A Note from John Rogers

I attended Cherry Lawn School for two years around 67 & 68. If I had stayed, I would have graduated in the year 1970. I remember there was not much to do. We would play tennis, or walk to Darien to see a movie now and then. At the time, I needed to lose some weight, and Mr. Zuber would not let me skip any meals, because he felt I needed to attend to hear the announcements. But after the fire, when they started to serve meals out of the library, they printed out the announcements. I took advantage of the situation to fast for three weeks, and then 3 more weeks of very small meals. I ended up losing quite a bit, maybe as much as 50 pounds, which I managed to keep off for about 20 or 25 years. Still, I remember those Friday nite pizza parties :)

Yet, it was the teachers who made a difference in our lives. Who helped us to learn at our own pace and discover a little bit of what we were capable of doing. A math teacher who liked BMW motorcycles, who was not real popular, yet he had lots of time & patience to work with anyone who was willing to put a bit of effort into it. A English teacher who was beloved by everyone who knew him, and was perhaps a bit to easy going when it came to handing out homework assignments. Then there was a Biology Teacher who showed us a whole new way of learning, through theory's and concepts, that made memorization much more easy. That was the year I made a colorful mobil, in Art class, that was suppose to represent the human cell or something like that. Then who could forget our beloved Ancient History teacher. Was it Eugene who used to tell me that book was his Bible :) Here was a man who seemed so strict at first, yet under it all, he had a heart of gold. Remember the time when it snowed so much, and yet we still had to go to classes. But as soon as the sun came out, we were given a day off to built snow sculptures.

Life was not without tragedy. There was the fire, where the crazy janitor set the building ablaze and put lives at risk. Then there was the dorm father who had lost an eye & he brought knowledge of the tragedy of the holocaust to our learning experience. Then there was the fight between two of the strongest guys in the school, over a girl who would go running out into the snow barefoot in her bath robe when she heard about it. Either way, when we were good to each other, and when we were not, it's the people who make the difference. And it's the ones who treat us good and the ones who don't that we remember the most.

Submitted 16-April-2000