Hey, fellow travelers, sorry I haven't gotten together with you for so long. A little matter of "proofs" got in the way.

I'll have more news for you about the progress in getting "The Dead Of Winter" in my hands ~~ like you're all chomping at the bits, and aren't going to get a good night's sleep until I get them! Must I remind you, I am a whiner?

Anyway, here is the third segment of "My Days At Greene School." To get in the flow you might want to refresh your memory with 4/10 and 4/21 installments.

Here goes:

* * * * * *

The foregoing experience was significant for one reason (and it is for this reason that I included the incident in this paper): the results of that night set the "label-making" mechanism working in my mind. Though from the moment the lights went out I couldn't see so much as a hand or a face I concluded that the entire dormitory had conspired against me, that each wielded a weapon.

Further contact with these boys ~~ in a group, and expecially individually ~~ helped me to modify my prejudice.

Something should be said at this time about the institution, Greene School, since through its unique features it helped shape the boys, in many ways negatively. I should like to focus first of all on its philosophy so far as I can surmise from my employment there. Speculation in this area is dangerous, I am fully aware, since the administration of two hundred or so children, between the ages of five and twenty-one, both male and female, cannot be an easy task. Yet certain clues were inescapable. Secondly, a rough verbal sketch of its physical proportions should be made. Thirdly, I want to make mention of the staff: The owner, the administration, the therapists, and finally the counselors.

The first thing that would strike the visitor to Greene School as particularly odd is the diverse area of needs resident in one institution. For it is as much an orphanage and a limited security prison as it is a home for emotionally disturbed children. Ambling across the lawn might be a boy with an IQ of 170, reciting from memory every line of one of fifty Broadway plays he had memorized. There was one such boy there. His parents claimed that they simply could not care for him. Having money, they shipped him to Greene School. They wrote to him fairly frequently but never visited. Oblivious to everything, even the ruffians found no enjoyment in disturbing him. If anyone was able to crack through his social silence it was Sally. She was alert and always affable. For the entire time I was there I never saw her annoyed. One of her legs was artificial from the knee down, yet it seemed not to handicap her in the slightest. "Why," I asked myself, time and again, "is she here?" Some children were wards of the state, some were delinguents of degrees from petty theft to attempted murder, some were classified as psychotics. There were also a handful of epileptics. There was but one common denominator ~~ they had no parents, in some cases literally, in some cases figuratively. For the most part, then, Greene School was a "half-way house" between childhood and the golden age of twenty-one, when they would be sent to trade schools. From my vantage point (which might be narrow and myopic, though I hasten to say it was shared by most of the counselors) this was all the "philosophy" of Greene School perported to be: the provision of a "half-way house," a microcosm of all the negative factors of a society they would encounter upon release. I have come to see that an institution has a personality of its own, no less poignant than any of its occupants. If this is taken to be true, then Greene School , as seen by an outsider (as the thousands who drove past it daily) was smiling, polished, gentle and as affable as Sally. Behind the smile, though, lurked a far different personality.


I want to briefly look at the "smile." Greene School is in the rural section of Austin, Texas, about five miles from the capital building. The main building lies well back ~~ perhaps forty yards ~~ from the boulevard, and access to it is along a gently winding gravel roadway. Two squat brick columns, with an identifying plaque on one of them, marks the entrance. Live oak trees abound on the grounds in such numbers that the tree tops would seem to form a huge, natural umbrella over the school. The main building is a striking ediface, painted a white of almost symbolic purity (This was before much of it was destroyed by the fire of 1964 which was set by one of the inmates). The windows are fastidiously clean, and inside the floors are highly polished.

The dorms are made of stone and wood. Deceivingly charming from the outside, they are hovels within. Huge gashes scar the walls (most of which were inflicted by the children themselves) and out of a hole here and there marches an almost steady procession of cockroaches and ants. There is no air conditioning. In the summer when the temperatures are in excess of a hundred degrees there is absolutely no relief from the discomfort.

But, by far the most dreaded place "on campus" ~~ especially during the summer ~~ is "lock-up." If it could be described with photographic accuracy, the writer would be accused of gross exaggeration. I shudder at the thought of it; and this warns me that objectivity would be impossible. A cubical of about ten feet by ten feet, the walls and floors are padded with thick mats. After usually being dragged to "lock-up" by several counselors (I can only recall a few times when one went without resistance; and one person who periodically asked to go there in order to complete an entry in his diary), the "miscreant" is stripped to his or her underwear and left there for an indeterminate length of time. There are three "lock-ups." They are fumigated once a year; but this only deters the roaches for a few days. One can hardly keep from gagging from the acrid taste-smell of urine that permeates the room like a mist rising from the mats. There is a container which serves as a toilet, and it is emptied a few times a day if the counselor is inclined to do so. In truth, it is hardly ever used. Most all of them use the floor as a gesture of insolence, borne of their humiliation.

About once a month, Mr. Greene stands on the front steps of the main building and surveys the ground with a sweeping gaze. Except for his stockings he is clad entirely in white: shoes, trousers, shirt, coat, and hat (I cannot recall seeing him dressed otherwise). He is a strangely foreboding figure, over six feet tall, thick framed, though not at all obese, with an erect dignity befitting of his position. This is his school. These are his children. Overwhelmingly, the impression is conveyed ~~ in seeing this man poised on the steps between the twin white columns of this grand two-story building ~~ of the southern gentleman gazing out at his creation before disappearing into his plantation estate. Indeed, one is transported to an earlier day. One is aware of the incongruous interlocking of the past with the present.

If one follows him inside and turning to the right gains entrance to the door which remains locked until the buzzer releases the latch, one is in the therapy section. Modern paintings, some done by the students, grace the walls. Everything is immaculate. Here, available to counselors and therapists, are the files, the case histories of the students.


I am unable to say too much about the therapists, only that they were college graduates, possessing at least bachelors degrees. Only one did I know personally. He seemed sincerely concerned over the well-being of his patients and had regular meetings with the counselors, as well as the dormitory students as a group. At one point he quit smoking and gave me an exquisite collection of pipes. That endeared him to me.

Knowing that I had an interest in writing, he allowed me to form a creative writing class among interested students. The result of this lead to my only other contact ~~ a confrontation really ~~ with another therapist. It appeared that there was a conflict inherent in the program which the other therapist and I, in my zeal, had overlooked. Let me say, first of all, that I was staggered not just by the output of the students (which was enormous) but by the freshness, the spontaneity, the emotional explosiveness their work exhibited. Apparently these students generated so much enthusiasm about their writing that it flowed over into their therapy session. As a consequence, I was confronted with a request by the therapist alluded to above that I show her some of the students' work. A reasonable request on the face of it, I thought. I balked, however, when she showed a particular interest in the writing of a patient of hers. "Was this writing to be intended as an extension of his therapy?" I asked her.

"Well, certainly it would be germane," she responded.

I explained to her that once the kids knew that their writings were being analyzed, they would discontinue writing, or at least it would lose its spontaneity and expressive "freeness." No, I couldn't do that.

This upset her. She told me that under the circumstances, then, the group would have to disband. "Besides," she concluded, "Tom Landrell became rather too emotional when you read Dylan Thomas to the group. You are inexperienced and were indiscreet. You can't read just anything to emotionally disturbed children."

In retrospect, I can see a great deal of justification for her actions. On the other hand she must have realized that she was asking me to compromise my position of trust with these students.

For that reason I was bitter...


Well, travelers, it looks like I'll finish this piece in one more installment. Those of you who have given me input about this series, I thank you so much.

May I invite each of the rest of you to visit my Authorsden site, browse through my poetry, short stories and, of course, enjoy a sampling of "The Dead Of Winter." I encourage you to review any and everything you see there ~~ except my picture.

Until next time,

Always upwards,

Jay Squires