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7/17/01
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PHS Bulldogs On-Line          Jul 17, 2001
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3 Bulldog alumni notes today:
Tom Brandon (61)
Ron Dupuis (62)
Rick Givan (63)

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From: Tom Brandon (61)

  PHS Class of 61 40th REUNION, August 10,11.  If you know of classmates please share info or call Carolyn Brandon at 509-546-9355

Tom Brandon (61)
Pasco, WA
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From: Ron Dupuis (62)

This has been a trip down memory lane. It's been great reading all the messages that people have been sending in to this site. I had forgotten, or failed to recall in the depths of the cobwebs called a memory, so many of the things and places that various people have mentioned. What a trip.

I remember so many summer days at Memorial Pool with all of our friends and talking about going to high school and getting our driving license. Playing baseball in Pony and Colt League at the field by Emerson and at the high school. Getting back to Memorial Pool and the lifeguards of Amstad and Foley for a minute. I remember being in junior high school and looking up to those guys. Those two were two of the best built guys I had ever seen. Clair Foley had the best set of legs I had ever seen on a guy. I think the two of them inspired me to begin weight training back then and still do to this day more than 40 years later. Amstad later became the Superintendent at the school I was teaching at and told me some stories about his lifeguard days.

I remember many a day spent at the Pasco Muny Golf Course during the summer with good friends. This was in the day when golf wasn't nearly as popular as it is now. It's amazing how many of our classmates have taken up the game over the years. I remember the time that myself and another person who shall remain nameless climbed in through an open window at the clubhouse and made off with a few golf clubs. John Severson, who was the pro at the time, drove up to our houses the next day and asked for the clubs to be returned. Needless to say, I quickly realized that a life of crime wasn't going to be lucrative, so I better look at something else. We were lucky that a good talking to was all the punishment we received that next day. However, it didn't stop me and other friends from going up to the lake on the course at night and fishing golf balls out of the water. Being poor at that age forced us to be creative on obtaining enough balls so we could continue to play.

It's  late, more later - take care.

Ron Dupuis (62)
Snohomish, WA

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From: Rick Givan (63)

Whether you considered riding the school bus a treat or not generally depended on your age. Through the fifth grade I'd gone to St. Pat's where walking and car-pooling were the only means of transport. My folks got tired of driving, so in sixth grade I went to Mark Twain and had my first taste of a school bus. I didn't know anybody, but the Fifers (John and Sue) were on my bus, and they befriended me, as did a kid named Karl Palmer. They were about my age, but they were bus vets and showed me the ropes; which big kids had a favorite seat, so stay out of it, who likes to spit from the back of the bus, etc.

All the buses were about the same except Bus 5. It had to have been the oldest one in the fleet. All the other buses had bi-fold doors. Bus 5 had one big door that swung out about six feet. You had to watch yourself around Bus 5. If the driver opened the door when you were walking by, it would knock your teeth out.

The older kids dominated the bus scene. We were in awe of some of them.  With my burgeoning interest in girls I was particularly enamored by a junior higher named Randi  Bellman. She wasn't chatty like a lot of the other girls, and she had this incredible Mona Lisa smile. I was smitten. I tried to breathe at the same pace she did, hoping this would bond us. No joy.

One day I was traumatized by a writing on the wall at the back of the bus. It strongly implied in Anglo-Saxon terms that someone named Craig Carl had been seriously intimate with Miss Bellman. I didn't know Mr. Carl, but my reaction varied from envy to anger at his desecration. Still it was written down on the bus wall, so it must be true. If Randi Bellman ever saw it she never let on. She was suave. In retrospect Mr. Carl was probably the bus driver engaging in some wishful thinking via graffiti.

On entirely unproven allegations my mother declared that my behavior had deteriorated, so it was back to St. Pat's for seventh grade. But by then the Catholics had a bus. It was a nice one, Navy surplus, with some seats that faced sideways, though most faced the front. And the door opened and closed hydraulically. We were second class no longer.

Sometimes Frank Hazel (Danny's Dad), who doubled as a school janitor, would drive the bus. But most of the time it was the pastor, Father Schmitz. He tried to be friendly with us kids, and he was a holy man, but had an under-developed sense of humor. Bus behavior was always better when Father drove though. I think we were concerned that he could not only report us to the principal, but could put our salvation in jeopardy.

In ninth grade it was back to the public school buses. I renewed some old acquaintances, and made some new ones, most particularly Janet (and Nat) Cruzan. But the daily rides and the buses were all about the same by then.

Except Bus 14. It was about a third taller than any of the other buses, like they'd gotten it from the globetrotters. It looked like it would tip over going around each corner. The only good thing about Bus 14 was Janet Negley rode it. (As you can probably tell my interests had fully burgeoned by this time). Bus 14 would sit in the circle at PHS next to my bus. We'd lean out the windows and chat often (though, as mentioned above, she was one third taller than I).

By the time we were 16 riding the bus was considered uncool, done only in emergencies. I'd usually bum rides from neighborhood friends, Chuck Gove or Dennis Murray....

Until I got my first car, a 1950 Chevy. The only thing classic about it was it had a 56 Chevy steering wheel (which didn't really fit), and some serious flipper hub caps. But it was mine, and it meant: no more school bus.

Rick Givan (63)
Cabot, PA
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