At the beginning of the 1936 school year, I moved from Williams Elementary School to the Central School in Monongahela. The three elementary schools in the town all sent their junior high students there for the 7th and 8th grades.

It was located in the heart of town at the corner of 4th and Chess Streets. It was an old wooden structure of about 1890 vintage, three stories high, with long, winding stairs and creaky wooden floors. There was no elevator, and by today’s standards would be condemned as a fire-trap. The teachers, as in the elementary schools, were all single females.

Going to Central School was handy for doing town chores. The Post Office, where we had our mail box, was directly across the street, and I used to check it daily after school. In those days, very few people had a check book, and most things were paid for by cash. Credit cards were thirty years in the future.

Money orders, purchased at the Post Office, were the common way to pay for items ordered through the Sears or Montgomery Ward catalogs which were our “dream books,” and we spent many an hour browsing through them and picking out the many things we would like to have, but knew we could not afford.

My uncle, Jack Vogini, had a thriving grocery store across from the school on 4th St. and I often stopped there to pick up items for my mother. On my way home, I walked past the feed store, and I picked up any needed chicken scratch or laying mash for our chickens. Being there for school saved a lot of trips to town.

At the end of my 8th grade, I was fortunate to be chosen as the outstanding boy student in town for that year, and was awarded the American Legion Award, a round, brass plaque about three inches in diameter. The front has “For God and Country” around the outside surrounding a sailor and soldier, back to back.

The obverse side shows an eagle with spreading wings and underneath is American Legion School Award for Courage, Honor, Service, Leadership and Scholarship. Needless to say, I was very impressed with receiving it, and still have it among my childhood mementos. I believe they are still given out by the American Legion today.