Tom was undoubtedly the best football player on our team my senior year. In fact he was one of the best players ever to play at Van Horn and started on the varsity his sophomore year. He was fast, strong, quick, had a head for the game and never feared any opponent.
He could have gone to any college or university and excelled there also.
School was not kind to Tom however and it let him down. The scouts that came to the games our senior year were very interested in him, but things did not work out for him in that regard and he was drafted soon after graduating from high school.
He married a girl he had gone to high school with and went on to have a successful marriage and productive life, produced a family, and over all lived the American dream.
I know very little about Tom’s experiences while being a foot soldier, pounding the ground in the jungles for 30 days at a time on search and destroy missions. But even though Tom and I are close and there is nothing we would not do for the other there is a wall of separation. He belongs to a club that I will never gain entry.
There are just a few people in my life that I am proud to call a friend.
Tom is among them.
Van Horn and Other Friends - Teachers
I taught school off and on for almost 40 years, more off than on. I began as a very young man by teaching in Sedalia, took a break for several years, went to Alaska to teach Eskimo children, and ended my career as an English as a Second Language teacher at Northeast High School.
I have often asked myself if I had ever made any difference in the lives of the students I touched. I have recently heard from several students of years ago via Face Book and of course they have nice things to say, but we don’t remain in touch on a personal basis, just read what the other has posted now and then.
There is a Face Book page now called Van Horn Friends. I read it almost daily and now and then contribute. Most of the VH Friend contributors I do not recall immediately because they seem to range from 1960 into the 70’s. I enjoy reading what they have to say.
Recently the question was asked who was your favorite teacher at Van Horn. I contributed that mine was Carl Simonie. The teacher that seemed to get the most responses was a math teacher named Otto Kaifes. It seems as though I am the only student that didn’t cross his path.
I decided to pull out my senior year book and go down the picture alphabet of the teachers that taught there my senior year and give a one or two word or sentence response as to my feelings about each represented after 46 years.
Mr. Curtis, principal – strict, would love to have had him as a principal if I was teaching, but not as a student.
Mr. Heine, vice principal – loved his job and his students. They loved him. He gave me more than one break.
Miss Johnson, counselor - Could read me like a book and is mostly responsible for me becoming a teacher. She asked me one day what I wanted to study in college and I told her I had thought about teaching. She said she thought I would make a good one, because I had done everything a student was not supposed to do and my students would get by with very little.
Mr. Brower, science – He opened up a love of biological science. I never did much with it, but he was organized and presented the material well. I enjoyed his class and him personally.
Mr. Closson, history – A nice man but had no classroom control. I never caused him any problems, mostly because I felt sorry for his classroom management inefficiencies.
Mr. Cofer, Chior – Nice man, but I suspect he only put up with me because I was dating his most prominent student.
Mr. Cross, Geometry – I never understood a word he said and was completely lost that year. The only reason I passed the course was that a mistake was made by a student grading my test and she awarded me more points than I deserved.
Mr. Dehardt, gym – Over worked, tired most of the time due to working on the rail road after school. A nice guy.
Mr. Fessler, Human Science – He was also the head foot ball coach. He was very influential my entire four years and not a bad classroom teacher. He kept you entertained.
Mr. Fields, Social Studies – Funny man but should have retired much earlier. He would go to the school phone when the class was acting up and call for reinforcements. He would always say also when a student for got his pencil, “would a soldier go into battle with out his gun.”
Mr. Klamm, Speech and Drama – He was legally blind but an excellent teacher. He developed in me a love for the theater. When I was in Alaska I looked him up on the internet and we passed several emails back and forh. Heard he died recently.
Mr. McArthur, General Math – Excellent teacher, had good class room management and organization.
Mr. McCoy, Driver’s Ed – He was also one of my football coaches. He was a great teacher a wonderful coach, and just an all around nice guy. But would kick my ass in a minute when it needed it which was more than just once.
Mr. Medina, Latin – Knew Latin and Greek, taught us how to conjugate verbs in Latin. He was a small man but a very good teacher and I don’t remember anyone ever giving him a hard time. I still remember the first phrase he taught us in Latin and can still conjugate a few verbs.
Mrs. Mullen, Second year Latin,- I don’t remember a thing about her class other than she was pretty well versed in Latin history and would tell us stories about the Romans now and then.
Miss Palisowski, Art – She had a tendency to send me to the office now and then. We did not get along very well.
Mr. Simonie, English – He gave me an appreciation for literature. I remember very well the way he went about teaching us Julius Caesar, and can still recite some of the lines by heart. The two other books he brought to my attention were Huckleberry Finn and The Tale of Two Cities, each I consider one of my favorites to this day. I wish I had his address so I could send him the books Ihave written. I guess I ought to dedicate one to him.
Miss White, Civics – She provided an interesting introduction to impressionable youth as to what it meant to be an American. She would often say she would rather be “dead than red.”
Mrs. Esler, Nurse – She was also the nurse when I was in gradeschool.
She always seemed to like me and was interested in my well being because I was a Christian Scientist and did not take any of the polio vaccinations.
The interesting thing about her was that she was with her husband in
Hawaii when the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor. She said he got into a plane and headed out to chase the planes back to their carriers and he never returned.
The story had a real impact on me.
There were other teachers of course that were not pictured in my senior year book, only six of which I remember.
Mr. Fridell, Eighth Grade Common Learning’s – He brought history alive to me and one of the main reasons I became a history teacher.
Mr. Reagan, Gym – He could get my attention pretty easily.
Mr. Fields, Gym – Not to be confused with the social studies teacher. The difference was night and day. He used his paddle on me several times, but I knew he liked me in spite of my shenanigans. He and my great uncle had been high school friends and nothing I did at school went unnoticed at home.
Mrs. Anderson, English – Don’t remember much about her but I don’t think I caused her any problems.
Mr. Levesy, General Shop – A real good teacher. He introduced me to different aspects of wood working and drafting. When you messed up in his class he would make you do push ups. The drafting section of his class enabled me to get a job many years later.
?, typing – Oddly enough the teacher who taught me the only skill that has been more beneficial than any other in my life I do not remember the name of. We did not have any sort of relationship or interaction but some how I learned how to type and it was the only real skill I took away from high school.
I never knew what happened to most of my teachers. I did run into Mr. Fridell at UMKC, he had received his Doctorate and was teaching history. I was able to tell him what an inspiration he had been. I saw Mr. Simonie at Block Buster’s once and he was most gracious in talking to me longer than one would normally expect. Mr. Cofer I ran into at an art showing in Independence once and we did little more than say high etc. For some reason while I was in Alaska I emailed Mr. Klamm and got a nice response. I bumped into Mr. Levesy at a convenience store several years after high school and he remember me. He said he was teaching vocational skills to handicapped people. When we shook hands I noticed he had one less finger than I remembered. I sort of thought it was funny, the handicapped teaching the handicap but kept my remarks to myself because I did not want for him to make me do push-ups.
I have heard a few of them have died, but most I have never seen or heard about since.
My senior year was a good year. I joke to others that the pinnacle of my life was when I was 17 and 18 years old and it has been going down ever since. Well not really true of course but it was a year that many good things happened to me at Van Horn, most of which were blind luck and coincidental.
Football summer practice was just as miserable as it had been the previous three years. Tom and Tim were again the two best players we had on the team but I was by far the luckiest. The first stroke of luck I had was misfortune for another. My position at center was pretty well established but due to a coaching decision I was moved to the defense and a guy named Orin Walker was put in at center. He was big and strong so there wasn't anyway I was going to be able to regain my position, but I really didn't care, there was room for us all and overall we would have been a better team. But then Orin broke something, foot, hand, wrist, I forget. He was out and I was back in. As an aside that was a life changer for Orin. He was good enough and perhaps could have gotten a scholarship to play at college. I had forgotten all that until our 45th class reunion when Orin reminded me of what had happened.
Anyway our team went on to have a losing season again but because of my name, Snapper and my flare for the dramatics while on the field, those that selected players for special recognition would remember me and cast their vote my way. It sounds very egotistical to relate now but it is what it was. That year I made second team all conference, first team all area, first team all district, lineman of the year for the Independence Examiner, the First Team All Star for the Kansas City Star, and All Star Lineman for the KC Star. To top it off I made First Team All State and Honorable Mention High School All American. Wow, did my head expand. Forget the fact that Tim and Tom could kick my ass any day of the week, Orin too if he hadn't been crippled up. Luck and coincidental things have happened to be all my life. I think the scientific name for it is synchronicity.
I received 26 scholar ship offers that year, visited many of the big 8 schools, interviewed with Dan Devine and double dated with Earl Denney from MU. However the big University schools knew what they were doing and passed on me and the offers I had were from the smaller schools around the country. The smaller schools didn't give "full rides" and I did not have enough money to attend them. I remember Montana State and West Texas State were very interested. The Freshman Coach from MU came and visited me after my interview with Dan Devine and told me flat out that they did not think I was Big Eight material but wanted to keep me in the state and perhaps after a couple of years playing for a smaller school I would be ready for the big time. He told me to pick any school in the state of Missouri and they would make sure I received sufficient funds to attend. Northwest Missouri State and Southwest Missouri State immediately contacted me and I chose SMS.
The rest of the school year was a typical Senior year. I learned to drink beer that year, ran around with my friends, did OK grade wise but never managed to get more than a 2.5 grade average, continued to date Jan most of the time, and was just the cock of the walk, at least in my own mind. There are a lot of little stories about that year that stand out but perhaps they are for another time.
Towards the end of school that year I knew that in just a matter of weeks my life as I had known it up till then would completely change and I plunged towards graduation with the same insecurities as most of my fellow students.
On graduation night my dad gave me a watch and my grandfather gave me a ring that his dad had given him. I still have the watch in my jewelry box and the ring I gave to my oldest grandson at his graduation.
That summer MU got me a job working for the highway department and Jan and I started dating again pretty steadily. The job allowed me to save just enough money to ease the financial burden of going to college along with my scholarship and sometime in August Jan and I had what would end up being our last date. We communicated a couple of times after that and I ran into her once by accident years later just for a few minutes, but in actuality have had no real communication for the last 45 years and don't suspect we will.
The morning I left for college my grandmother and grandfather cried and as I drove off to yet another great adventure I went by Van Horn and waved good by. I think I might have shed a tear or two myself.
The infomous thing that happend to all of us that year was the assanation of President Kennedy. We all knew where we were when we heard the news. I had Mr. Simonie that year also and when the news came over the intercom that the president had been shot Mr. Simonie apparently suspended the no prayer in school rule and we all did. Later a girl came into the class and crying said that JFK had died.
Other than that things were pretty much as they should have been.
Again I went out for football and because the Senior boys were mad at the head coach, Fessler, they decided not to go all save one guy. Becasue of that fluke I was able to make the starting line up. Summer practice was as miserable as always. After school began Fessler had a team meeting and said that he had been approached by the Senior boys and they wanted to come out. Fessler said it was up to us "but just remeber you are the ones who went through summer practice not them." We all voted and only the one Senior voted to allow them to come out. "Hey, these guys are my friends." As a team we should have probably let them come out and I sort of wish we had looking back on it. They were just a bunch of overly excuberent kids flexing their independence but then so were we. We only won four games that year and I don't know if we would have done better with the older kids. The one good thing that came out of it is that I was voted by the league to the second string all star team alond with Tim Bly and Tom Koehly. Tom might have made first team I am not sure. Those two guys got their recognition for their ability, I think I got mine becasue of my name and being a center I had less competition through out the conference. Tom was a guard and Tim was in the back field. Of course having a nickname like Snapper didn't hurt much. There was a small article in the KC Star whoese headline was "What's In a Name"..."Well if it is Snapper McAnally then it is because he is the center on the Van Horn football team." Little did they know that I was known as Snapper long before I ever played center. Just a little fluke.
It had been a tradition that only Senior girls were nominated for Home Coming Queen. But due to the fact that that the Senior boys were not on the team and the football team nomiated the queen canidates there were only a couple of Senior girls nominated. I nominaed Jan and she and a couple of other Junior girls were the first Junior girls ever to be queen canidates. I don't know who the Home Coming Queen was that year but I think it was a Senior.
I went out for the swim team again but they started having practice in the mornig and not after school and I didn't want to get up that early and walk that far. Besides Tom K. got a care that year as did Bob Davis a life long friend and one of them would pick me up each morning. I wasn't about to walk unless I just had to.
Again I don't remeber much about my academic life that year except I took Latin and sort of liked it and was lucky to have a very good teacher, Mr. Medina. I even was voted presdent of the Latin Club and along with Mary Beth Steinemeyer wrote a play that our class performed in front of state wide Latin Club covention in Columbia, Missour. I also remember that I had a lot of fun going to parties and dances and even out on real dates with Jan. Her parents didn't like me much, but they would not have liked any boy their daughter was going out with. They didn't think she ought to be going steady with anyone they were right of course although not very practical, where young "love" is concerned where there is a will there is a way. They did allow us to go out one day every other week or so and the rest of the time we would just meet at parties behind their backs. Now and then I would have one of my buddies pick her up. I don't think Jan wanted to go steady either and in fact she decided to go to the prom that year with someone else. I got another date and the poor girl had a miserable time I am sure. I have always felt a little bad about that.
Jan was very talented. She was in all the musicals that year and if she didn't have the female staring role she was the co-star and of course becasue we wre both sort of well known we fed off oneanothers popularity.
I think I went out for track that year but soon found out that I didn't have abilty to do anything. I wasn't fast enough to be a runner, and wasn't strong enough to participate in the field events and was to lazy to work on either.
The other big thing that happend towards the end of the year was that I got a drivers licese. Things really changed after that and my Senior year would be one of the best years of my life up till then.
Tenth grade started early for me because that year I went to summer football practice. It was three weeks of "getting in shape" and learning the plays and practice skill necessary to have a successful winning season. Which we did not. It was terribly hot and not much fun but some how I survived and made the varsity along with two other guys. Tim Bly and Tom Koehly. The first game was against Chrisman and as luck would have it I picked up a fumble and ran for what I told everyone was 40 yards, but I think it was more like 10 in actuality. However my varsity career didn't last long and eventually I was sent back to the B-Team or junior varsity. Tim and Tom stayed put. Coach Wally Crawford was the junior varsity coach and a good one. He taught me a lot that year and cut me little slack. It was a very good coaching decision and let me get a lot more playing time so as to hone what little skill I really had. One coach told me that I had no real innate ability but I didn't mind getting knocked down. For some reason I always felt that was great compliment.
I have no recollection of my classes that year except English with Mr. Simonie. I don't remember much of what he taught but remember him explaining what was going on in Julius Caesar and Tale of Two Cities. I have liked literature ever since. Mr. Simonie was a real neat guy I thought and was the example of the type of a teacher I wanted to be after hearing a college professor tell me once that "sometimes the subject matter is the least important thing you teach in a classroom." Mr. Simonie's teaching and my student tenure would cross several times over the next few years.
Jan Allison was my first real girl friend. We were introduced by Fritz Siple and Connie Dewey. Jan and I would be an on again off again item till we left for college three years later. Our dates consisted of parties that some of the kids would have and attending the sporting events by taking the school buses that were always provided. We would leave at half time and be the first ones on the buss and pass the time away doing what boy friend and girl friend did back then.
I did go out for the swimming team again, made it, lettered, and took 5th in the all city swim event and our relay team took 2nd.
I don't recall much else about that year except I made a bunch of new friends because the kids from around the Blue Ridge area from Pitcher School were sent to Van Horn instead of East and Northeast that year. That included Jan and a host of others. Many are still friends to this day.
Between my 8th and 9th grade year I must not have grown very much. While walking the now familiar path to Van Horn I realized that I had on the same outfit I had worn the first day of school the previous year.
My Freshman year stands out only a little more than the one that had preceded it. There were a lot of "firsts" however and some of those set the stage for developments that would follow me through my high school career and make it an enjoyable experience.
I went out football late that year. I didn't know that there were tryouts before school started so when I was informed by one of my classmates that there was a Freshman football team I decided to give it a try. I didn't know much about the game but talked my way on the team. On a Monday I received my helmet and pads and on Wednesday we played Paseo's Freshman. The coach looked around frantically grabbed me by the arm and told me to get in for the right tackle. I had no idea what he meant or what I was supposed to do. I looked puzzled. "Just get in there and get the guy who has the ball!" Luckily we were on defense or I would have jumped on the back of our own quarter back. One of the guys on the team told me to stand where the right tackle was supposed to stand and when everyone started running around I did too and jumped on the guy with a different colored jersey making him fumble and I some how landed on the ball. The coach was very impressed. My reputation was made because of my good luck. We lost the game however.
I met two girls that year, one named Susan the other Carol. Not much developed from that. In fact I am not sure we even had a real date.
They were starting a swim team that year so I went out for that. I did pretty good. I was the only one on the team that could do the butterfly with any degree of speed so I was put on the Medley Relay team swimming the butterfly leg. I also did the Individual Medley but never won the race because I could not seem to master the breast stroke and always fell behind and could not catch up on the freestyle portion. But I did manage to usually come in second or third. I did well enough to earn a varsity letter that year. I was one of the few Freshman qualified to walk around in a letter jacket.
My academics classes are a mystery to me overall. But I do remember having Mr. Browder for Biology and Mrs White for Citizenship.
My circle of friends were growing and even though I still maintained contact with my old friends, unless they lived in my neighborhood, they seemed to drift away one by one, some never to be heard from again. But just as some drifted away some new ones drifted towards and many would play a prominent role in the rest of my time at Van Horn and there is at least one guy I made friends with that year that is still one my best buds.
At the start of the school year in 1960 I put on my best pair of pants, matching short sleeve shirt and headed off walking to what up till then would be the greatest adventure of my life - High School.
It was over a mile away but walking to school back then was no big deal. I encountered a couple of friends along the way and the closer we got the more our little contingent grew.
I don't remember what we talked about and don't recall how I ended up in my first class. I do remember the class was called Common Learning's and the teacher was Mr. Fridel, the first man teacher I had ever had other than the weekly visit from Mr. Green the PE teacher at Mt Washington Elementary School. (as an aside years later I would be a co teacher with Mr. Green in Sedalia, Missouri.)
Common Learning's was a two and half hour class. The first hour was devoted to history, the second to English, and the last half hour was our study hall. After study hall came lunch that cost thirty-five cents.
After lunch I went to gym, art, and then ended the day in a math class that was just basic arithmetic.
How I managed to go from a one room, one teacher elementary school to a high school of close to 2000 kids without any feeling of trepidation or concern I am not real sure. But as most things I have encountered, venturing into the unknown has always come easy.
I cannot remember any of my class mates that year but I do remember thinking that it was odd that none of my friends from Mt Washington were among them.
In the 8th grade there were no sport teams to join and to the best of my memory I attended no football, basketball, or any other athletic events that year.
I do remember there being a sport assembly right after football season where the coach introduced the team members and apologised to the student body that the team had not won a game that year.
There is not much point to this muse because the events of that year all seem vague. For some reason I did not buy a year book so I have nothing to look at to help jog my memory.
The only real thing that sticks out is that towards the last of school they had a Senior Assembly where many of the older students showed off what talents they had. I was much impressed. I turned to the girl sitting next to me and told her "that will be us in five years."
Five years later I was sitting by the same girl, Karen, and I remembered saying what I had said to her five years earlier. I then wondered out loud how had time gone by so quickly.
The most popular girl in all of Van Horn my Junior and Senior year was my on again off again steady girl friend. At least her mother and father thought she must have been because she dated a lot of different boys all the time, at least so they thought.
It wasn't that her parents didn't like me, which if they didn't like me I could not blame them for the way I conducted myself many times, it was just that they thought she was not old enough to tie herself down to one guy. Of course they were right, but tell that to any of those who were star crossed teen age items back in the day.
We would not be detoured from continuing our romance in some fashion or another and I suspect she rose such a fuss that her parents relented and let her see me once a week I think. But of course that was not enough.
So we would have a real date on Friday and then on Saturday I would have one of my friends pick her up at her house, go inside and meet her mother and father while I waited on the corner down the street or on the floor of the back seat of the car. Risky and dangerous we were.
I know at least five different guys who were my friends and mutual friends of both or ours who would run the gauntlet so our relations ship would last and carry us on to perpetual bliss.
We went away to college and she got some sence, started giving other boys a chance at romance and married some guy with in a couple of years or so I am told to my heart sick feeling of rejection. . I don't know if her parents ever caught on to hour duplicity or not. I have never been able to ask her because my high school heart throb and I have not spoken or scene each other for going on 50 years. And besides I would really feel stupid if she didn't even remember our daring escapades.
I had not been to a Van Horn Football game in over 30 years. Seems like Tom Koely and I went to one when the Falcons were finally playing for the Interscholastic League Championship but don’t know exactly when that was. It was a first in school history. Funny thing is I don’t remember if they won or lots.
When I was in High School I never saw a football game from beginning to end. The last two years I was playing and my sophomore year I was too interested in trying to talk, with some success I might add, my girl friend, who shall remain nameless, to forgo the second half and head out towards the school buses that were parked un locked and with no attendants.
But the other night Bev and I had nothing planned and I suggested that we see if Van Horn was playing and go to the game. Those of us who are in our senior years get in free to all the high school sporting events sponsored by the Independence School District. Being on social security one has to find free entertainment where one can you know.
When I was in high school Van Horn was part of the Kansas City School District and a fine district it was. But because of miss management, forced busing, redistricting, family disintegration, lack of continuity of leadership, and a host of other reason real or imagined the district for many years was just a shadow of itself and Van Horn was one of the causalities. So much so that eventually a grass root effort lead by concerned local citizens and spearheaded politically by Victor Callahan, State Senator from the area bought Van Horn under the auspices of the Independence Board of Education. Van Horn now has a bright future. An alumni association has been established, scholarships have been given, and a hall of honor established for distinguished graduates. I have been over looked for the last two years but eventually they will find me and be proclaimed as one of the honorees. Well perhaps.
The Van Horn Falcons played the Butler Bears the night we went and unfortunately lost. However the score on the field may have spelled defeat but those in the stands, kids, band, parents and all were winners. The enthusiasm and diversity represented by the crowd, let alone those on the field, stood out and made me think that this is how it is supposed to be. There were people of different races and ethnicity sitting side by side hand in hand, a far different picture than when I went to school there, but those were secondary identification marks. First they were Falcons. Nothing else had really changed since I was a young man playing or watching, at least the first half of the games. Kids were laughing, yelling support, acting stupid, being courteous to the elders (which to my chagrins was me) and conducted themselves in such a manner as to make me proud that I had gone to school there.
Home coming is next week. I think I will go. Bev wants me to drag out my old letter jacket and let her ware it and if I can find my class ring she wants to put it on a chain around her neck.
None of us can or should go back to Van Horn and expect it to be ours again, we passed that torch a long time ago. But just perhaps for a few fleeting moments we will return to those days of yesteryear and remember what it is like to have the rest of your life ahead of you and not even realize it. And if I am real lucky I might be able to talk Bev into slipping off to the buss at half time.
You cannot so it seems have a get together of Van Horn alumni of any size without eventually talking about the swimming pool at Van Horn. There is always the talk of the boys swimming nude and girls having to ware swim suits that had holes. The girls also suffered from the humiliation of what I have heard one female alumnus refer to as the “nude parade” after they showered.
I don’t remember feeling humiliated standing in the buff lined up in the shower hall way leading to the swimming pool, in fact no one really gave it much thought or so it seemed at the time. The one thing that is why in this day and age of openness and acceptance such a thing would never happen and be fodder for lawsuits towards school districts and accusations of teacher perversion. I mean wasn’t it more conservative back then? Wasn’t modesty more prevalent? Apparently not for we all got naked and paraded around as instructed without any thought of impropriety.
Many years later a teacher at Northeast told me that since our skinny dipping days that studies have shown that at least 5% of all teenagers are Gay or at least lean in that direction and the practice was stopped. If that is true I suppose the percentage has not changed much and that means that in the 1965 graduating class of more than 500 there were at least 25 of our class mates when standing around naked with the same sex were very uncomfortable and considered by officials as psychologically damaging.
I can honestly say that to this day I have no inkling of who the 25 might have been. We had some frail looking kids, some shy kids, and some kids that were just strange but to consider them Gay or in those days we said queer or homo never even occurred to me. The part that bothers me the most is that those who were (and I suspect they were not the shy, frail, or strange ones) must have suffered and done so in silence. What stress they must have gone through each swim day or while taking the mandatory shower after PE.
Kids are more open and accepting today but I bet many kids still suffer and think they are some kind of deviant and are picked on or bullied. School officials have recognized this problem and have implemented programs and procedures to eradicate the tyranny of the majority. I suspect the problem is becoming less and less even though it would not seem like it if you were the target of such harassment.
I don’t know what the swimming attire is now or how many of the schools even have pools nor do I have any clue if showering after PE is mandatory.
If I were to ask the school system I would probably be put on a watch list of some sort and when I ran for president some day my asking the question would be made public and the only support I would receive would be from the Rainbow Coalition.
Van Horn – Otto Kaifes
One time on face book I asked people who their favorite teacher was or which teacher influenced them the most. It seems that Mr. Kaifes, math teacher and coach, won hands down. So many voted for him that I began to think I was the only student that never had him for a teacher. In fact I can never remember even talking to him or either one of us acknowledging the others existence even with a casual nodding of the head while we passed each other in the hall way. I knew him by sight of course and he always sort of scared me a little. He always seemed to have a scowl or a ‘don’t mess with me’ look. I stayed clear of him but from what all I can gather this side of graduation it was my loss.
My ability to solve for an unknown might have been enhanced if I had him for algebra and perhaps geometry would not have mystified me so, for I understand he was a very good teacher and well liked, which in high school is tantamount to the same thing usually.
Otto Kaifes appears to have had that intangible that many otherwise very good teachers don’t ever quite grasp. More than one of his former students have told me he was a mentor, a confident, and a man who gave sound advice even if not always taken. I will just have to take their word for it because I will never know - all is hearsay. Hearsay however sometimes is as good as truth and even makes a better story.
Like I stated above, I never knew or even talked to Mr. Kaifes, but I do have a short story about him. It was told to me by Walt Zuber, whom some of you may know. Walt became a teacher at Van Horn in 1966 the year after I graduated. I met Zuber when he was a counselor at Northeast and I taught ESL there after returning from Alaska. Walt was very entertaining in the teacher’s lounge and told me many stories about my old teachers at Van Horn. He was surprised I never had Mr. Kaifes and told me a short story about him. Walt is not above letting fact interfere with a good story especially when it is about some one else so what I relate next I have no way of determining if it is true or not – it is just hearsay you see.
Kaifes, according to Walt, always drove cars that were old and dilapidated. He never owned a new car and always bought a junked one for cash. I don’t think that is too outlandish given what teachers must have made back then. Zuber said Kaifes, would only perform minor maintenance on the car, drive the thing into the ground, and when it finally did break down he would just take the title to the car that was already signed and notarized, pull the car along the side of the road, leave the signed title on the front seat, abandoned the car where it sat, and get home the best he could. He would pick up a new almost junked car as soon as he could and start the process all over again.
Walt said Kaifes did get in trouble once or at least admonished by the principal at Van Horn, who might have been Mr. Curtis (thinking of Mr. Curtis still brings chills up and down my spine) for leaving his abandoned car in the parking lot for two weeks. I guess it was in so bad a shape that no one wanted it. The story goes that one of his students’ father owned a tow truck and hauled if off for Otto in exchange for some extra tutoring the boy needed. Of course he did not know that Mr. Kaifes would have provided the tutoring anyway.
Since Mr. Kaifes and Walt Zuber are still alive I must restate that the only part of this bland and lame story that I can swear to is that which Walt told me. I don’t mind repeating what Walt told me even if it isn’t true because there is nothing detrimental stated about anyone and if fact paints Mr. Kaifes in a good light I think. However, if one of you ever run across Kaifes or Zuber you might ask them about the validity of this tale and if you pass an abandoned car you might just stop and check the front seat, one never knows
