Above and Beyond the Call of Duty: Step 84

While I had taken my freshman classes and received high school credit for ninth grade work at Samuel Morse Junior High School the atmosphere at John Marshall was radically different, even though one wing of the school contained its own junior high.

One factor contributing to this environmental change was the numerous extracurricular activities from future business leaders to future teachers, from knitters to philatelists, and from foreign language clubs to the “M” club, an exclusive group of athletes whose achievements in their respective sports earned them the prestigious letter they proudly wore on specially designed white cardigan sweaters. If these individuals were fortunate enough to repeat their performance in succeeding years they received chevrons to wear on the sleeves of their sweaters.

A second factor was the vast array of classes available to students ranging from biology labs to auto shop, from classical Latin to modern driver education, and from traditional composition in English to multiple copies on NCR forms typed on a Smith-Corona in business education.

However, the most significant factor was ultimately the teachers many of whom had built reputations dating back to the days our parents had them at North Division High School. Although I never had the pleasure of having Mr. Newman, Mr. Spicuzza or Mr. Kampine, who my parents made into walking legends and Peggy may have had, I was fortunate to have a teacher whose reputation was known not only at Marshall High, but at several other high schools, including Washington High where her twin sister taught.

Miss Steiger made sure we were able to translate stories about ancient Rome from Latin to English and back again, in addition to properly conjugating verbs, but her role as teacher did not stop with her assigned subject. Somehow she was always able to find a reference in these primitive tales to relate to the current fight for civil rights being waged on the streets of Selma or Birmingham.

Similarly, she was able to relate battles fought by Caesar and his soldiers to the battles being fought by Westmoreland in what she considered a no less despicable and equally imperialistic war. Despite her clear admiration for President Johnson’s ability to guide groundbreaking legislation into civil rights law she was extremely critical of his handling of the Vietnam War.

At the same time she made it clear it was important when disagreeing with wartime policies to remain patriotic and not to denigrate the honorable role of the soldier. She was the only teacher I recall inviting her former students to come to her classes in their uniforms and talk about their experiences.

Although she was swelling with pride to see them she never touched any of them, or us for that matter. Her fear of the spread of germs meant a student who sneezed may miss portions of the former student’s story or a Latin translation, because Miss Steiger always said, “God bless you, and go wash your hands.” One of the students, the only Henrietta I have ever known, sneezed with such force it would reverberate around the room in true stereophonic sound. Needless to say, she was in the bathroom several times while I was busy translating.

Hygiene was stressed even at the Roman Banquet held near the end of the year at the exquisite Boulevard Inn. Whether a novice plebe or a veteran patrician every member of the Latin club knew to bleach their sheet until it was glistening white in order to wear a clean toga to the table.

Avoiding Bruised Ego Builds Regret: Step 79

When I arrived at John Marshall Junior-Senior High School I had every intention of improving my life as a student. Not only did I plan to devote more time to studying in order to learn and achieve better grades, but to become a full participant in the various extracurricular activities which round out an individual and contribute to school spirit. In the academic realm this meant actually opening and reading English and social studies texts, writing themes and essays, and learning the meaning of terms, such as medulla oblongata, in Mrs. Suggs’s biology class.

Fortunately, Steve M, who would eventually become known to me simply as M, and who I’ll refer to as M from this point forward, helped me in the lab portions of the class. While I still had the notion I would one day be a fine surgeon it was actually M who had the steady hand and ran the scalpel the length of the frog. I was however able to pin back the skin exposing the sack of eggs in its abdomen and helping us both to answer the question of the animal’s sex correctly.

It may not have been during this dissection, but somewhere around this time we realized we were connected in multiple ways. Not only had I attended his bar mitzvah as the result of his being paired with Kerry who invited me, but also one of his mother’s cousins was married to one of my mother’s cousins making us something in Yiddish called machtaunim. Or, in the more standard Hebrew vernacular we were mishpacha, part of the extended family. If that was not enough, it turned out M’s father, a real estate developer, built the houses on Lancaster Avenue. It was his final endeavor in single home residential construction, and M noted his father’s efforts to satisfy customers like my mother regarding such things as plumbing was one of the main reasons he stuck to building apartments and commercial structures.

It would have been nice to have M at my side when a few weeks into the semester I went to Mr. Bielenberg’s classroom after school for the first casting call for the spring play. Walking into the room I found the popular Mr. Bielenberg surrounded by many students, some of whom I recognized from having mutual acquaintances. There were no familiar faces. No Cookie, no Lolly, no Gary, and Mike had moved back to Detroit.

Still, looking back there was no reason for me, the actor honored with a Sammy for his earlier performances and selected by yet another adult drama director at Samuel Morse Junior High to play the villain in the most recent production, not to feel confident my audition would earn me a role and a chance to act on the high school stage. But, that was not the case. All I saw was an impenetrable clique of friends who having performed in the Marshall spring musical were certain to land parts in the upcoming play. Fear and apprehension, even though totally unwarranted has a way of overcoming sound judgment, especially when an adolescent ego is involved. Without ever giving Mr. Bielenberg the opportunity to discover my talent I did the unthinkable I left never to return.

I'll Trade You For Two Jeffs and a Steve: Step 78

Walking to my homeroom for the first time I wondered what possessed the architect to place a courtyard in the center of the building. One had to wonder what the bench was doing in the glass-encased showcase since no one was ever seen entering or leaving through either of the two doors. Maybe he thought an eagle, the school mascot, would roost out there, but he would have to wait until spring because all the landscaping was covered with snow during most of the winter.

And, why an eagle? With a school newspaper and yearbook aptly titled The Gavel, following the simple logic of garnering a name from the profession of the person for whom the school is named, it seemed to me the football and forensics teams deserved something like the Supremes rather than being named for a bird. All right, so Diana Ross and the girls had the name, but not when the school opened four years earlier. At least Marshall Eagles didn’t seem as blatantly ridiculous as Custer Indians.

If designated up and down staircases and waste of space courtyards weren’t enough structural challenges for someone attempting to get acclimated to his new surroundings the numerous tentacles branching off the parallel corridors made me realize that even though my new classmates had been cordoned off in the junior high wing for the past three years they had a distinct advantage in knowing where to go when the bell rang again. Asking for directions was out of the question since any display of uncertainty marked a student as inept and the target for harassment and humiliation by their peers. I knew it was incumbent upon me to be able to distinguish the music room corridor from the industrial arts wing and the boys’ gym from the girls’ gym. Fortunately, my homeroom was next door to the library, so I had a good starting point from which to map out the rest of my daily route.

Due to the nearly four thousand students that streamed through the halls, everyone at John Marshall Junior-Senior High had to share a locker. While I am not sure with whom I shared a locker I know while others were busy putting away and getting out books and supplies I was already getting to know the students in Mrs. Shultis’s homeroom. Although Ron and Big Steve were in her homeroom, I would be next door for the next year and a half, a period that would see our relationship fade. Instead I started to build a relationship with the two Jeffs who shared a locker and had been close friends since their days at 65^th Street Elementary and Steve M. who would remain my close friend to this day.

Listening to the announcements in Miss Wallace’s homeroom, I started to wonder if my route would take me past the junior high wing and if I might get a chance to see Jan. Even though my path led right past the junior high wing twice that day I had no time to slow down and look because I had to figure out where I was going. It was probably a good thing, too, because in the days and weeks that followed when I did spot her she was not with Renee or Karen. She was with Debbie D, who looked right past freshmen and sophomores to boys in the junior and senior class. It took me a while to realize it, but my time with Jan had come and gone.