1/12/02
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PHS Bulldogs On-Line
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Jan 12, 2002
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6 Bulldog alumni notes today:
Ron Dupuis (62)
Stacy Wise (62)
Rick Givan (63)
Sandra Green Reuther (63)
Paul Case (67)
Chris Sheckler (84)
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From: Ron Dupuis (62)
It's great reading all of these tales of winter sports. It sounds as if our class could have done quite well if the Winter Olympics had such sports.
Can't you just hear the announcers saying "and now at the start line is group A from Pasco, Wash. These fellows have chosen a 51 Ford hood for their ride today. A lot of other teams have selected 55 and 56 Chev. hoods so we are looking forward to how these fellows from Pasco will do. Oh, by the way none of the other teams have survived the run today so maybe that's why these guys from Pasco have selected the Ford hood versus the Chev." Once that event was over we would move right on over to the doo hicky bop. We have straight away speed, obstacle course, (including manhole covers) and who can roll the farthest after letting go while going around a corner. It sounds as if the Pasco team would be in the running for a Gold Medal. Or would that be the Gold Hood and Shoe Award. You guys take care and look forward to more stories.
Good hearing you on line Jeff, hope to see you at the reunion this summer.
Ron Dupuis (62)
Snohomish, WA
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From: Stacy Wise (62)
To Dave Whitmire:
One of my fondest (if that's that right word) memories is our 4th grade tour as crossing guards together at Longfellow. You and I had the crosswalk across 10th near Shoshone Street and had the afternoon shift when the little kids got out. I remember getting our shoes stuck in the street tar so it must have been hot. The next year (or it might have been the 6th grade) Dave Blevins and I landed a cushy job escorting kindergarten students from Emerson up to and across Court Street. And Blevins got us fired. Ask him about it someday because I just can't talk about it - way too painful. It was the first time I was fired from a job. No, Dave, I still have not forgotten nor forgiven.
When did students stop being crossing guards? It seems I turned around and they were gone and had been replaced by grownups.
To Jeff Jumper:
Nice of you to stop lurking and come out of hiding. Sure would have been nice if you had spoke up when these people had you dead and buried. LOL. Or, maybe you did and I missed it. Your hooky bobbin story is a classic and I laughed out loud. Is it my imagination or was Bob Coffey always in the middle of this kind of activities. The early days of the Columbians were great and I'm talking the early years of 1957 and 1958 - maybe 1959. It may have been in 1958 that my folks put my brothers and me on a train in Spokane where we had been competing in a swimming meet and we traveled through the night to be picked up in Seattle to march in the Seafair Parade. For a bunch of rotten boys, we were a pretty good drum & bugle corp.
Speaking of Longfellow, is there anybody out there that remembers a film crew coming through town and making a documentary of the life in Pasco. I think it was about 1952 or 53 and I can remember the crew filming us as we left school. A few weeks later, the finished film was shown at either the Pasco or Liberty Theater. I never got to see the film and it may have been my disappointment that burned this one so deep. If that film still exists...
Enough from sunny Peoria, AZ --
Stacy Wise (62)
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From: Rick Givan (63)
When I've told people here in the East about some of our riskier behavior in the 60's Tri-Cities, they have the impression Pasco was the origin of extreme sports. Perhaps hyperbole has crept into my descriptions over the years. Nonetheless hooky-bobbin and the Flume are prime examples of how most us were nuts. (The only comparable sport here for kids was "buck-buck" in the alley where guys gather into a scrum, and keep piling on top pummeling each other until one team is crushed into the cobblestones. Aside from a certain S&M appeal I couldn't see the point).
When I hooky-bobbed I used rubber sole shoes for two reasons. I tended to slip to the side, had less control, with leather. Plus the rubber was a warning. When I could smell it burning I knew we were topping 20 mph and it was getting to be time to bail or risk pain.
Another winter sport was heading out in Jim Jorgensen's and Terry Sicilia's cars (they both had 50 Fords as I recall) to the back roads past Burbank get up some speed in the snow and slop over the hills and bumps, around the bends...like a winter coaster without the tracks.
Those cars would take the abuse and come back for more. They were early Hummers. Our power-control skids around the bends weren't always successful, but pushing the cars out of the snow banks was part of the fun. Sometimes we would hit frozen ruts that would act like tracks, taking us cracking through the ice where they wanted us to go for a while, until they narrowed down and we could get out.
Afterwards we'd head for Terrys grandma's. She ran an Italian restaurant off Sylvester behind the Chinese Garden. She always had some delicious Sicilian concoction on the stove to warm us up.
Sometimes there would be a large lake of water that would gather and freeze in the parking lot behind Gene and Jules West Side Market. They always seemed to have leak problems back there. After hours we'd take our cars on the ice, make donuts, spin around on the ice. You had to watch yourself though. The lot slanted to the loading dock. The closer you were to the building, the deeper the water, and less likely to be frozen solid. Sure enough, we were out there in my old 50 Chevy doing figure 8s when I didn't cut soon enough, I heard this huge crack, and my car dropped about two and a half [feet?] into the water. It was gushing around the gunwales and coming up through holes in the floor we had to drop firecrackers through in the summer. The engine stalled immediately, and we started to settle in. The guys thought it was a scream. I was less amused. We towed the old girl out and down a side street to John Olps house where she sat until the spring thaw. It cost me a bundle (for a kid) to clean and fix her up. But the old Muh wagon was never the same, and she died the next year.
Rick Givan (63)
Cabot, PA
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From: Sandra Green Reuther (63)
Paul, I got this today. I imagine you got a copy too. I am forwarding it just in case you didn't. I sent it on to all my PHS 1963 classmates. You might want to include her message in your next posting. I presume it is valid?
[Thanks, Sandra. It is valid. I believe the DOL has been surprised at how few people have applied for compensation. That's why they're making extra efforts to let people know about the availability of these benefits. - Paul]
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For all Pasco High alumni:
I am a caseworker for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICPA). If you know anyone who worked at Hanford they need to visit the Department of Labor's web site to learn more about the EEOICPA:
http://www.dol.gov/ - click on Energy Employees Illness Compensation Program; or you may contact our resource center via e-mail at hanford.center@eh.doe.gov
or call toll free at 888-654-0014.
Judy Goody
Energy Employees Compensation Resource Center
1029 N. Kellogg
Kennewick WA 99336
509-783-1500
********
Sandra Green Reuther (63)
Boulder City, NV
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From: Paul Case (67)
I was very sorry to learn of the passing of Dave Cherry (67). I didn't know him well, but I do remember him from band all the way back to junior high. My sincere condolences to Jim, Joe, and the rest of his family.
I've gotten word that another of my classmates has had some recent serious health problems. Vern Madson (67) has been up at Virginia Mason for treatment. I understand he's doing better, but please keep him in your prayers.
For anyone interested, the PHS Bulldogs On-Line database has been growing slowly. Here are the latest class metrics. If you would like to see more entries from Bulldog alumni that were in your class, then I encourage you to contact your classmates and let them know about PHS Bulldogs On-Line.
1933 1
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1953 1
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1959 1
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1960 3
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1961 5
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1962 9
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1963 81
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1964 10
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1965 4
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1966 5
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1967 26
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1968 1
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1969 3
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1970 1
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1972 1
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1973 1
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1975 1
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1980 1
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1984 1
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1987 2
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1988 3
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1991 1
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1992 2
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1995 1
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1997 2
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1999 1
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2000 3
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Total 171
Great stories about hookey-bobbing! It doesn't seem like we get as much snow as we did back then. I remember that the streets around where I grew up - Lyndale, Meridian, Illinois, etc. - were too rough for good hookey-bobbing. I think we usually wandered down around Brown, Octave, and some other well-paved roads near Emerson School. I don't recall many manholes around there, but I remember grabbing bumpers untils my fingers felt like they were frozen in a death-grip sometimes - too scared (or too stupid) to let go once a certain, usually unexpected, speed was achieved!
To Jeff Jumper:
I can't wait to hear some Columbians stories. I think you taught many of us young pups how to play blackjack on our road trips in that wonderful bus - no wonder I never had any spending money when we got to our destination!
Paul Case (67)
Pasco, WA
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From: Chris Sheckler (84)
It's great to see people that graduated in the 60's in this forum. However I'm very surprised that I don't see one person from any of the classes in the 80's? One would think it would be the other way around. [It's still a relatively small database - see class metrics above. - Paul]
As for hicky bobbin, we did it every year. One thing about the Tri-Cities, it rarely let you down as for snow in the winter. Living here in Southern California I really miss the snow at Christmas.
Chris Sheckler (84)
Huntington Beach, CA
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