In August of 1970, I started to sweat and no, it wasn’t from the summer heat. I was taking Biology my sophomore year at Ottawa High School, with Charlie Alikonis as my teacher. We were to turn in our Insect Collections in early September. In theory, I had been collecting bugs all summer, but I’d been a bit lax, and the bill was coming due.

High School biology at OHS under Charlie Alikonis was something. There were other good biology teachers, including Mr Anderson and Mr Carlin, but Charlie was legendary. He had already taught at OHS for 36 years, starting in 1934. Hell, he taught my mom in ‘47. When mom had him, he was also the JV Football coach and had two undefeated teams in ‘47 and ‘48. Those of us who had him in ‘70, approached the class with a combination of awe and dread.

OHS biology classes had plenty of class time, lab time and tests, but what everyone really remembers is the three collections we were required to submit – Insects in the summer, Leaves in the fall, and Wildflowers in the spring. They could make or break your grade, that’s how important they were. It’s also why I was starting to sweat.

Earlier that summer, I’d made the trip to The Book Store at the corner of Main and Court Street. I bought the little pins and labels for the bugs, and most importantly, carbon tetrachloride*, or carbon tet, as we learned to call it. Soak a cotton ball in it, put the cotton ball in a jar, and drop in your bugs – good night! To box the collection, some classmates bought styrofoam boxes, or used shoe boxes. My buddy Howard and I obtained old cigar boxes from Senate Billiards, just up the block on Court Street. We’d gone to Senate Billiards for years, as it was also the best place in town to buy comic books.

I eventually kicked my bug hunting skills into high gear for those last two weeks of August and the first couple of weeks in September. The little glass jar with the carbon tet worked overtime producing specimens for my collection. The tiny labels were a pain, but everything came together. I turned in a reasonable collection, although I don’t recall my grade.

It didn’t really matter though, as we were already starting our leaf collections. We were mostly on our own to find and identify the leaves, although I seem to recall a class field trip or two on the East Side of town. I distinctly remember a Ginkgo tree there, one of only a few in town. To this day, I still recognize their unique fan-shaped leaves, with the veins radiating out into the leaf blade. There were other unique trees in town, if you knew where to look. Sally Richland recalls her family having a sassafras tree in their yard and students came from all over to pluck leaves. At the time, it was the only one in LaSalle County.

Although not as impressive as some, I did better on my leaf collection than with my insect collection. Not everyone did though. My friend Mark recalls two other buddies, Clay and Mike only starting their collections the day before they were due. They evidently spent a good part of the night outside with flashlights trying to find particular leaves. No word on what their grades were… ;-).

By now it was late fall, or early winter, and in addition to studying bugs and leaves, Howard and I were studying Charlie Alikonis himself. We were fascinated by him. He was of Lithuanian heritage and spoke with a bit of an accent. He also had a unique way of communicating, that anyone who studied under him remembers. As he was identifying something for you to learn, he always started with a question and then answered his own question. As an example, when holding up a Ginkgo leaf he would say, “and this is a what-ah? This is a Ginkgo Leaf”. We thought it was brilliantly funny and started imitating him ourselves, while doing other things around town, as in – “and this is a what-ah? This is a pepperoni pizza…”. , or, “and this is a what-ah? This is a cheeseburger.”

We didn’t stop there. At the time, Charlie mostly wore bow ties. Howard and I went to Bell’s Clothing in town and bought tie bow-ties. Charlie wore a flat cap to and from school. We returned to Bell’s, and both bought similar, if a bit more brightly colored caps, and wore them for the next couple of years. I don’t recall anyone else among the teachers, or for that matter the students, wearing flat caps at the time, and yet there we were. (I lost mine over the years, while Howard still has his).

We may have started out doing all of this to have some fun at Charlie’s expense, but as time progressed, things shifted. It evolved into us paying homage to him. I can’t say when or why the transformation started, but it was real. I’d like to think we matured a bit and began to understand what a great teacher he was, but we were teenage boys at the time, so who knows.

Winter eventually turned to spring, and we were back in the woods and fields surrounding Ottawa. This time, we were looking for wildflowers. I recall Charlie leading a collection/identification trip after school one day, near his house in the country. Although he had to be in his 60s, he was nimble as a mountain goat running around pointing out different flowers. We kids had a tough time keeping up. He also pointed out a flower called a White Trillium, but warned us not to have it in our collections. It was rare, and endangered in Illinois at the time.

Second semester eventually ended and I passed biology. The next year, I would have Red Ryder for Chemistry and a year later, Mr Krabel for physics. OHS had a great science department back then, and I learned from all of them. Having said that, Charlie Alikonis and those collections are what have stayed in my memory over the years.

It turns out I wasn’t alone. In talking with friends and others from Ottawa, everyone who took biology remembers the collections. And those under Charlie? A near universal seal of approval, particularly from those going on to study science in college.

Charlie retired from OHS just a couple of years after we had him. In 2009, he was posthumously inducted into the OHS Hall of Fame. The highlighted words in the citation below say it all.

Addendum:

• * Carbon tet is now a known carcinogen and no longer used. As Howard recently said, “Carbon tet and cigars—those collections were deadly…”
• I owe thanks to a number of people for contributions to this blog, including buddies Tim Stouffer, and Mark Dunavan, along with Dan Shoulders, Sally Richland, Mary Cunningham Heider, and Jeanie Cunningham Ruhland.
• Thanks to Karen Crisler and Leslie Poole for providing photos from their insect and leaf collections – they were a perfect addition!
• Special thanks to my old friend Howard Johnson, who I’ve known since before first grade. His memories on Charlie in particular helped round out this blog.