CHAPTER 76 1959
After finishing eleventh grade, my days of riding the school bus were over. The new consolidated high school was complete and stood on a hill one-quarter mile from my home. Now I could walk to school right across the neighboring field. If it was bad weather, I could drive. There were no more basement boiler rooms substituting for classrooms as at NORCO. We would be the first graduating class of the shiny new Owen J. Roberts Joint Junior Senior High School.
foundation. We as a class put something in the time capsule. I no longer remember what that was. (They opened that corner stone on the fiftieth anniversary.) Dignitaries were at the ceremony, even the widow of Owen J. Roberts. Owen Josephus Roberts (pictured right) was a Supreme Court Justice named to the bench by Herbert Hoover. He was born in 1875 and died in 1955. He served in a lot of important offices over the course of his life.
The new school was a big deal, a real media event. It was the first new school to be built anywhere around Eastern Pennsylvania in a long time and was considered a showcase. It was state of the art on the outer edge of technology. Wow, we even had a nuclear energy panel in the Physics lab. Exactly what this did is beyond me. It was just a toy to show off. They held an open house and showed off a lot of toys, such as the large and modern microscopes for our biology lab. Every desk had one of these beautiful instruments set upon it at open house.
They locked away all the microscopes when classes started so students didn’t damage them.
The school was to be the centerpiece of life for the administrators and faculty. It was their job to prevent we students from smudging the walls or breaking the expensive toys.
I rebounded nicely from eleventh grade and finished with a 2.67 average, a solid B. I had a smattering of A’s sprinkled through every subject, except Physics. I was counting the days until I could be free from school, but at the same time I came to enjoy Twelfth Grade. One oddity was I had eleven study halls a week in Twelfth Grade. I never had homework because I was able to get it done during the day at school. In fact, I usually didn’t have enough homework to fill up my time in all those study halls.
The most ridiculous aspect of this was I had a study hall in eighth period every single day. Why? I usually had all my assignments done by the time of this Study Hall and it was the last period of the day. Why couldn’t we just go home?
You see, with educators it is much more important to put in the time than to put any knowledge in the pupils heads. Somehow being a clock watcher automatically drenched us in education.
Ray Ayres and I used to slip out of some of our study halls. I’m not
sure what our excuse was, maybe we didn’t even bother making one up. Some of the teachers understood these study halls were a bit excessive and more like detentions. We knew there were certain periods when we had study hall, but when no one had music, so those were the times we picked and that is where we went, the
Music Room. There was a neat modern rehearsal room built into the new school. The acoustics were excellent and even more important there was a record player in the music room. We would hole up in there and listen to Tom Lehrer songs. We both liked Lehrer as well as Stan Freberg and Bob and Ray.
We were a great group of classmates, but the school viewed us as
a bunch of slackers despite being in Academic studies. There were three Academic Sections. We were 12c. I think the c stood for clowns. We were clowns. There were four people officially named as Class Clowns in the yearbook. All four were in my section. I should have been in that group, too, but I guess they wanted to limit it to two guys and two gals. To be honest, I felt a bit put out that I was not included as a class clown. Maybe, though, it was better for me to have been overlooked. All four of those class clowns are deceased. Richard Ray Miller, Ray Ayres, Betsy Fillman and Nancy Bright were the selections (pictured left) and every one is now dead.
Back when we were all very much alive, whenever you saw Ray and Richard in school that year you saw me, we were always together.
The school almost pretended Section 12c didn’t exist. We had committed a great sin. We elected General Math rather than Solid Geometry/Trigonometry. They offered General Math as an alternative. Why offer it if you don’t want anyone to take it? And why wouldn’t I take it? I considered myself brain dead when it came to math and I knew I wasn’t going to college; my parents had told me so. Why go into those more advance courses and get another D or maybe even an F? I wasn’t good at math, but I was no dummy.
I still wasn’t a troublemaker either, but I did have a moment in one of those superfluous study halls. Because we had so many study halls the teacher of this one allowed us to talk with each other rather than pretend we had work to do. I forget who had that period, it was a woman teacher, one of the younger ones. Anyway, we could sit in little groups and chat as long as we didn’t get too loud. Our regular teacher was out sick one day and we got a substitute. She wasn’t on staff, just one of those itinerant teachers that fill in where and when needed. You know the old bromide, somewhat modified by me, “if you can’t do, teach …and if you can’t teach, substitute”. I guess that is cruel.
Anyway, she sat at her desk reading a book while we gathered in our little bunches and batches chattering as usual. Suddenly, she slapped her book down and said, “Stop this talking. I can’t even focus on my book.”
I replied loudly, “Then you haven’t learned to concentrate.”
I expected a laugh from the class, but instead there was dead silence.
I don’t remember any dire consequences resulting from that faux pas, beyond feeling foolish. I think someone spoke up and explained it was what our regular teacher allowed and the substitute just asked us to be a bit quieter.
Classes were not the main feature to me, just incidental annoyances. Here is what teachers I had and how I did.
I had Margery Kelz for Physics. She also taught Trigonometry,
Algebra and Chemistry. She was a very bright lady. I don’t remember much about her classes. She wasn’t overly hard on us and we didn’t blow up the school. I wish I had her for Chemistry instead of Marlin Horne, I might have learned something. Even so, physics fizzled out for me. I started strong with a solid B the first semester, but all C’s with one D in the second half. I finished with a C. I guess I could now forget a scientific career with definite certainty.
I got a solid B in Problems of Democracy. It and Physics were the only subjects I didn’t get at least one A, though. We had a very good teacher for this subject. Mr. Robert Lloyd was a bit geeky looking, but everyone respected him. There were no disruptions during his classes. He kept it interesting. He was one of those rare teachers all the students liked and listened to. His son was in my class, but not my section. His name was Galen Lloyd and he was one of the heartthrobs all the girls wanted to date. Ha, you should see him now! Sorry, Galen, age wasn’t kind to you. That goes for me, too.
Right: Galen Lloyd 1999
My unfortunate General Math teacher was Cameron Myers. He was another fresh face right
out of college. He didn’t get much respect and students didn’t pay attention and listen in his class. He often got very frustrated about it, but with teachers I think you either have it or you don’t. At least his fly was always zipped. He was working with a handicap; he got us. I don’t mean that to say we were bad seeds and miscreants. As I said, the school didn’t like us because we took General Math and they kind of had it in for us. Mr. Myers was an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire. The administration didn’t even give us any math books. Mr. Myers was reduced to handing out mimeographed questionnaires for homework. He did all his classroom teaching on the blackboard. How do you study math without a book? You don’t. It was another class I started strong, but sagged in the second semester. I had a B the first half, with even an A on my Midterm, but I dropped to Cs after that and finished with a C plus average.
advances lessons at home through a correspondence course and expected to do better in school than I did. However, Art wasn’t a great place to be that year. The problem with Art was the teacher, Mr. Louis Gaston (The kids called him Mr. Gas-can, if they even bothered with the respect of adding the Mr.. I had him before and he was okay, but he misjudged an incident in twelfth grade that turned him into a mockery and he never got total control of the class after it, nor of himself.
There was a hot rod thing that year. It was a put down that had grown as common as a cold. Guys would bark at your car, implying it was a dog. It was a way to say your car wasn’t cool, that it was ugly and it was slow, that it would be a loser in a drag race. Early in the year Mr. Gaston was parking upon arrival at school. There were students coming and going as well. As he got out of his car somebody barked at it. Woof! Woof! Mr. Gaston glanced about and saw two boys lounging nearby. He walked over and slapped the one boy.
He came to class and ripped into everybody that morning. He yelled about respect for teachers and how he had been personally insulted. After that we kids took him as a fool. We knew what the barking meant and it wasn’t anything personal, it was mostly a joke. Nobody was disrespecting the teacher. It was a fad kind of thing we did to each other. He probably should have felt more honored he got barked at than disrespected.
The father of the boy Gaston slapped wasn’t pleased. Somehow he got Gaston’s address. He went to the house. When Mr. Gaston answered the door, the father slapped him. It was turning into a mess.
My sketch of Gaston flattered him with more hair than he had.
I got my usual satisfactory in Gym. I had a great year in PhysEd
for once. I had come into twelfth grade very apprehensive because they had always made the boys climb the ropes in their senior year. The ropes hung down from the beams under the gym roof. You were to climb up a rope, touch the beam with one hand, and climb back down. Besides feeling I didn’t have the upper body strength to pull myself up, I was much more afraid of succeeding and having to go so high in the air. I don’t know what why, but we never got around to any rope climbing.
I still sucked at basketball and couldn’t do the horizontal bar or the rings, but I shined in other activities. I went undefeated in wrestling. Ray Ayres was a champion wrestler both at school and at the YMCA. He was coaching me. My toughest match was against Phil Hahn who was my height, but probably outweighed me by fifty pounds. Halfway through our bout he caught me square on the nose with his elbow. My nose was gushing blood, but I still pinned him. As we finished Mr. Buckwalter was standing over us yelling, “Who got blood on my nice clean mats!” That Marine D.I. always came out.
One of the funniest things that happened in gym was the day Ray Ayres clobbered Mr. Buckwalter. Ray was also a champion gymnast. He was the star of the school’s annual gym show. We were working the equipment in gym class. Ray was performing on the parallel bars. There was one maneuver where he pushed up to a handstand, then threw his arms straight out to land on his shoulders and do a roll. Mr. Buckwalter was a bit too close when Ray threw his arms straight out and Ray caught him in the jaw. He knocked Mr. Buckwalter out. Everybody always wondered if it was really an accident.
I was also the boxing champ for gym that year. There was a round robin tournament of all the gym classes and I won it. I don’t know if practicing those boxing moves in the Manly Art Course helped, but they sure didn’t hurt. My real secret weapon was an ability to take a punch. I got knocked down right at the get go of my final match. I was angry about this. I beat the count to my feet and I just wailed into my opponent. I took total control and knocked him down till they stopped it and raised my arm.
In Tenth Grade I had a 2.75 average in French I. In Eleventh
Grade I had a 1.50 and got a D. I just passed French II. In Twelfth Grade my French III average was 3.50 for a B plus that could have easily been an A minus. I had Mrs. Grim for French II and I couldn’t stand her. Apparently she couldn’t stand my French. InTenth and Twelfth Grades I had Mr. Elliott. Mr. Elliott was always complimenting me. He kept telling me what a nice boy I was and how much he enjoyed having me in his class. Quite frankly, I don’t think my French was ever very good.
Near the end of twelfth grade Mr. Elliott had become very good friends with another boy in the class. The night of graduation, when the rest of us headed out to parties, this boy and Mr. Elliott headed out somewhere together. I have often wondered why I got such good grades and excellent in deportment from Mr. Elliott, but it certainly couldn’t have been my parle Francais. I wondered what that other boy’s marks were.
For English I had Mrs. Agnes Manser, my mentor. It hadn’t started out that way. When I began 12th grade English I had a totally different teacher. Her name was Batdorf. I no longer recall her first name. There
was something odd about her. She was not very hygienic. She wore the same clothes all the time they were stained with old food. She did not seem to be with it on most days, and then after a few weeks she disappeared. We were not told exactly why she was gone, but I learned later that Batdorf was a good name for her. She was bats. They institutionalized her at Pennhurst Asylum, originally known as The Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epilepic. . It no longer exists as it was, but serves today as a Halloween haunted asylum and tour site. The hospital was closed on December 9, 1997 after a long history of abuse to the patients.
Not long after Batdorf mysteriously disappeared, we were introduced to a new English teacher. Her name was Agnes Manser.
I credit Mrs. Manser for really turning me around. She certainly
gets credit for making me a star in my senior year. I had friends by then, but Mrs. Manser made me a star. I had been Frank; now thanks to her I was Frantic Frank and Wild Bill, The Barber of Silly and Mr. Hearse.
I am not certain exactly how it came about. Somebody told her I wrote poems and stories. Mrs. Manser asked me to bring in my poems and she would give me a period to read them to the class. I read 26 poems. I eventually collected those poems, plus a few others in a book I called, Early in the Mourning (1959) .Soon after that she asked me to do the same with my short fiction. I brought in a half dozen of my stories and read them. Everyone was very receptive and
complimentary. Not long afterward Mrs. Manser approached me about writing an assembly. The Seniors were going to have this assembly in which one of the other academic sections was acting out a parody of Macbeth. She wanted the audience to have an introduction to William Shakespeare before the parody. She asked if I could write a funny play that would at the same time give a bio of Shakespeare and a history of the theater in his time. I took on the challenge and succeeded. My play was simply titled, “Shakespeare and the Theatre”, but it got plenty of laughs, more than
the professionally written parody. I played the lead, Wild Bill Shakespeare. The name Wild Bill stuck along with my nickname of Frank. Peggy Whitely, my erstwhile girlfriend, and Phil Hahn (pictured left during the play) also had parts. (Both Phil and Peggy have since passed away.)
The Macbeth parody almost ended as a true tragedy when Walter Marston (known to everyone as “Wally Segap”) nearly lost a thumb in the sword fight. They took him to the hospital for stitches. When you do comedy and they say leave them in stitches, this is not what they have in mind. (Walter Marston has also passed away.)
(From stage-right the GHOST walks onto the stage. He is followed by his AIDE.)
(At stage-center, the GHOST pauses. The AIDE performs a comic dance step. The AIDE assists with the GHOST’s fancy cape.)
(During the play, the AIDE comes and goes, bringing notes or water to his master. He does little dance patterns throughout.)
(After the AIDE has exited with the cape, the GHOST approaches down-stage and speaks to the audience.)
GHOST
Good day...all things considered. It does my heart well to see so many of you forced out to our little show. If any of you want to leave, go ahead. Just see how far you get.
Just by looking at me, you wouldn’t believe I was born...many centuries ago and that I died in 1504 AD You see, I’m not all here.
By that, I’m not inferring that I’m off my rocker. You see, I’m a ghost. (And they said it couldn’t be done, couldn’t be done, couldn’t be done.) But, by George, I did it! After all, my initials are L and M. Living monster.
The subject of my talk is not myself, however, but is about Shakespeare and the Theatre. Now there was a boy who appreciated a good ghost or two.
First, though, I shall have to tell you something about the theatre of merrye ole England. This was during the gunpowder plot. If the Everly Brothers thought they had problems, or if Tom Dooley had been living, or as the situation was, dying then, he would have found his head overlooking the river...without him. Now back a few years earlier in 1576, a man by the name of James Garbage...
(AIDE enters, does a little dance step and hands the GHOST a note.)
GHOST
That is, James Burbage got the brilliant idea that people would pay lots of dough-re-mi to see plays put on, even without Bridgett Bardot. In fact, in the plays of that time young boys took the parts of women. They were sick-sick-sick!
Burbage’s new theatre, which he called The Theatre was so successful that he soon drove pass the other theatres, such as The Curtain, which sprang up, in his 1577, 375 horsepower, milled, donkey cart.
These bloomin’ theatres were almost as popular as tea and fog in London, not to mention the street cleaning services.
Now along in 1585, a man from Stratford came by. Yep! You guessed it. It was Batista, who had just been chased out of Cuba by Castro,
That doesn’t seem quite right.
(AIDE rushes in with another note.)
GHOST
When you’ve been dead as long as I have you sometimes get facts mixed up. Oh yes. It was Wild Bill Shakespeare. Now right now, you are probably asking yourselves why did Shakey leave Stratford for London? Well, there are several schools of thought on that. One school claims he was asked, by a rather large mayor, to leave or be arrested for drinking bouts and poaching eggs. Wait...wait. Of course! Poaching animals. That’s right. A more doubtful answer comes from professor B. S. Dimwitt, right here at the Idiots Institute of Lower Learning. Professor Dimwitt of I. L. L., and he is, thinks Wild Bill was a member of the Beatniks and wouldn’t shave off his sideburns.
Shakespeare and the Theatre Excerpt
Copyrighted 1959
by L. E. Meredith
Produced January 1959 at
Owen J Roberts High School
Bucktown, Pa.
Agnes M. Manser, director
Cast: Wild Bill - Larry Meredith
Aide: Ray Ayres
Poetess: Margaret Whitely
Soldier; Phil Hahn
Both Shakespeare and the Theatre & Frantic Frank on Music
Are in my collection, Little Plays. 1960
There was a minister in the audience who enjoyed my act. He came backstage after the show and asked if I would do it at his church. I did.
I’m not going to play this trumpet, but I figure by the time I’m done here, I shall only be this high and need a crutch to get off, or a weapon to swing.
Actually I can play this trumpet with my eyes shut. And that’s what I sound like, Some fool playing a trumpet with his eyes shut. You’d be better off with your ears shut. I studied this instrument for four years. I would have studied it longer, but that was when my teacher decided to make his career the French Foreign Legion.
I was later asked by Valley Forge to join District Band. But not their’s.
I’d like to sing “Tragedy” for you tonight. I’d like to. But I can’t sing.
No, the truth is that “Tragedy” is the perfect song for me, ‘cause when I sing , it is a tragedy.
I really have a good voice, but unfortunately I left it in my other suit.
I got on this subject of songs because I am a song writer. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. I showed some of my songs to the late Oscar Hammerstein II and do you know what he said? Well, he…he is the late Oscar Hammerstein II.
Then as a comeback attempt, I sang some of my tunes for Mitch Miller. I believe he is to be released this week. Vicious man. Vicious man! He hit me with an oboe.
By the way, an unusual thing happened to me on my way to the theater tonight. But I forgot what it was.
Frantic Frank on Musick Excerpt
Copyrighted 1959
by L. E. Meredith
Produced May 1959 at
Owen J. Roberts High School
Bucktown, Pa.
Directed by Robert Heimbach
Produced June 1959 at
Bethel Methodist Church
Spring City, Pa.
The second thing that happened was on March 6, 1959 Ray Ayres
and I began to M.C. school dances as Gravely and Hearse (a takeoff on two successful DJ rivals of Dick Clark and Bandstand named Grady and Hurst – pictured with their crew on the right). We told jokes, mostly in the mode of Roland, a late night host of Shock Theater, introduced the records and did our best to get the wallflowers on the floor.
In the spring the school did a Variety Show. It consisted of different acts, an accordion player (playing “Lady of Spain”, of course) a tap dancer, a piano player, whom I will get to know much better after graduating, and so forth.
It was risky business snipping off one of the rubber ears with the large and bulky hedge clippers. I imagine today our little act would have been banned as too violent and I would have been arrested as a terrorist for bringing hedge clippers to school.
We also wrote a second skit we did at the halfway point of the Variety Show. This was the “Flea Spray Ad”. Here it is in its entirety:
Two men come on stage to dance before the curtain. They spot a sexy French Girl in the aisle with a poodle. One man goes downstage to pet the dog. When he returns he is itchy. The other man starts to help him scratch. A Third Man enters with a squirt gun. He sprays at the men and they stop scratching. The Third Man smiles and they thank him and the first two men exit. Then the Third Man gets itchy and falls onto the stage floor scratching
. The other two men return and carry him off.
This was our cast:
1st Man Ray Ayres
2nd Man Larry Eugene Meredith
French Girl Jeanette Richards (pictured)
Spray Man Richard Raymond Miller
Call it silly or corny, but these things got great audience reactions and made us names in the class and around the campus. I had come a long way from whom I was in Downingtown Junior High.
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