50th Reunion Reflections
Please email your stories and thoughts about the 50th reunion to our class email. We welcome all.
To All Committee Members -
Belatedly expressed but often thought since 10/13 --Thank you all for your months of work and a wonderful weekend. It was a meaningful oasis, both celebration and memorial, as the journey of WGHS ’63 goes on.
If those from the early 1960s who were Our Town and were mentoring us for Life -- parents, families, teachers and WG community -- could have then peered forward 50 years to this weekend, I think they would have been pleased. They would be grateful that their collective hopes and dreams and work had wrought, not perfect products, but a group of 500 with a fundamental goodness and sensitivity to being human.
I wander. The purpose was to express admiration and gratitude to all of you for your creation. Thank you –- you continue to be wonderful travelling companions. --Bill Southworth
Belatedly expressed but often thought since 10/13 --Thank you all for your months of work and a wonderful weekend. It was a meaningful oasis, both celebration and memorial, as the journey of WGHS ’63 goes on.
If those from the early 1960s who were Our Town and were mentoring us for Life -- parents, families, teachers and WG community -- could have then peered forward 50 years to this weekend, I think they would have been pleased. They would be grateful that their collective hopes and dreams and work had wrought, not perfect products, but a group of 500 with a fundamental goodness and sensitivity to being human.
I wander. The purpose was to express admiration and gratitude to all of you for your creation. Thank you –- you continue to be wonderful travelling companions. --Bill Southworth
Reflections in Barking Doggerel
by Jim Kern
Encouraged to offer my reflections on our 50th falderal,
I am sending in this bit of brutish doggerel.
Please understand, next to poetry this is crap,
An old white guy’s attempt at a tuneless rap.
But playing with words to find the rhyme
Helps me to tease out the meaning of the time.
Be warned all who risk reading this bit
All pretense of refined taste is forfeit.
Before going Friday night I checked out my reflection
To see if I would survive my classmates’ inspection.
As a precaution I popped in a couple of Altoids
And I put on a buttoned-down shirt from Boyds.
I was pleased with my look for the affair,
A balance of casual success and “I don’t care.”
And after a short drive to Webster’s hub
I nonchalantly strolled into Llywelyn’s Pub.
Ten seconds into my self-knowing quest
I came upon my old baseball buddy, Cliff Best.
This was a fortuitous beginning to the night,
Because Cliff had used the reunion website,
To initiate some email traffic before his trip,
To oil the wheels of our old friendship.
(Thanks Cliff for going the extra mile
It helped after such a long while.)
Very pleased to have survived thus far
I ordered a gin and tonic at the bar.
Then I turned with a “visible start” [for all Wodehouse fans]
To see my good friend, Judy Reinhardt!
She holds for me special charm,
Because I spent a week on her Michigan farm.
In the spring of ‘11 I visited Sweeter Song CSA
Where planting potatoes was not work but play.
In a break from my desk job and numbers calculating,
The week with plants and dirt proved mentally invigorating.
The freshly picked asparagus and lettuce were so sweet
That my local veggies only remind me of this former treat.
But what gave me the greatest dose of new energy
Was seeing Judy and nature enjoying their daily synergy.
The artificial can exact quite a spiritual toll.
Judy reminds us to seek those things that make us whole.
After chatting with Judy, Mitchener, and the Kirks about food organic,
I spotted Chip Weisenfels and started to panic.
Chip and I had been best buddies all through our high school careers
But had not actually seen each other for many years.
We had employed email to keep up and exchange news
And also to lob across the ether, our differing political views.
Distant faceless communication can miss a good deal.
Turns out the tension was more imagined than real.
Two seconds at the bar and friend to friend,
Was all it took to find that bond again.
And I was happy to be free of that bothersome contusion,
Reason enough for a fiftieth reunion.
While moving about among the crowd
I had a thought that made me proud.
After talking to “Goat” Patterson, John Fricke, Tom Brown, and Bob Hale,
I realized our 1963 knowledge of one another was stale.
I needed the intervening fifty years to see
Our potentials lived out in what each would be.
In an atmosphere free of anyone claiming to have “arrived,”
I took pleasure in how everyone had thrived.
Contentment is not only an individual grace;
It is ours when friends also run well life’s race.
I ran into a classmate that took me back 60 years.
Johnny Merkel and I are Lockwood peers.
I thought how odd to jump six decades and yet feel the tie.
The same was true with Ann Tweedie--just time to say hi.
Tom Brown and I go back to kindergarten when we were five
But we needed this reunion for our best conversation to arrive.
Character takes time to distill or mature.
Our fiftieth reunion proved this for sure.
While Chip talked to Dave Schroeder, I circled to Chip’s Jane.
She has a lot to do with keeping him sane. (Just joking, Chip)
But seriously the spouses I had the pleasure to meet
Suggest to me that we possess qualities that might foster conceit.
But knowing Barrett Schroeder, Jane and Joy and other “better halfs”
The first sign of puffery will be met with roaring laughs.
I visited with Joy Best during the Fuzzball game
And in five minutes agreed with Cliff about her name.
Good going, guys, your quality shines through
In those you convinced to join you in saying “I do.”
No more about the Fuzzball should come from my mouth;
It was a sorry tale of athletic skills gone south.
But even here I learned more about our common ground.
I spent too much time in high school in my little compound.
By staying too long in my group or by dating steady.
I cut myself off from other friendships at the ready.
Easy ball field camaraderie fifty years in the making
Had all been there in 1963 for the taking.
Leigh Turner, Rick Wassall, Jim Kern, Hugh Taylor, Chip Weisenfels, Craig Wrisberg, John Withers, Cliff Best, Dan McMichael, Don Polley, and Bob Couch--our mistakes and errors were rife.
But I was reminded of a lesson I have been learning all my life.
There are lots of people around me that I should take time to know
And it is not too late to reap and sow.
Does it take courage to attend a fiftieth reunion? I don’t know.
But I am glad I went and glad for all who took time to show.
About our human kind I sometimes get depressed
But at the fiftieth reunion this feeling was addressed.
We have done all right and by my reason
I am encouraged by what I saw in our fiftieth season.
To my classmates I raise three cheers,
Let’s do this again in ten more years!
by Jim Kern
Encouraged to offer my reflections on our 50th falderal,
I am sending in this bit of brutish doggerel.
Please understand, next to poetry this is crap,
An old white guy’s attempt at a tuneless rap.
But playing with words to find the rhyme
Helps me to tease out the meaning of the time.
Be warned all who risk reading this bit
All pretense of refined taste is forfeit.
Before going Friday night I checked out my reflection
To see if I would survive my classmates’ inspection.
As a precaution I popped in a couple of Altoids
And I put on a buttoned-down shirt from Boyds.
I was pleased with my look for the affair,
A balance of casual success and “I don’t care.”
And after a short drive to Webster’s hub
I nonchalantly strolled into Llywelyn’s Pub.
Ten seconds into my self-knowing quest
I came upon my old baseball buddy, Cliff Best.
This was a fortuitous beginning to the night,
Because Cliff had used the reunion website,
To initiate some email traffic before his trip,
To oil the wheels of our old friendship.
(Thanks Cliff for going the extra mile
It helped after such a long while.)
Very pleased to have survived thus far
I ordered a gin and tonic at the bar.
Then I turned with a “visible start” [for all Wodehouse fans]
To see my good friend, Judy Reinhardt!
She holds for me special charm,
Because I spent a week on her Michigan farm.
In the spring of ‘11 I visited Sweeter Song CSA
Where planting potatoes was not work but play.
In a break from my desk job and numbers calculating,
The week with plants and dirt proved mentally invigorating.
The freshly picked asparagus and lettuce were so sweet
That my local veggies only remind me of this former treat.
But what gave me the greatest dose of new energy
Was seeing Judy and nature enjoying their daily synergy.
The artificial can exact quite a spiritual toll.
Judy reminds us to seek those things that make us whole.
After chatting with Judy, Mitchener, and the Kirks about food organic,
I spotted Chip Weisenfels and started to panic.
Chip and I had been best buddies all through our high school careers
But had not actually seen each other for many years.
We had employed email to keep up and exchange news
And also to lob across the ether, our differing political views.
Distant faceless communication can miss a good deal.
Turns out the tension was more imagined than real.
Two seconds at the bar and friend to friend,
Was all it took to find that bond again.
And I was happy to be free of that bothersome contusion,
Reason enough for a fiftieth reunion.
While moving about among the crowd
I had a thought that made me proud.
After talking to “Goat” Patterson, John Fricke, Tom Brown, and Bob Hale,
I realized our 1963 knowledge of one another was stale.
I needed the intervening fifty years to see
Our potentials lived out in what each would be.
In an atmosphere free of anyone claiming to have “arrived,”
I took pleasure in how everyone had thrived.
Contentment is not only an individual grace;
It is ours when friends also run well life’s race.
I ran into a classmate that took me back 60 years.
Johnny Merkel and I are Lockwood peers.
I thought how odd to jump six decades and yet feel the tie.
The same was true with Ann Tweedie--just time to say hi.
Tom Brown and I go back to kindergarten when we were five
But we needed this reunion for our best conversation to arrive.
Character takes time to distill or mature.
Our fiftieth reunion proved this for sure.
While Chip talked to Dave Schroeder, I circled to Chip’s Jane.
She has a lot to do with keeping him sane. (Just joking, Chip)
But seriously the spouses I had the pleasure to meet
Suggest to me that we possess qualities that might foster conceit.
But knowing Barrett Schroeder, Jane and Joy and other “better halfs”
The first sign of puffery will be met with roaring laughs.
I visited with Joy Best during the Fuzzball game
And in five minutes agreed with Cliff about her name.
Good going, guys, your quality shines through
In those you convinced to join you in saying “I do.”
No more about the Fuzzball should come from my mouth;
It was a sorry tale of athletic skills gone south.
But even here I learned more about our common ground.
I spent too much time in high school in my little compound.
By staying too long in my group or by dating steady.
I cut myself off from other friendships at the ready.
Easy ball field camaraderie fifty years in the making
Had all been there in 1963 for the taking.
Leigh Turner, Rick Wassall, Jim Kern, Hugh Taylor, Chip Weisenfels, Craig Wrisberg, John Withers, Cliff Best, Dan McMichael, Don Polley, and Bob Couch--our mistakes and errors were rife.
But I was reminded of a lesson I have been learning all my life.
There are lots of people around me that I should take time to know
And it is not too late to reap and sow.
Does it take courage to attend a fiftieth reunion? I don’t know.
But I am glad I went and glad for all who took time to show.
About our human kind I sometimes get depressed
But at the fiftieth reunion this feeling was addressed.
We have done all right and by my reason
I am encouraged by what I saw in our fiftieth season.
To my classmates I raise three cheers,
Let’s do this again in ten more years!
(John Ackerman shared these thoughts on the reunion.) Before I left home, I made a list of people I wanted to catch up with who were scheduled to come to the reunion. As luck would have it, I connected with all but one.
I came across Dick Preston Kettenbrink first and we discussed Cobblestone Resort, the resort my family bought and Dick occasionally visited. It was there that Dick got his tooth chipped from a microphone tossed at him by, I thought, me. He corrected me; it was my sister Kathy who did the toss. He must be right, or how else would he know my sister's name all these years later. I am off the hook!!!
Next was Bob Couch. We discussed his family's cafeteria, which was near our house on Rayburn. My wife and I ate there at least once every other week when we were first married. Good food.
I had two neighbors from Webster Woods to look up: Jeanne Marshall and Linda Webber. It was great seeing Jeanne and I know she came a long way to attend this affair. I could not believe how much Linda looks like her mother (and for you guys who knew Mrs. Webber, that's a good thing!)
T.J. (Sewall) cornered me, along with a couple of other girls, and accused me of unsavory behavior at Clark School. They said, among other things, that I showed them a piece of paper that supposedly had fake "snot" on it. I don't remember that, but I won't deny it. I did spend a lot of time in King Barnett's office (I even memorized the eye chart that was there). I do remember bringing a small ring-neck snake to school which I kept in my shirt pocket. When the teacher wasn't looking, I'd pull it out and the girls would scream. Ahh, the good times!
Next was Linda Seifert. I had a crush on her in grade school and she told me that on one Valentine's day, I told her I was going to get her a rose, but the store was out of them. She was so excited, she went home and told her mom. Her mom's response was, "Let me tell you about boys." That talk did not help my cause.
When grade school photos were being taken, I crammed in and the guy next to me, seemed familiar. It was Neal Tanner. One more on my list.
I also met up with Charlie Stuart. The last time I saw him I was trying to get him to fix a speeding ticket for me in Webster. I recognized him from several tables away.
It was a great time and I appreciate all the effort Cheryl and Barb (and all the committee members) did putting this together. Dick did a good job as MC (I think he was commandeered). Also, the first song played was the Platters' "Only You." That is one of my wife's and my favorite songs.
I came across Dick Preston Kettenbrink first and we discussed Cobblestone Resort, the resort my family bought and Dick occasionally visited. It was there that Dick got his tooth chipped from a microphone tossed at him by, I thought, me. He corrected me; it was my sister Kathy who did the toss. He must be right, or how else would he know my sister's name all these years later. I am off the hook!!!
Next was Bob Couch. We discussed his family's cafeteria, which was near our house on Rayburn. My wife and I ate there at least once every other week when we were first married. Good food.
I had two neighbors from Webster Woods to look up: Jeanne Marshall and Linda Webber. It was great seeing Jeanne and I know she came a long way to attend this affair. I could not believe how much Linda looks like her mother (and for you guys who knew Mrs. Webber, that's a good thing!)
T.J. (Sewall) cornered me, along with a couple of other girls, and accused me of unsavory behavior at Clark School. They said, among other things, that I showed them a piece of paper that supposedly had fake "snot" on it. I don't remember that, but I won't deny it. I did spend a lot of time in King Barnett's office (I even memorized the eye chart that was there). I do remember bringing a small ring-neck snake to school which I kept in my shirt pocket. When the teacher wasn't looking, I'd pull it out and the girls would scream. Ahh, the good times!
Next was Linda Seifert. I had a crush on her in grade school and she told me that on one Valentine's day, I told her I was going to get her a rose, but the store was out of them. She was so excited, she went home and told her mom. Her mom's response was, "Let me tell you about boys." That talk did not help my cause.
When grade school photos were being taken, I crammed in and the guy next to me, seemed familiar. It was Neal Tanner. One more on my list.
I also met up with Charlie Stuart. The last time I saw him I was trying to get him to fix a speeding ticket for me in Webster. I recognized him from several tables away.
It was a great time and I appreciate all the effort Cheryl and Barb (and all the committee members) did putting this together. Dick did a good job as MC (I think he was commandeered). Also, the first song played was the Platters' "Only You." That is one of my wife's and my favorite songs.