Senior Year Thomas M Parsons

5. Senior Year

Of course, in Oklahoma!, Judd Fry was not actually dead. He was just thinking about being dead as Curly sang to him. Curly was trying to convince Judd that people would be sorry if he were dead. “He looks like he’s asleep,” sang Curly. “It’s a shame that he won’t keep, but it’s summer, and we’re running out of ice.”

In the summer of 1958, it was not ice I was running out of. What I was running out of was time. Time to complete my high school career. Time to make my mark through the Railsplitter. Time to wonder what people would think of me if I were dead. Time to find an answer to my sin and guilt problem.

Four years is not a long time. It goes by quickly. We humans with our penchant for measuring and marking things think that one year, which measures one full revolution of the planet around the sun, is a significant amount of time. It is not. As a student at Lincoln Park High School, involved in the day to day classes and activities that marked my life there, one year did seem to have a certain substance to it. But in the long view of things, it was not much time at all. And as the summer of 1958 drew to a close, I began to realize how quickly my four years of high school were passing.

September came. It was the September of our senior year. In just nine months we would graduate from dear old LPHS and go out on our own to seek our fortunes. Lincoln Park was constructing a new high school building behind the one we were in, and we would probably be the last class to graduate from the old building.

I was back in my position as editor of the Railsplitter, and eager to lead my staff in recording this our senior year. In our first issue of that year, September 19, 1958, we welcomed seven new teachers to the LPHS faculty. I wrote an editorial urging students to order a copy of the Log, our school yearbook, Failure to do so, I warned, would cause the annual to go out of existence. I urged students not to “bury the Log in a grave of student apathy.” I did have a way with words, didn’t I?

In our second issue of that year, October 3, Sarah’s picture was on the front page along with seven other students, all of whom had been elected to the Student Union Board. Her picture with four other girls appeared on the front page of the next issue, dated October 17. The five girls were the nominees for Homecoming Queen for 1958. And, of course, her picture also appeared on the front page of the next issue, dated October 31. Sarah had been chosen Homecoming Queen. In my editorial for that issue, which was about how great our school was, I mentioned the crowning “of a very pretty queen.” But I am getting ahead of my story. It was that month, October of 1958, that something happened that Sarah had everything to do with, and nothing to do with.

When that senior year began, I decided to start attending the Voice of Christian Youth (VCY) club meetings. This presented a challenge. It meant that Dad had to get up earlier than usual and drive me to school. I could have driven myself, of course. I had a license. But I did not have a car. Our family had only one car, and Dad needed it to go to work. So he drove me to school early on those Friday mornings so I could attend the VCY meeting.

John, the yearbook signer, was there. So was Sarah. And other kids I knew. That other Sarah, the one who had been my partner in Mr. Hill’s class at Keppen, was there. In fact, I discovered that a large number of students were regular attenders at VCY club meetings.

There was music, songs I did not hear at the church I attended. They were all about Jesus and Who He was and what He came to do. Then there was a Bible study, led by a regional director of VCY from the group’s office in Detroit. The Bible study was always about how Jesus died for our sins, and that we could have forgiveness for sin if we would put our faith in Him. I knew I was a sinner. There was no doubt in my mind about that. No, like I said before, I didn’t drink or smoke or hang out with the bad girls or guys in school. I didn’t even swear. But I knew I was a sinner.

Once each month VCY held a rally in the Masonic Temple auditorium in Detroit. A bus would pick students up at the First Baptist Church on Fort Street. I decided to go. After all, Sarah would be there. But there was something more that was going on inside me.

It was awesome, to use a favorite word of teenagers. Music, skits and preaching filled the evening. There were more teenagers in one room than I had ever seen before. I was impressed.

At the close of the message, the speaker gave what I later learned was called the invitation. He asked teens from all over the audience to “come forward” if they wanted to receive Christ as their Savior. Many did. Very many did. I wanted to, but a mixture of reluctance and stubbornness held me back.

The bus trip home was noisy as any bus trip involving twenty or thirty teens must be. But inside my head, and my heart, I was thinking about what I had heard. It had been explained so clearly and so simply that I could understand it. I had never understood anything “religious” before. I figured religion was a matter of doing your best to please God by serving your fellow man. And, of course, it is. But this was not religion. This was Truth. This was Life. This was The Way.

I don’t think it was that night, but a few nights later when, in my own room late at night, I knelt down by my bed and asked Jesus Christ to be my Savior. I wanted to have this life that He offered, the life I saw in my friends from VCY. I asked Jesus to save me from my sin and its inevitable penalty. And on that October night in 1958 I became a new creature in Jesus Christ.

I had been told by the VCY speakers that when a person accepts Christ by faith, he does become a new person. Things begin to change. They did.

My editorials in the Railsplitter changed. Before, I had often used sarcasm and rudeness to make a point. You remember my comment to the person who had said we had the “rottenist” newspaper. Here is what I believe to be my first editorial written after I accepted the Lord as my Savior. It appeared in the October 17, 1958 issue.

If a newspaper is to continue to be successful, it must satisfy the desires of the majority of its readers. This applies to every paper from high school publications to “big city dailies.” We must publish what the majority of our readers want to read.

However, before we can do this, we must find out what their likes and dislikes are. For this purpose, we have a suggestion box located in the cafeteria just inside the main doors.

So, remember, this is YOUR paper, our job is to satisfy YOU and no one else. Let us know if there’s something — a feature, policy, style, etc. — that you especially like or dislike. We’re open for constructive criticism — constructive in that it will improve your paper. And we’re always looking for articles written by non-staff members. Just remember that suggestion box in the cafeteria and fill it with your comments and suggestions to help make your Railsplitter exactly the kind of paper you want to read.

Wow! That was new. No “go to some other school where the paper is better.” No “maybe you will learn there is no such word as rottenist!” Just an honest seeking of input from our readers. And in the issue that featured Sarah’s Homecoming Queen victory, my editorial spoke of all the good things about our school. “What a wonderful school dear old LPHS is,” I wrote.

Then I took up the crusade for all students, faculty and parents to take more precautions for safety, especially in the morning at the Lafayette-Champaign crossing in front of our school. “Let’s keep our safety record clean.”

But then, in November, my new enthusiasm for things spiritual ran into its first challenge. Our faculty advisor rejected an article I had written for the Railsplitter about a VCY rally.

VCY had shown a film at its November 14 rally. The film was entitled Silent Witness. It was the story of a young Christian who had promised God he would tell others about the Lord, especially a close friend of his. But he failed. He lacked the courage to speak to his friend and let several opportunities pass. Then his friend was injured in a football game and died. Not a great plot, I suppose, but it worked for me.

For my news article about the rally, I had written much detail about the Gospel, and about how Christ does change lives. I had written about attending a VCY rally where many teens had come forward to give their lives to Christ. I even wrote what a joy it was to see so many “new Christians.”

Well, it was all too much for our advisor. He said I would have to rewrite the article. He also said that he was surprised I would write something as — I think the term he used was - syrupy as what I had written. The article appeared, but it was more who, what, where, when, and not much why.

Nowadays, I would not get away with even what I wrote back then. In fact, VCY would be challenged in its use of the public high school’s facilities today. It was not then. But I had hit a sore spot with the advisor, and I was censored for the first time.

But that encounter did not discourage me from deeper involvement in VCY and in my own spiritual life. I began reading the Bible and praying on a daily basis. It also did not discourage me from writing further about the gospel in the Railsplitter. This article is from the December 23, 1958 issue, our Christmas issue. Schools were still allowed to refer to Christmas, and to call the winter break the Christmas break. Would you believe, our masthead for that issue, printed in green and red, carried the phrase at the top of the page, “Put Christ Back Into Christmas?” I wrote the following article, and received no challenge from our advisor. He really was a good man, but he did have responsibilities and could not allow me to offend too many people. Here is what I wrote that our advisor allowed to be published in that issue:

There was no room for Him in the inn. It was too crowded with travelers staying in Bethlehem because of Caesar Augustus’ tax. He had to be born in a stable, and wrapped in swaddling clothes, and sleep in a manger. A very humble beginning for a Prince.

But was it so humble? Did not the animals sense the specialness of that night? Did not a star guide three wise men to the place? And did not a group of shepherds nearby find themselves confronted by a multitude of heavenly angels all praising God for the wonderful event that had just taken place?

Why had He come? What was His purpose? Who had sent Him? Surely the world was in no situation to need saving. Weren’t the people happy? Weren’t they satisfied? So they had sinned a little. What did it matter?

It mattered to Him. It mattered to His Father Who was hurt very deeply every time one of His creatures sinned, hurt because He loved the world He had made and the people He had made so much — loved them enough to give them His only Son.

But there was no room for Him in the inn. The people didn’t know — they didn’t care. He had come to save them, but they did not care.

And Mary, His mother, how she pondered these things in her heart. Why had God chosen her? What about Joseph, her husband? What of her Son, lying there in the manger? How had it all happened?

She thought of the Angel who had come to her and said, “The Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.” She thought of the innkeeper, who had said, “Sorry, there’s no room here.”

There was no room for our Savior Jesus Christ at His birth. Let us make room for Him now in our hearts. We need Him. In a world of darkness, He is our only light.

Now, lest you think I was a new Christian just taking advantage of my position as editor of the school paper, let me point out that other articles and poems, written by other students also appeared in that issue, all with the theme of the true meaning of Christmas. Such articles also appeared in previous Christmas issues, before I joined the staff. We even had and could report on Baccalaureate services. We had true freedom of the press then. We could write about things that were important to us, even our relationship with Christ, and not be told that it was illegal to do so.

I continued to grow in my faith in Christ. And I continued to be attracted to Sarah, but from a distance. She was still a very popular girl on campus. I was not in her crowd. Yet, she was not stuck-up. She was not unreachable. She was a really caring person. She was, after all, a Christian, like I now was. Perhaps my new-found faith in Christ would make me more attractive to her, more noticeable to her.

Now, I do not wish to imply that I had become a Christian only to increase my chances with Sarah. That is simply not the way it happened. I became a Christian because God convinced me of the truth of His Word. He used Sarah, but He also used many others to bring me to faith in Him. But since I had faith in Him, I now had something in common with her, something I had not had before. Perhaps something would come of it.

After my big Christmas issue, I continued to write for and edit the Railsplitter. I also helped to organize a discussion club. John, my old friend was also one of the founders of that club. Our

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stated purpose, an article in the January 20, 1959 issue states, was “to discuss topics of general importance and interest to the members, thereby stimulating the thinking power of those who participate.” I was elected treasurer of the club. John was the president.

When the second semester of our senior year arrived, I was still editor of the paper, but Kelly also wanted to be and was qualified to be editor, and, since this was also her senior year, it would be her only opportunity. Our advisor made us co-editors. Kelly and I hit it off, not romantically, but “professionally.” We worked hard together to improve the newspaper. That is until the week we ran out of things to print.

The February 20, 1959 issue was the one for which we had the problem. We had an article about the newly-elected junior class officers. That took up a little more than a fourth of the page, and that included a photo. We had an article about the Future Teachers of America initiation. Together with the junior class officers story, we had half the front page covered. But what about the other half? Two long columns sat there staring at us, empty and devoid of copy, daring us to fill them.

We often received press releases from various organizations seeking free publicity in school newspapers. One such press release had a local slant. One of our reporters, Eileen, had had an opportunity to interview popular singer Pat Boone. She was one of several reporters from different area schools who were given the opportunity to interview Boone. She was not able to ask many of her own questions, however, because of the presence of so many other student journalists, so we had not considered an article possible. But we had the press release, including a photo of Boone talking to a teenage boy. The fact that we did not know the boy, since he was not from our school, did not matter, now that we were desperate.

We had Eileen write up the story, taking the information from the press release. She did an excellent job, and her article along with the photo filled the other half of the front page for that issue. For the rest of our senior year, Kelly and I had several good laughs over the time we were short of copy for the front page.

On the front page of the May 7, 1959 Railsplitter, I had an article about the election of officers for VCY for the fall. Next to the article was a photo of two Sarahs: my Sarah (although she never was my Sarah) and another Sarah, both of whom were in the Flamingoes show Midway Magic that was coming up as one of the last events of the school year. I made sure I was present when the photo was taken by our intrepid staff photographer, Henry. Standing next to the pool in true flamingo fashion, that is, with one leg up and the foot resting on the other knee, Sarah and Sarah posed in their bathing suits. I would not be able to take Sarah to this presentation — she was in it. She probably would have found some reason to refuse if she had not been in it and I had asked her. But something was beginning to happen to my feelings for Sarah. I still thought much of her; she was a great friend and I believe sincere in her faith in the Lord. But she was not for me. I began to slowly realize this as the school year drew to a close. But, she still looked great in that bathing suit! What can I say? I liked girls then, I like girls now!

We all had senior pictures to exchange. We wrote little messages on the back the way students always do. On the back of my picture to Sarah I thanked her for putting up with me on the one date we had. On the back of her picture to me she encouraged me to keep treading the path I had trod, a reference to my new-found faith in Christ.

But something was coming, and we all knew it. The days, the weeks, the months were flying by, and soon we would not be at LPHS any more. We would be graduates.

I suppose students everywhere for decades have looked forward to graduation, but were hesitant about it. It is such a poignant time in most young people’s lives. For four years — I called them four fabulous years in one of my editorials — we had been together. We had worked together, we had struggled through Shakespeare together, we had laughed, cried, shared, enjoyed and encouraged one another. We had so many memories. And soon, perhaps too soon, it would be over.

Before it was over, a major change took place in my friend John’s life. He came to school one morning tired and worried-looking. We were in the same homeroom, and our alphabetically organized homerooms along with our last names put us in proximity to each other. I asked him what was wrong.

He told me that during the night he had been awakened by a noise, and upon investigating found his uncle lying on the floor in a pool of urine. He had suffered a stroke. There was no 911 to call in the fifties, but an ambulance was summoned, and a priest, and John’s uncle was taken to the hospital unconscious. Some time later he died.

Just before our senior year was to come to an end, John and I decided we needed summer jobs. Neither of us had wheels of our own, so we spent one whole day walking from John’s house near Fort Street in Lincoln Park, all the way to downtown Detroit, a distance of approximately twelve miles. It took us a couple of hours to make the trip. About halfway we stopped at a convenience store and each of us purchased and drank a half-gallon of milk.

Downtown, we went to several businesses, including the Detroit Free Press. I was interviewed by someone in personnel, and I filled out an application form. The man asked me why I wanted to work for the Free Press. I said I thought it was the more liberal paper in town. I am not certain he liked that answer. I really did not know what the difference was between a liberal paper and a conservative one. I just thought more newspapers wanted to be known as liberal than conservative. At any rate, I have never worked for the Free Press at any time in my whole life, liberal or conservative it may be.

After applying at several businesses, John and I decided to take the bus back to Lincoln Park. The bus stopped a few feet from John’s house. I had another mile to walk before I would get home.

And I had one more conflict involving the free press ahead of me before graduation came. I had become a frequent patron of the local public library. I checked out books and classical music recordings. Then the library instituted a new policy. The music room and the recordings were marked for “Adults Only.”

It is not that they involved “mature” content. That was not the issue. The director of the library simply wanted to protect the library’s resources from teenagers who might not take care of those resources properly. I wrote an editorial asking the library to reconsider this new policy. I argued that it was not a good idea to discourage teens who were developing a real interest in cultural resources. I made a suggestion that the library could issue cards to interested persons and allow use of the music facilities only to those who had a card. It all made sense to me, and, I thought, was presented in a fair and respectful manner in my editorial.

But the librarian took exception to my position. He said I should have come to talk to him first before putting it in the school newspaper. He said he would not change the policy. He said that there were reasons for the policy that I had not addressed in my editorial because I was not aware of them. That was probably true. But I stood by my editorial then. I stand by it now, although I suppose the point is now moot, since I no longer reside in Lincoln Park, and as far as I know the library no longer has that policy, and I would definitely qualify as an adult now anyway. Besides, now music is in digital media, not on delicate vinyl phonograph records.

The May 29 edition of the newspaper was done by the Journalism I staff, the people who would take over the production of the paper in the fall. They were our replacements. Their issue was well-put together, and it featured a half-page reproduction of the architect’s drawing of the new Lincoln Park High School which would open in the fall of 1960. We would not be the last class to graduate from the old building; we would be the second to the last class. It would be the class of 1960 that would have the honor of being the first class to graduate from the new school. But we had to graduate first.

“327 Park Students to Graduate Tomorrow Evening,” screamed the headline across the top, over the masthead, of the June 9, 1959 issue. It was the last issue that would carry my name. It also carried my picture, along with eight other graduating staff members.

That issue also contained the senior wills. Three hundred and twenty-seven of us had our last words published there in the pages of the Railsplitter. George, the fellow who had been paddled by Mr. Hill at Keppen, willed “all my good times” to a friend. Jean, a Christian girl from VCY whom I occasionally had lunch with in a small group of believers, willed her ability to get through her senior year to her sister, Janet, whom I did not yet know. But I would.

Jack, who had been the other assistant editor of the Keppen Chronicle willed his ability to “type seven words a minute” to his sister. Rachel, the girl I had a crush on in seventh grade, willed her height “to my bigger, (little) sister.” Sarah, who had been my partner in Mr. Hill’s class at Keppen, willed her ability “to keep a clean locker” to her brother.

My fellow editor and student advisor and discussion club member John said he “don’t got much to will to nobody — except my gooder grammar and like that.” John did have a sense of humor.

And Sarah, the girl I had pursued unsuccessfully for two years, and who had been used of the Lord to bring me to Himself, willed her “ability to pass solid geometry to my brother, Dan.”

And me? Well, some of my old sin nature came out a little in the pride that was revealed in my will. I wrote: “I, Tom Parsons, will my job as editor of the Railsplitter to any journalism novice who possesses the talent.” It was hard to give up what I had achieved.

Wednesday, June 10 came. “It was a dark and stormy night,” to quote the famous dog who started all his typed stories that way. Amidst thunder and lightning, but no rain until afterwards, we each in turn crossed the platform set up on the football field with the new high school looming behind us and received our diplomas. Because of the proximity of our names alphabetically, Sarah, that is, Sarah my partner from Keppen, and I walked together. After graduation, Sarah and I congratulated each other with a hug, and her fiancé came and congratulated us, and they walked off the field together.

And it was over. They were gone from my life for good. There are a few whom I have seen since that Wednesday night. But not many.

The LPHS class of ‘59 has had several reunions over the years. I was living in Illinois at the time of the first two and was unable to attend. The third one occurred when I was living in Ohio, but I could not attend. But a booklet was distributed telling about as many of the graduates as information could be found for.

Had we known what life would bring to each of us in the nearly fifty years since we walked across the platform, would we have been as eager as we were to embark on life’s course? Yes. Without a doubt. But perhaps because we did know that some of it would not be pleasant, we hesitated. If we could hold on just a few more seconds to our good experiences, and especially to our friends, we would do it.

I came to Lincoln Park High School a timid, shy little boy with no certain future. I left as a young man who had more than a future. I left as a young man who had the Lord.

Life is full of hellos and goodbyes. We say both all the time. In an editorial early in my senior year, I wrote:

An era is about to end — an era which saw a bashful, awkward boy turn into a sensible, level-headed young man; or a giggling, swooning girl become an intelligent, serious-minded young woman. Four years ago [we] were high school freshmen — a group of children taking their first lesson in adulthood; a group of awkward, giggling, mixed-up youngsters glad to be on their way, finally, toward the independence of adulthood, but at the same time, sad to be leaving the freedom of childhood. Now, it ends — one era ends so that another era can begin. To the graduating seniors, good luck in everything you set out to accomplish. And one more thing . . . never forget those four fabulous years.

I haven’t forgotten. And I know luck had nothing to do with any of it.

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