I started going to Walnut Hills in the 7th grade. I was glad to get away from Bond Hill School.
I think Walnut Hills was probably the happiest time of my life. Well, that and living on Glenwood Avenue with the family. High school may have been rough for a lot of kids; it was really my focal point. I don’t know if I can pinpoint what made it so happy. Maybe it was being an athlete. Maybe it was getting to know the different staff people. It was not necessarily my relationship with the teachers.
In the 7th and 8th grades I mostly hung around with a non-Jewish group. I can’t think of a reason for this — it just happened. I spent a lot of time with Joe Gibson. We did things like making model planes. He got one with a gas motor and he’d take it out and fly it – which was fun. We had a couple of wires on it, so it didn’t get away.
Joe was driving at that point. His father was a maintenance person at a chemical plant about a mile from where we lived, and they had two cars. They had this Model A coupe, and there was another family car. His father found a rusted-out Model A out on some farmer’s field out in Reading, Ohio and bought it. The whole family worked together to fix this car up. I used a wire brush to scrape the rust off, his mother and sisters were involved making upholstery for the inside, and then we all painted it. It’s amazing, when you think how thick those fenders were, that anything could do any damage to it.
So we had transportation and that was nice. Joe taught me how to drive. It was wonderful! The car was obviously harder to drive than any other ones. It was a good old fashioned stick shift that I learned on. It did me good stead for years. He let me drive it when we went out together. I was 14, and at that time you could you get a permit license, and if you needed the car for work you could get a license. Just not for pleasure. Joe was about 16 or 17 at the time.
In the 8th grade, my parents sent me to a ballroom dancing class in Avondale. I became an adequate dancer, never a great one. My parents were wonderful dancers. In his early twenties, my dad used to put on dances; they would hire a band and charge people, get a place, and charge admission.
We had a Victory Garden in the back yard and planted things during the war. This was before 9th grade. By the time I was fourteen, my dad could get me a decent job working in a retail clothing store sorting stock. It wasn’t full time, just Friday night and Saturday.
The ”J”
I really hadn’t done much with the Jewish group when I was in high school. Religion wasn’t important to me. My parents, although they didn’t care for high school fraternities and sororities, pushed me into joining a fraternity. So I did. It met at the Jewish Community Center (the “J”) on Blair Avenue. That got me into the Jewish group. The primary emphasis was on athletics. We were in a league, and played softball at the Jewish Community Center. It’s surprising because the J was a second home. I would take a bus from Bond Hill to Avondale and wander over. Usually, I’d make sure I got the last bus, which was at one o’clock.
The J would close at nine. Sometimes I would hitchhike home late at night. One time I got picked up by a guy on a motorcycle, and we rode down Reading Road by Avon Fields. On those turns my foot kept touching the pavement, and I decided I didn’t really want to be on that motorcycle. He stopped and let me off. I did a lot of my transportation by hitchhiking.
My parents encouraged me to join the J. They wanted me to have a Jewish social life. I didn’t resist. It offered me athletics, friendship. I wasn’t interested in girls at that age. It got me involved with Jews.
My mother used to say: “If you don’t date a non-Jewish girl, you won’t marry a non-Jewish girl.” So I didn’t date non-Jewish girls.
Synagogue and Aunt Rose
My father would walk from Bond Hill to Avondale to go to shul on the High Holidays, and usually he would stay over at a friend’s house in Avondale. My mother would come in the next evening. She’d take the bus, and they’d walk, or take the bus back if it was after sundown. He would think nothing of it.
I used to take the bus into Avondale. I’d go to see my dad at the Forest Park Synagogue (its actual name was Agudeth Israel, and it later became Golf Manor Synagogue), an Orthodox shul on Forest Ave. I’d sit next to him for maybe a half hour. I spent a lot of time at Seasongood Park across the street.
Occasionally he would go to a Conservative Synagogue, which was probably much more comfortable for him. He had two memberships, but he’d go to the Orthodox one on the High Holidays. My father said: “I have to keep going because they would expect it of me because of my father.” My father had a very strong sense of what’s right, what’s proper.
He would always insist that I go see his sister Rose, who went to Washington Avenue Synagogue. I would go over there and sit with her in the balcony for a little bit, and then I’d come home. I didn’t fast on Yom Kippur. It wasn’t for me. My mother didn’t fast, and she stopped keeping a kosher house after my father’s parents died.
Aunt Rose moved down the street from us, and often my mother would go over there and help Rose cook for one holiday or another. We always had Passover dinner there.
When Rose and her family were on Blair Avenue, I once got drunk on the wine, so I had to be driven home. And another time Rose was serving French-fried potatoes; she couldn’t make enough to make me happy. Her kids didn’t eat the way I could.
My Aunt Rose and her family were Orthodox. I always felt sad for her four kids because they couldn’t go out on Friday nights.
Even after I was grown up, when we would come to visit, my dad always reminded me to go see his sister Rose.
Athletics
Although I had jobs in high school, I got involved in athletics and only worked in the off seasons. I loved sports. I loved to play football. I tried basketball but wasn’t that good. And I started track and wasn’t too good there either, but I did it because I had to do something athletic.
When Bob was playing with his friends I’d try to get into the game. My size didn’t bother me.
I excelled in football in high school; I was captain of the football team my senior year. I considered taking a football scholarship to Miami University, but decided not to, and went to University of Cincinnati instead. I felt it was more important to take a vocational program. I was in a co-op program, which meant I could earn some money while I went to school. I would not have lasted on the football scholarship. I’m much too small. I think I always dreamt that I could, but I knew I couldn’t, not at my weight and size.
Academics
When I was a sophomore in high school, I took Geometry. When the teacher started writing on the board, she never turned around, and before she had the whole thing finished, I had the first one or two problems and was passing the results to my classmates. It was so frustrating; even through my four years of math in high school, math was my best subject, and I was probably the third best in class. There was one kid – when the math teacher had to leave for something he’d teach the class. I couldn’t surpass him. I got all A’s, but I was never at the top.
I had problems with Latin. I think my problems were related to the teacher. I can’t recall the details, but I felt that I was one of the people she picked on. She passed me only on condition that I get tutored over the summer, which I did. I took Latin in the 8th grade and did fine. I switched to Spanish after that. When I saw the 8th grade Latin teacher in the hall, she wondered why I hadn’t gone on in Latin. I had an unpleasant memory of Latin, and I sure didn’t want to get that teacher again.
The kid that tutored me was named Heusingfeld. I got a Heusingfeld scholarship to University of Cincinnati for the first year. It was $100, which was a lot at that time. Tuition at that point was $100 so that was a good feeling.
Getting around
Transportation was a big issue when I was in high school. One car we had access to was Joe Bettman’s father’s car. Joe’s father was a painter and paper hanger. He had a bumper that stuck out about three or four feet from the rear of the car so he could carry a ladder on top. Nobody would come close to him.
Another form of transportation was with Oppie Becker’s father’s truck. He had a meat market, so we’d get the meat truck to go out in. We’d all chip in a little bit for gas, and that’s how it went. This was a lot of fun.
I would often get to school early because I would hitchhike, and I didn’t know how long it would take me. If I got to school early, I would get a cup of coffee in the school kitchen. I would do this even if I stopped at White Castle for coffee and a doughnut beforehand. The kitchen staff were great, and so were the maintenance staff. They were wonderful.
Dances and dating
Basically, I was fine with the athletics and the fraternity. The hard part was when we had dances and had to get dates, because it was hard for me to get a date and feel comfortable. I don’t think I ever dated any girl more than two or three times, although there were some that I liked.
We had dances; but I wasn’t ready for dating. Well, there was one girl I liked a lot. Her name was Dottie Hartman. She was a good athlete. You could toss a ball to her -– she was good.
Jobs when I was in high school
When I was 14, it was legal for me to work at a regular job. My dad had some retail outlets run by good friends, so at 14 I went to work for Ernie’s Men’s Clothes on 13th and Vine. I filled stock and I also ran trousers down to the tailor shop that was a block away, to get them hemmed and mended. After school on Friday I’d take the bus down there, work till around 9:00 and then they gave me a lift home.
I also worked there all day on Saturday. I’d take the bus downtown and go across the street to the drugstore to get lunch. I would order a couple of double-decker BLT sandwiches. I’d insist that they not cut the crust off because I didn’t want to be cheated! I enjoyed the crusts, and I wanted everything that was coming to me. There was a woman behind the counter who was amazed that I could eat two double-deckers. I probably spent as much on lunch as I earned all day.
The summer after I turned 14, I worked for The Bake Shop, which was a Jewish Federation shop where they employed refugees. I cleaned up and helped deliver pastries with an old guy in a Model A. We drove around Avondale delivering pastries.
I also worked for Irv’s Bowling Alley or Seymour Bowling Alleys. The summer of my sophomore and junior years, I worked at the Pepsicola Bottling Company, loading trucks. I worked from 3pm – 11pm. I had to walk half a mile to catch the bus, through a pretty tough neighborhood.
Getting into trouble
High school was a happy time. I got into some trouble but not much. Mostly I got out of it. One Friday our Spanish teacher was called out of class. We were going to be excused. I went down to the gym to get taped up for the football game. Well, somebody reported that the class had taken off. We were all called into the principal’s office and had to explain why we left class. My excuse was that I was going to be excused shortly anyway. That was accepted.
I had my share of detentions at high school. You had a choice of detention or the paddle. I chose the paddle.
One day I got a ride to school with a couple of fellows who wanted to play hooky. I didn’t want to, but they were driving so I went along with them. I got punished. I once put a thumb tack on a girl’s chair. I thought she’d jump up yelling. But it really hurt her, and I felt very bad about it afterwards.
My parents’ expectations
My parents wanted us to get an education. That was important. I think my mother wished I had gone into medicine. I wouldn’t have been good at medicine — it didn’t appeal to me. And I didn’t consider the law.
Blood didn’t bother me. Once when we lived in Price Hill our maid cut her arm with a sharp knife. My Uncle Chippy came out to sew up her arm. I was there and saw the blood. It didn’t bother me at all. I wasn’t squeamish. And the embryos on the third floor didn’t bother me.
The only thing I was squeamish about was my eyes. When I go to the eye doctor, I really have a tough time relaxing. When I have the glaucoma test, I really don’t like anything coming towards my eyes. Even putting drops in, I’m not comfortable. Any other part of my body, I’d sacrifice!
I think my parents were very pleased with me; I think I was the favorite son, which was tough on Bob because he had to put up with a lot of things after I left Cincinnati. But there’s no doubt in my mind that I was the favorite.
The Felson Family 