RADIO AS A VOCATION, A LOOK BACK FROM 2004 Porterville Union High School Revisited SCHOOL WORK FROM 1934 By Newcomb Weisenberger

 

I have just rediscovered my High School Compositions and at the age of 90 and retired, have had the opportunity to read, "My Life Work and why I chose it" (Those predictions proved to be true and my choice to be valid.)

If you choose to read these four pages, notice first, the B grade given some 70 years ago. Notice that it was written in ‘long hand’ and in ink.  The only magic we had then was carbon paper!  Our ‘spell check’ was a book called a dictionary.

It was easier, then, to avoid mistakes than to repair them!  Our word processor was an un-forgiving mechanical device called a typewriter. 

My teacher’s grading comment has now faded away. The grading pencil had spelled out:  “Did you ever hear that what your are at 18, you are for LIFE?

I now urge my children’s, children’s, children to include a trade or skill with whatever academic gains they achieve.                                                            

Note: I did choose First National Television in Kansas City, as my second school.  There I earned my First Class Radio Telephone license.  I operated W9XBY and W9XAL (TV) both owned by the school.

The following year I became the operating Eng. at KGFW in Kearney Nebraska.  From there, continued at KMA (the May Seed Co. station) in Shenandoah, Iowa.

I then joined the 7^th Service Command at Omaha, Neb. Civil Service as a civilian, Installing and maintaining Ground Radar Stations along the East Coast.  These were early warning stations operated by the Coast artillery, protected by the First Fighter Command.

Later I served In the Air Corps as an instructor in the training div. of the Ground Radar Branch and taught the tech course on the Automatic Bomb Release.

Following the war, joined KFI Los Angeles 50,000-Watt clear channel giant AM station. Retired after 33 years.  In retirement, writing a number of articles about early TV and Radio.  Published and Posted on WWW.  See, Oldradio.com   Antiqueradios .org (SCARS Gazette) and SPERDVAC.com (Radiogram) Early television.org (W9XAL)     (A search engine (Google) will take you to the author’s work posted on the Web.

Please Visit http://webpages.charter.net/newal    Newcomb

PLEASE SEE THIS!

The 70 year old, hand written, manuscript.  It is just below.

REMEMBERING P.U.H.S.

& The 30’sTHRU 1934

Class mates, do you remember--------

(For our class reunion several years ago.)

The bell system?  At the first bell, we prepared to leave.  At the second bell, we left!

At the third bell, we were to be at our proper places again.

Exception was made when we had to cross the playing field for P.E. Then we left at the first bell. We carried our books as we moved from class to class. If we would pass our locker, we could exchange books, class for class, and still arrive in time.  One boy would slide into his seat while the bell sound was still in the air.  Our teacher said that he had delayed the class and that our total loss was 30 minutes of learning time.

Do you remember the girl’s athletic uniforms?  (Today’s girls wear less to class or shopping!)  Girls,” you received our attention even in your black, puffy bloomers”.  Knees were more important than navels are today.  There was a soft drink, Knee-Hi.  Remember that?

Girls had shower stalls; boys had gang showers, + a required, footbath of purple permanganate salt, water and a ten-cent towel!

Do you remember the ten-cent towel fee?  We boys stepped through the purple trough and were handed a towel, (if we had paid 10 cents.)  It was small.  It was thin; it was a linen face towel!  As we moved it over our wet body, it pushed the droplets together until they fell to the muddy floor.  The towel was immediately wet and could absorb no more!

We had tracked-in dust from the field, and now were stomping it into a brown puddle, under each boy.  We would wipe our feet last and stand on the gray, swatch of cloth, to dress.

I remember the thin, blonde boy who almost never had a towel. (You would know his Name.)  He asked for us to save him a towel, and stood there wet, ’till we were through.  Everett Penning saved his towel. ’Saving a towel’ meant not standing on it first!

Do you remember Mrs. Bald’s Latin class?  She would read part of a continued story in Latin, each day.  When the Semester ended and the story hadn’t, she finished it all in one session. “ Pons Londine Decadit”.  Mrs. Bald taught us,’ London Bridge is falling down.’  Also, Omni Gallia devisa est en partes trace.  (I had planned on being a pharmacist.)  There was a tall boy, in class, that we called Equus, Latin for horse.

Do you remember Pop Hamlin’s square sided, walking stick?  Were you one of those hit with it?  Three little raps on the head? (Usually at the black board, while he said, ”Think”.)* His stick was marked with the initials of algebra students before us.

* Raps on my head only made me think of raps on my head!

Do you remember the steep ranks of chairs in the Physics/Chemistry lecture room?  There was an atomic chart of known elements on the wall, with blanks for elements yet to be discovered.  There are several less blanks now.

I think that it was Mr. Toole, using slides for his lecture, who added two slides from Bill Shortman. They advertised his shop name, at the bottom.

Does anyone remember that they moved? One was a mill wheel that turned; the other was a train that entered a tunnel.  (They were made with an oil-filled layer, between two glass plates.)  Several class reunions ago I asked Lucille about these slides.  She knew what I was asking but not what happened to them.

I remember that my bicycle came back from Bill Shortman’s shop with new wheels, shining rims and spokes.

Do you remember riding in a PUHS school bus so old, that in 1934 it had a sight glass on the dashboard?  You could see the fuel dripping as we rode along!

Do you remember when we dismissed all classes to the front lawn?  It was to watch a large airship slowly cross the sky.  What name was on it?  Was it the Acron?

Do you remember when a certain High School’s letter was burned into our lawn?  Later when we could see their young men with rakes, repairing the damage, we were not allowed to haze them!

Do you remember when the class plays seemed so professional that our classmates looked like real characters!  I am thinking of “The Creaking Chair”

Do you remember when the shop windows on Main St. were filled with WW1 German military stuff; on every Armistice Day?  I can still see the wicked bayonets and foreign medals.   Our California High School Cadets wore WW1 uniforms and carried Springfield 30-06 rifles in the parade.  (In just ten years, 34-44, we were real soldiers marching with M1 rifles.)  Some of our class’s names are honored in granite just east of town.

Do you remember the Armistice auto races up Main St.?  They turned west at Morton because Morton St. School closed off Main Street.  One car failed the turn and gouged a palm tree. I saw the hole there, years later before Main Street was extended through the schoolyard.  I miss Morton and most of the young men who accompanied me on from there to PUHS. The whole eighth grade class of 1930. It was Alan Reed’s idea for us to pretend to be sophomores!

(We had yet to learn today’s definition for the words sexual harassment, and impropriety.)

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Memory is priceless. It outlives our friends. Sharing memories makes them real again.

That is why we are *here!

*PUHS 34 convention 2000, Porterville, Ca.

Send E-mail to Newal@Charter,Net

Can you add a memory?

Newcomb Weisenberger Class of 34

My $25 T Ford Roadster (Wood spokes)