SENIOR! Only sixteen, and a senior in high school! I was proud! Because I had skipped a year (or done two years in one) in grade school, I was a year or two younger than most of my classmates. While I was proud of it then, I realize now that it might have been better if I had been older. My social adjustment wasn't all it might have been. I was socially a "loner," and except for some playing and visiting with the Vogel and Grant kids, I didn't mix much with the other students in my class. Not that I didn't have an interest in girls! That was coming on a bit, though I was scared to death of talking to any of them. Secretly I greatly admired two or three different girls that year, and sometimes day-dreamed about being married to one or the other of them. I figured we could live off the land, dressing in animal skin clothing and moccasins. I never stopped to think of winter weather--it was always summer, and beautiful, with ripe berries and lots of game to shoot. Those were foolish dreams, I know, and I've never before told anyone about them. The change in our living situation that fall was a big one. Dad had taken a job at Fort Peck Dam that year, so we left the Burke place in late summer. We moved in to town, though Dad was living most of the time in a barracks at Fort Peck, housing provided for the workers on the dam. He was away all week, coming home most weekends. We sold nearly all the cattle, and pastured the few remaining with the Vogel's at a place on the river about five miles from town. It was known as the Clement place, from the name of a former owner. We sold the old team and wagon, too, so we really had become "town folks." I missed the woods on the Burke place, and the animals and birds, but found plenty to do in town. On some weekends I had to go to the Clement place to check on our few cows, and that meant walking the five plus miles down there and back. Later I will tell of one or two notable days connected with the care of thestock. As a senior, and with most of the required subjects already completed for graduation, I had a choice of what I would study in this my senior year. I liked Mr. Shaw so well I chose to take both physics and advanced algebra from him. I also took another course in animal husbandry, chiefly because I knew that would involve stock judging, which I very much liked to do. The fourth course I chose was typing, and that was tough! Both Robert and Jean had taken typing, and were good at it. But just as they had warned me about what a tough teacher Miss Dorothy Dutch was (my teacher for algebra and geometry), now they told me how awful Miss Adams, the typing teacher could be! There were about twelve of us in the class, and despite the warnings, I looked forward to learning to type. As it turned out, touch typing is probably the most valuable skill I learned in high school! I've used it all my life, and it has been a wonderful help. In this my senior year I decided what I wanted to do as a career: I would be a forest ranger! I read everything I could lay hands on about that line of work, and even decided where I would go to college. For some reason, it didn't enter my mind to go to Missoula, to the state university, where there was a fine forestry school. Instead, I planned to go to the University of Minnesota, because their school seemed to get the most publicity. I wrote for a catalog, and liked what I saw. Little did I know how difficult it would be to go there, pay the high tuition charges, and all that. It was a goal, and helped me to apply myself toward being a good student, I think. Back to typing class! Miss Adams surely was different from most of the teachers. She was a perfectionist! In order to learn one thing at a time, and because knowing the location of the various keys is essential to learning to type rapidly, we didn't even touch a typewriter for the first three or four weeks! I had never heard of such a thing! Instead of using a machine, we sat with our hands in the correct position on the edge of the typing table, and practiced for hours-- asdfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, over and over, or mixing numbers in with the letters. There were big charts on the wall in front of us, showing the location of all the letters and numbers on the keyboard. For the first week or so we could look at those charts. After that the charts were taken away, and we were supposed to know without hesitation where each letter or number was, and which finger was designated to hit it. The school typewriters had no letters or numbers on the keys, to tempt us to look at the keys. Then there was the proper finger stroke to use, too. We would be learning to type on old Underwood standard machines, of course; electric typewriters were unknown in our area. Miss Adams called it the "tiger stroke," meaning that the finger didn't just poke at a key, but must hit it with a clawing motion, sharp and precise. Miss Adams watched us individually, to make sure we were moving our fingers just right. It was practice, practice, practice for an hour each day, five days a week. I thought we would never get around to real typing! When we did get typewriters, most of us in the class found we could type 20 - 30 words per minute, with not too many errors. One other thing--Miss Adams wanted us to learn to type smoothly, rhythmically, without sudden spurts, pauses, or stops. So we had victrola music to keep time to, usually marches, very snappy. If anyone had come by and seen twelve people typing on imaginary typewriters, keeping time to the music, they might have thought we were crazy! I know some of us thought someone was! On the other hand, I know now how important that rhythm is. I learned that to achieve a certain desired speed in typing, one could estimate how many strokes per minute were required to reach a chosen rate of so many words per minute, and simply type along at that rate. Twice later, in typing contests at Malta and at State High School Week in Bozeman, I won by trying to type at a certain rhythmic rate, and hit the desired speed almost exactly. My other subjects were just as interesting to me that year. In animal husbandry, we made field trips to watch how the farmers used different feeds for livestock. We judged animals at the fair in Glasgow, and held meetings of the new Future Farmers of America club. The teacher, Mr. Skinner, was interesting, and a good teacher. Mr. Shaw, my friend from previous years, lived up to my expectations, especially in teaching physics. I got such a good grounding in physics that two years later, at Northern Montana College in Havre, I was selected to work as physics lab assistant, to help earn my tuition and college expenses. Town living was very different from being on the Burke place. There were no animals to care for daily, except for a few hens kept in the big old barn at the back of the lot. Thus I had more free time--free for reading. Hinsdale had only a very small town library, and for some reason I almost never went there to borrow books. In this my fourth year at high school, I had read nearly all the books that I found attractive in the school library. It was at this time that I began to borrow many books from Mr. Shaw's personal library--he had a whole wall of books on shelves. I had read a few of his books in the prior year, but now I sometimes went over to his apartment on Saturday, and read all day, or brought home a fresh bundle of books. The house we lived in was less than a block from his place, so I didn't have far to go. I mentioned that we had a few cattle left, pastured on the Clement place, with the Vogel's cattle. With Dad away at Fort Peck, I had to check on them occasionally. Thus one frosty Saturday morning, in late October or early November, I walked down there (about five miles from town) to see if they were OK. There was alfalfa growing along the river bank on the Clement place, scarcely half a mile inside the pasture. On that particular morning, I walked down along the river, and found what I didn't want to find: a cow terribly bloated from eating the frosty alfalfa. She lay on her side, with her belly so extended her legs were away up in the air. There was so much pressure she could hardly breathe, but she was still alive. She was not one of ours; she belonged to the Vogels. I knew she could not live long. There was not enough time to walk clear back to their place to tell them. If anything could be done for her, it was up to me. I had learned in animal husbandry class that veterinaries use a special tool for relieving cattle or other animals suffering from bloat. I didn't have anything like that. I had only my pocket knife. But I remembered that the sticking point was toward the back end of the rib cage, and with great fear I stabbed the cow right there with the largest blade of my knife! There was no question whether I hit the right spot! Gas whistled out of the cut, along with a fine green spray that pretty well stained all my face and front! That cow shrank like a punctured balloon! I knew that the wound should be sterilized, but I didn't have anything with me with which to do that. So after washing up a bit in the river, I walked around some more, checked to see that the other cows were all OK (and not eating alfalfa!), and then walked back to Vogels to tell them about their cow. When I left, the cow was already on her feet, though looking a bit wobbly. The long and short of it was that the cow lived on, whether happily or not, I don't know. I told my agriculture teacher of my adventure, and he was sure that the cow would die of infection. But she survived! In those days there were few vets around, and I am sure the Vogels didn't call one to come out to check on the cow. More later about my senior year - and no more gruesome stories!SENIOR! Only sixteen, and a senior in high school! I was proud! Because I had skipped a year (or done two years in one) in grade school, I was a year or two younger than most of my classmates. While I was proud of it then, I realize now that it might have been better if I had been older. My social adjustment wasn't all it might have been. I was socially a "loner," and except for some playing and visiting with the Vogel and Grant kids, I didn't mix much with the other students in my class. Not that I didn't have an interest in girls! That was coming on a bit, though I was scared to death of talking to any of them. Secretly I greatly admired two or three different girls that year, and sometimes day-dreamed about being married to one or the other of them. I figured we could live off the land, dressing in animal skin clothing and moccasins. I never stopped to think of winter weather--it was always summer, and beautiful, with ripe berries and lots of game to shoot. Those were foolish dreams, I know, and I've never before told anyone about them. The change in our living situation that fall was a big one. Dad had taken a job at Fort Peck Dam that year, so we left the Burke place in late summer. We moved in to town, though Dad was living most of the time in a barracks at Fort Peck, housing provided for the workers on the dam. He was away all week, coming home most weekends. We sold nearly all the cattle, and pastured the few remaining with the Vogel's at a place on the river about five miles from town. It was known as the Clement place, from the name of a former owner. We sold the old team and wagon, too, so we really had become "town folks." I missed the woods on the Burke place, and the animals and birds, but found plenty to do in town. On some weekends I had to go to the Clement place to check on our few cows, and that meant walking the five plus miles down there and back. Later I will tell of one or two notable days connected with the care of thestock. As a senior, and with most of the required subjects already completed for graduation, I had a choice of what I would study in this my senior year. I liked Mr. Shaw so well I chose to take both physics and advanced algebra from him. I also took another course in animal husbandry, chiefly because I knew that would involve stock judging, which I very much liked to do. The fourth course I chose was typing, and that was tough! Both Robert and Jean had taken typing, and were good at it. But just as they had warned me about what a tough teacher Miss Dorothy Dutch was (my teacher for algebra and geometry), now they told me how awful Miss Adams, the typing teacher could be! There were about twelve of us in the class, and despite the warnings, I looked forward to learning to type. As it turned out, touch typing is probably the most valuable skill I learned in high school! I've used it all my life, and it has been a wonderful help. In this my senior year I decided what I wanted to do as a career: I would be a forest ranger! I read everything I could lay hands on about that line of work, and even decided where I would go to college. For some reason, it didn't enter my mind to go to Missoula, to the state university, where there was a fine forestry school. Instead, I planned to go to the University of Minnesota, because their school seemed to get the most publicity. I wrote for a catalog, and liked what I saw. Little did I know how difficult it would be to go there, pay the high tuition charges, and all that. It was a goal, and helped me to apply myself toward being a good student, I think. Back to typing class! Miss Adams surely was different from most of the teachers. She was a perfectionist! In order to learn one thing at a time, and because knowing the location of the various keys is essential to learning to type rapidly, we didn't even touch a typewriter for the first three or four weeks! I had never heard of such a thing! Instead of using a machine, we sat with our hands in the correct position on the edge of the typing table, and practiced for hours-- asdfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, over and over, or mixing numbers in with the letters. There were big charts on the wall in front of us, showing the location of all the letters and numbers on the keyboard. For the first week or so we could look at those charts. After that the charts were taken away, and we were supposed to know without hesitation where each letter or number was, and which finger was designated to hit it. The school typewriters had no letters or numbers on the keys, to tempt us to look at the keys. Then there was the proper finger stroke to use, too. We would be learning to type on old Underwood standard machines, of course; electric typewriters were unknown in our area. Miss Adams called it the "tiger stroke," meaning that the finger didn't just poke at a key, but must hit it with a clawing motion, sharp and precise. Miss Adams watched us individually, to make sure we were moving our fingers just right. It was practice, practice, practice for an hour each day, five days a week. I thought we would never get around to real typing! When we did get typewriters, most of us in the class found we could type 20 - 30 words per minute, with not too many errors. One other thing--Miss Adams wanted us to learn to type smoothly, rhythmically, without sudden spurts, pauses, or stops. So we had victrola music to keep time to, usually marches, very snappy. If anyone had come by and seen twelve people typing on imaginary typewriters, keeping time to the music, they might have thought we were crazy! I know some of us thought someone was! On the other hand, I know now how important that rhythm is. I learned that to achieve a certain desired speed in typing, one could estimate how many strokes per minute were required to reach a chosen rate of so many words per minute, and simply type along at that rate. Twice later, in typing contests at Malta and at State High School Week in Bozeman, I won by trying to type at a certain rhythmic rate, and hit the desired speed almost exactly. My other subjects were just as interesting to me that year. In animal husbandry, we made field trips to watch how the farmers used different feeds for livestock. We judged animals at the fair in Glasgow, and held meetings of the new Future Farmers of America club. The teacher, Mr. Skinner, was interesting, and a good teacher. Mr. Shaw, my friend from previous years, lived up to my expectations, especially in teaching physics. I got such a good grounding in physics that two years later, at Northern Montana College in Havre, I was selected to work as physics lab assistant, to help earn my tuition and college expenses. Town living was very different from being on the Burke place. There were no animals to care for daily, except for a few hens kept in the big old barn at the back of the lot. Thus I had more free time--free for reading. Hinsdale had only a very small town library, and for some reason I almost never went there to borrow books. In this my fourth year at high school, I had read nearly all the books that I found attractive in the school library. It was at this time that I began to borrow many books from Mr. Shaw's personal library--he had a whole wall of books on shelves. I had read a few of his books in the prior year, but now I sometimes went over to his apartment on Saturday, and read all day, or brought home a fresh bundle of books. The house we lived in was less than a block from his place, so I didn't have far to go. I mentioned that we had a few cattle left, pastured on the Clement place, with the Vogel's cattle. With Dad away at Fort Peck, I had to check on them occasionally. Thus one frosty Saturday morning, in late October or early November, I walked down there (about five miles from town) to see if they were OK. There was alfalfa growing along the river bank on the Clement place, scarcely half a mile inside the pasture. On that particular morning, I walked down along the river, and found what I didn't want to find: a cow terribly bloated from eating the frosty alfalfa. She lay on her side, with her belly so extended her legs were away up in the air. There was so much pressure she could hardly breathe, but she was still alive. She was not one of ours; she belonged to the Vogels. I knew she could not live long. There was not enough time to walk clear back to their place to tell them. If anything could be done for her, it was up to me. I had learned in animal husbandry class that veterinaries use a special tool for relieving cattle or other animals suffering from bloat. I didn't have anything like that. I had only my pocket knife. But I remembered that the sticking point was toward the back end of the rib cage, and with great fear I stabbed the cow right there with the largest blade of my knife! There was no question whether I hit the right spot! Gas whistled out of the cut, along with a fine green spray that pretty well stained all my face and front! That cow shrank like a punctured balloon! I knew that the wound should be sterilized, but I didn't have anything with me with which to do that. So after washing up a bit in the river, I walked around some more, checked to see that the other cows were all OK (and not eating alfalfa!), and then walked back to Vogels to tell them about their cow. When I left, the cow was already on her feet, though looking a bit wobbly. The long and short of it was that the cow lived on, whether happily or not, I don't know. I told my agriculture teacher of my adventure, and he was sure that the cow would die of infection. But she survived! In those days there were few vets around, and I am sure the Vogels didn't call one to come out to check on the cow. More later about my senior year - and no more gruesome stories