Note to reader: we invite your submission
about memories of your days at John Rogers or your feeder grade
school. Please email your word pictures of somebody or something
you remember to mauget@rogers60.com.
This month's memshots are by Dora-Faye Schmidt
Hendricks, Wyatt Newman, and Ed Mauget
I don't have very many specific memories of good times during my
school years even though in general, I had a very good time; in
fact, I loved high school. I was "going" with
Voyne Purjue for many of those years (aren't you surprised that I
never married him?) and was very active at Morgan Acres
Community Church. Our church group went to a lot of "Singspirations" and
"Youth for Christ" on Saturday nights, and we went skating
at Patterson's a lot too. I do remember some painful memories
though, like when I was in fourth and fifth grade at Arlington,
I sometimes had a handful of boys walk me home from school.
Actually, they were usually riding their bicycles while I walked,
usually with my best friend, Vicky Stempel. My father
blew up one time when he saw a group of us coming home from school,
saying I looked like "a bitch in heat." Isn't that awful?
Now I understand that I was developing a little bit faster than some
of my classmates and I was a friendly, likeable girl. However,
that's a clue as to what was going on in some of our
lives.
Years later, as we were ready to graduate from high school, I
remember wanting to get a new pair of white
"peddle-pushers" (which were very much like the "capris"
girls are now wearing) to wear for a graduation picnic--but Dad
wouldn't let me. He said people could see our underwear through the
white pants (which was true, but no one else cared!). Now, for
understandable reasons, those are the kinds of things that stand out
in my memories of those years.
However, after having worked in the social work field for a number
of years, I am now aware that my life was not all that different
than many others. I keep in touch with a number of former classmates
and neighbors in Morgan Acres where we were raised, and I've been
stunned but interested to learn that violence and different
forms of abuse was present in other friends' homes too. We were
surviving and although we had a lot of good times too, we sometimes
don't remember the fun experiences as easily as some of you do.
Please don't let these memories of mine be a "downer"
for you. Rather, know that many of us "survivors"
are now "thrivors" and having a good life.
Sometimes this stuff made us stronger. Sometimes, having
others know about it helps them understand us better, and
that's good.
-Dora-Faye (Schmidt) Hendricks
THE LAST MATHEMATICAL SHOW
I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I don't seem to have suffered
because of it, that my last formal training in mathematics was
sophomore geometry. Even though a semester of math was required at WSU
later in my educational tribulations, I was gratefully able to skirt
that requirement by taking an astronomy class that the Powers of WSU
classified as a math course. Cougar blessings upon them, or I would
likely be degreeless.
But the picture I'm holding is geometry with Mr/Coach/Lecturer Harold
"Hal" Thompson. There wouldn't be enough memshots to fill an
album because there seemed to be one grand panoramic memory, every day
being the same scene.
Class was held in that old WWII recycled wood building behind the main
building, the same "portable" that housed the shop classes.
I suspect it was trucked over from Fort George Wright or Geiger Field
after being cashiered from the Army. It still had that drab military
look, a dismal light green, peeling paint.
The classroom, first room to the left upon entry, had a concrete floor
and college-type, one-armed desks. There were blackboards to the front
of us and to our left that Mr. Thompson would daily send us to to put
up our geometry exercises that we had so diligently worked on the
night before. It kept us busy, but I don't remember why we did it.
Maybe he looked at it, maybe he didn't. The photo has faded.
What I do remember is he would spend much of the first part of the
class doing political commentary, with a Republican leaning. He would
lean his body over his lectern, looking like a coach giving a team
chalk talk. He looked a little like Joe McCarthy, a prominent
politician in those days -- serious expression, round face, five
o'clock shadow even if it was first period, bulky build. His
commentaries were more interesting than geometry, so no one seemed to
mind. Some guy in class would also try and succeed with the old trick
of "getting the teacher off the subject" by asking him about
that previous basketball game, since he was the coach.
I'm sure somewhere he covered the geometry lesson. The most important
part of the class seemed to be getting the next day's assignment.
Geometry took up a lot of my homework and study hall time. Filling up
several pages with those theorems wasn't easy.
Being the basketball coach, like many teacher/coaches, I wondered if
he taught and coached on the side, or coached first and taught math
during the regular school day until practice time. Whichever, it made
no real difference. I do remember we had some good basketball games in
those years. Give him credit. I also remember that even if I didn't
care for mathematical things, the class was a challenge, challenging
enough that I knew, despite his urgings to all of us, I was not going
to go on to trigonometry.
Some teachers are only blurs in our remembrances. Others are
unforgettables who impacted our lives. Hal Thompson was a character,
much like one out of a movie. He talked tough, almost out of the side
of his mouth. Might have been a sergeant in the war. He had that
grizzled look about him. We listened to him. Don't remember anything
he said in particular, but I do remember us all sitting there
listening intently. He did have a presence. And hats off to that.
-Wyatt Newman
I do remember one specific incident at the root beer stand
on North Division where I worked as a carhop for three of the four
years I attended Rogers (no wonder I didn't have a lot of time to
play!). I accidentally spilled a chocolate shake all over the
lap of a nice man I was waiting on; I don't even know who the man
was but I remember the event--it could have been one of you!
However, he wasn't a classmate and the root beer stand wasn't
one that many of you ever came to. The Triple XXX was
"THE" place to hang out, I know, especially for those of
you who had cars.
Among the events I do remember at Rogers was
the con we had when Steve Pool, Wyatt Newman, Patti Blangers, and I
were elected as ASB officers once--it was a fun one! The picture of
us shaving Wyatt's leg at that con is in the annual. I also remember
being selected to attend Girls State the summer of our junior year
but my Mom was having a rough year and wouldn't let me go -- for
weird reasons of her own. Instead, I got to go to the Twinlow
Leadership Conference and sang something there with Ken
Pointer on his guitar. We were supposedly being prepared
for leadership roles and even though I don't remember a thing we
learned there, I know those experiences DID help prepare me for
life. I have had a number of leadership roles since then --
including being secretary of the freshman class at Eastern State
College (as it was known then) the following year, and years
later, as President of the PTA at Arlington, where I once
attended grade school.
High school years WERE good times, I just don't
remember many specific events from them, yet anyway. If you
have some that include me, please don't hesitate to share
them here; I'll enjoy being reminded and maybe we can all have
a few laughs together.
-Dora-Faye (Schmidt) Hendricks
Remember your first day at Rogers? How about freshman initiation?
Oh, I realize that Rogers never sanctioned anything other than a con
where freshman performed gags, but there was an underlying movement
that could not be denied. I remember older guys, smeared with
lipstick, stopping by Cooper Elementary after their first day at
Rogers. To me, this seemed worse than death. Today, I don't know why.
In 1956, I'd rather take a knife to the heart than get so initiated.
My first day at Rogers came to pass. I quickly learned the art of
receding into the crowd, becoming invisible. This skill was to serve
me well four years later as an army enlisted man, thank you Rogers. On
that first day at Rogers I almost forgot to worry about avoiding
initiation because, for the first time in my life, some classes became
interesting. Mrs. Schofield called her class "a course." I
was in the big show! On the other hand, I thought I'd been thrown into
a prison yard when I showed up at Mrs. Schmidt's study hall in the old
cafeteria. Whenever I hear a gavel, I think of her.
Allow me to hit rewind and play on my memory tape. I really should
copy my tape to DVD someday.
It's 3 pm on my first day at Rogers. It's crisis time. I've made it
through the first day of classes. It's time to leave the relative
safety of the building to catch a bus home. Danger lurks. The campus
seems red with smeared freshman faces. I don my invisibility cloak. I
slip between the portables and the shops. I slide left into the alley,
headed toward the buses.
I'm halfway to the bus, when a big kid behind me by the metal shop
turns and sees me. "HEY FROSH!"
Busted! This is it! Is there a sign on my back that reads,
"FROSH?" Man-oh-man, why did I leave by the alley? I'm
about to die ... but like a man, I hope. I puff my skinny little geek
self up (skinny!). I try to adjust my vocal cords to a guttural
setting, hoping my squeaky geeky voice won't break. I thrust my chin
out and bark, "YEAH?" in my best Yorkshire Terrier
imitation.
The answer is delivered with a friendly smile: "Good
man!" The big kid walks away with his friends. Yes! I
survive the day. I learn something about myself.
I never got smeared. The initiation activity died down quickly. In
a day or two I was to wear a kilt in the freshman con. Or was it a
skirt? It didn't bother me to wear a kilt and do a highland fling in
front of 1000 kids, but the prospect of being smeared with lipstick in
relative obscurity did? Go figure. The drag picture is in the TC of
our freshman year.
