It's All Fun and Games until Someone's Tongue Gets Pulled Out

Once upon a time, in the olden days at Vernondale Elementary School, as you may have already read in this blog, I was seated in most classes most of the time with very ordinary children just like me.

We were generally quiet, didn't cause trouble, were usually on time for school and rarely sick, more often got the answer right than wrong, came from the same general area of town, our fathers did much the same kind of work, and we mostly saw the same movies and TV shows and went to this church or that, at least once in a while. We were unremarkable, easily forgotten. The kids you look at in an old school picture and don't remember.

By high school I had become a very good student. It was as though someone had flicked a switch. I don't know when it started, but I can tell you when it didn't. It didn't start in Vernondale and it didn't start at Bethel Christian School. Those were fine schools, but they never connected with me academically.

I think I actually found it myself.

I wasn't allowed to go to many movies before I could drive myself or go with a friend (and even then there were restrictions[1]), and I had an early bedtime when I was in grade school, so I often missed the TV shows and movies everyone was talking about.

So, long before I was 16, I found that the best way to discover the magic of popular culture was to read.

I read Airport and The Terminal Man in Reader's Digest Condensed books. And I rode my bicycle to used bookstores and bought paperbacks for a quarter. That is were I found The Andromeda Strain, Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Pellucidar, Food of the Gods and The War of the Worlds, and when I started a life-long love affair with Michael Crichton, Edgar Rice Burroughs, HG Wells, and many others.

But back to the story: by 12th grade I was an A+/B+ student. I comprehended concepts fairly quickly and was able to apply them from one circumstance to another.

McDowell Senior High School
Millcreek, PA

My 12th grade honors physics teacher at McDowell Senior High School in Millcreek was Mr Warren Saunders, who also happened to go to my church, Bethel Baptist Church, but that never influenced him; it was a large school and in the classroom he was always a teacher, and a challenging one.

Mr Saunders always offered an extra credit question on his tests, and it was always an immediate topic of whispers when tests were handed back: Did you get the extra credit right? What was the answer?

Only two of us got a particular extra credit question correct, which is the core of this story. I was one of them.

The question required applying the concept sound frequency shift of a moving object to light, which is called red shift. This overall phenomenon is called the Doppler Effect, but Mr Saunders didn't give us any clues, we were expected to see the parallel between sound and light in order to get the credit.

I think the reason I remember it so well is that it was the first time I saw myself as a intellectual equal to Rich Nickel, my best friend, who was by any measure among the brightest people I knew.

I got three college credits from Gannon College (now Gannon University) for passing honors physics at McDowell with an A. I never went to Gannon, but I've never been prouder of any other college credit I earned, and Mr Saunders was among the best science teachers I ever had.

[1]

Mark of the Devil
Barf Bag

I begged and begged to go see Mark of the Devil (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065491/➚ ). Steve Shloss invited me. Steve said they pulled out a girls tongue in the movie, and they were handing out barf bags at the door. How could a 9 year old resist a swell time like that? Mom said no. Moms are so practical.