Dale Moss
Item
Title
Dale Moss
Remember Those Days Jeffersonville High School,
1950, to 1970 oral history project
Interview with Dale Moss, 1967 to 1971
Jen Weidner 0:07: Okay, so. Today is September 1, 2020, this is Jen Weidner of the Jeffersonville Township Public Library. I'm conducting interviews for Remember Those Days Jeffersonville High School, 1950, to 1970 oral history project with a grant from the Indiana Genealogical Society. I'm here today with Dale Moss. Dale, who were your parents?
Dale Moss 0:32: Jane and Art Moss.
Jen Weidner 0:33: And what was your mother's maiden name?
Dale Moss 0:35: Alison.
Jen Weidner 0:36: Okay. Did you marry anybody from Jeff high?
Dale Moss 0:40: No, I met her at IUS. She's from New Albany.
Jen Weidner 0:42: Okay, we'll take a New Albany girl,
Dale Moss 0:45: She's lived in Jeff for, you know, 45 years now.
Jen Weidner 0:49: So now she says she's really a Jeff,
Dale Moss 0:51: yes.
Jen Weidner 0:52: And where did you live when you were growing up?
Dale Moss 0:54: I live in the house, the same house.
Jen Weidner 0:56: On Allison Lane?
Dale Moss 0:57: Utica Pike, the corner of Utica Pike and Alison Lane. I'm the fifth generation of our family to live there. That's essentially my whole life, other than college and a little bit after that.
Jen Weidner 1:06: Okay, and what years did you go to Jeff High?
Dale Moss 1:09: Graduated in 1971 so I guess 1967 to 1971. The last year of the old school.
Jen Weidner 1:15: Okay, let's see. Do you remember how many kids were in your class, a rough estimate?
Dale Moss 1:23: Five hundred, I think, sounds right 510. Big, big class.
Jen Weidner 1:27: That is a big class. Yeah. Other interviews have said like in the hundreds, two hundreds.
Dale Moss 1:32: It was that period of time. They were baby boomers and there were so many kids that they did this for a number of years. They also had classes down at what is Taylor High school building, right. They bussed people back and forth from there because they just...
Jen Weidner 1:49: Overflow, yeah.
Dale Moss 1:50: Yeah, Yeah.
Jen Weidner 1:50: So then, that’s why they had to get a new school.
Dale Moss 1:53: Exactly.
Jen Weidner 1:54: Did you, were you in any clubs or sports or any activities?
Dale Moss 1:57: Love sports. I wasn't very good. In fact, one of my stories I tell about being in school is I wanted to be on a Jeff team so badly. I always dreamed of that as it, my summer after eighth grade, I saw a thing in the newspaper saying that cross country practice was starting. So I went and joined the cross country team even before I'd ever set foot in Jeff high. I was on a team. And unfortunately had to run in cross country.
Jen Weidner 1:57: And run far and...
Dale Moss 2:11: Far and I wasn't up to that. But I was on the team and enjoyed that. And they were nice to me they were.
Jen Weidner 2:37: Good!
Dale Moss 2:37: Yeah, but, so I loved it. My favorite part of Jeff High was it was kind of a club. That was Band.
Jen Weidner 2:44: Ok, yeah,
Dale Moss 2:44: I really, really liked being in band, marching and other stuff too. And so that's my one of my favorite memories.
Jen Weidner 2:51: What instrument did you play?
Dale Moss 2:52: Trombone. So that was my, me. I enjoyed that a lot.
Jen Weidner 2:59: So you play football games and basketball games?
Dale Moss 3:02: Exactly, and we know Symphony type concerts too but I enjoyed all of it. Met my best friends there.
Jen Weidner 3:10: There was no football field at the old high school correct?
Dale Moss 3:13: Right, it was at Memorial Park, which is, what, a couple miles away.
Jen Weidner 3:17: Yeah.
Dale Moss 3:17: And we, we would go after school and practice and during football. Practice the marching there at Parkview. That they're not like in a parking lot and played at the game.
Jen Weidner 3:29: Okay, now I have heard this rumor that the gym at the old Jeff High, that there was a swimming pool underneath it?
Dale Moss 3:37: I've heard that I don't know.
Jen Weidner 3:39: Okay, yeah, Nobody's been able to verify it.
Dale Moss 3:40: You mean the old, old gym, not the [Nachand] Fieldhouse.
Jen Weidner 3:42: Yeah, the old gym. Yeah,
Dale Moss 3:44: I've heard that, I think that is correct.
Jen Weidner 3:46: Okay, no one's been able to like, officially verify. It's why I've been asking everybody, like did you ever see it with your own eyes? To know that it was there. What are some things you remember about high school, like classrooms, teachers, or classes?
Dale Moss 4:01: I remember, I came from K at low grade one to eight school and sort of out. Then the country was very strict. A lot of paddling, A lot of people were always in trouble, standing in corners,
Jen Weidner 4:18: Oh, Wow.
Dale Moss 4:19: All those things that kind of old, old school. So I went to Jeff High and it was pretty open and lots of different kinds of kids and lots of kids that were, you know, great kids and some that weren't so great kids and it was an adjustment. I remember that first off and figuring out how to just sort of survive. The classes were okay. I was a pretty devoted student. I like, always liked classes and most cases, not math so much but ...
Jen Weidner 4:49: That's understandable.
Dale Moss 4:50: And so of the class. Part was always fine. I had good teachers. Some better than others, like in any school, but some are very good. But it was the sort of the atmosphere and the culture and it took me a little while to feel sort of at home. I kind of wanted to be like, I guess most of us do, cool. And that wasn't going to work for me. But once I realized there were kids that, because it was such a, mostly because it's so big,
Jen Weidner 5:20: It's a big school. Yeah,
Dale Moss 5:21: There were all kinds of kids like me there as well as, you know, so once I figured out where I belonged and who my friends were and, and that sort of thing. I had a good time in that part of it. Also, but it was tricky. Teenage years are sort of tough.
Jen Weidner 5:37: They're tough no matter what. No matter what years you are in school
Dale Moss 5:39: I don't know exactly what the future is and you know you want to.
Jen Weidner 5:43: Well that was during
Dale Moss 5:44: You want to impress some girl that didn't want to give you the time of day and all those things like that. They. Once you get past that and kind of be comfortable with...
Jen Weidner 5:52: So you were there in the late [19]60s, early [19]70s. Was that during the Vietnam War?
Dale Moss 5:56: It was during Vietnam. It was during race [Civil Rights Movement], I remember when race issues, I remember several marches and protests but not so much. National things going on too because the lack of black teachers.
Jen Weidner 6:14: Oh, okay,
Dale Moss 6:14: At the school, there was really only one or two [black teachers]. So they had a good point.
Jen Weidner 6:19: And Taylor was closed by then. Taylor High School.
Dale Moss 6:20: Taylor had closed.
Jen Weidner 6:21: So you were integrated by then.
Dale Moss 6:23: So I remember one thing. I was on the track team. Again, never very good, but it was on the team. And the black members of the team, this would have been about [19]68, [19] 69. I guess you'd say, went on strike,
Jen Weidner 6:40: Okay.
Dale Moss 6:40: The same issue, not, not any.
Jen Weidner 6:43: Kind of protesting about so
Dale Moss 6:45: All of a sudden, I was a more prominent member. And because of that, and it just kind of happened overnight and they stayed out for a while and then came back and, but it was a pretty tumultuous time.
Jen Weidner 6:59: I don't think many of us think about the race issues around here because you know we were kind of a small town.
Dale Moss 7:04: Right, and it wasn't real, real tense, but I think there was a lot of. At that time, a lot of pressures that would, but to be more aware of things or write actual issues in the news.
Jen Weidner 7:18: Like we're going through again now.
Dale Moss 7:20: A lot of issues, and I had some African American friends who are not, you know, by nature, wanting to be sort of in your face and to be very confrontational or controversial, and they felt like they needed to be at that time like they were kind of on trial.
Jen Weidner 7:39: because there was a lot going on in the late 1960s, early 1970s.
Dale Moss 7:42: And the Vietnam War part was there because we knew that, you know, at 18 you get the draft.
Jen Weidner 7:49: Draft. Yea.
Dale Moss 7:49: So that.
Jen Weidner 7:51: Was very real, yeah.
Dale Moss 7:52: People were thinking about that and some people were looking to volunteer to enlist, trying to get out of going to Vietnam and it was so it was, it was kind of a trying time. Also you know, of course, as we know we were a little too young for this. Do you know about Woodstock? Going to Woodstock?
Jen Weidner 7:57: I was going to ask you if you went to Woodstock.
Dale Moss 8:10: I would love to do something like that if I was older. But that was all cool. It was a neat time to be a very newsy time. [There was the] man on the moon.
Jen Weidner 8:19: Oh yeah, you made a lot of things happen.
Dale Moss 8:21: A lot of things in the late 1960s, that were just really exciting. One of my irony stories I tell is that I went on to become a journalist and worked as a journalist for four years. In high school, though. I had some pretty good friends that worked on the Hyphen, which was the Jeff High paper. And I thought they were nuts, absolutely no sense to me whatsoever that to write when you didn't have to.
Jen Weidner 8:48: Right you weren't being graded on it. So why would you do that?
Dale Moss 8:52: So then they all became insurance salesmen and everything else.
Jen Weidner 8:55: And you became the journalist.
Dale Moss 8:56: And I became the journalist. So you don't know, but I had a good time in high school. I behaved myself pretty much. Did get introduced to drinking a little, but didn't do drugs. I had friends that did drugs.
Jen Weidner 9:11: That was a very prominent time for drugs
Dale Moss 9:13: Yeah, and could have. I could have.
Jen Weidner 9:18: Did you go to any dances, the prom or anything?
Dale Moss 9:21: Went to the prom a couple of times and at that time it wasn’t my favorite thing in the world. They did have dances at the Optimist Club at the end of Louis Street in Jeffersonville. I never was quite old enough. There were some fairly well known dances at that time, at Ewing Lane.
Jen Weidner 9:46: I've had a lot of people talk about those.
Dale Moss 9:49: I wasn't quite of that age group. And I was kind of a dork. But I guess I wouldn't have fit in at some of that stuff and I wasn't into cars. You know it was a pretty big deal back then, having a cool car. Fast car. None of that interested me at all.
Jen Weidner 10:14: Did you have a car in high school?
Dale Moss 10:16: I did have a, did have a car. Kind of by happenstance. My mother, like I think a fair number of women back then, didn't drive as growing up.
Jen Weidner 10:26: Right.
Dale Moss 10:27: Yeah, just didn't, and she wanted to. Claim she wanted to drive. So my father bought her a car. And she, it didn't work.
Jen Weidner 10:38: So you inherited the car.
Dale Moss 10:42: By just being there and so that was that was fine. I spent the night a lot with friends. We formed a band. Back then, that was one of the things a lot of guys did. We formed a band at garage band.
Jen Weidner 11:02: Oh, right.
Dale Moss 11:03: We played I think one time, and we were not very good and so that didn't, that didn't pan out but that was sort of fun too. I had some pretty good friends, different friends than I had at Middle Road. What happened, but some I knew from band and some and Jeff High. They had, I think, they called them accelerated classes. Sort of a different word for advanced.
Jen Weidner 11:25: Okay, yeah, like the advanced placement classes.
Dale Moss 11:28: Yeah and I was in those and a lot of my friends from Middle Road were not. So I didn't see them much anymore. Ironically, I now do have lunch with some of them. But we didn't have shared experiences as teenagers that much. They were and most of them didn't go on to college and I did and things like that.
Jen Weidner 11:49: Do you have any favorite teachers or favorite subjects?
Dale Moss 11:53: I liked government. I had Jim Becker. [He] was a teacher, that was a really good teacher. A number of my English teachers are good. I don't remember a lot of names. My favorite teacher all in all, would have been the band teacher, meaning, Gene Davis. Great, great guy, great teacher. But I’m kind of embarrassed to say I don't remember too many of them. Always did well in English. My mother was an English major in school, and was very helpful to me in English. Made me take seriously
Jen Weidner 12:27: Right.
Dale Moss 12:29: Not just read, but write properly.
Jen Weidner 12:33: That came in handy for your career.
Dale Moss 12:35: It ended up coming very handy. I bless her to this day for that, how to write a sentence. And one of the funny things I remember about high school was it kind of related to that and the fact that I was going to go to college and probably have some sort of some, something of a white collar life, would be that they really wanted me to take typing and typing seemed like Jeff High to be sort of a not a real academic thing. Most people who took it were like, going to be destined to become secretaries or something.
Jen Weidner 13:14: Yeah.
Dale Moss 13:15: Yeah. So it was. I didn't want to take a class with a bunch of people I didn't know who, you know, But they insisted I take typing and I was very upset about that turned out of course to be.
Jen Weidner 13:26: You needed it.
Dale Moss 13:27: Incredibly handy.
Jen Weidner 13:29: Very important.
Dale Moss 13:30: And important, and I quickly, you know, it was fine after, right, we had a real showdown about signing up for typing. And they had these old typewriters that didn't have the keys marked. So you learned really.
Jen Weidner 13:46: Oh wow!
Dale Moss 13:47: You know, we like that.
Jen Weidner 13:48: Yeah.
Dale Moss 13:50: If you think about it after a while.
Jen Weidner 13:51: You don't need those.
Dale Moss 13:53: Yeah, first it was like
Jen Weidner 13:55: What do you mean I don't know where the alphabet is!
Dale Moss 13:57: Exactly. It seemed like, you know, impossible, but so...
Jen Weidner 14:01: Would you say by the time that you were finishing Jeff High that the school was old and worn out and the new school was definitely warranted?
Dale Moss 14:09: Yeah, there were, you know, as you may have heard. There were supposedly parts of it that were condemned. I'm not sure if that that was just legend or true.
Jen Weidner 14:17: Right.
Dale Moss 14:19: It was, it was that there were several buildings. It was definitely over whelmed. Lunchtime you could go anywhere and that was in part because they had newer restaurants around the campus. Pizza places, hamburger places that you could go [to] and or you can go home or you could go wherever it was that they did have a cafeteria, There wasn't, I liked it, but it was really small, because it was built at the time when.
Jen Weidner 14:49: There wasn't a lot of class, a lot of students.
Dale Moss 14:53: Yeah, So that was, that needed to be changed. And it was just smaller, wasn't really anywhere to park. You know people, more and more kids are getting cars.
Jen Weidner 15:03: Where did you guys park?
Dale Moss 15:05: Just on the street.
Jen Weidner 15:06: Just on the street, okay.
Dale Moss 15:07: If you were lucky if you found a place pretty close, but no guarantees. And the sports, you mentioned sports. see on the, lot of the teams didn't have a, really other than basketball, I guess, or maybe. There wasn't a field or ...
Jen Weidner 15:25: There's nowhere to practice.
Dale Moss 15:26: There, so you had to go somewhere else, for that, so it was, it had its day. You know, quaint and cool and
Jen Weidner 15:37: It served its purpose.
Dale Moss 15:38: In its own creaky way and you got that. You know you didn't get used to the problems. It's like a house.
Jen Weidner 15:44: Like anywhere else, yeah.
Dale Moss 15:45: Your house has got problems but you just kind of deal. And that was way it was it that that school,
Jen Weidner 15:52: There was more than one building right?
Dale Moss 15:54: They were. Yeah, three, three, plus the Taylor annex there was a building called the commercial building for some reason. I'm not exactly sure. They'd let some business classes there, like typing and things, but it also had other classes and that's where the cafeteria was. So if your class right before lunch was not near the cafeteria, you had a chance because you had to get in line and lunch hour. Wasn't there were a couple other little buildings too? There wasn't the newest building. It wasn't real new but it's, it's, it was where band was and chorus, and some other classes, drafting,
Jen Weidner 16:31: Was it where, like, Gordon Porter is now?
Dale Moss 16:33: Yes, yes.
Jen Weidner 16:33: Okay.
Dale Moss 16:34: Drafting, a pretty nice classroom, early, you know,
Jen Weidner 16:39: Yeah.
Dale Moss 16:40: And there were other things. There was a kind of a metal building where auto, the auto shop was and then kind of, was just jerry-rigged, added on.
Jen Weidner 16:47: They added on as they could.
Dale Moss 16:49: It was kind of a mess, if you wanted to look at it that way. It certainly wasn't going to be appealing. If somebody, a family was moving to our area and where we're going to buy a house and send our kids. If you looked at that it was like, eww.
Jen Weidner 17:04: I don't want to go there, but there wasn't really anything else in Jeff.
Dale Moss 17:05: Not in Jeff and New Albany High School was old also, I mean so they. That's kind of the way it was then. The building itself wasn't really the issue.
Jen Weidner 17:20: Yeah,
Dale Moss 17:21: Yeah, it was what went on inside there. Probably still should, is that mostly but it was, I think it needed to go. One memory I have is that sometime during high school we were given, at least my class was an assignment to write a, an essay about what it was going to be like to be in the first class at the new school. So I think I've mentioned this.
Jen Weidner 17:46: Yeah.
Dale Moss 17:47: That there was some estimate of when everything would change that didn't get, didn't pan out.
Jen Weidner 17:54: You didn't get to be in the new school.
Dale Moss 17:56: And that was fine, I was...
Jen Weidner 17:57: You just wanted out of high school. You didn't care.
Dale Moss 17:59: Yeah, No, it was home,
Jen Weidner 18:01: Right
Dale Moss 18:01: You know, warts and all. Creaks and condemned or whatever it was and it was, it was fine. And, but we didn't, that didn't happen. And I've heard stories that people took souvenirs, I guess, because I knew the school was,
Jen Weidner 18:22: Yeah.
Dale Moss 18:23: Done. But I don't, I didn't see that and I didn't do that. But I have heard people have this or that, there was one of the front walks like a, what you call the things archway thing that said the school's name and maybe on one
Jen Weidner 18:40: I've seen in one of the yearbooks Yeah,
Dale Moss 18:41: I'm told somebody borrowed that and other things but I can't vouch for that.
Jen Weidner 18:49: It's in somebody’s garage right now. Their kids are like, like what am I going to do with this. You said you, you did leave campus to go to lunch.
Dale Moss 18:59: Yeah.
Jen Weidner 18:59: Where did you go?
Dale Moss 19:02: Over the... I liked the cafeteria and when I could go there I did go there, and some of my friends did. We would meet and have lunch so that was the, that was my first choice. There was a hamburger place around the corner from the school that was kind of where that cool kids went, I never felt comfortable there but I liked the food. So I went there some, there was a pizza place right across Court Ave that I liked. And then if I was ambitious I could walk a little farther to a place down and more in downtown. It was called the Orange Bar it wasn't a really a bar. It was a had, sort of like, White Castle hamburgers and they had some pinball machines and things like that. That, where it was. It was a nice little place to go. Just kind of didn't plan it out a whole lot this just...
Jen Weidner 19:51: Whenever, just went where ever.
Dale Moss 19:53: Wherever somebody else wanted to go. I don't think I ever much drove somewhere to lunch but a lot of people did.
Jen Weidner 20:02: You'd lose your parking spot if you did.
Dale Moss 20:03: You'd lose your parking spot. Some of the places on 10th Street were opening. Burger King and McDonalds and those kinds of places. So people would go to those.
Jen Weidner 20:15: It's quite a hike though if you only had a half an hour for lunch.
Dale Moss 20:18: Yeah. Yeah. And, and they did attendance and being late and stuff didn't seem to matter. You would get in trouble. I can't remember how bad a trouble. But one of the great sort of time, timely stories or whatever it is of that of my day was my senior year. Several students boys got suspended, and maybe one or two ultimately expelled for the length of their hair.
Jen Weidner 20:49: Oh,
Dale Moss 20:22: And they really cracked down on hair length which. Yeah. And long story short, by the end they sued. I think when won, I don't know much about that, because it was just. Anyways, they were taking the stand about the right, about hair length. I think girls would tell you they also [fought[ there was some things about the length of skirt.
Jen Weidner 21:12: I've heard that Yeah,
Dale Moss 21:13: Things like that, just stuff that seemed kind of missing the point to me.
Jen Weidner 21:21: Right.
Dale Moss 21:22: I have big hair. Actually I had sort of a, I think, maybe one time the biggest Afro [hair style] on a white guy.
Jen Weidner 21:32: (laughing) Well it was the1970s, so...
Dale Moss 21:38: One of my points, my point being is that there was a guy that was the Dean of Boys who was the enforcer of the hair thing and he was, he was cracking down and kicking kids, boys out of school for the length of the hair. I went to college and at some point after college came back and became an adult citizen around here and saw this guy. And somewhere, and at that point, his hair was longer than the hair of the boys.
Jen Weidner 21:54: Yeah.
Dale Moss 22:00: So that is how the world works. But the dress code was a contentious thing.
Jen Weidner 22:17: Well, it still is.
Dale Moss 22:18: Is it?
Jen Weidner 22:20: To an extent, yeah, I mean.
Dale Moss 22:21: I, I don't know. I never saw the point personally. I didn't know.
Jen Weidner 22:29: So are you wearing bell bottoms?
Dale Moss 22:31: Yeah, yeah but it, you know, I didn't think that short skirts or long hair were really...
Jen Weidner 22:39: Didn't deter from your education right like.
Dale Moss 22:43: If it was. I was not sold on that. Yeah, and the guys that did it were good guys. One of them is in fact. One of them is that the head of the library now at IUS, and he still has long hair. You may know Marty Rosen.
Jen Weidner 23:02: I know the name. I have a friend who's a librarian there.
Dale Moss 23:04: I think he's still there. And he got kicked out for his hair. And just so there were, you know, it was a fairly tense time because of the war and race stuff and these kinds of things. But it was, made life more interesting.
Jen Weidner 23:32: Yeah.
Dale Moss 23:33: I think I've got adult kids now that I don't think I've ever really faced a lot of that kind of stuff. And I was nervous about Vietnam.
Jen Weidner 23:43: Right, as you would have been. Yeah.
Dale Moss 23:45: What happened, ultimately was the there was a lot of opponents to the war and then more and more every year and it became a very, very much so. And so they switched to a lottery draft lottery. And you've got a number. And it corresponded with your birthday and he pulled out ping pong balls or something like that. And I got it [the number] was when you were 18, it was a year you were at. And I got the number, 103, and they said at the time that they were going to take the about, about was key, about the first 100 numbers. So that didn't help.
Jen Weidner 24:31: Oh
Dale Moss 24:32: Man, it wasn't like number six, which would have been awful but it wasn't number 300.
Jen Weidner 24:36: Yeah.
Dale Moss 24:38: But the opposition to the war became more and more and more and they ended up eliminating the draft that year.
Jen Weidner 24:47: So what year was that? Do you remember?
Dale Moss 24:49: Well, 18, I guess it was like 1972,
Jen Weidner 24:51: Okay, so right out of high school.
Dale Moss 24:53: Yeah, yeah. And being in college was not an absolute deferment thing. I can't remember exactly what time it was and then it not be, because everybody.
Jen Weidner 25:06: Everyone was going to college.
Dale Moss 25:07: Yeah, there wouldn't have been any soldiers. So it was very touch and go. My parents did not believe in this war. They would have said they said, “You know, if you think you ought to go to Canada.” Which was what people were doing.
Jen Weidner 25:21: Yeah.
Dale Moss 25:22: “or something else. We'll support you.” And I didn't know there were a lot of talked-about options. Supposedly you could try to get into an Army Band.
Jen Weidner 25:34: Oh, yeah.
Dale Moss 25:36: That would exempt you, but I don't know. You know.
Jen Weidner 25:37: You don't know if it's true. Yeah, you don't want to get in and then.
Dale Moss 25:40: There were a lot of stories about if you because, you had to enlist in the army to get in the army band or to do something else other than that.
Jen Weidner 25:48: go and fight, yeah.
Dale Moss 25:50: Yeah, but there were stories real or imagined of people that did that and then got sent to the, to the front lines.
Jen Weidner 25:57: Do you have any friends that got drafted?
Dale Moss 25:59: Didn't have good friends who got drafted it because of the timing we were a little bit. Yeah, one of my best friends here in Jeffersonville, his older brother was killed in the war and we went to the funeral. A few others from Jeffersonville.
Jen Weidner 26:14: What was his name do you remember?
Dale Moss 26:15: Frazer, F-r-a-z-e-r. There are a few others that were from Jeffersonville and did get killed or hurt very badly. A man that I knew that was older later became a judge here in Clark County. A very good guy. He got really badly hurt and I've known others that, just a little bit older, you know again timing.
Jen Weidner 26:36: Right.
Dale Moss 26:37: But it was. Yeah. And there were people that would come and counsel, they were anti-war people that you could come and talk to and they would give you tips on how...
Jen Weidner 26:48: To beat it.
Dale Moss 26:50: Yeah, but I had a draft card.
Jen Weidner 26:53: So yeah. We've never had to deal with anything with that and me and my...
Dale Moss 26:56: Right,
Jen Weidner 26:56: Age group.
Dale Moss 26:57: Right.
Jen Weidner 26:58: People willingly go and fight and.
Dale Moss 27:01: Yeah.
Jen Weidner 27:01: And not that you know, know, who didn't want to, but it was a totally. It was a totally different time and...
Dale Moss 27:06: Yeah, the war did make a lot of sense to people and, but you could also do the Peace Corps. I didn't know some people and who took them. That was a nice option, people, great experiences. As it worked out they got to see some parts of the world.
Jen Weidner 27:21: I'm very fond of the Peace Corps.
Dale Moss 27:22: Yeah. So that was, like what I intended to do, a sort of batted around, about eight options. Thank God.
Jen Weidner 27:33: Do you have any siblings?
Dale Moss 27:35: I am an only child.
Jen Weidner 27:35: Okay, your parents definitely didn't want you to go to war.
Dale Moss 27:39: No, no. I appreciated that they were open.
Jen Weidner 27:47: Right, yeah. Did you have any, like big sporting events, like you know, state championships or sectionals or anything that you went to or remember.
Dale Moss 28:01: I did go to those. They didn't do very well,
Jen Weidner 28:05: You know basketball is a big thing in this area.
Dale Moss 28:06: I went to the basketball games. You know, you kind of had to do that. Home games, I was in the band and we sat up in the balcony and had a good time. But, but it was fun. There was a guy in my class who was, uh, ended up becoming a Mr. Basketball. So that was exciting to me, and I know him so.
Jen Weidner 28:26. Who was that?
Dale Moss 28:26: It was that guy named Mike Flynn.
Jen Weidner 28:28: Oh yeah, I know that name
Dale Moss 28:29: And Mike and I were you know, friends not great friends, and so it's neat to see that happen.
Jen Weidner 28:34: Yeah,
Dale Moss 28:35: He would show me. We sat next to each other one class and he would show me all these letters, that scholarship offers and things he was getting all the time. So it was kind of neat to see that. He became Mr. Basketball and that was when he was on the team while I was at school and he was really good to watch but that was, was a big part of it. I wasn't very good and that was kind of one of those realizations. Because it was as a little kid I wanted to be, Mike Flynn, you know.
Jen Weidner 29:04: Oh, right, right. We all want to be some great athlete or something when we're kids and...
Dale Moss 29:09: You know, like I say real life sort of hit me, didn’t look like Brad Pitt and I didn't play basketball like Mike Flynn.
Jen Weidner 29:15: But I mean you did good things for our community.
Dale Moss 29:17: No, I'm happy it worked out fine, and school was fine. I had good friends and, you know, didn't get picked on or beat up, or, or things of that nature. I was trying to think of some. One or two stories but it's, it worked out fine. I did some, did some sports I enjoyed. One of the things I enjoyed was, I was, again, a music thing I was in the orchestra for the school plays,
Jen Weidner 29:47: Oh yeah. That would be fun.
Dale Moss 29:49: I enjoyed it, joined that a lot. Still enjoy plays and ...
Jen Weidner 29:56: Yeah.
Dale Moss 29:57: And that's one of my regrets, is that I haven't kept. I still have my trombone, believe it or not. After fifty years, but I don't play it anymore, and have been thinking about getting,, bought a couple of books on Amazon, yeah, beginners again. So that was fine. That was a good bit it was. I didn't, I didn't have any real problems in high school I can't think of any of. It was a pretty good time, I liked college better.
Jen Weidner 30:25: During high school was your dad a principal?
Dale Moss 30:28: He was a principal at the elementary school. But he was a pretty well liked guy. So that was kind of a good thing and a lot of teachers knew and a lot of kids,
Jen Weidner 30:36: I really liked him. He was at Ewing Lane when I was there.
Dale Moss 30:40: Good guy so that that helped that helped a lot. I know one thing I meant to tell you. That I would get good grades on writing stuff and then do the school paper. I thought that was silly, but yeah, But what helped me. I would tell this story, when I spoke to kids later on as a grown up about writing and the importance of writing and reading and just taking that a little more seriously than they might. I was a really great writer of love notes. And back then, you passed notes in between classes.
Jen Weidner 31:21: Yeah.
Dale Moss 31:22: And, and so I, I tell people I got a little bit farther with with girls then I probably would have otherwise just because I was a really good writer. And well, you know, from Jeff High. (Laughing) Wasn't Hemingway.
Jen Weidner 31:38: That's okay. Not everybody can be Hemingway.
Dale Moss 31:41: But it's that first got me to realize that this is kind of enjoyable, put it together and having people say you do pretty good at it. So right out of high school, I needed a part time job like we all do, and most of us do. A friend of mine had worked at The Evening News. Taking bundles of papers out to the, to the paper boys back then. They would take them. If you were like a paper carrier they would take the bundle and take it to your house and put it in your front yard. You would then take it and
Jen Weidner 32:20: Deliver it to whoever.
Dale Moss 32:21: Yeah, and he would do that. And he was going away to college so that job was open. So I went down and applied for his job. They call me and said “Would I rather cover ballgames for them?” And I said, sure, but I don't have any clue.
Jen Weidner 32:40: What am I supposed to do.
Dale Moss 32:41: That sounds like a great compliment to The Evening News but they kind of said.
Jen Weidner 32:44: We don't either.
Dale Moss 32:47: You'll be fine. Yeah, so I fell into journalism, totally by ...
Jen Weidner 32:53: Like literally right out of high school.
Dale Moss 32:54: And then without any plan to do that. But I liked it and kept going at it. I worked there for a while. Worked at The Courier Journal and Times again on weekends covering sports events mostly and some other stuff, and summer jobs at The Courier Journal and Times and have been doing it so. Really since the fall of 1971. Oh, I still do a little bit. I enjoy, enjoy writing.
Jen Weidner 33:22: What was your college degree?
Dale Moss 33:24: Political Science, in part because I'd started at IUS. I was kind of mature enough to know that I wasn't very mature. And I had friends that went to Bloomington, and other places.
Jen Weidner 33:38: Yeah
Dale Moss 33:38: And partied and majored in, you know, beer pong.
Jen Weidner 33:43: Yeah, totally.
Dale Moss 33:44: And, and sort of ended up with a grade point average of point one two or something. I went to IUS and kind of got my feet wet with college, and then went to Bloomington because they [IUS] didn't have a journalism degree. So I went and just majored in political science, but I got my journalism training by just doing it.
Jen Weidner 34:04: Yeah, hands on, sometimes that's the best.
Dale Moss 34:07: I had written a lot of articles by the time I got out of college and there were some people who majored in journalism. They hadn't written hardly any, but they could talk about it, you know, and so that's how that happened. Totally by accident if they wouldn't have called or needed somebody to cover ballgames.
Jen Weidner 34:24: Or if you hadn't been like, sure. I don't know what I'm doing but I'll do it. I mean you could have been totally different. Yeah
Dale Moss 34:31: They gave me a camera and a notebook and sent me to a ballgame.
Jen Weidner 34:37: Okay, so that's how that happened. Is there anything else about school you'd like to tell me or remember?
Dale Moss 34:45: no I'm glad that at least that pretty big part of the building has been saved.
Jen Weidner 34:51: Yes, yes, very glad.
Dale Moss 34:53: Nice new use. I think that's great. It could have been leveled, and some of it was.
Jen Weidner 35:00: Yeah,
Dale Moss 35:01: A chunk of it was kind of quiet. I don't think there was much notice and that bothered me but it's, it's been it's good. There were, you know, like any school; good teachers, bad teachers, good classmates, few not so good. You know, a few problems, but a great time to be a kid like we talked about. I like to think about bigger issues. Most of the time it was stressful but.
Jen Weidner 35:30: Yeah you were in a very interesting time to be alive in high school.
Dale Moss 35:34: Yeah really, it really was.
Jen Weidner 35:35: And when they decided to make that into the new elementary school, I was like, I'm gonna get these people's stories. I mean we got to see what happened.
Dale Moss 35:42: Yeah.
Jen Weidner 35:42: In that building, before it was what it is now and...
Dale Moss 35:46: It's just a great example of how time flies because idiots, old idiots like me still talk about the new school where you went.
Jen Weidner 35:53: Oh, Right. And now that's, that needs to be updated, yeah.
Dale Moss 35:57: Now it's almost 50 years old.
Jen Weidner 35:59: Oh yeah,
Dale Moss 36:00: Next year. So, that's not. Yeah,
Jen Weidner 36:05: And it's overcrowded now.
Dale Moss 36:07: Yeah, it's overcrowded now.
Jen Weidner 36:08: Jeff just keeps growing and growing so.
Dale Moss 36:11: My father was, I think I mentioned, he was first principal at Maple (Elementary School). And, you know, so I went down there with him and it was fun getting finished and, you know, running around at school and it was for even the kids had come and now it became.
Jen Weidner 36:27: Yeah, it's gone, yeah.
Dale Moss 36:29: Old and obsolete.
Dale Moss 36:32: So these things happen.
Jen Weidner 36:33: Well, thank you very much for coming in.
Dale Moss 36:35: Thanks
Jen Weidner 36:3: for talking to me. Letting me interview you and,
Dale Moss 36:37 Well, no I mean this. I'm so glad you're part of the library.
Jen Weidner 36:44: Oh, thank you, thank you.
Dale Moss 36:45: As a board member I don't know as many people here as I should. But everyone I know is really good and devoted and I hope the new director is good. That he works out to be a good hire, that was an interesting process, let's put it that way.
1950, to 1970 oral history project
Interview with Dale Moss, 1967 to 1971
Jen Weidner 0:07: Okay, so. Today is September 1, 2020, this is Jen Weidner of the Jeffersonville Township Public Library. I'm conducting interviews for Remember Those Days Jeffersonville High School, 1950, to 1970 oral history project with a grant from the Indiana Genealogical Society. I'm here today with Dale Moss. Dale, who were your parents?
Dale Moss 0:32: Jane and Art Moss.
Jen Weidner 0:33: And what was your mother's maiden name?
Dale Moss 0:35: Alison.
Jen Weidner 0:36: Okay. Did you marry anybody from Jeff high?
Dale Moss 0:40: No, I met her at IUS. She's from New Albany.
Jen Weidner 0:42: Okay, we'll take a New Albany girl,
Dale Moss 0:45: She's lived in Jeff for, you know, 45 years now.
Jen Weidner 0:49: So now she says she's really a Jeff,
Dale Moss 0:51: yes.
Jen Weidner 0:52: And where did you live when you were growing up?
Dale Moss 0:54: I live in the house, the same house.
Jen Weidner 0:56: On Allison Lane?
Dale Moss 0:57: Utica Pike, the corner of Utica Pike and Alison Lane. I'm the fifth generation of our family to live there. That's essentially my whole life, other than college and a little bit after that.
Jen Weidner 1:06: Okay, and what years did you go to Jeff High?
Dale Moss 1:09: Graduated in 1971 so I guess 1967 to 1971. The last year of the old school.
Jen Weidner 1:15: Okay, let's see. Do you remember how many kids were in your class, a rough estimate?
Dale Moss 1:23: Five hundred, I think, sounds right 510. Big, big class.
Jen Weidner 1:27: That is a big class. Yeah. Other interviews have said like in the hundreds, two hundreds.
Dale Moss 1:32: It was that period of time. They were baby boomers and there were so many kids that they did this for a number of years. They also had classes down at what is Taylor High school building, right. They bussed people back and forth from there because they just...
Jen Weidner 1:49: Overflow, yeah.
Dale Moss 1:50: Yeah, Yeah.
Jen Weidner 1:50: So then, that’s why they had to get a new school.
Dale Moss 1:53: Exactly.
Jen Weidner 1:54: Did you, were you in any clubs or sports or any activities?
Dale Moss 1:57: Love sports. I wasn't very good. In fact, one of my stories I tell about being in school is I wanted to be on a Jeff team so badly. I always dreamed of that as it, my summer after eighth grade, I saw a thing in the newspaper saying that cross country practice was starting. So I went and joined the cross country team even before I'd ever set foot in Jeff high. I was on a team. And unfortunately had to run in cross country.
Jen Weidner 1:57: And run far and...
Dale Moss 2:11: Far and I wasn't up to that. But I was on the team and enjoyed that. And they were nice to me they were.
Jen Weidner 2:37: Good!
Dale Moss 2:37: Yeah, but, so I loved it. My favorite part of Jeff High was it was kind of a club. That was Band.
Jen Weidner 2:44: Ok, yeah,
Dale Moss 2:44: I really, really liked being in band, marching and other stuff too. And so that's my one of my favorite memories.
Jen Weidner 2:51: What instrument did you play?
Dale Moss 2:52: Trombone. So that was my, me. I enjoyed that a lot.
Jen Weidner 2:59: So you play football games and basketball games?
Dale Moss 3:02: Exactly, and we know Symphony type concerts too but I enjoyed all of it. Met my best friends there.
Jen Weidner 3:10: There was no football field at the old high school correct?
Dale Moss 3:13: Right, it was at Memorial Park, which is, what, a couple miles away.
Jen Weidner 3:17: Yeah.
Dale Moss 3:17: And we, we would go after school and practice and during football. Practice the marching there at Parkview. That they're not like in a parking lot and played at the game.
Jen Weidner 3:29: Okay, now I have heard this rumor that the gym at the old Jeff High, that there was a swimming pool underneath it?
Dale Moss 3:37: I've heard that I don't know.
Jen Weidner 3:39: Okay, yeah, Nobody's been able to verify it.
Dale Moss 3:40: You mean the old, old gym, not the [Nachand] Fieldhouse.
Jen Weidner 3:42: Yeah, the old gym. Yeah,
Dale Moss 3:44: I've heard that, I think that is correct.
Jen Weidner 3:46: Okay, no one's been able to like, officially verify. It's why I've been asking everybody, like did you ever see it with your own eyes? To know that it was there. What are some things you remember about high school, like classrooms, teachers, or classes?
Dale Moss 4:01: I remember, I came from K at low grade one to eight school and sort of out. Then the country was very strict. A lot of paddling, A lot of people were always in trouble, standing in corners,
Jen Weidner 4:18: Oh, Wow.
Dale Moss 4:19: All those things that kind of old, old school. So I went to Jeff High and it was pretty open and lots of different kinds of kids and lots of kids that were, you know, great kids and some that weren't so great kids and it was an adjustment. I remember that first off and figuring out how to just sort of survive. The classes were okay. I was a pretty devoted student. I like, always liked classes and most cases, not math so much but ...
Jen Weidner 4:49: That's understandable.
Dale Moss 4:50: And so of the class. Part was always fine. I had good teachers. Some better than others, like in any school, but some are very good. But it was the sort of the atmosphere and the culture and it took me a little while to feel sort of at home. I kind of wanted to be like, I guess most of us do, cool. And that wasn't going to work for me. But once I realized there were kids that, because it was such a, mostly because it's so big,
Jen Weidner 5:20: It's a big school. Yeah,
Dale Moss 5:21: There were all kinds of kids like me there as well as, you know, so once I figured out where I belonged and who my friends were and, and that sort of thing. I had a good time in that part of it. Also, but it was tricky. Teenage years are sort of tough.
Jen Weidner 5:37: They're tough no matter what. No matter what years you are in school
Dale Moss 5:39: I don't know exactly what the future is and you know you want to.
Jen Weidner 5:43: Well that was during
Dale Moss 5:44: You want to impress some girl that didn't want to give you the time of day and all those things like that. They. Once you get past that and kind of be comfortable with...
Jen Weidner 5:52: So you were there in the late [19]60s, early [19]70s. Was that during the Vietnam War?
Dale Moss 5:56: It was during Vietnam. It was during race [Civil Rights Movement], I remember when race issues, I remember several marches and protests but not so much. National things going on too because the lack of black teachers.
Jen Weidner 6:14: Oh, okay,
Dale Moss 6:14: At the school, there was really only one or two [black teachers]. So they had a good point.
Jen Weidner 6:19: And Taylor was closed by then. Taylor High School.
Dale Moss 6:20: Taylor had closed.
Jen Weidner 6:21: So you were integrated by then.
Dale Moss 6:23: So I remember one thing. I was on the track team. Again, never very good, but it was on the team. And the black members of the team, this would have been about [19]68, [19] 69. I guess you'd say, went on strike,
Jen Weidner 6:40: Okay.
Dale Moss 6:40: The same issue, not, not any.
Jen Weidner 6:43: Kind of protesting about so
Dale Moss 6:45: All of a sudden, I was a more prominent member. And because of that, and it just kind of happened overnight and they stayed out for a while and then came back and, but it was a pretty tumultuous time.
Jen Weidner 6:59: I don't think many of us think about the race issues around here because you know we were kind of a small town.
Dale Moss 7:04: Right, and it wasn't real, real tense, but I think there was a lot of. At that time, a lot of pressures that would, but to be more aware of things or write actual issues in the news.
Jen Weidner 7:18: Like we're going through again now.
Dale Moss 7:20: A lot of issues, and I had some African American friends who are not, you know, by nature, wanting to be sort of in your face and to be very confrontational or controversial, and they felt like they needed to be at that time like they were kind of on trial.
Jen Weidner 7:39: because there was a lot going on in the late 1960s, early 1970s.
Dale Moss 7:42: And the Vietnam War part was there because we knew that, you know, at 18 you get the draft.
Jen Weidner 7:49: Draft. Yea.
Dale Moss 7:49: So that.
Jen Weidner 7:51: Was very real, yeah.
Dale Moss 7:52: People were thinking about that and some people were looking to volunteer to enlist, trying to get out of going to Vietnam and it was so it was, it was kind of a trying time. Also you know, of course, as we know we were a little too young for this. Do you know about Woodstock? Going to Woodstock?
Jen Weidner 7:57: I was going to ask you if you went to Woodstock.
Dale Moss 8:10: I would love to do something like that if I was older. But that was all cool. It was a neat time to be a very newsy time. [There was the] man on the moon.
Jen Weidner 8:19: Oh yeah, you made a lot of things happen.
Dale Moss 8:21: A lot of things in the late 1960s, that were just really exciting. One of my irony stories I tell is that I went on to become a journalist and worked as a journalist for four years. In high school, though. I had some pretty good friends that worked on the Hyphen, which was the Jeff High paper. And I thought they were nuts, absolutely no sense to me whatsoever that to write when you didn't have to.
Jen Weidner 8:48: Right you weren't being graded on it. So why would you do that?
Dale Moss 8:52: So then they all became insurance salesmen and everything else.
Jen Weidner 8:55: And you became the journalist.
Dale Moss 8:56: And I became the journalist. So you don't know, but I had a good time in high school. I behaved myself pretty much. Did get introduced to drinking a little, but didn't do drugs. I had friends that did drugs.
Jen Weidner 9:11: That was a very prominent time for drugs
Dale Moss 9:13: Yeah, and could have. I could have.
Jen Weidner 9:18: Did you go to any dances, the prom or anything?
Dale Moss 9:21: Went to the prom a couple of times and at that time it wasn’t my favorite thing in the world. They did have dances at the Optimist Club at the end of Louis Street in Jeffersonville. I never was quite old enough. There were some fairly well known dances at that time, at Ewing Lane.
Jen Weidner 9:46: I've had a lot of people talk about those.
Dale Moss 9:49: I wasn't quite of that age group. And I was kind of a dork. But I guess I wouldn't have fit in at some of that stuff and I wasn't into cars. You know it was a pretty big deal back then, having a cool car. Fast car. None of that interested me at all.
Jen Weidner 10:14: Did you have a car in high school?
Dale Moss 10:16: I did have a, did have a car. Kind of by happenstance. My mother, like I think a fair number of women back then, didn't drive as growing up.
Jen Weidner 10:26: Right.
Dale Moss 10:27: Yeah, just didn't, and she wanted to. Claim she wanted to drive. So my father bought her a car. And she, it didn't work.
Jen Weidner 10:38: So you inherited the car.
Dale Moss 10:42: By just being there and so that was that was fine. I spent the night a lot with friends. We formed a band. Back then, that was one of the things a lot of guys did. We formed a band at garage band.
Jen Weidner 11:02: Oh, right.
Dale Moss 11:03: We played I think one time, and we were not very good and so that didn't, that didn't pan out but that was sort of fun too. I had some pretty good friends, different friends than I had at Middle Road. What happened, but some I knew from band and some and Jeff High. They had, I think, they called them accelerated classes. Sort of a different word for advanced.
Jen Weidner 11:25: Okay, yeah, like the advanced placement classes.
Dale Moss 11:28: Yeah and I was in those and a lot of my friends from Middle Road were not. So I didn't see them much anymore. Ironically, I now do have lunch with some of them. But we didn't have shared experiences as teenagers that much. They were and most of them didn't go on to college and I did and things like that.
Jen Weidner 11:49: Do you have any favorite teachers or favorite subjects?
Dale Moss 11:53: I liked government. I had Jim Becker. [He] was a teacher, that was a really good teacher. A number of my English teachers are good. I don't remember a lot of names. My favorite teacher all in all, would have been the band teacher, meaning, Gene Davis. Great, great guy, great teacher. But I’m kind of embarrassed to say I don't remember too many of them. Always did well in English. My mother was an English major in school, and was very helpful to me in English. Made me take seriously
Jen Weidner 12:27: Right.
Dale Moss 12:29: Not just read, but write properly.
Jen Weidner 12:33: That came in handy for your career.
Dale Moss 12:35: It ended up coming very handy. I bless her to this day for that, how to write a sentence. And one of the funny things I remember about high school was it kind of related to that and the fact that I was going to go to college and probably have some sort of some, something of a white collar life, would be that they really wanted me to take typing and typing seemed like Jeff High to be sort of a not a real academic thing. Most people who took it were like, going to be destined to become secretaries or something.
Jen Weidner 13:14: Yeah.
Dale Moss 13:15: Yeah. So it was. I didn't want to take a class with a bunch of people I didn't know who, you know, But they insisted I take typing and I was very upset about that turned out of course to be.
Jen Weidner 13:26: You needed it.
Dale Moss 13:27: Incredibly handy.
Jen Weidner 13:29: Very important.
Dale Moss 13:30: And important, and I quickly, you know, it was fine after, right, we had a real showdown about signing up for typing. And they had these old typewriters that didn't have the keys marked. So you learned really.
Jen Weidner 13:46: Oh wow!
Dale Moss 13:47: You know, we like that.
Jen Weidner 13:48: Yeah.
Dale Moss 13:50: If you think about it after a while.
Jen Weidner 13:51: You don't need those.
Dale Moss 13:53: Yeah, first it was like
Jen Weidner 13:55: What do you mean I don't know where the alphabet is!
Dale Moss 13:57: Exactly. It seemed like, you know, impossible, but so...
Jen Weidner 14:01: Would you say by the time that you were finishing Jeff High that the school was old and worn out and the new school was definitely warranted?
Dale Moss 14:09: Yeah, there were, you know, as you may have heard. There were supposedly parts of it that were condemned. I'm not sure if that that was just legend or true.
Jen Weidner 14:17: Right.
Dale Moss 14:19: It was, it was that there were several buildings. It was definitely over whelmed. Lunchtime you could go anywhere and that was in part because they had newer restaurants around the campus. Pizza places, hamburger places that you could go [to] and or you can go home or you could go wherever it was that they did have a cafeteria, There wasn't, I liked it, but it was really small, because it was built at the time when.
Jen Weidner 14:49: There wasn't a lot of class, a lot of students.
Dale Moss 14:53: Yeah, So that was, that needed to be changed. And it was just smaller, wasn't really anywhere to park. You know people, more and more kids are getting cars.
Jen Weidner 15:03: Where did you guys park?
Dale Moss 15:05: Just on the street.
Jen Weidner 15:06: Just on the street, okay.
Dale Moss 15:07: If you were lucky if you found a place pretty close, but no guarantees. And the sports, you mentioned sports. see on the, lot of the teams didn't have a, really other than basketball, I guess, or maybe. There wasn't a field or ...
Jen Weidner 15:25: There's nowhere to practice.
Dale Moss 15:26: There, so you had to go somewhere else, for that, so it was, it had its day. You know, quaint and cool and
Jen Weidner 15:37: It served its purpose.
Dale Moss 15:38: In its own creaky way and you got that. You know you didn't get used to the problems. It's like a house.
Jen Weidner 15:44: Like anywhere else, yeah.
Dale Moss 15:45: Your house has got problems but you just kind of deal. And that was way it was it that that school,
Jen Weidner 15:52: There was more than one building right?
Dale Moss 15:54: They were. Yeah, three, three, plus the Taylor annex there was a building called the commercial building for some reason. I'm not exactly sure. They'd let some business classes there, like typing and things, but it also had other classes and that's where the cafeteria was. So if your class right before lunch was not near the cafeteria, you had a chance because you had to get in line and lunch hour. Wasn't there were a couple other little buildings too? There wasn't the newest building. It wasn't real new but it's, it's, it was where band was and chorus, and some other classes, drafting,
Jen Weidner 16:31: Was it where, like, Gordon Porter is now?
Dale Moss 16:33: Yes, yes.
Jen Weidner 16:33: Okay.
Dale Moss 16:34: Drafting, a pretty nice classroom, early, you know,
Jen Weidner 16:39: Yeah.
Dale Moss 16:40: And there were other things. There was a kind of a metal building where auto, the auto shop was and then kind of, was just jerry-rigged, added on.
Jen Weidner 16:47: They added on as they could.
Dale Moss 16:49: It was kind of a mess, if you wanted to look at it that way. It certainly wasn't going to be appealing. If somebody, a family was moving to our area and where we're going to buy a house and send our kids. If you looked at that it was like, eww.
Jen Weidner 17:04: I don't want to go there, but there wasn't really anything else in Jeff.
Dale Moss 17:05: Not in Jeff and New Albany High School was old also, I mean so they. That's kind of the way it was then. The building itself wasn't really the issue.
Jen Weidner 17:20: Yeah,
Dale Moss 17:21: Yeah, it was what went on inside there. Probably still should, is that mostly but it was, I think it needed to go. One memory I have is that sometime during high school we were given, at least my class was an assignment to write a, an essay about what it was going to be like to be in the first class at the new school. So I think I've mentioned this.
Jen Weidner 17:46: Yeah.
Dale Moss 17:47: That there was some estimate of when everything would change that didn't get, didn't pan out.
Jen Weidner 17:54: You didn't get to be in the new school.
Dale Moss 17:56: And that was fine, I was...
Jen Weidner 17:57: You just wanted out of high school. You didn't care.
Dale Moss 17:59: Yeah, No, it was home,
Jen Weidner 18:01: Right
Dale Moss 18:01: You know, warts and all. Creaks and condemned or whatever it was and it was, it was fine. And, but we didn't, that didn't happen. And I've heard stories that people took souvenirs, I guess, because I knew the school was,
Jen Weidner 18:22: Yeah.
Dale Moss 18:23: Done. But I don't, I didn't see that and I didn't do that. But I have heard people have this or that, there was one of the front walks like a, what you call the things archway thing that said the school's name and maybe on one
Jen Weidner 18:40: I've seen in one of the yearbooks Yeah,
Dale Moss 18:41: I'm told somebody borrowed that and other things but I can't vouch for that.
Jen Weidner 18:49: It's in somebody’s garage right now. Their kids are like, like what am I going to do with this. You said you, you did leave campus to go to lunch.
Dale Moss 18:59: Yeah.
Jen Weidner 18:59: Where did you go?
Dale Moss 19:02: Over the... I liked the cafeteria and when I could go there I did go there, and some of my friends did. We would meet and have lunch so that was the, that was my first choice. There was a hamburger place around the corner from the school that was kind of where that cool kids went, I never felt comfortable there but I liked the food. So I went there some, there was a pizza place right across Court Ave that I liked. And then if I was ambitious I could walk a little farther to a place down and more in downtown. It was called the Orange Bar it wasn't a really a bar. It was a had, sort of like, White Castle hamburgers and they had some pinball machines and things like that. That, where it was. It was a nice little place to go. Just kind of didn't plan it out a whole lot this just...
Jen Weidner 19:51: Whenever, just went where ever.
Dale Moss 19:53: Wherever somebody else wanted to go. I don't think I ever much drove somewhere to lunch but a lot of people did.
Jen Weidner 20:02: You'd lose your parking spot if you did.
Dale Moss 20:03: You'd lose your parking spot. Some of the places on 10th Street were opening. Burger King and McDonalds and those kinds of places. So people would go to those.
Jen Weidner 20:15: It's quite a hike though if you only had a half an hour for lunch.
Dale Moss 20:18: Yeah. Yeah. And, and they did attendance and being late and stuff didn't seem to matter. You would get in trouble. I can't remember how bad a trouble. But one of the great sort of time, timely stories or whatever it is of that of my day was my senior year. Several students boys got suspended, and maybe one or two ultimately expelled for the length of their hair.
Jen Weidner 20:49: Oh,
Dale Moss 20:22: And they really cracked down on hair length which. Yeah. And long story short, by the end they sued. I think when won, I don't know much about that, because it was just. Anyways, they were taking the stand about the right, about hair length. I think girls would tell you they also [fought[ there was some things about the length of skirt.
Jen Weidner 21:12: I've heard that Yeah,
Dale Moss 21:13: Things like that, just stuff that seemed kind of missing the point to me.
Jen Weidner 21:21: Right.
Dale Moss 21:22: I have big hair. Actually I had sort of a, I think, maybe one time the biggest Afro [hair style] on a white guy.
Jen Weidner 21:32: (laughing) Well it was the1970s, so...
Dale Moss 21:38: One of my points, my point being is that there was a guy that was the Dean of Boys who was the enforcer of the hair thing and he was, he was cracking down and kicking kids, boys out of school for the length of the hair. I went to college and at some point after college came back and became an adult citizen around here and saw this guy. And somewhere, and at that point, his hair was longer than the hair of the boys.
Jen Weidner 21:54: Yeah.
Dale Moss 22:00: So that is how the world works. But the dress code was a contentious thing.
Jen Weidner 22:17: Well, it still is.
Dale Moss 22:18: Is it?
Jen Weidner 22:20: To an extent, yeah, I mean.
Dale Moss 22:21: I, I don't know. I never saw the point personally. I didn't know.
Jen Weidner 22:29: So are you wearing bell bottoms?
Dale Moss 22:31: Yeah, yeah but it, you know, I didn't think that short skirts or long hair were really...
Jen Weidner 22:39: Didn't deter from your education right like.
Dale Moss 22:43: If it was. I was not sold on that. Yeah, and the guys that did it were good guys. One of them is in fact. One of them is that the head of the library now at IUS, and he still has long hair. You may know Marty Rosen.
Jen Weidner 23:02: I know the name. I have a friend who's a librarian there.
Dale Moss 23:04: I think he's still there. And he got kicked out for his hair. And just so there were, you know, it was a fairly tense time because of the war and race stuff and these kinds of things. But it was, made life more interesting.
Jen Weidner 23:32: Yeah.
Dale Moss 23:33: I think I've got adult kids now that I don't think I've ever really faced a lot of that kind of stuff. And I was nervous about Vietnam.
Jen Weidner 23:43: Right, as you would have been. Yeah.
Dale Moss 23:45: What happened, ultimately was the there was a lot of opponents to the war and then more and more every year and it became a very, very much so. And so they switched to a lottery draft lottery. And you've got a number. And it corresponded with your birthday and he pulled out ping pong balls or something like that. And I got it [the number] was when you were 18, it was a year you were at. And I got the number, 103, and they said at the time that they were going to take the about, about was key, about the first 100 numbers. So that didn't help.
Jen Weidner 24:31: Oh
Dale Moss 24:32: Man, it wasn't like number six, which would have been awful but it wasn't number 300.
Jen Weidner 24:36: Yeah.
Dale Moss 24:38: But the opposition to the war became more and more and more and they ended up eliminating the draft that year.
Jen Weidner 24:47: So what year was that? Do you remember?
Dale Moss 24:49: Well, 18, I guess it was like 1972,
Jen Weidner 24:51: Okay, so right out of high school.
Dale Moss 24:53: Yeah, yeah. And being in college was not an absolute deferment thing. I can't remember exactly what time it was and then it not be, because everybody.
Jen Weidner 25:06: Everyone was going to college.
Dale Moss 25:07: Yeah, there wouldn't have been any soldiers. So it was very touch and go. My parents did not believe in this war. They would have said they said, “You know, if you think you ought to go to Canada.” Which was what people were doing.
Jen Weidner 25:21: Yeah.
Dale Moss 25:22: “or something else. We'll support you.” And I didn't know there were a lot of talked-about options. Supposedly you could try to get into an Army Band.
Jen Weidner 25:34: Oh, yeah.
Dale Moss 25:36: That would exempt you, but I don't know. You know.
Jen Weidner 25:37: You don't know if it's true. Yeah, you don't want to get in and then.
Dale Moss 25:40: There were a lot of stories about if you because, you had to enlist in the army to get in the army band or to do something else other than that.
Jen Weidner 25:48: go and fight, yeah.
Dale Moss 25:50: Yeah, but there were stories real or imagined of people that did that and then got sent to the, to the front lines.
Jen Weidner 25:57: Do you have any friends that got drafted?
Dale Moss 25:59: Didn't have good friends who got drafted it because of the timing we were a little bit. Yeah, one of my best friends here in Jeffersonville, his older brother was killed in the war and we went to the funeral. A few others from Jeffersonville.
Jen Weidner 26:14: What was his name do you remember?
Dale Moss 26:15: Frazer, F-r-a-z-e-r. There are a few others that were from Jeffersonville and did get killed or hurt very badly. A man that I knew that was older later became a judge here in Clark County. A very good guy. He got really badly hurt and I've known others that, just a little bit older, you know again timing.
Jen Weidner 26:36: Right.
Dale Moss 26:37: But it was. Yeah. And there were people that would come and counsel, they were anti-war people that you could come and talk to and they would give you tips on how...
Jen Weidner 26:48: To beat it.
Dale Moss 26:50: Yeah, but I had a draft card.
Jen Weidner 26:53: So yeah. We've never had to deal with anything with that and me and my...
Dale Moss 26:56: Right,
Jen Weidner 26:56: Age group.
Dale Moss 26:57: Right.
Jen Weidner 26:58: People willingly go and fight and.
Dale Moss 27:01: Yeah.
Jen Weidner 27:01: And not that you know, know, who didn't want to, but it was a totally. It was a totally different time and...
Dale Moss 27:06: Yeah, the war did make a lot of sense to people and, but you could also do the Peace Corps. I didn't know some people and who took them. That was a nice option, people, great experiences. As it worked out they got to see some parts of the world.
Jen Weidner 27:21: I'm very fond of the Peace Corps.
Dale Moss 27:22: Yeah. So that was, like what I intended to do, a sort of batted around, about eight options. Thank God.
Jen Weidner 27:33: Do you have any siblings?
Dale Moss 27:35: I am an only child.
Jen Weidner 27:35: Okay, your parents definitely didn't want you to go to war.
Dale Moss 27:39: No, no. I appreciated that they were open.
Jen Weidner 27:47: Right, yeah. Did you have any, like big sporting events, like you know, state championships or sectionals or anything that you went to or remember.
Dale Moss 28:01: I did go to those. They didn't do very well,
Jen Weidner 28:05: You know basketball is a big thing in this area.
Dale Moss 28:06: I went to the basketball games. You know, you kind of had to do that. Home games, I was in the band and we sat up in the balcony and had a good time. But, but it was fun. There was a guy in my class who was, uh, ended up becoming a Mr. Basketball. So that was exciting to me, and I know him so.
Jen Weidner 28:26. Who was that?
Dale Moss 28:26: It was that guy named Mike Flynn.
Jen Weidner 28:28: Oh yeah, I know that name
Dale Moss 28:29: And Mike and I were you know, friends not great friends, and so it's neat to see that happen.
Jen Weidner 28:34: Yeah,
Dale Moss 28:35: He would show me. We sat next to each other one class and he would show me all these letters, that scholarship offers and things he was getting all the time. So it was kind of neat to see that. He became Mr. Basketball and that was when he was on the team while I was at school and he was really good to watch but that was, was a big part of it. I wasn't very good and that was kind of one of those realizations. Because it was as a little kid I wanted to be, Mike Flynn, you know.
Jen Weidner 29:04: Oh, right, right. We all want to be some great athlete or something when we're kids and...
Dale Moss 29:09: You know, like I say real life sort of hit me, didn’t look like Brad Pitt and I didn't play basketball like Mike Flynn.
Jen Weidner 29:15: But I mean you did good things for our community.
Dale Moss 29:17: No, I'm happy it worked out fine, and school was fine. I had good friends and, you know, didn't get picked on or beat up, or, or things of that nature. I was trying to think of some. One or two stories but it's, it worked out fine. I did some, did some sports I enjoyed. One of the things I enjoyed was, I was, again, a music thing I was in the orchestra for the school plays,
Jen Weidner 29:47: Oh yeah. That would be fun.
Dale Moss 29:49: I enjoyed it, joined that a lot. Still enjoy plays and ...
Jen Weidner 29:56: Yeah.
Dale Moss 29:57: And that's one of my regrets, is that I haven't kept. I still have my trombone, believe it or not. After fifty years, but I don't play it anymore, and have been thinking about getting,, bought a couple of books on Amazon, yeah, beginners again. So that was fine. That was a good bit it was. I didn't, I didn't have any real problems in high school I can't think of any of. It was a pretty good time, I liked college better.
Jen Weidner 30:25: During high school was your dad a principal?
Dale Moss 30:28: He was a principal at the elementary school. But he was a pretty well liked guy. So that was kind of a good thing and a lot of teachers knew and a lot of kids,
Jen Weidner 30:36: I really liked him. He was at Ewing Lane when I was there.
Dale Moss 30:40: Good guy so that that helped that helped a lot. I know one thing I meant to tell you. That I would get good grades on writing stuff and then do the school paper. I thought that was silly, but yeah, But what helped me. I would tell this story, when I spoke to kids later on as a grown up about writing and the importance of writing and reading and just taking that a little more seriously than they might. I was a really great writer of love notes. And back then, you passed notes in between classes.
Jen Weidner 31:21: Yeah.
Dale Moss 31:22: And, and so I, I tell people I got a little bit farther with with girls then I probably would have otherwise just because I was a really good writer. And well, you know, from Jeff High. (Laughing) Wasn't Hemingway.
Jen Weidner 31:38: That's okay. Not everybody can be Hemingway.
Dale Moss 31:41: But it's that first got me to realize that this is kind of enjoyable, put it together and having people say you do pretty good at it. So right out of high school, I needed a part time job like we all do, and most of us do. A friend of mine had worked at The Evening News. Taking bundles of papers out to the, to the paper boys back then. They would take them. If you were like a paper carrier they would take the bundle and take it to your house and put it in your front yard. You would then take it and
Jen Weidner 32:20: Deliver it to whoever.
Dale Moss 32:21: Yeah, and he would do that. And he was going away to college so that job was open. So I went down and applied for his job. They call me and said “Would I rather cover ballgames for them?” And I said, sure, but I don't have any clue.
Jen Weidner 32:40: What am I supposed to do.
Dale Moss 32:41: That sounds like a great compliment to The Evening News but they kind of said.
Jen Weidner 32:44: We don't either.
Dale Moss 32:47: You'll be fine. Yeah, so I fell into journalism, totally by ...
Jen Weidner 32:53: Like literally right out of high school.
Dale Moss 32:54: And then without any plan to do that. But I liked it and kept going at it. I worked there for a while. Worked at The Courier Journal and Times again on weekends covering sports events mostly and some other stuff, and summer jobs at The Courier Journal and Times and have been doing it so. Really since the fall of 1971. Oh, I still do a little bit. I enjoy, enjoy writing.
Jen Weidner 33:22: What was your college degree?
Dale Moss 33:24: Political Science, in part because I'd started at IUS. I was kind of mature enough to know that I wasn't very mature. And I had friends that went to Bloomington, and other places.
Jen Weidner 33:38: Yeah
Dale Moss 33:38: And partied and majored in, you know, beer pong.
Jen Weidner 33:43: Yeah, totally.
Dale Moss 33:44: And, and sort of ended up with a grade point average of point one two or something. I went to IUS and kind of got my feet wet with college, and then went to Bloomington because they [IUS] didn't have a journalism degree. So I went and just majored in political science, but I got my journalism training by just doing it.
Jen Weidner 34:04: Yeah, hands on, sometimes that's the best.
Dale Moss 34:07: I had written a lot of articles by the time I got out of college and there were some people who majored in journalism. They hadn't written hardly any, but they could talk about it, you know, and so that's how that happened. Totally by accident if they wouldn't have called or needed somebody to cover ballgames.
Jen Weidner 34:24: Or if you hadn't been like, sure. I don't know what I'm doing but I'll do it. I mean you could have been totally different. Yeah
Dale Moss 34:31: They gave me a camera and a notebook and sent me to a ballgame.
Jen Weidner 34:37: Okay, so that's how that happened. Is there anything else about school you'd like to tell me or remember?
Dale Moss 34:45: no I'm glad that at least that pretty big part of the building has been saved.
Jen Weidner 34:51: Yes, yes, very glad.
Dale Moss 34:53: Nice new use. I think that's great. It could have been leveled, and some of it was.
Jen Weidner 35:00: Yeah,
Dale Moss 35:01: A chunk of it was kind of quiet. I don't think there was much notice and that bothered me but it's, it's been it's good. There were, you know, like any school; good teachers, bad teachers, good classmates, few not so good. You know, a few problems, but a great time to be a kid like we talked about. I like to think about bigger issues. Most of the time it was stressful but.
Jen Weidner 35:30: Yeah you were in a very interesting time to be alive in high school.
Dale Moss 35:34: Yeah really, it really was.
Jen Weidner 35:35: And when they decided to make that into the new elementary school, I was like, I'm gonna get these people's stories. I mean we got to see what happened.
Dale Moss 35:42: Yeah.
Jen Weidner 35:42: In that building, before it was what it is now and...
Dale Moss 35:46: It's just a great example of how time flies because idiots, old idiots like me still talk about the new school where you went.
Jen Weidner 35:53: Oh, Right. And now that's, that needs to be updated, yeah.
Dale Moss 35:57: Now it's almost 50 years old.
Jen Weidner 35:59: Oh yeah,
Dale Moss 36:00: Next year. So, that's not. Yeah,
Jen Weidner 36:05: And it's overcrowded now.
Dale Moss 36:07: Yeah, it's overcrowded now.
Jen Weidner 36:08: Jeff just keeps growing and growing so.
Dale Moss 36:11: My father was, I think I mentioned, he was first principal at Maple (Elementary School). And, you know, so I went down there with him and it was fun getting finished and, you know, running around at school and it was for even the kids had come and now it became.
Jen Weidner 36:27: Yeah, it's gone, yeah.
Dale Moss 36:29: Old and obsolete.
Dale Moss 36:32: So these things happen.
Jen Weidner 36:33: Well, thank you very much for coming in.
Dale Moss 36:35: Thanks
Jen Weidner 36:3: for talking to me. Letting me interview you and,
Dale Moss 36:37 Well, no I mean this. I'm so glad you're part of the library.
Jen Weidner 36:44: Oh, thank you, thank you.
Dale Moss 36:45: As a board member I don't know as many people here as I should. But everyone I know is really good and devoted and I hope the new director is good. That he works out to be a good hire, that was an interesting process, let's put it that way.