Page 37 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

Among my favorite subjects in the 7th grade at Lake Shore Junior High School were
algebra, mechanical drawing, and woodshop. My teachers, Virginia Wainwright and
Mrs. Faulkner, steered me into these fields of science and graphics design. Learning to
use a T-Square, a ruler, and triangles helped me in my career to design hurricane maps
and graphs years later as a meteorologist at Channel 4. I used my woodworking
knowledge to renovate four homes I later lived in. Also, I constructed office furniture
for my Weather Office at WJXT where I originally had only a desk in the newsroom.
When it was moved to half of an office across the hall that I shared with the camera
equipment, built a bookcase for weather manuals, and an extension to my desk for
clipboards and the weather instruments.

In school, I usually had no trouble with most subjects, including algebra and English. I
loved Mrs. Godwin’s Music class when we sang a lot of the good old times songs, and
they were not just American classics. We learned the Mexican “La Cucaracha” and
Australian “Waltzing Matilda”, as well as the Scottish “My Bonnie Lies over the
Ocean”. One day, my science teacher Mr. Van Sise taught us about plant growth and
photosynthesis. In a study of plant nutrients, he asked for volunteers to bring a cup of
soil to discover the location of the most fertile soil. Since I lived near McGirts Creek,
my sample caused the greatest growth of the beans that were planted.

When I reached the seventh grade, I occasionally rode my bike to school when it wasn’t
too hot or cold. There was so little traffic in those days that I had no trouble riding on
Roosevelt Blvd; in fact, during the summer I would ride it all the way into the King
Street Bicycle Shop for accessories and parts. I could remove the brake assembly, clean
and oil it, and put it back together again. A year later, I had to replace the tires on both
wheels. Unfortunately, I didn’t tighten the front wheel securely. One Sunday morning I
rode the bike down the Venetia sidewalk, and when I reached the curb at the end of the
sidewalk, the front wheel came off! I landed on my right forehead and face, tearing the
skin off. Hearing my cries, a neighbor across the street came to my aid. I was very
appreciative of her care. I had to miss the last few weeks of the 8th grade until the huge
scab across my face healed.

When I was in the ninth grade, my brother Richard came to Lake Shore in the seventh
grade. After school when waiting to catch the city bus home, I loved to make paper
airplanes and fly them towards the west wall of the school. The afternoon sun heated
the wall and the rising thermals would carry the plane nearly up to the roof. One day
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