Thursday, December 18, 2014

Greenhorns at West Junior High (Binghamton Press Article September 7, 2014

Greenhorns! 1954 style.
By the Old Coot, Merlin Lessler

It’s that time of year again. Back to school time. It’s a big deal when you’re going to a new school. That was the case 60 years ago for me and the rest of my sixth grade, Longfellow Elementary School graduating class. We were swimming out of our little pond on Binghamton’s south side and merging with the graduates of seven other neighborhood schools around the city in the big pond at West Junior High School. It was a short journey in miles, but socially, it was a continent away.

My friend Woody (Walls) and I were conned into spending our summer vacation as indentured servants to Woody’s older brother, Stewie, and his friend, Vincent DiStaphano in return for their protection when we faced greenhorn hazing on the bus that would pick us up at our old neighborhood school and take us to “West.” Woody and I witnessed this ritual every September from a safe vantage point on the playground next to the bus stop. We watched the greenhorns board the bus, spiffed up in new school clothes, relaxed and cocky. We peeked into the windows and saw upper classmen shove them like rag dolls to the back of the bus as it pulled away from the curb. We also saw them at the end of the school day, the last kids to totter off the bus, hair mussed, shirts pulled out or turned around backwards, and a look on their face signaling terror and defeat. Yes, we knew what to expect, and bought into the salvation offered by Stewey and Vinnie, hook, line and sinker.

We spent that entire summer of 1954 as lackeys, running to the store for bottles of soda and a candy bars, doing yard chores, washing family cars, shagging fly balls. Whatever Stewie and Vinnie asked, we did! We were the lowest of the low in the neighborhood pecking order that summer, but it was worth it if it would save us from the greenhorn massacre awaiting us in September.

I'll never forget that 1st day of school in the fall of 1954, the day we left behind our safe playground at Longfellow to board the Junior High bus for the first time. Woody and I hung back at the bus stop with our protectors, waiting for the doors on bus #1 to open. Our nervous classmates must have wondered why we were so calm, in light of the pending doom that awaited us on the bus. The doors opened; Stewey and Vinnie scrambled over to bus # 2 and yelled, "See you later, Suckers!"

We looked at each other in disbelief, and then over at Denzel Kelly, the Longfellow bully we were leaving behind. He stood on the playground grinning, as his older brother, Chuck, grasped our carefully combed hair and dragged us to the back of the bus, laughing and cackling, "This way, girls! I've been expecting you." We were pushed, shoved and mussed up right along with the rest of the freshman class, made to stand at attention, to respond with "Sir, yes sir," to endure being called sissies, babies and girls by Chuck and his gang of junior high bullies.

This went on for a week or more, coming to an end when the upperclassmen got bored and found more pleasure in singing derogatory songs to the bus driver, like, “We love our little driver, yes we do, yes we do. Oh we love our little driver, yes in a pigs rear end we do!”

There was one student for whom the greenhorn ritual didn’t come to an end, Earl Landon. He could yodel. So, everyday he was forced to stand in the aisle on the bus and perform.  He did it all through our junior high years, yodeling his way to and from school most every day. If it weren’t for him, it probably would have been Woody and me in the aisle, playing our band instruments. Woody his clarinet and me, my French horn. Thank you Earl! The whole thing taught me a valuable life lesson. Never duck out on your fate. Face the music; it will cause less pain in the long run.

Footnote #1 -  Denzel ultimately transformed from school bully to south side good-guy. He even saved me from a beating late one night when I was walking home alone and was grabbed by some members of a west side gang. He happened by, just as things were getting rough and charged into the fray like a knight on a white horse.

Footnote #2 -  I reminded Stu Walls of this incident at an AZ reunion this summer, but he disagrees with my memory of that summer of 1954. He claims it would have been much worse for Woody and me if he and Vinnie hadn’t protected us. He’s made the same claim for 60 years and I still don’t buy it.  

Footnote #3 – Earl Landon died in February 2012. A good guy! A Longfellow classmate I’ll never forget.

Woody, Top picture, top row 2nd from left.
Me, bottom picture center of row 2 (bow tie and all)




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