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Peyton Place Introduction by Sam Sloan
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samsloan
Feb 19, 2012, 1:07:51 PM2/19/12
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Peyton Place
by
Grace Metalious
Introduction by Sam Sloan
Peyton Place is a literary masterpiece, brilliantly written, every
word artfully crafted.
Why is it that nobody seems to think of it in this way? Why is there
speculation as to who the real author was?
The reason there has long been some doubt as to whether Grace
Metalious really wrote the book is that she was a woman of limited
education, plus she was an alcoholic. It does not seem possible that
such a person could create such a work of literary genius.
The leading alternate candidate for being the real author of the book
is her ex-husband, George Metalious, who was a school teacher and much
better educated.
However, Jeannie Gallant, Grace's best friend who still lives in
Gilmanton, New Hampshire, says that there is absolutely no doubt that
Grace wrote the book. She worked on it for years, even sitting in the
bathtub with a typewriter at her side, typing away at the book.
In addition, with this property worth millions and George Metalious
still alive and active today, if he had written the book he certainly
would have said so by now.
In researching this book, I discovered a remarkable thing that nobody
else seems to have noticed: Grace Metalious is not listed in the
Social Security Death Index !!!
I realize this seems impossible because she was born Marie Grace
DeRepentigny on September 8, 1924 and died February 25, 1964. By 1964,
almost everybody had a Social Security Number. Grace was on the dole
or in the hospital during the last years of her life, so she must have
had one too in order to receive the federal benefits available to a
person like her.
However, I searched in every possible way, searching for anybody who
was born or died on those dates, everyone named Grace who was born in
New Hampshire, everybody born in New Hampshire between 1922 and 1926
and so-on. Every possibility was exhausted and everything came up
zero. So, she is just not listed.
This led me to wonder whether she is really dead. This would make a
great and entirely plausible conspiracy theory. She was practically
run out of her town because of this book. Why not go into hiding and
pretend to be dead?
I can just imagine her laying on the beach on a remote island in the
South Pacific, with handsome young men bringing her drinks, while
royalties from her book comes pouring in by direct deposits to her
bank accounts. This is where I hope to be some day myself, except that
I will skip the handsome young men bringing me drinks.
So, I called the Smith Meeting House Cemetery where she is said to be
buried. It is a small, little-known cemetery without a regular staff,
but I left a message and a few days later Fred Buchholz, the man in
charge, called me back.
Naturally, I offered to dig up Grace and see what was really in that
grave site, but Fred Buchholz said that would not be necessary. He is
certain that Grace is dead and buried in that cemetery plot.
He has a special reason to know this which was even more curious. She
had wanted to donate her body to medical science. It was her intention
that her body go to Harvard University. As a result, her body was put
on a slab and kept frozen in a locker for two years.
Then Harvard decided that they did not want her body after all. The
ravages of alcohol made her body unsuitable for study. For that
reason, her body was sent back to Smith Meeting House Cemetery two
years after she had died and finally buried there.
Also, the part about her lying on the beach while royalties from her
book comes pouring in does not fit either.
Although Jeannie Gallant was her best friend, she admits that Grace
was not a perfect person. She says that Grace was such a frequent
writer that she often wrote her name on checks. Unfortunately, there
was often no money in the bank to cover the checks.
Another bad habit Grace had was signing over the rights to her book.
She would sign over the rights to one person and, only a few weeks
later, sign them over to another person. Just before her death she
assigned the rights to her boyfriend-lover at the time. However, after
she died he said that he did not want them. This led to litigation.
The end result was no result. As a result or lack thereof, when Peyton
Place was turned into a long-running TV series starring Mia Farrow,
nobody owned the rights and therefore the TV show did not have to pay
royalties to anybody.
This also explains why many other imitators using the name “Peyton
Place” have sprung up. The name has become public domain.
When the movie version starring Lana Turner was being produced, Grace
Metalious, who was still alive, objected vehemently to the white-
washing of the plot. In the movie, the step-father rapes his step-
daughter, Selena. However, in the book, the biological father rapes
his own daughter, which is obviously a more serious crime. (Some will
disagree.) Grace was unhappy with the toning down of the book, but
censorship still existed back then and the producers refused to show
in the movie the man raping his own daughter.
Even today, it is possible that the movie could not be made because
the rape scene might be deemed a violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252, because
Selena was under 18 years of age at the time of the rape.
The book is said to describe shocking scandals in a placid appearing
small New England town. The question is whether these scandals are
really remarkable enough to be worthy of a book. Actually, the
scandals in this book do not really seem to be that remarkable. So, it
was really the writing ability of Grace Metalious that made this a
noteworthy book, not the content. Thinking about this subject has led
me to wonder if I could write an equally shocking book about my own
home town.
My own home town was Lynchburg, Virginia. It is much larger than
Gilmanton, New Hampshire, but if I confine my proposed book to my
Upper Crust Neighborhood of Boonsboro, it is not that much bigger.
There are some scandals that I know about because I grew up there but
which have never been published in any newspaper, book or magazine. I
am wondering if they are just as “good” as those described in Peyton
Place. Since these scandals all happened more than 50 years ago and
most of the people involved are dead now, I guess it is not too bad to
reveal them although I will probably get into trouble for this. It is
important to remember that, by contrast, Grace was writing about
events of just a few years earlier and she did not even bother to
change the names of some of the people, so that everybody in that town
knew exactly whom she was writing about.
My family's own pediatrician and friend, Dr. Robert Cox, committed
suicide in about 1958. My mother was ashen faced when she found out
about this, as he was a family friend. He lived on Fox Hill Road in
Bedford County just off Trent's Ferry Road and next to Judith Creek.
He liked to go horse-back riding and was a member of a fox hunting
club. In our neighborhood, many people owned their own horses. They
would release a fox and go hunting with their hounds. I think they
would catch the fox but not hurt it. Later, they would use it again
for another fox hunt. Dr. Cox seemed to live a happy, ideal life. He
had a wife but no children. He seemed to have no problems of any kind.
Then, suddenly, he killed himself. No reason was ever known.
The valedictorian of my high school class and a personal friend of
mine had an uncle, her father's brother, who was a Rhodes Scholar and
a distinguished attorney. He killed himself too. I never knew the
reason or if there was one. I feared my friend's grades would fall
because of this family tragedy but they did not and she still
graduated first in our high school class.
The father of my best friend across the street on Old Trent's Ferry
Road had a problem with alcohol. I remember sitting in their living
room watching the Mickey Mouse Club. The father who was drunk was
talking about how “infantile” the TV show was. He killed himself too,
not long thereafter. I could not imagine how a man with a devoted wife
and two children in high school could kill himself, thereby abandoning
his family.
There are two other scandals I will not mention because the people
involved are still alive and I am still in contact with them.
Then, there is an unrelated scandal about our high school football
team which I feel was cheated out of the state championship and also
about our debate team that was cheated too, but because of a
mathematical error that I myself made. (I will skip that one.)
We had easily the best high school football team in the Commonwealth
of Virginia and possibly the best in the country. Not only did our
team win every game, but it did so by an overwhelming score. The
typical score in our games was 42-0. Nobody could score against us and
nobody could stop us either.
There was a high school in Roanoke Virginia that was larger than us
and had beaten us every year for ten years in a row. They seemed to
have us jinxed. We were worried about that game. However, as it turned
out, we finally beat them and beat them easily, breaking the streak.
Why did we have such a good team? I think it was primarily because of
two of our players. Arthur Brown was our quarterback. He was also the
Virginia state record holder for the hundred yard dash. So, once he
got into an open field, you could forget about it. He ran like the
wind. Nobody could catch him.
We had a lineman named Rodney “Moose” Schmidt. Moose Schmidt played
both offensive and defensive tackle. He was in every play of every
game. He was also my chemistry partner and sat next to me in home
room. It was because of Moose Schmidt that no team could ever score
against us. As soon as the ball was hiked, Moose would tacked the
quarterback. No team ever had a chance against Moose Schmidt.
I do not want to take credit away from the other members of our team.
Bobby Brickhouse, who sat opposite me in math class (I was the state
math champion, not to mention the state chess champion) made a miracle
play in one of our football games. An opposing team had the audacity
to catch a pass against us. The receiver caught it behind Bobby
Brickhouse and had an open field with nothing between him and the goal
posts. By some miracle, Bobby Brickhouse spun around and grabbed the
guy, saving the touchdown.
I asked Bobby Brickhouse about this at a class reunion years later and
he said that he did not remember the play.
Although it was obvious that we easily had the best high school
football team in Virginia, we were cheated out of the state
championship. The way this happened was the high schools in Richmond
Virginia had created a league of their own. My agreement, they only
played each other and never played out of their group. As a result,
there was no way to compare their team to ours. One of those teams had
won all of their games, I think it was John Marshall High School.
However, they won by scores like 10-7 whereas we won by scores like
42-0. However, scores do not count. Only Win-Loss results count. Also,
we had played all over the state, and also played against teams like
Augusta Military Academy, but those results did not count as they were
not public schools.
Since both teams had won all their games, the authorities applied some
crazy tie-breaking system, by which they declared the Richmond
Virginia team to be the state champion.
Our principal, Mr. L. H. McCue, protested and tried to arrange a play
off game against the team from Richmond. However, they were having
none of that. They knew what would happen. Our team would have easily
beaten them. So, we were cheated. However, after this incident, a
system of play-off games was instituted in later years.
I feel that we had not only the best football team in the state but
also probably the best team in the nation. However, there was one
caveat. There were no Blacks on our team!!!! Had we played one of
those Damn Yankee Teams from way up North, there remains some doubt as
to whether Arthur Brown could so easily have out-run their entire
team, or whether Rodney Schmidt could so easily have crushed their
entire lines.
A kid from Bronx High School of Science even beat me at math that year
and this got his name in the newspapers. (Unfair competition! He had
teachers. I had taught myself math because I was better than my
teachers.) Then, there was also a kid from Brooklyn who had the edge
on me at chess.
Years later, I met both Arthur Brown and Rodney Schmidt at high school
class reunions. Arthur Brown told me that he had never been able to
make his college football team because he was too small. He was only 5
feet 6 inches tall. Rodney Schmidt told me that he had played college
football but had not been a star.
The question about us playing against Blacks had already come up. This
was the 1961-1962 School Year. This was the year that the Virginia
public school system had finally started to become desegregated. In
the Spring Semester of the 1962 school year, E.C. Glass High School
admitted their first Blacks, a boy and a girl, who came in as
Freshmen. There were no riots or problems of any kind like there had
been in Alabama. Within a few years, the Lynchburg School System was
completely integrated.
When the one boy came in, whose name was Owen Cardwell, the football
season was already over, so the question of him making the football
team never came up.
However, there was a high school in Hampton Virginia that had also
admitted a Black kid. Their token Black had made their football team.
We were playing teams from all over the state (unlike the despised
Richmond Teams that only played each other) so naturally we played the
Hampton Team that had a Black player on it.
I remember the big game well, but what I especially remember was the
beautiful Black girls who came to watch the game. They came in their
finest duds, dressed to kill, furs and whatever, and sat together in
the bleachers. I had never seen any of these girls before nor have I
ever seen any of them since. I do not know if they were Lynchburg
girls or if they had traveled 200 miles from Hampton Virginia to watch
this game.
I must confess that I have always had this strange preference for
beautiful women, and that must be why I remember them so well.
But, as Shakespeare said, “The play's the thing”. What happened in the
game was the only thing that counted.
What happened in the game sure must have been a disappointment to
them. Every time the Black kid got his hands on the ball, all the
Blacks in the stands stood up and started cheering wildly. Sadly, it
turned out that the Black kid was no OJ Simpson. He could not run. He
could not catch. He could not throw. He got his hands on the ball only
three or four times, and every time he did the White boys on our
defensive line broke through and tackled him. I do not believe that he
ever even made it back to the line of scrimmage.
These plays took place way down at the far end of the field (we also
had them backed up to their own goal line). I was sitting mid-field,
so I never got to see who tackled him. I only know that he never got
anywhere near to running or scoring.
Speaking of scoring, there was one scandal that, had things turned out
differently, would have changed the course of my life.
The most popular girl in my high school class was a girl I liked very
much and I am sure that she liked me too. However, she got knocked up
by a boy named Snooky.
Back in those days, if a girl got pregnant, she was not allowed to
attend school and had to drop out. The rules have changed since then.
Nowadays, the situation is more realistic and girls are allowed to
stay in school until they practically give birth in the classroom.
Remember, we are still talking about Peyton Place here, in spite of
the digression about high school football. Mrs. Margaret Armstrong,
the High School Dean of Girls, would go around the school checking out
the tummies of the girls and sometimes even putting her hands on the
tummies of the girls (which the girls would complain about). If Mrs.
Armstrong ever caught a girl who was pregnant, that girl was
immediately expelled from the school.
And, so, the girl of my dreams was kicked out of high school.
Now we get to the good part.
To Be Continued:
Sam Sloan
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871876160
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871876160
by
Grace Metalious
Introduction by Sam Sloan
Peyton Place is a literary masterpiece, brilliantly written, every
word artfully crafted.
Why is it that nobody seems to think of it in this way? Why is there
speculation as to who the real author was?
The reason there has long been some doubt as to whether Grace
Metalious really wrote the book is that she was a woman of limited
education, plus she was an alcoholic. It does not seem possible that
such a person could create such a work of literary genius.
The leading alternate candidate for being the real author of the book
is her ex-husband, George Metalious, who was a school teacher and much
better educated.
However, Jeannie Gallant, Grace's best friend who still lives in
Gilmanton, New Hampshire, says that there is absolutely no doubt that
Grace wrote the book. She worked on it for years, even sitting in the
bathtub with a typewriter at her side, typing away at the book.
In addition, with this property worth millions and George Metalious
still alive and active today, if he had written the book he certainly
would have said so by now.
In researching this book, I discovered a remarkable thing that nobody
else seems to have noticed: Grace Metalious is not listed in the
Social Security Death Index !!!
I realize this seems impossible because she was born Marie Grace
DeRepentigny on September 8, 1924 and died February 25, 1964. By 1964,
almost everybody had a Social Security Number. Grace was on the dole
or in the hospital during the last years of her life, so she must have
had one too in order to receive the federal benefits available to a
person like her.
However, I searched in every possible way, searching for anybody who
was born or died on those dates, everyone named Grace who was born in
New Hampshire, everybody born in New Hampshire between 1922 and 1926
and so-on. Every possibility was exhausted and everything came up
zero. So, she is just not listed.
This led me to wonder whether she is really dead. This would make a
great and entirely plausible conspiracy theory. She was practically
run out of her town because of this book. Why not go into hiding and
pretend to be dead?
I can just imagine her laying on the beach on a remote island in the
South Pacific, with handsome young men bringing her drinks, while
royalties from her book comes pouring in by direct deposits to her
bank accounts. This is where I hope to be some day myself, except that
I will skip the handsome young men bringing me drinks.
So, I called the Smith Meeting House Cemetery where she is said to be
buried. It is a small, little-known cemetery without a regular staff,
but I left a message and a few days later Fred Buchholz, the man in
charge, called me back.
Naturally, I offered to dig up Grace and see what was really in that
grave site, but Fred Buchholz said that would not be necessary. He is
certain that Grace is dead and buried in that cemetery plot.
He has a special reason to know this which was even more curious. She
had wanted to donate her body to medical science. It was her intention
that her body go to Harvard University. As a result, her body was put
on a slab and kept frozen in a locker for two years.
Then Harvard decided that they did not want her body after all. The
ravages of alcohol made her body unsuitable for study. For that
reason, her body was sent back to Smith Meeting House Cemetery two
years after she had died and finally buried there.
Also, the part about her lying on the beach while royalties from her
book comes pouring in does not fit either.
Although Jeannie Gallant was her best friend, she admits that Grace
was not a perfect person. She says that Grace was such a frequent
writer that she often wrote her name on checks. Unfortunately, there
was often no money in the bank to cover the checks.
Another bad habit Grace had was signing over the rights to her book.
She would sign over the rights to one person and, only a few weeks
later, sign them over to another person. Just before her death she
assigned the rights to her boyfriend-lover at the time. However, after
she died he said that he did not want them. This led to litigation.
The end result was no result. As a result or lack thereof, when Peyton
Place was turned into a long-running TV series starring Mia Farrow,
nobody owned the rights and therefore the TV show did not have to pay
royalties to anybody.
This also explains why many other imitators using the name “Peyton
Place” have sprung up. The name has become public domain.
When the movie version starring Lana Turner was being produced, Grace
Metalious, who was still alive, objected vehemently to the white-
washing of the plot. In the movie, the step-father rapes his step-
daughter, Selena. However, in the book, the biological father rapes
his own daughter, which is obviously a more serious crime. (Some will
disagree.) Grace was unhappy with the toning down of the book, but
censorship still existed back then and the producers refused to show
in the movie the man raping his own daughter.
Even today, it is possible that the movie could not be made because
the rape scene might be deemed a violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252, because
Selena was under 18 years of age at the time of the rape.
The book is said to describe shocking scandals in a placid appearing
small New England town. The question is whether these scandals are
really remarkable enough to be worthy of a book. Actually, the
scandals in this book do not really seem to be that remarkable. So, it
was really the writing ability of Grace Metalious that made this a
noteworthy book, not the content. Thinking about this subject has led
me to wonder if I could write an equally shocking book about my own
home town.
My own home town was Lynchburg, Virginia. It is much larger than
Gilmanton, New Hampshire, but if I confine my proposed book to my
Upper Crust Neighborhood of Boonsboro, it is not that much bigger.
There are some scandals that I know about because I grew up there but
which have never been published in any newspaper, book or magazine. I
am wondering if they are just as “good” as those described in Peyton
Place. Since these scandals all happened more than 50 years ago and
most of the people involved are dead now, I guess it is not too bad to
reveal them although I will probably get into trouble for this. It is
important to remember that, by contrast, Grace was writing about
events of just a few years earlier and she did not even bother to
change the names of some of the people, so that everybody in that town
knew exactly whom she was writing about.
My family's own pediatrician and friend, Dr. Robert Cox, committed
suicide in about 1958. My mother was ashen faced when she found out
about this, as he was a family friend. He lived on Fox Hill Road in
Bedford County just off Trent's Ferry Road and next to Judith Creek.
He liked to go horse-back riding and was a member of a fox hunting
club. In our neighborhood, many people owned their own horses. They
would release a fox and go hunting with their hounds. I think they
would catch the fox but not hurt it. Later, they would use it again
for another fox hunt. Dr. Cox seemed to live a happy, ideal life. He
had a wife but no children. He seemed to have no problems of any kind.
Then, suddenly, he killed himself. No reason was ever known.
The valedictorian of my high school class and a personal friend of
mine had an uncle, her father's brother, who was a Rhodes Scholar and
a distinguished attorney. He killed himself too. I never knew the
reason or if there was one. I feared my friend's grades would fall
because of this family tragedy but they did not and she still
graduated first in our high school class.
The father of my best friend across the street on Old Trent's Ferry
Road had a problem with alcohol. I remember sitting in their living
room watching the Mickey Mouse Club. The father who was drunk was
talking about how “infantile” the TV show was. He killed himself too,
not long thereafter. I could not imagine how a man with a devoted wife
and two children in high school could kill himself, thereby abandoning
his family.
There are two other scandals I will not mention because the people
involved are still alive and I am still in contact with them.
Then, there is an unrelated scandal about our high school football
team which I feel was cheated out of the state championship and also
about our debate team that was cheated too, but because of a
mathematical error that I myself made. (I will skip that one.)
We had easily the best high school football team in the Commonwealth
of Virginia and possibly the best in the country. Not only did our
team win every game, but it did so by an overwhelming score. The
typical score in our games was 42-0. Nobody could score against us and
nobody could stop us either.
There was a high school in Roanoke Virginia that was larger than us
and had beaten us every year for ten years in a row. They seemed to
have us jinxed. We were worried about that game. However, as it turned
out, we finally beat them and beat them easily, breaking the streak.
Why did we have such a good team? I think it was primarily because of
two of our players. Arthur Brown was our quarterback. He was also the
Virginia state record holder for the hundred yard dash. So, once he
got into an open field, you could forget about it. He ran like the
wind. Nobody could catch him.
We had a lineman named Rodney “Moose” Schmidt. Moose Schmidt played
both offensive and defensive tackle. He was in every play of every
game. He was also my chemistry partner and sat next to me in home
room. It was because of Moose Schmidt that no team could ever score
against us. As soon as the ball was hiked, Moose would tacked the
quarterback. No team ever had a chance against Moose Schmidt.
I do not want to take credit away from the other members of our team.
Bobby Brickhouse, who sat opposite me in math class (I was the state
math champion, not to mention the state chess champion) made a miracle
play in one of our football games. An opposing team had the audacity
to catch a pass against us. The receiver caught it behind Bobby
Brickhouse and had an open field with nothing between him and the goal
posts. By some miracle, Bobby Brickhouse spun around and grabbed the
guy, saving the touchdown.
I asked Bobby Brickhouse about this at a class reunion years later and
he said that he did not remember the play.
Although it was obvious that we easily had the best high school
football team in Virginia, we were cheated out of the state
championship. The way this happened was the high schools in Richmond
Virginia had created a league of their own. My agreement, they only
played each other and never played out of their group. As a result,
there was no way to compare their team to ours. One of those teams had
won all of their games, I think it was John Marshall High School.
However, they won by scores like 10-7 whereas we won by scores like
42-0. However, scores do not count. Only Win-Loss results count. Also,
we had played all over the state, and also played against teams like
Augusta Military Academy, but those results did not count as they were
not public schools.
Since both teams had won all their games, the authorities applied some
crazy tie-breaking system, by which they declared the Richmond
Virginia team to be the state champion.
Our principal, Mr. L. H. McCue, protested and tried to arrange a play
off game against the team from Richmond. However, they were having
none of that. They knew what would happen. Our team would have easily
beaten them. So, we were cheated. However, after this incident, a
system of play-off games was instituted in later years.
I feel that we had not only the best football team in the state but
also probably the best team in the nation. However, there was one
caveat. There were no Blacks on our team!!!! Had we played one of
those Damn Yankee Teams from way up North, there remains some doubt as
to whether Arthur Brown could so easily have out-run their entire
team, or whether Rodney Schmidt could so easily have crushed their
entire lines.
A kid from Bronx High School of Science even beat me at math that year
and this got his name in the newspapers. (Unfair competition! He had
teachers. I had taught myself math because I was better than my
teachers.) Then, there was also a kid from Brooklyn who had the edge
on me at chess.
Years later, I met both Arthur Brown and Rodney Schmidt at high school
class reunions. Arthur Brown told me that he had never been able to
make his college football team because he was too small. He was only 5
feet 6 inches tall. Rodney Schmidt told me that he had played college
football but had not been a star.
The question about us playing against Blacks had already come up. This
was the 1961-1962 School Year. This was the year that the Virginia
public school system had finally started to become desegregated. In
the Spring Semester of the 1962 school year, E.C. Glass High School
admitted their first Blacks, a boy and a girl, who came in as
Freshmen. There were no riots or problems of any kind like there had
been in Alabama. Within a few years, the Lynchburg School System was
completely integrated.
When the one boy came in, whose name was Owen Cardwell, the football
season was already over, so the question of him making the football
team never came up.
However, there was a high school in Hampton Virginia that had also
admitted a Black kid. Their token Black had made their football team.
We were playing teams from all over the state (unlike the despised
Richmond Teams that only played each other) so naturally we played the
Hampton Team that had a Black player on it.
I remember the big game well, but what I especially remember was the
beautiful Black girls who came to watch the game. They came in their
finest duds, dressed to kill, furs and whatever, and sat together in
the bleachers. I had never seen any of these girls before nor have I
ever seen any of them since. I do not know if they were Lynchburg
girls or if they had traveled 200 miles from Hampton Virginia to watch
this game.
I must confess that I have always had this strange preference for
beautiful women, and that must be why I remember them so well.
But, as Shakespeare said, “The play's the thing”. What happened in the
game was the only thing that counted.
What happened in the game sure must have been a disappointment to
them. Every time the Black kid got his hands on the ball, all the
Blacks in the stands stood up and started cheering wildly. Sadly, it
turned out that the Black kid was no OJ Simpson. He could not run. He
could not catch. He could not throw. He got his hands on the ball only
three or four times, and every time he did the White boys on our
defensive line broke through and tackled him. I do not believe that he
ever even made it back to the line of scrimmage.
These plays took place way down at the far end of the field (we also
had them backed up to their own goal line). I was sitting mid-field,
so I never got to see who tackled him. I only know that he never got
anywhere near to running or scoring.
Speaking of scoring, there was one scandal that, had things turned out
differently, would have changed the course of my life.
The most popular girl in my high school class was a girl I liked very
much and I am sure that she liked me too. However, she got knocked up
by a boy named Snooky.
Back in those days, if a girl got pregnant, she was not allowed to
attend school and had to drop out. The rules have changed since then.
Nowadays, the situation is more realistic and girls are allowed to
stay in school until they practically give birth in the classroom.
Remember, we are still talking about Peyton Place here, in spite of
the digression about high school football. Mrs. Margaret Armstrong,
the High School Dean of Girls, would go around the school checking out
the tummies of the girls and sometimes even putting her hands on the
tummies of the girls (which the girls would complain about). If Mrs.
Armstrong ever caught a girl who was pregnant, that girl was
immediately expelled from the school.
And, so, the girl of my dreams was kicked out of high school.
Now we get to the good part.
To Be Continued:
Sam Sloan
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871876160
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871876160
Taylor Kingston
Feb 20, 2012, 1:44:07 PM2/20/12
to
On Feb 19, 10:07 am, samsloan <samhsl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Peyton Place
> by
> Grace Metalious
>
> Introduction by Sam Sloan
Peyton Place is a literary masterpiece, brilliantly written in the
> Peyton Place
> by
> Grace Metalious
>
> Introduction by Sam Sloan
bathtub.
In researching this book, I was on the dole to receive federal
benefits. However, I was practically run out of town. Why not go into
hiding and pretend to be dead?
I can just imagine laying on the beach with handsome young men pouring
in.
So, I called the Cemetery to be buried. I was put on a slab and kept
frozen in a locker for two years.
Even today, it is possible to describe shocking scandals worthy of a
book. I could write an equally shocking book about my own life.
I feared the Mickey Mouse Club.
samsloan
Feb 20, 2012, 2:09:25 PM2/20/12
to
On Feb 20, 10:44 am, Taylor Kingston <ttk5...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 19, 10:07 am, samsloan <samhsl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Peyton Place
> > by
> > Grace Metalious
>
> > Introduction by Sam Sloan
>
> Peyton Place is a literary masterpiece, brilliantly written in the
> bathtub.
>
Said as a joke but, amazingly, true.
> On Feb 19, 10:07 am, samsloan <samhsl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Peyton Place
> > by
> > Grace Metalious
>
> > Introduction by Sam Sloan
>
> Peyton Place is a literary masterpiece, brilliantly written in the
> bathtub.
>
Several biographies of Grace Metalious state that she wrote the book
while in the bathtub.
Taylor Kingston
Feb 20, 2012, 4:04:59 PM2/20/12
to
On Feb 19, 10:07 am, samsloan <samhsl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Peyton Place
> by
> Grace Metalious
>
> Introduction by Sam Sloan
Sam, of all your dreadful introductions, this one is probably the
> by
> Grace Metalious
>
> Introduction by Sam Sloan
worst I've ever seen (and that's saying something!). Rambling,
unfocused, uninformed, and packed with irrelevant tangents and
digressions.
Even though it's too long by several orders of magnitude, its
omissions and inadequacies are shocking. You completely fail to come
to terms with post-Aquinas Scholasticism, you ignore the Scythian
influence on Mesopotamian fiscal policy, the critical impact of the
Burgess Shale discoveries is overlooked, and your discussion of plate
tectonics is totally inadequate.
None
Feb 20, 2012, 4:45:19 PM2/20/12
to
the sexual connotations embedded in the nether regions of the town's
leading citizens and the Harpers Valley PTA.
Taylor Kingston
Feb 20, 2012, 10:44:05 PM2/20/12
to
Weltanschauung of Jeannie C. Riley.
samsloan
Feb 21, 2012, 2:09:00 AM2/21/12
to
> The question about us playing against Blacks had already come up. This was the 1961-1962 School Year. This was the year that the Virginia public school system had finally started to become desegregated. In the Spring Semester of the 1962 school year, E.C. Glass High School admitted their first Blacks, a boy and a girl, who came in as Freshmen. There were no riots or problems of any kind like there had been in Alabama. Within a few years, the Lynchburg School System was completely integrated.
>
> When the one boy came in, whose name was Owen Cardwell, the football season was already over, so the question of him making the football team never came up.
In researching this subject, I have just discovered that a book about
>
> When the one boy came in, whose name was Owen Cardwell, the football season was already over, so the question of him making the football team never came up.
the first two Black students to attend EC Glass High School has been
written by one of our classmates.
The book is "Way Opens: A Spiritual Journey" ISBN 0980131529 by
Patricia Wild.
We used to call her "Pepper Wild".
The book is about Owen Cardwell and Lynda Woodruff, who were the first
two black students. Both of them are teachers and educators now, with
Ph.D. degrees.
Oddly, at one of our recent class reunions, Pepper Wild was one of the
few of our classmates known to still be alive but who could not be
located. She was apparently in or near Lynchburg the whole time, as
her book was published there.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=0980131529
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0980131529
I have just ordered the book and will be reading it.
Sam Sloan
None
Feb 21, 2012, 10:08:15 AM2/21/12
to
On Feb 21, 2:09 am, samsloan <samhsl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have just ordered the book and will be reading it.
> > Sam Sloan
Sure you will.
>
> I have just ordered the book and will be reading it.
> > Sam Sloan
samsloan
Feb 24, 2012, 6:57:28 AM2/24/12
to
Email exchanges with my old classmates have cleared up a lot of loose
ends to this article.
Take a look here:
http://sola.nsu.edu/490t/krystal/After_Integration.html
Norview High School in Norfolk fits my description perfectly as the
team we played against with the only black player in Virginia. We won.
Andrew Heidelberg became the first Black to play on the Varsity squad
there in the Fall Semester of 1961. That also fits my date.
Wakefield High School is a high school in Arlington Virginia. That
also fits. They defeated us in the finals of the Virginia High School
Basketball Championship in the previous year, the 1960-61 school
year.
The team that beat us ten years in a row was Jefferson High School in
Roanoke Virginia.
All this is soon to be revealed in a bookstore near you.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871876160
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871876160
Sam Sloan
ends to this article.
Take a look here:
http://sola.nsu.edu/490t/krystal/After_Integration.html
Norview High School in Norfolk fits my description perfectly as the
team we played against with the only black player in Virginia. We won.
Andrew Heidelberg became the first Black to play on the Varsity squad
there in the Fall Semester of 1961. That also fits my date.
Wakefield High School is a high school in Arlington Virginia. That
also fits. They defeated us in the finals of the Virginia High School
Basketball Championship in the previous year, the 1960-61 school
year.
The team that beat us ten years in a row was Jefferson High School in
Roanoke Virginia.
All this is soon to be revealed in a bookstore near you.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871876160
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871876160
Sam Sloan
samsloan
Feb 24, 2012, 7:55:46 AM2/24/12
to
Turns out he wrote a book about this too.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=0805973052
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805973052
He says that other books keep the truth hidden.
However, his book keeps the truth hidden too, especially where is
says: "That same year, the team won the Eastern District Championship
for the State of Virginia".
http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=2008
The truth is that our team beat his team. (Our team was in the Western
District.)
His biography states that he is from Hampton Virginia and lives there
now. This explains my minor error when I said that he went to high
school in Hampton Virginia.
His online biography also fails to disclose the fight song of Norfolk
State University from which he graduated. The fight song goes: "We
don't Smoke. We don't drink. Norfolk Norfolk."
Sam Sloan
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=0805973052
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805973052
He says that other books keep the truth hidden.
However, his book keeps the truth hidden too, especially where is
says: "That same year, the team won the Eastern District Championship
for the State of Virginia".
http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=2008
The truth is that our team beat his team. (Our team was in the Western
District.)
His biography states that he is from Hampton Virginia and lives there
now. This explains my minor error when I said that he went to high
school in Hampton Virginia.
His online biography also fails to disclose the fight song of Norfolk
State University from which he graduated. The fight song goes: "We
don't Smoke. We don't drink. Norfolk Norfolk."
Sam Sloan
Taylor Kingston
Feb 24, 2012, 1:32:54 PM2/24/12
to
Peyton Place
by
Grace Metalious
Introduction by Sam Sloan
My own home town is much larger much bigger scandals because I grew up
by
Grace Metalious
Introduction by Sam Sloan
there, just as “good” as those described in Peyton Place. Since these
scandals all happened I will get into trouble for this.
Dr. Robert Cox committed my mother. He liked to go hunting people with
hounds. Dr. Cox seemed to live a happy, ideal life. No reason was ever
known.
The valedictorian killed our high school class. The Mickey Mouse Club
was drunk not long thereafter. I could not imagine how the people
involved are still alive.
I would go around the school checking out the tummies of the girls and
sometimes even putting hands on the tummies of the girls (which the
girls would complain about). And, so, we get to the good part.
None
Feb 24, 2012, 3:46:39 PM2/24/12
to
samsloan
Feb 27, 2012, 11:53:31 PM2/27/12
to
I have discovered something fantastic. Turns out that Andrew
Heidelberg wrote a book and it is he devotes an entire chapter to that
football game against EC Glass High School.
The chapter is entitled "Reality Check", and in it he says on page 55:
"REALITY CHECK
"It is all over the newspapers that Norview has now won thirty-seven
straight football games and people are speculating that the team will
have another undefeated year and a banner year in 1961. I remember how
I had almost forgotten that I was black in a white school especially
with all the attention I was getting. But I was suddenly brought back
down to earth by an incident that let me know what a friend I had on
the team.
"We were about to leave Norfolk for our 200-mile trip to Lynchburg,
Virginia for our game with E.C. Glass High School.
"Well, beat us they did; they shut us out 21 to 0. It was a rough game
all night long and they really beat up on me. In fact they bit me,
pinched me, punched me and did just about every possible thing they
could to me to hurt me. They called me nigger all night long and
cursed me at the same rime. But one thing was sure, those country boys
could play some football; it looked like they were all about 5' 10"
and 200 pounds and they all hit hard. But I had no complaints about
the players because I consider what they did to me as part of the game
of football."
Turns out that was the only game they lost that season and they had
been undefeated the three previous seasons.
Sam Sloan
Heidelberg wrote a book and it is he devotes an entire chapter to that
football game against EC Glass High School.
The chapter is entitled "Reality Check", and in it he says on page 55:
"REALITY CHECK
"It is all over the newspapers that Norview has now won thirty-seven
straight football games and people are speculating that the team will
have another undefeated year and a banner year in 1961. I remember how
I had almost forgotten that I was black in a white school especially
with all the attention I was getting. But I was suddenly brought back
down to earth by an incident that let me know what a friend I had on
the team.
"We were about to leave Norfolk for our 200-mile trip to Lynchburg,
Virginia for our game with E.C. Glass High School.
"Well, beat us they did; they shut us out 21 to 0. It was a rough game
all night long and they really beat up on me. In fact they bit me,
pinched me, punched me and did just about every possible thing they
could to me to hurt me. They called me nigger all night long and
cursed me at the same rime. But one thing was sure, those country boys
could play some football; it looked like they were all about 5' 10"
and 200 pounds and they all hit hard. But I had no complaints about
the players because I consider what they did to me as part of the game
of football."
Turns out that was the only game they lost that season and they had
been undefeated the three previous seasons.
Sam Sloan
None
Feb 28, 2012, 12:52:20 PM2/28/12
to
>
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