After-School Pastimes
(Mothers are the last to know)
Screen 1 of 2When I entered Bowling Green High School in the fall of 1924, I found out that being an unknown freshman in a large school presented new problems--problems of identity and recognition. And for a while I was puzzled and somewhat discouraged.
For the past seven years, I had attended the Training School on the Western college campus where my mother was a member of the music department faculty. And in my last two or three years there I had become well known by many of the teachers and students. Even Coach Ed Diddle knew me, since I had served as a mascot for several of his athletic teams.
But as a new student in the much bigger city high school, I was a stranger to most ("Chester who?" might best describe it), and I realized I would have to prove myself allover again.
Since I was neither big enough nor sufficiently skilled to play varsity athletics, I decided to find other activities better suited to me, special activities, that is--things happening before and after school. All the time between 8 and 2:30 each school day was taken up with college preparatory courses such as English (4 years of it) , Latin (also 4 years of study), mathematics (3 years) , biology, chemistry, history, civics, and French. Attending five such classes daily left only one period for study hall and physical education combined.
I soon became involved in some extra-curricular activities which were scheduled before or after regular school hours: orchestra, dramatics, and intramural basketball. But since most of these groups met only once a week, I began to look for other things to do, as did a few of my close friends.
One pastime we developed on our own--without any school or parental sponsor--was "hitching" rides on the rear bumpers of cars going up Eleventh Street from State Street toward Laurel Avenue.
Most of the cars in Bowling Green at that time were Model T Fords, but there were also some others, including Maxwells, Huppmobiles, and two or three electric cars. (I remember one of those electric cars was owned by the Sirnrns family that lived in a big, colonial-style home on Park Street.) None of these cars traveled fast in town, and those going east on Eleventh Street had to go even slower, in order to get around the abrupt turn (it's still there) at the corner of Eleventh and Chestnut Streets. And this was where we jumped on the rear bumper of a car as it struggled around that peculiar corner. The driver did not know what we were doing, because he was too busy changing gears with awkward foot pedals, while at the same time pulling down the hand-feed gasoline lever located just under the steering wheel to the right and adjusting the spark lever with the left hand-- all these moves being made simultaneously in preparation for the Eleventh Street hill just ahead.
After getting around the corner, the car would gradually pick up a little speed, giving the two of us on the back bumper a delightful and yet somewhat dangerous ride for a few minutes. As the car approached the steeper part of the hill, it would begin to slow down again, its four small cylinders straining from the climb. At this point, when the car was barely moving and the driver was once again shifting gears, we would jump off and begin our walk back down the hill to repeat the whole adventure. Sometimes we would make four or five round trips in an afternoon after school. In fact, it soon became a game. Which boy could make the most round trips? I thought I was pretty good at it, but my two friends, Thurman Anderson and Tip Williams usually beat me "hitching rides."
[CONTENTS OF VOL. 5]
[DAVID'S HOME PAGE]
- 30 -