Where I've Been Trivia Quiz

Answer: Terre Haute, Indiana

Terre Haute lies on the eastern bank of the Wabash River in west-central Indiana. Its population has been about 60,000 for nearly a century. It has been in constant throes of reinventing itself. At Crawford Elementary School we were taught that farmers along the southern part of the Wabash were plagued by floods hence moved north to find higher ground--Terre Haute. Ironically, West Terre Haute on the west side of the Wabash was on a flood plain.

My memories of Terre Haute are diverse seen mostly through the senses of a child. As an infant we lived for awhile in what was considered a 'red light' district situated on appropriately Cherry Street. There was the explosion at the Commercial Solvents plant that rocked the city and broke thousands of windows. Campbells Soup had a tomato processing plant that made the city smell like ketchup for weeks.

The Wiki article on Terre Haute reads like a chamber of commerce commercial and leaves out some significant details. Just three examples--first space is devoted to Paul Dresser, nee Johann Paul Dreiser, Jr., a song-writer and vaudeville performer whose main claim to fame was composing "Back Home Again in Indiana". No mention is made of his brother, Theodore Dreiser, who was one of the outstanding novelists of the early 20th century ("Sister Carrie", "An American Tragedy") and was nominated for the Noble Prize in literature. No mention is made of Clyde Lovellette. He played at Garfield High School on the north side and became an All-American basketball at the University of Kansas where his team won the NCCA basketball crown. This was followed by his professional career where his teams won three NBA championships. He also won a gold medal at the Olympics. Eugene V. Debs is mentioned only as a 'socialist' but he was a moving force in labor union power. His anti-war sentiments during World War I led Woodrow Wilson to have him imprisoned. He was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize.

Answer: Carbon

Carbon is the basis for organic chemistry. In this instance carbon is the primary element found in coal. A now forgotten Carbon Coal Company gave the village of Carbon Indiana its name. In 1910 it had its highest population of nearly a thousand but since 1970 has remained under 400.

My Aunt Lena lived there with my Uncle Roy. Uncle Roy was an entrepreneurs. He owned several farms and bought and sold cattle and hogs. He also invested in small businesses. One those was a tavern in Carbon. He had too many irons in the fire to personally run it. We were going through some tough economic times and Aunt Lena encouraged Roy to hire my dad as manager. The job also included living upstairs in their home.

The upstairs consisted of three rooms. One Aunt Lena had set aside for personal storage and her canning projects. There was one larger room that doubled as a bedroom and front room and the other a kitchen. I slept on a cot at top of the stairs. There was also a hand-cranked Victrola with old records. My favorite was by the original Jimmie Rodgers called "Big Rock Candy Mountain".

I attended school at a little two room facility a block away from where we lived. One room had grades one to four and the other had five through eight. I was in the second grade but when the teacher thought that I had better reading skills, she moved my desk over to the third grade row.

My father and Uncle Roy were ill matched. Roy was a staunch Republican and my father an urban Democrat. After about a year we moved back to Terre Haute but I still spent much of the summer and weekends and holidays in Carbon. Years later my father confided with me "With what Roy was paying me, I had to hustle pool with the customers to put food on the table."

Answer: Indianapolis

Indianapolis occupies most of Marion County with an estimated 855,164 population. Indianapolis has finance, manufacturing, a business center, and has developed niche markets in amateur sports and auto racing. Every year the Indianapolis 500 takes place - arguably the most famous car race in the world.

While we were there, John Gunther, a famed journalist of the time, published his 974 page book "Inside USA". In his research he visited over 300 communities in the United States. Even though he was given a warm welcome in Indianapolis, he later wrote that Indianapolis was the dirtiest city in the nation and that the city was the most racially segregated north of the Mason-Dickson line. Indiana was the northern center for the Ku Klux Klan with an estimated 40% adult males affiliated. This certainly true of our street--Elder. From Michigan Avenue for about two blocks it was all white family residences. But when you reached the machine shop and a vacant lot, all were black families.

Once I was returning on the trolley after my swimming lesson at the YMCA, there were only about three adults seated. At a stop, five black kids got on. I was surprised that one of them sat next to me, two sat right behind me, and the other two stood and continued their conversations in a fun but not inappropriate manner but they did not speak to me nor did they even acknowledge my presence when I exited. It dawned on me later that I had perhaps been a part of a demonstration of what it was like to be alone and systematically isolated.

Answer: Indiana State University

Indiana State University is located downtown in Terre Haute, Indiana. Originally a teachers college but now an university with about 11,000 students. It also ran a school grades 1 to 12 under a cooperative agreement with the Terre Haute School District that assigned a rectangular area surrounding the campus as the mandatory attendance area for children in that area. In addition the University would accept tuition students from anywhere in the district. I lived in the district so this was my school. On my second year there, I had moved again out of that district. For three years I wrote down the old address so I didn't have to change schools. Nobody checked.

There was a difference between the district and tuition students that seemed to not be an issue to the student body. But it was a big issue among the faculty. The tuition students were from families who were professors and teachers, small business owners, and parents who wanted a college prep for their children, whereas kids from the district were likely to be the progeny of laborers and factory workers. The former were guided into math, science, and language arts. The latter were scheduled into typing, shorthand, or home economics if a girl; for the boys it was wood shop, metal shop, or welding. I have never touched a wood or metal lathe nor a welding iron since those days.

Answer: Fort Knox, Kentucky

The United States Bullion Depository is a fortified vault building located in the army post of Fort Knox, Kentucky. However, if you came there for basic training, it was unlikely that you would be accorded much exposure to that gold as the nearest you would get to it was a far removed marching trail.

One the better films about basic training is the first half of "Full Metal Jacket" (1987). If you remember the film, you will think that I am exaggerating about how much worse my adventure was at Fort Knox. Here are a few incidents.

A young man entered in the fifth week of training. His original company had gone to machine gun training and he had been shot through the hip by a live bullet that some how had gotten into the blanks. A few days later he disappeared and we were told that he had been discharged because of failure to disclose some juvenile misadventure.

The oldest member of our training group who was 26 was found nearly dead after consuming rubbing alcohol. It was found also that he was a career criminal and had spent much of his life in correctional institutions in Ohio. He was given an "undesirable discharge".

At least four members had enlisted to distance themselves from pregnant girl friends. Most were like me--unemployed teenagers.

We had a farm boy from West Virginia. He was timid and probably was not the brightest guy around. Early on in his training after the others had found that he grew up on a farm, they began to call him a nickname that was not flattering and that I can't repeat here. He had severe stomach cramps. Each morning there was a sick call. This was announced through the 'bitch box', an Army term, with "All you sick, lame, and lazy, fall out to the company street." You learned that nobody was going to some nice clean clinic. Instead you were brow-beaten and insulted until you went back to your barracks. He moved slowly and was the butt of jokes and pranks both by his fellow trainees and particularly the cadre. About two weeks before the end of training, he collapsed. He had an untreated bowel condition and died at the camp hospital.

We heard later that some of the cadre were court martialed. The supply sergeant was accused of not issuing fresh linen for eight weeks. Other charges were related to recruit abuse.

Answer: San Antonio

What a change from slimy Fort Knox. We had dormitories rather than barracks filled with bunk beds. You did not need a pass nor need to wear a uniform if you went downtown. I had orders to attend the Laboratory Technician school but with little to say about it, I was switched to the Psychiatric Technician school because the army wanted the class filled. Brooke Army Hospital was good duty.

It was winter but we had days in the 90s. Each water fountain had a supply of salt tablets. The weather was a new experience for a mid-westerner. There was no KP for food preparation and cleaning we left to civilian workers. We amused ourselves with playing pool, attending 25 cent movies, going to basketball games at a nearby high school, but we were told not to go to Snake Hill, the tawdry side of San Antonio at that time.

On weekends, some would venture down to Laredo where, it was told, the booze was cheap and the women friendly. Those who survived the trip often came back with illnesses (STD/STI) or infested with vermin.

Answer: Denver

The atmosphere at Fitzsimmons was not as restrictive as Fort Knox but a lot more than Brooke. At the time there was a scandal as it was alleged prostitutes were entering wards restricted to long term tuberculosis patients so there were inspections on each vehicle entering the hospital grounds.

I was assigned to a MASH unit but not like the film and TV show but a holding company for trainees. And as a trainee, I got the jobs no permanent staff wanted. There was old Bill. He was a veteran whose past had caught up with him and he was bed ridden and could barely walk. Hourly, it seemed, he wanted to go to the bathroom. You could not support him from either side nor could you use a gait belt from behind because he leaned forward too much. You had to support him from the front and walk backwards. Most of the time Bill just passed a little gas.

Another assignment was in the tuberculosis/psychiatric ward where individuals with both diagnoses were housed. My job was to daily clean the ward but at that time there was only one resident a young man about my age. He was lonely and always wanted to talk, that was difficult to do wearing a mask and with other duties to complete. I did my best to be friendly but I can still picture that isolated kid sitting alone in a room designed for ten.

Answer: Hawaii

Tripler Army Hospital was on the leading edge of integration of the armed forces. The psychiatric ward was served by three shifts--one army, one navy, and one half and half. When I arrived I was assigned to the army unit that was currently on night duty. When the navy crew was short a man, I was shifted as a replacements and was on night duty for the next month. It was interesting to learn that the navy corpsman were trained for their jobs while the army seemed to assign personnel randomly. When the opportunity came to transfer back to the army crew, my request to remain where I was, was granted. So my social and work duties were with the navy guys.

Perhaps one of the disappointments with Tripler was the cultural lag between treatment modalities of the time and practice. There was no Insulin Therapy Unit. Electric shock was used only for the more severe cases of depression. The experimental antabuse program for alcoholics was unheard of. Hydrotherapy lab went unused. Patients received little talk therapy as the doctors were just assigned not certified psychiatrists.

But it was a beautiful two years even having to survive the alternate twelve and eighteen hours days when the hospital was shorthanded.

Answer: South Dakota School of Mines

The playing field has changed. When I matriculated there, it was a teacher's college with two goals. One was to train elementary teachers for a two-year teaching certificate; the other was to train for secondary schools with the former being the larger group. Now it is a high tech school that requires each student to be computer literate and the school now offers graduate degrees. Who would have thunk?

In those days it had only a few hundred students. In 2017 it was over 3000. Visiting the campus a couple of years ago, I was pleased to see a number of minority and foreign students--not there in my day. The staff was small but there was always a good teacher/student ratio. The chemistry teacher once confided that he left Michigan State for a smaller school as he had to teach as many as 400 students chemistry by lecture--no lab work--and was expected to flunk a third to alleviate dorm crowding issues. My GPA was much higher than in high school.

Answer: Sinai

A personal low in my life was when my GI Bill ran out and I had no steady income. I still needed a summer school and a full semester for my degree. I used the credits that I had accumulated to get a two-year teaching certificate and found a teaching job in Sinai, South Dakota, teaching a combined seventh and eighth grade class. The GI Bill paid 225 plus about 75 to 100 dollars working part-time. My teaching salary was less than that.

Sinai had less than a 150 people. No movie theater, one small restaurant, no taverns, no noon lunch program, zero social life except for the formidable Lutheran Church. After considering living there, I opted to commute, as did nearly all the teachers except the superintendent and his wife who taught grades 5 and 6 and the basketball coach who was at his third school in three years,

I drove through there a few years ago. As far as I could see there were no going businesses and the school had been torn down except for part of the gym that was being used as some kind of storage facility. The old gym had free throw circles that intersected with the center jump circle.

Driving around and looking at mailboxes, I saw the name 'Buck' and 'Ingles'. One of my 8th grade students, Roy Hope, became a nationally known gospel singer. There was a family that had two daughters in school named Faith and Hope. When a third daughter arrived they did not chose Charity but Joy. A good decision.