In April 1942 my family, including me, made the big move from Los Angeles to Napa.

For me, as a 12-year-old sixth-grader, the move resulted in a major lifestyle change. I went from a Big City, with all of the glamour and glitter, to the country. That one sentence pretty much covers the experience. But, as most kids do, I recovered and I have been thankful for that move ever since.

Central to everything that was happening in the early 1940s was the fact that our country was five months into World War II. A major part of what we now refer to as “quality of life” was dictated by the war, but life went on and I will discuss that (the war effort) in future installments.

As a 12-year-old in the sixth grade when we moved to Napa, key to my adjustment was a quick enrollment in school — in my case, in Salvador School. In a very short while, I had forgotten L.A., was involved at Salvador and had new friends.

When I arrived in Napa, there were four public elementary schools in the immediate area. They were Salvador and Mt. George, both in the country and both with eight grades. Then, in the city, were Lincoln and Shearer, both having six grades. Augmenting the system in the city was an Intermediate School, which had the seventh and eighth grades. The only high school was Napa Union High School, and it had grades nine through 12.

Of the four public elementary schools, Salvador and Mt. George are still in the same location. Lincoln and Shearer are still in the same location but, in the 1960s, both buildings were demolished and replaced with new, modern-style one-story buildings built to California earthquake standards. (What a shame those old brick buildings had to be demolished, because they were beautiful. It’s said that even a wrecking ball had trouble bringing down the two structures, so it makes you wonder if an earthquake could have done it.)

Intermediate School was a two-story wooden structure that faced Jefferson Street between Clay and Polk streets, where Safeway is now. Napa Union High School was in the stately old building that is now the headquarters of the Napa Valley Unified School District at the corner of Lincoln and Jefferson streets.

As I remember, the only other school in the city of Napa at the time was St. John’s Catholic School. It had eight grades and was in the same location as today (Main Street between Caymus and Napa streets).

The above information on schools was as of April 1942, when I arrived in Napa. In September 1942, there was a complete restructuring of the system, and I was caught up in it.

With school year 1942-43, which began in September 1942, drastic changes were made within the local public school systems. Salvador and Mt. George went from eight grades to six, Intermediate School was closed, Napa Union High School dropped the ninth grade and all incoming seventh, eighth and ninth graders from all of those schools ended up at the newly formed Napa Junior High School. Plus, Napa Junior College (now Napa Valley College), consisting of the 13th and 14th grades, came into being.

So, while I expected that after summer vacation in 1942 I would go into the seventh grade at Salvador School, I instead ended up in the seventh grade at Napa Junior High School.

The new junior high school and junior college were co-located with Napa Union High School, in the high school building at Lincoln and Jefferson. Where one school had been in the buildings at the beginning of summer vacation 1942, three schools were there three months later.

To accommodate the increase in students and the various schools using the same facilities, the schools started what would be a six-year arrangement of split shifts. The high school (grades nine through 12) and the junior college (grades 13 and 14) attended classes from 7:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. The junior high attended from 12:30 p.m. to 5:20 p.m. In order to fit the required classes into the shortened schedules, the periods for all three schools were shortened from 50 minutes to 40 minutes.

It was a busy schedule but we didn’t know the difference. My particular class was on half-day schedules from September 1942, when we entered the seventh grade, to June 1948, when we graduated from high school.

We were the only class to go half-days for all six years, and we loved it. When we went to school in the afternoon, we could work or hang out in the mornings and vice-versa. In junior high, playing sports was tough, especially during the winter, because practice was after we got out of school at 5:20 and it was already dark. By the time we got done, it was really dark.