Our devoted KHS65 member Karen Schurig Bass and her hubby have a yummy condo for sale in Destin, FL. They've decided to spend their fun time elsewhere and hope they can shed the Destin condo. Please check this link and this one, and yet one more
to see the details. She sent me one other spreadsheet but for some reason I couldn't get it to upload properly. I'm sure that Karen will be happy to send it to, and of course discuss the condo with, anyone interested. You will see contact info on the links. Best of luck Karen, see you in August!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
RICH JONES VIEWS OUR KIRKWOOD PAST
Rich Jones sent me this wonderful essay about our Kirkwood roots when we were working on the 2005 Reunion and I'd like to share it here so you can all read it and think about just what it is that keeps us together. Thanks Rich! If your views have changed, send us an update!
Why Kirkwood?
I’m a sucker for nostalgia. In those quiet moments of reflection, which formerly occurred in front of a fireplace, now more often in front of a Dell CRT, my thoughts often drift from the here-and-now to the there-and-then.
I am one of the many from the Centennial Class of ’65 who lives miles and decades away from Kirkwood. We who are separated by distance and years experience from our home town differently from those of you who, when you need to touch your past, drive by Lyons Field, drop in to chat with that beloved biology teacher who retired 20 years ago but still lives out in the county, or drop in to the annual holiday bash. For us, Kirkwood is more a state of mind than a place.
I am no longer tied to Kirkwood by family or residence. My father’s ashes lie under a majestic pine grove in one of the most beautiful parks in Southwest England near where my parents chose to retire in 1980. My widowed mother returned to the US and sits happy but oblivious to the past in an assisted care facility overlooking Los Angeles Harbor, without a shred of memory of her childhood in Webster Groves, her adult life in Kirkwood, or her two decades of bliss in England. I myself have visited more foreign countries than I have states, and spent more than a quarter of my life since Kirkwood living abroad. Yet wherever I’ve traveled, wherever I’ve lived, wherever I have considered my home of the moment, Kirkwood has never been far from my mind. Whenever I read one of Leslie’s newsy accounts of our class news, I ask, What is it about those special years that still links us, whether near and far, together? Why do we cling to memories of that place, and to that time, where we emerged from childhood into some semblance of adulthood?
A writer at The New Yorker who left his own Midwest hometown forty years ago answered that question a few months ago.* For those of you closer to “home,” perhaps you will see in his account of a return home that Kirkwood is in many ways, more present in us than you might imagine, though we “exiles” may no longer reside there physically.
Recently I saw in a newspaper from Hudson, my hometown, that they were about to tear down the town’s water tower. In principle, I don’t care anymore how things I used to love about Hudson change or disappear. Each time a big change happens, though, I feel a moment of resistance before my lack of caring returns….
I lived in Hudson from when I was six until I was eighteen. Sometimes I try to describe, usually without success, what it was like to grow up in a small Midwestern town forty years ago. As I get into the details, corniness tinges my voice, and a proprietary sentimentality that puts people off. I say the names of my friends back then—Kent, Jimmy, Susie, Bitsy, Cathy, Charlie, Tim, Paul—they sound somehow wrong. They’re like the names of characters in nostalgic mid-American movies or Bruce Springsteen songs, and I start to think of us as that myself, and a blurring sometimes sets in, and the whole business defeats me. But then a friend from Hudson calls, or I run into somebody from there, or I hear a rattle of shopping-cart wheels in a supermarket parking lot, and for a second I remember how growing up in Hudson could be completely, even unfairly, sweet.
Most modern people don’t belong anyplace as intimately as we belonged to Hudson. Now the town has grown and merged into a Midwest exurbia, so it’s hardly recognizable for what it was. Some of the old sense of belonging, though, remains.…
Why did Hudson enchant me? Why was life, there and then, so sweet? I think a million reasons happened to come together, none of which we grasped at the time. We had plenty of leisure. We had cars to drive. Gasoline was still so cheap it was practically free. Our parents, to whom the cars we drove belonged, had leisure too. In their case, they were inclined to take long vacations, and indulge us kids. Fathers (and a few mothers) had steady jobs, pensions, health insurance. The economic difficulties that would later take a lot of those away…had not yet visibly begun. Vietnam was in the future. Life was good.… Hudson was the place where I was spun and spun throughout my childhood in order to have maximum velocity when it finally let me go.
To all you Pioneers still near “home,” thanks. Your presence keeps the flame alive.--Rich Jones
* Ian Fraser “How the Midwest Made Me", The New Yorker, January 10th 2005. Edited excerpts from that article follow, without permission from the author or anyone else. (So don’t tell anyone I did this!)
Why Kirkwood?
I’m a sucker for nostalgia. In those quiet moments of reflection, which formerly occurred in front of a fireplace, now more often in front of a Dell CRT, my thoughts often drift from the here-and-now to the there-and-then.
I am one of the many from the Centennial Class of ’65 who lives miles and decades away from Kirkwood. We who are separated by distance and years experience from our home town differently from those of you who, when you need to touch your past, drive by Lyons Field, drop in to chat with that beloved biology teacher who retired 20 years ago but still lives out in the county, or drop in to the annual holiday bash. For us, Kirkwood is more a state of mind than a place.
I am no longer tied to Kirkwood by family or residence. My father’s ashes lie under a majestic pine grove in one of the most beautiful parks in Southwest England near where my parents chose to retire in 1980. My widowed mother returned to the US and sits happy but oblivious to the past in an assisted care facility overlooking Los Angeles Harbor, without a shred of memory of her childhood in Webster Groves, her adult life in Kirkwood, or her two decades of bliss in England. I myself have visited more foreign countries than I have states, and spent more than a quarter of my life since Kirkwood living abroad. Yet wherever I’ve traveled, wherever I’ve lived, wherever I have considered my home of the moment, Kirkwood has never been far from my mind. Whenever I read one of Leslie’s newsy accounts of our class news, I ask, What is it about those special years that still links us, whether near and far, together? Why do we cling to memories of that place, and to that time, where we emerged from childhood into some semblance of adulthood?
A writer at The New Yorker who left his own Midwest hometown forty years ago answered that question a few months ago.* For those of you closer to “home,” perhaps you will see in his account of a return home that Kirkwood is in many ways, more present in us than you might imagine, though we “exiles” may no longer reside there physically.
Recently I saw in a newspaper from Hudson, my hometown, that they were about to tear down the town’s water tower. In principle, I don’t care anymore how things I used to love about Hudson change or disappear. Each time a big change happens, though, I feel a moment of resistance before my lack of caring returns….
I lived in Hudson from when I was six until I was eighteen. Sometimes I try to describe, usually without success, what it was like to grow up in a small Midwestern town forty years ago. As I get into the details, corniness tinges my voice, and a proprietary sentimentality that puts people off. I say the names of my friends back then—Kent, Jimmy, Susie, Bitsy, Cathy, Charlie, Tim, Paul—they sound somehow wrong. They’re like the names of characters in nostalgic mid-American movies or Bruce Springsteen songs, and I start to think of us as that myself, and a blurring sometimes sets in, and the whole business defeats me. But then a friend from Hudson calls, or I run into somebody from there, or I hear a rattle of shopping-cart wheels in a supermarket parking lot, and for a second I remember how growing up in Hudson could be completely, even unfairly, sweet.
Most modern people don’t belong anyplace as intimately as we belonged to Hudson. Now the town has grown and merged into a Midwest exurbia, so it’s hardly recognizable for what it was. Some of the old sense of belonging, though, remains.…
Why did Hudson enchant me? Why was life, there and then, so sweet? I think a million reasons happened to come together, none of which we grasped at the time. We had plenty of leisure. We had cars to drive. Gasoline was still so cheap it was practically free. Our parents, to whom the cars we drove belonged, had leisure too. In their case, they were inclined to take long vacations, and indulge us kids. Fathers (and a few mothers) had steady jobs, pensions, health insurance. The economic difficulties that would later take a lot of those away…had not yet visibly begun. Vietnam was in the future. Life was good.… Hudson was the place where I was spun and spun throughout my childhood in order to have maximum velocity when it finally let me go.
To all you Pioneers still near “home,” thanks. Your presence keeps the flame alive.--Rich Jones
* Ian Fraser “How the Midwest Made Me", The New Yorker, January 10th 2005. Edited excerpts from that article follow, without permission from the author or anyone else. (So don’t tell anyone I did this!)
Monday, February 15, 2010
BILL POTTGEN CHECKS IN
Thanks Bill for staying in touch! Congrats on the new baby and our prayers for his continued progress!
Hi Leslie
Just checkin’ in. All’s well in sunny AZ. Guess some have been having a nasty winter. Come on Spring. Cindy and I have a new grandson in Springfield IL. He came way too early but is doing OK. We’ll be flying back a lot and usually go thru St Louis so we will make some time to try and join you as the committee plans the reunion. Looking forward to it. By the way we got a chance to see Bobby Vinton in person this weekend. Great show, lots of memories of high school years. If anyone gets a chance to see him it’s worth it. Also I bought the book about Turkey Day Football, it’s neat. Keep the news coming on the blog. Thanks. Bill
Hi Leslie
Just checkin’ in. All’s well in sunny AZ. Guess some have been having a nasty winter. Come on Spring. Cindy and I have a new grandson in Springfield IL. He came way too early but is doing OK. We’ll be flying back a lot and usually go thru St Louis so we will make some time to try and join you as the committee plans the reunion. Looking forward to it. By the way we got a chance to see Bobby Vinton in person this weekend. Great show, lots of memories of high school years. If anyone gets a chance to see him it’s worth it. Also I bought the book about Turkey Day Football, it’s neat. Keep the news coming on the blog. Thanks. Bill
Thursday, February 11, 2010
TIDBITS FROM OUR PAST at KHS
Thanks to Pat Corpening Hoag we still have access to a KHS Handbook, herewith a couple of entries:
SCHOOL DRESS & GROOMING
One of the things that has a definite effect on the quality of your schoolwork and behavior is the manner in which you dress. The well-dressed student is encouraged toward better schoolwork and behavior. The carelessly dressed student tends to do the opposite. You should be neat, clean and well-groomed at all times. You should use standards of good taste in usual school dress. Shirts must be buttoned up at all times, and the tail of dress shirts must be worn inside the trousers. Students who wear costumes which are abbreviated, suggestive, or otherwise improper, or who wear unusual haircuts will be dismissed until correction is made. GIRLS: Dresses, skirts, and casual shoes. No divided skirts. BOYS: Long pants with shirts or sweaters. Gee, divided skirts made so much sense, wonder who determined this policy?
I don't know about you all, but living with the minute by minute Bell Schedule must have been more annoying than I remember. In my elder years, not sure I could do this again!
8:23 First Bell
8:30 Tardy Bell & begin 1st period
9:30 End of 1st period
9:37 Bell begins 2nd period
10:32 Bell ends 2nd period
10:39 Bell begins 3rd period
11:34 Bell ends 3rd period
11:41 Bell begins 4th period
Lunch, in shifts according to 4th period classroom numbers
1:11 Bell ends 4th period
1:18 Bell begins 5th period
2:13 Bell ends 5th period
2:20 Bell begins 6th period
3:15 School's out!
SCHOOL DRESS & GROOMING
One of the things that has a definite effect on the quality of your schoolwork and behavior is the manner in which you dress. The well-dressed student is encouraged toward better schoolwork and behavior. The carelessly dressed student tends to do the opposite. You should be neat, clean and well-groomed at all times. You should use standards of good taste in usual school dress. Shirts must be buttoned up at all times, and the tail of dress shirts must be worn inside the trousers. Students who wear costumes which are abbreviated, suggestive, or otherwise improper, or who wear unusual haircuts will be dismissed until correction is made. GIRLS: Dresses, skirts, and casual shoes. No divided skirts. BOYS: Long pants with shirts or sweaters. Gee, divided skirts made so much sense, wonder who determined this policy?
I don't know about you all, but living with the minute by minute Bell Schedule must have been more annoying than I remember. In my elder years, not sure I could do this again!
8:23 First Bell
8:30 Tardy Bell & begin 1st period
9:30 End of 1st period
9:37 Bell begins 2nd period
10:32 Bell ends 2nd period
10:39 Bell begins 3rd period
11:34 Bell ends 3rd period
11:41 Bell begins 4th period
Lunch, in shifts according to 4th period classroom numbers
1:11 Bell ends 4th period
1:18 Bell begins 5th period
2:13 Bell ends 5th period
2:20 Bell begins 6th period
3:15 School's out!
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