For weeks Miss Kassian had been giving vague and odd instructions to members of St. Thomas Operation Contact (our schools peer counseling team.) She told them to keep the 30th free. At one point she told them to bring balloons, and then two days later told them to forget about the balloons. The week before, she told them to invite guests. I won’t lie—I had a rather cynical attitude towards the group and their mission, particularly the mandate to help raise people's self esteem, but I was grateful for the invite Kevin gave me and to be included in whatever was going on. So Monday after a normal school day, I went home and then left for town at 7:40. It turned out to be an elaborate costume scavenger hunt. We divided into teams of three and were each given a number and a list of houses to go to. At first we didn’t know what we were asking for and you had to get your clues in the right order, so you would knock on a door and then give your number and they would tell you if they had anything for you. They could also tell you if they had something that you would have to come back for, so a lot of the homes we had to go to more than once. It was a lot of walking around. I was on a team with Kevin and one other female but my journal has only two cryptic sentences about the whole thing.
Halloween in St Thomas and the week leading up to it were the only times the town had a police presence. The sheriff would send a car or two around because the normal Halloween fun involved pulling anything that wasn’t nailed down into the street or shifting things around town. Generally as long as nothing was destroyed or vandalized the police didn’t interfere. A few of the scavenger hunt parties were stopped by the cops and asked what they were up to.
In the end we all found the bits of our costumes, and put together the clues that lead us to a party at Miss Kassian's house. It was a fun night. We decided to wear our costumes the next day to school. I got home and to bed around 12:30. After, I reflected that physics would be a whole lot better if Miss Kassian put half the effort into lessons plans that she did in organizing the event.
October 31st I wore my costume to school as did most of the students who were on the hunt. Mrs. Hollis also wore a costume. My legs were very sore from all the walking around town the night before. Aside from homecoming float building it was a rare thing for me to be in St. Thomas and not be at the school. I spent the night of Reformation Day at home. Dad had planned a showing of the Martin Luther film, (the old black and white one) but no one showed up. I was not surprised.
Now I’m not entirely sure this next thing happened my senior year, but I know for a fact that it happened on November 1. As usual anything that was not nailed down got moved. Most of the picnic tables from the city park found their way to the front of the school along with a realtors “For Sale” sign. Early in the day Mr. Hanson (who was also on the park board) got on the intercom and called all the boys from 7th grade to senior to report to the gym. Once there, he marched them out of the school to carry all the picnic tables across the street to the city park. After the guys were back in class, he then got on the intercom and thanked them for being good citizens and volunteering for this civic duty. What really rankled the girls was that he only called the boys, when the girls were just as responsible for the disheveled state of the town.
Wednesday was parent-teacher conferences. Mom went but mostly to visit socially with some of my teachers. When I asked what they said she just said, “Oh, they all like you.”
That same day I got a library book from the Carnegie Regional Library in Grafton in the mail. I had requested it over the phone. Mrs. Kappel was insistent on us reading book report books from the country and time period we were studying in Lit., ideally they had to be from the school’s own library, but she let me order the book from Grafton. I was reading Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest.” I read it twice and then gave it to my dad who spent two hours carefully unfolding the bent corners of the pages and carefully erasing pencil marks in the margins before reading it himself. It didn't hit me until after I handed in my report that my father's name is the the Hungarian form of Earnest.
Thursday was Peggy’s birthday and we celebrated all day. We had cake in PDP, cake and milk in Computer class. Then the high school all traveled to Crystal ND for a pep rally for the girl's basketball team who had earned a spot in the regional tournament. We got back in time for study hall and then after lunch had cookies in Shop. English we spent writing captions. I also started working in earnest on the posters for the volleyball team.
Friday we got an inch of snow. I made some nice progress on my bookcase in Shop. That night I babysat for the Bigwoods until 1am. Saturday it was cold and muggy, 40 degrees, and rained for about an hour in the morning. I loved it (I’m still weird like that) and noted that it would have been a “perfect spring day.” Sunday after church there was an Aid Association for Lutherans dinner after church. I got a Frisbee with their new logo on it.
REG
lhg edited and approved
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