School daze
By Charles P. Eberson
Senior Moments
It was September 1964, and I was going to be a freshman at the “old” Atlantic City High School, formerly located on Albany Avenue, one block from the beach. I attended grade schools at Troy Avenue in Ventnor, then in Margate at Granville Avenue, Union Avenue and finally Eugene A. Tighe schools. I was ready for my first day with bus tickets in hand and a few dollars in my pocket for a school lunch. Walking up the front steps and into a grand entrance, I was filled with anticipation, excitement and a little nervousness at the enormity of the school.
After a few days of orientation, schedules of classes were handed out. I was trying to find my way around the school. Counting the basement, there were four floors and 450,000 square feet through which to navigate. The 750-seat auditorium was where I spent 2nd-period study hall.
The first week while in that study hall, the two students behind me put a string over my head and around my neck and started pulling. I spent the rest of that fifty-minute period fighting off that string trying not to draw any additional attention. Finally, the period was over and the students poured out the center doors into the main hallway. The two students from behind me gave me a shove. I was so frustrated with them that I shoved them onto the ground. Immediately, we were surrounded by students chanting, “Fight, fight, fight!”
Next thing I knew, a teacher had my arms above my head in a full nelson, and I was pulled along on my toes to the disciplinary office. Facing me was Mr. Whims, an ex-military man with a high, tight haircut and a no-nonsense look on his face. I thought I was going to face a firing squad at sundown but ended up receiving five detentions.
When I got home late from school, my mother inquired as to the reason for my tardiness. When she heard it was for fighting my first few days in the school, she was inconsolable.
I learned quickly my place in the hierarchy. The year before in eighth grade, I was at the top of the food chain. As a high school freshman, I was just fodder for the upperclassmen. Walking around the cafeteria with a tray of food and searching for a place to sit was another exercise in acclimating. Tables with fraternities and sororities were off-limits. Students from other sending districts or ethnicities tended to stick together.
As days went into weeks and weeks into months, things tended to sort themselves out. I found that ACHS had tremendous school spirit. During football season, there were pep rallies that filled the auditorium with the band, cheerleaders and, of course, a fight song that I still remember today. Even though this was the ‘60s, there was a dress code. No jeans, no shirts without a collar and no hair over the ears for males. Of course, these rules had to be tested from time to time and I was sent home for wearing jeans, a T-shirt and hair over my ears. Once again, I had to answer to my mum.
As for my teachers, some have stayed in my memory for all these years. One English teacher, who forbade the crumbling of paper and whose patience I also had to test; another young attractive teacher who must have been in her early twenties at the time; and my biology teacher, Bob Sarner. Mr. Sarner had the distinction of having his classroom, the only classroom on that floor, right underneath the clock in the tower above the fourth floor. Sarner made surfboards under the name “Brigantine Boards”. If he wasn’t cool enough, on slow testing days, he brought in his twelve-string guitar and sang folk songs.
Years later, after I was married with children, I brought my daughter to a drawing class at the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor and there was Sarner working for Game and Wildlife. The funny thing is that he didn’t seem that much older than me. We caught up with each other about our lives and ACHS memories.
All in all, my four years at Atlantic City High School were invaluable on so many different levels and enabled me to move on successfully to higher education. It was a sad day to see the old high school demolished, but the memories remain. Now, if only I could lay my hands on a Sarner Brigantine Surfboard.
Charles Eberson has been in the newspaper business for over 25 years. He has worked as a writer, advertising executive, circulation manager and photographer. His photography can be viewed at charles-eberson.fineartamerica.com
