Bill Eschiner Jr. Bill becomes an Engineer with patents in Microwaves Best Friend
Hereman Shooster High School Student Councilman
CHESTER HIGH SCHOOL ‘38-’42
After school was another long walk to Shooster’s & Sons Gas Station and Drive-In. Every day since high school, I pitched in to help the family. Working all the time while attending school left little time for studying. My grades suffered. At the time I had a poor memory for school work. A few classes excited me: Geography, Public Speak- ing, Current Events, Civics, and especially English Composition. My best teacher ever was my senior class English teacher, Mrs. Leah Jordan. She had a red pencil and used it ruthlessly on everything I wrote. In doing so, she taught me the English language. I’m sure it helped that I always loved reading. For me, there is nothing better than sitting quietly with a good book in my hands. Mrs. Jordan was so strict, my English skills had no choice but to get better. They served me well throughout my life. In later years, I found that I was the editor of many letters written by my kids, especially Mike and Steve. Steve never has learned the difference between ‘there’ and ‘their,’ God bless him. My best education overall was probably just reading. I loved Silas Marner and Moby Dick; they are both excellent books full of moral lessons. I have always loved science and technolo- gy with a particular affinity for medicine. If the war hadn’t interrupted my life, I would most like- ly have pursued medicine as a career. Instead, I became a medic during a bloody war, souring me on that career.
1938, I started 9th grade at Chester High School, graduating in 1942. Those were fateful years for the world. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, setting off World War II. During my senior year, America officially entered the war when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. We never heard of Pearl Harbor. All of this was an enormous distraction for a young man. Many of my classmates ended up serving the country. A few of them paid the ulti- mate price. Others returned with lifelong injuries, including me, which I will explain later. Joseph Komarnicki, our class president, became a B-25 bomber pilot. William F. McDow- ell, my neighbor, died on the beaches of Tarawa. A good friend, Rudy Pompilii, who played saxo- phone with Bill Haley and the Comets, earned this characterization from the local newspaper, “Rudy is as unlikely a soldier as ever served in the army.” He ended up in the same outfit as the future Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. But first, we all had to get through high school. Chester High School was a large, gray building with combination lockers lining the halls. I made some friends and got along fairly well, but I never studied much. Plus, I thought I had zero aptitude for Foreign Languages or Math. Years later I real- ized I had a very strong aptitude for Math, espe- cially when it came to business. Unlike lower school where I was a block away, Chester High was a two-mile walk each morning.
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