The subjects I enjoyed most in my senior year were physics, taught by Mr. elder, and my second year of German. A half-year of American Government was required and I must have barely squeaked thru with the lowest grade I got in high school. I never played hooky until my senior year and then only on days when we had public speaking, on Friday afternoon, I would go down to the creek and wander in the woods. One Friday, Gordon Bashore, who liked to draw cartoons, and I took the noon train north to Cecil with some easels which we made hurriedly out of sticks with the vague idea of painting some pictures along the Maumee River. We put our easels on the rear platform of the two-car train, then, when we got to Cecil, carried them (they were about five feet high) the extra mile from the depot to the river. Neither of us accomplished anything. Gordon gave up almost immediately but I worked about a half-hour before I saw I didn't know how to proceed and threw my (picture) away. Gordon, whom we called Tibby, was the class humorist. He was a distant cousin on my mother's side. We had both done chalk-talks before the assembled high school. All of the teachers seemed to think I would go into cartooning or some other form of art work. A few days before graduation, Mr. Elder called me into his office, handed me a sheet of drawing paper and asked me to draw a couple of cartoons that he could keep to show that he knew me in the old days before I became famous. Whenever one of the English teachers had art work she needed doe, they would ask me to stay after school to do it. I did very little with art, however, until I retired and started painting in watercolors.
One of the traditions of graduation week in Paulding was the senior play which was performed in the opera house as the stage in the main study hall at school had been transformed in 1913 and was no longer suitable to use as a theater. I would have liked to have a part but realized that I didn't have a chance because of my attitude to public speaking. I remember that Sara Ross had the leading part and Howard Essex was the butler. All high school plays had to have a butler tho none of us had ever seen one.
Graduation exercises were also held in the opera house, the school board sitting on the stage behind a table on which were piled the rolled-up diplomas while the senior class occupied the front rows in the house. As our names were called, we climbed the stairs at one side of the stage, walked across behind the footlights to the table where the president of the board handed us our diploma, then descended the stairs at the opposite side. The diplomas were a generous size, about 14 x 18 inches and were rolled and tied with a colored ribbon. I don't know what happed to mine nor do I know what became of the diploma I received at the exercises in the country church where I spoke my piece about Sockery Setting a Hen.
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Spring House Cleaning
Going to Work - A False Start