School Story:
I loved to learn, and also to do well in my studies. Had no career goal for years, but took all the languages offered (French and Latin, and English),plus History, some maths, physics and chemistry, and graduating with high marks from those ultimate Departmentals. Robert Walton was for me "the Great One", though I doubt he played hockey. Before him Miss Park and Mrs. Willis, were the most influential Edith Cavell teachers, but important too were Mr. Trotter's lab as well as his prowess/coaching in badminton, and Mr. Mudry's Ancient and Medieval History course which lead to further studies (Russian History with Leonid Ignatiev and Canadian History with Hartley Thomas at UWO) I digress, as usual. The numerous scrapes we got into, are a joy to remember, and I must confess to having one cruelly amusing joke we played on a supply teacher. We supplied her with a class list, devised by me, with fake names like Prunella Mott and Lucinda McLean,etc. witht he correct seating plan. Of course it backfired as most of us Grade Tens coiuldn't remember to answer to "our" names.
I loved all the sports and played badminton most, winning team honours and a medallion for one field day, but didn't make the basketball team. In Grade 11 I decided, after having worked as a nurse's aide at East Windsor Hospital for the summer, to go back there on the night shift. It was hard to stay awake for the 12-hour shift and also through class next day, but I stuck it out until February. Mary Benson and I had gone on my day off to an opera in Detroit (she had moved back to the Detroit for high school) and shared coffee at a dubious cafe. My bad luck was to come down with trench mouth, at which Dr. Boyd learned of my horrifying schedule and put his foot down. He may have saved me from failing that year, and my health was much better.
I "fell in love" with Steve Smith the next year. It was a noisome joke on our street to see the red 1910-era restored Ford he drove me around in, which we called "Geronimo". My sister's beau had a similar one, but in modest black, with a rumble-seat. Steve was a graduate of another school -- he hadn't liked ours -- and was in the Essex Scottish reserves while working at Ford's.
One of the pleasures of RHS was the emphasis on theatre, or our amateur version of it, many scenes of which I still recall with pleasure. Ah, Youth! We lived a romantic version of life, partly influenced by literature, music, and by film to a lesser extent. With no internet, rare TV, a wall phone at home, our chief fun seems to have been outdoors. There were swimming in the Detroit River (or the YWCA in winter), tennis, board games, croquet, Hide 'n Seek,etc., such innocent past times that kept us busy all summer. It was a very safe town to grow up in, and we even went fairly often to Detroit to shop or see a show. Wintertimes were for study, part-time jobs (mine were baby-sitting, clerking Saturdays at Birks, or full-time at the nursing, as above), with occasional sports tournaments, dances, RUBC events. Idyllic perhaps, idealized certainly, but rich and memorable to me.
