JHS 73 Class of 1985 Yearbook - Administrators

Page 8 of the JHS 73 Class of 1982 yearbook. The theme of Our Place really gets drilled into our heads in the descriptions of the School Administrators. I do not recall any of them, except Mr. Gotkin. For those who may have missed my mention of the two incidents I had with Mr. Gotkin, here goes.

The first incident was unpleasant. I rarely use curse words but it was just my luck that one day while going from one class to another, someone made fun of me or did something bad to me and I shouted some obscenity at him. Just my luck, Mr. Gotkin was nearby and took me to his office for that violation. I spent the whole period there with nothing to do and then was let go. I suppose I curse even less, or never again for a long time, after that. The man looked menacing to kids, I must admit.

The second, more pleasant, event was when I went to school one evening to attend some Junior Arista ceremony. I did not know what the event was for and did not come to school with a formal jacket. I did not have one anyway. When it was my turn to go on the stage to accept my Arista certificate, Mr. Gotkin let me wear his jacket. It was some sort of a tweed jacket, if my feeble memory is correct.

I referred to the events as first and second but they did not necessarily happen in that order. Of course, it would be better to be a bad kid then get accepted into Arista instead of the other way around.

Re the Guidance Counselors, I did not know they existed. In Newtown High School, I visited Ms. Touhy often for information on colleges and such, but in JHS, I think I just went to whatever school kids in my district were supposed to attend. I suppose if a kid excelled in school, he could have applied to some better school instead of the one in his district. I was relatively fresh off the boat, having arrived in the U.S. about two years earlier. It was good enough to break of ESL, so never mind better high school and extra curricular activities.