ABSTRACT
although i entered as class of 1944, I graduated from Hyde Park in February 1942, after working hard to get through high school as fast as possible, to make up for all that time I wasted during the eighteen months I had been out of school waiting for my U.S. visa in Berlin, Antwerp, and London. I signed up for extra courses each semester, went to summer school, and asked for and received credit for knowing French (they wouldn’t give me any credit for knowing German, because it was my mother tongue). I also finagled credit for geometry by passing a proficiency examination after I alleged (falsely) that I had taken geometry in Berlin. In fact, I had taught it to myself in Chicago by working my way through the textbook’s proofs of Euclid’s theorems. Thus by accumulating credits at a furious rate, I made it through Hyde Park High from beginning freshman to graduating senior in twenty-one months, a shining example of the motto of my graduating class of 1942, Ad astra per aspera. Yet, I was still appallingly ignorant of most academic subjects, except for English composition and geometry.
