James Laird - Lark Ellen Boys Attend Emerson Jr. High School - Page 3

One of my favorite classes was a special math class in the last half of the eighth grade. It was held in a temporary class room, an old bungalow. In the class we started with simple arithmetic and went up to basic calculus. The teacher made it seem very easy. I believe his name was Mr. Steel, with a tall thin build and blond hair. He is the one who discovered I needed glasses. I must have not been copying the problem he put on the board correctly so he moved me to the front row. I wondered what I had done wrong to be moved like that. My copying mistake must have stopped for shortly after that I was given an eye test and have been wearing glasses ever since. The first few years they were in for repair about as much as I had them on. I did take algebra in the 9th grade and it was dull and repetitive by comparison. When I took the math test for high school I passed 2nd year college and I am sure it was Mr. Steel's special class that did it.

My worst class was Spanish. Somewhere among all the schools I had attended I had missed basic English, and did not have a clue what a vowel, verb, adverb or noun was. Needless to say I learned more English than I did Spanish in that class and I even had a fellow dorm mate in the boys home who had gotten straight A's in two years of Spanish helping me. I tried French in the 10th grade with just a little better success.

For music appreciation in the 9th grade I took choir. Our only public performance was to be at our graduation. My voice had a hard time trying to figure out whether I was a tenor or a baritone. It depended on what song we were singing. Two people in the class went on to become famous. The most popular went by the name of Norma Jean Baker at that time, and looked a lot different after she dyed her hair blonde and wore low cut dresses. The other was Marshall Thompson who still had the same name when he played Daktari in the TV series of that name. We had a couple other people who were very talented. One was the son of a popular band leader and could play a mean trumpet with the last name of Baxter. The other boy's last name was Swenney and he could really make a piano go from longhair to jazz and pop. He had some of the longest fingers I have ever seen and he knew what to do with them.

Jim Laird