High School

As alluded to earlier, there is just too much information to put out in one blog about high school. I'll just blather along about some of the particulars of my high school experiences and one day my children or grandchildren might say, "I didn't know they had school back then."

I remember having "locker check" at Lowell Jr. High in about 1958 and one of the girls in my home room was worried about something she had in her locker. I was curious and when she showed me a picture of someone named Elvis Presley that had been torn out of a magazine, I wasn't impressed I remember the picture was of Elvis in a T-shirt with his arms up and his hands hanging over a bar or pipe. His arms were skinny and I wondered why the girls were so crazy over him.

I attended Flint Central High School from 1959 to 1962. I was very naive, shy and awkward. I haven't changed. We were assigned home rooms based on the alphabet. Being a Lamson, my twin sister Kay and I were in with Lemieux, Larsen, Lang etc. One day we were standing in line to get a TB test or something and as was talking to Charles Lang. I noticed his eyes kind of glaze over and the next thing I knew he fainted dead away. He went straight back and hit the floor hard. He was OK, but I thought I should have grabbed him.

Flint Central was the original High School in Flint. First it was just Flint High School (FHS). Later, when a second school was built, they named it Northern and my school was named Central. The FHS was grandfathered in, probably because a lot of equipment and school uniforms already had it on them. Back then people felt good about their schools. I know I did. High school seemed serious. The college preparatory track had harder classes and you had to choose some classes to fill qualifications for graduation. A lot of students attended Central, quite a cross-section of Flint.

The building itself had an interesting architecture. The building was built into the side of a hill. The lower part of the "hill" was the flood plain of Gilky Creek which ran through the campus. It was called Oak Grove Campus and had other buildings including Whittier Jr. High, Junior College Buildings, The public library and later the Flint Institute of Arts and a Planetarium. If you went out the back of the school there were five or six tennis courts. Beyond the courts was a one lane dirt path, a fence and then the ground sloped down to the track and football field. On the other side of the field was Gilky Creek. I may not have felt "Good enough" to be there, but I felt I could get a good education there. It was up to me. There were three main floors with wings on the two lower floors. One of the stair cases rose beyond the third floor to a small fourth floor and up once again to an even smaller fifth floor. These floors were located in the tower. Not unlike a castle. Some Army recruiters came one day and rappelled down from the tower. I may add to this later, but you can compare it to toady's attitudes and schools. Several of my present day friends, I met in high school. My best friend, John Werle, will be correcting me on this subject, so there may be editing on the way. Call me, John.