Tour de High School Circa 1969

Summer 69....the one thing that I doubt any of my classmates could beat me on was the amount of time spent at the high school. I used to come up with my Dad on Saturdays and mostly hang out in the library. Sometimes I roamed. One time he showed me a fallout shelter. I thought that was a good thing to know, although I wondered how long the crackers might hold out.



Ninth grade 69/70....the concept behind Bridgeport High School came in large part from the team teaching concepts promoted by my Dad. That's why you had dividers between classrooms that could be opened up allowing classrooms to be combined, why there was so much glass and openness. It's why they hired my Dad, and he became principal within a couple of years.



Ninth Grade 69/70...I was the first student there every day. I would ride in with my Dad, getting there before 7 AM. I would go to the cafeteria, and sit and do homework (or more likely, write my own stuff), and wait for everyone else to arrive.


Ninth Grade 69/70...the place I liked the best, particularly on Saturdays when it was just me and my Dad, was the library. I loved libraries. My favorite was the bound periodicals. I loved the sense of history, and the flow of time one got looking at them.


Ninth Grade 69/70...sometimes, there alone with my Dad working in the office, I would get into the Gymnasium and play basketball. My height advantage I had in 7th grade was rapidly diminishing, as other boys started to catch up and I apparently had already topped out. Since I had no real talent, and could no longer take advantage of being tall, except by myself in that gym, basketball started to fade in my life.


‎9th Grade 69/70....the last place of note that I might wander to was the auditorium. Little did I know how important to me it would become as I went through high school, how many memories I would have there. I had seen some productions there....Dark At the Top the Stairs, Bye Bye Birdie, Once Upon A Mattress, but believe it or not, at that point, I did not see myself primarily as an actor.