Um, there were the odd- you-know, the odd problems that kids had but um it- it didn't get weird until my high- um, grade-twelve, grade-thirteen when the kids started bringing in marijuana and leaving it in their lockers and then- then police were- were coming, you-know.

... oh then they were closing the seminary that was it and they were moving it downtown so that job ended and then I just needed a job so- I guess now I was in to grade-thirteen and I just went everywhere I could and happened to go into Bayview-Village-Shopping-Centre which was a lot different then it is now and- it was an open shopping-centre then but a big one- and I went into this store, Calderone's, that sold books and art-

Speaker: Mister-N my French teacher (laughing). Interviewer: Why did you like him? Speaker: Because he was so good. He went- he studied at the Sorbonne. And he was ve-- had a very good sense of humour. So he would- he would challenge us. And he had, the course- grade-thirteen- what happened with grade-thirteen? It was supposed to be the matriculation, kids who were in the um, technical part, because Northern, they had aircraft engineering, print shop and (inc) and they went only to grade-twelve. So if they had taken some subjects they would uh take the grade-thirteen, they would just sort- of hop in so, grade-thirteen chemistry, there were forty-five students. Grade uh- French there were about- there were over forty, and while they're bitching and complaining now. Uh forty- we had- we had over forty and every one of us got a first class honours, which meant over seventy-five percent.

... I originally I lived in North-Toronto, but then we moved up there. Um lived there for ten years, and then we moved out of Toronto. Um, moved to United-States for five years and then Montreal and then I came back here and finished grade thirteen and I 've lived here ever since.

... when we would come to Toronto quite often we'd stay at- in the Yonge and Bloor area. And uh, so I got to know that area a bit, and saw it change. Um, and then when I came back for- I went to- to grade thirteen I was in boarding school, but for university, I eventually went to York but lived on the U-of-T campus, so um uh, for six illustrious years.

Well, uh, I went right through the same school, it's now called James-S-Bell-School, in those days it was called Longbranch-Continuation-School, so I started in kindergarten, and I went through to grade thirteen.

Interviewer: So where did you meet your wife? Speaker 36: Um it's funny we grew up in the same village, went to the same school but, I think she was sixteen when she graduated from grade thirteen, I was eighteen and uh, she was um, (inc) she was four years ahead of me, 'cause she just, you-know she was stood first every year in school. Interviewer: I was gonna say, sixteen is young to be finished.

I started in grade-twelve and the last time I worked there was about a week before I started teaching. So it was about ah five- about seven years. Part-time. Well for- for me, ah university wa-- going to grade-twelve, grade-thirteen, for me, I didn't really know it at the time, was getting away from what I call 'blue- collar-intellectual-poverty'. Something must have clicked in and I was more interested in learning more.

At first, uh they sort-of looked and wondered who I was. But this, remember, this goes into another story because um I had already been in a classroom, to- into an English- into grade-thirteen English courses, and I believe I took two, at B-C-I. So therefore, I had been in with teenagers. So I guess I could act as crazy as they did.

Speaker: And I decided, "Hm, I will get my grade-thirteen," because I still had to wait for one or two of my sons, ah if they were taking grade-thirteen balli-- biology, I didn't want to go into that classroom. Interviewer: So you were in the classroom with the regular students? Speaker: Yes, and I start-- Interviewer: This was not an adult class? Speaker: This was not. Interviewer: That was a very big step, Bi.

I don't recall ever getting really high marks you-know like I got enough to get by and keep my parents happy and just barely enough to get into uni-- university. I think my average out of- coming out of grade-thirteen was seventy-two or seventy-three something-like-that so it was- Ah I guess in those days it was a balanced life. You go to school, you go home, you played hockey and in the summer-time you'd play a little tennis and baseball ...

Interviewer: Speaking of Departmentals and those exams, you wrote Departmentals did you, in grade thirteen? Speaker: When I was in high-school yeah grade-thirteen Departmentals yeah uh-huh. Ah and I can recall um the ah ah the- the years in grade-thirteen, um y-- you would have ah teachers come to you ah towards the end of the year and try to discourage you from- from writing the final exams um I-think teachers had a pretty good idea of- of who was going to do well and who wasn't ah and ah I know Saint-Michaels in particular they- they didn't want people trying exams ah- in those days you took nine subjects in grade-thirteen and it was kind-of common ah for a lot of people to take two years to do the grade-thirteen um and so the kind-of fringe or average students ah were encouraged maybe to only tackle maybe four or five exams ah in their first year and then come back and do it again the second year.

Interviewer: When the departmentals were gone did you notice changes then in um teacher attitude? Student attitude? Speaker: Um yeah w-- th-- the- the ah- the um the process of going through high-school when I was ah ah a youngster, especially grade-thirteen, th-- ah um the whole year seemed to be focused on THE final exam and ah I can recall ah a great percentage of time, especially in the last three or four months of the year, where we'd just dig out all these old exams ...

Like I got in- I think my next two years were in the sixties, ah I can remember just sneaking by a fifty-two I-think in grade-twelve, and back then grade-thirteen was still there- no, grade-thirteen you could drop it. (snaps fingers) Yes, that's what it was. Seventy-two, sixties, fifty-two in grade-eleven, grade-twelve I think I made forty-eight. The only class I ever failed.

Speaker: I read golf-books. I ah didn't know what I wanted to do, had no idea, and- I owe this part to my mother, um I split grade- what I did is I split grade-thirteen into two, 'cause- for two reasons. I didn't know what I wanted to do, which was a minor reason, but the other reason was I wanted to play sports.

And ah I went back to thirteen twice, partly 'cause I didn't know what I wanted to do, but partly becau-- mo-- mainly because I wanted to play sports for another year. But, as luck would have it um the second year I went back to grade-thirteen is when I met my present wife, Brenda. And we went out in high-school for a couple o' months, and that's 'seventy-five and here we are two months ago we got married and it's two-thousand-seven. So it's come full-circle.

Speaker: I was straight outta high-school. I was only- shoot, how old was I? I was probably eighteen, nineteen. Nineteen, maybe, yeah. Maybe twenty. (laughs) Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: I did grade-thirteen twice. Yup so that I think is what helped me get into Proctor-and-Gamble, but I had no skills. No working skills, I was fresh outta high-school.

Speaker: Yeah I don't remember exactly when we met because we were in school together from ah I was in grade-seven and he was in grade-eight, so we went all through school together and probably became a couple when I was in grade twelve and he was in grade thirteen. Interviewer: And so how did that happen? Speaker: We went on a trip together as a group, the whole um grade twelve and thirteen went on a skri- ski trip to Quebec-City. Interviewer: Oh that's pretty romantic. Speaker: Yeah. Never been back since.

Interviewer: Wow so ah how much below minimum wage were they paying you? Speaker: I don't remember but I- once I got to let's-say grade twelve or grade thirteen, I started getting mad about the fact that I wasn't making minimum wage, like, "I deserve to make minimum wage."

... I didn't want to be a secretary, and I didn't think I want to be a nurse and so teaching sounded good. And I really enjoyed it. It was the- it was the right choice for me, at that time. And ah so I went from grade-thirteen to teacher's college.