JUNIOR -SENIOR HIGH YEARS
I attended Baldwin Whitehall Junior –Senior High School located in Whitehall. Since I lived about six miles from the school, I rode the school bus. On my very first day of school, my brother and I started for the bus but we stopped first to call on Paul Tomko, a neighbor boy who lived about six houses up from us. He looked out his bedroom window and announced that he would only be a minute. About twenty minutes later, he appeared. My brother and Paul were in tenth grade at the time and seemed in no hurry to get to the bus. The bus was long gone by the time we got to the bus stop so they decided that we would walk the six miles to the school. We arrived well after school started and reported to the Vice-Principal’s office since he was responsible for attendance. His name was E.J. McGibbeny and he presented an imposing figure. He was about six feet two, with his hair combed straight back, and he wore a three-piece dark blue suit. His one eye was crossed so you weren’t sure if he was looking at you or not. Since it was my very first day at the school, he went easy on me, but he commenced to chastise Bob and Paul for setting a bad example for me. I decided that I didn’t want that to happen again, so I never waited for those two anymore.
It was during my junior high years that I started a strange habit on the school bus. George Always was a nice kid who was a year ahead of me in school and we frequently sat together on the bus. Most days, we would wrestle and punch each other and generally mess around as boys do. By the time we got to school, our shirts were out of our pants, our hair was a mess, and on a few occasions, blood was shed. After school, we would seek each other out to sit together and continue where we left off in the morning. Looking back now, it seems strange because we were good friends and enjoyed each other’s company.
I was short and thin during my junior high years. When I got measured for ninth grade basketball, I was only 5 ft. tall and weighed 100 lbs. There were two other boys on the team who were my height and they both ended up as adults at 5 ft. 6 in. In tenth grade, I was 5 ft. 7 in. and weighed 120 lbs. I had a growth spurt in that year that caused my knees to hurt. The doctor said that those were growing pains from rapid growth. By the time I graduated from high school, I was 6 ft. 1 in. tall and weighed 150 lbs.
In ninth grade, we had a very petite lady as our Algebra teacher. She was a veteran teacher who was always a tough disciplinarian. One day, Dorothy Vita, a fellow student in my class, got upset with her and told the teacher to, “ GO TO HELL”. Dorothy was a tough girl who didn’t back down to anyone, but even coming from her, it shocked everyone. Talking back to a teacher in our time was unheard of. Miss Kirkland further surprised us by running out of the room in tears. A few minutes later the Vice- Principal arrived and took Dorothy out with him. She remained calm as she left the room, but she was suspended for three days. We were more stunned by Miss Kirkland’s behavior than Dorothy’s outburst. Dorothy quit school in her sophomore year and we never heard from her again.
Starting in seventh grade, and continuing until we were seniors, our physical ed. instructors had a six- week unit on dancing. My older sister had taught me the basic two-step before I started school in seventh grade so I was one of three boys who had any experience with dancing. The approach was as follows: boys lined up on one side of the gym and the girls on the other. When the music started, you walked to the end and joined up with the partner who was directly opposite of you. After dancing for two songs, you got back in lines to start over getting a new partner. By the time we were freshman, a few of us figured how to beat the system. We would determine which girls we wanted to dance with, and arrange ourselves in our line to match up with the right girls. Occasionally, we miscalculated and had to either jump ahead of someone or graciously let some innocent soul get in front of us at the last second. By the time we were seniors, we had perfected our technique so that it was rare that we danced with a girl we didn’t like.
Normally, in gym class, boys and girls classes were divided by a curtain that went from the ceiling to the floor. On more than a few occasions, four boys would grab Frank Kennedy (we renamed him Percy Tilman ) by the arms and legs while another boy would pull down his gym shorts leaving him only wearing a t-shirt and his jock strap. A sixth person would lift up the curtain and then he was literally tossed over to the girls’ side. A large scream would follow and Percy would come back over to the boys’ side hastily crawling under the curtain on all fours. This always happened during the start of class when our phys. ed. teacher was still policing the shower room of the class before us.
One time, we were studying first aid in gym class and at the end of the period when the teacher went in to start the showers, we jumped Percy and commenced to wrap gauze all over his body until he looked like a mummy. We left him there, helpless to move and went in to take our showers. The teacher discovered him at the start of the next class and about ten minutes later, a voice came over the P.A. telling every boy in the sixth period gym class to report to the office. Mr. McGibbeny tried to shake us down, but nobody cracked . After promising to never do that again, we were dismissed to go back to our regular class. Over the years since graduation, I have felt badly about my participation in bullying him and I told my friends that if he would ever come to a reunion, I would apologize to him. As you might suspect, he has never attended any of the class reunions.
These antics only started in my junior year after a new student from Johnstown (Wayne DiBartola) entered our school and led us down a different path. He was more mature than us and yet we were drawn to him. Two things that he introduced us to were poker and beer drinking. We would play poker day and night and in any venue. Our favorite spot was the library conference room. We would get excused from study hall to go to the library to work on some research paper. Once there, we would ask the librarian if we could use the conference room to work together. Instead, we would play poker with the money on the table. We felt safe there because the librarian was only about 4 ft. 8 in. so she wasn’t tall enough to see in the window on the door. One day, we were there, when we got caught red handed. Before we had a chance to gather the cards and money, coming through the door was the guidance counselor with a college representative who was going to use that room to talk to prospective seniors. The counselor was beet red with anger and embarrassment and told us to report to his office NOW. We lay low for awhile, but eventually returned to our favorite conference room.
Three stories come to mind when I think of Doc. Hathaway, our P.O.D teacher. She was a heavy- set woman with huge calves, which rubbed together when she walked. Her hair was mousy gray and pulled back in a bun and she wore shiny dresses every day. One day, we were studying Silas Mariner, and Doc. knelt down on the floor to demonstrate Silas counting his money. All went well until it was time to get back on her feet. She couldn’t, and no one knew whether to go to her rescue or let her struggle. Finally, a few of us helped her to get back on her feet. She was totally embarrassed. We had her first period so our buddies told us that she never attempted that in any other classes.
She drove a very old, drab gray Ford automobile and invariably, she would pull into a parking spot and after getting out of the car, would discover that she had gone over the front line about a foot or two. Rather than getting back into the car and restarting the engine, she would put her shoulder into the front grill and push the car back until it was behind the line. A sign on the spare tire attached to the trunk said,” Watch the Fords go by”.
Buzzy Reid sat in the first seat next to the door and one day he was bored so he reached over and knocked on the door. He then got up to answer the door and told Doc. that the following boys need to report to the office. It was basically most of our gang so we got up and went out into the hall figuring we were in some kind of trouble when Buzzy told us what really happened. Rather than go back after a little while, we went to the library to play some poker and never did return to class that day.
Our Poker playing got us into a lot of trouble with the administration. We were allowed to go off the school property to eat at a local restaurant/ gas station that was located on Rt.51. However, one of our gang, (Tony Lisanti) lived directly across Rt.51 and his parents were never home because they ran the family business. As soon as lunch- time came, we literally ran down the front lawn and over the hill to his house. We would quickly gobble up our lunch and commence playing poker. Many days, Mr.McGibbeny was seen chasing us and yelling for us to come back, which we ignored. Some days, we were late getting back for our next class and we then had to report to Mr. M. He could not figure our gang because he would tell us that usually the trouble- makers in classes were the bad actors but we were the leaders of our class. I was president of the class, Sam Parinella was treasurer, Wayne was president of student government, and many of the gang were the athletes of the class. Since the games were held at Tony’s house, Mr. McGibbeny (aka. E.J.) assumed that he was the ring leader. Many years after we graduated, E.J. ran into Wayne and asked, “Did that Lisanti boy ever get straightened out”? We all laugh because Tony was one of the more serious members of our gang even then and later became the president / CEO of a 700 employee company.
In both our junior and senior years, we played hooky for our “Old Soldiers” outing at South Park in the spring. We would arrive from different areas on the busses and then commence to get into the bed of Scrappy Ross’s truck. Scrappy was the only black member of our class and he was a popular member of our group. Scrappy died while in his fifties. Once we were all on board, we drove to South Park. We played poker most of the day and drank a few beers that Scrappy brought along since his family owned a bar/restaurant. As we finished a bottle we would throw it into a nearby creek and say, “There goes another dead soldier,” hence the name given to the outing. When it was time, we headed back to school so that each of us could catch our bus. The next day, we brought an excuse from home usually written by some of the girls we knew well. The group that attended were the following: Wayne DiBartola, Sam Parinella, Dick Kording, Joe Scrabis, Buzzy Reid, Tony Lisanti, Scrappy Ross, Harold Steiner and I. I don’t want to leave you believing that we were heavily into drinking, in fact, it was our custom to only drink one Rolling Rock beer (pony bottle) at night when we were just hanging out.
One of the few times that habit was violated was when I had a party in our family basement. I had painted the concrete floor so the basement would look better, never realizing that the gang would decide to play football with their suits on. It wasn’t long that we noticed red paint on most of their clothes The boys got a little wasted and they had to sleep at my house rather than risk driving. They lay sideways on the bed and a few on the floor but they never even noticed. I remained sober, so at the end of the evening, I had to drive all the girls home
Before Bill Green’s shopping center was created, it was a nightclub. On warm nights, we would climb up a tree overlooking the fence to watch the live entertainment. One particular night, The Sons of the Pioneers were performing when two tough guys from Clairton tried to climb the tree but we had them occupied. They then commenced to stand on the bed of their truck trying to see over the fence but the fence was too high. Then they started to ask us to give up our spots but Harold Steiner and I ignored them but Tony got agitated and climbed down to confront them. Big Mistake!!!!! A few words were exchanged and out of nowhere, Tony got punched in the mouth. It was bleeding profusely so we had to take him to the doctors to get stitched up. Once we left, they climbed up the trees that we had to vacate to take care of Tony.
One day, Harold called me to ask if I wanted to join him in painting Granny Rizzo’s wooden frame house. His brother–in–law owned a hardware store in Brentwood and he contracted to have it painted. We were excited to get the job as spending money was hard to pass up. Things were going fine until we were painting the back of the house three stories high with the concrete driveway directly underneath. Harold was painting on the left side on one ladder and I was on the right side on a different ladder. He reached as far to his right as he could, and I reached as far to the left as I could but there was about six inches that neither of us could reach. Since he was right –handed, he felt he could stretch a little farther and paint the six- inch area. As he started to do that, his ladder started to lean toward me and it soon banged into my ladder and we both were now sliding along the wooden surface. Fortunately for us, there was a downspout at the end of the house and it stopped us from falling onto the concrete below. Since we were on an angle, there was no way for us to climb down so we started to yell as loudly as we could. A neighbor man heard us and got two other men and they steadied the ladders so that we could climb down. Our hearts were in our mouth so we decided to quit for the day. We then went to Brentwood Park to lie on the grass and thank God for saving us. The next day, we went back and eventually finished the job with no more incidents.
Before permanent football lighting was popular, my dad and a friend co-owned a portable lighting company and during my high school years, I worked for them. Once I got my driver’s license, I would drive the truck to that night’s game and along with a neighbor, commence to drop the poles off at the appropriate yard markers. My dad and his partner worked a regular job and would soon arrive and together we would place the poles and attach the lights. It took about two hours to put the lights up and then we would go to eat prior to the teams and fans arriving. The generator was on the truck so as the fans are coming in, we had the lights very low but right before game time, we kicked it up to full power. The crowd would ooh and aah since the field looked so bright. After the game was over, we would take everything down, load it on the truck, and head for home ready to go to another field the next night. One night while killing time after dinner before the fans arrived, my dad’s partner, Ben, and I got into a discussion as to who would win a fifty yard race. Ben was about 40 years old and I was 17. Egged on by the other guys, we lined up at the fifty- yard line and raced to the goal line. I beat him by at least five yards but the guys called it a tie. Ben believed them and challenged me to go again and this time, I beat him handily. It took him about five minutes to get his breath after the race. They sold the business in 1954 when schools were just beginning to get permanent lights.
Tony’s family had a fruit and vegetable store in the Hill District and every year, they would go on a vacation for a week, leaving Tony and me to run the store. We had a blast dealing with the hard- core patrons. When I thought I was being generous by adding the thirteenth item for a dozen, they would try to sneak another one into the bag. It was quite a sight with the narrow street with different vendors, sights and sounds. We brought old Tony (a man that Tony’ dad brought over from Italy ) to help but he was usually found in the basement of the store drinking wine and not tending to his chores. I always looked forward to that week and still remember it fondly.
One of my biggest disappointments in high school was being cut from the varsity basketball team. What made me feel worse was that the team had a record of 0 wins and 21 losses in our senior year and I knew I could play better than half of them. Most of the players were football players and some were part of our gang. Instead, I played for my church team in a men’s league. Most of the guys on our team were in their late twenties or early thirties so I was easily the youngest person on the team. One man had played at Kent State and he felt that I could play there so he arranged for me to try out in the spring of my senior year. As you know, this approach to recruiting prospective players has since been banned by the NCAA. The day I was to try out, he, his wife young baby and I drove to Kent and three of the four of us were not feeling well. I had a good day in spite of my illness and decided to go to Kent State to play basketball. I will elaborate more on that story in the next chapter.
Some of our gang formed a club and we called ourselves “The Saints”. To better identify who belonged, we bought Kelly green varsity type jackets trimmed in white with the name emblazoned on the back.The members consisted of Tony Lisanti, Dick Kording, Harold Stiener, Howard Rall, Joe Scrabis, Dick Phillips, Dick Call, Dick Steele, and I. We would play basketball against other club teams and one game we played against Jack Twyman, who later was an all pro player in the NBA. To demonstrate our displeasure for not keeping any of us on the varsity team, we had a ritual every time the team had a home game. We would shoot pool until we thought the second half of the game would have gotten under way and we would walk into the gym single file, look at the scoreboard, note that our team was losing, and then walk by the coach shaking our head back and forth to let him know that he kept the wrong people on the squad. As the game was near the end, we would leave our seats, walk past the coach again, and shake our head in disgust and out the door we went. I am sure that his anger rose with each additional game that they lost.
We all belonged to the Hi-Y that met one night a month to play basketball, volleyball, or soccer and the basketball coach was the sponsor of the organization. I think he wanted to teach the Saints a lesson because he agreed to accept our challenge to play his varsity at a Hi-Y meeting. However, we got our revenge by beating the varsity by a 52-51 score. I scored 19 points and Harold Steiner scored 21. We took great delight in razzing the varsity members in our gang. Many years later, I met the assistant coach and he told me that the head coach took some heat from other faculty members for cutting Harold and me while keeping some football players who weren’t very good basketball players.
While I lived in Baldwin, I actually lived closer to Carrick than the high school that I attended. My family went to Lutheran Redeemer Church and I had another circle of friends there. By the time I was in my Junior year of high school, a few of my church friends and I decided that we needed to expand our date possibilities so we embarked on a bold game plan. We would go to Sunday School but instead of going to church immediately following, we would take off to a different church to scope out the girls of that church. Aside from our stated goal, I learned much about the different religions. A few of my observations are as follows:
1. Methodists are the worst preachers because they read the sermon.
2. Lutheran ministers are not good preachers either.
3. Presbyterian ministers preach the best sermons and rarely looked at their notes.
4. Baptists are the most vocal as members shout out whenever they are so moved.
5. Episcopalians are the most structured of all of the protestant religions.
We continued this ritual through our junior and senior years visiting many different churches of various denominations. I wonder if the stereotypes from those days are still relevant today.
I dated many girls in high school but I was never seriously involved with any of them. The one girl who captured my attention the most was Eileen Erskine, a bright, attractive, energetic girl who had many suitors vying for her attention. She was very popular with our classmates as they voted her, Senior Queen. She usually dated older guys but I was the only member of our class that she went out with. I took her to the senior prom and dated her occasionally during my freshman year in college. I was attending Kent State at the time and she went to PCW ( Chatham ) so we didn’t get together very often. I came home for Easter vacation to find out that she was getting married to a mortician. A few years later she was chosen Mrs. Pennsylvania.
Many of our gang still live in the Pittsburgh area and we get together once a month to play poker. The members from our gang are Tony Lisanti, Wayne DiBartola, Sam Parinella, Buzzy Reid, and I. Dick Kording and Harold Steiner were regular players until they moved out of the area so we now have two replacements. Besides our monthly games, we go on a golfing – poker outing once a year for three days. We refer to it as the GIGAPO which stands for Germans and Italians Golf and Poker Outing. In our early days, there was much attention given to the rivalry between the Germans and the Italians but as we have aged, we are content to just play golf and mixing up the teams. One year at the awards ceremony, I got dressed up as a German General wearing an authentic uniform complete with hat and medals. I got many strange looks from people as I walked across the parking lot to the meeting room. We have been playing poker for over 50 years and we still enjoy the game and the fellowship that exists among the gang.
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