In September I started eleventh grade at Gainesville High School. Brenda had graduated and started at Santa Fe Junior College, she was no longer able (or willing) to drive me to school, I sure didn’t want to ride the bus again, but fortunately, my best friend Bill had turned seventeen and got his driver’s license and was able to drive. Bill’s mother, was divorced with his father living in another state. Bill’s father gave Bill money to buy a car and Bill bought an old beat up Volkswagen Beetle. I remember Bill picking me up on cold winter mornings and freezing on the way to school because the heater in the car didn’t work. I continued worked the afternoons at Shands and Bill would drop me off at the hospital on the way home.  I also got a raise to $1.63 an hour.

For classes I signed up for the required English, and, as electives, Speech, Physics II, Algebra III, and Biology. Speech wasn’t something I would have normally signed up for, but I was told that it would help me later when I went to college, which actually it did. I was somewhat shy and introverted so getting up in front of a group of people made me very nervous, but we begin with short speeches building up to longer and longer speeches over the year and I grew more comfortable do so.  The speech I remember the most was when we had to give a demonstration speech, so I chose a subject which I knew something about. It was towards the end of the year, and I had my first car so the speech was on how to change the engine oil in a car, complete with oil can, oil can spout, oil filter. The speech went well, and I got an A on it. 

Updated: 10-31-2022

Physics