Some Childhood Memories: 1948-1953

Early Memories

 

The only things that are important in life are the things you remember.

 

                                         Jean Renoir (1894-1979)
                                  French Film Director

 



             Those of us who were born in 1942 and graduated from high school in 1960 all share the dubious experience of being born in the shadow of World War II. As a matter of fact, the specter of war was the overriding characteristic of the first half of the 20^th century. Where did the Demons play their basketball games during the 1950’s? The World War Memorial Building! Part of my limited consciousness of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s is a memory that people still talked often about “the war.” It was vivid in their minds and why not? It had caused a tremendous upheaval in millions of lives.
 

          My family’s experience in the late 30’s and early 40’s was certainly not uncommon. My parents were from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. My father was a graduate of St. Paul Central High School and my mother, Minneapolis John Marshall. My father was graduated from the University of Minnesota medical school in 1937. My parents were married on August 8, 1941. Their world changed dramatically shortly after their marriage when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7^th of the same year. Europe was already deeply embroiled in conflict. Very quickly millions of Americans were in uniform including my father who was commissioned an officer in the United States Army Medical Corp. I was born on August 29, 1942 in Little Rock, Arkansas (Camp Robinson) and my brother was born on November 20, 1943 in Indio, California. Both were near army installations where my father’s medical unit was assigned. After the Allied invasion of Europe, my father found himself first in England and then in Germany. My mother packed up two small children and went home to Minneapolis. To say that those years were not fun for my mother would be a gross understatement. Thankfully, the war ended in 1945 and the world changed again briefly for the better. The military uniforms came off and American got down to the business of building better, more secure lives for themselves and their children. What all these people really wanted to do was to return to leading normal lives. They had earned that right!

            Our parents were members of what Tom Brokaw has called “The Greatest Generation.”  In his book with this title, he characterized our parents and millions of others of their generation as people who came of age during the great depression (the dirty thirties), fought and won WWII, and then returned home to build new lives and to rebuild America. They did a great job! This is the country and society and culture in which we were fortunate and privileged to grow up during the 1950’s. Editorial comment: Contrast that experience with the society and culture of today. Armed guards at schools! This is the progressive, enlightened America of the 21^st century. God help us!

Bismarck, North Dakota

            After discharge from the Army, my father spent the next three years at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland training in his medical specialty Pediatrics. Incidentally, my life almost ended in Baltimore. One day, I run out into the street from between two parked cars and I was hit by a car. I don’t remember much about it except for waking up at the hospital.

            In 1948, my father began his career as a Pediatrician in Fargo working at the Fargo Clinic. Apparently Fargo was not a good fit. We moved from Fargo to Bismarck in 1949 when my father joined the Quain & Ramstad Clinic, located then on Fifth Street between Broadway and Thayer Ave. We lived initially out in Highland Acres. Where was Highland Acres? There was a real estate jingle in the 50’s about Highland Acres which began “Keep heading west on Avenue C . . .” That was true. You drove west on Ave C to the edge of Bismarck. The pavement on C as you drove west ended at Bell Street and Avenue C became a gravel road at that point. Driving west, there wasn’t much to the south except a gulch and then the railroad tracks. Walt Neuens had a horse barn down the hill from Ave C. The Ken Neuens’ family lived on C just north of the barn. About a half mile down C from where the pavement ended, the Crescent Lane subdivision angled off to the NW just before the descent into what was called the coulee. As one drove down through the coulee and began the ascent on the other side, Highland Acres Road angled to the southwest. There were, I am guessing, only about eleven houses in that small subdivision at that time. Gary Engel, Mike Thompson, and Carol Fryling (deceased recently) all in the class of 1960 lived out there as did the Howie family. Bruce Howie was a member of the class of ‘59, and Roberta Howie, the class of ‘61. I think that Lori Wamsley BHS '60 and her family also lived out in Highland Acres.
 

                               Bismarck in 1950 was about 18,000 people.

           My brother and I walked to Roosevelt School from Highland Acres in the summer and winter as did the other children living there. It must have been at least two miles. Thinking back on it, we actually were living out in the country. Our playgrounds were the prairie fields which were all about us. Tumbleweeds were not an uncommon sight rolling through the fields and our yards. We used to spend a lot of time playing down in the area we called the coulee which you can still see if you drive west on Avenue C past Crescent Lane to Highland Acres.

          In 1951 we moved to 714 Ave C West just a little over one block from Roosevelt School. This area is where I grew up. I will attempt to delineate what I consider to be the old neighborhood. It was bounded on the north roughly by Avenue C, on the west by Bell Street, on the east by Washington Street, and on the south by Broadway. I think we had a strong sense of neighborhood in the early 50’s because few families had two cars. During the day, my father had our car at the clinic and if we wanted to go anywhere, we walked. We walked everywhere in our neighborhood. To be a bit more specific, I always thought of the southern edge of our area as the old Elks Pool and Custer Park. I don’t know what the boundaries of the Roosevelt School District were, but Gary Lahr’s family lived on Washington, Rachel Christiansen lived across the street and up the hill, the Pearces lived on Mandan St., one block east of Washington. That must have been about the eastern edge of the Roosevelt School district. To the north of our house off of Ward Road were the old tennis courts and further to the north of that over the hill was the Tom O’Leary golf course. My family played a lot of tennis and my brother and I spent countless hours at the courts in our youth playing with Bill Priess, David “Butch” Holden, Skip Dumeland, Peder Engebretson, Rikki Thompson and others.

My sister Ann, BHS ’67 and Jane Roswick, SMCHS ’66 to this day talk about how they used to play “night games’ outside every evening. These were games where they were running all over the neighborhood through yards until long after dark. In the winter they would drag our toboggan up to the Tom O’Leary Golf Course and slide down those long hills until they were frozen. No parent would take them and then sit there in a car and watch them. Most nights they would walk down to the Anderson Street skating rink located about two blocks from our house. There was a warming house on the west side of the rink staffed usually by a retired man who would keep a wood burning stove going and also help kids put on their skates. I don’t think that the city has done this for many years. Neighborhood skating rinks were great?

Populating the Old Neighborhood 

What follows is a list of the people who lived in our immediate neighborhood in an area bounded by Ave C, Griffin Street, Ave B, and Bell Street. All of the families in this list lived on one of those four streets, most within one block of the Tudor household. Almost all of these families had children. I will put the children’s names in parenthesis and will also attempt to indicate which high school (BHS or St. Mary’s) and their class year. I will also make a few biographical comments about some of the families

The Thorkelsons lived next to us to the west in the early fifties. Dr. Olaf Gardebring moved his family (Eva, Thomas, ?) into that house in the mid-1950’s. Our next door neighbors to the east were Robert P. and Betty McCarney (Sharon, BHS 5?). Bob was a flamboyant and very successful Ford dealer [He advertised himself as “Wild Trading” McCarney] who gained a measure of fame (or notoriety) in North Dakota because he led several state-wide referendums on issues about which he was concerned. He ran for Governor twice in the 1960’s but was defeated in the Republican Primary both times.

Directly across the street from us lived the Elmer & Eleanor Roswick family (John, Jane, Peggy, Patty, Ann, Bob, & Bill) who were my family’s best friends in the neighborhood. Jane who lives in Denver remains a close friend of my sister Ann’s to this day. Elmer had a trucking firm named Midwest Motor Express and a lot of children who all went to St. Mary’s. If you wanted a definition of a good, strong Roman Catholic family, the Roswicks were it! John today heads the family business. Bob is a physician in Bismarck.

To the west of the Roswicks lived Dr. Joe & Vi Nicola (Tom, BHS '66; Randy, BHS '70; Marlys, BHS '69). We also knew the Nicola family well. Joe was a dentist. They attended St. George’s Episcopal Church where we were members. Tommy went to Georgetown University. He works in Washington, D.C.

         Up Bell Street just north of C lived the Dr. Hublou family (Jim, Tom, SM). South of C on Bell lived the Quamme family(Lois, BHS ’56) Lois was a pretty girl. I remember seeing her in the Miss Bismarck Pageant in the mid 50’s. Next door to the south lived the Don Larsen family (Larry, BHS ’60; Richard, BHS '63; Tim, BHS '66). Mr. Larsen managed the Bismarck and Capital movie theatres in the 50’s.  My brother Tom and I used to sleep outside in sleeping bags with the two older Larson boys in their yard. Larry taught at Williston High School for a number of years.
      In the early fifties, directly to the south across the street from the Larsens lived a family mamed Cook (Rusty; Bill, BHS '58). A bit further to the south on Bell down the hill lived the Dillavou family (Vicki, BHS ’61; John, BHS '65) Just south of them were the Fairmans (Steve, BHS ’60; Cindy, BHS '67).  Steve went to Annapolis.

On the north side of Ave B to the east of Bell lived the Bartuneks (Mary Jo, SM ’60).  Mary Jo married Tom Hall, a standout St. Mary’s athlete. Across the street from them lived the Kirchmeiers (Bill, SM, ’5?).  North on Griffin on the west side lived George and Jody Shafer and their children (Teddy, SM ’60; Andy, SM ’61) Teddy was the Homecoming Queen at St. Mary’s her senior year. Andy played halfback on the St. Mary’s State Championship football team in 1959. I played a lot of basketball on the Shafer court behind their house. George Shafer was in the construction business.

Two families named Anderson lived across the street from each other on opposite corners of Ave C and Griffin. On the west corner lived Russ and Myrt Anderson (Betty, BHS ’62; Jacque, BHS '67; Delores "Dee Dee" '69 ). Russ owned the GP Sporting Goods store and had been a great basketball player in his youth. He played with the House of David, a team which toured with the Harlem Globetrotters. I remember him always with a cigar in his mouth. On the east corner lived the Loren Anderson family (Jarvis, BHS ’59).

A short distance up Griffin north of Ave C across from the tennis courts lived the Priess family (Bill, BHS ’59) Bill had two older sisters, Beverly, BHS '55 and DeLores, BHS '51.

In roughly one square block lived sixteen families that I have been able to name and between twenty and thirty children.  It was a lively neighborhood in the evenings, on the weekends, and during the summer months. I knew most of these kids. We were all within a few years of each other in age. Bill Priess and Andy Shafer were fraternity brothers of mine at UND.

This exercise of naming most of the families who lived within a block of my home in Bismarck can teach us something about what has happened over the years to American society.  I have lived in the same house in Florissant, Missouri for almost twenty-five years and I would be hard pressed to tell you even the names of five of my neighbors in the whole subdivision, let alone any information about them, their children, and their lives. Yet I can sit down at a computer and write about a neighborhood where I lived over fifty years ago and accurately name and describe ninety percent of the families who lived within a radius of one block from my home. What has happened has been a steady erosion of real community. Television, computers, cel phones, ipads and ipods are the culprits in this unfortunate shift. They have encouraged Americans to become more and more self-absorbed.
 

Roosevelt School

            Every non-catholic child living on the west side of Bismarck in those days went to Roosevelt grade school.  It was located on a square block bounded on the west by Griffin St., on the east by Anderson, on the north by Ave B, and on the south by Ave A.  Roosevelt was a large brick structure which was built in either 1923 or 1925. It is difficult to make out the last number in the pictures of the old school that I have seen. I believe that 1923 is the correct date. It was named after President Theodore Roosevelt who is North Dakota’s favorite adopted son.

        The front entrance to the school faced to the east on Anderson Street. Who could ever forget lining up by class out in front of the school winter and summer and then filing in quietly & orderly to begin the day? The building had three floors which were used for classes, two upper and one lower. Every classroom had at least two walls of large windows going almost from the ceilings to a couple of feet above the floors. The ceilings were tall, at least ten feet. The classrooms each had a narrow cloakroom at the back with coat hooks along the walls. This was important. During the long, cold winters, everyone wore heavy coats and boots. We used to put on all that stuff and go outside during recess even in the winter. We played a lot of pom-pom-pull-a-way during recess on the Roosevelt playground.

            One of my earliest memories of the school is of watching Adolf the janitor, at the end of the school day, lower the American flag which flew on a pole near the front entrance. We were always suspicious of him. “Adolf” was not a popular name in the years immediately following World War II.

            The faculty during the years 1948-1954 when the class of 1960 was there - as near as I can remember (with some assistance) - was made up of the following teachers: Miss Maxwell, first grade; Mrs. Fremming, second grade; Maude Schroeder, Principal & third grade; Mrs. Hamilton, fourth grade; Ruth Cordner, fifth grade; and the sixth grade was jointly taught by Evan Berg & Mrs. Martha Rule. Mrs. Rule also taught music to all classses.

            Roosevelt was torn down during the late 1960’s and replaced with a featureless, windowless cube. There’s a message there! I suppose that I am prejudiced but the old Roosevelt was imposing. It looked like something. When the announcement was made that the Bismarck Public Schools were planning to tear it down and replace it with a new building, the reason given was that the old building had structural problems. That was a laugh! One of my friends’ father commented that he would bet that it could withstand a direct hit from an A bomb. 

 

The Elks Pool

      The topography of Bismarck is a gradual slope from north to south toward the river. When you are going north in Bismarck, you are ascending and going south, you are descending. During the summers in the early 50’s, we spent a great deal of our time at the Elks Pool. We talked about walking down to the pool. It was located west of Washington on Broadway just to the south of Custer Park (I will comment on the park later). There was a Dairy Queen east of Washington on the north side of Broadway. Remarkably, it is still there today doing business. During July and August (the hot months), I think that every kid in Bismarck who didn’t play baseball was at the Elks Pool. It was before air conditioning and television. I think the pool opened about one o’clock. The season ticket holders were admitted first and then those who were paying. I can’t remember the price of admission. The pool in the early 1950’s was managed by Charles Denton, the Bismarck Demons football and track coach. He was a legend in his own time. After he retired, he was followed by Ed Agre another character who was well known to us. He was a history teacher at the junior high school. Students of his who forgot to bring their history notebooks to class had to wear them around their necks on a string. I remember one day at the pool when Roger Sundahl and Dave Thompson (both class of 61) appeared in two piece swimming suits, similar to what men used to wear one hundred years ago. Ed Agre called them into the pool office and asked them, “Haven’t you forgotten the skirts for those outfits.” He was a real card.

Back to the Elks Pool! On the north end of the pool, the shallow end, there was a gradual slope into the water. There was a rope at two feet and another at four feet. You couldn’t go past the four foot rope until you had proven to a lifeguard that you could swim. On the south side of the pool (the deep end) were the diving boards. One got to the high boards by climbing up a ladder on the side of a small building which housed the pool filtration system. The roof of the building was tar and it was hot on your feet. The bigger kids used to climb up there and hang out, as they say today. Intermittently, the lifeguards would call everyone out of the water for a rest period. I can remember lying on that concrete on the south side of the pool baking in the sun. My dermatologist tells me that over exposure to the sun when I was young is the cause of the several skin cancers on my nose, face and ear which I had had to have removed. Occasionally in the early 50’s the pool would be closed for a while because of polio outbreaks. Polio was a scary reality in those days. Remember iron lungs! That was another bullet that I dodged in my life. My father told me after I was grown that he was convinced that I had had a very mild case of polio when I was young.   

In the mid-50’s I joined the Bismarck Swim Club which practiced at noon at the Elks Pool. It was coached by Mel Cook who was another real character. He was originally from Portland, Oregon and had come to Bismarck to attend BJC. Other members of the team (that I can remember) were Larry Kocon, Sam Anderson, Judy Johnson, Vicki Dillavou, Judy Priskie, Mark Williams, Jane McClung, and Jean Danroth. Sam Anderson was a terrific swimmer. He rarely lost a race in his specialties, the crawl & the backstroke. He was a very strong athlete. Tragically, Sam took his own life during our senior year.

 

Custer Park

       Custer Park just to the north of the pool was another place that I also liked. It was two blocks long extending from Rosser to Broadway. It was bisected in the middle by Thayer Ave. Ron Vantine lived in a house on the south side of Thayer just west of the park. Erik Saxvik lived on the east side of the park; Carol Atkins lived next door to Erik. In those years, I “liked” Linda Eastman as we used to say. Her family and mine were good friends. Her father in the early 50’s wrote the “Browsing Around” column on the front page of the Bismarck Tribune. Linda lived on Rosser just a short distance west of the north end of the park. Sadly, Linda died of a viral infection in January, 2000. I can remember playing in that park a lot. The funny thing about Custer Park is that there was literally nothing to do there except enjoy the surroundings. There was no play ground equipment, no water fountain, no tables for picnics. There was just an asphalt path which snaked through the whole length of the park with an occasional park bench. Once when I was trying to show off for Linda, I attempted to hurdle one of those benches, caught my foot, and almost broke my right arm. It was swollen for weeks. The park is still there. For some reason not immediately apparent to me, the city several years ago put up a large bronze sculpture of an eagle. It is out of place.  It doesn’t fit the surroundings!

The World War Memorial Building

     Earlier in this reflection I mentioned the World War Memorial Building. I stepped into it a few years ago and I had a funny feeling as I looked at the gym. Most of us spent a lot of time in that building. It brought back memories. All those basketball games! My earliest memories of watching games there go back to 1953. The Demons had a great team that year consistng of the following players: Bill Brunsoman, Dean & Gene Koon, Ev Miller, Craig Dela Barre, George Carmen, Marv Weisenberger, Frank Hook, and Lyle Bushnell. They won the state championship in 1953 beating St. Mary’s in the title game. How sweet it was! Marsh Murdoch was the Bismarck coach and St. Mary’s was coached by Father Blain Cook. The Bismarck-St. Mary’s games at the Memorial Building in the 50’s were unbelievable! The emotion and screaming would almost lift off the roof. I would bet that the temperature in the building would rise 10-15 degrees during those games. At the end of the game, people would leave completely drained, some crying. It was the ultimate rivalry! No discussion of Bismarck basketball is complete without noting that Bismarck won three state championships when we were in high school: 1957, 1958, & 1959. It is an accomplishment that has never been equaled. We were fortunate to see a lot of great basketball in the Memorial Building.  

     The building was also used for countless other events. Early in the 50’s, I can remember seeing Roy Rogers (with Trigger) and Dale Evans perform there. I took Linda Eastman to see the Harlem Globetrotters there in the early 50’s.  I even have a dim memory of seeing the Three Stooges standing out in the front lobby after they appeared in a show there. I came down to the World War Memorial Building to take my driver’s test after I turned 14. We attended Teen Canteen downstairs there. Remember Sgt. Mack Thompson and his attempts to crush all the boys’ hands in his grip and smack us on the hand with his blackjack. To top off the decade, our high school graduation ceremony was there in May of 1960.

The funniest thing I ever saw at the Memorial Building occurred during our senior year. The Bismarck High Concert Band directed by Gordon Knaak was presenting their annual concert and I was sitting in the balcony on the north side. At the end of the concert as the band hit its final triumphant & very loud note, Ralph Vinje who was playing the tuba toppled off the rear of the band stand, chair and all, and landed on his back with the tuba still wrapped around him I can still see Gordon Knaak standing there a few minutes after the concert talking to Ralph, an incredulous look on his face and shaking his head in disbelief. Poor Ralph! He was killed in an automobile accident outside of Bismarck shortly before our 50^th reunion.

The last event I saw in the Memorial Building was the Lawrence Welk Orchestra  in the 1960’s. Shortly thereafter, the Civic Center was built and the Memorial Building passed into a sort of oblivion. When you go in and look around now, it seems so small. The Bismarck Auditorium (now “Belle Mehus City Auditorium) was next door to the south. Across the street was the Covered Wagon Bar and, I believe, Nelson’s Trading Post and the Hobby Shop. For many years, Schneider’s Standard Service Station (and I mean service!) was to the north on the corner. The Bismarck Public Library was in those early years located, I believe, on the southeast corner of Sixth and Thayer across the street from the gas station. Ah, memories!

The Northern Pacific Railroad Depot 

  Many of us back in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s were fascinated by trains. I know that I was in awe of them. In the days before the interstate highway system, a great deal of travel was done on trains. Bismarck was located on the Northern Pacific Railroad main line and was served by four passenger trains a day, both east and west. One of them was named the Mainstreeter. A fast train that came through at night was called the North Coast Limited. This was the train that had several Vista Dome cars which had observation seating on top. Traveling to a church youth convention in Jamestown in 1959, I can remember sitting up there at night and looking at the stars as the train rolled east across the prairies!

The NP Depot was located to the south of Main Street between Fourth & Fifth Streets. To the west of it was the Sears store.  The depot was set back a ways from Main Street and there was an open area there in front. There was a kind of street that looped around this area so that it was possible to drop people off at the entrance to the depot. Across Main Street to the north from west to east were the A.W. Woolworth Co., George Cristo’s Sweet Shop, the Capital Theater, a drug store, the Patterson Bar, and the Patterson Hotel. The old depot building is still there but it’s now a Mexican restaurant. At least they didn’t tear it down and put in a parking lot.

In the summer months of July and August before air conditioning and television -  on some nights when it was just too hot to sleep - my parents would load us up in the car and we would go down to the depot to watch the east bound 10:20 train come through. I can remember that there always seemed to be a large crowd of people there doing the same thing we were doing, i.e. just watching the train come in and also seeing who was getting on and who was getting off. It almost seemed like a party. The arrival of the train was something to see and hear! When it pulled up in front of the station, there was a lot of noise and excitement: brakes squealing, steam hissing, bells clanging, lights flashing, and a loud whistle. After the train had stopped and people began getting off, some men from the depot would pull out those big green, wooden baggage carts and start unloading whatever needed to be taken off the train. There was a lot to see! It was a real slice of life in Bismarck. As the train prepared to leave, the conductor hopped up on the step at the end of the last car and shouted, “BOOAARRRRRDDD!!”

 A lot of people rode that night train down to Minneapolis. You rented a sleeping compartment, got on, went to bed, got up at 6:30 in the morning and got off in Minneapolis at 7:30am. What a great way to travel! Riding the train was a real adventure particularly for young people! I loved eating in the dining car. The funny thing about those days was the fact that people dressed up to ride the train.

One thing sticks in my mind about those trips down to the depot. SGT Walter “Mac” Thompson of the Bismarck Police was often there. He delighted in showing us kids some little statues that had been positioned in the corners of several of the walls on the south side of the building. I wonder if they are still there. Its funny what you remember.

The Fifties Briefly Considered!

            If you talk publicly today about the 1950’s as a “kinder, gentler time,” younger people act like you are just a nostalgic, old fool. People for some reason assume that what they call progress is always for the better. As I have reflected about the fifties in contrast to today, it is easily apparent to me at least that that assumption is far from true. It is interesting that when people are polled today about whether or not they think their children will have it better than they did, they say no. Hmmmmm! What happened to progress?

            There is a great deal of literature written about the 1950’s. One of the best and most extensive treatments of the subject is David Halberstam’s The Fifties. My favorite book on the subject is by a journalist named Alan Ehrenhalt. It is titled The Lost City: Rediscovering The Forgotten Virtues Of Community In The Chicago Of The 1950’s. What Ehrenhalt does is to contrast three areas in Chicago, i.e. what they were in the 50’s and what they had become by the 90’s. His observations are telling! In forty years, the three communities and their values changed dramatically and, in his opinion, not for the better. What he discovered in his research was that in American society three distinct and important changes had taken place. They were the following: 1) Choice is inherently good, the more we have of it the happier we are; 2) All authority is inherently suspect. Nobody should have the right to tell others what to think or how to behave; 3) Sin isn’t personal, it is social. Individual human beings are creatures of the society in which they live. Society is to blame, not the individual. And we wonder why people today are unable or unwilling to take personal responsibility for their own actions. Ehrenhalt wrote, “Growing up in the 1950’s, the Ten Commandments were just that: commandments. Today they are regarded as naïve suggestions.”

Obviously, there are both positive and negative sides to all these societal shifts which beg for some elaboration.  We have been front row spectators and even participants as these changes have occurred. Let me say that the 1950’s were a time of strong traditional values. Choices were limited and authority was respected. There was a strong sense of loyalty and commitment in the 1950’s. People in that era knew what sin was and that they were personally responsible for their actions. People looked to home, family, the church and the schools as places to ground and reinforce their values. The result was a strong sense of community, i.e. orderly, safe communities. I wonder how many of our classmates, looking back to their childhood years, have remarked that Bismarck was a wonderful place to grow up. It was a great place because of the secure community created by the strong traditional values and respect for authority. People who hear these arguments today often say defensively and derisively that we have idealized the 50’s and that it was not a perfect society. We all know that! But the reality is that there were also some very positive aspects about the American society of those years which made for that strong sense of community for which people today are yearning but will never have because they are unwilling to make the necessary tradeoffs. The bottom line is that strong communities have rules and boundaries which are enforced. People today want the community but are unwilling to follow the rules. They want to be free to make their own choices. Individualism drives everything. There is no accepted truth, only personal opinion. A disorderly, chaotic, often dangerous society is the result. The sad reality is that you can’t have it both ways.

Postscript: The most obvious problem with the issue of limited choice in the fifties in school was the fact that the girls had no opportunity to participate in competitive athletics. My sister Ann was the girls’ state tennis champion in 1967 and she did it on her own. There was no coach or girls’ team at BHS. We had some tall girls in our class who were good athletes. Thinking back on it, Carol Atkins and Rachel Christianson would have been terrific volleyball players. They sure knew how to play tackle football when we were at Roosevelt. When I see the pathetic tackling in the NFL, I often say that I played football in grade school with girls who could tackle better than that.