John Prather

Posted on: Nov 09, 2023 at 4:33 AM

Posted on: Nov 28, 2020 at 2:22 PM

So I've been in contact with Laurie as military experiences were sought out for the alumni boards. Not being very active on our alumni site I thought to write something a little different about one of our teachers. Shared it with Laurie and she thought better coming directly from me so here goes.
Jay

A SPECIAL TEACHER AND FRIEND
October 28, 2020

   September 1961, the first day of classes. On the transom over the door to English class was written Qui Huc Intrasti Omissa Spe. Latin for “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” That first day I was one of the kids in Charles Oscar Ashmann Jr's (COA) class. Before the first day was done we all knew the translation from Latin and wondered.
   COA's class and this was the only one I had with him, was different. Looking back on it he conducted a great class. At the time it could be scary. I remember he generally was not in the classroom when students arrived but would walk in a minute or two later and greet the class. Often on the black board a student had scribbled in chalk a hangman's scaffold with a stick figure hanging from it. The initials COA were written to the side with an arrow pointing to the stick figure. Today, probably at the very least the perpetrator would likely be rooted out, told to report to the office and likely suspended. COA would smile and in his booming voice ask who the perpetrator was. No admission by anyone. He would pull out his Delta Tau Delta fraternity paddle from college, slap it on a stack of books on his desk seeking the guilty culprit, never discovered. Never was any of this done with malice but with a twinkle of the eye and total control.
   I remember the day the “direct object” lesson was taught. It was my day. Mr. Prather, it was always Mr. or Miss., please share with the class the definition of a direct object. While I probably should have been prepared I wasn't. Mr. Prather what is a direct object? By now I was sweating bullets with no answer in hand. Twice the paddle slammed a stack of books on his desk. “Mr. Prather, I am going to demonstrate what a direct object is. Mr. Prather please come up to my desk. Please lean over this stack of books.” Where upon the paddle met my posterior with a good amount of force. I was the “direct object” and I'll never forget that lesson.
   Another day it had just starting to snow outside halfway through his class. Jill Bolinsky who much to soon was taken from us was also in the class. She would sometimes say something out loud disrupting a class. Well this day she looked out the window and shouted out to the entire class “It's snowing outside”. Well, COA looked at her and didn't miss a beat, didn't tell her not to shout out but rather returned to his desk and said “I must write this down Miss Bolinsky has offered an intelligent thought today it's snowing outside” and the class resumed without further interruption.
   I remember an assignment which was to go home, pull out one of my parent's books, read some of it and come back to class with what book we had read was about and whether it was interesting. I suppose COA had hoped for students to report on classics or at the very least some western paperback novel. I came back to class and said I couldn't do it. He looked at me like I had to be up to something. I told him my dad was an engineer and all we had around the house was engineering books with lots of mathematical formulas. I even subsequently brought in one of the heavy books. He looked at it and I think said okay, probably thinking this poor kid is being starved culturally.
   Although this was my only class with COA this year started a long term and very special relationship which I still cherish this many years later. Throughout the rest of high school we would occasionally talk. So it came time for possibly going to college. My grades were not the best but my SAT scores were not that bad. I ended up at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana where COA went to school and was a proud alumnus. I'm sure he had a major role in my admission to DePauw although I'm also sure he would never have omitted it. It helped that DePauw, at that time, also had an Air Force ROTC program and I wanted to fly. During college, whenever I was back to visit my parents I would visit COA either at school or he and Vonnie his better half, at their apartment in the buildings behind the A&P. Then during my 20 year Air Force career I always stopped by to visit. I had the opportunity to travel the world and would talk to them both about what I had seen and done. I particularly told him of the London museums, the Victoria & Albert, the National Gallery, the British Museum and many others. It seemed to me the British, in the days of empire, had plundered the world and brought it all back to London and placing the world in their museums. I was excited and told him, he and Vonnie had to go, that they would absolutely love Europe. He told me he and Vonnie would go after he retired.
   And then it was 1991 and our 25th reunion. I think it was held sometime in the fall. I had heard that COA was not well. That he was not taking visitors. I never-the-less went to their apartment behind the A&P. I think Vonnie answered the door and said something about COA not feeling well that day which was consistent with his not taking visitors. I heard the voice, not quite so strong but unmistakable from within the apartment, “Is that Jay? Come in.” I sat down and was in shock at what I saw. COA said something like “don't be so surprised, it's what cancer does to you.” I tried to recover as best I could remembering the dynamic, vibrant, in love with teaching, people and life, person that cancer was now eating away. We visited and I left before COA was too tired to continue. I went to the reunion and said nothing when the subject of COA being sick was occasionally mentioned. I felt my private moment with COA and Vonnie was not one to share then with anyone else.
   COA died on December 29, 1991, having retired from teaching just the year before.
   To this day it bothers me and I am so sad that he and Vonnie never had the opportunity to visit Europe, the great London museums and that he was taken from us too young.

Posted on: Nov 09, 2020 at 4:33 AM

Happy birthday, Jay! Hope you are well and enjoying retired life!!!

Posted on: Nov 09, 2017 at 4:34 AM

Posted on: Nov 09, 2016 at 4:33 AM

I'm so sorry to hear about so many of our losses and now Elaine. I agree with Carl. You and Ed have done a wonderful job of making the reunion happen. As to the question concerning computers, I don't know the context of what you found but I might assume this was a school administration system. It might have been an early school budgeting/teacher payroll system and might have included some software where teachers could enter grades. 1965/66 seems quite early for high school students to be learning on the then available, relatively unreliable computer systems, not to mention the time it would take to run any sort of program. I know in 1976, I was in an Air Force Logistics Masters degree program learning Fortran. We wrote out our software programs on IBM punch cards using large key board punch card machines, submitted our card decks, and received the output on large computer pages overnight. A one page output typically meant you had a bug in your software. Multiple page output usually meant your program ran successfully. I had more than my share of one page outputs. Just for reference, Wozniak and Jobs introduced the Apple II in 1976, which really started the revolution away from the main frames.

Posted on: Feb 06, 2016 at 12:13 AM

Hi Jay, I have the same memory of the DC trip and the ice machine....along with exhaustion and administration comment about no more DC trips after ours which I do believe they followed through with! When I moved recently (divorce #2) I found the panoramic photo taken on the Capitol steps. It was epic! Hope you are well...retired myself four years ago after 37 years in education; now working part time as a child advocate in our court system and traveling to see my daughter and husband near Boston and spoil my grand son, (17 months) absolutely rotten. Hope you are well!
Gail Wright