I- I- I- I notice it in- I always noticed it in myself when I was teaching, just how my language would change going from a grade-nine class to a grade-twelve class, or you-know grade-thirteen in those years like, just th-- the differences in- in... speech and speech patterns and s-- and being more conscious of things like sentence structure and speaking properly and using more elevated language with the seniors ...

Speaker: We- And at the t-- interestingly enough, at-the-time, the- the people who were building the French school, the students, when I say people I- I'm only you-know I was a grade-thirteen kid I thought I spoke for everybody I didn't, um, the s-- but the students from the French school agreed. They wanted to h-- come up with a- you-know to start new.

When I first started at the girl's college, the um school-board the- the- the provincial funding system only extended itself to grade-ten, to the end of the intermediate section. Grade-eleven, twelve, and thirteen in those days, it was still grade-thirteen, they were not funded it was entirely private school, and so the students had to pay to attend the school, and Saint-Joseph's college the grade eleven, twelve, and thirteen section of Saint-Joseph's college was funded...

... they were both religious communities trying to run schools for stu-- Catholic students in North-Bay. And there were some grade-thirteen classes that ah were run at Scollard-Hall I-mean you could imagine the financial drain trying to run um especially grade-thirteen classes with very limited numbers ...

Speaker: ... people were still trying to just you-know people were still trying to use some of those old O-A-C components in the grade-twelve university level course. Interviewer: Yeah, we had ah (inc) Titus-Andronicus and About-Schmidt. Speaker: Oh yes. Interviewer: (inc) Speaker: I- My oldest daughter, um her grade-thirteen er O-A-C independent study was on the character of Merlin, and she read oh more than three, I think f-- maybe half a dozen pieces from various King-Arthur legends ah and examined the character of Merlin, you-know things like that ...

He taught too- he taught m-- one of my sisters and my brother. I think he taught my sister who's four years older than I twice actually. I think he taught her in grade-ten and in grade-thirteen.

So, um, and I said that the group that- the group that I tended to hang out with just didn't seem to- we just didn't really lean that way. More partying in probably grade-thirteen, yeah.

Interviewer: Mm-hm. So was there some reason why you couldn't hang out with your sister or was it just like, some sort of unwritten rule that- Speaker: Oh i-- tha-- oh yeah (laughs) at that time, 'cause she was in grade-thirteen and I was in grade-nine, that was- yeah, even acknowledging her at school wasn't- (laughs)

... pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. So it was, like, the- the half day in the morning or half day in the afternoon for the first two years and then grade one and then went up to grade six in elementary-school for Catholic. And then, pretty much right up to ah grade thirteen, I did the Catholic school system.

Speaker: Anyhow, now I've digressed in many ways but ah really- I'm talking, I- I ended up ah, when I gradua-- I graduated from high-school, I repeated grade thirteen. And ah, my own fault, nobody else's, when you come down to it, I didn't do the work, so I had to repeat. So I took extra subjects, bettered my marks, and then I ended up going to Queen's-University for two years.

... as we called it in those days, normal-school, not teacher's-college. It was called normal-school. So I applied and I got in. Now, when I went to normal-school I was twenty-four years old. Anyhow it was a one-year course then, because you graduate from grade thirteen, it was a one-year course. And then they switched it a couple years later. Switched it, you could go from grade twelve but you had to take two years at normal-school. Anyhow so- and now it's become a teacher's-college.

Speaker: Oh yeah, when I went on to grade thirteen. You know how I got into grade thirteen? I didn't have Latin. The principal of the high-school here wrote to the department of education and said, "Look this guy's graduate from techno- technical-school. Can we apply all those technical-school subjects in place of the Latin requirement for grade thirteen?" And they said, "Yes." Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: That's how I went on to grade thirteen.

The biggest thing that's wrong with this province, we went to- we followed the other provinces that we-- went to grade twelve and we followed the American system. That was under Mike- Mister-Mike-Harris. You know what they say, when you're a teacher, you don't um if ah you can't do anything, you become a teacher. If you don't understand anything, you become a teacher, okay? We switched. Grade thirteen in Canada was the equivalent of first-year university in the States. Christ, I heard that for so many years, it was unreal. Ah on top of that, on top of that, grade twelve. How old are you? You're not in grade twelve.

... so they asked me to be in this play and I was Spike. So it was pretty cool. And a friend of mine, he was in grade-thirteen and he was cool guy, he was Fonzie 'cause Fonzie was cool. So from then everyone called me Spyke. And i-- i-- it's funny how it- it just stuck.

Um Mister-Graham- great teacher, actually. I- I thought he was a great teacher, but he was ah pretty tough. Grade-nine and not so in grade-thirteen. He figured, "If you hadn't got it by now, you- (inc) nothing I can do for you."

Speaker: No, no we didn't have to do that, nope. Um, I was sort of right on the cusp too when they were changing things, so I did five years- Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: Like I did- I did the years five through grade thirteen. Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: Um, although they were calling them- I think they starting to call them year five at that point-

And my uncle, on the other hand, he was a real smart fellow, he was finished high-school when he was fifteen. Grade-thirteen. But he was too young to go to college, or university, they wouldn't take him. So he ended up in the S-A office at Teck-Hughes.

Speaker: My first time I ever drank was ah- yeah I'm sure there were kids who did drink but growing up I was ah- Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: Was when I got my grade-thirteen results. Interviewer: Really. Speaker: I had six beer. Interviewer: Do you remember? Speaker: I remember I was working for the Department-of-Mines.

Speaker: ... they didn't want me to Junior-A but they offered to ah- for me- ah I could play in same (inc) as Junior-B. Interviewer: Oh! Speaker: So I said "No." I wasn't interested and I came back and went to- I took my grade-thirteen and went to university. Interviewer: Why did you decide to do that? To turn them down? Speaker: Well ah because my goal would have been to make- wanted to make the N-H-L. I figured if I- if I played Junior-B I wouldn't make the N-H-L.

... the final reunion they had, which was about three years ago, before they ripped a- ripped the building down- ah I had to make the toast. Because of my long connection. I hate to admit it, but I spent six years in that high-school (laughs). Well it was grade-thirteen, it was five legitimate ones, and then they- I keep telling everybody they held me back to help the younger students coming in. Yeah. Nobody b-- nobody believes me.