The winter was cold and we had a lot of snow that year. This would be Mother’s first winter without Dad at the farm… since 1945…and I was there for companionship and to help her along with the old coal furnace and keeping the driveway cleaned out.
I began student teaching in the New Year, which meant driving the ten miles across the countryside to Laurel High School each morning. I drove Jim’s 1956 Ford Victoria. Mother went to her job as Dental Hygienist for the public schools in New Castle, starting her tenth year. She was almost 60 and needed to work six more years for retirement and Social Security. Dad had not left a lot of insurance. Their retirement was the value of his practice and the 63 acres they purchased 22 years before. She had to make some decisions during the next year, and I was helping her (unbeknownst to me) make that decision by taking off to the Navy as soon as I graduated from Penn State. She did not want me to hang around because of her. At least that is what she said. I often wondered later on if she secretly wished I would get a job teaching locally and live at home. It would have made her decision easier to just stay put. But I was Navy bound.
For years Dad had two thermometers suspended from the hydrangea bush/tree outside the kitchen window (the traditional house thermometer that you could read out the window was too close to the house and may be tainted by escaping heat) that he used in the winter to verify temperatures. Our house was located at the bottom of a hill and we were in a frost pocket, he thought; because our outside temps were always significantly lower than any of his patient’s. So I hung just one out to keep track. For the record, we had several mornings at -20 with the coldest being -22. Up until this time the coldest that I had ever seen was -24 a few years before. But this year it was cold.
My old English Shepherd dog, Tippy, who lived outside even made me feel sorry. In the coldest weather we would bring her in for the night…that I did frequently that year. But I think the combination of her age and the cold did her in. She did not make it through the next year, but hey, she was 14.
We also knew that if the temps got below -10 we had to put a heat lamp aimed at a water pipe under the floor of the downstairs bathroom. That light stayed on for several weeks. And banking the old coal furnace was not enough at night. It had to be “fired” at night like it was in the daytime or it just got too cold in the old house. That meant getting up every two or three hours and throwing another shovel or two of coal into the firebox.
Looking back, it is good that I was home with Mother that winter. It was a brutal winter and I am not sure how she would have coped with being alone that first year after Dad’s death.
My student teaching went well. Once more, they sent another guy with me to student teach. This gentleman was in his late 40s and desired to go into teaching as a second career. He should have kept his other job. He was a disaster. To their credit, the University heeded the observations of Mr. Fox (my critic teacher) and removed the guy within a couple of weeks of his trying to teach teen-aged boys. He had been in the methods classes with me in the fall and I had my doubts then, but the Ag Ed staff sent him into the field and that was unwise. They did do the right thing. No one asked me, of course, but Mr. Fox alerted me to his impending demise. He had to, because, one of the University staff was coming in to watch him teach and they did not want me in the room. So I got lost for the day and stayed away until Mr. Fox came to tell me the “coast was clear.” Whew…what a fiasco that was. Once we got that glitch out of the way, my time in the classroom went swimmingly.
I was scheduled to go to Aleene’s sorority formal that winter, but on her semester break, she took ill and the next thing I knew I was in her hospital room visiting her. This was not the easiest thing I ever did, but I went…again, feeling like I was invading her personal space. I had never been in a girl’s hospital room before! But she was game. They thought she had an appendicitis attack and performed an emergency appendectomy. When I visited she was recovering nicely and before I left, she reached under he covers and pulled out a pledge paddle, which had been a party favor from the dance we missed. Now, think what you want, but that was embarrassing to me at the time. I was one more time that she surprised me and certainly wasn’t the last.
I do not recall specific “dates” during the winter and early spring. She was at Indiana after her surgery and I was home. I made several trips to Indiana during the winter and always stopped at Slippery Rock State to visit brother Jim and his future wife Nancy. Jim was active in theater work and I got to know the cast of the latest plays they were rehearsing. Aleene and I began the process of frequent letter writing, which would consume us for the next two years.
I enjoyed my student teaching experience and was sad that it was over. The Ag class voted me an Honorary of their FFA Chapter, something Mr. Fox said was a first in his years of teaching. I was flattered.
Student teaching ended in early March and within a few days I was on my way to Penn State for some last minute logistical things. I would be graduating in a week or so. It was between terms, so there were very few at the fraternity house. I pulled in, slept in my old bunk, cleared out my personal effects that were still around and planned for graduation. One of the other brothers was graduating with me so there was someone to talk to, not like the previous summer when I was there all alone for a week of finals after Dad’s funeral.
After graduation, the paperwork the Navy needed cleared and I got orders to OCS…I had a spot in the May Class. I had two months to wait before I was due in Newport, RI, but I was gaining seniority all the time (for pay purposes.)
I signed up to substitute at several local schools around New Castle. Principally, I was interested in the New Castle (got a gig at George Washington,) Neshannock (connected with some of my former teachers,) Shenango, and Laurel Districts. As it turned out I got lots of calls at $33 per day.
I was helping a guy (Wayne Chaffee) clean out our barn where he had stored used tires, on days I did not teach. It was on one of those days when I got a call from Penn State to see if I would be available to do a long term subbing job in South Central Pennsylvania. I explained I only had four or five weeks until I was to report for the Navy, but the school district in question…Forbes Road located in Fulton County, Pennsylvania would take whatever time I could manage.
Once again I was off to take a job in a remote part of Pennsylvania and take a room in a private home. This time it was Hustontown, PA. I stayed with a couple who had another roomer, the Forbes Road men’s PE teacher. He was a young single guy who was very active and athletic.
There I was in a rural school district in the mountains with nothing to do but teach in the daytime and put in time at night. It turned out to be a good experience, however. They thought that I should stay until school was out, but I assured them I had a date with the Navy. One of the teachers was just out of the Navy and was a graduate of OCS where I was headed. He served on board the USS Ranger out of Norfolk. His experience sounded like what I was interested in…serving on an aircraft carrier. He told me lots of sea stories while we ate lunch in faculty room and the more he talked, the more anxious I became.
I had Jim’s Ford Victoria again, and would run home every other weekend. Aleene and I did not see each other very often. It seemed that we had time and logistics working against us. After five weeks my time there was over and it was time for me to move on.
I do not remember how much I was paid at Forbes Road. I just remember that it was a cold spring and that my house-mate and I would play lots of catch. He was the baseball coach and he even had me umpire a couple of games. It was working with him that I finally was able to successfully dunk a basketball. I was trying to get into shape for OCS. I had no idea what was in store beyond what Mr. Price told me.
When I got home around the 15th of May there was an airline ticket from Pittsburgh to Providence, RI waiting for me. I was scheduled for a May 19 flight on Allegheny Airline and off to the Navy.
