January 17, 1965
After church I had to sell calendars for $1 on the church steps. One lady wanted to buy one, but couldn't. Another finally found her money, so I only sold one. We didn't get to go ice skating, even though it is zero now (10:00 PM) and we had a blizzard yesterday. The ice is too rough. I hope they call school but they won't, I know. I remember last year a blizzard, almost 2 feet of snow and Dr. R makes us go to school.
January 17, 2023
Ah, Dr. R, the school superintendent. New Milford was a small town, just over 20,000 inhabitants, and our high school was correspondingly small. But nearly all of the 600 or so students in the school knew who Dr. R was and hated his guts. The reason not all of us hated him was that one of us was his son. L was a year behind me, and we eventually became friends, as he attended the same university and decades later also ended up in the DC area, living not far from me. But in 1965 L was the object of pity, along with the three students whose parents taught at the high school. (My dad had taught Spanish for a couple of years when I was just a tot, and I was forever grateful that he had gone back to his newspaper career before I even started kindergarten.) My Spanish teacher had two sons at the high school and they were both taking Spanish (WHY???) and my Geometry teacher had a daughter, but at least those two teachers were well-liked. L’s dad was also likable, I assume, but his refusal to liberally declare snow days made him an object of scorn and his son a pariah.