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who might do some mischief with them and he knew I was trustworthy. I think that was the only time I was summoned to the office. 

Next to being sent to the office, having to stay after school was probably the next most dreaded punishment. You might have to write something on the blackboard a hundred times or maybe just have to sit at your desk and study. I was pretty well behaved and didn't become involved in much of this but the very worst thing we ever had to do as far as I was concerned, was sing solo. I was quite diffident and shy anyway and to have to stand there in front of everybody and sing alone, even though it was a perfectly normal part of the curriculum, was absolutely horrendous to me. I dreaded this so much that I think I'd have skipped school to avoid it -- only you never knew when it was coming. On the other hand, I enjoyed spelldowns and made out pretty well in them. As a matter of fact, I skipped three grades at Lincoln which accounts for my getting through in six years. One reason for this was the fact I started late but had accumulated quite a bit of education at home in the meantime plus the term at Miss Baldwin's. 

As I've said, I was shy, reticent and diffident, almost painfully so and I've had to fight these handicaps all my life which makes me a bit proud of myself for having gone where I did in business and in sales at that before getting into general management work. But when I was a kid, I was no fighter, for example, and never took part in any kind of a fight in anger. The idea of a gruelling fistfight in a school yard or on a street corner just plain scared me although I don't think I was a coward -- it was more that I dreaded putting on a spectacle, being a principal in such an affair. And yet an angry fistfight fascinated me in a morbid sort of way and I used to rush into a crowd to get close enough to see the action. I remember one occasion at the corner of James and DeWitt when several of us were going home to lunch, included in the group, Larry Warren and Ham Smith. Larry loved to fight, anybody at anytime. On this occasion, he picked a fight with Ham Smith and they fought it out on the corner, Larry giving Ham a brutal beating and lusting in it. When it was over and Ham had a black eye and a bloody nose and blood all over his clothes, Larry ran away toward home so he wouldn't be late for lunch! I hated Larry for that performance enough that I think I could have whipped him for it right on the spot. I could fight if I got mad enough and the only real fight I had was when I was in high school and I took on a neighbor boy, Ev Carhart, who'd been badgering me; I bloodied his nose and he said uncle and we were good friends from then on.

There's no doubt Lincoln School was a good experience for me and I think I was ahead on it compared to the boys who went to

Transcription Notes:
gruelling [sic]