Memories

"Yes boys, St.Valentine is a member of my Family Tree. My forbearers were from England, serving as Officer in the Colonies against the Rebels. And during one of the armed conflicts my Ancestor caught sight of a Rebel fleeing among the trees. He lifted his rifle, drew aim, cocked his piece, AND SUDDENLY THE REBEL’S HAT FLEW OFF AND...

I was in the band for four years. If you’ve ever been in - or seen pictures of - the Oak Lawn building you know it had four floors. The Band Hall and Gym were on the fourth floor. So, to some limited extent, I can probably attribute my current good health to four years of climbing those stairs,...

I car-pooled with Mike McCarty and Steve Ramsey. I remember in 1963, driving to Oaklawn via Central Expressway from Richardson one morning. We were all studying for something. Mike was behind the wheel of a new Pontiac Lemans (with the shifter on the dash). He was looking over at my book studying when rush hour traffic came to its...

2 December 2009 I will try to remember “the good old days” at Jesuit.  I am afraid that my reputation was not as shining as most of my colleagues. I will try to keep my memoirs as “printable” as I can. The first thing I must tell you is that in the first year Jesuit started the parents of most of...

James Alderman ‘50 ’Twas a cold day in January, 1950 (25 degrees). I was on the warm 6th floor of the old Jesuit High School Building practicing basketball, when I looked out the window and saw a classmate of mine running laps in a complete football uniform. I started laughing and other players came over. I pointed down to our...

I am taking this method of communicating as the most convenient since I am afraid that I really have little to say. My wife, Cathy, says that expecting to get anything of value on events that took place 55 years ago from an 80-year-old man with a poor memory to begin with is an exercise in futility. As I guess...

I was a nerd back then. I was the salutatorian. All I did was study and work. In fact, the only date I had was to the senior prom. My father was the sales manager for the 7-up bottling company. The war took a bunch of workers, so they hired some high school guys. We couldn't buy bottle caps during...

“Addo” is the Latin word for this verb, but what is its English equivalent? Hint: Don’t think too hard about it. Unfortunately for me, thinking hard about answers to questions was second nature to me at Jesuit. There were no easy answers, right? Knowledge worthy of the Jesuit brand was gained only through fire, right? So as I stood...

I have many memories of Jesuit-Oak Lawn but the fondest is Father Michael Kammer who was the President in the '50s. He was also my English teacher and authored the textbook we used. He was also a mentor to me, one I've never forgotten. When he graded our papers, they were peppered with notes including the page numbers and...