1970: Collecting Rocks vs. Singing in Chorus

By Corinne H. Smith

1970:  I turned thirteen years old.  I was in eighth grade at Centerville Junior High School, where Mr. Simpson was my homeroom teacher.  Daddy was 41, and he worked as a research chemist at Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster, Penna.  Mom was beginning to work as a nurse for a local clinic.  We lived on Dale Avenue in West Hempfield Township.  The #1 most popular song on the radio on my thirteenth birthday was “I Think I Love You” by The Partridge Family.  Mom snapped this photograph. (Obviously we were a little late with the November birthday photo this year.  You can see the edge of our Christmas tree on the right-hand side.)

     When we were in junior high school, our class schedules included a club meeting period on Wednesdays at the end of the day.  Ninth period.  Picking a club was a way to avoid a 44-minute sentence of sitting in homeroom for a study hall instead.  As a result, most students were in clubs.

     Our options were printed in our trusty student handbooks.  Here’s the list.

from Handbook, 1969-1970, Centerville Junior High School, pp. 25-26

     I chose to join Rock and Mineral Club.  I’d been picking up pebbles and rocks for years, especially while I was riding my bicycle around our neighborhood.  Daddy encouraged me, since he was a scientist and liked rocks, too.  Pieces of common ordinary white quartz were my favorites.  Where we lived, it was easy to find.  So was limestone.  So I littered our basement with favorite chunks of quartz and limestone.  Half of the gravel in our alleyway probably ended up in our house.

     I thought that it could be fun to talk about rocks with other people.  I found it amazing that enough students were interested in rocks that an entire junior high club was dedicated to the subject.  Basically, the meetings were just okay.  I always sat in the background with another girl – I can’t remember who she was -- while some of the guys – yes, the membership was almost entirely male – chattered with our advisor Mr. Eckert about breaking into local abandoned quarries and finding trilobites, little bits of fossils.  And geodes!  Where in the world did they find crystal-filled geodes around here?  Why didn’t these goodies land in my bicycle path?  Still, it was an interesting experience.  It was certainly better than sitting in homeroom, doing homework at the end of the school day.

     But deciding in favor of rocks had a consequence that involved music.  I played flute and piccolo in the junior high school band.  Our band rehearsals were worked into our schedules.  I believe that the regular girls’ and boys’ choruses met at the same time, and that you couldn’t be in both band and chorus in junior high.  But I'm pretty sure that at least one choral group met during the Wednesday club period.  If you wanted to sing in this group, you couldn’t be in a club at the same time.  By saying Yes to rocks, I was saying No to chorus.

     This probably doesn’t sound like a big deal.  But our school district had a terrific reputation when it came to music.  One of the jewels in its crown was the high school’s spring musical, put on by the Hempfield Singers, the esteemed chorus for 11th and 12th graders.  If you were in this group, you’d at least be in the chorus for the musical.  You’d be on stage.  You would also get to perform at school concerts and for private singing appearances around the area.  You would wear a choral robe of the school colors.  You would have prestige.

     And if this was your goal, then you and your parents would already be planning ahead when you were in junior high.  So on the page following the list of clubs, the school authorities conveniently outlined a process for reaching it.

  

from Handbook, 1969-1970, Centerville Junior High School, p. 27

     The choral track was clear.  Start singing in junior high and audition for the Intermediate Singers (for 9th and 10th graders) at the end of 8th grade.  Or join one of the lesser choruses in 9th grade, and audition for Intermediate Singers at the end of the year.  Then you would be in line to seamlessly advance to Hempfield Singers in 11th grade.

     Armed with this information, I reassured my parents – probably primarily my mother, who would have been concerned, expectant, and insistent – that I had a way of reaching Hempfield Singers in 11th grade even though I chose to meet with Rock and Mineral Club in junior high.

    And that’s what I did.  I sang alto with the Singing Ladies in 9th grade.  At the end of the year, I auditioned for Intermediate Singers.  One of our try-out songs was “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady.  Having perfect pitch gave me an advantage during the audition … but that’s a story for another day.  I succeeded.  I made it.  I was in Intermediate Singers in 10th grade, and in Hempfield Singers for 11th and 12th.  I was in the chorus (and also on the scenery painting committee) for Annie Get Your Gun and Half a Sixpence.  I got to wear the red robe, much to my mother’s delight.

     I can sing if I have to, though it’s been more than 20 years since I sang in any sort of organized group.  But I still collect rocks, just about anywhere I go.  I have jars of them.  Many jars of them.  Quartz is still my favorite.  I’ve even found a few fossils along the way.  No geodes, though.  And I still believe I made the right decision in junior high:  Rocks over Chorus.  It was once a nonconformist’s route to the stage.  Now picking up rocks is one of my favorite things to do, while traveling around the countryside.  I'm sure I'll do it for the rest of my life.

a small portion of my rock collection

1968: Pixanne

By Corinne H. Smith

1968:  I turned eleven years old.  I was in Mrs. Young's sixth grade class at Farmdale Elementary School.  Daddy was 39, and he worked as a research chemist at Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster, Penna.  Mom was a stay-at-home Mom.  We lived on Hathaway Street in West Hempfield Township.  The #1 song on the radio on my eleventh birthday was “Hey Jude” by The Beatles.  Mom snapped this photograph.

   I was not a Mickey Mouse Club or a Romper Room kid.  Captain Kangaroo was the nationally syndicated children’s show that I preferred to watch on TV.  I liked the Captain, of course, and I was also partial to Mr. Green Jeans, Bunny Rabbit, Dancing Bear, and the adventures of Tom Terrific (with his mighty dog Manfred).  I still remember some of the picture books that the Captain read to us.  “Caps for Sale” by Esphyr Slobodkina and the classic folk tale “Stone Soup” especially come to mind.

   Since we lived in the lee of Philadelphia, as it were, and could pick up Philly stations with our rooftop antenna, we had some other semi-local options to choose from.  I really liked Cartoon Corners with Gene London.  But my ultimate favorite show for kids was Pixanne. 

    Pixanne was a female Peter Pan pixie character who was portrayed by singer-educator Jane Norman.  Pixanne lived in a magic forest, and she told stories and sang songs.  She could fly, too.  Oggie the owl and Fliffy the butterfly were among her friends.  She walked around and watered big colorful flowers that grew at the forest’s edge.  She played a magic rock that was really an organ called a celeste, which created ethereal sounds.  Her nemesis was Windy Witch (who Jane Norman also played).  Pixanne ran on WCAU from 1960-1969, and then went into national syndication for the next seven years.  You can see a video clip of the show here.

   

   I was fascinated.  I longed to live in such a place.  Our suburban yard had some interesting sections to it: with a garden, lots of different bushes and trees, and a great sugar maple for climbing.  None of the plants or animals sang back to me.  And anyway, we sat smack dab in the middle of Lancaster County farmland.  A sizable stand of woods was difficult to find.  The only chance I had to walk into one was whenever I went camping with my Girl Scout troop.  Those opportunities were great but were short lived.

   At the end of the show, Pixanne sang this song:

          I’ll see you in the forest

          And I’ll meet you in the forest

          Come to the forest with me

          Where things are always happening

          There’s plenty of things to see

          So don’t go far away

          Come back, come back every day

          Back into the forest with me

Yes, Pixanne, that’s where I knew I wanted to be.

     On a spring day in 1974, Pixanne came up in conversation during a behind-the-wheel driver’s ed session.  Fellow classmate Tom Markow was driving the car, and Mr. Nuhrenberg was guiding him in the passenger seat.  I think they were arguing.  They were always arguing.  That left me and Jeff Gunzenhauser in the back seat.  Jeff was our class president and would later work for many years as a doctor in the U.S. Army.  But back then, he was someone else to talk to whenever Markow drove.  And it turned out that Jeff had been a Pixanne fan as well.  We reminisced and quietly sang “I’ll see you in the forest” while we rode around the farmland of our school district.

     A few years later, at an event at Dutch Wonderland (our local amusement park), I had a chance to meet and chat with Pixanne, Jane Norman.  I thanked her for what she gave me as a kid.  She autographed the back of a photo card for me.  I asked for a second one for Jeff.  (I was prudent:  I decided to mail it to his house instead of his room at West Point.)  He was polite and gallant enough to write me a thank-you note in return.

     Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my past and the influences that led me to make specific choices in life.  And it may sound silly to some, but I can see that it isn’t too far a stretch from “I’ll see you in the forest” to “I went to the woods to live deliberately.”  Had watching Pixanne set me up for loving nature and the forest, and for being receptive to the words of Henry David Thoreau a few years later?  I think it’s possible.  Henry had grown up in an agricultural community, too.

     During my high school and college years, when Pixanne no longer ran in our market, I morbidly tuned in on occasion to WMAR from Baltimore and watched Professor Kool and his Fun School.  It was a nutty show, and except for its use of Herb Alpert tunes, it was a waste of time to watch.  No one could ever beat Pixanne and her magic forest, in my heart.