World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, American; World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
School Years
I started school in 1923 and went to the Adelaide Avenue School for
grades 1 to 3. I attended the old Union School, where the YMCA is now
located, for grades 4 through 8. I attended High School at the Academy
on North Main Street. My first two years of high school were
uneventful. In my Junior year Ken Montanye and I were on the baseball
team and from then on all we could think about was baseball. Ken was
so crazy about playing that he would stay for practice after school
and then have to walk all the way home to Cheshire.
Being able to run so fast, I might have been very good on the track
team or at soccer. All the meets would come on the same day so I had
to choose just one and baseball was my choice. One time they needed
someone to run the hundred yard dash in the sectional meet at Geneva.
as there was no baseball game that day, they showed me how to use the
starting block and away we went! I came in third place about three
feet behind the winner so there is no telling what I could have done
with training and practice.
Clarence bought me a cloth jacket and I wore it all four years of high
school. By the time I graduated the cuffs and collar were almost worn
off. These were the years following the Depression and there was
little money for clothes. I remember getting my first suit for
graduation. It was Oxford Grey and cost $26. I bought it myself and
made the mistake of getting it too small and it was outgrown in about
a year.
The boy next door and I would walk to school together and had one
thing we loved to do. We would save firecrackers from the Fourth of
July and in the winter time, going up Main Street, we would put a
firecracker in a snowball, light it, throw it up in the air over the
kids walking on the other side of the street. We were real proud
because we were the only ones with firecrackers. We also would build
forts of snow in the lot behind our house and then put firecrackers in
snowballs and throw them into the front of the enemy's fort, trying to
blow it down. We were just lucky that no one ever got hurt during
these pranks.
I never had to much homework in school because I could remember
everything I read. History dates and Chemistry formulas were easy for
me although sometimes I didn't know what they meant. English, math and
algebra were almost impossible for me and I barely passed. I got only
52 in Latin and didn't know why anyone would take that subject anyway.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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