November 20, 2010
High School Years
11th Grade……Junior Year
Going into 11th grade meant we were only one year away from our last year of high school. We had a very unique class. The class was made up of 58 students and we had 13 straight A students. This was unusual to have that many straight A students in one class of that size.
It made it very difficult for me especially. I was in the top third of my class in Spencer but when I started at Sac City I was struggling to stay in the top half of the class. When teacher’s graded on the curve it mad it especially difficult for me because most of the straight A students were in the classes that I was in. The classes would range from 20 to 30 students. So figure it out yourself. I was always fighting to stay in the grade “C” level when the grading was done on the curve.
With my way of learning, I managed to figure out ways to overcome that challenge.
Our class was a very strong academic group and we were also very conceited about it . We were good and if you didn’t believe it just ask us and we would tell you that we were good! (That was a joke that I made up, it might not have really been true.) But we were a very strong academic class for the most part.
Some of the instructors that I remember were; Mrs. Farmer, our English Literature teacher, Lowell Perry, our History teacher, Dana Wall, our English grammar teacher, Mr. Wallinga, our science teacher, Mrs. Earheart our math teacher, Mr. Ole, Our Civics teacher to name a few.
I’ m not sure if I got all of their subjects correct and some of them we had in both our junior and senior years.
I remember Mr. File, our vocal music teacher and Mr. Marshall our instrumental music teacher. I had trouble playing a record player so I was not in the instrumental music classes but I did like to sing.
I remember that each Thanksgiving season we had the opportunity to try out for “All State Choir”. If we made it we got to go to Des Moines over the Thanksgiving vacation and participate in the “All State Choir Program”.
Well I really wasn’t that good as a singer, in my opinion, but I tried out with 3 others I remember I was the bass, Dick Schram was the tenor, LuRay Sharp was the soprano and I can not remember who was our alto.
This was the tryout which was an honor just to get selected. I remember singing in front of the judges and I was standing next to LuRay. I started shaking so bad she had to help steady the sheet of music I was holding. We were not among those selected to go to “All State”, but it was fun to say that we got to try out.
I think our junior year was the year that I was selected as president of our science club. I remember that David McCauley and I made Lithium by electrolysis. We took Lithium oxide, I think it was, and by electrolysis we created a very small amount of pure Lithium. Now that might not mean too much unless you realize that Lithium is more volatile than either pure sodium or potassium. If you throw pure sodium of potassium into water, it literally explodes. That is definitely something I remember.
Now talking about exploding has triggered my memory to another event that had an explosive result.
I always has a chemistry lab, I called it, down in the basement. During these days of school you were able to purchase at the local drug store, all of the chemicals to make gun powder. Charcoal, Sulphur and Potassium Nitrite.
Needless to say, I was experimenting with those chemicals to produce fuel for a small rocket ship I was building.
I took a “spent” skyrocket tube and with the nosecone of a plastic model airplane and some balsa wood wings I formed and created my rocket ship. (Keep in mind, this is just a short time before they outlawed making your own rocket ships using solid fuel like gun powder.)
I had this rocket ship all ready to launch and my parents were not home when I had a small accident. I was testing my gunpowder formulation and I accidentally caught my backup rocket ship on fire and it streamed across the basement where I had my chemistry table. It ended up in the corner where our fuel oil barrel was located.
Fortunately I was able to get it extinguished before any more damage took place. I think the smoke came from the fuel that had too much Sulphur in its mixture created a total smoke screen in the basement.
I opened the basement windows to get the smoke out and found out later that our neighbors noticed the smoke coming out the windows and almost called the fire department. They didn’t, however because they knew I was experimenting with the rocket fuel.
I was more careful after that. I did continue on to launch my home made rocket. I took a common doorbell button ,connected it to a dry cell battery and hooked the wire ends to a flashbulb (That was back when we used flashbulbs for the portable light source when taking photographs.) I made the wires
I connected to the flashbulb long enough that I could get down behind a barricade for safety when I launched the rocket.
I placed a pencil down the center of the spent sky rocket tube and packed my home made rocket fuel down around the outside of the pencil and the side of the sky rocket tube. I made a fast burning fuse from the gun powder mixture and placed the fuse down the center of the rocket tube after removing the pencil. I then positioned he rocket ship over the flash bulb so then the flash went off it would ignite the fuse to the rocket.
I knew I needed a witness so if I recall correctly I talked Tom Wellindorf, a fellow classmate over to witness the event.
I had a stop watch ready to time the rocket as it left the ground and hoped I could track it to see where it landed. I knew there was a physics formula that I could use to determine how high it traveled if I knew the time it left and the time it hit the ground coming back.
Two things I forgot to do. I forgot to install a parachute for its decent and I didn’t think about where and how fast it would come down.
Well Tom and I got down behind our barricade and started the countdown. We came to “0” and I hit the doorbell button….there was a short pause after the flash bulb went off and “swish” off went the rocket. I kept track on my stop watch, Soon the smoke trail went out of sight. A few seconds later we saw the smoke trail come down as the rocket returned to the ground. (We estimated it went over a mile in the air)
There was one big problem. The rocket came down about 2 blocks from where it was launched and it came down in the yard of a family with 6 kids all out playing in the yard.
I located the rocket stuck about 4 inches in the ground less than 5 feet from the side of their house.
I wasn’t long at all after that launch that home made rockets of that nature were banned.
The only other thing that stands out in my memories is the junior/senior prom when I was asked to be the master of ceremonies. There were some things that happened there that I can’t really share with you, but I made a big Boo Boo in my trying to be humorous.
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