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The school, in other words, was in search of a philosophy. It was now firmly second-rate among conventional prep schools; although it modelled its curriculum on the acquiring of academic skills, the school's faculty grew less and less able to teach such skills and, conveniently, less convinced of the need for such skills -- after all, the student body was decreasingly receptive. Admissions were down, hence admission standards fell even lower; the school became one of those places you could get into almost immediately upon being thrown out of another school. A few of the faculty, like my father, who believed in teaching people how to read and write -- and even punctuate -- despaired that such skills were largely wasted on students like these. 'Pearls before swine,' Father ranted. 'We might as well teach them how to rake hay and milk cows.'

'They can't play football, either,' Coach Bob mourned. 'They won't block for each other.'

'They won't even run,' Father said.

'They won't hit anybody,' said Iowa Bob.

'Oh yes they will,' said Frank, who was always picked on.

'They broke into the greenhouse and vandalized all the plants,' said Mother, who read of this incident in the school paper, which was, Father said, illiterate.

'One of them showed me his thing,' Franny said, to cause trouble.

'Where?' Father said.

'Behind the hockey rink,' Franny said.

'What were you doing behind the hockey rink, anyway?' Frank said, disgusted as usual.

'The hockey rink is warped,' Coach Bob said. 'There's been no maintenance since that man, whatever his name was, retired.'

'He didn't retire, he died,' Father said. Father was often exasperated with his father, now that Iowa Bob was getting older.

In 1950 Frank was ten, Franny was nine, I was eight, and Lilly was four; Egg had just been born, and in his ignorance was spared our dread that we would one day be expected to attend the much accused Dairy School. Father was sure that by the time Franny was old enough, they would be admitting girls.

'Not out of anything resembling a progressive instinct,' he claimed, 'but purely to avoid bankruptcy.'

He was right, of course. By 1952 the Dairy School's academic standards were in question; its admissions were steadily falling, and its admission standards were even further in question. And when the admissions continued to go down, the tuition went up, which turned away even more students, which meant some faculty had to be let go -- and others, the ones with principles and other means, resigned.

The 1953 football team went 1-9 for the season; Coach Bob thought that the school couldn't wait for him to retire so that they could drop football altogether -- it was too costly, and the alumni, who had once supported it (and the entire athletic programme), were too ashamed to come back and see the games anymore.

'It's the damn uniforms,' Iowa Bob said, and Father rolled his eyes and tried to look tolerant of Bob's approaching senility. Father had learned of senility from Earl. But Coach Bob, to be fair, had a point about the uniforms.

The colours of the Dairy School, perhaps modelled on a now-vanished breed of cow, were meant to be a deep chocolate brown and a luminous silver. But with the years, and the increasingly synthetic quality of the fabrics, this rich cocoa and silver had become dingy and sad.

The colour of mud and clouds,' my father said.

The students at the Dairy School, who played with us kids -- when they were not showing Franny their 'things' -- informed us of the other names for these colours, which were in vogue at the school. There was an older kid named De Meo -- Ralph De Meo, one of Iowa Bob's few stars, and the star sprinter on Father's winter and spring track teams -- who told Frank, Franny, and me what the Dairy School colours reall

y were. 'Grey like the pallor of a dead man's face,' De Meo said. I was ten and scared of him; Franny was eleven, but behaved older with him; Frank was twelve and afraid of everybody.

'Grey like the pallor of a dead man's face,' De Meo repeated slowly, for me. 'And brown -- cow-brown, like manure,' he said. 'That's shit to you, Frank.'

'I know,' said Frank.

'Show it to me again,' Franny said to De Meo; she meant his thing.

Thus shit and death were the colours of the dying Dairy School. The board of trustees, labouring under this curse -- and others, going back to the barnyard history of the school and the less-than-quaint New Hampshire town the school was plopped down in -- decided to admit women to the student body.

That, at least, would raise admissions.

'That will be the end of football,' said old Coach Bob.

The girls will play better football than most of your boys,' Father said.

'That's what I mean,' said Iowa Bob.

'Ralph De Meo plays pretty good,' Franny said.