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The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

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the goRtons And sLAdes 19<br />

the world a better place. Slade walked out <strong>of</strong> the assembly <strong>and</strong> said to<br />

himself, “I want to be a Walter Judd.” He came home <strong>and</strong> told his mother<br />

that someday he was going to be a U.S. senator.<br />

goRton LooKs BAcK on high school as the worst time <strong>of</strong> his life. “I was<br />

too young. I started grammar school early so I went to high school a year<br />

younger. <strong>The</strong>re were 3,200 kids there <strong>and</strong> I was lost <strong>and</strong> unhappy.” <strong>The</strong><br />

most formative aspect <strong>of</strong> his childhood was something most would never<br />

guess. It wasn’t school or sports. It was being a soprano in the all-boy<br />

choir <strong>of</strong> St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Evanston, Illinois. “My parents<br />

dumped me in it at the age <strong>of</strong> 9 or 10 under the tutelage <strong>of</strong> a taskmaster<br />

whose name was Stanley Martin. If a boy attended every rehearsal <strong>and</strong><br />

every service for an entire month <strong>and</strong> was not disciplined—<strong>and</strong> you were<br />

very <strong>of</strong>ten disciplined—he got a dollar in silver, h<strong>and</strong>ed out coin after<br />

coin by Mr. Martin. That was the best discipline I ever had in my entire<br />

life. He was a talented musician <strong>and</strong> he wanted his boys to be good singers,<br />

but that was not the most important part <strong>of</strong> the experience, as far as<br />

he was concerned. Most important was whether you cared; whether this<br />

meant something to you <strong>and</strong> whether you would subject yourself to his<br />

discipline.”<br />

At rehearsals, Mr. Martin presided imperiously from a gr<strong>and</strong> piano.<br />

<strong>The</strong> boys were arrayed in two rows on either side, the older ones in the<br />

back rows. <strong>The</strong> mischievous big boys periodically would boot the little<br />

boys in the butt. “If the little boys jumped, they were the ones who got<br />

chewed out. And Stanley Martin could chew you out without ever saying<br />

a vulgar or <strong>of</strong>f-color word better than anyone I’ve ever known. Bang! His<br />

h<strong>and</strong>s would come down on the keys. He’d st<strong>and</strong> up, waving his arms:<br />

‘That was it! You missed your cue!’ <strong>The</strong>re was almost no praise. Every<br />

now <strong>and</strong> then on Tuesday he would say, ‘Last Sunday morning wasn’t<br />

bad.’ You absolutely lived for that. <strong>The</strong>n on Friday nights when the tenors<br />

<strong>and</strong> basses came for a joint rehearsal, he’d say, ‘Now, when Willie Goodenough<br />

was a soprano this was a decent choir!’ Willie Goodenough <strong>and</strong><br />

the others would almost break up. You didn’t really get it until you learned<br />

years later that he’d say, ‘When Slade Gorton was a soprano we had a decent<br />

choir in this place!’ I learned very early in life what it was like to be<br />

excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church in the 14th Century because<br />

every now <strong>and</strong> then there was a kid who couldn’t take the discipline<br />

<strong>and</strong> was kicked out. <strong>The</strong>y might as well have been dead as far as everyone<br />

else who was there was concerned. <strong>The</strong>y were no longer part <strong>of</strong> the human<br />

race.”

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