Ernest Brockman by Maddie C. and Olivia T.
Ernest Brockman (past teacher, current substitute teacher)
Ernest Brockman, now eighty years old, was born and raised in Germany and served in the Hitler youth. In 1950, he came to the United States, Portland to be exact, and lived with his aunt and uncle. He worked in a dairy and eventually became the manager of that dairy. Later, he served in the American army for eight years as an intelligence officer over in Europe and was stationed in France and Germany. When he came back, he started working for Northwest Natural Gas as a public relations junior executive and worked there for over ten years. He went to Portland State University on the side. By that time, he was married and had four children. After he graduated from Portland State, he got a job teaching German at Tillamook High School in 1966. The government was looking for 22 German teachers in the United States for a special program and Ernest Brockman was selected as one of them. He completed his Master’s degree at the University of Washington. He attended the University of Bremen, Berlin, and Munich also as part of the German teacher fellowship. He got a job at Everett. Finally, he started working at Cascade High school.
I started in the Everett School District in 1968 and taught at Everett High School until about 1975. Then I became the district foreign language supervisor and always taught two classes, either at Cascade or Everett High school, because I made out the schedules for all the foreign language teachers in the district. I did that for about ten years and from about 85 to 93 I taught full time German at Cascade High School.
The students were nice except we didn’t have as many people from other countries at that time as we do today. Besides sporting events, it seems like we had more school dances for fun at the school because once in a while I had to supervise a dance.
Athletics were always very good. We were kind of the school of champions. We had incredible basketball teams. We had a champion soccer team. We had no swimming but we had gymnastics, girls’ gymnastics, and they did very well. Also, some of the girls did really well in track. Of course all the other sports were represented as well.
The enthusiasm was there but it seems like overall, and not trying to be judgmental, but there was more respect for adults and teachers, which we kind of lack today.
Of course they had a dress code. You didn’t see any running around in pajamas or shorts or whatever. Girls dressed more modestly. Teachers always used to wear a shirt and tie. That has kind of diminished somewhat, as a few teachers still dress up nice today. But a lot of them dress pretty “leger”, that’s what I call it, like t-shirts or sweatshirts and pants.
We had classes in typing. People had to take typing, you didn’t have to but it was suggested. Teachers, of course, today have it made with all that modern technology, but in those days there were no VCRs. We had film strips, we had projectors with these big discs and you had to put it on and in all black and white. Then we had memory graph machines. You had to put copies in there and every teacher had blue fingers after they got done running like 50 or 100 copies. The Texas Instruments came out with a calculator too. That was a big thing in those days to have a calculator.
One thing I do remember is of course President Reagan, one of our best presidents that we’ve had. He was in Berlin and gave a famous speech and he said “Mr. Gorbachev, take down that wall.” That was referencing the Berlin wall and so I organized my students and we went to different classes. We had banners and we said, “take it down.” We were attacking, more or less, the East German Communist government and Grotewohl and some of these characters that were leading East Germany, to take down the wall. It wasn’t really that long after that that it actually came down in 1989, so I had Top Foods at the time make a huge cake and it was the Berlin wall, in different stages. They did an incredible job and of course my students enjoyed the cake and others students did as well so that was neat. There were a lot of events that took place but those were some of the interesting events that really kind of impacted students the school and our country.
We always had the Oktoberfest and one year I think kept track of how many meals we fixed. We served around 350 meals and I always bought the sausages down at Goetz’s meats. I had boxes of sausages and then we made German potato salad and big, big kettles of sauerkraut. I had a stove in my classroom, a regular cook stove, and we smelled up the building. Everybody came, even the principals, the counselors and teachers, and my students would deliver to their favorite teachers and other students came in. They were drawn by the aroma, which drifted through the building because of the sausages, sauerkraut, German potato salad. Then some of my students made black forest cherry torte, which is really expensive. You have to buy one today, with all these different layers and the chocolate and cherries on top and it’s absolutely awesome.
This is the Everett Herald and that’s what I looked like in 1976 at my desk. This was [a picture of me] at my desk. The paper came out with a special addition that was called the Panorama; it was a regular portion of the paper. I thought that was quite a nice write-up. Then in 1993, unbenounced to me, [Cascade High School] contacted my wife and of course she was surprised because that was the same year that I retired from active duty, so to speak. They dedicated the yearbook to me, which of course was an incredible surprise. I was to be at an assembly and I got the first yearbook and it was quite a surprise to me. My wife grabbed some of the pictures that she could find, real quick-like. It doesn’t show anything about when I was in the American army, but it shows me as a Hitler youth and my family and when I got married and some pictures from the farm in Bavaria. It was quite an honor and I still feel quite honored.
Ernest Brockman, now eighty years old, was born and raised in Germany and served in the Hitler youth. In 1950, he came to the United States, Portland to be exact, and lived with his aunt and uncle. He worked in a dairy and eventually became the manager of that dairy. Later, he served in the American army for eight years as an intelligence officer over in Europe and was stationed in France and Germany. When he came back, he started working for Northwest Natural Gas as a public relations junior executive and worked there for over ten years. He went to Portland State University on the side. By that time, he was married and had four children. After he graduated from Portland State, he got a job teaching German at Tillamook High School in 1966. The government was looking for 22 German teachers in the United States for a special program and Ernest Brockman was selected as one of them. He completed his Master’s degree at the University of Washington. He attended the University of Bremen, Berlin, and Munich also as part of the German teacher fellowship. He got a job at Everett. Finally, he started working at Cascade High school.
I started in the Everett School District in 1968 and taught at Everett High School until about 1975. Then I became the district foreign language supervisor and always taught two classes, either at Cascade or Everett High school, because I made out the schedules for all the foreign language teachers in the district. I did that for about ten years and from about 85 to 93 I taught full time German at Cascade High School.
The students were nice except we didn’t have as many people from other countries at that time as we do today. Besides sporting events, it seems like we had more school dances for fun at the school because once in a while I had to supervise a dance.
Athletics were always very good. We were kind of the school of champions. We had incredible basketball teams. We had a champion soccer team. We had no swimming but we had gymnastics, girls’ gymnastics, and they did very well. Also, some of the girls did really well in track. Of course all the other sports were represented as well.
The enthusiasm was there but it seems like overall, and not trying to be judgmental, but there was more respect for adults and teachers, which we kind of lack today.
Of course they had a dress code. You didn’t see any running around in pajamas or shorts or whatever. Girls dressed more modestly. Teachers always used to wear a shirt and tie. That has kind of diminished somewhat, as a few teachers still dress up nice today. But a lot of them dress pretty “leger”, that’s what I call it, like t-shirts or sweatshirts and pants.
We had classes in typing. People had to take typing, you didn’t have to but it was suggested. Teachers, of course, today have it made with all that modern technology, but in those days there were no VCRs. We had film strips, we had projectors with these big discs and you had to put it on and in all black and white. Then we had memory graph machines. You had to put copies in there and every teacher had blue fingers after they got done running like 50 or 100 copies. The Texas Instruments came out with a calculator too. That was a big thing in those days to have a calculator.
One thing I do remember is of course President Reagan, one of our best presidents that we’ve had. He was in Berlin and gave a famous speech and he said “Mr. Gorbachev, take down that wall.” That was referencing the Berlin wall and so I organized my students and we went to different classes. We had banners and we said, “take it down.” We were attacking, more or less, the East German Communist government and Grotewohl and some of these characters that were leading East Germany, to take down the wall. It wasn’t really that long after that that it actually came down in 1989, so I had Top Foods at the time make a huge cake and it was the Berlin wall, in different stages. They did an incredible job and of course my students enjoyed the cake and others students did as well so that was neat. There were a lot of events that took place but those were some of the interesting events that really kind of impacted students the school and our country.
We always had the Oktoberfest and one year I think kept track of how many meals we fixed. We served around 350 meals and I always bought the sausages down at Goetz’s meats. I had boxes of sausages and then we made German potato salad and big, big kettles of sauerkraut. I had a stove in my classroom, a regular cook stove, and we smelled up the building. Everybody came, even the principals, the counselors and teachers, and my students would deliver to their favorite teachers and other students came in. They were drawn by the aroma, which drifted through the building because of the sausages, sauerkraut, German potato salad. Then some of my students made black forest cherry torte, which is really expensive. You have to buy one today, with all these different layers and the chocolate and cherries on top and it’s absolutely awesome.
This is the Everett Herald and that’s what I looked like in 1976 at my desk. This was [a picture of me] at my desk. The paper came out with a special addition that was called the Panorama; it was a regular portion of the paper. I thought that was quite a nice write-up. Then in 1993, unbenounced to me, [Cascade High School] contacted my wife and of course she was surprised because that was the same year that I retired from active duty, so to speak. They dedicated the yearbook to me, which of course was an incredible surprise. I was to be at an assembly and I got the first yearbook and it was quite a surprise to me. My wife grabbed some of the pictures that she could find, real quick-like. It doesn’t show anything about when I was in the American army, but it shows me as a Hitler youth and my family and when I got married and some pictures from the farm in Bavaria. It was quite an honor and I still feel quite honored.