CSDR has been in existence for the past 72 years. As far as I know, there are two methods to carry books between school and dorms/cottages. Older deaf schools like CSD Fremont (since 1860) may have seen three or four methods of book transportation.
Students have six different classes for 50-minute periods throughout the day. It behooves that they bring a stack of books for classwork each day.
I asked my father, who was born in 1931, how he carried books to school and back to home everyday. He went to school from 1937 to 1950 in North Dakota. He fastened his books and notebooks to a leather strap or a belt and slung it over his shoulder.
Using a leather strap probably didn't happen at CSDR because the style had phased out gradually by the 1950s. Instead, students at CSDR used two different methods, with one method for girls and the other for boys.
Girls carried books with both arms and hands clenched together. One drawback for deaf girls with this method was that it made it harder for them to be able to carry a conversation in sign language.
As for boys at CSDR, they placed their books on their hip with one arm over. With one free arm and hand, they could converse between classes. The boys had a distinct advantage over the girls.
Needless to say, students in college prep classes tend to carry more books than other students with an emphasis on vocational training for ready employment after high school. As for myself, I was placed in the top college prep classes throughout high school. I never went to school or dorm empty-handed. I always carried a stack of books on my hip. If my hip or arm felt tired, I would switch to the other side. Sometimes, I needed books on both hips and arms. I would then find myself in a girl’s situation unable to chat.
Probably starting in the early 1990s, boys and girls used a different method for book transportation by switching to backpacks. This method offers an advantage over the previous method of putting books and notebooks together in a pack and then placing them on their backs, thereby freeing their hands for a full conversation in ASL.
Backpacks bring out benefits as well as problems. They keep everything in one place. Students can put different things in different pockets of varying sizes. They can even put water bottles and laptops in different pockets. On the other side of the coin, students could hide contraband in their opaque backpacks that no one can see through. See below what students may take with them everywhere they go.
Recently, schools have begun to use iPads or extra textbooks left in classrooms instead of having students carry books all the time to reduce the weight of their backpacks.
Below is the proof at CSDR that boys carried books on the hip and girls on the chest. At left is HS Principal CL Gover. Next to him is Tom Utley, ‘62, with Mark McCrory, ‘62, in the center.
It remains to be seen what twenty years from now will bring to CSDR. I hope I will still be around. I am 67 now. Knock on the wood that I will be 96 when I will be able to furnish the third edition book for the school’s 100th anniversary in 2053.
Kevin Struxness, ‘76, MA
Editor, CSDR Old Times
9 December 2024
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