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School
Elections
Tales of School Days
The Generation Gap
The Buddy Code
School
Elections
William Edington
In our junior
high school years I attended the seventh and eighth grades at Hamlin. In
the Fall of 1959 the school boundaries where I lived were changed and I
enrolled at Springfield Junior High. Although I remembered a lot of the
kids at SJHS from when I attended Brattain Elementary six years earlier, I
was still a new kid in school.
That Fall school
elections were being held for the various student body offices and an all
school assembly was going to be held in front of which the various
candidates were to give speeches. Jack, who was popular, was running for an
office and for his speech he came up with the idea that he wanted one of the
guys to dress up in women’s clothing to come on stage with him to play the
role of a stripper. On cue, he wanted the guy to pull open his blouse and
expose that underneath he was wearing a bra and to hold up the sign hanging
around his neck saying “Vote for Jack”. Jack shopped his idea around to the
guys but nobody volunteered until he came to me. I thought it was a funny
bit that would get a big laugh and that it would help me to be accepted as
one of the guys so I said yes.
Jack left it up
to me to find the girl’s clothing. I have a somewhat larger frame so I
asked several of the larger girls if they would lend me the clothing
including a bra. I was told a resounding “No!“ Finally I found one girl,
Linda, who thought it was a funny idea and agreed to furnish the clothing.
The kids had
gathered in the cafeteria-auditorium and the assembly was about to begin. I
went backstage and behind a curtain with the help of Linda I got dressed.
The bra barely fit around me but we got it fastened. When it came Jack’s
turn to speak he went on stage and spoke for a minute before he cued me to
come onstage. We adlibbed a routine about me being a stripper. He would
say something to me and I would respond in a high falsetto voice. On his
cue, I went into an abbreviated stripper routine. Then there I stood in
front of the whole student body dressed in drag with my blouse pulled open
showing I was wearing a bra and holding up the sign. There was a momentary
silence before the kids broke out laughing. We got a good long laugh out of
the audience. When the laughter died down I exited stage left.
Even though what
we did was risqué for the time period and age group, and we didn’t tell any
of our superiors in advance what we planned to do, none of the teachers
tried to stop us nor did they say anything to us after we finished our
little performance. Jack won his election and I went on to become just one
of the guys.
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Tales of School Days
William Edington
I was perusing
the search list for missing classmates SHS Class of 1963. When I came
across Scott Webber's name the following incident came flooding back to me.
In our junior year Scott and I used to sit together at a two students to a
desk in Ralph Mason's Business Law class. One day after class started and
Mr. Mason was up front of the class giving a lecture, Scott nudged me and
showed me below desktop level he had a bag of Bull Durham tobacco and a pack
of rolling papers. He whispered to me he didn't know how to roll a
cigarette. Instead of paying attention to the teacher’s lecture, I took the
bag and papers from Scott and keeping what I was doing out of sight, I
proceeded to show him how it was done. I had my head down and was focused
on the task at hand when I noticed the room had become deathly silent.
Looking up I saw Mr. Mason standing over me. He demanded I show him what I
had in my hands. Caught in the act, I laid the goods down on the desktop.
He grabbed the contraband with one hand and my arm with the other and
literally drug me down to the school office. He marched me into Herb DeVos'
office who was the Dean of Boys at that time. He threw the tobacco and
rolling papers down on Mr. DeVos' desk. In a loud and angry voice he told
Mr. DeVos,
"I caught him
rolling a cigarette in my class. I've never had a student do anything like
that before. I want you to do something about this!"
Then he spun
around and stormed back out of Mr. DeVos' office.
By this time I
was in a pure state of panic. I just knew I was going to be expelled from
school for a couple of days and I was extremely worried about telling why to
my dad.
After a few
moments of silence, Mr. DeVos looked down at the tobacco and papers lying on
his desk then back across his desk at me. He said,
"When I was a
young buckaroo, I used to roll those things at a full gallop."
Then he changed
the subject by asking how I was doing in and out of school. After about 15
minutes of chit chat passed in which he never said anything more about my in
class extracurricular activity, Mr. DeVos told me,
"Mason has had
enough time to cool down by now. You can go on back to class."
All
my panic was for naught. The only thing that came out of that incident was
Mr. DeVos kept the tobacco and Mr. Mason would no longer let Scott and me
sit together.
If anyone has a lead on Scott I would appreciate if you would pass it on
back to the reunion committee. I'd like to see him again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The
Generation Gap
William Edington
I remember
sitting in various high school classes when the kids, mostly girls, slipped
paper notes to one another. Every once in a while the teacher caught
someone in the act, took the note away from the student and read it out loud
to the class. The person who wrote the note was always embarrassed which
was the teacher's point, pay attention in class.
Not long ago I
read an article while the older generations prefer email, today's youth has
taken to text messaging in a big way. Since the cell phone companies charge
for text messaging by the individual letter, the kids have become very
astute at abbreviating the English language. Their use of the shortened
lingo is even showing up in their written school work. But what is
astounding is the volume of traffic between the kids. It has been reported
some youths have run up $200 to $300 a month in charges.
When I recently
attended the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame induction concert here in Muskogee
I witnessed this phenomenon in action. Two young ladies of high school age
were seated in the row in front of me. One had a text messaging device that
when folded open the top half was a screen and the bottom half was a
keyboard. She held it with both hands in her lap and typed with her
thumbs. During the first two hours of the concert she could not put it away
for more than two minutes. I conservatively estimated during that time she
sent at least fifty messages. I have no doubt that she received just as
many. I was amazed when I watched her raise her head to talk to her girl
friend yet continued typing. She could talk and touch type a message with
her thumbs at the same time!
When Hinder, a
young rock band out of Oklahoma City that is breaking into the big time and
was given this year's Rising Star award, came on to do their set, the young
lady finally put the thing down. But not even her attraction for the band
could deter her for long. Before Hinder could finish their set, she had her
link to her world out and was furiously flooding her friends with more
messages. Only when she got up to leave did she finally put the device in
her purse.
I can only
imagine what a struggle it must be for a high school teacher today to look
out on his or her class only to see students with their heads bowed and
holding their text messaging devices down out of sight busy sending notes to
their friends.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Buddy
Code
William
Edington
In making the
transition from grade school into junior high and the start of my teen years
I metamorphosed from a studious kid who read history books and got good
grades into a kid who became a major underachiever with a penchant for
mischief. I lost interest in school academics and became more interested in
having a good time with my buddies. I wasn’t a juvenile delinquent but I
came close. In the Spring of 1959 at the close of the eighth grade I become
enamored with a book that I got from the Springfield Library on the history
of logging. I told my buddies all about it. Then I suggested to get a feel
for old time logging we should get an axe and go cut down a tree.
The next day
after school we met near the Borden Chemical plant on South Second Street
and one guy brought an axe. There was a trail that ran along the Willamette
River on the side of the South Second Hill and we hiked along it. We
spotted a suitable specimen of a Douglas Fir tree up on the side of the hill
and climbed up to it. We took off our jackets and rolled up our sleeves.
We took turns at swinging the axe until the tree toppled. It rolled and
bounced down the hillside, splashed into the river and floated down stream.
We were all charged up and sought out a second tree.
Earlier that year
my parents separated and divorced. My brother and I lived with our Dad. My
father was a quick draw artist. If either my brother or I messed up, he
would have his belt off in two seconds flat and be wailing the tar out of
us. So when he told me to be home by 5:30 pm every day to help him cook
dinner I was always there. I didn’t want to challenge a gunslinger.
When the guys
found a second tree and were ready to chop it down it was time for me to go
home. I told my buddies “I’ll see you later” and headed back up the trail.
As I got near the Borden plant a police officer walked past me going in the
other direction. This is where “The Buddy Code” kicks in. If you are
up to mischief and you know the cops are coming, you do what it takes to
warn your buddies. I ran out to South Second Street with the idea I
would run up the hill and let the guys know to beat it. But when I looked
up the hill I saw a police car parked above where we chopped down the first
tree. Seeing I was cut off I realized there was nothing I could do so I
hightailed it for home.
The next day at
school none of my buddies were there. I later learned they spent the night
in the Skipworth Juvenile Detention Facility and their parents had to come
pick them up the next day. They had been scheduled to appear in juvenile
court later that month. I wasn’t worried about anything happening to me,
even though the whole thing was my idea, because I knew the second part of
the “Code” was at work. If you get busted, you never, ever squeal on a
buddy.
Since no one had
a prior police record, the juvenal judge at their court dates lectured the
guys then let them go. I took the logging book back to the library.
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