<Begin Segment 13>

TI: Okay, so Virgil, so the first hour we talked about your earlier childhood. So why don't we pick it up right when you're, about the time you're finishing up high school right now. So let's talk about your senior year in high school.

VW: Okay.

TI: What was that like?

VW: Well, I was driving, sometimes I'd drive up, with a Model T Ford to school. And I remember my principal, sometimes I'd be late because I'd maybe work on the chores and didn't get out of there soon enough. And then I'd get... some people got demerits, but I didn't because he knew that I was having a rough time trying to do chores in the morning and then get to school quickly and so on. So I just, he would just excuse me. And, but evidently, he seemed to think that I had a lot more ability than I showed in high school. My grades weren't very good in high school at all, and it was mainly... well, what had happened is, right as a freshman, I was taken out of school for two or three weeks, and then having the girls gone and so on. That affects people, and it affected (...) me. And, but the coach, when I was a senior, in the fall, he said, "Virgil," he says, "why don't you come out for football?" knowing that farmers were always quite agile and quite strong. And I said, "Oh, my dad wouldn't let me." And he said, "Well, ask him." I thought, "You don't ask my dad stuff like that." [Laughs] And so he said, "Well, just ask him." And so I went home and I was doing the chores and I did ask him, finally. And he said, "No, come home and work," and that was the end of that. So I went to school the next day and the coach said, "Did you ask him?" and I said, "Yeah." He said, "What'd he say?" (...) and I said, "Well, he said I couldn't, I had to come home and work." "Well, ask him again." I thought, "You don't ask my dad the second time at all." He said, "Oh, yeah, you ask him." So I talked it over with my brother. And my brother being only four years younger than I was, that was okay, but he had a way with my dad. And so he said, "Well, I'll ask him." And so I kind of stayed off to one side, and he asked him and he said, "No," he said, "Virgil's got to work." But then he, then my brother kept asking him and discussing it with him, and finally my dad says, "Well, what does he want to play football for?" Well, I thought, "Well, that's kind of interesting." So then my brother and he discussed it a little more, and finally he said, "All right," he says, "if he makes the first team, all right. If not," he said, "he comes home and works." There was no question that I was gonna make that first team, and I did. I made the first team, and so the coach was happy and I was okay, too.

So I graduated from high school, but my grades were so poor, I was pretty sure I'd never try getting into college. But my sisters were pushing it for me to go to college, and my brother, when I was about twenty then -- I graduated when I was eighteen -- when I was twenty, my brother says, "Virg," he says, "I'm gonna apply for college, and," he says, "why don't you come along?" And I thought, "Well, I don't know." So I tried, but I couldn't get in. Well, then the principal of the high school, Mr. Hanchette, drove up, evidently, to Kalamazoo, Western Michigan College at the time, it's Western Michigan University now. He said, he told the registrar, "If this guy's given a chance, he can make it." And so I got a, I got a letter saying I should come up and take the exam, entrance exam. We had to go through an entrance exam, and I did, and lo and behold, I passed it. And so that surprised me, but that was okay. And so I went into college in 1940. And first, the first year was kind of tough, 'cause I didn't have any background. I lost it all in high school. Then, finally, went, and I kept studying and so on. I went out for football in college, and that was fine, except that I wasn't getting any sleep. About four or five hours a night, and a student can't keep that up forever.

TI: Well, so part of it was because you were working also at the farm?

VW: And I was working (...), I had two hours of work right on campus, which gave me a little spending money.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.