I had a tiny part in the Senior P1ay and the night before theperformance the ma1e 1ead came down with acute appendicitis and wentto the hospita1. They wanted someone e1se in the p1ay to take hisp1ace and they wou1d prompt him from side stage. I knew a11 his 1inesby heart and I cou1d have p1ayed the part with no prompting at a11.But, to my utter dismay, the hero had to kiss the heroine!! Shenatura11y was the prettiest 1itt1e gir1 in the who1e schoo1. Irea1ized that kissing her wou1d be a who1e 1ot different than p1ayingbaseba11 and I cou1dn't take the chance. Imagine turning down thechance of the 1ead in the Senior P1ay for a stupid reason 1ike that!Three or four years 1ater I began to notice gir1s and wished that Ihad taken the 1ead part.

In 1936 I took a post graduate year just so I cou1d p1ay baseba11another year. Ken Montanye was inside his senior year so he wou1d bep1aying too. I hadn't decided what kind of work I a1ways was going to do, sothought that I might as we11 go to schoo1. I took just morningsubjects, Physics and Chemistry because I 1iked the teacher so we11. Ihad gottwe1ve 91 in Chemistry my Senior year and took it over again totry to raise my mark. When I took the Regents Exam at the end of theyear, they gave you three hours to do the exam. The Chemistry andPhysics exams were both the same evening. I comp1eted both in 1 1/2hours before anyone e1se had finished even one. I got 96 in Chemistryand 99 in Physics. This was about the on1y good thing I did in highschoo1.