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What I Learned in My High School Typing Class Has Helped Throughout My Life

24 Sep

When I attended North Bergen High School in the 1970s, I took both a typing class and a short hand class. I did not want to. Typing and short hand classes were for the students who were not going on to college. And I knew that I would go to college. But my Mom made me take them.

“You never know when you might take a job that requires typing,” she said, and added: “These are good skills to learn.” I argued back, but obviously I lost.

My MOM insisted. So I took those two classes when I was a freshman in high school. I think one of the teachers was Miss Wirt. It was not the most exciting class for me, but by the end of the semester, I could touch type to the required words per minute without too many errors.  Being in class with good typists was a bit intimidating (As my friend Shashi reminded me). I will remind everyone that typing on a typewriter was much different than typing on a computer keyboard.  First there was the click clack of the keyboard.  You could tell how fast someone was typing by how quickly the clicks and clacks came together.

I did use these typing skills when I was on the staff of Paw Prints, the school’s newspaper. We had to type all of the stories into columns for them to be put into the layout and then copied and printed. I learned out to measure the space and fit the letters/words into the space correctly. A skill that came in handy much later in my life.

I have to say that my Mom was right. I will tell you that the skills I learned in the typing class have stayed with me forever. It is almost as if my Mom had telepathy and knew that eventually typing would be a much appreciated and required skill for college students.

Thanks to my typing classes, I excelled in my college and graduate school classes in the sense that my typed papers had very few typos and/or needed corrections. While I had friends who often had to hire someone to type their papers, I was set with my little typewriter.

In fact, only once in all of my undergraduate college career did someone type a paper for me. But there was a reason. My very last college paper at Drew University was due when I had an accident involving one of my eyes. After a long visit in an emergency room, I realized I could not type this paper since I had a large patch over my eye. Luckily for me, I had a great friend, Shari, who lived in the same dorm and was my savior. She typed the entire paper that evening in time for my morning class.

Later when I went on to graduate school, for journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, my parents bought me the most wonderful gift, a self-correcting typewriter. This was the best typewriter available with a second ribbon of white out, so you could just back up, lower the white-out ribbon, and then cover the error and then retype. Amazing what was wonderful in the days before word processors and computers.

My typing class made it possible for me to complete my master’s degree exam in plenty of time. We had to answer four questions and had one hour to write the answer essays. They had to be typed. So as we thought out our answer, we had to actually type instead of write. I came to the exam with my typewriter and ribbons and succeeded.

This typewriter was also an important part of my Master’s Thesis, as I could easily correct mistakes.     Writing a thesis before computers was a nightmare. You had to estimate how much space to leave for footnotes. Getting everything perfect took experience and spatial coordination. As I said earlier, many people had to hire someone to type their thesis. But not me, as I knew how to type and I knew how to make words fit. Thank you Miss Wirt! Thank you Mrs. Whitehouse and my Paw Prints work!

The short hand class taught me the basics of taking quick notes using some symbols. Knowing a few of these symbols came in handy when I did an interview. I could write quickly by not writing all the words and using short hand instead.   Thanks to my Mom insisting that I take this class, my interviews as a grad student in journalism were always accurate. Yes I had a tape recorder as well. But some people did not like to be recorded. So accurate note taking was important.

I will admit that I have forgotten most of these symbols. And when I look at short hand symbols today they look like hieroglyphics. But when I was in graduate school I was so happy that I had an advantage.

Although I do not use the short hand, my touch typing skills are something I use every day for work and for pleasure. I am using those skills as I type and write this blog!

With the advent of computers, everyone needs to know how to use a keyboard.   Today touch typing, or as it is now known – keyboarding — is a skill that children are taught in elementary school. If you cannot type, you cannot use a computer successfully. Although probably in a few years, people will just talk to their computers and to have their thoughts put down, just as we talk to our smart phones to type a short message to someone.

It is amazing what a good teacher can help a student learn. I went into my typing class with a chip on my shoulder, not wanting to take it. I came out with a skill that has been with me for over 40 years. What I learned in typing class has helped me throughout my life.

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Happily Playing Stickball In the Middle of the Street

21 May

Today’s Moms tell their children constantly, “Don’t play in the street.” But where I grew up in North Bergen, New Jersey, in the 1950s, 60s and early 70s, we almost always played in the streets. It is not that our Moms said, “Go play in the street.” It was more, “Get outside and play!” And the street was the place to go.

It was a common event to see a group of children racing the bases in a heated game of stickball, running in the street. We often had ten or more involved in the game.

On our block, 78th Street between Boulevard East and Park Avenue, we had an upward battle to our game as we lived on a hill. So playing stickball was even more difficult. Hitting the ball and running uphill was a challenge. But we had fun.

I cannot tell you how many windows were broken over the years, but I remember at least two. When a window was smashed, we all went running. Eventually the truth came out.

But I can tell you that our mothers never told us to get out of the street. It was the cars that had to be careful, not the children. People expected the streets to be teeming with activity.

Stickball was played with a broomstick and a pink rubber ball (Spaulding High Flyer, my brother says), or whatever ball happened to be available. We had designated bases that changed each day we played depending on who parked where. A certain car, a telephone pole, a manhole cover, all of these could be named designated bases.

But besides stickball, the street was also the site of football, hide and seek, hopscotch, and any other game that needs a space to run.

I have to say that my favorite ‘street’ story of all concerns my brother. I know he was in high school, because he was already tall. He grew to about six feet. And that is what caused his problem. If he had been shorter, he probably would not have been hurt.

We were playing in the street My brother and his friend were playing football.  Tossing a ball back and forth across the street, in the street on the sidewalk.  But not just tossing, throwing it hard.   My brother caught the ball and turn to run, unbeknownst to him, a volkswagen had parked right where he turned to run.  Usually that car went into the garage, but this time it just was on the sidewalk.

My brother says, “So Jack throws me the ball and I spin to run, never expecting a car to be in the driveway and slam right into the car. Volkswagen’s at that time had a rain guard over the door that was steel. I hit my lip right into this and it split. Spilling lots of blood and needing two stitches.”

There was blood; lots of blood. I have since learned, as a parent, that the face bleeds much more that any part of the body. And my brother’s face was filled with blood, as was the street and the Volkswagen.

Luckily that day a parent was home. I do not say this sarcastically. We would come home from school by ourselves. Make a snack by ourselves and go out to play by ourselves. It was the same way for almost all the kids on the block.

Many other accidents occurred over the years.   I remember many of them, like when my brother’s friend got his hand caught in between a bunch of nails on a piece of wood.  Yes he did. It was a weird accident. My parents took him to the hospital, as his parents were not home.  He was holding the wood on his lap all the way and into the emergency room.

There was one grandma who lived on the block, and she was often the one to wipe away the blood and check to make sure the injured child would survive. She was there the day my sister’s front teeth were knocked out and took care of my sister till my Mom got home. We had some adult supervision. But with so many children on the block, any parent who was home took care of any issues that occurred…issues sometimes being arguments or sometimes being injuries! No one ever argued if a parent disciplined someone else’s children or took care of them.

But I digress. One this day, our parents were home. And my brother was taken to the emergency room at North Hudson Hospital. I was not there, but I have heard that the conversation went something like this:

“How did you get hurt?” The doctor asks.

“I ran into a car,” my brother responds.

“You mean a car ran into you. You got hit by a car,” the doctor says.

“NO, I mean I ran into a car playing stickball,” my brother was honest. “The car was parked. The car did not hit me. I hit the car.”

The doctor then had to laugh. I believe he even said something like, I have never had to stitch a kid who hit a car before.

My brother was fine. He had to get stitches in his face. But that was nothing new for him. He had had stitches before from when he played Superman off the front stoop when we lived on Third Avenue in North Bergen, and another time when a wooden train piece hit him in the head.

He came home with a great story to tell. We all heard about the doctor who thought he got hit by a car!

The next day my brother was back at playing stick ball and other games in the street. Games did not end because of one minor injury. We continued to happily play stickball in the middle of the street for years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stickball

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A Blueberry Patch Was the Site of My First Kiss

29 Apr

The summer of 1969 was famous for many reasons; the July walk on the moon of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the Woodstock concert in August. But for me, even though I remember those events vividly, and lived just 1 ½ miles from Yasgur’s farm, for me the summer of 1969 was the summer of my first kiss!

It happened near my grandparent’s bungalow colony in town of Kauneonga Lake. It happened on the path between the two sections of the blueberry patch that covered the ground between the bungalow colony and Cooper Drive.

Why it happened there, I do not know. But I remember it as if it was yesterday. My first kiss was very shy. I was 14, I think he was as well. Perhaps 15, but no more than that. Looking back, I realize that kissing on that path was a very poor choice. I had lots of boy cousins, a brother and friends who could have seen us. But they did not. We kissed in the middle of the path, then went our separate ways back to our respective homes.

To be honest, the kiss did not lead to dating. We were just friends. I have no contact with him, although I remember his name and what he looked like.

We, of course continued to see each other. But it was a one-time event.

There were other boys I dated in the Catskills over the years. But not one was ever serious. Usually they became my friends.

One Catskill friend took me to my high school senior prom. He was a freshman in college, so it was a big deal. Another boy I met while working at Daitch Shopwell was beloved by my grandparents. He and I remained friends for years. We both married others — not people we met at the Catskills.

The boy I loved the most in the Catskills, never really took me seriously. I think it was the age difference. I was 16 and he was 22. I was smitten. I also met him when working at Daitch. He had a great voice and would sing and play the guitar during our breaks. To this day when I hear the song, “You’ve Got a Friend,” I think of him. But to be honest, although I remember what he looked like and the sound of his voice, I cannot remember his name!

Not all Catskill summer romances end. Two of my cousins married the girls they met in the Catskills. Both have been married over 30 years and are grandparents. They and their families still come up to Kauneonga Lake every summer.  And there are many others I know who also married the love of their lives that they met while teens in the Catskills.

Although for me, the Catskills was not the place I met my husband, it was the place I brought I children to visit every summer. A place of great fun and memories.  My children got to spend wonderful times with their many cousins at the lake and in the house where I spent my summers.

As for the walk and kiss in the blueberry patch; it was not unwelcome. I still hold it in my heart. I am sure I picked some blueberries on the way back and ate them.   Although my love for that boy did not last, my love for blueberries has lasted forever.

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Having My Childhood Neighbor As My Physic Teacher Was a Challenge

5 Apr

In the Kansas City Star today there was an article about a man who has searched for some of his high school teachers to thank them for all they had done for him. This article made me think of one of my teachers. Not to thank him, but to ‘sort of’ apologize for a bit of misbehaving.   There was a reason! Imagine if your neighbor became your teacher!

My home from fourth gra

My home from fourth grade till I married.  Bobbie’s home is just past the parking area.

Growing up on 78th Street near Boulevard East, in North Bergen, we had wonderful neighbors. We knew all the children on the block, and we often played stickball in the street after school and on weekends. Everyone knew everyone else. It was a community.

Our next-door neighbor going up the hill was the DeSocio family. The son, Bobbie, was about six years older than I. So although he was part of the community, he really did not hang out with the kids on the street. But of course we all knew him.   And he was part of the teasing and kidding that went on daily.

When I was about 12, and he was 18, he helped my brother and his friend, Jack, put me upside down into a garbage can. Bobbie was raking leaves. And the three boys thought it would be funny to dump me in. I did not find it so amusing. From that point on, I saw Bobbie as an adversary instead of my friend. He had joined the boys!

The next fall Bobbie went on to college: Steven’s Institute of Technology, which was in Hoboken. Not far from home. I believe he earned both a BS and an MS in physics.

During these years, we really did not have much contact with him. My Dad and his Dad would talk. And we would hear about what he was doing at dinner. Sometimes he would come by and we would wave. My parents talked to him the most. I think my brother, who was a bit closer to his age, and two-years ahead of me in school also talked to him. My brother actually got his master’s at Steven’s Tech, years later.

But then life changed. I was a senior in North Bergen High School. I was a good student and active in many school activities but focusing on the school newspaper and yearbook. However I did take physics and I loved it.

When we returned from winter break something had changed. They had divided our physics class. Some of the students stayed with the original teacher and some of us were put into a class with a new teacher. Someone just starting out; someone named Mr. DeSocio. Yes BOBBIE! And guess whom he got in his first class? Yes, ME!

I cannot imagine how he felt when he saw me walk into his class. But I know how I felt. Bobbie is my teacher! Impossible. I really did not know what to do or how to act. So I acted with all the maturity of an 18 year old. I totally goofed off. I giggled. I laughed. I really could not take him seriously.

I do not know why he did not request that I be put into the other class. But he did not.

However, I do know what happened in my home. I think my Dad and his Dad had a little talk over the back yard fence. And I got the parental lecture. I was in BIG trouble.

I was to treat Bobbie with respect at school and I was to call him Mr. DeSocio. When he was over at the house, I could call him Bobbie. But at school I could not. I could not tell my friend’s any Bobbie stories. I had to treat him just like any other teacher.

The parent lecture worked. I started behaving. I listened in class. It took about a month for me to calm down. And yes, I believe I had an A in physics.

But years later, I taught high school journalism in a small private school. Although none of my students were my peers, many were the children of my friends. And later, some were friends of my daughter. It was a bit difficult. And I often thought back to North Bergen High School and Bobbie.

I wondered if Bobbie continued teaching. I know he did for a while because my younger sister attended North Bergen High School until 1976, and he was still there. In fact she also had him as her physic teacher. But since she was so much younger, there was not the same issues that I had faced. I also found a yearbook listing on line that showed he was still there in 1978. Did that semester having me in his class toughen him up for anything?

In reality, I was really not that bad. (Although my sister disagrees, she says I was terrible. ) In 1973 there was a decorum that had to be followed. I loved high school and I loved learning. I did learn physics from Bobbie. So in the end, I guess we worked it out to everyone’s advantage…. I hope. But I will say that having my neighbor as my physics teacher was a challenge!

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A Night in the Hospital Used To Be a Nightmare for Children

26 Oct

 

My actual Candy Striper Hat from the early 1970s. I had to wear it at the hospital.

My actual Candy Striper Hat from the early 1970s. I had to wear it at the hospital.

When I was a sophomore at North Bergen High School I volunteered as a Candy Striper at North Hudson Hospital on Park Avenue, in Weehawken, New Jersey. For about a year I went once or twice a week after school or on the weekend to work mainly in the children’s wing, doing whatever the nursing staff requested. I also made origami animals for the children in the wards.

In those days there were strict visiting hours. Parents could not spend the day, much less the night with their children. And children were often lonely and scared. Since I was allowed there at times other than visiting hours, I could visit with the children. Making the origami figures cheered them up. I always gave my creations to the children when I was done. I worked enough hours to earn my 100-hour pin and more.

My volunteering came about because of my sister and my own experience in the hospital. When I was six, I had tonsillitis. For months I had tests and blood tests. They told my parents I had leukemia, which then was a death sentence. It turned out that I only had tonsillitis. What a relief! But I needed my tonsils out!

I remember my Dad taking me to the hospital in the morning and promising to be with me all the way. But after the nurses took me on the gurney to the elevator, my Dad was left behind when the elevator doors closed. I remember screaming for him all the way to the operating room.

I was traumatized. So was my Dad. He told me years later that he would hear the sound of my screaming in his dreams.

Because of this horrible experience, when my own daughter needed surgery when she was six, I looked for options.   Things had changed over the years, but most important I am married to a pediatrician.   We knew the surgeon and the anesthesiologist. My husband was allowed to scrub in and go with our daughter into the operating room. Once she was under the anesthesia he had to leave. But at least she was not alone, like I was so many years before.

It was not only this event that made me want to be a Candy Striper. I was hospitalized several times as a child for bronchitis, which I found out later in my life, was asthma. Those few days alone in the hospital without my parents, except for short visits were horrible. Scared and alone, I would often cry.

But the worst was my sister. When she was in elementary school she had an emergency appendectomy.   The surgery went fine, but they put her in a room with other children and she developed all sorts of diseases: strep throat, a staph infection and more. She was in the hospital for over two weeks.

It was a horrible time for my family. I remember my parents crying and worrying. They were only allowed in the hospital for a short period two or three times a day. Traveling back and forth was difficult. My parents were both working. My brother and I were not allowed to see her, as children were not allowed in the hospital.   I remember going there one time and sitting in the car in the parking lot. My Mom went upstairs and my sister waved to us from the window, we got out of the car and waved back.

My sister finally came home. But she was home from school for another two weeks. We were a totally stressed out family by this point. Everyone was on edge and scared. That two-week period is nothing compared to what other families faced. Not being able to be there made it so much worse!

Life is so much better now that parents able to visit their sick child in the hospital whenever they like, even to spend the night with them. Not that anyone should get sick. But at least if they are sick, parents are allowed all the access they need and want. Children’s hospitals do all they can to make hospitalizations as easy as possible. Bright colors and decorations make the hospital look cheerful. The scary old look of hospitals is eliminated as much as possible in today’s children’s hospitals.

Another change is the limited time spent in the hospital. When I had my tonsils out in 1961, I spent two nights in the hospital. When my daughter had her surgery she was sent home that evening, partly because my husband would be home in case of an emergency. But even if she stayed, it would have been for less than 24 hours. (I will admit that I spent the night on the floor of our daughter’s bedroom.)

Part of the reason for the limited hospital stay is exactly what happened to my sister. Patients in the hospital have infectious and contagious diseases. It is best not to be around them. Now children have private rooms with space for the parents to stay. Then my sister was in a room with at least one other child at all times. There was no room for parents. And the other occupant could spread disease.

So with this history, as soon as I was of the right age, I volunteered at the North Hudson Hospital to help children. I had a great time for about a year. Then something happened. All I knew is that I was in the office of the head of volunteering and my Dad came to get me.   I honestly did not remember what happened, except that I was sick to my stomach.

I never went back to the hospital after that. And I decided I never wanted to be a nurse or a doctor. (I still think it is strange that I married a doctor.) But I kept my Candy Striper hat because I was proud of what I had done.

Years later, I was telling my daughter about being a Candy Striper and how I loved being with the children. She asked why I stopped. I told her I really did not know. My Dad happened to be with us during this conversation. He said, “You don’t remember? You went into the wrong room. A man had, who had been in a car accident, died, and you passed out.”

No wonder why I have always hated the sight of blood and disliked going to the hospital. It all made sense. But I am glad I volunteered for the time I did.

Luckily for me, my children never had to spend the night at a hospital. But over the years, many of my friends’ children have had surgeries or have had to spend a night. I am so glad their experiences are so much better than they were in the 1960s! I am so glad that parents and family can visit and give the children the love and support that they need. I am glad that it no longer is a nightmare for children who are sick to spend the night in the hospital.

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Learning Infinity and Beyond Makes Me Insane

2 Aug
A note from Mr. "Mean" Thoens to me in my senior yearbook. We never did agree on infinite numbers.

A note from Mr. “Mean” Thoens to me in my senior yearbook. We never did agree on infinite numbers.

My disdain for infinity and infinite numbers started when I was a senior in high school. My North Bergen High School calculus teacher, Mr. Ray Thoens, (who I called “Mean” Thoens) was teaching us about infinity and the infinite number of points in a line. Okay, I could get that. But then he told us that two lines of unequal lengths would have the same number of infinite points. What!!

I argued with him.

How can a line this long ___________, have the same number of points as a line this long _________________? The lines have a definite beginning and an end. How can they have the same infinite number of points! For my logical mind, one must have more points than the other.

Mr. Thoens and I argued about this all year. Whenever I was upset about something I would just say, “Yes just like those lines and infinite number of points. It just doesn’t make sense.” And I would sometimes add while shaking my head, “that is just wrong.” Other students in my class perhaps agreed with Mr. Thoens, but that did not change my mind.

Senior year, basically the calculus class. I had a lot of hair, but not as much as the boy next to me.

Senior year, basically the calculus class. I had a lot of hair, but not as much as the boy next to me.

Over the years, the long years, since I graduated high school, I still felt that the information about infinity and lines and infinite numbers of points was a crazy thing and just could not be right. But I kept my point of view to myself all these years. I never took another math class (except statistics), so I did not have to worry about these numbers. And even though my husband studied math and physics for the first two years of his college career, infinite numbers just did not come up.

Until now, when my nephew, my sister’s son, came to stay with us for a few days.

My nephew just earned his master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Kansas. He taught calculus to college freshman for the past few years, and he is staying with me before he leaves for Florida to study for his PhD in math at a university there.

And we got into a math debate.

I am not a hundred percent sure how it started, but we got on to the topic of calculus. I could not help myself, I had to tell him about my disdain for infinite numbers and points in lines.

He said something like, “I will explain it to you. Many people have this problem.”

I said, “You are not going to change my mind. It is not right! I have held this view for 40 years!”

He told me that Mr. Thoens, my high school math teacher was right! Can you imagine that! He told me that my high school teacher was probably trying not to use more advanced math language when he tried to exlain it all those years ago. But he, my nephew had explained this to many students, and he could explain it to me.

The diagrams in my nephew and my debate over infinite points in lines of two different lengths.

The diagrams in my nephew and my debate over infinite points in lines of two different lengths.

He started talking about ‘cardinality’ and how to match numbers. He showed me two sets of numbers, one with three dots and one with five. We could agree that these did not match. Then he added two more dots to make them equal sets. And we could agree that they were now equal.

He made graphs and wrote equation-like things. Who cares? When you look at two lines of unequal length it is intuitive and logical to realize that they do not have the same number of infinite points. ( I spoke to my daughter about this, and she totally agreed! So I must be right.)

I showed him two equal lines, A to B. We agreed that they had the same number of infinite points. Then I added a segment that doubled the size of one line to C. And I said, “This line has more points. It is a longer line.”

And he said, “NO!”

What! How can you say no?

He then told me that “The same way of matching is not going to work.”

Of course it will not. You cannot match the same way because they are different lengths.

And then he went into a silly math concept that showed matching using x/2 (x over 2). In this way the numbers in the longer line matched numbers in the shorter line like this: .3 went with .15 and so on. So! Yes you can make pairs of numbers, but there are always other numbers. He agreed and said something like, “But you never actually get to zero so your cardinality is okay as long as you can keep matching.”

Yes, Mr. Thoens had tried that same trick on me when I was 17. It did not work then and it will not work now.

I appreciate my nephew’s passion for math. I hope he has great success and continues to teach and learn. But I am not changing my mind. Two lines of unequal length and size cannot have the same number of infinite points even if both have an infinite number of points.

And do not tell me that an infinite number of points is an infinite number of points.   I know that. But it is something that does not make sense in my mind, and probably will never make sense.

I think I will just go another 40 years believing that learning about infinity and beyond just makes me insane!

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Becoming An Adult in Three Weeks My Senior Year of High School

22 Apr

When I was a senior in high school, and my sister a freshman, we were on our own for three weeks when my parents went to India. It was the trip of a lifetime for them, as my Dad was asked by the Indian government to help with the fledgling textile industry. Years later he would sometimes bemoan this trip as a foreshadowing of the death of the US textile industry, which lead to the demise of my Dad’s business.
But in 1973 it was an exotic trip. My Mom took a leave from her job teaching in West New York. She cooked and froze meals for weeks preparing for my sister and me. She worried that we would not eat.
My brother was on winter break from college but was already obligated to drive my maternal grandparents to Florida and spend several weeks with them. (They never went again. )
I had many emergency numbers to call. We had lots of family and friends to worry about us in my parents absence. My Mom had even made arrangements for a teacher friend, Lola, to call us each morning to be sure we would not be late for school.
The first night we were home we had 18 phone calls from people checking on us. 18 times we had to jump up and get the phone. There were no remote or cell phones then. Only the phones in the kitchen and my parent’s bedroom. My sister and I started fighting over who would answer the phone. We knew if we did not answer people would worry.
Each morning my Mom’s friend called. So did several others. It was almost impossible to get ready for school we spent do much time answering the phone. We finally asked them to STOP!
I was in charge of driving us to school each morning and be on time. We did fine!
And those prepared meals… We never touched them. We were invited out to dinner every night. By the end we did not want to go, but people were trying to be helpful so we went. We had lots of interesting conversations and meals, but we had lots of homework to do. When my parents came home jetlagged, my Mom did not have to cook for weeks. We just ate those meals.
Even the teachers at North Bergen High School were aware of our situation. My sister and I were good students, but Mrs Whitehouse spoke to me each day to be sure we were fine. And we were.
We did it. My sister and I kept up our school work, were always on Time, kept the house clean and the car running. Well one time I left the car lights on and a friend of my Dad’s helped us out.
My sister and I would laugh at a the backup emergency measures my Mom had put in place to keep us safe and fed. ( Much like the measures I would do for my children. We do become our mothers. )
When they came back from India they had many stories to tell. But so did we. Those three weeks turned me Into an adult. I knew from that point on that I could succeed in anything.

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My Days in the English Department Office at NBHS

19 Jan

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I basically spent the last two years of my North Bergen High School education hanging out the English Department office or in a journalism office working on the school newspaper or yearbook.  I am not quite sure how that happened.  I know my senior year I did an independent study research and I used the English office as my office.  I sort of took over seventh, eighth and ninth periods. 

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Mr. Vecchione, Mrs. Whitehouse, Mr. Polente, and Mr. Boyle were my verbal sparring partners. When I was not actually working on my project, I was sort of, helping out in the office. Sometimes I was arguing with the teachers over some cause I believed in…mainly women’s rights.   I think I was an English Department aide?  Who knows?  I cannot remember.

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But even before senior year, I had developed, what was for me,  an important relationship with Mrs. Whitehouse and Mr. Vechionne.

Celia Whitehouse’ impact on my life was the most visable.  She provided the space for me to become involved in journalism and creative writing. Although I was never editor in chief of the yearbook or newspaper, I had editorial positions on the newspaper both junior and senior year, and on the yearbook in my senior year. 

Even when I was in college, I would come back to visit the English Department teachers and hang out in the office.  I knew that they had to be missing me.  And since my sister was in high school for three more years, I had an easy in.  So conversations with Mr. Vecchione and Mrs. Whitehouse continued. 

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It was Mrs. Whitehouse, who told me, when I was looking for graduate schools, that Columbia University was not the only place to apply.  In fact, Missouri had a really good school of journalism.  I applied…why not?

Thus it is thanks to Mrs. Whitehouse that I ended up living in Kansas (and meeting my husband). I was accepted to both Columbia University and University of Missouri- Columbia for graduate school.  My Mom said…. in 1977…”How will I sleep at night knowing you are in Harlem every day?”  So I moved to Missouri.  “You won’t know what I am doing, so you won’t worry.”  I told her.  “Thank Mrs. Whitehouse for telling me to apply.”

When in high school I was in honors English and was a member of the Merit Society, which meant I could leave a class if there was no exam.  I took that to mean I would be leaving class whenever there was a substitute, and hangout in the English office.  Giving me even more time to be in my favorite place.  Mr. Vecchione would just sigh when I showed up and invaded his space.

I loved high school.  Junior prom, senior prom, yearbook, newspaper, literary supplement, independent study, school plays, all were fun times.  Even my classes were fun for me.  I loved school; I loved learning.  We had a community of about 20 students who were in almost every class together.  And the memories are still strong.

During my junior year of high school, I became ill toward the end of the school year.  I spent a week in the hospital, not fun at all.   Mrs. Whitehouse not only came to visit me, she wrote me a book: Ellen and the Sorceress. Handwritten….no computers in those days.  I still have the book!

My honors English teacher, however, sent a take-home test to the hospital with my friend, Faye, who was afraid to give to me.  I still remember her telling my mom about it, even though I was quite sick.  My Mom was furious.  She called Mr. Vecchione, asking, “Who sends a test to someone in the hospital?”  Needless to say, I never took that test. 

But then they knew I was a good student.  And I was not malingering.  Believe me, a week in the hospital was not enjoyable. 

My days in the English department were not wasted.  I received my undergraduate degree in English literature.  I worked on the college newspaper and yearbook, continuing on the path I found in high school.  Then on to graduate school, where I earned my master’s degree in journalism.  I even taught high school journalism for four years: in a way my homage to Celia Whitehouse, Anthony Vecchione and my many hours in the English Department office.

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