November 19,2010
High School Years
10th Grade (Sophomore Year)
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editors note: There are not too many photographs in these High School Blogs because I didn’t have many to use because I lost all of my High school yearbooks in my move to the Philippines.
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Going into 10th grade meant I was going to be a Sophomore in high school. I am racking my memory to try and place some things in order. I remember specifically that I was a Sophomore when mom and dad purchased our first television. I think I talked about that in a prior Blog when Kelley Hoskins sparked my memory about the TV set.
I am not sure what part of the year it was, but mom and dad also purchased our first house when I was a sophomore.
Our first house in Sac City
I also now remember that I was active in our MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) and about 6 of us decided to go to church camp located up on West Lake Okoboji.
It was our local Methodist church camp (the one we attended) and my grandfather’s sister, Matilda (aunt Matilda, I called her) owned a small cabin that was located with in the camp’s area. She would allow MYF students to occupy her cabin during the summer camping days.
A previous Sac City Methodist Pastor before I moved to Sac City also owned a small cabin in the same area of the camp as my great aunt Matilda. He had moved to Eagle Grove, Iowa from Sac City.
As we prepared to travel north from Sac City to the camp on Okoboji we were all excited because there were going to be three towns that would be sending MYF students to our same cabin. They were from Eagle Grove, Algona and Sac City.
Views of Lake Okoboji
We arrived there at the cabin first and waited for the ones from Eagle Grove and Algona. The 2 cars caring the kids from the other two locations arrived.
As they filed from the cars into the cabin, one of the girls caught my eye as someone that I knew. She came directly up to me and said; “ Do I know you?” I replied without blinking an eye; “Yes, I kissed you in the cloak closet in 3rd grade at Reynolds grade school in Spencer, Iowa.”
I was correct and we became inseparable the rest of the time at camp. We were always together during the classes and at meal time. In the cabin, the boys slept in the converted garage and the girls slept in the cabin. There was always the pastor and a girl’s chaperone present.
It was very difficult when camp was over to say goodbye. I remember my grandmother came up to the camp from Spencer to pick me up to take me back to her house in Spencer. The girl, Caye, and I wrote letters back and forth all the time. I became very stressed because I had no transportation to drive to Eagle Grove to see her.
One time, we attended a dance at WOI-TV in Ames, Iowa that was patterned after the national dance telecast “Bandstand”.
Betty Lou McVay
It was called “Sixteen” and hosted by Betty Lou McVay, ( also she was originally Mary Lou Varnum, a previous family name) a kids program called “The Magic Window” and Dick Green another WOI-TV program host. We danced and people back in Sac City watched us on television. We had a great time.
That was the only time we managed to get together until I finally had to quit writing to her because it was starting to affect my school grades. That is when I met Father Tolan, the little league baseball coach that I use to dread because he was always talking loud and hollering at the players.
Father Tolan use to spend a lot of time watching us play basketball at the high school gym and we actually became good friends. He gave me lots of tips about how to be a better basketball player.
He came out of his parsonage one afternoon as I was walking home from school. His home was very close to where I lived and I would walk past it on the way home. He saw I was really troubled about something and came up and ask me what was wrong.
I broke down and told him the whole story right there by the fireplug on the corner near his place. We became close friends after that.
As I mentioned above I had actually gotten acquainted with Father Tolan through my basketball playing in high school. There were 4 or five of us including one Jewish boy that use to go over to Father’s place after Friday night basketball games instead of out carousing around like some of the others. We would verbally replay the games at his place and watch his color TV while having Pepsi and popcorn.
Father taught me a lot about growing up. He had sayings like “The Road to hell is paved with good intentions” and always made sure we showed respect when somebody did something nice to us like taking us out to eat.
Father was very ecumenical and didn’t ever mention anything about religion except that we should go to our own church and Sunday school every week.
My brother Jim played baseball for him and we attended most of the ball games. After every game Father would always come over to our house for strawberries and ice cream. He would come over in his T-shirt and just really enjoy himself.
My dad was always pretty straight forward about everything and ask him one time why a catholic priest would come over to a protestant’s home like he did all the time. Father answered by telling dad that at our house he didn’t’ feel like he had to be a priest. (whatever that meant).
Father was the first one to ever take me to a fancy restaurant. I remember he took two other boys and me to “The Gold Coast Restaurant” in Fort Dodge, Iowa one night. I had never been to a restaurant like that before.
He would also take us to basketball tournament games in Carroll, Iowa at the Catholic high school.
Our trip to the Blackhills of South Dakota
One time he took another protestant boy and myself on a trip to the Black Hills where we met my blind uncle that was a chiropractor in Bella Fourche, South Dakota and stopped at Father’s aunt’s farm near Wall, South Dakota. Father never did anything to make me disrespect him, ever.
I must say that I had some challenges with my dad’s mother, Grandma Logan. She was very narrow-minded when it came to Catholics. She wouldn’t even walk on the same side of the street as the catholic church she was so narrow-minded.
One weekend afternoon after on of my brother’s little league games Grandma Logan was visiting. Our phone rang and I answered. It was Father Tolan and he asked if he could come over for strawberries and ice cream. I had already told him about her narrow-minded attitude toward Catholics but he insisted. He ask me, however, if he should wear what he always did (T-shirt etc.) or his priest’s habit. I told him that it was up to him.
About 15 minutes, the front doorbell rang. (Usually Father always came in through our side kitchen door). It was father in his black habit and white collar. I opened the door and he made a bee-line right to my Grandma Logan who was sitting on the couch across from the front door.
He started taking to her and before the strawberries and ice cream were done they had discovered that both he and Grandma and some of her widowed lady friends all went down to the same place in McAllen, Texas about the same time in December and that the following December they were all going to be there at the same time.
Well there was a turn of events and attitude, to say the least. Father took Grandma and her friends out to eat and from that day forward you didn’t say anything bad against Catholics in front of her again. I don’t know what they talked about, but he had changed her narrow-minded attitude.
Father had advised me to forget about the girl in Eagle Grove which I was able to do without too much trouble and my sophomore year ended. I was relieved to have gotten out of the girlfriend situation and my grades started getting better as well as my attitude.
Remember last year as Freshman we had won the “Red Jug” at homecoming for the best homecoming skit? Well we won it again our sophomore year.
Next Blog I will pick it up in our Junior year…….
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