As with all (or at least the vast majority) of high school boys, members
of the opposite sex were on the agenda of my classmates and me. Yet it was a
far from normal situation. We were in an all- boys school. It was a dormitory
school and we were not allowed off campus five days of the week. We were all in
a town other than hometown. So we had very little interaction with girls.
The one weekly opportunity came each Sunday when we all went
to church. We walked the two miles each way to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and
were required to attend both the morning and the evening services. There,
at least, we were in the company of someone not of the male gender. The good
news is that that church had the very unusual architecture, which placed the
choir in front of the church behind the altar. Thus our eyes always looked
right to the soprano and alto sections. The choir was robed in traditional
garb. We could try to make some eye contact and that was about as close as we
could get. Even so, we discussed the various girls and tried to figure out who
was of an age to attend the Walther League meetings on
Sunday afternoon. Those meetings were hardly great social events. I
remember us having some appropriate topic to discuss, some project to plan and
then a game to be played. We did that and the walked back to our dorms.
Yet some of us ... some made contacts. Rumors on campus floated
about which girl had her eyes on which boy-and which boy might daringly ask a
girl for a date. Actually “having a date” was rare.
My memory is that in my four years at Austin I had two dates. Each time
I met the girl whom I had telephoned and fearfully asked for a date. I made my
way to her house via city bus. I got checked out by her parents. We took the
bus downtown to a movie. We took the bus back to her home. I walked her to the
door. I turned around and took the bus back to the campus. (Except that on my
second of those memorable dates my bus got to downtown too late to get the last
bus to the college and I had (as I remember) 30 minutes to run the three
miles back to campus and be in bed for the10:00 o/clock bed check by Dean
Beto.
In my senior year I did a very daring thing. I made a telephone call and
asked a non-Lutheran girl to join me at a party. She was one of the twin
daughters of the boarding house mother at which my sister Erna lived. I had met
her. Moreover she was really beautiful and well known as she was a cheer leader
for the Austin High School I finally got the courage to call her, remind her
that we had met and asked her to join me for a birthday party of a classmate.
She told me she had another activity already scheduled. I believed her. But I
never called her again!
I did exchange some letters with “ D”. I had had my eyes on her already
in the 7th and 8th grade at Zion Elementary
School and we did exchange a few letters. Also we went Christmas caroling
together and at the end of the caroling she became the first and only
girl I ever kissed before college.
One other girl was one from the near-by town of Thorndale. I met at a
Walther League event. She was very nice and I liked her a lot. We exchanged a
few letters. I remember she came to my high school graduation (presumably
driven there by her parents.) There we spoke briefly. But after the ceremony I
went out with some of the guys to an amusement park. She was really nice and I
always thought fondly of her but neither of us pursued the relationship.
Later she did marry a Lutheran schoolteacher who had been with me at Concordia
College, River Forest and I am sure they had a good marriage.
As I reflect on all this I do have some regrets. High school years
should be a time for good fun with both young guys and girls. It is a good time
to explore one’s values and social skills and to have some good clean fun. I
regret missing that. And I am most grateful that I did not meet my future wife
at that time as that would have prevented me from marrying Jane and nothing coming
out of high school or any other relationship could ever be as good and blessed
as that.
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