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Impressions by Hal, Number 2 >
School Daze
The year was 1946. I was standing behind a bank of type cases, looking at an assortment of type that was to be distributed in the case in front of me.
What was I doing here? Let’s go back about 30 minutes where this story began. It was between 2nd and 3rd period class at Phillipsburg High School, Phillipsburg, N. J. You were given approximately 7 minutes to proceed from one class to the next.
The normal procedure was to stop at the boys lavatory and light up. The window was already open, and the smoke was pouring out. One would have thought the building was afire. The idea was to smoke as fast as you could, and then rush to your next class.
On this particular day I had already decided to skip my 3rd period Spanish class, and was looking for someone to roam the halls with. There were two others who had also decided to do just that. Nothing new about this, as we had done it on many occasions. This day proved to be different.
As we left the lavatory, the Principal was standing at the end of the hall. This was unusual as Principals were not normally hall monitors. We moved across the hall to the stairway to the second floor, but instead of going upstairs, we went straight ahead which lead to the outside. These were the type of doors that you could go out but not get back in, but it was simple to just stick a pencil in the door to keep it from closing and there wasn’t any problem.
Now that we were outside we could finish our smoke without any disturbance. Quite suddenly a noise was heard. Someone had removed the pencil, and the door closed therein became locked. Now the plan was to get back into the building. The gym door was always open, so we proceeded to the gym, but it was locked as well.
The next plan was to go to the rear of the school to the boiler room. The building was in the shape of an H, with a courtyard. Unfortunately to get to the boiler room it would be necessary to cross that courtyard. Anyone who happened to be looking out of the windows could see us. But we managed to get to our destination. Now we were two floors below ground level. The next floor up being the shop area. Printing, Carpentry, Welding, Mechanical Drawing, etc.
As we turned the corner toward the shop classes the Vice Principal was guarding the hall. I proceeded right, the two others went left. I was headed toward the Vice Principal when I noticed the printing class to my right.
I took a right into the printing class. The teacher, Mr. MacDonald looked up with a surprised look on his face and said, “Harold! What are you doing here?” Mr. MacDonald was no stranger to me as I was a neighbor of his, and during the summer months I kept his lawn mowed. I explained that I had signed out of study hall and wanted to see what the printing class was like. He had a look of skepticism on his face, but assigned me to another student. I was to (kill) redistribute type. To this day I don’t care to kill type. Now you know the rest of the story.
Epilogue
I dropped my 3rd period Spanish class, and replaced it with the printing class. I know I should not have lied to Mr. MacDonald, but was well rewarded, as I have been printing for 55 years, and have always enjoyed it.
* * * *
Sign we saw on a fence: “The farmer always allows hikers to cross the field free – but the bull charges.”
* * * *
I don’t want to talk about my college football team, but if the meek really do inherit the Earth, these guys are going to be land barons.
Colophon
impressions by hal is printed for the enjoyment of NAPA members. 10 pt. Modern was used for the text, and as you can see this type has no spellcheck. Typos are solely the responsibility of the editor,
Harold L. Shive
Pennsboro, WV 26415