," typing out the skits on that 5x8 note paper Ed and I favored for a lot of our projects -- the "parallel universe" baseball league rosters were on that paper as well. I always hit the keys so hard that the centers of the "o's," in particular, were punctured through and the keys would become clogged with ink residue, which we cleaned, dentist-like, with either an exacto knife or a dissecting pin.
An original Moe Gamboe manuscript from Douglas's 8th Grade election campaign skit could fetch as much as $25, assuming I happen to have $25 when it is offered. He basically received no credit for writing all those scripts but the worst part was next year no one could come up with anything as creative and the new Principal eliminated the student council a year later.
Of course a 6th reading level resulted in faculty membership at Wildwood, much to the disdain of Mrs. Keating our librarian, the only truly literate teacher we had. Of course they ended up getting rid of the librarian. Why encourage reading with a library class, this was school and besides they couldn't afford to add any books. We did have 4 or 5 usable editions of Charlotte's Web, a perennial favorite among the girls of the day.
Douglas Adds: Indeed, Mrs. Keating had to go: she was smart and dedicated. I worked for her for a while, stenciling Dewey Decimel numbers on the spines of books and pasting library card pockets in the back. I also remember her screening all the "free" educational materials to reject those that were just disguised advertisements from companies such as Kellogs or PF Flyer shoes ("Footwear through the Ages, presented by P.F. Flyer Shoes"). The collection of books in the library was dated and hardly used at all; she always commented when I borrowed a book that she didn't believe she'd ever seen anyone else open it. There was a series of books on the boyhoods of the Presidents that I read again and again -- talk about propaganda.
Edward and I both benefited from a very smart and dedicated Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. O'Connor, who lasted exactly one year, having in her pure joy of teaching kids run afoul of the harridans and drones who made-up the Wildwood teaching staff. The next year, we were handed over to the strange, near-narcoleptic Mrs. Clare for 1st Grade before the true tedium of the crotchety Mrs. Penny in second grade.
The one other Wildwood teacher I would have credited with an intellect would have been the high-strung and ascerbic Mrs. Albright in 5th Grade. At any rate, whe was the only Wildwood teacher who ever saw through me and seemed to see the caluclating little boy that I was -- one time, when I was explaining some sort of absence-without-leave, she said in exasperation "Douglas, you have an excuse for absolutely everything." But she and I always got along.
We also used to listen to records in library class. I vividly remember hearing Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, which started out with something like: "Like all of his country men Fortunado was a quack". This was heady stuff for 5th and 6th graders let me tell you. I think those records were the only way some of the students were ever exposed to any kind of significant literature besides of course the Man from Uncle paperbacks many of us purchased through the student book club.
Fortunately, Doug managed to avoid the entire Principle Violet Milner debacle once Mrs. Smith finally fell through the floor boards and met her rotund demise (she may have had to retire due to gout but the falling through the floor boards was a popular alternative ending). Mrs. Milner was an up and coming school administrator hell bent 0n sterilizing any ounce of creativity she came across.
Violet was destined for great things and a shining future in the Chicago Board of Education, a bastillion of bureaucracy and banality where she was certainly in her element. Milner's one weakness was that she was identical in appearance to the Big Bird character from Sesame Street and with out make up or any form of costume. There was in fact speculation she moon lighted as Big Bird at several Chicagoland Toys R'us to supplement her meager principal income but as Big Bird remains a popular figure there is reason to doubt this. Violet Milner was only popular with the School bureaucrats, and unlike Mrs. Smith she seemed to hate children, though there was never any fear that she might accidentally sit on a child and crush them.
Douglas Adds: Marcella Smith was indeed immense. I always think of the way her car listed to the left due to her weight in the drivers seat . . . and how it bounced up and down on its shock absorbers once she was lifted out of the vehicle and began her slow waddle toward the double doors, the choking scent of rose perfume trailing in her wake.
Staff morale suffered greatly when Milner seized control. She ran both Edgebrook and Wildwood schools with an iron fist, expecting some form lesson plan from each teacher and worse yet eliminating the coffee cake festivals that were the very hallmark of the Marcella Smith administration. I have to tell you that Bobby Melko used to stop by in the teacher's break room after a coffee cake feast as the film projector room was right next to the teacher's break room / coffee cake repository and he and his film projector colleague would scoop up and crumbs that happened to be remaining so the loss of coffee cake was felt on the student side as well.
Douglas Adds: For a long time, it was just 7th and 8th graders who could vote in Wildwood School elections. When my class was up for election, I argued to Mrs. Cundall and the inimitable Mrs. Lanus, who together managed the Student Council, that 5th and 6th graders should have the vote as well -- and then focused my campaign for "Assistant Mayor" on the 5th and 6th Grade vote, a strangely Machiavellian strategy for an 11 year old.
My opponent, Harry Temple, was very popular among 7th and 8th graders, but wasn't motivated to get out the underclass vote -- or any vote, really, as he was not in any way ambitious. I made friends with some needy 6th graders, Nicky Karras and Jimmy Boardeman, and they managed my campaign with the young kids. Electioneering at Wildwood was with posters and, more importantly, "buttons" made of construction paper. I taped (or, more accurately, made Nicky Karras and Jimmy Boardeman tape) Jolly Rancher candies to my buttons, which made them very popular -- again, especially with the 5th and 6th graders. Cruelly, I sort of "dropped" Nicky Karras as a friend after the election; in some other post, I'll write about my strange "friendship" with Jimmy Boardeman.
I still remember being amazed that I won against someone as popular as Harry -- I also remember feeling a bit guilty about it, because I really liked Harry. Thinking back, I find it hard to believe that I could have been so calculating in my campaign strategy, but I distinctly remember when I argued for giving the vote to the 5th and 6th graders that I was thinking I could get them to vote for me.
Douglas skipped a grade and so he was in 8th grade when I was in 7th. Douglas wrote most of the skits people used when he was in 8th grade. No one else was really clever enough to come up with anything original and Douglas's skits were quite original.
Douglas Adds: Some of them were pretty closely adapted from comedy records that Ed and I played obsessively, particularly one by "The Old Philosopher" but also The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart as well as Johnny Carson's Tonight show skits. There was a United Nations themed skit written for, I believe, Patty Coken that was almost entirely original. I think I did most of my writing while home "sick," typing out the skits on that 5x8 note paper Ed and I favored for a lot of our projects -- the "parallel universe" baseball league rosters were on that paper as well. I always hit the keys so hard that the centers of the "o's," in particular, were punctured through and the keys would become clogged with ink residue, which we cleaned, dentist-like, with either an exacto knife or a dissecting pin.
An original Moe Gamboe manuscript from Douglas's 8th Grade election campaign skit could fetch as much as $25, assuming I happen to have $25 when it is offered. He basically received no credit for writing all those scripts but the worst part was next year no one could come up with anything as creative and the new Principal eliminated the student council a year later.
Of course a 6th reading level resulted in faculty membership at Wildwood, much to the disdain of Mrs. Keating our librarian, the only truly literate teacher we had. Of course they ended up getting rid of the librarian. Why encourage reading with a library class, this was school and besides they couldn't afford to add any books. We did have 4 or 5 usable editions of Charlotte's Web, a perennial favorite among the girls of the day.
Douglas Adds: Indeed, Mrs. Keating had to go: she was smart and dedicated. I worked for her for a while, stenciling Dewey Decimel numbers on the spines of books and pasting library card pockets in the back. I also remember her screening all the "free" educational materials to reject those that were just disguised advertisements from companies such as Kellogs or PF Flyer shoes ("Footwear through the Ages, presented by P.F. Flyer Shoes"). The collection of books in the library was dated and hardly used at all; she always commented when I borrowed a book that she didn't believe she'd ever seen anyone else open it. There was a series of books on the boyhoods of the Presidents that I read again and again -- talk about propaganda.
Edward and I both benefited from a very smart and dedicated Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. O'Connor, who lasted exactly one year, having in her pure joy of teaching kids run afoul of the harridans and drones who made-up the Wildwood teaching staff. The next year, we were handed over to the strange, near-narcoleptic Mrs. Clare for 1st Grade before the true tedium of the crotchety Mrs. Penny in second grade.
The one other Wildwood teacher I would have credited with an intellect would have been the high-strung and ascerbic Mrs. Albright in 5th Grade. At any rate, whe was the only Wildwood teacher who ever saw through me and seemed to see the caluclating little boy that I was -- one time, when I was explaining some sort of absence-without-leave, she said in exasperation "Douglas, you have an excuse for absolutely everything." But she and I always got along.
We also used to listen to records in library class. I vividly remember hearing Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, which started out with something like: "Like all of his country men Fortunado was a quack". This was heady stuff for 5th and 6th graders let me tell you. I think those records were the only way some of the students were ever exposed to any kind of significant literature besides of course the Man from Uncle paperbacks many of us purchased through the student book club.
Fortunately, Doug managed to avoid the entire Principle Violet Milner debacle once Mrs. Smith finally fell through the floor boards and met her rotund demise (she may have had to retire due to gout but the falling through the floor boards was a popular alternative ending). Mrs. Milner was an up and coming school administrator hell bent 0n sterilizing any ounce of creativity she came across.
Violet was destined for great things and a shining future in the Chicago Board of Education, a bastillion of bureaucracy and banality where she was certainly in her element. Milner's one weakness was that she was identical in appearance to the Big Bird character from Sesame Street and with out make up or any form of costume. There was in fact speculation she moon lighted as Big Bird at several Chicagoland Toys R'us to supplement her meager principal income but as Big Bird remains a popular figure there is reason to doubt this. Violet Milner was only popular with the School bureaucrats, and unlike Mrs. Smith she seemed to hate children, though there was never any fear that she might accidentally sit on a child and crush them.
Douglas Adds: Marcella Smith was indeed immense. I always think of the way her car listed to the left due to her weight in the drivers seat . . . and how it bounced up and down on its shock absorbers once she was lifted out of the vehicle and began her slow waddle toward the double doors, the choking scent of rose perfume trailing in her wake.
Staff morale suffered greatly when Milner seized control. She ran both Edgebrook and Wildwood schools with an iron fist, expecting some form lesson plan from each teacher and worse yet eliminating the coffee cake festivals that were the very hallmark of the Marcella Smith administration. I have to tell you that Bobby Melko used to stop by in the teacher's break room after a coffee cake feast as the film projector room was right next to the teacher's break room / coffee cake repository and he and his film projector colleague would scoop up and crumbs that happened to be remaining so the loss of coffee cake was felt on the student side as well.
Wildwood Student Council and what it meant
At Wildwood, we had about 240-250 students, K-8. I think we had about 40 safety patrol members. These numbers probably are within 10-20 students of being consistent every year. We had more kindergartners, 40-50 in morning and afternoon session, because Saint Mary's. the catholic school across the street didn't have a kindergarten so their future students attended Wildwood for a year and then transferred.
Douglas Adds: My 8th grade graduating class at Wildwood was, I believe, 16 kids while the one across the street at St Mary's was nearly 100. So, attending Wildwood was almost like being at a country school instead of a big city public school. It was really disorienting to go from that to a high school with 250 boys in a class and it took me two years to adjust to it.
I wonder if Edward recalls the day in, I think, 1st Grade when a whole bunch of kids from St Mary's (the girls not in their school uniforms) showed-up in our classroom and studied with us for one day, swelling the number of occupied school desks by a factor of three. Not long ago, I read an account of how the Chicago Public Schools inflated attendence figures at all-white schools to prevent reallocation of Federal education funds to black school districts. I've wondered since whether that strange one-day appearance of the kids from across the street was due to some kind of inspection, which would mean that Monsignor O'Rourke, likely no fan of desegregation, was in on the fraud.
I met Doug at Wildwood in kindergarten and we became good friends by first grade. We use to play touch turtle at recess in first grade for some reason. I just remember us doing that and having one of the older 7th grade girls that used to watch over us laughing about it. By first or second grade I used to go over to Doug's house and we would play Corgi cars as he a great collection including a James Bond Goldfinger Corgi toy that was gold colored and had a bulletproof shield that I was quite impressed with.
Douglas Adds: Ed and I met on the third day of school, when by chance we sat next to each other along the arc of the big green circle that was painted on the floor of the kindergarten classroom. He was the first friend I made who wasn't from my own block. As Ed says, it was in first grade, after all the St. Mary's-bound kids had departed, that we got to be best pals. The Corgi toys, I think, came around Second Grade after we had a fire that destroyed the interior of our house and my dad started rebuilding my toy collection. I remember the James Bond car, which had a retractable rear bullet shield, machine guns that popped out in front, and a working ejector seat.
One memory I have of first grade at Wildwood was one day after recess when we weren't allowed back into the school building and had to wait outside the doors for a long time -- it was the day JFK was shot and we were all sent home so our parents had the job of explaining that the Presdient was dead. What a lost era -- when it was a given that a parent was always waiting at home during the day while the kids were in school. My mother had painted a portrait of JFK after his death that hung in our basement; when the firemen came through, I remember that one of them smashed an axe through his forehead -- it was strange, touring that devastated house, to see the charred Kennedy portrait, itself assassinated with a big gash in the President's forehead.
The playground game I remember was "Squirrels in the Trees," a sort of modified musical chairs where five kids be clustered at every tree and, at the whistle, had to dash to another tree -- if you weren't one of the first five to place your hand on the new tree's trunk, you had to run until you found one that wasn't already full of "squirrels."
As Douglas mentioned, the school was not very good. I am amazed that I learned much of anything. Certainly some will argue that I didn't learn anything. I leave this for scholars and theologins to decide. Bob Melko was one of our friends spent a lot of time out of class as he became a film projector boy. Whenever one of the teachers would want to show a film, they would ask the film projector boys (the worked in groups of two for some reason) to get the film projector, which we had on a cart and bring into their classroom, set it up and make sure it worked.
The teachers often had a subject they had reasonable skill at but our math and science education was poor and grammar and language was probably even worse if that is possible. Douglas is probably among the more accomplished of our fellow students because he read a tremendous amount on his own and basically studied literature and history out of interest.
Douglas Adds: Or accomplished because my mother was very easily taken in by (or, perhaps, very tolerant of) my ability to fake sickness and stay home from school -- it was a rare week after second grade that I put in the full five days. When home sick, I wasn't allowed to watch television or listen to the radio, but I was allowed to read, so that's what I did: I read everything I could get my hands on. Classroom work at Wildwood was so dull that I could hardly wait to get "sick" again so I could learn stuff on my own. I'd never get away with this in the more regimented school environment today and so, perversely, I owe my early immersion in books to the incredible tedium of classes at Wildwood School.
We had a student council that was comprised of 8th grade students as officers. I think they had class reps from the lower grades but at some point they found that was a waste of time and did
away with it. The real purpose of the student council was not clear other than to expose us to a democratic system and to encourage some kind of civic responsibility.
Student Council offices were Mayor, Assistant Mayor, Treasurer, Secretary, Indoor and Outdoor commissioner and possibly others though I can't recall.
I was elected Mayor in 8th grade and so I served as mayor and captain of the safety patrol. Safety patrol had a real function but student council was really pretty useless. Actually the outdoor commissioner was supposed to make sure there were older students, always older girls, that would watch over and help the kindergartners and 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders. They would make sure they lined up to go in the building and had some activities to do and didn't get into trouble.
Douglas Adds: I only made it to Lieutennant of the Safety Patrol (and was a total bust presenting the colors at school events as I couldn't even lift then flag pole) and rose only as far as Assistant Mayor, after manipulating the election rules in my favor. My brother Keith, 7 years older, had been Indoor Commissioner -- the last time anyone would vote for him to hold any post. Among his duties was delivering the snack-time milk to the kindergarteners and I remember getting him in trouble with one of the girls who helped out in the classroom by telling her how he would lift me up by my legs and smash my head against the floor at home -- a total lie on my part (but one I came to regret less-and-less as my brother's perfidy and sanctimoniousness was revealed in the years to come).
Years later, I believe it was 20 years after we graduated 8th grade, a reunion was held at a restaurant on Touhy Avenue that once been a Red Balloon and later Henrici's Steak and Lobster. My opponent in the election for Mayor years ealier had been Kathy Sullivan. I think I beat her by only a vote or two. All these years later she told me she was still hurt by the loss in that election. I am not sure why. She was a beautiful girl, bright and motivated and from a good family, her dad was a Doctor and she had a kind and loving mother and 5 sisters and a brother or two. She was now married to a very intelligent and nice guy and had 4 kids of her own. Maybe if I had lost I would have felt hurt? Unfortunately, in the grand scheme of things being Mayor was rather meaningless, though I guess at the time it seemed important. A big fish in small pond? Not really, though I guess it may have seemed that way.
Douglas Adds: Kathy Sullivan was cute, petite and often wore one of those strange knee-length plaid skirts with an 18" safety pin holding it closed. Girls' clothes always weirded me out and made me all the more grateful I was a boy.
There is one thing that I will say. The girls that served as playground helpers should have received medals. They braved cold weather and gave up chances to socialize and goof off like the rest of us to help little kids. I suspect they learned to become better baby sitters and eventually parents because of this but that is only guess. These were children taking care of children and for the most part they did a pretty good job.
Maybe the students that took responsibility to teach themselves, to help the other kids, maybe they did learn something of value despite the pitiful education and the rather bleak condition the school was in.
The one thing that we did have going for us at Wildwood, no one, not even the 8th graders had a drug or alcohol problem or had much access even to alcohol. For some that was to come shortly after in high school. I guess Doug and I were fortunate to avoid the whole drug problem that plagued so many by being sheltered in a safe if somewhat antiquated day care facility.
Douglas Adds: It was a wildly innocent time and place -- when I got to High School, I realized how much more "knowing" the kids who had gone to the Catholic elementary schools were. We were just incredibly, maybe wonderfully naive and, I guess, kind of charmed in that way. Again, it seems to me that the small scale of Wildwood made us almost like country kids -- indifferently educated, left to run nearly wild, but also kind of protected.
Douglas Adds: My 8th grade graduating class at Wildwood was, I believe, 16 kids while the one across the street at St Mary's was nearly 100. So, attending Wildwood was almost like being at a country school instead of a big city public school. It was really disorienting to go from that to a high school with 250 boys in a class and it took me two years to adjust to it.
I wonder if Edward recalls the day in, I think, 1st Grade when a whole bunch of kids from St Mary's (the girls not in their school uniforms) showed-up in our classroom and studied with us for one day, swelling the number of occupied school desks by a factor of three. Not long ago, I read an account of how the Chicago Public Schools inflated attendence figures at all-white schools to prevent reallocation of Federal education funds to black school districts. I've wondered since whether that strange one-day appearance of the kids from across the street was due to some kind of inspection, which would mean that Monsignor O'Rourke, likely no fan of desegregation, was in on the fraud.
I met Doug at Wildwood in kindergarten and we became good friends by first grade. We use to play touch turtle at recess in first grade for some reason. I just remember us doing that and having one of the older 7th grade girls that used to watch over us laughing about it. By first or second grade I used to go over to Doug's house and we would play Corgi cars as he a great collection including a James Bond Goldfinger Corgi toy that was gold colored and had a bulletproof shield that I was quite impressed with.
Douglas Adds: Ed and I met on the third day of school, when by chance we sat next to each other along the arc of the big green circle that was painted on the floor of the kindergarten classroom. He was the first friend I made who wasn't from my own block. As Ed says, it was in first grade, after all the St. Mary's-bound kids had departed, that we got to be best pals. The Corgi toys, I think, came around Second Grade after we had a fire that destroyed the interior of our house and my dad started rebuilding my toy collection. I remember the James Bond car, which had a retractable rear bullet shield, machine guns that popped out in front, and a working ejector seat.
One memory I have of first grade at Wildwood was one day after recess when we weren't allowed back into the school building and had to wait outside the doors for a long time -- it was the day JFK was shot and we were all sent home so our parents had the job of explaining that the Presdient was dead. What a lost era -- when it was a given that a parent was always waiting at home during the day while the kids were in school. My mother had painted a portrait of JFK after his death that hung in our basement; when the firemen came through, I remember that one of them smashed an axe through his forehead -- it was strange, touring that devastated house, to see the charred Kennedy portrait, itself assassinated with a big gash in the President's forehead.
The playground game I remember was "Squirrels in the Trees," a sort of modified musical chairs where five kids be clustered at every tree and, at the whistle, had to dash to another tree -- if you weren't one of the first five to place your hand on the new tree's trunk, you had to run until you found one that wasn't already full of "squirrels."
As Douglas mentioned, the school was not very good. I am amazed that I learned much of anything. Certainly some will argue that I didn't learn anything. I leave this for scholars and theologins to decide. Bob Melko was one of our friends spent a lot of time out of class as he became a film projector boy. Whenever one of the teachers would want to show a film, they would ask the film projector boys (the worked in groups of two for some reason) to get the film projector, which we had on a cart and bring into their classroom, set it up and make sure it worked.
The teachers often had a subject they had reasonable skill at but our math and science education was poor and grammar and language was probably even worse if that is possible. Douglas is probably among the more accomplished of our fellow students because he read a tremendous amount on his own and basically studied literature and history out of interest.
Douglas Adds: Or accomplished because my mother was very easily taken in by (or, perhaps, very tolerant of) my ability to fake sickness and stay home from school -- it was a rare week after second grade that I put in the full five days. When home sick, I wasn't allowed to watch television or listen to the radio, but I was allowed to read, so that's what I did: I read everything I could get my hands on. Classroom work at Wildwood was so dull that I could hardly wait to get "sick" again so I could learn stuff on my own. I'd never get away with this in the more regimented school environment today and so, perversely, I owe my early immersion in books to the incredible tedium of classes at Wildwood School.
We had a student council that was comprised of 8th grade students as officers. I think they had class reps from the lower grades but at some point they found that was a waste of time and did
away with it. The real purpose of the student council was not clear other than to expose us to a democratic system and to encourage some kind of civic responsibility.
Student Council offices were Mayor, Assistant Mayor, Treasurer, Secretary, Indoor and Outdoor commissioner and possibly others though I can't recall.
I was elected Mayor in 8th grade and so I served as mayor and captain of the safety patrol. Safety patrol had a real function but student council was really pretty useless. Actually the outdoor commissioner was supposed to make sure there were older students, always older girls, that would watch over and help the kindergartners and 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders. They would make sure they lined up to go in the building and had some activities to do and didn't get into trouble.
Douglas Adds: I only made it to Lieutennant of the Safety Patrol (and was a total bust presenting the colors at school events as I couldn't even lift then flag pole) and rose only as far as Assistant Mayor, after manipulating the election rules in my favor. My brother Keith, 7 years older, had been Indoor Commissioner -- the last time anyone would vote for him to hold any post. Among his duties was delivering the snack-time milk to the kindergarteners and I remember getting him in trouble with one of the girls who helped out in the classroom by telling her how he would lift me up by my legs and smash my head against the floor at home -- a total lie on my part (but one I came to regret less-and-less as my brother's perfidy and sanctimoniousness was revealed in the years to come).
Years later, I believe it was 20 years after we graduated 8th grade, a reunion was held at a restaurant on Touhy Avenue that once been a Red Balloon and later Henrici's Steak and Lobster. My opponent in the election for Mayor years ealier had been Kathy Sullivan. I think I beat her by only a vote or two. All these years later she told me she was still hurt by the loss in that election. I am not sure why. She was a beautiful girl, bright and motivated and from a good family, her dad was a Doctor and she had a kind and loving mother and 5 sisters and a brother or two. She was now married to a very intelligent and nice guy and had 4 kids of her own. Maybe if I had lost I would have felt hurt? Unfortunately, in the grand scheme of things being Mayor was rather meaningless, though I guess at the time it seemed important. A big fish in small pond? Not really, though I guess it may have seemed that way.
Douglas Adds: Kathy Sullivan was cute, petite and often wore one of those strange knee-length plaid skirts with an 18" safety pin holding it closed. Girls' clothes always weirded me out and made me all the more grateful I was a boy.
There is one thing that I will say. The girls that served as playground helpers should have received medals. They braved cold weather and gave up chances to socialize and goof off like the rest of us to help little kids. I suspect they learned to become better baby sitters and eventually parents because of this but that is only guess. These were children taking care of children and for the most part they did a pretty good job.
Maybe the students that took responsibility to teach themselves, to help the other kids, maybe they did learn something of value despite the pitiful education and the rather bleak condition the school was in.
The one thing that we did have going for us at Wildwood, no one, not even the 8th graders had a drug or alcohol problem or had much access even to alcohol. For some that was to come shortly after in high school. I guess Doug and I were fortunate to avoid the whole drug problem that plagued so many by being sheltered in a safe if somewhat antiquated day care facility.
Douglas Adds: It was a wildly innocent time and place -- when I got to High School, I realized how much more "knowing" the kids who had gone to the Catholic elementary schools were. We were just incredibly, maybe wonderfully naive and, I guess, kind of charmed in that way. Again, it seems to me that the small scale of Wildwood made us almost like country kids -- indifferently educated, left to run nearly wild, but also kind of protected.
Safety Patrol Gym Session on Fridays
Every Friday afternoon at Wildwood elementary school the members of the safety patrol were treated to a meeting and Gym session from 1:30 PM until 3:00 PM. As students were dismissed at 3:15 PM this meant not much was accomplished after lunch on Fridays since there were quite a few members of the safety patrol. As I joined the safety patrol as soon as I was eligible, I have no idea what the students who didn't attend this Gym session actually did, but I suspect it was probably art work, read quietly, do homework (though we had very little) etc...
The meeting and Gym was lead by our PE teacher Jack Cronin. After everyone was seated on the gym floor, the officers would stand or sit on the stage floor that the students would face. The officers were always 8th grade boys (and later girls) as they were the most experienced members. The safety patrol officers: a Captain and several Lieutenants (the patrol was divided up regionally into squads each headed by a Lieutenant) would each give a brief report mentioning any incidents and if anyone had done anything above and beyond the call of duty or had messed up and received a demerit. In theory if you received numerous demerits you got kicked off the safety patrol but that was rare. After the reports were given the rest of the time was available as a Gym class to play Dodgeball, basketball and soccer for the girls once girls were added to the safety patrol.
I am not sure exactly when it happened but girls were added to the safety patrol around 1966 or so, prior to that it was boys only. In the winter girls were required to wear pants on duty so their legs would not become to cold from standing out in the cold weather. They would change by taking their pants off at their lockers as they usually wore the pants along with a dress. In those days girls were discouraged from wearing pants all the time, though I am not sure if it was a punishable dress code violation, its just what people were told to do and they did it.
All members of the safety patrol wore bright orange crossing guard belts. Officers received pins, lieutenant a silver shield and captain a silver star. You also received a small pin for service and could add a bar for each additional year of service. I may still have my Captain's star and 4 year service pin some where. May seem odd but at the time I was quite proud of having earned these.
The Gym session was usually indoors except in late spring when we went outside and played softball and sometimes in early fall when we played football, which Jack Cronin enjoyed to some extent because he could actually quarter back as many of the students had little idea of what they were doing. Anyone who was clueless was called a yahoo or yah for short by Mr. Cronin.
Indoors dodgeball was the favorite sport, though we also did basketball. When girls were added, it was common to play basketball and soccer which were alternated so the girls didn't have to always play dodgeball as dodgeball was a sport that favored the 8th grade boys who were big and could whip the ball and clobber the more Innocent girls and small boys who ducked, dodged and rolled forward into a ball on the ground, like turtles curled up in their shell, to protect their face and genitalia from possible obliteration. I remember my first dodgeball session and how I prayed I wouldn't be killed and how happy I was in having survived the afternoon in one piece.
It was a real rush not being pounded into obilivion by the older more skilled players.
The advantage of dodgeball was everyone was playing until you were eliminated by being hit by the ball and which case you sat on a sideline until one side or the other lost due to their final player being eliminated. People who hated Dodgeball go themself quickly, either by getting hit or lobbing a ball to the other side where it was caught. Then they could sit on the side line and relax and watch the carnage. Before play began, Jack Cronin selected two team captains who then selected team members in a round robin fashion with everyone being selected.
Basketball and soccer meant only two teams were on the floor at a time which meant a lot of people were sitting waiting. Boys didn't play soccer though occasionally just to spice things up an 8th grade boy would be assigned to each team. The boys would then bulldoze their way around though their lack of skill was apparent their aggression often made up for it. I was selected on several occasions and I don't think the girls were at all happy about having to try and avoid being kicked in the shins by my big clumsy feet.
Since Friday afternoon was not going to be much work for Mr. Cronin it was widely held that he would often get together with the janitor (Mr. Meyers and later Mr. Synder) for a belt or two in his office. Certainly the smell of alcohol would support this as being common practice.
An interesting note is that to ensure the safety patrol was doing their job, Mr. Cronin would occasionally set up clandestine stake outs to see what was going on, if corners were being properly covered, children were being monitored when crossing and whether safety patrol members were throwing snow balls at each other (which was common practice and resulted in a demerit being issued if caught). This actually worked to some extent to avoid too much goofing off. Often the safety patrol officers would be among the later walking or biking home to make sure corners remained covered until all students had crossed. They often filled in at corners when patrol members were absent, though they received no notification, they'd check and if no one was present they would man the corner.
I would have to say that dodgeball was almost some kind of right of passage. I started out just hoping to avoid injury and embarrasement. As I got older and bigger I would try and throw people out and catch balls that were thrown directly at me. Eventually I became one of the feared 8th grade boys and Captain of the safety patrol. I wanted to reach that place in the heirarchy but since I know I started out at the absolute bottom, I really empathsized with the little guys. Officers were elected so being selected was actually a great honor though I am not sure how much I realized that at the time. I suspect I got selected because I tried to be nice to people for the most part.
I don't think dodgeball lasted more than a year or so after I graduated. My 8th Grade class had a new Principal Violet Milner who replaced Mrs. Smith who was quite obesce. She eventually forced Jack Cronin out. She wanted to move things into the 1970's and did away with a lot of the old tradition. I wonder if things really improved. Some how I am skeptical, as bad as things were at Wildwood it forced kids to be responsible to some extent, at least for those who wanted to try.
I am not sure if Milner eliminated the safety patrol but it wouldn't surprise me.
You have to realize that back in the day, virtually every student went home for lunch. This was a true neighborhood school. The farthest anyone had to walk was about 10 or 11 blocks and in good weather they could ride bikes. Students walked to school in the morning, went home for lunch and returned for the afternoon and then walked home after school. We had an hour for lunch but if took you 20-25 minutes to walk you didn't have very long to eat. They would let students in the building 5 minutes or so before the hour so they had time to put coats in lockers and get to their desks. Once in a while a Mom would drive to school to pick up kids but this was rare.
So the safety patrol actually was useful and it was amazing that a bunch of children with only
an occasional kick in the pants from Jack Cronin actually kept the other kids safe.
I remember in 5th grade being summoned by the 8th grade teacher because an 8th grade girl was having cramps (they told me that meant she had a belly ache) and had to be walked home. The older students were all testing so I was selected to walk her home since I was rather tall for my age. The staff actually trusted us and we knew it and we took the job rather seriously, or at least as seriously as kids can take any job. I was really proud to be asked to help out and I still remember this almost 40 years later.
Clearly these were different times.
The meeting and Gym was lead by our PE teacher Jack Cronin. After everyone was seated on the gym floor, the officers would stand or sit on the stage floor that the students would face. The officers were always 8th grade boys (and later girls) as they were the most experienced members. The safety patrol officers: a Captain and several Lieutenants (the patrol was divided up regionally into squads each headed by a Lieutenant) would each give a brief report mentioning any incidents and if anyone had done anything above and beyond the call of duty or had messed up and received a demerit. In theory if you received numerous demerits you got kicked off the safety patrol but that was rare. After the reports were given the rest of the time was available as a Gym class to play Dodgeball, basketball and soccer for the girls once girls were added to the safety patrol.
I am not sure exactly when it happened but girls were added to the safety patrol around 1966 or so, prior to that it was boys only. In the winter girls were required to wear pants on duty so their legs would not become to cold from standing out in the cold weather. They would change by taking their pants off at their lockers as they usually wore the pants along with a dress. In those days girls were discouraged from wearing pants all the time, though I am not sure if it was a punishable dress code violation, its just what people were told to do and they did it.
All members of the safety patrol wore bright orange crossing guard belts. Officers received pins, lieutenant a silver shield and captain a silver star. You also received a small pin for service and could add a bar for each additional year of service. I may still have my Captain's star and 4 year service pin some where. May seem odd but at the time I was quite proud of having earned these.
The Gym session was usually indoors except in late spring when we went outside and played softball and sometimes in early fall when we played football, which Jack Cronin enjoyed to some extent because he could actually quarter back as many of the students had little idea of what they were doing. Anyone who was clueless was called a yahoo or yah for short by Mr. Cronin.
Indoors dodgeball was the favorite sport, though we also did basketball. When girls were added, it was common to play basketball and soccer which were alternated so the girls didn't have to always play dodgeball as dodgeball was a sport that favored the 8th grade boys who were big and could whip the ball and clobber the more Innocent girls and small boys who ducked, dodged and rolled forward into a ball on the ground, like turtles curled up in their shell, to protect their face and genitalia from possible obliteration. I remember my first dodgeball session and how I prayed I wouldn't be killed and how happy I was in having survived the afternoon in one piece.
It was a real rush not being pounded into obilivion by the older more skilled players.
The advantage of dodgeball was everyone was playing until you were eliminated by being hit by the ball and which case you sat on a sideline until one side or the other lost due to their final player being eliminated. People who hated Dodgeball go themself quickly, either by getting hit or lobbing a ball to the other side where it was caught. Then they could sit on the side line and relax and watch the carnage. Before play began, Jack Cronin selected two team captains who then selected team members in a round robin fashion with everyone being selected.
Basketball and soccer meant only two teams were on the floor at a time which meant a lot of people were sitting waiting. Boys didn't play soccer though occasionally just to spice things up an 8th grade boy would be assigned to each team. The boys would then bulldoze their way around though their lack of skill was apparent their aggression often made up for it. I was selected on several occasions and I don't think the girls were at all happy about having to try and avoid being kicked in the shins by my big clumsy feet.
Since Friday afternoon was not going to be much work for Mr. Cronin it was widely held that he would often get together with the janitor (Mr. Meyers and later Mr. Synder) for a belt or two in his office. Certainly the smell of alcohol would support this as being common practice.
An interesting note is that to ensure the safety patrol was doing their job, Mr. Cronin would occasionally set up clandestine stake outs to see what was going on, if corners were being properly covered, children were being monitored when crossing and whether safety patrol members were throwing snow balls at each other (which was common practice and resulted in a demerit being issued if caught). This actually worked to some extent to avoid too much goofing off. Often the safety patrol officers would be among the later walking or biking home to make sure corners remained covered until all students had crossed. They often filled in at corners when patrol members were absent, though they received no notification, they'd check and if no one was present they would man the corner.
I would have to say that dodgeball was almost some kind of right of passage. I started out just hoping to avoid injury and embarrasement. As I got older and bigger I would try and throw people out and catch balls that were thrown directly at me. Eventually I became one of the feared 8th grade boys and Captain of the safety patrol. I wanted to reach that place in the heirarchy but since I know I started out at the absolute bottom, I really empathsized with the little guys. Officers were elected so being selected was actually a great honor though I am not sure how much I realized that at the time. I suspect I got selected because I tried to be nice to people for the most part.
I don't think dodgeball lasted more than a year or so after I graduated. My 8th Grade class had a new Principal Violet Milner who replaced Mrs. Smith who was quite obesce. She eventually forced Jack Cronin out. She wanted to move things into the 1970's and did away with a lot of the old tradition. I wonder if things really improved. Some how I am skeptical, as bad as things were at Wildwood it forced kids to be responsible to some extent, at least for those who wanted to try.
I am not sure if Milner eliminated the safety patrol but it wouldn't surprise me.
You have to realize that back in the day, virtually every student went home for lunch. This was a true neighborhood school. The farthest anyone had to walk was about 10 or 11 blocks and in good weather they could ride bikes. Students walked to school in the morning, went home for lunch and returned for the afternoon and then walked home after school. We had an hour for lunch but if took you 20-25 minutes to walk you didn't have very long to eat. They would let students in the building 5 minutes or so before the hour so they had time to put coats in lockers and get to their desks. Once in a while a Mom would drive to school to pick up kids but this was rare.
So the safety patrol actually was useful and it was amazing that a bunch of children with only
an occasional kick in the pants from Jack Cronin actually kept the other kids safe.
I remember in 5th grade being summoned by the 8th grade teacher because an 8th grade girl was having cramps (they told me that meant she had a belly ache) and had to be walked home. The older students were all testing so I was selected to walk her home since I was rather tall for my age. The staff actually trusted us and we knew it and we took the job rather seriously, or at least as seriously as kids can take any job. I was really proud to be asked to help out and I still remember this almost 40 years later.
Clearly these were different times.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Eraser Hockey, 1969
Wildwood School was a vast, underutilized building with several empty classrooms. The teachers, all of them middle-aged women, kept at best a loose rein on the students, especially the 7th and 8th graders who could sign themselves out of class for all kinds of school duties -- hall patrol service, safety patrol business, preparing for school events, etc. The most trusted among us 7th and 8th graders spent, it seems, as much time out of class as in it and I can hardly recall a teacher coming looking for us.
The empty classrooms were ideal for hiding out from class and recreations such as eraser hockey, which was played in socks (so you could "skate" across the linolium floors) with two schooldesks defining each goal. One day, in 8th Grade, I was doing hall patrol duty during what would have been math class -- I was in charge of the scheduling, so I just made sure my hall patrol times coincided exactly with math class, my least favorite subject (as opposed to Ed, who did things like try to calculate pi to several decimal points). The hall patrol desks were outside the Boys Room and (I think I'm remembering this right) Harry Temple came trotting down the hall to say I should go to room 105 -- once Mrs. Sundberg's room, but now empty. I abandoned my "post" outside the Boys Room immediately.
When I got there, there was a furious eraser hockey game going and one detail I remember is that Mel Anderson's pants were just covered in chalk dust from all the "slapshots" he was making into the goal. The game went on for at least twenty more minutes after I got there. No one ever interrupted, even though we must have been making a lot of noise. No one ever mentioned my dereliction of duty for abandoning my Hall Patrol post. No one even mentioned that all of went back to class with chalk dust all over us.
The empty classrooms were ideal for hiding out from class and recreations such as eraser hockey, which was played in socks (so you could "skate" across the linolium floors) with two schooldesks defining each goal. One day, in 8th Grade, I was doing hall patrol duty during what would have been math class -- I was in charge of the scheduling, so I just made sure my hall patrol times coincided exactly with math class, my least favorite subject (as opposed to Ed, who did things like try to calculate pi to several decimal points). The hall patrol desks were outside the Boys Room and (I think I'm remembering this right) Harry Temple came trotting down the hall to say I should go to room 105 -- once Mrs. Sundberg's room, but now empty. I abandoned my "post" outside the Boys Room immediately.
When I got there, there was a furious eraser hockey game going and one detail I remember is that Mel Anderson's pants were just covered in chalk dust from all the "slapshots" he was making into the goal. The game went on for at least twenty more minutes after I got there. No one ever interrupted, even though we must have been making a lot of noise. No one ever mentioned my dereliction of duty for abandoning my Hall Patrol post. No one even mentioned that all of went back to class with chalk dust all over us.
The Volleyball Firing Squad (1967, date approximate)
Among Jack Cronin's innovations was the volleyball firing squad, in which he would line up a miscreant student against the side wall of the Wildwood School gym and then assemble a half dozen members of the safety patrol as a firing squad, each armed with one of the scuffed or semi-deflated volleyballs usually used in dodgeball games. At the count of three or six or whatever, Fat Jack would yell fire! and the six patrol members would simultaneously whip the volleyballs at the delinquent, who would cower against the wall as the balls smashed with deadly aim against his chest, legs, and side. Like everything else done in that enormous, high-ceilinged gym, the sound of the six volleyballs richocheting off the victims's body to bounce off the floor or tile wall made an incredble racket.
I'm not sure Fat Jack actually staged more than one of these executions. The only one I witnessed was against Randy Peterson, a kid I hardly remember except that he was always in trouble, had bristly dark hair, and usually wore a white t-shirt to school. Fat Jack may have had too many beers with the school janitor, "Munchy" Myers, when he lined Randy Peterson up against the gym wall and I seem to recall he might have even been suspended from teaching, perhaps following a complaint from the boy's parents. It is true that Jack disappeared from Wildwood for six months or so. Though I also think Ed may have once told me that Jack's suspension had something to do with a reaching up under a third grade girl's dress to pat her behind (also when he'd had a few too many Old Milwaukees) so maybe Randy's "execution" went by unprotested by his parents.
I'm not sure Fat Jack actually staged more than one of these executions. The only one I witnessed was against Randy Peterson, a kid I hardly remember except that he was always in trouble, had bristly dark hair, and usually wore a white t-shirt to school. Fat Jack may have had too many beers with the school janitor, "Munchy" Myers, when he lined Randy Peterson up against the gym wall and I seem to recall he might have even been suspended from teaching, perhaps following a complaint from the boy's parents. It is true that Jack disappeared from Wildwood for six months or so. Though I also think Ed may have once told me that Jack's suspension had something to do with a reaching up under a third grade girl's dress to pat her behind (also when he'd had a few too many Old Milwaukees) so maybe Randy's "execution" went by unprotested by his parents.
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