Ninth Grade

                                    

          Classes, Friends, Singing, Marching and a Decision                              

Gin

I was excited by the prospect of starting ninth grade in September of 1958 at North Junior High School in Pittsfield.  I even knew what I wanted to wear on that first day. They were featured in Life magazine. The fashion in-thing that year. A Sack dress. A dress which hung straight down from the shoulders without a discernible waistline. I could picture myself wearing it. Navy blue and with it a pair of shiny red shoes. It would be the perfect beginning to my final year at North Junior High.  I don’t recall what I did wear that opening day but It wasn’t my dream outfit.  

Even though I had been going to North for the past two years,  I knew ninth grade was going to be different from my previous experiences.  Seventh and eighth grade I was enrolled in the Core Curriculum which was designed to be an innovative approach to learning.  It involved engaging students in working groups called committees to learn content through projects and group work. We stayed in our homeroom groups most of the day unlike other seventh and eighth graders who moved from class to class encountering different students. My experience in ninth would be like those seventh and eighth graders, new groups of kids in each class. Replacing the Core Curriculum topics of reading, writing, math, and science would be English 9, American History, Algebra I, Biology, and Latin.  These classes had names. These classes counted toward going to college. This was going to be serious.  

Adding to my sense of the importance of this year’s work, I had the opportunity to choose to take two of my classes at the honors level.  I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but among the options open to me were English, math, history, and science. I decided on math and science, actually Algebra I and Biology.  I chose those since they appealed to me. My parents were also an influence. I had heard my father talking to my older brother about his career choices.  My brother was studying to become an engineer and I knew my father in particular felt that math and science led to good job prospects. Instead of being a blue-collar worker like my dad, my brother would get a white-collar job.  Maybe that’s what my dad wanted for me too.

I didn’t know what color shirt I’d be wearing but I had decided in first grade that I was going to be a teacher even though my career plans were no more specific than that.  I was an avid reader so you might think I’d have chosen honors English. However, I  didn’t associate the pleasure I got from reading with the kinds of experiences I had had in English class. I struggled with writing, both the intellectual and the physical components. History to me meant memorizing lists of names and dates. I didn’t want to take that at the honors level since I figured that would mean longer lists of names and dates!  So, honors math and science it was.

Unlike my seventh and eighth grade classes, ninth grade homeroom was brief.  We were in alphabetical order. I was grouped with other students with last name R, some S’s and some T’s.  Beverly Richards, a friend of mine from sports, was grouped with me, as my name was Robare at the time.  Since we also had Algebra I together, we initially used the homeroom time to check our answers for that homework.  As the year progressed, we ended up talking on the phone each evening comparing answers and redoing any problems we didn’t agree on.  That left homeroom for chatting after the inevitable announcements and Pledge of Allegiance were broadcast over the loud-speaker system.  

Algebra 1 was my favorite class. The teacher, Mr. Martinelli, incorporated math games like Buzz into the daily lessons. Buzz was an oral counting game the whole class took part in. It involved saying “buzz” every time the count involved a number with a three or divisible by three.  Often the game would  devolve into laughter as we hit a succession of buzzes.  Laughing in a math class? In this class, yes. Mr. Martinelli was the first teacher I encountered  who brought his personality into the classroom.  He liked to tell us jokes.  Some were corny math jokes. “What did the 0 say to the 8? Your belt’s a little tight.” Others were more pun-like.  “My wife is my melancholy baby. She has a head like a melon and a face like a collie.” 

He even made the math exercises fun. He’d assign us worksheets arranged so the answers fit into a five by five grid.  If all your answers were correct, the rows, columns, and diagonals would all add up to the same number.  If they didn’t add up, I redid some problems self-correcting until the grid worked. Normally when you did worksheets you didn’t know if the answers were right until the teacher corrected them.  I found it satisfying I could work on them myself until I knew it was correct. In fact, it was during my ninth year that I decided I would become not just a teacher but a math teacher.  It is so typical of me that I worried how I would make up those worksheets and puzzle grids, not realizing these were created by the book publishers. 

I may have been in honors math but it seemed this class wasn’t any different from any other I had taken. The big distinction for me was the teacher was so friendly. I wrote about Mr. Martinelli, the way I enjoyed his class, and my failure to thank him when I had the chance in the blog entry, Musings on Embarrassments.

Ninth grade also marked the beginning of my study of languages.  I took Latin I.  Latin is a dead language.  It no longer evolves or changes.  Neither was it conversational. When we read it aloud, I felt comfortable speaking it. There were no native speakers of Latin to be intimidated by their skill and prowess with the language. That was something that never happened for me in French which I started in tenth grade. In Latin we simply pronounced the words as if they were English. Let’s face it, a little kid in Paris could speak French far better than I ever would.  In Latin, we read from historical texts. Mostly speeches given by senators at the Forum. All dead. No intimidation.

In Latin we read politics, strategies for war and commentaries on life in the countries the Romans had conquered. Nothing about asking for directions, what time it was, or how to order a meal at a restaurant.  Those were the things my friends in French were learning. What surprised me and eventually pleased me was how these latin texts were the same over the years. My mother had taken Latin when she was in high school reading and studying these same lessons. I think she enjoyed reconnecting with the language as she helped me study for my Latin tests.

I’d be sitting at the kitchen table after dinner. While she cleaned up, washed and dried dishes, we’d go over the different declensions for the nouns.  So different from English. In English nouns don‘t change spelling or pronunciation whether or not they are the subject or the object of the sentence.  Not only that but Latin nouns had gender.  Some were masculine, some were feminine. Who had decided if a table or a chair were masculine or feminine?  What was the point of that?  With my friends, I  giggled over the idea of objects having gender. With my mother I tried to act more sophisticated.

And the verbs!  So many different endings depending on the subject.  Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, ament.  I love, you love, she loves, we love, you (plural) love, they love.  In English, you keep the verb the same stating explicitly what the subject is.  In Latin you need to look at the end of the verb to find out if the subject is first, second or third person.  “First person, second person, third person?”  What does that mean?  As a speaker of English, you learn that language in a natural way. By listening to others speak, you learn how to phrase sentences.  No one tells a four-year-old the difference between “I” and “you.”  You grow up saying what sounds right because that is what you hear.  How different it is to study the structure of a language you don’t know.

As hard as it was to get used to, I will say the old adage that it isn’t until you learn another language that you get to understand your own was also true.  While I first railed at the “awkward” ways that nouns had genders and changed spelling depending on the case, I also began to see that English used “helping verbs” to express different tenses.  “I have gone.” “ I should have taken the medicine.”  Learning the structure of a new language is one way to notice the details of the native language in which you had been speaking or writing your whole life.  I will also say the first half of English 9 was devoted to English grammar.  A nice coincidence? Or perhaps something designed by the language teachers.

While I did appreciate the connections to what I was studying in Latin, there were only a few aspects of English grammar I liked.  One section of our grammar book was devoted to misplaced modifiers.  Those sentences were funny.  “She saw a moose on the way to the store.”  “One morning I saw a hummingbird in my pajamas.”  “My neighbor was walking her dog in heels.”  It was more interesting to make up sentences with misplaced modifiers than it was to correct them.    

Since I read a lot, I had a good vocabulary and usually spelled words correctly without thinking too hard. I didn’t sound out words. I wrote out any words I was unsure about to see if they looked right. My knowledge of the correct spelling was based on sight.  Did it look familiar?  However, our ninth grade English teacher gave us a list of the one hundred most commonly misspelled words.  This was not a gift for me.   If a word I was writing happened to be on the list, I would pause, worrying if I really knew how to spell it after all. The list caused me to doubt myself. This I found frustrating.  Even today I still pause when typing “occasion” or “successful.”  Two S’s or one?  How many C’s?  What about “commitment?” How many M’s? How many T’s? The modern solution.  Let the computer spell checker make the decision.

Another aspect of the grammar I disliked were exercises that had partially completed sentences.  Our job was to choose among options to finish the sentences correctly.   One exercise required matching a partial sentence which contained a clause with several choices which required the correct matching clause. Looking at the partial sentence I realized I wouldn’t have written it that way in the first place.   What ninth grader starts a sentence like “Having had been to the store…” I would have said “I went to the store…”   With the sentence structures unfamiliar, I’d come close to reading the sentence with each of the options aloud to determine which sounded right.  It was more an exercise in frustration than one of learning grammar.

The worst part of English 9 were the writing assignments.  They were usually reports.  I never recall doing any creative writing or storytelling.  Mostly we had to write about something we knew nothing about.  A biography of some famous person, a  report about the Nile River, or a country I had never visited.  I found these difficult to write not only because I didn’t have any first-hand experience with the topic, but also a more pedestrian problem, my poor handwriting. I had to work hard to make my writing legible.  Having a typing class might have been helpful, but those classes were part of the secretarial program,not an option for those of us enrolled in college prep.

The one writing assignment I liked was the book report.  I enjoyed reading especially when I could choose the book.  A book report, while still difficult to physically write, was easier for me to construct because I would just imagine telling someone, like my mother, what the book was about and why I liked it. The words would flow.  Unfortunately, this didn’t happen often enough to suit me.  Mostly I was writing about something I didn’t know anything about trying to convince a teacher I actually knew what I was writing about.

We were also assigned books the whole class read.  We started Ivanhoe after Christmas vacation. We were still working on it in May. For those who are calendar phobic, that’s five months!  I might have liked it had I just read it for fun.  I certainly would have finished it by Valentine’s Day.  It was full of knights, lords and ladies, jousting tournaments, court intrigue and other romantic visions of medieval life that Sir Walter Scott conjured up on our behalf.  Robin Hood makes an appearance. Trouble is, we didn’t just read it, we studied it.

That meant pouring over pages to create lists of spelling words, words that no one uses anymore. These were words that I simply would have skipped over had I been reading for fun. Instead we made lists of terms used in medieval times for cookery, for armor, terms describing parts of weapons. How does it enhance my understanding of English literature by knowing a spartle is a wooden stick for stirring soup or that a falchion is a short bladed sword?  We had quizzes on these words, quizzes that needed to be studied for. It seemed a waste of time to me. I didn’t feel knowing that a shaffron was a part of a horse’s armor enhanced my understanding of the plot, characters and historical era of the book.  Learning this vocabulary was not why I would have read this book had I come upon it at the library. The word list was one of the reasons the study of Ivanhoe felt like it would never end. Also, lest you think these vocabulary exercises were effective, after all I apparently know what a spartle is, think again. The internet is a wonderful thing for finding out the names of medieval cooking implements.

One final note on Ivanhoe. It was written in 1819 and subtitled A Romance. My father, who knew books, had owned a bookstore as a younger man, was shocked when I told him how we had spent the whole second half of the school year on it. “It’s not great literature,” he told me.

In June, with four days left to the school year, our English teacher announced we would use the rest of the year, all four days, to study Julius Caesar.  She told us, “Since there are only a few days left, instead of reading, we will listen to it.”  What does she mean, I’m thinking, listen to it. “You can read along as the play is being performed,” she continues.  What is she talking about?  It becomes clear as she sets up a record player in the front of the room.  Suddenly we are hearing the words.  I suppose it was a well-known set of actors and perhaps even a good performance. I couldn’t tell. Besides it was warm outside.  School was almost over.  Vacation was on my mind.   

Being a conscientious student, I tried to read along. I had trouble understanding the old-fashioned language. “What did he just say? What does that mean?” Ironically I could have benefited from studying this vocabulary.  I know it was in English, but it was Shakespearean English.  Instead we sat in that warm classroom those final days with the record droning on. Eventually I gave up, joining many of my classmates who were close to or even sleeping. This is how English 9 ended, not with a flourish but a nap.

A class I did enjoy was  Biology. A big reason was the book we used. It was relatively new, the pages not bent, the cover not soiled, a book that had not yet been abused. Finally, I thought, a book that was worthy of a book cover. The book struck me as one that even a grown-up would find interesting.  It had three authors, Paul Mann, Truman Moon, and James Otto. They must have had a sense of humor. On the spine of the book they listed their names as Moon, Mann and Otto. It didn’t take us sophisticated ninth graders too long to start drawing comical images of Moon Mann Otto. Silly stick figure drawings. Extra fingers, extra arms.  Other students would add to the drawings using made-up biology vocabulary to describe him.  A seven fingered figure would be labelled septa digitalis. Arrows would point to the three legs with the word tri-ped. We were surprised by the teacher’s reaction when he saw one of the drawings. Instead of threatening us with extra homework, he added a few of the drawings to the bulletin board. The science teacher’s sense of humor made me feel comfortable in his classes.

I thought of the Biology book as modern.  It had color illustrations. The one on the front and back covers if you opened the book out flat showed a woodland pond with a turtle. One of the distinguishing features of the book were sets of overlapping transparent color pages. The one I remember was of a frog. The first page of the overlay showed this typical woodland amphibian stretched out on its back as if ready for dissection. Which in a way it was.  As you opened each successive transparent page, you began to look inside the frog as if it had no skin. First the muscles, then the blood system, the organs and so on. It really was fascinating. It was a way for us to experience a frog in detail without having to dissect one.

In spite of the flashy new book, mostly we sat in our chairs and listened to the teacher talk about whatever we had read the night before. That was pretty typical of my school experiences. The class had a different feel during lab days. Instead of being static in chairs, we’d move around the room getting the equipment we needed for our assigned experiments and setting it up at lab benches. The benches were taller than our desks so that we stood as we worked.  We were placed in teams of three or four. I liked being able to talk to the other kids even if each step of the experiment was defined.  We certainly weren’t making it up as we went.  There was a certain amount of chatter as we decided who would do what in the experiment.  It was unusual to be talking to each other during class.  As the school year continued it was clear our science teacher didn’t mind if some of our chat was about TV or news about our friends.  It was a much more relaxed atmosphere than most classes.

I remember using microscopes to look at various small-celled organisms.  It was quite surprising to actually see what was in a drop of water.  I was both interested and a bit repelled. “Wait, when we drink water, we’re swallowing all this stuff!   What are those things?  Look at the way they move.” This from a fourteen-year-old. I’d probably think the same thing today.

After a fun lab day came the dreaded writing of a lab report!  My small motor coordination was not up to this.  I could see the objects with the microscope, but what my hand was able to reproduce on paper was only a vague approximation of the image. We studied amoebas, parameciums,  (Wait.  Shouldn’t the plural be paramecia. That’s what I learned in Latin 1.) and other small organisms.

One evening as a respite from writing my lab report, I came into the living room with a spoof I had created, “I don’t understand the Parameciums,” a song based on a few lines from the song from the current movie, Gigi, “I don’t understand the Parisians.”  My parents thought it was funny which encouraged me to try it out with a few friends at lunch the next day.  They talked me into singing it to our teacher just before class. He appreciated my effort laughing appropriately. It’s interesting connecting this outgoing person with the image I have of myself as someone who preferred to fade into the background. Evidently that shy persona could disappear depending on circumstances allowing a more outgoing Ginny to appear. In science class as in Algebra I was more open.

One day our science teacher completely surprised us. As he was talking, I noticed he had a hard-plastic cafeteria tray in his hands.  He kept talking, changing the volume of his voice to disguise the fact he was moving.  He kept speaking as if he were teaching us, but his eyes let us know not to say anything about his movements. He got closer and closer to the wall then suddenly jumped up and banged the cafeteria tray against the wall several times. What is he doing, I wondered?  We all just stared at him.  He turned to us, “That’ll show anyone listening in.”  Then I realized.  He was banging the tray against the built-in speaker in the wall.  This was the speaker connected to the microphone in front office for our morning announcements. Putting the tray down he then went on with whatever he was talking about as if nothing had happened.  He did this maybe two or three times during the course of the year during our class.  You might  think his behavior  would have made me scared of him. Instead I felt like an insider.  It was he and the class against whomever he was trying to surprise with his noisy demonstration. I can only guess for whatever reason he suspected someone in the office was using the loud-speaker system in reverse to listen in on what was going on in his classroom.

Both Latin and English were taught by women. My math and science teachers were men. I mention this because while I knew I wanted to be a math teacher none of the women math teachers I had were teachers I wanted to emulate.  I was worried  because the male teachers were the ones who had the qualities I wanted as a teacher. The women teachers seemed to feel they needed to be stern and even unfriendly to keep order while the men were able to be more relaxed assuming students would be more respectful of them just because they were men. I wasn’t sure though that I could follow the example of someone like Mr Martinelli who had a lively personality.  As a girl I had no female model for the kind of teacher I envisioned being.  This made me wonder if as a woman it were even possible to be an effective teacher yet still be friendly and even at times funny.  My strategy was to tell myself I had all of high school to observe more teachers hoping there would be someone who fit my ideal of a female teacher after whom I could model myself.

History was an easy subject in some ways.  We read a chapter in the book and then answered questions based on the reading.  I quickly learned you could shorten the time it took to do the homework by skipping the reading and just turning to the questions.  The answer to the first question was always in the first or second paragraph, the answer to the second shortly after that, and so on.  If there was something important in the text that wasn’t part of the questions, I would never know. 

The history class was divided into two different topics. In the fall we studied Civics which included the three branches of government, the constitution, and Robert’s  Rules of Order.  The emphasis was on how citizens should be active participants in a democracy.  A lot of this material was familiar to me as it was part of the core curriculum that I took in seventh and eighth grade. Looking back I realize this civics course with its emphasis on citizenship had more to do with the cold war, the US policy to embody Russia as our prime and immediate enemy. In fact this policy, I might even say indoctrination, was so effective I was shocked to learn in 10th grade history Russia had been our ally in World War 2, not so many years before. 

 In January 1959, we received new history books, the only time I recall getting a book in January.  The title was Living in Our America: a Record of Our Country, History for Young Citizens.  With its emphasis that we were learning to grow up to be good and active citizens of the country, it dovetailed with previous classes. I wonder if there was someone at the Pittsfield Public Schools administration espousing this philosophy at the time.

Here’s an interesting story about that history book. One Saturday morning in the 1980s while visiting Pittsfield I stopped at a church rummage sale in Dalton, a small town a few miles east of Pittsfield. There on one table was a familiar looking book cover. It was the history book I used in ninth grade.  When I opened the cover I was surprised to see my name among the names of those who had used the book over the years.  I ran over to Bill who was looking through a pile of photo magazines.  “I found the history book I used in 9th grade,” I told him excitedly.  He may have said something like, “That’s nice.”  No,” I said, “this is the exact book I used. My name is in it.”  My name was actually the first on the list of users since the class received the books new.  We bought it for 50 cents.   

It was clearly a book of its times. The fronts-piece facing the opening section, titledThe Beginnings, is a picture of a factory and its paved parking lot full of cars  The text that accompanies the picture might be called an Ode to Cars:

 “In our great country can be found factories

                        with parking lots full of automobiles---

                        not just cars of officials and factor owners,

but cars of the workmen, too.

These cars are something more than pieces of

     machinery to own and ride around in.

They are symbols that in our country we can

      and do earn much more

      than a bare living.

They are symbols, too, that their owners are free—

     free to live in city, town, or country,

     free to move on to other work,

     free to seek other ways of life,

     free in body and spirit.”

I know now this was meant to contrast life in Russia with life in the United States. This poem wasn’t about cars at all but was a statement that people who lived under Russian rule were not able to make choices about where to work, where to live, and weren’t able to move freely about their country.  Russia was the enemy of the United States. The authors of my history book felt it necessary to note it was our way of life that was being threatened, not just our lives. I may not have been able to articulate my feelings as well then but today looking through the book it’s clear this clash between America and Russia, the Cold War,  was a prominent theme.

The book was honest in its own way.  While the second chapter was “Settling the Colonies”, the first was titled, “Europe invades the New World.” It at least acknowledged that America wasn’t empty, just waiting for someone to live on it. The book admits the coming of the Europeans was an invasion. Then it softens that viewpoint as it explains the European invasion brought with it a civilized way of life, European culture  and manners, and the English rule of law. This was presented as a good thing adding to my naïve sense that whatever had happened in the past must have been the right thing to do because we did it.  My ideas about the history of the United States didn’t really change much until twelfth  grade when I had a history teacher who challenged us to think for ourselves. More to come when my high school blog is written. 

Looking at my ninth grade history book with today’s eyes, I see the authors attempted to encourage students to study the lessons in a variety of ways.  At the end of each chapter in addition to the typical list of vocabulary words and comprehension questions, they provided a range of activities to engage students with different kinds of abilities and interests. They suggested different kinds of activities in the following categories: speakers and actors, writers, artists, and craftsmen. 

For instance, in the chapter about Settling America for the category speakers and actors, they suggested a debate. “Look up the definitions of pirate and privateer.  Then gather all the facts and stories you can about Drake. Debate the subject that Drake  was a privateer not a pirate.” If a student preferred writing to speaking, then under writers  there was this suggestion. “Pretend you are one of the gentlemen who came to Virginia with Captain John Smith. Start a diary beginning in 1607 and make entries for a few different dates. Here are some suggestions for entries:  the difficult time you are having, your disappointment in America, your dislike for John Smith.”

If art was your forte then under artists there was this idea “Suppose William Penn hired you to make some advertising posters to attract colonists to Pennsylvania.  He wants to emphasize the advantages of safety, peace with the Indians, productive farms, and cheap land.  Make sketches or the actual posters you would submit.”  Under craftsmen, one suggestion was to make props for a play about the founding of Pennsylvania.   

The whole idea of giving students options for activities based on their own skills and interests reminds me of what the core curriculum of seventh and eighth grade was designed to do.  However, similar to my experience with the core curriculum, the pedagogical ideas that underlie my ninth grade history book were not implemented. All my history teacher ever did was tell us to read the chapter and then answer the questions at the end. Maybe she didn’t care to judge a debate about whether Sir Francis Drake was a pirate or a privateer. Another missed opportunity in my educational background.

There were six periods in the school day. With my five classes and physical education, my schedule did not allow me much free time.  I did have a so-called study hall on the days that we didn’t have gym class, Tuesday and Thursday.  The study hall wasn’t really a hall or even a classroom; it was the cafeteria.  Rows and rows of adolescents sitting on those stool seats doing homework.  We were within inches of each other but not allowed to talk or even look at each other.  Sometimes as we came into the cafeteria, some joker had pulled out a bunch of the seats so you would bump into to them as you made your way through the tables. The poor study hall teachers spent their time trying to keep us all quiet, writing up passes to the bathroom, and trying to catch whoever it was pulling out the seats instead of sliding them under the table. 

An aspect of ninth grade that was new to me was meeting with a counselor.  This happened in the early spring as part of preparation for high school.  She went over the options I would have for tenth grade.  Since I wanted to continue with the honors math and science and my study of  Latin, and English 10 was required, the only decision I had was to take a history class or start another language.  Since no one actually spoke Latin and I did not enjoy memorizing dates, the option was easy for me.  I would start French. My schedule for tenth grade was set, but the counselor had another task for me, a test to help me decide on a career. I tried to explain to her I didn’t need to take any test. I knew I wanted to be a teacher since first grade. My experiences in Algebra 1 convinced me I wanted to be a math teacher.  Career counseling was unnecessary.   But she persisted. “All ninth graders take this test.”  So, the next free period found me in her office again, sitting at a desk in the corner, taking The Kruger Preference Test.

After responding to just a few questions, the whole enterprise felt silly and obvious.  The only thing I liked was the format of the answer sheet.  This was before data was read by machines. To make it easy for those administering the test, you responded to each question by punching out a hole next to your answer.

The questions seemed ridiculous to me.  You were not allowed to choose all or to choose none; you needed to pick one and only one.  Sometimes I wouldn’t want to choose any of the options:.

  

You have the afternoon free. You will

a.     Build a birdhouse

b.     Draw a picture

c.     Practice a musical instrument

Other times I could have chosen all of them.

It is a Saturday morning, you will

a.     Play with friends

b.     Read a book

c.     Watch TV

I really didn’t get the point of giving up a study hall in which I could be doing homework and have one less book to carry home. Some of my books seemed the size of a telephone directory. As it turned out, after my answers were analyzed, I liked to be with people and I liked to read. I could have told my counselor that.  She told me with all seriousness that my preference profile was a good match to a career as a teacher.  Gee whiz, imagine  that. That was the extent of my experience with the ninth grade college counselor.

But it wasn’t all academics.  I joined a couple of after-school activities. Sports, but also the Glee Club.  Once a week after school we met in the auditorium and learned songs.  I don’t remember any auditioning.  If you showed up, you were in.  We did sing individually for a few minutes so the music teacher who was also the glee club advisor could determine if we were sopranos or altos.  I don’t recall any boys attending, so I doubt we had much bass.  I enjoyed singing but have no idea if I was any good at all.  I loved all the different songs we sang.  We didn’t sing any Everly Brothers or Elvis Presley; they were all older songs.  One I recall was Lady of Spain.

Lady of Spain. I adore you

Right from the night I first saw you

My heart has been yearning for you

What else could any heart do?

Lady of Spain, I'm appealing

Why should my lips be concealing

All that my eyes are revealing?

Lady of Spain, I love you.

The verses go on with this rhythm and rhyming scheme.  I loved the way they sounded.  It was fun to sing.  I hadn’t heard this song sung by anyone on TV or radio, although now I know there were popular versions by Eddie Fisher and Bing Crosby, singers of my parents’ generation. 

I was surprised and pleased when songs I was familiar with from my mother’s singing became part of our repertoire.

In Dublin's fair city

Where the girls are so pretty

I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone

As she wheeled her wheelbarrow

Through the streets broad and narrow

Crying "cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh"

Alive, alive, oh

Alive, alive, oh

Crying "cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh"

This was one of the songs she would sing to me at bedtime when I was younger.  Torch songs were not part of the chorus options but writing about singing Molly Malone, the lyrics above, brought back memories of the duet I had created when my mother sang a Billie Holliday song to me.  She’d sing the real lyrics and I’d sing my part.

How much do I love you?   [Lots. Lots.]

I'll tell you no lie 

How deep is the ocean?    [Deep. Deep.]

How high is the sky?             [High.  High.]

How far would I travel 

Just to be where you are?                    [Far. Far.]

How far is the journey 

From here to a star?                               [Far. Far.]

And if I ever lost you 

How much would I cry?                         [Lots.  Lots.]

How deep is the ocean?                       [Deep.  Deep.]

How high is the sky?                               [High.  High.]

Clearly my skill as a lyricist was no threat to Richard Rogers or Cole Porter.  My attendance in Glee Club did lead to an opportunity to perform in an operetta. The school was putting on Martha, an operetta by ….well, someone named Flotow, not a composer whose name is familiar even to me now. Or maybe to anyone.  I didn’t know what the designation “Operetta” meant at the time, but the music teacher invited everyone at Glee Club to be in the chorus of the show.

The plot, new to me then, is a familiar one of confused identities involving different classes.  Two ladies from the court decide to disguise themselves as simple maidens at a fair. They end up as servants-for-a-day, a tradition at the fair, for two wealthy young men who fall in love with them. The men of wealth can’t marry simple maidens and the so-called simple maidens were already promised to some rich men’s sons.  Now what? The court ladies sneak back to their own lives sadly imagining their futures without their loves, only to find these are the two men to whom they had been promised.  All is well again. Sort of. Further complications ensue.  There is a happy ending.  Of course.

At Glee Club, we practiced the songs for the operetta.  We had, I think, three different songs, one at the opening fair, one at court, and one back in the village square for the finale. When I wasn’t singing, I was to be a village maiden, someone to add to the sense of general commotion at the opening and closing of the fair. In other scenes I stood in the background to fill out the stage.   

During one rehearsal, the director stopped the main actors to talk to those of us in the chorus. “Don’t just stand there watching.  Pretend to talk to each other so it doesn’t look like you are just waiting until it is time to sing.  Look as if you are remarking on the action. You can smile and gesture.”  Once he spoke up, I realized he could have been talking directly to me. I had just been standing, watching the actors, waiting until I had to sing. It hadn’t occurred to me that I was also playing a part, even as a non-talking extra. 

I am sure the director felt a bit frustrated that he even needed to explain this to us, but after all we were just thirteen.  The only play I had ever seen live was the previous year when my English teacher had a role in the Pittsfield Town Players production of  “You Can’t Take It With You.” (I wrote about that experience in the blog, Musings On Embarrassments.)

We put on three performances, one during the school day as an assembly and one each evening on a Friday and Saturday evening.  It couldn’t have made too much of an impression on me as I never pursued other options to act or sing in future school productions.

More fun for me began the day our gym teacher told us she wanted to start a new after-school activity, a drill team. We’d learn to march in time to music while coordinating our moves with one another. Our teacher described what we would be doing as similar to a marching band, but without instruments. The highlight would come at an assembly when we would parade for the entire school.

For the first few weeks we practiced marching in rows and keeping in step with each other, not easy to do since some people had a longer stride than others. I learned how to do a half skip, something to use if you find your left foot forward when the other marchers were leading with their right. It’s a kind of little jump that gets you back in synch with those around you. We also learned how to split the rows and then interleaf with each other until we all  ended up in a new formation. The patterns in the actions we took as we marched appealed to me. It reminded me of square-dancing routines, but on a larger scale.  I liked the way our movements were all planned out ahead of time.  With enough practice, our rows and columns would split and recombine smoothly.  There wasn’t someone stranded outside the pattern.  No one was bumping into each other.  When done well there was a certain symmetry to it all.  After a month or so of drilling I remember thinking, “We are getting good at this.”

I loved the music we marched to. It was easy to keep in step because the beat was so clear. I recall going home and singing a bit of the music to my dad, surprised that he knew the name of the march and even its composer.  The Stars and Stripes by John Philip Souza.  I’ve commented before about my surprise when my parents knew something that I was experiencing for the first time; a movie, a book, now music.  What did I think, they just sat around, worked and took care of us and had no experiences of their own?

As the time to perform got closer, the gym teacher asked me if I would be the flag bearer.  I am not sure why she picked me. Maybe I was a bit taller than the others. I agreed even though it meant changing my position in some formations as I now needed to start and end up in the center. It was kind of fun, but I will tell you that flag was heavy!  I wore a flag holder around my waist like a belt. It had a pouch for the foot of the flagpole. It was very important to keep your back straight as you marched so the flag was always close to vertical. Protocol demanded the American flag could never be dipped. You couldn’t keep looking down at your feet, so you had to be aware of your place and your proximity to the other marchers at all times.

The gym teacher was new to the school. There hadn’t been a drill team previously. Perhaps that was why there was a glitch in the proceedings. We didn’t have uniforms. Since drill team was a new endeavor perhaps there was little money in the budget for such details.  It had been decided we would wear a yellow blouse and a skirt of maroon since yellow and maroon were the school colors. The yellow blouse was simple enough; they were easily available.  My mother and I purchased one at Sears. The gym teacher had put in an order for the rest of the uniform  At the time I didn’t realize what we were waiting for weren’t actual skirts, but material of a certain maroon color. From the material each marcher was supposed to fashion a skirt. As often happens there was a snafu.  The order arrived with just a few days to spare. That’s when I realized we were supposed to make a skirt out of the material.  How did I miss that?   I was in a panic when I came home with the cloth.  My mother didn’t even have a sewing machine.  What was I going to do?

However, as readers of these blogs know, my mother was incredibly supportive.  She told me she would sew the skirt by hand.  “Have your father drive you up to Sears.  Go get a pattern for a skirt and bring it back.  I’ll work on it while you’re in school to get it done.” After all what else had she to do? She was only running a household which consisted of a nineteen year-old son who was studying for an engineering degree while living at home,  taking care of my two sisters, one in Kindergarten and the other a two-year old, and me, in ninth grade. She did cooking, laundry, ironing and 25 other things. Sure, she had lots of time to hand sew a skirt!

So, my dad who probably would have preferred to stay in his chair reading the Berkshire Evening Eagle after supper drove me up to Sears.  I ran into the store and down to the sewing section.  I remembered the patterns from my sewing class the previous year.  I chose one by looking at the picture on the front. It showed a girl sitting on a stool with a full skirt. I thought this would be easy to march in. I picked out a pattern for my size and hurried home.  It wasn’t until my mother and I laid out the pattern pieces that I noticed the skirt was designed to have pleats.  My poor mother. I had picked out one of the harder skirts to make particularly since she was sewing it by hand with limited time to complete it. 

Somehow, she managed to put it together in a way I could wear. I had my uniform on the day of the assembly.  While the skirt might not have received an A from my sewing teacher, it worked for me. I looked like all the other marchers. We were a drill team.

Some of the friends I hung around with in ninth grade I had met earlier.  Carole I met in seventh grade. (See the blog Carole.) However, in 9th grade she was taking secretarial program, so we shared no classes. We only saw each other out of school. I knew

Nancy from the Unitarian Church youth group meetings, but we became closer once we shared classes.  Like me she was in honors math and science, so we were together each day. If I missed a day of school I’d call her after school to find out what the homework was and if anyone had announced tests or projects.  Others friends, like Beverly and Sheila I knew from after-school sports but got to know better during ninth grade.

Friends spiral into new friends. At lunch I became friends with the friends of Nancy, Sheila, and Beverly.  This filled out what I thought of as our group with the addition of my friends’ friends, Pat, Susan, Suzanne, and Betty Ann. According to our schedules, lunch was some combination of us girls. These would be the friends I would chat with at lunch, compare homework with, and talk about upcoming school events.   Over the weekends we mostly kept to ourselves and our families.  It wasn’t until high school we began to get together outside of school, bowling, roller skating, going to movies, walking up and down North Street. Real fifties stuff. 

I loved having a friend in each of my classes, someone to compare homework with, to talk about the teachers’ attitudes and to check with when you didn’t understand something. I really liked it when a teacher would let us work together with other kids in the class on classwork or even to start homework. It was so useful to compare answers.

Now that I think of it, maybe there were times this was close to cheating. I recall splitting the vocabulary list when we were supposed to write a sentence using each word. I’d do half and Beverly would do the other half. Then we’d exchange papers looking at each other’s sentences to complete our assignment.  Of course I couldn’t just copy her sentence; I had to write my own. It was easier though using some of Beverly’s sentences as models for my own. Hmm. So maybe that is close to cheating. 

Latin homework might be a case of actual cheating. I used to share the workload with Pat. We would each translate half the sentences before copying the other’s to complete the task. That may sound like real cheating, but often I would point out errors in Pat’s work and she mine. Maybe instead of cheating it was more like comparing and correcting answers. We were ahead of our time in supporting group work in school.  Mostly we were trying to cut down on the time involved. It seems like there was a lot of homework in ninth grade.

The end of ninth grade involved a special field day.  It was a Friday in June. The seventh and eighth graders were still in classes, but for the ninth graders, it was special.  It started with a rehearsal of the graduation event coming up the next Tuesday, June 16. Except it wasn’t called a graduation. That term was reserved for twelfth grade in Pittsfield.  Ours was termed a “promotion.”  We practiced marching into the auditorium, sitting in the right order, and walking up on the stage to shake hands as we received our certificate of promotion.

We also rehearsed a school song.  My lunch group was actively involved in writing this. The idea was Suzanne’s.  One day at lunch she suggested we write a song that the class would sing to the teachers. She had even chosen the tune for it, Pat Boone’s sad but romantic pop hit, Love Letters in the Sand.  She told us a few of the lyrics she had been considering. Over the next few lunch periods we all offered up ideas.

I still remember some of those lyrics:

Our thanks to you our teachers for being so kind,

Understanding and guiding us all of the time.

So farewell and goodbye to you,

North Junior High.

This is our graduation day.

Even as the lyrics evolved during our lunchtime improvisations, I wondered if all of the students felt their teachers were that understanding. I guess it was just the kind of thing you said as you left junior high.

Once the rehearsal was done, it was time to play! The rest of the day consisted of games in the fields behind the school, hence the term Field Day. The gym teachers had organized several activities. We got to decide which ones to do and when to do them. It was unusual to have that much choice. Some kids took advantage of that freedom by not taking part at all. They left the school grounds taking a bus uptown or going home on their own without waiting for the official end of the day. A junior high version of the high school senior skip day.

                                              

My friends and I stayed. We had fun. There was volleyball, softball, races, and other events, some with prizes. One contest involved throwing a softball. You stood at home plate trying tried to throw the ball as close to second base as you could. This was more about accuracy than distance. At the end of the afternoon, the gym teacher used the loudspeaker to announce the winners of the various games and contests. I won the softball toss. What a surprise. I participated in many events just for the fun of it. I never expected to win anything.

My prize was a gift certificate to Dick Moon’s sporting goods store on Fenn Street.  That weekend my dad and I went up to the store to see what I could get for my $20. I chose a dart board set. When we got home, my father set it up in the kitchen as that was the longest room. We put a piece of tape on the floor to mark the line to shoot from. My first shot hit the wall, not the board at all, but after a while we all got better, even though that wall took a beating. 

Monday was the official last day of classes for ninth graders.  Since textbooks had been collected the previous week, there really wasn’t any more class work. Very few students actually came to the school. For those of us who did, and yes I was one of them, teachers let us sit around and talk. Maybe we even played cards.

That weekend my father gave me a special gift, an autograph hound, a stuffed animal in the shape of a hound dog. (Maybe a tie-in with the Presley hit?)  It came with a special pen that you could write on the dog with.  I brought it to school that Monday to have my friends sign it. By the time we got to science class near the end of the day, everyone had become silly.  A couple of the boys had grabbed it and were tossing it around like it was a football. Our science teacher was somewhere in his backroom and not in the classroom at the time. Suddenly one toss was over someone’s head. I watched as the dog sailed right out the open window.  I looked out only to see it tumbling down the hill that surrounded the school. By the time I looked for it after the end of the day, it was gone. So, no signatures from ninth grade. Surprisingly I found this whole incident kind of funny and not upsetting.  

It’s Tuesday June 16, 1959.  I am thinking, ninth grade is ending well. I have decided to become a math teacher, my friends and I penned the class song, I won a prize at field day, and played darts all weekend. Homework is over for the next two months. 

Yesterday was a school day in name only. Today brings the more formal exercises starting at 10:30.  I figure it will  be boring. The principal will talk, the band will play, and we get handed certificates. The best part will be our school song which everyone will sing to the teachers at the graduation. My mother will be in the audience. After, we’ll walk home together for lunch. I am leaving ninth grade on a high.

I have the whole summer ahead of me with a big family event over the coming weekend to kick off vacation.  My aunt is getting married. My mother is going to be in the wedding party as matron of honor.  All of my family will be there; my cousins as well. I have a fancy dress to wear.  What a great way to begin the summer between ninth and tenth grade.   

Sometimes life does not go as planned. The very next day my two year-old sister died suddenly. The summer was not to be the carefree time I had anticipated. I was upset, and sad, but following my parents’ example, I moved forward. We all attended the wedding, July became August and in September I started a new chapter of my life. High school.