Page 12 - Demo

Fools%u2019 Journey6We had two large classrooms, which had originally been a wood shop and a metal shop when the building housed the high school. They were in a well-lit half-basement with a bank of large windows all across the east wall. It was clean and orderly, but definitely a basement %u2014 the boiler room and janitor%u2019s cubby hole were just down the hall.I had just graduated from Ball State, and was to be the school%u2019s new Industrial Arts teacher. Lynn, with a recent degree in Art Education from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, would teach Crafts. We made up a department of two, of which I was the head, because I had a Masters degree. Lynn would receive an annual salary of $7,475, and my advanced degree earned me an additional $150.After Lynn and I left the school building, I suggested the local A&W drive-in for lunch. Over soggy Coney dogs and cold root beer, we started getting to know each other. We%u2019d each enjoyed our college curriculums, but neither of us was enthusiastic about teaching. In fact, neither of us knew what we really wanted to do. Lynn had spent her entire life in the glorious state of Michigan (suburban Detroit, with summers %u201cUp North%u201d), and rarely ventured into what her friends considered the backwoods territory of Indiana. Her college roommate was dumbfounded that she would move to the hinterland, but Lynn liked Kendallville, it wasn%u2019t far from Michigan, and the terrain was similar, with many small lakes. It was something of a fluke that we each ended up here on August 7, 1972, ready to begin teaching careers.I%u2019d been in town for less than a month, but Dave, my Ball State friend, who grew up in Kendallville, had already shown me around, so I was able to impress Lynn with an extended grand tour. It was a pleasant community with a population of about 8,000, the kind 1950s TV families lived in. The downtown was vibrant, and it included a jeweler, auto dealer, florist, hotel, theater, and cafe. There was a soda fountain in the corner drugstore. A small strip shopping center on the north side of town offered a Laundromat, hardware store, grocery, and drug store. The local park had tall, stately, hardwood trees, a quiet campground, and a sandy swimming beach around a public lake. An ancient walnut tree, over