dome. And while I found the cherry blossoms “not so hot," the Kay Kyser band show
at the Earle Theatre, mobbed by young people, was exciting. It’s Jimmy to whom I’m
forever grateful for the many rides to dances and games that he gave me.
David Weiss was perhaps the most intellectual of my friends. Occasionally
we studied together or saw a movie. But David was not one to waste time just
hanging out, say at Ford’s. I was always stimulated (sometimes mentally enervated)
after times with David. Our main involvements together, as in our Junior year,
were declamation and debate. We also collaborated on a physics project and took
part in assembly presentations and closed-circuit radio shows over the school’s
public address system.
On Columbus Day of 1938, David and I spoke in assembly on boats and
navigation in Columbus’s time and the explorer’s role in the development of the small
countries that he visited. In December I moderated a “Professor Quiz" program via
radio and David, not surprisingly, was the winning contestant. As a Physics
assignment, David and I, and on another stint Bill Burger and I, went up to Allegany’s
roof daily for two weeks and there read a set of weather instruments and forecast the
day’s weather. One of us called the reading to the local newspaper which published
it as the day’s unofficial forecast. (Our accuracy rate was not too good, even though
our physics teacher often made the predictions.) In February, I played the role of
Thomas Paine in a radio playlet commemorating Washington’s crossing the Delaware
River and the Battle of Trenton. David was not in this for some reason.
It was December 8, the church’s commemoration of the Immaculate Con-
90
CWR’s good friends Marcellus “Barney" Barncord and Nancy Holland at senior
class outing, June 1939. Memorable gatherings were held at the Hollands’ home.
