Graduation

My best friend in high school was Tom Lenihan, and he came to visit me at home several times. After we graduated, we corresponded for a year or two until his last letter came from a sanitarium as he had contracted tuberculosis and I heard later that he died soon after.
Just before I graduated from high school, Joe drove Mom and I to some place on East Market Street near Second Street on the second floor to buy a new suit. Somebody had recommended it to us as a place to find bargains. Besides the new suit I got a new straw hat which was the style for young men at the time. It was stiff and hard with a flat top about four inches high.
The class of '25 had, I think, a hundred and thirty five boys that graduated and ceremonies were held in a large hall on North Broad Street. I cannot remember the name of the place, but Joe and Mom attended, and afterward we stopped at some drug store in North Philadelphia and celebrated with an ice cream treat. Joe was the only one at home who could drive a car as Jim and Tom were married and living elsewhere by then. That car was the one I learned to drive the following year. It had the new "balloon" tires and several other improvements over the old 1921 model. This new car lasted for several years even into the depression at which time we traded it to Tom for his Ford coupe of the same vintage because he needed a larger car for his larger family.