Gallatin High School in Bozeman, Mont., was quite a progressive school in 1936. We had classes that few high schools had. We had a shop class that taught us manual skills and a print shop that taught us how newspapers were printed at that time. We had two ex-thespians. One was the head of the History Department and the other was head of the English Department.
David Dahl was the head of the English Department and was also the senior theater director. Art Roberts was the head of the parents’ play production. Both had very interesting ways of putting things. In the case of Dahl, he assigned an essay for the kids to write. A girl in class asked how long the essay should be. He said, “As long as a lady’s dress – short enough to make it interesting, but long enough to cover the subject.”
Mr. Roberts, after a dress rehearsal of our production, called the cast together and said, “You mean to tell me that you’re going to ask your parents and friends
to buy tickets to see this production?
It would stink a dog off a gut wagon.”
Both of them were greatly admired by the students. We were discussing the play
The Pursuit of Happiness. During those early pioneer days when a young man went courting a girl in order to save the heat they allowed the two of them to go to bed together, but with a “bundling board” between them.
When Mr. Dahl mentioned the bundling board being raised between them, a door opened from the principal’s office and a girl named Parley Croft called out “Damn.” Some things you just remember.
In getting into the world after high school, I found a way to use the experience that I’d learned from these teachers.
As an U.S, Army recruit in the town of Biloxi, Miss., they were putting on a play called High Flight, and this was to compete on Broadway with a show called This is the Army.
While waiting for my Air Force assignment, I got away from the usual daily marches because I knew how to tie the battons, which raised and placed the scenery on the stage. These things I had learned from my teachers and jobs I had during my youth.
For High Flight I remember Ted Shawn, who produced an all-male dance troupe that toured the colleges, and his star performer Barton Momaw, whose athletic ability made you think of a leopard in full leaping mode.
After a four=hour visit to a PX tavern on the Army Base, to the disgust of Shawn and the others in charge of the play, the lines in the dialogue were considerably “altered.”
Tagging along with Chauncey Roth, a professional female impersonator, an amorous sergeant said “Can’t you see the lovelight in my eyes?”
“Lovelight?” Roth answered, “Hell, that’s taillight.”
An opening came up at Lowry Field in Denver, Colo., and I was transferred.
My credentials were checked back to my father’s origins in Sweden by the FBI. Because the requirements were so high, the people involved in the Norden Bomb Site School were viewed as an elite class. That was my destination.
There was only one school that was higher – Code and Cryptography. From Lowry Field, I was sent to Geiger Field in Spokane, Wash., and became a member of the 390th bomb group, 13th wing of the 8th Army Air Force.
That’s how I remember it. Happy start of another school year, kids. Every class counts.
