March 2015

March 3, 2015

’65 Graduation Cards

When I told Curator Jessica that I had found two dozen Class of 1965 graduation cards in a box in the attic, she said, “I guess things chiseled on stone tablets last a long time.” Youngsters today have no respect for their elders.

I’ve done stories or posted pictures of quite a few of these folks. You might have to scroll around on the page to find some of them.

More of the Class of ’65

I didn’t notice until I had scanned the cards that Steve Crowe showed up twice. Let it be know that he didn’t pay extra for the exposure.

Do you want your card back?

I’m going to bring the cards to the reunion this summer in case anyone wants their card back. Unfortunately, several of our classmates have graduated to Up There, so they will go unclaimed.

March 1, 2015February 17, 2021

Camp Lewallen Swim Tag

I was rummaging around in the attic this afternoon looking for something and ran across a box that hadn’t been opened in years. Some of the findings will show up later, but we’ll start with this object.

Anybody who went to Boy Scout Camp Lewallen will recognize it as the tag you were assigned after you had taken a swim check to determine your ability. Before you could get into the water, you had to pair up with a buddy and move your tags from one side of the “buddy board” to the other. In addition, you had to stay within an arms-length of each other at all times. If the lifeguards blew their whistles for a “buddy check” you had to grab hands and hold them in the air so they could see if anyone was missing.

If I remember correctly, non-swimmers got tags that were plain, like this one; beginners had the top half filled in with red, and swimmers had red at the top and blue at the bottom.

Here’s a good piece on Boy Scout swim tests and how traumatic they were if they weren’t handled properly.

I wasn’t big on swimming

I clearly remember taking swimming lessons at the Capaha Pool when I was about 10. I knew from the moment that my skin touched that early June pool water that this boy was not cut out for any sport that requires you to crack the ice before you can participate in it. When I jumped into the pool, I ran across the surface of the water as long as I could, but eventually the laws of physics won. Shrinkages happened that I’m not sure have been reversed to this day.

Before the pool was built at Camp Lewallen, we swam in the St. Francis River. Surprisingly enough, maybe because the water was warm by mid-summer, I learned to swim there fairly quickly. A couple of summers later, I earned the Canoeing merit badge there. I was old enough that the counselors would let us check out the canoes to go fishing or exploring up and down the river. That was one of my favorite summers.

After the pool was built, I set as my summer goal winning my Mile Swim patch. When I got home from camp, Dad was a little perturbed that I hadn’t earned any merit badges. I told him that the Mile Swim meant more to me than any merit badge. It represented an achievement that not everybody could reach. It was sort of like the first time I rode a Century (100 miles in one day) on my bike. I wasn’t fast, but I finished.

I don’t know who the counselor is on the left, but the boy in the back on the right is Tom Mueller. The other boy might be Mike Fiehler.

I regret to inform you

Wife Lila and Sons Matt and Adam participated in a family triathlon in 2010. When I wrote a post about it, I recounted the tale of her shepherding a bunch of Boy Scouts qualifying for their Mile Swim badge.

She was in the water with the Scouts at the Sebastian Inlet down here in Florida when all of a sudden, this huge, dark object rolled over right in their path. She said could just see herself writing a packet of “I regret to inform you that your son was eaten by an alligator while in my charge” letters.

Fortunately, the large object turned out to be a harmless manatee, and all the boys completed their mile.

March 1, 2015November 7, 2016

Battle of the Angels

I’ve been going through a box of old and fading photographs. Most of them are forgettable, but there were two shots that just happened to have been taken in the same general area, and they have in them someone I haven’t seen in the mirror in many years.

The character on the right is me. I think the shadow on the left might be Jim Stone, but there’s also a chance the silhouette might belong to Steve Folsom. Bill Hampton’s name was stamped on the back of the print, so I’m going to guess what happened.

The object dangling from my left hand is the power cord to a Honeywell Strobonar 65D strobe. I probably unhooked the flash, handed the camera to Bill and said, “Why don’t you try shooting a silhouette of us?”

We’re in the hallway leading to the west parking lot. The music department is down the steps, and a ticket booth is the little outcropping on the left. There was also a phone booth down there, on the far side of the ticket booth, I’m pretty sure. (More about the phone booth in a minute.)

Pretending to buy a ticket

I don’t know why I was pretending to buy a ticket from these women. I also don’t know who they are, so I can’t apologize to them for not washing the print long enough to keep fingerprints and brown spots from showing up.

Confession of a no longer young man

I mentioned the phone booth earlier. I debated telling this story because it shows a little bit about how the teenage boy’s mind works, and it’s not always pretty.

I was standing at a discreet distance from the booth waiting for the person inside it to finish a call. When the door opened, a cute girl that I knew only slightly because she had dated a buddy stepped out, visibly distraught.

I asked if something was the matter, and she jumped into my arms and held on like a drowning person clutching a life preserver. I don’t remember the details, but I think she said she had just gotten some bad news about a family member. As I was trying to come up with something comforting to say, I felt some claws grab into my left shoulder and heard my Evil Angel whispering in my ear, “She’s vulnerable. She is REALLY vulnerable. You could take advantage of that.”

Oh, no, here come the Good Angel

Before I could react to that advice, there was a flutter of wings on my Good Angel landed on the other shoulder. “That would be wrong, and you know it,” he whispered in my ear. “Your Mother taught you better than that.”

I extracted myself from the young woman’s grasp, we chatted for a few minutes while she calmed down, she declined my offer of a ride home, and she walked up these steps and down the hallway. I don’t know that I ever talked to her again.

Just as I was congratulating myself for doing The Right Thing, I heard my Good Angel say to the Bad Angel, “You know, you’re right. She looks pretty darned good from this side, too.”

Funny how things like that will pop into your head when you walk the halls of your old high school. (You have to admit the old building has really been well maintained. I think the walls and floors are shinier now than they were in 1965.)