Summer time, many events squeezed into this short summer, not the least of which are high school class reunions. The Monroe High School class of 1954 is holding its 60th this weekend.
Common thoughts always include, "How did we get here so fast?" And, "How is it that so many classmates are gone?"
When teachers remind students during graduation that "This is the very last time you will all be together," it's always true. Graduates scatter to the winds, some never to return due to untimely death, geography, or various personal reasons.
Life inevitably is a mixture of challenges, change, heart breaks, disappointments, and even some successes here and there. Some failure is inevitable although this can be turned around - it's all in how you look at it and how you handle it.
But at this stage, it's less about some mostly self-imposed "race" for success, however that might be defined, than being grateful for life and health that we may be fortunate enough to retain.
Pardon the cliché, but those of us born during the 1930s have seen more change than anybody could have imagined. We could never have imagined anything as now common as pop-dispensing machines in schools, or being served lunch at a cafeteria located right in the school. And locking all school doors except the main entrance? Monroe High School had at least six modes of entry - locked only at night.
"Harder but simpler," sums up our early lives. We hear much about "The Greatest Generation" that were teens during the Great Depression and reached military age just in time for WWII. And society has long been dominated by the "Baby Boomers," born from 1946-64. But ours, alternatively labeled "The Silent Generation," or "The Invisible Generation," born from 1930 to 1945, is absent from discussion of population and culture. There were relatively few of us, and we were the last to follow "the old rules," that is, most of us, more or less, most of the time.
I'm not complaining - in many ways we were most fortunate of all. Except for those born during the very early 1930s, we were too young for Korea and past military age for Vietnam. But as there weren't very many of us and the "Cold War" was in constant danger of heating up, most of the male half of our cohort experienced two or more years of military service. But just because we never saw combat, did they have to jerk the GI Education Bill from us? I sure could have used it when I eventually hit college.
Our generation enjoyed uncrowded classrooms. I don't recall hearing the word "phonics," but we were taught to read by the phonetic method. I can still hear those grade school teachers, upon encountering a new word: "sound it out." It was good advice. Our teachers were competent, no-nonsense types who commanded respect without resorting to intimidation.
Yup, harder but simpler. "Getting into trouble" was the bolder kids sneaking cigarettes. Hanging around gas stations was frowned upon, but a rather harmless pastime for those so inclined.
Longtime school nurse Kathryn Etter told me that she didn't remember me from school. That's because I never did anything worth remembering. I told her that were I doing it again, she would remember me, though probably for the wrong reasons.
During my invisible school years, I managed to get into trouble only once - unlike the smarter boys who were fast learners, had all the fun, and had mastered the art of getting away with countless hi-jinx.
It was during junior high, T.R. Holyoke's manual arts class, as it was then called. He was taking the boys through the wood shop, lecturing on glue. It was boring. Mooney Mayenschein and I were horsing around. T.R. warned us to knock it off. We didn't. T.R. pointed in our direction and barked, "I warned you guys - now get out of here."
My sidekick, Dick Sarles, was innocently standing nearby. "What, you mean me too?"
"Ya, you might as well join "em," T.R. agreed.
So we three stooges sulked out of T.R.'s class, our academic careers over, our futures bleak.
Look, to graduate from high school, you first have to get into high school. And how can you get into high school if you can't get through junior high? And how can you get through junior high if you can't pass T.R.'s manual arts class? And how can you pass T.R.'s manual arts class if he won't let you into his class? We literally had "had the course."
We should have gone up to the police station and sat on the steps during his class, and when the cops asked us why we weren't in school, we could have said that we desperately wanted to be in school but T.R. wouldn't let us.
We were not creative thinkers. Instead of trying to outwit T.R., we took the coward's way out and threw ourselves on his mercy. He let us back in the next Monday morning. I returned to my invisible status, accomplishing absolutely nothing through high school.
Perhaps our generation's greatest fortune was to enjoy improving economic conditions throughout our lives. We farm kids didn't have indoor plumbing until the post WWII prosperity of the late 1940s. That era saw booms in automobiles, housing, expansion of suburbia, and the great Baby Boom that would permanently alter America.
After high school graduation, I soon tired of farm life. I saw classmates as having great adventures in the Army and Navy.
The movie, "Battlecry," based on the novel by Leon Uris, came out in 1954. It proved that Marines always end up with beautiful women. There was only one logical solution for a class weakling disillusioned with farming, unfit for college, and scared of women. Start life over.
Join the Marines.
You just can't predict the future.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
Common thoughts always include, "How did we get here so fast?" And, "How is it that so many classmates are gone?"
When teachers remind students during graduation that "This is the very last time you will all be together," it's always true. Graduates scatter to the winds, some never to return due to untimely death, geography, or various personal reasons.
Life inevitably is a mixture of challenges, change, heart breaks, disappointments, and even some successes here and there. Some failure is inevitable although this can be turned around - it's all in how you look at it and how you handle it.
But at this stage, it's less about some mostly self-imposed "race" for success, however that might be defined, than being grateful for life and health that we may be fortunate enough to retain.
Pardon the cliché, but those of us born during the 1930s have seen more change than anybody could have imagined. We could never have imagined anything as now common as pop-dispensing machines in schools, or being served lunch at a cafeteria located right in the school. And locking all school doors except the main entrance? Monroe High School had at least six modes of entry - locked only at night.
"Harder but simpler," sums up our early lives. We hear much about "The Greatest Generation" that were teens during the Great Depression and reached military age just in time for WWII. And society has long been dominated by the "Baby Boomers," born from 1946-64. But ours, alternatively labeled "The Silent Generation," or "The Invisible Generation," born from 1930 to 1945, is absent from discussion of population and culture. There were relatively few of us, and we were the last to follow "the old rules," that is, most of us, more or less, most of the time.
I'm not complaining - in many ways we were most fortunate of all. Except for those born during the very early 1930s, we were too young for Korea and past military age for Vietnam. But as there weren't very many of us and the "Cold War" was in constant danger of heating up, most of the male half of our cohort experienced two or more years of military service. But just because we never saw combat, did they have to jerk the GI Education Bill from us? I sure could have used it when I eventually hit college.
Our generation enjoyed uncrowded classrooms. I don't recall hearing the word "phonics," but we were taught to read by the phonetic method. I can still hear those grade school teachers, upon encountering a new word: "sound it out." It was good advice. Our teachers were competent, no-nonsense types who commanded respect without resorting to intimidation.
Yup, harder but simpler. "Getting into trouble" was the bolder kids sneaking cigarettes. Hanging around gas stations was frowned upon, but a rather harmless pastime for those so inclined.
Longtime school nurse Kathryn Etter told me that she didn't remember me from school. That's because I never did anything worth remembering. I told her that were I doing it again, she would remember me, though probably for the wrong reasons.
During my invisible school years, I managed to get into trouble only once - unlike the smarter boys who were fast learners, had all the fun, and had mastered the art of getting away with countless hi-jinx.
It was during junior high, T.R. Holyoke's manual arts class, as it was then called. He was taking the boys through the wood shop, lecturing on glue. It was boring. Mooney Mayenschein and I were horsing around. T.R. warned us to knock it off. We didn't. T.R. pointed in our direction and barked, "I warned you guys - now get out of here."
My sidekick, Dick Sarles, was innocently standing nearby. "What, you mean me too?"
"Ya, you might as well join "em," T.R. agreed.
So we three stooges sulked out of T.R.'s class, our academic careers over, our futures bleak.
Look, to graduate from high school, you first have to get into high school. And how can you get into high school if you can't get through junior high? And how can you get through junior high if you can't pass T.R.'s manual arts class? And how can you pass T.R.'s manual arts class if he won't let you into his class? We literally had "had the course."
We should have gone up to the police station and sat on the steps during his class, and when the cops asked us why we weren't in school, we could have said that we desperately wanted to be in school but T.R. wouldn't let us.
We were not creative thinkers. Instead of trying to outwit T.R., we took the coward's way out and threw ourselves on his mercy. He let us back in the next Monday morning. I returned to my invisible status, accomplishing absolutely nothing through high school.
Perhaps our generation's greatest fortune was to enjoy improving economic conditions throughout our lives. We farm kids didn't have indoor plumbing until the post WWII prosperity of the late 1940s. That era saw booms in automobiles, housing, expansion of suburbia, and the great Baby Boom that would permanently alter America.
After high school graduation, I soon tired of farm life. I saw classmates as having great adventures in the Army and Navy.
The movie, "Battlecry," based on the novel by Leon Uris, came out in 1954. It proved that Marines always end up with beautiful women. There was only one logical solution for a class weakling disillusioned with farming, unfit for college, and scared of women. Start life over.
Join the Marines.
You just can't predict the future.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
