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Cary R. Brick It was a cold February day in 1961 when my father and I arrived in Monson for my first visit to Monson Academy. I was there to meet the Headmaster, Dr. George Rogers, and to be interviewed by the Director of Admissions, Owen Houghton. It was the beginning of an educational experience for which I shall always be grateful. Having driven six hours from our home in Watertown, New York, 20 miles from the Canadian border, to Springfield the day before, we didn't quite know what to expect at the Academy. Sure, we had studied the Academy's catalog, but we wanted to get an up-close sense of the faculty and students before making a final selection of what would become my preparatory school. We stayed overnight at the downtown Springfield Sheraton and, following the recommendation of a friendly street patrolman, found our way to the Student Prince restaurant for dinner. Once inside, we were welcomed by the host with whom my father started the first of what would be many conversations to take place during many return visits to the restaurant over the next two years. He spoke highly of the Academy and offered especially laudatory comments about Dr. Rogers and a few other Academy legends--- George Morrow, Henry Benton and Hugh Harrell, all of whom would come to hold special places in my heart and memories. Our first impression of Monson was an interesting and favorable one----from the first view of the neon "Best Seat in the House" sign on the toilet seat factory between Palmer and Monson to the imposing church on the hill and the stately and handsome village library. We drove through Monson to "get a feel" for the community before working our way to Alumni Hall to meet Owen Houghton. We read the handsome blue and white signs on the Academy buildings scattered throughout the community----Chapin, Holmbrook, Homestead Morris, Cushman and Hammond. We thought it odd that unlike so many schools, the Academy didn't have a dedicated campus----but came to appreciate the community itself was its campus. Owen Houghton was waiting for us in the faculty study and introduced us to the legends whose names we had heard the previous night before we walked to his nearby office. We talked at length about a multitude of subjects as he was carefully sizing me up as a potential student. A short time later we joined the Headmaster and Mrs. Rogers at the Holmbrook dining room for lunch. I don't know why I remember the menu, but I recall the steaming clam chowder and the chicken-a-la-king lunch, followed by chocolate cake. A hearty lunch for a cold winter day in Monson! I spent a lot of time "checking out" the students seated at the faculty and senior-hosted tables throughout the dining room and, of course, they drew their own conclusions about the "new kid" who was seated with the Headmaster. I did the same when the tables were turned months later. We discussed, among other things, the history of two of my mother and father's Watertown friends who had been recruited to play basketball at the Academy in the 1920's---contractor/banker/philanthropist/civic leader Roland Deline and Attorney Norman Ward, both stalwarts of the Watertown business and professional community. They had been drawn to the Academy by a fellow Watertonian, Frederick Bugbee, another graduate, who had returned years earlier to our community to head the local YMCA organization. The Deline and Bugbee names are now on buildings associated with the "Y" on Watertown's Public Square today, nearly a century later. I have no doubt that the Academy contributed greatly to their many successes as adults. What impressed us most about that experience? As my father and I discussed months later, it was the obvious respect the faculty and administrators showed for the students and vice versa. Faculty members addressed students by "Mister." Additionally, we were impressed by the simple fact that many of the kitchen staff called the students by name, with smiles, as they entered and left the dining room. That demonstrated a sense of family that I would later come to appreciate. I can still see and appreciate the smile and warmth of Mary Harris nearly a half century later. Has it been that long? It was only yesterday. Or it seems like yesterday. The following fall I joined the Academy family as a junior, assuming residence in Hammond Place--- the gracious home at the top of the hill---which I later learned was at one time the residence of the Headmaster. I lived in Hammond Place for both of my years at the Academy and as a senior enjoyed one of the two private rooms in the 14-student residence. I was proud when the Headmaster told me that my room was once his study. English master Dan Zagranic and his family lived on the main floor while bachelor masters S.J. Hughes and Donald Butt lived on the second floor during my first and second years, respectively. Mr. Hughes was a cold, arrogant and pretentious man with a pretend continental accent quite foreign to his native Toledo, Ohio. He taught senior English and while I never sat in his classroom to make a personal observation, I was told his academic performance was superb. His second floor successor, Mr. Butt, was a welcome respite---a man of warmth, humor and genuineness. As a student from far away, unlike many of my New England classmates, I didn't return to my hometown for occasional family weekends. My hometown visits were limited to school vacations. Instead, from time to time I would obtain a Saturday day pass to take the bus into Springfield to wander the aisles at Weston's bookstore and, perhaps, have a meal at the Student Prince. I enjoyed my low-key Monson lifestyle. Years later, as honeymooners in the Berkshires in 1976, my bride and I made a side trip to the Student Prince for dinner and of course to Monson for a trip down nostalgia lane. Strangely enough, caught up in a Norman Rockwell parade in Stockbridge, who did we see marching in the parade with his dogs Dixie and Garcon? Academy French master and Athletic Director Henry Benton! Highlights and memories of my two years at the Academy? Oh, so many. Here's a sampling: The Community Draft root beer in an iced mug at the downtown Rexall drug store. I used the store's payphone booth for my weekly calls to Watertown. Firth's Variety Store at the foot of High Street: Bob and Rosie's smiles and friendly welcomes. Grinders. Huge, gooey doughnuts on Sunday mornings. Adjacent to Firth's was a shop from which the Hammond Place students purchased a television antenna to attach to a black and white television in our recreation room/ basement----Dr. Rogers fronted the cost and we repaid the Academy with 25-cents-per-week-per-resident assessments. Junior year roommate and fellow senior David Guy was in charge of collecting the assessments and keeping the records----as I recall, the cost of the antenna plus installation was about $25.00. Peerless Cleaners. No matter how much laundry a student took into Peerless, whether it was what seemed like a 50-pound bag or a five pounder, it came back cleaned, and folded in a compact package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string usually for less than $2. Laundry was charged by the pound. I remember one distrustful student named Harold who asked the post office to weigh his laundry bag before taking it to Peerless. My friends and I jokingly asked him why he wanted to know the weight of his dirt. (Bob's?) Barber Shop. Haircuts were $1.00 as I recall. Dr. Rogers would personally escort to the shop those students he felt needed a grooming the day before Academy Trustees' meetings. To be put in that position was a school humiliation. Friendly's in Wilbraham. From time to time, the Rogers would gather up a few of us far-from-home students and quietly drive us over to Friendly's for ice cream on a quiet Sunday afternoon. In hindsight it seems rather elementary, but at the time it was an honor to be selected. Our Residences Only one Academy building was a dormitory in the traditional sense---Cushman Hall. The rest were private homes converted into dorms containing a few single rooms, lots of doubles and a few triples. I was assigned to Hammond Place for my junior year. I requested Cushman for my senior year, but that request was denied by Assistant Headmaster George Morrow. I asked him many years later why he had denied my request and he responded simply "I needed your maturity at Hammond." He made the right decision….what a wonderful house it was. Our recreation room, referenced above, contained a pool table, a ten cent soda machine and the celebrated television set. I remember watching CBS's Walter Cronkite reporting on the Bay of Pigs invasion on that set---none of us appreciated the significance of that event at the time. I was especially proud to be asked to pose with three of my classmates at the entrance to the house for a revised 1963 catalog picture; I still have that catalog among my memorabilia. Entertainment Movies were shown on Saturday nights in the auditorium/study hall at Alumni Hall. Hardly first run, of course, but a nice change of pace. Our seating? The study hall desks. Occasionally an outside speaker or program presenter was brought in to provide some entertainment, again at Alumni Hall. The Springfield Civic Center was another venue for entertainment. Occasionally, we were offered the chance to attend performances there. I recall a Victor Borge concert. The concerts themselves weren't the highlights---getting out for a night away from the school setting was the real attraction. It is hard to comprehend in today's environment of computers and electronics, but radios were absolutely forbidden! I had more than one transistor radio confiscated from under my pillow and shipped back to Watertown! Likewise, food was not permitted in the dorm rooms though it seems that was an often overlooked rule. Thanks for the cookies, Mary Harris! Ooooops. I let a secret out of the bag. Tuition and Enrollment
Faculty It took a special breed of person to be a Monson Academy faculty member in the 1960s. Monson Academy, like other private schools at that time, was beginning to feel financial strain. Their salary was minimal --- most often less than $10,000 a year. Usually, a lot less than that. Their benefits were room and board; their most valued benefit was the satisfaction they enjoyed in seeing their students excel. They weren't offered a pension plan, but could buy into a private plan. There were no 401Ks, no profit sharing, no opportunities to build nest eggs. Some worked for the Academy during the summers as maintenance employees---doing carpentry, painting and grounds keeping. They were the Academy family. The senior faculty----those previously mentioned--- George Morrow, Henry Benton, Hugh Harrell, Dan Zagranic--- and others such as Phil Cardone, Ernest Lawton, Joseph Pitts, Arthur LaFlamme and Edward Beyer, were men dedicated to the young men they were preparing for entry into the world beyond Monson. They were role models, mentors and friends. They were respected by the students and encouraged their students to be the best they could be. George Morrow No faculty member was underestimated by the students more than George Morrow. Staid and conservative in nature, his humor was dry and rarely demonstrated in front of the students. He served as the Assistant Headmaster and the dean of studies. He did everything---from administering the bookstore and overseeing the residences, to the mundane task of preparing the dining room seating assignments. He probably did a hundred other things, as well, unknown to the students. I never sat in his classroom or lived in his house, yet felt a closeness to him. I admired his formal manner and his obvious dedication to the institution and to the students. I sought him out some years after his retirement, many years after my graduation, and maintained a friendship with him. He told me he had purchased a retirement plan in the 1950s; it provided him with a $50 monthly pension in the 1980s. I visited him at his retirement home on Ely Road where he relished the opportunity to remove a well-worn box of Academy memorabilia from his front closet and share its stories with me, piece by piece. What a shame it was that the trustees of the new Wilbraham and Monson Academy, the surviving school after the 1970s merger of the two neighboring competitors, did not invite him to serve as a trustee. The new school would have benefitted from the Monson alumni loyalty his membership would have presented. The new Academy has never enjoyed that loyalty. He and I spoke on the phone several times in his final days as he drifted toward his final peace. My career had taken me to Capitol Hill in Washington and he wanted to hear every detail of what I was doing and what I was observing. He told me he was a regular listener to public radio broadcasts of National Press Club speakers. What a gentleman. He personified the best of the Academy. Hugh Harrell A big man, he was an imposing figure. Some students called him "the bear." If he was a giant, he was he most gentle giant at the Academy. He was the senior baseball and football coach, loved by his athletes. As his student, though not one of his best, I had a special relationship with him. He was always available, always caring and always patient as I worked my way through his coursework. The Academy was his life and its students were his sons. I shed tears when I learned of his passing. Tucked into one of my yearbooks is a slightly blurry yet treasured black and white photograph of him waving to me from his Chevy, his left arm hanging out from he driver's side window---it looks as if it would have been too uncomfortable to keep it inside! I'm sure that was fine with him, as he always had a warm wave for every student. Postscript Would I re-live the Monson Academy experience if I could? Yes. With no hesitation, absolutely! Cary Brick, a resident of Clayton, New York, a St. Lawrence River village on the Canadian border, is a l967 graduate of Syracuse University. He retired in 2000 from a 31-year career as Chief of Staff to three successive Northern New York Congressmen. At the time of his retirement, his tenure in the Congress was exceeded by only two of the 435 House members. He is he recipient of more than 25 regional, State and national awards and citations in honor of his Congressional career and service to the nation. He is active in his community by serving on a multitude of boards, is a Judge, Fire Commissioner, adjunct professor of Government and History, and community leader. He is also a member of the Postmaster General's Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee, a 15-member national committee charged with the responsibility of selecting the subjects for and designing United States postage stamps (http://www.usps.com/communications/organization/csac.htm). He may be contacted at cbrick@twcny.rr.com or at P.O. Box 3, Clayton, New York 13624.
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