The message forum is an ongoing dialogue between classmates. There are no items, topics, subtopics, etc.

Forums work when people participate - so don't be bashful! Click the "Post Message" button to add your entry to the forum.

Joseph Gentilini

Was Sister George Ann a biology teacher???  If it was, I think she left the Dominicans.  If not, I donb't remember her at all.  Joe

David Mitchell

I think Jim and Fred mentioned the wonderful Mickey Mouse Club and the fact that Cubbie O'Brien had become a drummer on the Lawrence Welk show. Check out my post #167 back on page 8. He was also the drummer for the touring John Davidson Show at Mershon Auditorium. Nina can verify this fact. 

David Mitchell

Giants Shoulders Part II; (continued from post #1028)

I think I should finish what I had to say about the important part John Jackson played in my formative years.

(Note: there will be no reference to Wombats, foreign or domestic, contained herein.)

As I had (have) a mild case of what we now call ADD, things like memory, planning, organizing, and deadlines were simply not on my radar. And when school let out on Friday afternoon, yours truly was normally headed for the Wild West, the High Seas, or the far side of Pluto, until my mother would need to rouse me on the following Monday mornings. My weekends were taken up mostly with TV, sports with the neighborhood guys in my front yard, running wild down in the Overbrook ravine (building "forts" and daming up the creek), or eventually even (yikes) calling girls on the phone. Oh, and raking billions of leaves and mowing our large lawn.

But every Sunday night, after Roy Rogers and Walt Disney and this utterly time wasting custom my mother referred to as "dinner", Mom would ask me, "David, don't you have any homework this weekend?" I would calmly attempt to mask my apoplectic* seizure, go to the phone and call my classmate - my human "guide dog", John Jackson, to ask for the assigments. In fact, God's truth - this went on so regularly and for so long (early grade school until even some times in freshman year) that if Mrs. Jackson answered the phone first, she would simply say, "Oh Hi David, I'll get John for you" - without ever asking my reason for calling.

I would then proceed to scramble my way through it. I could plow through the math pretty quickly, but then always followed one of the nastiest curses ever laid on innocent children, especially one with reading comprehension issues - "reading assigments"!  But by about 10:00 or 11:00 o'clock I would get through it and show up Monday morning with some semblance of completed paperwork, and try navigating through the treacherous waters of each new week - until Friday - and we began the same routine all over, and over, and over again.

So it is with a heavy heart, and a lifetime of gratitude that I say to my faithfull pal, Thanks John - you saved me.

(* Here in Beaufort County, SC, words such as "apoplectic" are normally not 'lowed 'round heah. Please do not report me to the local authorities Mary Ann.)

Michael McLeod

That's a great story, Dr. H.

And I'm still relishing this Latin-roots thing that I have taken for granted over the years. 

And it's reminding me of the story - true story - of some super model who was sent to Italy for a photo shoot, and she said she was nervous about it, and when they asked her why she said "Because I don't speak Latin." 

I mean it - that is not a joke. It's a true story.

John Maxwell

John Maxwell

Mark Schweickart

Mike,

Regarding your comment that you appreciate having been exposed to Latin, and how it has helped you in your awareness of how our languge works, I just finished reading a book that a wordsmith like yourself would find very interesting. You should go interiview this author. It is called Words on the Move, Why English Won't - and Can't - sit Still (Like, Literally), by John McWhorter. If you decide to check it out, get it as an audiobook because this guy is brilliant in the way he pronounces the various vowel shifts that have occurred, and are occuring, all of the time. Basically his argument is that one should stop fretting about how things are changing, getting one's knickers in a twist and gnashing one's teeth when one hears "literally" used to mean "figuratively", or when teenagers pepper their speech with "like", because our language is by nature constantly evolving. There is no way to freeze it into static rules, try as we might with our dictionary definitions and grammatical rules. Pronuciations constantly shift, as well as meanings, and our spoken language has very complex rules that do not fit into the grammatical diagrams we learned as a kid (as was so cutely portrayed in one of Jack Maxwell's get well cards posted on FaceBook the other day).  If a toddler asked, "Why don't the wolves eat the horses?" Mommy might respond, "Well, because horses, run fast."  How would you diagram the word "well" in the sentence? Or better yet, what would mommy say, if the toddler followed up with, "Why did you say, 'well', Mommy?"  Hmm? What is "well" doing in that sentence? It is not an interjection, noun, verb, adjective, preposition, etc. It is in the way Mr. McWhorter explains how these things work in ways we all implicitly understand, but are not traditionally codified, that I found rather fascinating. "Like, wow!"

Speaking of "Like", did you know, I certainly didn't, that back in the day (and by this I mean not the 1950s, but back in the day when knights were bold), "like" was pronunced "leek", and so in time the adverbially form evolved: hence, "saint-leek", and "beautiful-leek", had their endings worn away to become "saintly" and "beautifully".

Anyway enough of this. Check it out if you are interested.

James Hamilton, M. D.

David Mitchell

Jack, Mark, and Jim,

If I hear any more of this kind of talk, we're goint to have to ask you to go sit in the corner with Nina.

Michael McLeod

ok I am sick and tired of Jack Maxwell getting all this attention for his crappy broken leg and it's time to say: What about me?

I had a HEAD INJURY!!!!

Specifically, a concussion-contusion. It was in grade school but I can't tell you what year. I slipped on the ice at Immaculate Conception, back in the day when there was a playground, and they had such things as recess. I became so groggy in class that afternoon that I asked to be excused, and to my recollection -- I could be wrong -- Jim Hamilton walked me home, or at least part of the way home. Which is, of course, apt, if true. When I got home I went straight to be and could not be awakened. (Sleepiness is a symptom of a head injury).

They figured out, somehow, that I'd been hurt in a fall and took me to the hospital. I had what was then called an electroencephelagram which, as I recall, was like having a collander attached to electrodes on my head. I went home after a couple of days and stayed in bed for two weeks as a precaution. Did anybody send me letters? Probably, but I did not keep them. 

Michael McLeod

The bonus here is that anytime I do anything wrong I have the excuse of being brain damaged. Comes in handy sometimes.

Michael McLeod

And thanks for the tip about the nerd book, Mark.

James Hamilton, M. D.

Michael McLeod

I won't cheat and look anything up and just guess that the latin root for "blood" is in the word "hematoma."

"dura" -- durable, duration -- maybe a latin root there somewhere.

I'm sure I am missing some.

Michael McLeod

sub! means beneath. Either that or a pastrami on rye.

David Mitchell

I fell and broke my nose going up our stairs when I was three. Does that count for anything?

(coming out of surgery I got a lot of attention and some ice cream so it worked out pretty good)

James Hamilton, M. D.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Mike.......when I read that you didn't remember getting any cards after suffering a concussion in grade school, I felt really, really bad for you and so i went to work making this "card" for you using today's microsoft word pad technology.  I tried to draw as though I were back in 5th grade (not too difficult given I have absolutely no artistic talent!!).  

Michael McLeod

You've still got it, Mark.

Michael McLeod

I mean Mary Margaret.

Thank you now I feel all better.

David Mitchell

Yea, yea, yea, I'm sorry about Mike's head too. 

Frank Ganley

All of you are talking of things that happened to you in grade school trying to get some kind of sympathy for you injuries. Of course Jacko takes the award for best injury and length of stay. In the 7th grade we had off one day for a Holy Day of Obligation and this time we decided to build a tree house in the woods a block away. Things were going great until yours truely fell out of the tree house, landed in the creek , got toally soaked, and couldn't move my arm. Off to the emergency room, almost a weekly stop in it seemed with at that time 5 brothers and 3 sisters, xrays later I had a broken arm but it was called a green stick fracture. The doctors decided that since it wasn't broken all the way thru a splint will do. SPLINT< I WANT A CAST!!!!. You can not sign an ace bandage. A piece of wood and an ace bandage. 6 weeks a splint how totally uncool. But I did manmage to get the better of that and set the record for longest christmas vacation. The day to return to school after Christmas it was up and at'em running to get the bathroom I jumped up to touch the top of the door. As I did i felt a very sharp pain in my lower right abdomine. Off to the emergency room. Next morning after all these tests in 1962 somehow didn't show anything but all of a sudden in the operating room. Boom my appendix burst and I'm in the hispital for two weeks followed by a few weks in bad and finally in Feb i got to go back to school. Missed all mt exams, I didn't need to take them , they already knew I was an idiot, and just cruised into 2nd semester only to find out in May we were moving to Columbus Ohio. What the hell is a columbus Ohio when you lived in philadelphia. Since no one knew me in grade school thought i'd fill in the blank LOL

Frank Ganley

Speaking of cards from Mary Margaret, she sent me one for my surgery I am recovering from. Looked similar in idea to the one she posted here Thanks MM

Michael McLeod

Those Mary Margaret sympathy cards are a collector's item. Some day you will see them being auctioned off at Christie's. People are heading to the ski slopes and taking up bullriding in hopes of getting compound fractures just so they can get one of those babies. 

Nina Osborn (Rossi)

I always loved telling my students that I took 2 years of Latin!!  I can't remember the Sister that taught the class.  Darn. Someone will remember. Anyway, knowing Latin was NOT my favorite subject, Sister made me the editor of the Latin newspaper!! I remember that like it was yestetday!!!  But somehow I did it. I know I had lots of help!!!