{"id":8,"date":"2016-08-10T17:54:19","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T17:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/?p=8"},"modified":"2016-08-10T17:54:19","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T17:54:19","slug":"william-williams-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/2016\/08\/10\/william-williams-45\/","title":{"rendered":"William Williams \u201945"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A
A local\u2014and reluctant\u2014student finds a way to take advantage of an opportunity he wasn\u2019t sure he wanted. Photo courtesy of Matthre Cavanaugh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

William Williams \u201945 grew up in Easthampton and describes himself as a local \u201cday boy.\u201d He lived with his grandparents across the street from campus, and would dart back and forth from his house to classes. Although Mr. Williams struggled during his initial days at Williston, he would eventually grace the top of the honor roll and go on to attend Harvard and Harvard Business School. He became a security analyst for leading financial firms in Boston and New York City. Now 87, Mr. Williams lives in Hingham, MA, where he\u2019s an active film buff with a collection of 650 movies.<\/p>\n

Why did you go to Williston? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I nearly flunked out my first semester and I had to take tutoring. It didn\u2019t take long to sink in that this was an opportunity, even at that tender age. I started really working and found out there was such a thing called studying and homework. By the time I got through my junior year, I was pretty high on the honors list.<\/p>\n

Which teacher had the most impact on you? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I admired Archibald Hepworth. He taught history. He used to torture me once a week when we had a quiz. I remember this vividly. He would write up on the blackboard the marks that everybody got, but with\u00adout any names\u2014from 95 to sub-zero. Then he\u2019d go around the class and see who could identify the scores. Now I had the best mark, but I al\u00adways lied and put myself two spaces below the top score. He would grin at me every time. He knew that I knew. It didn\u2019t make me very popular with the other guys in my class.<\/p>\n

Were there any incendiary articles in The Willistonian? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In those days, there was very little thought of doing anything that would smack of the kind of dissent and argument that might be taken for granted today. It just didn\u2019t hap\u00adpen back then. Part of that was [Headmaster] Galbraith\u2019s command\u00ading performance over things. He wouldn\u2019t understand something like that. You would know he wouldn\u2019t understand it, and you\u2019d say, \u2018I\u2019m not going to raise this point.\u2019 He kept things very calm.<\/p>\n

How different does Easthampton look today? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It looks the same when you\u2019re driving into the main part of town because the old Town Hall is still there. When you drive through the neighborhoods in town, you see some changes, but not a whole lot. So it looks very much like the old Easthampton that I knew. But when you get down into the seams, you\u2019ll see quite a few changes. I\u2019m happy that this kind of change has taken place in the town, because at the time it seemed like a living ghost town. Gradually, people have found other uses for all those old empty mill buildings. Artists moved in there, and crafts people. Easthampton is a semi artsy-crafty place.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your all-time favorite movie? <\/strong><\/p>\n

There are so many movies that are so good. There\u2019s one movie that made a lasting impression on me. It was called \u2018Babette\u2019s Feast.\u2019 I was very affected by that movie. That\u2019s why I recommend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Williams \u201945 grew up in Easthampton and describes himself as a local \u201cday boy.\u201d He lived with his grandparents across the street from campus, and would dart back and forth from his house to classes. Although Mr. Williams struggled during his initial days at Williston, he would eventually grace the top of the honor … Continue reading William Williams \u201945<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/profiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}