Adolescence, Baylor I started middle school with the seventh grade at Brainerd Junior High, where my sister was remembered. My homeroom teacher taught Latin; I remember “non iam brachis” (no longer at arms); she remonstrated with me about my posture, saying I would become a hunchback. I began at The …
Church 2, Scouting At about the age of eleven I started attending St Andrew’s Methodist Church in Highland Park, where my grandparents and my uncle’s family were members, to become involved with Boy Scout troop 25, which the church hosted, and of which my uncle was a leader. The troop …
Cars 1 – Fords, Barracudas I always maintained our cars (and motorcycles), acquiring the tools along the way to support my skills, both real and fancied. My watchwords were “faster” and “better”, and my motives were simple, and only two: there was less down-time, and it was usually much cheaper. …
Collecting, Motorcycle 1 I began collecting postage stamps in my scouting years with a Minkus world-wide album and gummed “hinges”; this earned me the scouting merit badge. I realized that though it was comprehensive, the album was necessarily very incomplete, and that collecting stamps of the whole world was impractical …
Shepherd Hills Hoodlums Shepherd Hills is a hillside community on the side of Missionary Ridge; they had a lighting contest every year at Christmas. The area featured a natural open slope which made fine sledding on the occasional snows; it had a few tennis courts and a “bowl” at the …
Red Cross, Swimming In my teens I took a course in First Aid, first basic, then advanced, under the auspices of the American Red Cross. They taught these courses in the evening weekly at their building downtown (my mother took me); this earned me the scouting merit badge. About the …