David Bowman:
CLASS OF 1964
Ada Merritt Junior High SchoolClass of 1964
Miami, FL
David's Story
I started school at Ada Merritt back in 1962. I went to that school for 3 years 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. That was before 9th grade was changed to high school. The Principal was Mr. Rubenstein, The Dean was Mr. Swilly. In 7th grade, my first period, and home room was Science class with Mr. Irwin F. Parker second period was History, with Mr Sal Ciry, my third period, was with Mrs. Webb, For Math. Fourth period, was shop class, I don't remember who my 7th grade shop teacher was, nor do I remember my 5th period English teacher's name. My last period, 6th period was Phys. Ed. with Mr Ron Ferrarro.
8th grade I had some of the same teachers, as well as some new ones. Miss Clark, Mr. Castaldi, who had the hots for Miss Clark. The teacher I remember the best, and owe the most to was my 8th grade Shop Teacher, Mr Bill Snyder. I remember the first day in Mr. Snyder's class. He lined the whole class up by one of the work benches. He then took a piece of Poplar wood and clamped it to the bench. He then took a carpenter's square and drew lines across this piece of Poplar, about 1in. apart. He then asked the first student to cut the wood on the line he drew. There were only two in that class who stayed on the line, me and one of my best friends, Steve Greenstein. I think that was a test of sorts, to see who he was going to work with the closest. I learned more from Mr. Snyder about wood, than you can imagine. Now in 8th grade my first period class was Shop, with Mr. Snyder. One day I asked Mr. Snyder if it would be OK if I brought my 22 rifle in and refinished the stock? He said sure. I got on a Metro Bus with this uncased J.C. Higgins single shot 22 rifle, nobody on the bus even took a second glance at me or the rifle. I got to class, and Bill took the gun apart, and put the barrel, trigger guard and butt plate in the tool cage. and for a week I worked on that stock. The following Friday, the rifle was done and all I had to do was put it back together. Then I proceeded to take the rifle to each of my following classes. The teachers in ...Expand for more
those classes would say to me, oh, is that the rifle you've been working on, wow it came out nice. I would stand the rifle in the corner, and go on with that class. No cops, no helicopters, no SWAT. Hell SWAT didn't even exist at the time. At the end of the day, I got back on the Metro bus, and took my rifle home. Try that today, see what we've done for, and to America. The last time I was in a School Wood Shop was when my step daughter's school, had open house, and the parents could come in and meet the teachers. When my step daughter told me her home room was a wood shop class, I said, I'm in. She went to Western Senior Hi. in Broward Co. Florida. When her Mother and I got to her home room, the wood shop, I noticed something amiss, there was not the first power tool. No table saw, no jointer, no band saw,no planer, no drill press, no lathe, nothing. I said to her teacher, I thought this was a wood shop. His answer made me sick. He said, I know, every time a little cherub would get cut, or hit his thumb with a hammer, the parents would sue the school, and we would lose another tool. When I went to shop class, and you cut your finger, the teacher would send you to the school nurse and she would put a bandaid on it, and you hauled ass back to shop, we only had an hour. So I asked the daughter's teacher, what do you do here, now that you have no equiptment? He said, I give them a block of wood, and a piece of sandpaper, and tell them to sand it into a ball. I said, so let me get this right. The kid cuts himself, and the school gets sued, you lose the equiptment, the parents make some money because their kid is dumber than a bag of rocks, and can't even fathom a hammer or it's use. Be proud America, now we know how they came up with, the Cabbage Patch Kids. The shop teacher said, yep, pretty much....As for Bill Snyder's class, Steve won the Shop Award for that year, and I won the Gold Key Award fo The Industrial Arts. As for Bill Snyder, if you are still alive, thank you. If you are looking down on us, I'll be along directly.
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