Germantown High School * Philadelphia, PA. * Class of 1957

Carol Brockmon

Memories of GHS

---My recollections are fuzzy—the dreams of an alien long ago. The 1950’s—McCarthyism, The Smith Act, the McCall’s Magazine notions of togetherness and conventionality. A collage of context—Germantown Avenue, the Farmer’s Market, Philadelphia public transportation. Worlds of social assumptions I didn’t understand but thought everyone else did. Blue gym suits. Social stratification. Academic erratic performance. Feeling smart and dumb at the same time. Full of longing, poetry, curiosity, drama, political passion, a sense of social justice. A red diaper baby in a conventional world; a chubby girl in a thin world; a child of immigrants who never learned the culture—the music, the language of teendom—an ADD bright under-achiever. Angry. Lonely. A voracious reader. My life, my belonging and my friends were not centered in school, but in my political and family circles. I knew intimacy, I had my people, but only a few landed in school with me. Some were in my class, some behind. Roy, Sheila, Matey, Bobby, Alix. ---Most of my teachers are now a blur. The best remembered—Rose Glassberg, who SAW and responded to me with caring, nurturing and respect. Blessings to her. She was very important. Poetry and literature were a joy in her classes.