Remembrances of things past. Bus #7 or #14. Pea gravel playground at Hawthorne and the totally cool 3000# merry-go-round. Pretty Mrs. Pendgraft in 2nd grade in the basement with 3' deep window sills. Making butter. Graduating to the second floor for Mrs. Heinz's class. Weaving a little rug. To Irving for 4th grade; poor Mrs. Ball...the baddies in class would make her leave the room in tears. Hula-hoops. Basketball hoops; the first I'd ever seen. Mrs Heffelfinger for 5th; a tough one. A terrible book presentation or something with Hayworth. Playing 'stretch' with kitchen knives at Potts' house. Tramping around the woods and farm ponds with Huffacker et al. Mrs Bates for 6th and her teaching us manners as we stepped in front of her to enter class; excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,.... Catching a long pass in the end zone from Blake as the bell rang on my nose; bloody, tearing, proud. My only athletic achievement before ping pong. The old junior high. Art class. Going downtown to the Ben Franklin for penny candies and mini-fire crackers. Seeing a 63 Corvette for the 1st time. Jack Siefcus, Scoutmaster. Camp Mitigwa. Bell choir. Civics class; guys throwing books out the window....worthless except for deciding to become an engineer. Geometry. Wright feinting when an eyeball was dissected. Computing in other than base 10. Gym with shirts and skins. Latin class; why oh why didn't I take Spanish. Building a Roman villa with Bloom. Onto the new high school and its gravel parking lot. My 55 Chevy with cheater slicks and traction bars. Dissecting and bisecting. That great drummer in the pep band at basketball games in the Simpson gym. Cheer leaders. Duncan drawing blood from Carpenter...screwing the finger stabber out about a 1/4 inch. Competing with Broyles in physics and chemistry tests. Helping Davidson solder together a radio. My one and only high school date with Vicki Roszell; hum. Slamming locker doors. Dodge ball. World History class and veltanschaun; the way of the people. Yeah, watching the Pfaffs wrestle; made me appreciate Dan Gable at ISU. Driving around that summer of 67 with Reinhart and Peterson et al trying to buy beer. Everyone going their separate ways but so glad to be anonymous in a crowd of 20,000 other students at Iowa State.
Since then...Graduated in Industrial Engineering and avoided draft lottery #91; numerologically interesting? Ford (Galaxies), John Deere (foundry), Santa Fe Railway(boxcars), Link Belt Speeder(cranes), Clark Equipment(Bobcats), US Air Force civilian(death and destruction), retired at age 49 due to no kids and old cars. Wife #1. Moved to beautiful Spokane, WA in 1977 for weather and geography. Wife #2. Traveled Eastern Europe, China, New Zealand, Peru, Hawaii, and Mexico. Have had considerable adventure in Mexican property ownership. Latin class, anyone? See http://www.clubyebo.com/Photos.htm (1/2 is for sale). Nice interesting girlfriend #X (Anne Marie) for the last 6 years. She teaches teachers how to teach English as a 2nd Language so we spent a year in Kyrgyzstan (between Tajikistan and Kazakhstan) and a couple months in the Republic of Georgia (birthplace of Stalin). Best to apologize for our government in these countries or claim you're Canadian.
Keep busy with some volunteering, a bit of political action (www.opednews.com is my favorite), the usual mechanicing, and enjoying the outdoors and the culture of this big/little backwater of Spokane. Look forward to chatting with you. I'll be wearing a button that says, "Sorry, but I'm 1/2 deaf so speak slowly please"; darn factories and Chevy V8's. I forget, is it at the 40th or 50th that we focus on health issues and who died of what....OK let's just say the 50th and talk politics instead.
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