I am registered on a site called classmates.com and posted the below on it, repeated here FYI.
I attended Orland Park Elementary from about 4th grade (maybe 3rd?) until graduation in 1960, then on to Carl Sandburg HS for 4 yrs there, going on to college in 1964.
We had one really bad teacher at OPE, as I recall her name was Gepetto initially but got married and it changed to Moniachie, probably spelled both wrong, but she was the sort of poor teacher who would have you put your gum on the end of your nose, or would draw a circle on the board and make you go stand up in front of the class and put your nose in the circle. One time she decided that her classes should do 2 hours of homework every night. This got the parents so annoyed that they complained to Principle Jerling and that got stopped.
My mother related years later that she had run into the daughter of this teacher who bragged that he mom had taught for X number of years at OPE and retired and how great a teacher she was and how well thought of she was. My mom didn't say anything to the daughter about what people really thought of her mother. If I were there I would have made it clear to the daughter just how bad a teacher this woman was.
I recall one time that the younger Metcalf boy had carved my initials CH and a heart into a desk with the initials of a girl who had the same initials of CH. I knew he did it, don't know why he did it, bored with the class I guess and wanting to do something to pass the time, but it was assumed that it was me who did it and I got blamed by 'Mr. Callahan' and the woman teacher as I was sort of a cut up and they just assumed I did it.
Callahan wanted me to admit it and sand down the desk. I refused both and just said that I didn't do it and wasn't going to sand the desk and of course there was no chance I would squeal on who actually did it. Callahan could be a nice guy or a pain in the rear and I might have gotten suspended but the Metcalf kid finally admitted he did it and for several days was busy sanding down the desk.
Years later I was in gym class at Carl Sandberg High School, behind home plate waiting to bat when Callahan came to the HS for something and parked a few feet from where I was standing. I thought of saying 'Hello' as he had seen me but I remembered how he acted with the desk nonsense and I just ignored him.
I remember that for graduation from OPE there was a dinner at a local restaurant in town and my folks got me a graduation present, it was a Timex watch. I was thrilled to get it, at 14 I had never had a watch before so it was a nice present. I suspect that today kids all have watches well before age 14, but back in 1960 it was not the electronic age.
Once I went on to CSHS I never had any class with those kids that I was friends with at OPE. Our tiny 50 or so graduating class just disappeared into the 1,500 kids at CSHS. The only time I saw any of them was on the bus going to and from HS.
I got through HS ok but made few new friends, it was a click (clique) orientated bunch at CSHS mostly Palos kids and I stayed to myself and didn't think all that well of the place. I didn't even consider going to the prom.
Some of the kids from our Laguna Woods subdivision were James Bendix, Nancy and George Kopp, Norman Hegyi and the others in his family of Karol and Karen Von See and Mark Von See. Also Janine Nelson and the McBride kids who went to Catholic schools but were part of the neighborhood groups of kids.
So good memories of OPE but CSHS was pretty much a waste of time for me, couldn't wait to get out of there and leave the snotty Palos kids.
