The following was found
folded up in the bottom of a moldy box of junk. It was truly a priceless gift to me. Now I know why my father wanted so desperately
to have the priest come to hear his last confession! This is a side of my father I never really
knew. I couldn’t help but smile in
amazement as I read his words obviously written as a school assignment when he
was 19 years old. The assignment is labeled
as:
“Charles Fries
Aug- 13 -1935
Autobiographical Narrative”
Written in pencil on the front page is a note from his
Teacher. It says B+
which is then erased and then marked B
“good description in spots” (then
there is a word I can’t decipher) with “adequate” or does it say “inadequate”
(again the teacher’s handwriting is hard to read – I guess she marked a lot of
papers) presentation of your life. If the
word is inadequate then I have to agree because I wanted to read so much more
about his life. He doesn’t mention his
siblings, the circumstances of his birth, etc.
But what he wrote was a rare and amazing journey into who he was or at
least who he believed he was. I could
not help but think of “Huckleberry Finn”.
What follows in today’s Blog is page one. There are two plus pages to follow.
“While I attended grammar school, studies held no interest
for me. This was especially true during the period from the sixth to the
eighth grades. During this time I did no more school work than was
necessary to insure promotion, and often I did this only when threatened by the
teacher. In class I didn’t pay attention
and at home I rushed through my assignments.
While I was supposed to pay attention I was either working out some
scheme for passing notes undetected, or pondering over some elementary problem
connected with my hobby – electricity.
Outside the classroom I was much
more inclined to mischief. At home, two
other rascals and myself formed a “gang” which was not very popular with the
neighbors. We roamed about the vicinity
with our sling shots periling all alley cats, stray dogs (and some windows)
that came in sight. On other occasions
we annoyed the girls until their whole families were “after” us. One favorite practice was to take their
ribbons, rings, and such paraphernalia.
These things were returned only when the young ladies “paid” for
them. Needless to say, we never accepted
money but instead demanded something which made payment more agreeable to both
parties concerned. Although the girls
did not admit that they enjoyed “paying” for their articles, nevertheless this
was quite evident from the fact that they never failed to appear with such “takeables”. Whenever we grew tired of molesting man and
beast, and nothing more adventurous presented itself, we would hold a meeting
behind a large wood pile far in the rear of my yard. Here we usually filled our corn cob pipes
with saw dust or with dried grape vine leaves.
I had invented this new smoke since I had been forbidden to use tobacco……………..to
be continued
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