Headed East Again... back to Taft for the Summer

Well, here we are at the "traditional start of the summer season", Memorial Day Weekend. In three weeks, I will take off driving to the East, headed back to Taft for another summer of living in HDT, teaching kids from all around the globe who want to learn... this is a real change from my "day job" teaching kids who not only have "special needs" but who have been expelled from traditional high schools!

This year my route is a bit different: through Colorado, like last year, and a dinner with Bo and Sandy Chapin (and, I really hope, Charlie Angulo)... then across Nebraska, and more or less following the Missouri River to Saint Louis, on to Lexington, Kentucky, and down to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to drop off a 55 year old radio to a friend who wants it far more than I, then up through Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, into Connecticut to drop off some things, and then to Boston to pick up Nancy at the airport.

My (well, actually Nancy's) grandson will fly into Denver to meet me and make the drive east more fun. We'll all visit relatives and friends in New England for a few days before settling into dorm life and summer school...

I am stoked at the prospect of seeing more classmates this summer, and seeing how the "new" dining room is being changed - the "boat" shaped tables introduced in our senior year, and the subsequent changes to the dining areas are being totally made over... Be on the look out for pictures right here!

Later, '61s
Shucks

What a GREAT Way to Spend an Afternoon!

For the third time this summer, I had the chance to meet up with a friend from the class whom I had not seen nor heard from since we graduated 46 years ago! I wish we could have stayed and talked for much longer than the few hours we shared in Jackson, Tennessee, on my way home to California, but this time it wasn't to be... believe me, there will be a next time!

"Skins" can still run, but he says his golf handicap makes him a far better golfer than running back! After he saw the the picture I used of him, he made me promise to use the one of me he sent!

We shared stories of our times in Watertown, of football and track with Coach Poole and Coach Small, and just thoroughly enjoyed our all too brief time together...

"Skins" says he really hasn't heard from anyone until I called him out of the blue... Well, we have now heard from each other, and I hope this trend continues.

Haskins, it was so good to see you after way too long! We'll do this again, and much sooner than 46 years! You looked real good to this old interior lineman... How about some more of you guys hiding in the weeds? Come out and let's get reacquainted! I'll drive, and I'll even spring for lunch, coffee, dinner, or whatever it takes!

A Visit to Roger Kinsey

Nancy and I passed up a day at an amusement park with 143 squealing kids (plus the rest of the world) and drove to Long Island where we enjoyed a marvelous afternoon and evening with a classmate I had not seen in 46 years! (You notice a theme to these mini-reunions? -- Want to celebrate one? Just let me hear from you, and if our travels take us within a few hundred miles, we'll happily make the detour and enjoy seeing you)

Roger Kinsey and his beautiful wife Lynn (who can REALLY cook up a storm!) entertained us wonderfully, in every sense of the word! Roger taught elementary school for 30 who knows how many years, and Lynn taught for several years before moving to school administration, on the way earning a Doctorate... We enjoyed shop talk, but as our time together passed, the Taft stories began to flow, and we laughed until our sides split.

This is definitely the part of being Class Secretary I enjoy the most! Reconnecting with friends from Taft, long apart, but never out of mind and heart. (Well, I may be out of my mind, but that is a different matter for a different time!) Hope we can all enjoy more get-togethers like we enjoyed with Roger ande Bo... 46 years is too long to wait or to hold on to negatives. Give me a call and let's have some fun together!

Start of Something Good...

Philip C. Smith said...
I am absolutely delighted that Jack has started this 'blog'! It's beyond time for us to use this extraordinary medium to stay in touch. Personally, I'm on the bloody net from 5AM til around 6PM doing my work so it's like tying a shoelace for me to use the thing.It's been 46 years, guys, that we left each other to start this journey; there have GOT TO BE some fantastic, sad, warm, desolating, uplifting stories that we can share. Anybody ever read Wallace Stegner's last book (I think?) 'Crossing to Safety'? It's all about how two college friends manage their lives, one well, one not so well. One of the themes in the book is that breeding, money and position do NOT guarantee success in life. The comes, if at all, from some other reservoir of values. Taft, and college, taught me a lot of those values; my family some and experience the rest and I haven't turned out too badly, though I do have some deep psychic scars that, someday, I'll be able to share.As for me, it hasn't been all good, and nor should it have been or I would never have learned anything. It's a tough one, but it is through failures (hopefully not lethal) that people learn. Taft gave me a big boost up. I just wish I had been more mature to appreciate the value of what was on offer.Anyway, enough 'boosting' for what Jacks gone and done all on his own. I promise to start posting some more interesting crap, but only if someone asks.Any takers?Philip

The Amazing Class of 1961

Gather 'round fellow members of the class... After my wife, Nancy, started a blog last summer with lots of pictures and comments about side-trips the Summer School made, or she made on her own, our friends really seemed to enjoy it... I posted the URL to a few classmates, and one suggested we start a blog for the class, so here it is.

Email me pictures and stories of your life, now, right after Taft, and in between... that way you won't be bored with my drivvel about what I am doing, and you'll have some great reading and reconnect with friends you may not have seen for 46 years!

I did have such an adventure on my way to teach at Summer School: Bo Chapin, whom I have not seen since graduation, emailed me, and Nancy and I stopped for a wonderful, spur-of-the-moment reunion with Bo and his wife, Sandy... Here we are in front of "Digger's Diner" where everyone in the place knew Bo! It was truly a wonderful meeting, one we hope to repeat with Bo and Sandy, and the rest of you lot.