Chuck Cole

I like that Walnut Hills is the kind of place where the teachers who were fossil-like when we were there were the young energetic ones when some of our parents were there. And now we have grandchildren of some of you in Cincinnati having the same teachers your children had.  

Looking back at our teachers--many of us boys had Whitey Davis for swimming.  It was the rule that you didn't wear a swimsuit, which was embarrassing to many of us.  I think Whitey loved it.  Some worried then that they couldn't keep it down, and now some worry that they can't get it up.  I asked at one of our reunions if they still took swimming naked, and they no longer do.

I'm at Dartmouth now, and being able pass the swimming test is a graduation requirement.  With commencement only 10 days way, there are still a few seniors spending time every day in the pool so that they can graduate. Another reflection is that many of the students whose writing I read now would benefit from some time in competitive sentence diagramming (and in Latin class too).  

Richard Winter (Winter)

Hi Dale,

I don't remember my Latin well enough to translate "Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit" -- all that comes to mind is "Hic Haec Hoc, Hujus Hujus Hujus...." but I pasted it into the Google search bar and got this, from a New York Times article:

“Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit,” Aeneas tells his exhausted, shipwrecked followers in “The Aeneid,” Book 1. “Maybe someday you will rejoice to recall even this.”

Legions of high school Latin teachers used to joke that the line also applied to their miserable students, just then embarking on Virgil’s epic, with 12,000 lines of dense, highly inflected Latin verse ahead of them: battles, catalogs, run-on similes, thickets of arcane vocabulary, and arduous slogs between the good parts, like Dido and Aeneas having sex in the cave (Dido “ablaze with love, drawing the frenzy deep into her bones”) and that excellent passage in Book 9 when Turnus splits Pandarus in two, right down the middle....

The entire article is here http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/books/30fagl.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0  -- it is actually a book review of a 2006 translation of Virgil's "The Aeneid".  So, if you want to read it again, in English this time, there it is.  

Do you remember reading about the sex in the cave in high school? Is it possible that "sex in the cave" was discussed in class at Walnut Hils?

Richard

Doug Gordon

If you want an idea how old Mrs Renfro was, she was one of the teachers that my mother had had in the mid-1930s. The other was Mrs Murphy.

(We had a teacher locally here who taught into his 80s and found himself teaching grandchildren of some of his early students!)

Helen Sayrs (Hurley)

My favorite teacher was Mr. Knab.  I remember his use of "buffoon" to describe those in our class who were acting up or saying stupid things.  He told the best stories about historical events -- he brought it all to life!  I also loved Mr. Inskeep.

Steven Levinson

Helen, I remember the following exchange in Mr. Knab's 9th grade A&M class:

Mr. K:  Miss _____, are you chewing gum?

Miss _____:  Yes.

Mr. K:  You are a buffoon, Miss _____.  Swallow it.

Miss _____:  Excuse me?

Mr. K:  Swallow it.

(Miss _____ swallows the gum.)

Joe Knab was one of the best teachers I have ever had.  I am forever in his debt.

Paul Simons

I'd have to say I admired Mr. Knab as well. Ancient and Medieval History. He wore immaculate suits and projected authority based on knowledge. However when I learned that he had forced someone to swallow gum, that tempers my admiration. Now Mr. Lounds - he had another subject to teach beyond science - the art of being cool. A subject for continuing education. Athletics - I wish I had those memories but I was a wimp at the time. At least I got into racketball later and swim a mile every 4th of July so all is not lost in that area.

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

I just have to say, on the days I am feeling old and decrepit, I log on here and find a message from Gail Weintraub (Stern). When that gorgeous picture comes up it convinces me that I can't be as old as I feel.

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

Wow! Thank you, Steve. Your comment really made my day. No, it made my decade! When I started to read your message, I thought you were going to say something like what Woody Allen said about his reading the newspaper obituaries everyday to see if he were dead or alive. Really, with my recent posts about Alonzo Saunders, I thought that was where you were going. But, not. What a lovely surprise. I am touched.

Helen Sayrs (Hurley)

And so true -- beautiful both physically and in your heart.  

Henry Cohen

Does anyone remember the sub who was nicknamed "Skislopes"? She was amazing although not in a good way. One time she gave us a quiz that had been left by the regular teacher. She read the questions to us then the answers, was clueless that she did that.

Paul Simons

The sub that I remember most was Mr. Fish. Yes, he was a proto-nerd but he was un-selfconscious about it and believed wholeheartedly in the enormous value of education. I remember him saying "If you didn't come to LEARN, you can LEAVE!!" One time he covered a whole blackboard with an equation and the complex solution to it and at the very end something was wrong, his answer wasn't the one in the book or something like that. He was in front of the whole class and he was embarrassed but he kept working at it. I don't remember if he got everything to add up or not. Either way it was an epic performance.

John Mather

Miss Kinkaid = ski slopes. She was sadly poorlu matched for most of the classes. Was it Don Meritt that gave her that name?

So dang glad Alonzo is till with us.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Ski slope!! We girls all snickered back then. I'm wondering, with 50 years of gravity tugging at our "chests", how many are snickering now? 

Doug Gordon

I remember that Mr. Fish really had that "mad scientist" look going with his frizzy hair and coke-bottle glasses. And didn't Mr. Knab favor sharp suits and bow ties, or am I thinking of someone else?

Paul, I'm with you there on the athletics thing. In fact, when many years later I picked up my first marathon medal, I felt myself wishing I could go back and show it to all my old gym teachers. Maybe those failures served in the end as motivation!

And personally, I think that Gail has a painting stored in her attic somewhere...  :-)

Henry Cohen

Who authored the irreverant but funny song set to Pomp and Circumstance that started: Hail P.H. McDevitt, hail Raymond and Bill, we never did like you, don't think we ever will.

Ira Goldberg

Going back to the posts on Joe Knab...I recall hearing he played college football, but broke his back. Henceforth, he had to wear a brace that enforced that erect posture he displayed. Any confirmation?

Ira Goldberg

For the record, Gail Weintraub Stern is truly the lovely person Steve and Helen noted. She is a generous and accomplished woman whose thoughtfulness always lifts my spirit. And,as she is a special classmate bringing us together, I'm grateful her family came to Cincinnati and she to WHHS from the 'bluegrass state.'

Helen Sayrs (Hurley)

I think I do recall Mr. Knab with a bow tie -- and always a perfectly pressed & folded handkerchief in his breast pocket!  Don't know about a football injury, but his posture was great!

Paul Simons

I had heard that about Joe Knab too, Ira and Helen. No data either way, can't confirm or deny. Congratulatons on the marathon wins Doug! About Gail, it seems like the way she welcomes everyone to this website with genuine interest parallels the best practices of the field she worked in, medicine, doing no harm, only good. The vibe spills over, it's always a positive experience. As with everyone here, lucky to find anyplace in the world, either an actual physical location or even more so on the internet, where peace and harmony prevail.

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Oh Helen, thank you so very much for reminding me of Mr. Knab's use of the word "buffoon". I adored it and use it to this day. And I am trying to remember - a major effort which often brings sweat to the brow - was it Mr. Knab who also often used the word "guffaw"? Another all-time favorite word of mine.

And when my 34+ -year-old children are being especially annoying to me, I just tune them out and start chanting "Arma virumque cano..." for as many lines as I can remember. For some reason, it really works to shut up the darlings.... and yes, I love my kids dearly, but there's a saying I never heard until I got to Israel : "Little children, little problems; big children, big problems." Could be because I did not have kids in the States?

Dexter Roger Dixon

Hank:

I believe Phil Spiess, Frank Dauterich, and Dale Gieringer were involved in the writing of "Hail PH McDevitt"

Doug Gordon

Hank, I think it was Jeff Rosen, or at least that's who handed out the words to me as we went into a graduation rehearsal. I remember singing it there, and then I remember Mrs. Levy shaming us in class later about some of the lyrics, particularly since they sort of made fun of Narcissus, who I'm sure we all can fondly recall.

(Edited to note that Dexter's list sounds like a better bet for the culprits!)

Dale Gieringer

Time to fess up.  I was one of the band of conspirators who co-authored and disseminated the parody of "Pomp and Circumstances."   As I recall, the others were Frank Dauterich, Chuck Cole & Phil Spiess (sorry if I outed anyone, but the statute of limitations has expired).

Not only that, I still have a faded mimeographed copy of all of the verses.  Here they are, with all due apologies to those whom they might have offended .  Also, a very belated personal apology to Ray Brokamp and P.H. McDevitt, whom I didn't really dislike, but who were only doing their jobs and  thankfully rather well.  But who was Bill anyway?

Hail, P.H. McDevitt
Hail, Raymond and Bill.
We never did like you;
Don't think we ever will!

Bye, Walnut Hills teachers;
We are grown-ups today.
We'll veto the levy,
Cuttiing off all of your pay.

REFRAIN:
So we commence -
Or have we already begun?

No homework tomorrow,
No classes today;
We'd work, but we learned that
"While the sun shines, make hay."

Dear kindly alumni:
Remember those years
When you were all seniors
Drinking bourbons and beers?

(Refrain)

Come to our reunion -
Who'll falsely be stacked?
Which ones will be pregnant?
Who's now pregnant, in fact?

Six years in the lunchroom -
Peas, carrots and hash -
Why hasn't Narcissus
Died from serving that trash?

(Refrain)

We bid you adieu, Bill
For ever farewell
We'll send you some flowers:
God will send you to HELL.

This ends our enslavement;
Now we've had our Phil;
We rose to the highest -
Now we're over the Hill!

(Refrain)

O, Heck, this is silly,
My God, what a bore,
Though this stanza's last, there's
Room for ninety-nine more.

SO -
Hail, P. H. McDevitt,  etc....

Ira Goldberg

Dale, Bill must have been Bill Spreen, Asst. Principal. No, I didn't recall it, but checked out p.11 of  1964 Remembrancer!

Steven Levinson

Jon Marks refused to sing along with the rest of us.  I was so ashamed of what I'd been complicit in that I wrote a letter to Messrs. McDevitt, Brokamp, and Spreen (who was my boss as the Principal of Sycamore High School when I taught there in 1968-69) that read as though I had personally concocted the scheme.  McDevitt wrote me a very gracious letter in reply.