As I have introduced during the summer of 2014 my self-published book, there seems to be (perhaps understandably) a “knee-jerk” reaction — oh, no! Not another stupid, nostalgic writing of high school memoirs! Its title is long and twisted, but the book is “just right” in length, yet also twisted. I named it Some X-Y Type […]
Writings on high school days conjure the descriptor “nostalgia,” and these writings are no exception, but with a very important qualification. These are stories of high school days out-of-the-box — nostalgia “with a twist,” if you please. Typical of high school and college memoirs are books such as No Other Time Like This One, by […]
Education writer Malcolm Gladwell defines “outliers” as those who operate at the extreme outer edge of what is statistically possible. Anything that is measurable and is randomly distributed graphs into the well-known “bell curve” whereon “average” is most of the population in the large middle of the graph. Therefore, by Gladwell’s definition, measurements from outliers […]
To this day it is not clear that the Cisco schools had an accurate idea with whom they were dealing when it came to the CHS Class of 1964. I have observed in my teaching career almost 40 high school graduating classes both in Waxahachie, TX, and in DeSoto, TX, and only three of them compare […]
It was the spring of 1963; the east (or, more accurately, the NE) side of the old 3-story Cisco High School building, along with the auditorium, was partitioned off because it was condemned; the town was divided over and squabbling about a bond issue to replace the high school building at a site on the edge […]
According to the memoirs (see And God Said ‘Let There Be Friends’… and It Was Weird [April, 2012]) Adling commented to me way after the fact upon the choice of Robert Cole as the fourth member of the M-4: “… you chose Cole, whom I did not even know — but he turned out to be […]
On the 900 block of West 6th St in Cisco, Texas, circa 1950-1951, the street was a crossfire, as noted by a comment in the local paper, The Cisco Press. The paper warned that two pre-schooler boys were firing across the street at each other with their toy rifles and pistols. You see, when we […]
On a brisk, cloudy, cool, and gloomy school day at Cisco Jr. High in March, 1958, Mrs. Jones’ 6th grade home room was interrupted by the appearance of the principal, Mr. Glass, holding a 6th grader’s allotment of issued textbooks. Behind him was a new arrival at CJHS, a guy struggling under the weight of the […]
The remaining four of the quintet (see And God Said, “Let There Be Friends”… And It Was Weird!) form a group christened the M-4, the “M” originally designated for “Malicious,” done tongue-in-cheek by Lee Wallace when he was a fish at A&M. “Tongue-in-cheek” because he knew our group came into existence via a harmless school […]
As boys growing up in Cisco, Texas, Bill Lee and I spent many an hour sniffing airplane glue……let me rephrase that…..as professionals who might someday run for some public office, both of us need to join that elite group who maintain “I did not inhale.” That does not sound right, either. What I mean to […]