Around 55 years after the second term of my sophomore year in high school which I spent at Broad Ripple, I also now only barely remember much what else about what happened inside my Broad Ripple classes that term. Except for my memory of Mrs. Griggs reading aloud my character study about an African-American classmate in my World History class at Bayside H.S. during the fall 1962 school term, whose name was "Benny," during one of her English "G" class sessions of the more academically-oriented students, in which I was now assigned in the spring 1963 term at Broad Ripple.
Because, like I've mentioned a number of times already, in retrospect, it was likely Mrs. Griggs' Indiana-based recommendation which persuaded Columbia College to admit me, that's probably one reason why her reading aloud my "Benny" character study essay in class is what I remember.
Also, in retrospect, remembering Mrs. Griggs' reading of the "Benny" essay in class once again reminds me that it was pretty much what my writing produced that : 1. got me into the "G" English class that Mrs. Griggs taught at Broad Ripple H.S., because my previous English teacher, Miss Barker, had been impressed by "The Ideal President" story my writing had produced in response to one of her homework assignments; 2. got me into Columbia College in September 1965 because the "Benny" essay my writing had produced for an English "G" class assignment to write a character study had apparently impressed Mrs. Griggs so much that she remembered me favorably enough, even over a year after I had been one of her numerous students, to write a favorable letter of recommendation to Columbia College's admissions office that persuaded it to admit me there; and 3. got me elected to the Columbia SDS steering committee in the spring of 1967 because my writing had produced the "Columbia's IDA Connection" paper of "The Columbia SDS Research Committee" (of which I was the sole creator and sole member) that first revealed Columbia University's institutional membership in the Pentagon's Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] weapons research think-tank to Columbia's students, faculty and student newspaper, during the 1960's Vietnam War Era.
In retrospect, what prompted Mrs. Griggs to read aloud my "Benny" character study essay in her class was for one or the other following reasons: 1. Although Broad Ripple High School's student body and teaching staff was about 99.5 percent white in 1963, Mrs. Griggs was an anti-racist white liberal in 1963. So the fact that I was likely the only one in her "G" English class who had produced an essay devoted to describing an African-American former classmate probably made the essay seem like a more interesting one to read than the essays others in the class had written; or 2. Since the essay also included a paragraph describing Benny's humorous reaction when I mentioned to him that my family was moving from New York City to Indianapolis in a few weeks, Mrs. Griggs might have felt that reading this "Benny" essay in her class would cause my new classmates to Broad Ripple to tend to relate to me in a welcoming way for the rest of that spring term of 1963.
But whatever Mrs. Griggs' reason was for reading the "Benny" essay in class, to the degree that the essay led Mrs. Griggs to recommend me for Columbia College admission, it turned out to be an historically significant document. Because, without a recommendation or knowing somebody who's a "tapper", an individual without any upper middle-class or upper-class family background, prep, private school or elite public high school background or some kind of referral from an individual with special influence, someone from my family's class background generally did not get admitted to an Ivy League school like Columbia College in the early 1960's.
