Lane

 

• I went to Lane Technical High School in Chicago, Illinois. I'm very proud of that school and that experience. I consider it a sacred place, almost like a religious holy place. A place to honor and love and cherish.
• When I showed up as a 100 pound freshman, it was a very intimidating place. It was an all boys school with an enrollment of over 5000 boys. My graduating class had more than 1200 students. The building was so large it never seemed crowded. We had four gyms. We had an olympic size swimming pool. We had an enclosed football stadium. We had football players that weighed more on average than players on the Chicago Bears.
• the building had four floors in the shape of an H with the odd room numbers on one side and the even numbers on the other.
• it was both a college prepairatory school and a vocational school. We had wood shop, electric shop, foundry, print shop, lithography, photography, metal shop, machine shop, welding, and auto shop.
• I thought I'd mention we were required to swim naked. We were required to shower and use soap and be inspected before we went in the pool. A "coach" would rub your skin to see if you were still dirty. I'm just glad the coaches weren't naked too. We had to prove we could swim two lengths of the pool before we could graduate.
• I still think that my high school class ring is the most attractive, well designed ring ever saw. Better looking and more meaningful than Super Bowl rings. I only had my ring a few months. I was proud of it. we were allowed to get our rings a junior year. The ring could be used like a hall pass that let you leave the school grounds during study hall. We used to go into the football stadium and sun ourselved on the bleachers.
• My brother Jimmy was in eighth grade and he came home from school and there were burglers in our house. Our front door was in a hallway; they used a crowbar and ripped the door frame apart.. My little brother just sat on the curb crying until I came home. The thieves took our television, my typewriter, my camera, and my high school ring. A month later we moved to the best appartment on Lakewood that we ever lived in. Some good came out ogf the burglery.
• My school was pristine, clean, well kept. We weren't allowed to walk on the grass and we had a lrage campus with large areas of grass; we weren't allowed in the garden in the center of the school; the halls were clean, the walls were clean, and the bathrooms were spotless. However, once in a while someone would write on the walls of the bathroom like the poem below, but it didn't stay there long!

He who writes

Upon these walls

Rolls his shit

In little balls

He who reads

These words of wit

Eats those little round 

Balls of shit

• I had great teachers who all loved America. They taught math, lauguage arts, shop and science. I feel blessed by their hard work. I wasn't a great student, but still, I learned a lot.