The Monk

Halloween approaches.  It is a holiday I know nearly nothing about.  On the face of it it seems like a strange thing, for children to dress up and go out and beg for candy.  I know it would be a simple task to learn more about Halloween, but the truth is I really don’t give a damn.

I went to a costume party once but I don’t think it was Halloween.  It was during a down period in my life. I was working a low-paying temporary job back home in Pueblo.  Not what I had expected after graduation, but like now, jobs were scarce, especially for a C average business school graduate.  My girlfriend had moved out of town, I was feeling low, and I decided to spend a weekend in Boulder.  I always stayed with Gerry Perko when I returned to Boulder.  He was the only one of my friends still there, working on his master’s degree in engineering.  He probably wasn’t enthusiastic about me visiting uninvited but he was always a gracious host, at least as much as a young single guy could be.  I don’t remember if he put sheets on the couch.  Probably not.

While I was there I called Sharron Martin.  Sharron was that very unusual thing, a friend and a girl but not a girlfriend.  My pal Robert Pardun and Sharron had been together for several years but they had broken up.  Sharron and I had both grown up on Corona Street, and one hot summer night she had hooked up an extension cord in the house and brought her phonograph out to the porch, and she and Kay Brooks had tried to teach Butch Donnelly and me how to do the bop.  I remember huge junebugs smacked against the screendoor and fell in front of it, sometimes on their backs with their legs helplessly flailing in the air, and we kicked them aside so as not to step on them and make a mess.  The insects had about as much chance as I did learning how to dance.  I was probably fifteen.

Sharron was in her senior year at CU, and when I called she probably sensed my down mood, or maybe I told her what was going on in my life, and she invited me to a costume party she was going to that night, probably hoping to cheer me up.  I told her I didn’t have a costume but she said she would figure something out and told me to pick her up later.  When I arrived she gave me an old brown vinyl raincoat with a hood, and a piece of rope to tie around the waist, and said I would go as a monk.  I told her I wouldn’t go because it was absolutely too lame but she insisted and finally I agreed.

This party was for members of the foreign students organization.  I’m not sure how Sharron was involved, although in Boulder, Pueblo may have been considered a foreign country.  The party was on campus and was the only party in Boulder I can remember where no liquor was involved, which was not a good thing because a couple of beers would have loosened me up and made me less uncomfortable.  I had expected there would be some cute girls but most of the party-goers were dark-skinned guys who certainly had money in whatever country they came from.  With my complexion I fit right in.  Except for the money part. There were some creative costumes of famous people, and the whole night people kept coming up to me and asking in foreign accents what my costume was.  When I would tell them I was wearing a monk’s robe they would say they just thought it was a raincoat.  A lot of people would look at this party as a means to meeting new people and learning about foreign countries but I don’t think I did.  I just wanted it to be over.

I don’t remember the circumstances, but later I was together with Sharron and a girlfriend and a guy they knew.  Maybe I was giving him a ride.  He was a blond, good-looking kid and he was drunk.  He told us how he liked to hitchhike into Denver and go down to Larimer Street, which was then skid row, and drink with the alcoholics in the cheap bars or share their wine when they had it.  He also told how he would go to the area around the State Capitol and get picked up by one of the homosexuals who cruised that part of town.  He would let them take him home, then beat them up.  At that point in my life I had no understanding of and little sympathy for queers, as we commonly called them then, but what he did seemed like a chickenshit thing to do.

When I was driving Sharron and her girlfriend home I experienced one of those rare times when women talk to each other like they do when a man isn’t around, even though one is.  They were discussing someone they knew, and one of them said he was a nice guy, and then they chimed in together, “Just another nice guy,” and laughed.  And I knew I fit that category too.  Just another nice guy.  I have often wondered why girls and women will prefer a guy who drinks, rides a motorcycle and puts them down to a guy who buys them dinner and treats them well.

About a year and-a-half later, when I was dating Jackie and wanted to show her Boulder, one weekend we drove there.  She stayed in Sharron’s apartment while I stayed with Sharron’s boyfriend, a slightly  older guy who taught at the University and who was renting a cottage in Chautaqua.  That was in the spring of 1965.  The foothills were lovely with new grass and the the young leaves were that light green they get in the beginning and deer were grazing in the big meadow just below the Flatirons.  That was the last time I saw Sharron.  After that I lost contact with her, like I did with a lot of other people.  I still think of her sometimes.

 

Jerry Miller

Baseball

To boys growing up in Pueblo when we did, baseball meant Old Timers.  Professional Baseball meant the Pueblo Dodgers.  At least for me, that meant that the Brooklyn Dodgers were my major league team.  There were only eight teams in each league then and they were concentrated in the big cities.  Relying on my memory alone now, I am able to list all the National League teams, I’m sure because of Brooklyn.

When I list the teams, the surprise for me is the fact there were so many cities with two or more.  If my memory serves, New York had three, The Dodgers, Giants and Yankees, though Brooklyn residents might have balked as being classed with New York.  Boston had two, the Braves and Red Sox.  The Braves moved to Milwaukee before Brooklyn was betrayed and Ebbets Field torn down.  Chicago had and has the Cubs and White Sox.  Philadelphia had the Athletics and Bobby Shantz and the Phillies with Robin Roberts.  Before our time St. Louis had the Browns, presumably an AL team, as well as the Cardinals.  Cincinnati and Pittsburgh rounded out the NL.  I know I’m two short for the AL but I do remember the Detroit Tigers and the Washington Senators.

But I digress.  The Pueblo Dodgers were on radio, Ross Beatty on KCSJ, when there was no TV in Pueblo.  For some reason, late in away games a song came on which seemed to have nothing to do with Pueblo, baseball or even Brooklyn.  It started, “There’s a pawn shop on the corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”  Brooklyn’s box score was printed on the lower left of the front page of the Star Journal, and if the Dodgers were in the World Series, many teachers at Corwin allowed us to listen to the radio broadcast.  Sadly the hated Yankees won far too often.

If you can’t tell by now, Major League baseball was very different then.  There was very little turnover.  Roy Campanella was the Dodger’s catcher till he was badly injured in an auto accident.  Gill Hodges was on first, Pee Wee Reese was shortstop, and Billy Cox (no, not that Billy Cox) was on third.  Carl Furillo was in right field, and Duke Snider was in center.  Preacher Roe, and Clem Labine were star pitchers before the great Sandy Koufax appeared on the scene.

You probably noticed that I didn’t mention second base.  Jackie Robinson was the most significant baseball player of all time.  He was no spring chicken when he came to the Dodgers, and that wasn’t an accident.  There were better pure players in the Negro Leagues, but Branch Rickey wanted a man who could withstand horrible treatment.  Mr. Robinson maintained his dignity in the face of taunts and the worst kinds of racial slurs.  And remember, the Dodgers played no regular games further south than Cincinnati and St. Louis.  Robinson’s daring base running drove opponents crazy, but eventually earned their respect.  When he was traded to the Giants, Brooklyn combined outrage and mourning.  At considerable financial cost to himself, the great Mr. Robinson made one last gentlemanly gesture; he retired.  When Junior Gilliam replaced him at second base, the race issue had gone underground.

Though my loyalty to the Bums was based on the accident of their having a minor league team in Pueblo and my seeing a few games at Runyon Field, I see now how important their slogan, “Wait Till Next Year,” was to me.  I was loyal to my players who mostly remained Dodgers for a very long time.

Curt Flood’s holdout, which cost him the last years of a brilliant career, opened the doors to free agency.  Now, almost any player who makes it to the Bigs is a millionaire.  Players change teams, to paraphrase Johnny Cash, faster than you can kiss a duck.

It took me a long time but I finally came back to baseball.  I listen on the radio.  I still have not seen a Major League game.  I followed the Rockies pretty closely this season.  Like many other fans, my heart was broken when they lost Game 4 to the Phillies.  Unfortunately, I have come to demand near perfection.  The biggest loss for me in the half-century since the Dodgers moved to LA, is the Wait Till Next Year attitude.

P.S. After finishing this, I did some research on the internet.  In 1953 the St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles.  Then I remembered the Cleveland Indians, thus filling out the American League.

Sandy Amoros was the third outfielder for the Dodgers.  Joe Black and Don Newcombe were both sensational pitchers.  I think Black was18-2 one year.  Newcombe won 27 games.  But no matter how long I wait, they won’t be coming back.

Jeff Arnold

Reunion

We had the 50 year reunion of the Class of 1959 of Central High School almost three weeks ago.  About 130 classmates attended.  They each had a different experience, but many went out their way to say that they liked the reunion.

Certainly several there was plenty to like.  Thanks to Vic Keen there was a Thursday pre-reunion party at the Do Drop Inn on Santa Fe and Mesa.  I suspect that more than half of the people who attended the Friday and Saturday events were Vic’s guests Thursday.  I talked to people I hadn’t seen for a long time.  For the most part, there wasn’t much “do you remember” but more “what do you do?”  I treasured the chance to talk to Paul Hamilton whom I have seen periodically through the years, most recently prior to that night in February of 2008.  Paul had shown me through an exhibit, in two buildings, of his African art.  Also on Thursday Lucille Paglione Corsentino hosted a Lakeview reunion at her home.  I wasn’t there but I bet for some that was the highlight of the whole thing.

Friday morning started early with a golf tournament headed by Bob Morris.  That too seemed to be a big success, except for Bob Stofac thinking he was showing signs of heart distress and driving back to Denver.  He has since had a stress test and has no heart problems.  He blames his symptoms on a double scotch the night before and McDonald’s sausage in the morning.  I suggest that Dr. Bob knew the symptoms of heart attack too well.  This, after all, is the guy who, when he got his first microscope as a boy, looked in a drop of water and figured out several ways he was likely to get sick.  While this drama was unfolding, six people played a miniature golf course.  Pat Talbot Crump wanted to offer a challenging alternative to Elmwood.

The evening at the County Club brought even more people together.  I missed many that I wanted to see, but still talked to more folks in a few hours than I usually do in a few years.  Food is generally irrelevant to me unless I haven’t had any all day, but several commented on the quality of the buffet.  Elvis dropped in for a 45 minute performance.

Saturday at ten 80 or 90 of us met at the front lawn of Central for a memorial to the 99 classmates we know of who have passed on.  We all simultaneously read aloud the names of the departed, some who have been gone as long ago as 1961 and others as recently as earlier this year.  Donna Brown Kern had arranged for the release of 100 white doves at the conclusion of the reading.  It was a powerful time.

After the memorial, we went into the auditorium where John Rivas, a student teacher when we were students and later principal of Central, talked about the traditions of the school and the changes made to the building in the early 1970s.  Many of you think we had the biggest class ever to graduate.  We did, up till that time.  Probably we had 512 official grads.  There were 1975 students in three grades at the October official count in 1958.  South and East opened in September of 1959 and Central’s enrollment dropped to under 1000.  It is currently just over 1000 in four grades.

The Class of 1966 was bigger than ours, though I don’t know the exact number.  By the late 60’s and early 70’s the enrollment had increased even more and money for expansion became available through a bond issue.  That was the beginning of a new Central building.  The best part of that, from my perspective, was the addition of a swimming pool.  I’m neutral about the building of a new cafeteria just off Broadway, but most of the rest of the changes, while they seemed necessary at the time, were architectural disasters as far as I’m concerned.

On the east end, where the physics and chemistry classrooms were, a floor was added.  That involved bricking up the lower part of those fine high windows.  The new floor effectively lowered the high ceilings.  The journalism rooms in the curved Broadway end of the building were torn out.  The balcony of the auditorium was removed.  More building rose from where the tennis courts had been.  Some of that became classrooms, some the cafeteria.  Part became a student lounge.  (I hope you’re cringing at the idea of a student lounge.)  Part became a two-story media center, what we would have called a library, though we couldn’t have imagined computers, or even the open space.  Fortunately the main entrance and the hall with the floor inlaid with reverse swastikas, which preceded Hitler and WWII by the way, is still intact.  I guess we should be used to change by now.

Saturday night involved a quick game developed by Conrad Kern.  During Name that Classmate video taken at the 45 year reunion was projected on the wall. Each of the 17 tables had a score sheet with a few more names than there were people.  Food once again was good.  Danny Epperson’s band played and many more folks danced than at any reunion I remember.  Pete Dunda and his wife Susan Petersen  stole the show as dancers, though it looked like many others were having as much fun.  I forgot to mention that a photographer took a group photo.  I haven’t seen the result yet.

Eventually it was time to say Good Night.  Some of us will never see each other again.  Others will continue the frequent association we’ve established.  There has been some talk of a cruise, either in 2011, the year most of us turn 70, or in 2014.  The committee will probably put together a simpler 55 year reunion.  For those who live near Pueblo, we’ll probably resume our quarterly get togethers for lunch.  And, one advantage brought us by the passing years is the ability to stay in touch electronically.  I hope to hear from each of you soon.

Jeff Arnold

Size 12 Or So . . .

More than one person seems concerned about my appearance at our impending class reunion. The first was my daughter, Karen. She asked again yesterday, “Mom, what ARE you wearing when you’re in Pueblo?  Tell me you’re not wearing your  “usual wedding/funeral/retirement outfit.”

So interested about how I appear, Karen’s also offered to “help find me something” when I get into Colorado next week.  My girls have taken responsibility for that before – dressing me, that is.  Minutes before my older daughter’s wedding, several of Susan’s sorority sisters redressed me out of my “mother of the bride” selection into a frothy seafoam green dress.   The dress tags scratched me throughout the ceremony and reception. After the wedding, I cut off the creation’s pearl buttons and gave the expensive, ugly thing to Goodwill.   It wasn’t my first “seafoam” experience.  When I was in grade school, a seafoam taffeta dress went to St. Paul Methodist every Sunday for several years – or, until its hem finally hit above my bony knees.  I hated the color then;  I still do.

So, in anticipation of our reunion in a few weeks, I’m strongly considering wearing my “wedding/funeral/retirement” outfit.   It’s but one step less comfortable than my Eddie Bauer fleece or my Merrill walking shoes. The non-descript coverlet has worked for me for about seven years, and I’m usually pictured (my daughters would say, “always”) wearing the thing in our photos.  Not only was the price right when I bought the three piece, it’s great because it’s not particularly seasonal in appearance.  I like to think its dark color is slimming, and it has a wonderfully forgiving, now stretched waistband. There’s nothing even close to it in design in the current Nordstrom fall line.  I know, because I looked.  However,  the outfit has endured longer than many/most of the marriages it’s witnessed.  Spilled wine and/or appetizers have successfully been drycleaned out of it more times that I can count.  It’s understandable that I have already had it drycleaned and readied for our impending event two weeks from now.

I recall what I wore at a few of our earlier reunions.  At our tenth, I had just had my third kid (Karen) and finished sewing up a black (hopefully slimming) dress – from remnant fabric which I’d purchased at Dincler’s and finished on my mother’s old Singer but a few minutes before our Saturday night event at the Minnequa Club.  The fabric was cheap, but the decorative, rhinestone button was very expensive at the time ($10!) and today sits in my button basket.  At our twentieth reunion, I wore my older daughter’s very forgiving high school graduation dress.  I loved its loose, dropped waistline, and foolishly thought it was youthful.  Five years ago, I picked up something at the Castle Rock Outlet enroute to Pueblo.  I was thankful that most of you also appeared in casual attire.

But considering this, our fiftieth reunion, I did promise daughter Karen that I’d look again in my other closet– just in case it held a possible option.  Last night I opened a downstairs closet door and the dim light revealed a collection of old “stuff.”   It’s no secret that I’m not always so organized.  But out of necessity, there IS a sense of order in this one storage area  – dresses, pant outfits, old working gear, and a mishmash of other clothes are arranged from smallest to largest – a big range!  The smallest sized item just happens to also be the oldest;  it’s a Jantzen six-paneled wool skirt I received from Santa when I was a seventh grader at Keating.  In my mind at the time, that Christmas gift briefly allowed me equal footing with at least a few of my peers that year in Miss Wambaugh’s homeroom.  The skirt’s  label states that it’s a size 12.  But, if sized today, it would likely be about a size 2.  (My mom consistently purchased my shoes and clothing to allow “for growth.”)  Always treasuring that skirt so much, I’ve never been able to throw out that first Jantzen, now a vintage piece.  Funny – because, in my “first life,” I  was the wife of a Jantzen engineer, and had the option of ANY Jantzen outfit.  But nothing in the Jantzen line ever meant as much to me as my first six-paneled skirt.

The items that hang today to the right of  my prized Jantzen are categorized into graduated sizes, or “soft” groups of clothing:  “never fit,” – “wished they’d fit,” – “once fit,” “won’t fit in the boobs,” – “too small in the butt,” and “was a great deal, but hate it now.”  The pieces must have some possibilities for some event someday, otherwise, they would have been shipped off to a thrift shop years ago – giving one an idea of how long some have hung on their hangers.

I couldn’t find a damn thing that I’d even consider trying on last night, and I closed the basement closet door.

This morning (Norma) June Camack Young  (Wildcat class of ’58) called me from Dallas, as she she frequently does.  Our mothers were also friends throughout their lives.  Her mother, Dorothy, sewed my first formal.  June and I find ourselves mirroring our mothers’ friendship.  “Hey, Laurie, — have you decided yet what you’re wearing to your reunion?  You know, if you don’t have anything, I’ll send you what I wore to our reunion last year.  Only Carol Sue will recognize that I wore it, and she won’t say anything to anybody.”

“What size is it?” I asked.

“It’s about a size 12 to 14, but it’s ample.”

“Great, I’ll pay for the shipping if you can send it today.”

If June’s creation doesn’t “work” – I, nevertheless, look forward to seeing all of you as I wear my wedding/funeral/retirement three-piece.    Just don’t tell my daughters.

See you there!

laurine myers mitchell

Opposite View

I was on the exact opposite side of the political scene from Woodstock.  In November 1967 I began my 34 year career at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in nuclear weapons testing.  I would not have been too popular at the Woodstock site if I were carrying a sign that said “Test Nuclear Weapons and save the world”.  Specifically in 1969 I was learning the trade, which included lots of travel to the Nevada Test site (60 miles north of Las Vegas).  Las Vegas had a population of ~75,000 people.  As I recall we tested over a dozen weapons that year.  Lots of good physics happened.

Not only was I busy learning my trade, I was also busy teaming with my wife to raise a family.  Our oldest two were in grade school, our next two were in diapers and the fifth was in Mom’s oven.  It was an exciting time for me and I “remember” it all.  I was a part of the sixties even though the saying goes you were not a part of the sixties if you remember them.  My youngest child is now 39.  In 1969 I was 28 years old and from my point of view I was a pretty wise individual.  How great is perspective during our lives.

Of course the “Wildcats” had the 10^th year and first class reunion for the class of 1959 later in the year of 1969.  I recall the arrogance at that reunion and in fact so much so that I was not interested in attending the 20^th reunion.  I returned to the fold for the 25^th reunion in 1984 and found that people had mellowed considerably.

Kent Croasdell

Woodstock: Before and After

I didn’t go to Woodstock but I think it was an important event in the growth of the cultural upheaval that was taking place across the country. Remember that it wasn’t an isolated event. During the period immediately before and after it there was “Stop the Draft Week,” the siege of the Pentagon, the Tet offensive, the McCarthy campaign, Martin Luther King assassinated, Bobby Kennedy assassinated, Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers shot by Chicago police while he was asleep in bed, fraggings in Vietnam, 3,000 killed in Mexico City, the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, Nixon elected, the invasion of Cambodia followed by demonstrations by over four and a half million people across the nation and 350 schools on strike, killings at Kent State in Ohio and Jackson State in Mississippi The counter-culture that had been building since the Summer of Love in San Francisco had come into direct confrontation with the war in Vietnam.

If you listen to the music you see that Woodstock wasn’t your average rock concert.  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sing “By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong and everywhere was a song and a celebration. And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes riding shotgun in the sky, turning into butterflies above our nation”  Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, complete with the sounds of dive bombers, bombs and machine gun fire, is one of the most incredible pieces of music I have ever heard.

Woodstock was more than just a gathering of people listening to some of the best musicians of that generation. It was a gathering of people who were trying to find a way to a peaceful world and It was symbolic of the fact that the opposition to the war and racism had reached a new plateau and would continue to grow into the seventies and beyond.

Robert Pardun

Woodstock

A recent article in the Pueblo Chieftain reported the experience of two Puebloans who were at Woodstock.  The only problem is, at the time, neither of these two were Puebloans.  One was from Connecticut and the other from New York.  Woodstock was largely an East Coast phenomenon.

Around the time of Woodstock, I was in Pueblo, working a summer job as a cab driver.  I didn’t even hear of Woodstock until some time after it happened.

During that same period, friends and I went to several rock concerts in the Boulder/Denver area.  I remember one at the CU-Boulder football stadium that featured Buddy Guy, the Steve Miller Band, Country Joe & the Fish, among other notable appearances.  This concert had all the widely-celebrated attributes of Woodstock, minus the rain and mud, which I don’t think I would have missed anyhow.  Another, held in the Glenn Miller Ballroom of the CU Memorial Center, involved a “tribe” called the Hog Farm from New Mexico who carried in a bathtub of jello laced with a “consciousness altering” substance.  I can’t remember who actually played that night, but it was all great and the light show was fabulous.

The concerts like these thousands attended were “mini-Woodstocks.”  Woodstock was only the most publicized expression of a widely-shared experience.

Jay Jurie

Woodstock Memories – August 1969

I was sitting at a campfire with husband John and some friends. I’d finished up 6 weeks of classroom work and had another 5 hours towards my Master’s degree in Literature. We were camping in the forest, relaxing and charring some hamburgers over the campfire, drinking some Colorado Kool-aid, talking about Life, Love, and Work-on-Monday, and singing some songs. Sort of like Karoke without the prompter and CD’s. We thought we sounded pretty darned good. Must’ve been the Kool-aid!

The fire snapped and crackled, the temperature dropped slowly, and as we looked at the sky, we saw several meteors streak across the sky and put on quite a show. The comet that produces the Perseids was orbiting away from the earth and we saw the last of the light show for the year. A breeze came up and blew the smoke into our eyes, bringing tears, while the pines whispered and gossiped of ancient things and mysteries.

We finished the last beer, doused the fire, and prepared to go to bed in our tents. The lantern was extinguished. The moon was so bright, we really hadn’t needed it. We scrambled into our sleeping bags, spooning for warmth. Sleep slid under the tent flap and enveloped us with gentle arms.

The world wended it’s slow way through the night.

The 4 of us packed up our tents after breakfast the next morning and policed the area. When we arrived home, we discovered Woodstock had happened. We had our own event with Coors and Perseids. Woodstock was once. Coors and Perseids still here, year after year. The wonder of it all never ceases……..Woodstock, Coors, Perseids, Life, Nature, and all.

Pat Talbott Crump

Where I Was

IRONICALLY….due to the PUEBLO INCIDENT (spy ship captured by North Korea…I was at a remote assignment in Kwangju, South Korea during the festivities at WOODSTOCK…..

I was activated with a TAC unit …..the  140th Combat Support Squadron stationed at what is now Buckley AFB. Long gone were the thoughts of becoming a naval aviator.  I had an alternate appointment to the Naval Academy….however fifteen out of forty five of us tested at Fitzsimmons passed the physical but I was just too short.  College completed in 1966 I was encouraged to join the ANG (Air National  Guard) although I was in the process of signing up for OTS with the army.  My good friend took me out to Buckley in his 1954 “Vette” …327…three deuces…etc (obviously modified)……..man it would “haul a##”. I was introduced to a warrant officer who in real life was an old “stick pusher”.  He looked at me and said…”college kid…and you want to become a diesel mechanic……..he laughed.  He looked at my friend who was leaving the Guard and shook his head.  On the way back my friend, Neil said I was crazy to join the Army as I would be off to Vietnam and my soon to be bride would soon be a widow.      Three days later I was in the ANG….not by choice but Neil’s constant besieging me with logic and liquor.

When I was in the second stage of basic training ( tech school) at Chanute AFB and immediately assigned to “KP” on THANKSGIVING DAY….placing butter pats on 4000 paper cups, I thought about the Naval

Academy appointment that went to the other alternate…..hmmmmmm. Unknown to me at the time KOREA was yet to come.  Anyway I came back to Colorado…and went about my “weekend warrior” duties  for a short time.  During that time an opening came up for single seat fighter training at Buckley.  I applied through the appropriate channels as well as my friend at the time.  Andy was a flight line mechanic……..as well as the then governor’s son.  Irony again struck.  Oddly enough , Andy got the slot.

I was great on paper however and made the motor pool look good.  I had enough cross training that I had all but 7 level qualifications…no rank, no money, but I was well qualified …to be one of the last airmen to be assigned         to a remote assignment in South Korea.

I got to the base……best described by those of you who have enjoyed the long running TV series M A S H.

I was assigned to a unit from Tonawanda, NY out of Andrews AFB.  I had an easier time learning Korean than conversing with the guys from New York.

Interesting invitations like …”HEY GORDON….ya wanna go ta town and run the oars?”    …boating …sailing ….inland….hmmmm.  Being fairly bright I soon found out that “oars” was spelled differently and had a different connotation.dealing more with basic instincts….physical pleasure..etc. I wonder if Annapolis, MD was a;so known for “oaring” …ENOUGH!  There were other treats.  Mess consisted of canned rations………”honey pots”……and luxurious WWII tents.   I was issued a weapon and 7 rounds of ammo.  The weapon was kept in a secured tent until a ‘RED ALERT” would occur.  HEY!…stand in line while they found and issued your weapon as the base was being overrun…hmmmm.

Rats….roaches….heat….cold….challenging ….yet interesting….in an uncomfortable way……BUT …I was PROUD of what I was doing for my country.  I WAS IN A HUMBLE AND APPRECIATIVE WAY ….. THANKING THOSE WHO PROCEEDED ME  and who allowed me to grow up in a free country…..where….at Central High …I met all of you folks.  A GOOD DEAL  …. YES DEFINITELY A GOOD DEAL!

Maurice Sam Gordon

Maurice Gordon Remembers

I was delighted to visit the “Howl of the Wildcat”…..and TOTALLY CAPTIVATED by the resurrection of memories of moments captured in time long past.  I remember living near Northern Avenue and earlier near the Mesa Junction.  Ironically both addresses were on Routt Avenue.  I came into the world, at least in this dimension, shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Home was a brick duplex in a group of similar units that numbered six.  I believe they are still standing today.  The complex was just a few blocks from Central High.  A move by my parents to live with my grandfather (upon my grandmother’s death) placed me nearer to Bessemer.  There I learned to ride a bike…deliver newspapers and go to the movies for 15 cents on Sunday.  Shortly before high school I attended Corwin Jr. High…my first experience in public school.  The first eight years was spent in parochial school.  The experience terminated in my parents being advised that I would most likely not fare well in the parochial system

WELL….had it not been for that I would never have known all the “neat” people that shared life at Central High.   There was a move in residence to Longwood Ave….near to what was then known as Pueblo Junior College.  I spent most of my time working after school for Safeway Stores, the term of endearment was “SLAVEWAY”.  I loved it but it took it’s toll on my grades…not in high school but in my first couple of years at Pueblo Junior College in engineering.   I had an appointment to the Naval Academy.  I was one of 15 out of 45 that passed the physical at Fitzsimmons.  I was passed conditionally as my height didn’t “cut it”.

Anyway on to CU at Boulder where I followed electrical engineering with not too great a fervor.  I had more part-time jobs and minors than many.  I did finally get my degree in Economics and Math.  Two hundred and eleven hours for a B.A.  …..is this a monument to tenacity?  When I FINALLY GOT MY DEGREE..I was joined by a friend who shared a few brews with me as I rapid fired my 9mm into a 33 1/3 French lesson record.  I hit it three time and still have it framed and mounted.  I had the worst time with French. I did take Russian for my second required and passed with “flying colors.”  I did sit meekly in a small class ….UNTIL…one day I raised my hand and asked the instructor if what she had written on the board was an example of regressive assimilation.  LITTLE DID I REALIZE that the observation might well have led to an intense…no holds barred affair with the instructor.  She tried desperately to further expose my insight…but to no avail.  I had my moment.

Actually the toughest course I had taken was called “Use of books and the library”.  I did this of course in my senior year.  Possibly this type of planning was why I spent so much time getting the B.A.  My first assignment was to research and submit the correct response to “What is WATERMELON SNOW?”.  HEY…two minutes in the reference section then on to the SINK.  I spent the balance of the weekend getting my assignment done.  GOD…I’ll never forget that…..and I got locked in the library working on my research.

“Those were the days my friend…I thought they’d never end..”

BUT ..50 years later and many an interesting and challenging road I’ve traveled……….

I look forward to sharing them with you at the reunion

justme/bud  ….sam to some