Statistics & Map Links

This post will serve as a focal point for various statistical and short quotes of interest.
OLD MAPS:

1913 NTTC Map1915 - Dixie Highway
1954 DFW
1965 DFW

The Peter Principle is the principle that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence".
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Aristophanes. "Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever."

1961 - 1965 Big E Queens

The Big E Beauty Pageant was a portion of an annual Spring variety program called the "Highland Fling". The pageant was something dreamed up by principal Roy C. Johnson and Miss Miriam Moore, one of the P.E. teachers. The contest was modeled after the Miss America Pageant without the swimsuit competition. Formal evening gowns and talent presentation were a part of the competition and outside judges were brought in. About 15-girls entered the competition each year.

Note the change in the evening gown designs from 1961-63 to the 1964-65 winners. By 1964-65 the gowns had become more tailored and sleek in appearance, compared to the Antebellum style of the earlier gowns. The only thing I can think of that changed in our society during those years was the JFK assassination which has long been called the end of our innocence. Maybe the newer gowns were starting to reflect that...all of them are lovely, though.

The first 5 winners and finalists are shown in these pictures. We had some pretty girls among us, didn't we?

 1961 Miss Big E: Darla Houlihan (’62); finalist: Judy Oxford (’62); Lynda Lynch (’61), Patsy Phelps (’61), Judy Hill (’63).

1962 Miss Big E: Carol Reeder (’62); finalist: Marsha Routt (’62); Pam Shear (’64), Laretta Ardoyno (’62), Susan Begley (’63).

1963 Miss Big E: Susan Begley (’63); finalist: Judy Hill (’63), Sharon Elliot (’64), Jane Welborn (’63), Cheryl Reeder (’63).

1964 Miss Big E: Sharon Elliot (’64); finalist: Angela Meer (’65); Nancy O’Neil (’64), Christy Hawrylak (’65), Shelia Ward (’64).

1965 Miss Big E: Bonnie Pemberton (’67); finalist: Dixie Davis (’67); Judi Ryno (’65), Christy Hawrylak (’65), Angela Meer (’65).

Adios

First Faculty – Eastern Hills High School – 1961

The pictures were scanned from a 1961 CLAN yearbook and were the only formal portraits taken of the teaching staff while we were at EHHS. In subsequent years the teachers’ pictures were candid shots that significantly varied in quality. Although a 1960 CLAN might show a slight difference in faculty composition, it would most likely be a relatively trivial variance.

When we graduated in 1963, the teaching staff had changed somewhat and the count was up to 46 from the 36 pictured here. The listing below was scanned from a 1961-62 Student Directory.

The school was undergoing rapid growth as the Baby Boomers entered their high school years. Graduate count went from 145 in 1960 to 410 in 1965.

Adios

EHHS First Faculty From Poly & Handley High Schools

The teachers marked transferred to EHHS from 2 nearby high schools to become members of EHHS' first faculty.  The page scans are from 1959 Poly and Handley High School yearbooks, the last year before EHHS opened fall 1959. 

Poly was a few miles SW of EH and Handley was a short distance East, near the Lake Arlington dam.  Our original faculty numbered about 36, for a student body of about 600 the first year which grew to about 1250 when we graduated in 1963.
.

Adios

Family Truckster

Now and then I see a vehicle on the road that makes me do a double take, wondering what in the heck is that? Saw one a few days ago in a local parking lot. It was so clumsy looking that it immediately reminded me of the family truckster in one of those old Chevy Chase movies. The GMC shown above isn't the exact thing I saw, but it's close--the one I saw had 4 grill intakes in front. Can't tell them apart these days, but a really ugly one will still stand out.

Adios

WZBIKYZEWSKI - 1

Even though I am a 3rd generation Texan and proud of that heritage, early on I found the Texan social structures somewhat stifling. It seemed that folks just wanted to dig into my personal business deeper than I wanted to permit. Not that I had anything to hide or that I was averse to bragging, it was more that I liked to move around with a certain degree of anonymity without being constantly measured by what others thought they knew about me. I like the notion of the here and now…that the present words and deeds should either carry a substantial weight or they don’t.

I think it started in the pre-high school years when I encountered some of the social cliques and suffered a small bit of their exclusion. More tellingly, once accepted into a clique, I disliked their somewhat aggressive stances toward either accepting or rejecting others. I like everybody and always have. Well, that’s not quite accurate…I have encountered some monumental jackasses, too.

Once paroled from Texas after EH and employed by a large corporation, I had the opportunity to not only learn more about how other folks in other regions thought and acted, but also to come back to Texas on business. To the Texans I visited, I was now a foreigner…someone who was not from Texas, and therefore, not one of the group. Although this attitude was encountered in other southern states, it was strongest in Texas.

Only if identifying myself as a Texan were an advantage to my mission, would I do so. Of course, my accent often gave me away. My work took me into some of the large industrial installations in the region where safety was a paramount concern and where wearing a hard-hat was mandatory.

Wearing the hard hat opened an amusing avenue for social experimentation.  I was always given a brand-new, white hard hat and a DYMO label maker with which to make a name label for the hat. Since I was usually an independent contributor, an expert from from afar, I had some freedom to do as I wished. So, also having the youth to not really give a damn about any consequences, I would pick one of those Chicago-style Slovakian names that was full of consonants, always ending in “ski” and having enough letters in it to wrap all the way around the hat so you couldn’t see all of it from the front. 

Something made up like, “WZBIKYZEWSKI".

In the land of Joe Bobs and Mary Ellens, someone wearing the name, “WZBIKYZEWSKI” on his hard hat never failed to draw attention. But something we Texans tend to practice is to not ask about things like that. We’re curious, but we don’t ask.

 I’ll never forget riding an elevator down from the top of a large plant with one of the plant operators. We stood across from one another in the elevator, looking down at our feet. The ride was about 15-stories, so it took some time.

I caught him when he first spotted “WZBIKYZEWSKI” on my hat. He just glanced and quickly looked back down. Then he did the double take…a second glance, this one longer. He couldn’t see all the letters, so he shifted just slightly, trying to look around the edge to see the rest of them. I started to slowly look up and he quickly shifted his gaze back to the floor. This continued for a couple of cycles and we reached the ground floor. He never asked!

Me, I would have asked, “how in the hell do you pronounce your name and what are its origins?” I’m curious about things I don’t know. But none of the Joe Bobs in Texas ever asked. That may have been one of the starting points of my lifelong fascination with presenting others a puzzling situation just to see how they handle it.




Adios

Pictures I want – Got any?

Here are some pictures I would like to have to use in illustrating this blog. If you have any of them, please send me a good scan as an email attachment to the “contact” email address, upper right.

1-2013 Update: Gus notes that this is a popular page that attracts a lot of visitors. However, Gus also notes that response is disappointing. Gus believes that is largely due to one or more of 5 factors:

     1-you have none of these things;
     2-you have them, but are technologically challenged or just plain lazy about getting off your tail to get what you have scanned and sent in;
     3-you’re still pissed off that you weren’t voted ‘favorite” or more troubling, still pissed that someone else was;
     4-your old boy/girl friend broke your heart, so heck with it;
     5-your grandchildren are taking up so much of your time…baloney, they’re in school now.

Note to the technology challenged: Take your pictures to WalMart, ask them to scan your pictures to a jump drive…it’s surprisingly cheap and once done you have your e-files available to load into any USB device.

PICTURES:

1958 and earlier class pictures from Meadowbrook, Tandy, and Sagamore Hill Elementary, Handley Elementary schools. These would have been taken in 1958 or before and show some of the future members of the EH Class of 1963. Hopefully they are identified on the back.

Also want similar class pictures for EH Class of 1961 - 1962 - 1964, since we '63s knew a lot of you, too and plan to enlarge this mega-site to include our adjacent classmates.

SCAN OF GRADUATION PROGRAMS:

1960,  these were 4-page folded sheets containing all grad names.

INFORMATION:

What was and who started the Thaelis & Delphi service clubs? Besides hosting a couple of annual dances, what else did you do? Were they associated with a local Women's Club?  My present thought (11/2012) was that the idea originated from the Poly area and was a kind of East Side move toward identifying future debs apart from the old school West Side.  Your thoughts?

MAY FETE - MEADOWBROOK ELEMENTARY:

Looking for information, pictures, and recollections of this celebration at Meadowbrook during the 1950s to 1960s.  It is believed to have started about 1953 and continued annually until at least 1965.  Quite a production.

Gracias

Handley Junior High - 1959

And for better or worse, here some of us were as 8th Grade Handley Pups in May 1959. Another year and we would be EHHS Sophomores, starting out at the bottom of the pile once more.

These pages were published in the 1959 Handley yearbook. At Handley, grades 7-12 were combined into one school facility so the yearbooks portrayed those 6 classes. Enjoy the memories.

I counted 121 pictures here which would be about 1/3 of the 1963 EH senior class. However, a fair number of these kids went elsewhere to high school and we picked up a larger contingent from Meadowbrook at EH.


Feeders:
East Handley Elementary
West Handley Elementary
Little Elementary (now part of Arlington ISD)
Meadowbrook Elementary
Adios

Meadowbrook Junior High - 1958 - 1962 (EHHS '61 - '65)

For better or worse, here some of us were as 9th Grade Meadowbrook Buffaloes in May 1960.  The next fall we would be EHHS Sophomores, starting out at the bottom of the pile once more.

These sheets are probably quite rare as there was no yearbook published during our junior high years; just these composite pages printed in the school newspaper.  You've got to be quite a pack rat to have saved this kind of stuff all these years, and that I am.

Then you have to fumble around with the scanner to get the oversize sheets digitized in pieces and stuck together.  Enjoy the memories.

I think I counted about 230 pics here which would be more than 2/3 of the 1963 EH senior class.  However, a fair number of these kids went to Poly after this and we picked up a contingent from Handley at EH. 

Any idea how many 6th grade classes fed this school and from which elementary schools?

Feeders:
    Meadowbrook Elementary
    Tandy Elementary
    Sagamore Hill Elementary

­1960 Meadowbrook JH Graduates - 228

Acuff, Paula…Alexander, Ronald…Almond, Carolyn…Baer, Edward…Ballard, Jim…Ballem, Sharron…Balthrop, Gary…Balthrop, Sherry…Barber, Jeanette…Barnes, Charles…Barnes, Nancy…Barr, Linda…Bartholmew, Darlene…Bartholomew, Sam…Beall, Celia…Beck, Carolyn…Begley, Susan…Benbow, Nola…Bettinger, Brenda…Bockman, Dean…Bodine, Nan…Brandon, Glen…Brewer, Sherry…Browne, Kathleen…Bruce, Charles…Buckman, Phyllis…Burton, Gay…Butler, Bruce…Butler, Helen…Carrol, Joyce…Gastillon, Thomas…Cathay, Billie Sue…Chrisman, Barbara…Coffman, Wanda…Cole, Charles…Cole, Steve…Collins, Brian…Colwell, Wilma…Conner, Marilyn…Cooper, Jerry…Cooper, Mike…Cooper, Sandra…Cox, Jimmy…Crawford, Paul…Crowder, Carol…Cunningham, Sarah…Davis, Phyllis…Decker, Randy…Dennie, Ronnie…Devoe, Betty…DeVore, Gail…Dickerson, Joe…Diehl, Sandra…Dillard, Bobby…Edwards, Sandra…Eldridge, Carol…Ellis, Dianne…Fike, Karen…Fleming, Paul…Fry, Sandra…Gallagher, Johnny…Gilbert, David…Gilmore, Bill…Golden, Ronnie…Grimes, Sallie…Grove, Bob…Grunow, Barbara…Grizzard, Mike…Guthr1e, Larry…Hadsell, John…Hall, Kenneth…Hamilton, Harriett…Hancock, Robert…Haight, Robert…Hardin, Dianne…Harris, Ronnie…Harris, Susan…Hays, Sherry…Held, Vicki…Hicks, Dudley…Hill, Diane…Hill, Fred…Hill, Judy…Hofmann, Susan…Hoffman, Billy…Holland, Barbara…Holmes, Judy…Honeycutt, Sandra…Holt, Jim…Hooton, Diane…Horn, Christine…Howard, Marion Lee…Hubbard, Sharon…Huber, Ronnie…Huckaby, Marcia…Hudson, Julie…Hullum, Edward…Humphrey, Kay…Hunsaker, William…Hunter, Betsey Ann…Jackson, Janet…Johnson, James…Jones, Charles…Kelly, Janet…Kessler, Eddy…Kilgo, Benny…King, Barbara…Kirke, Thomas…Koch, Warren…Koebernick, Thomas Edward…Kouns, Kitty…Bob Ladd…Lambert, Jerry…Langdon, Linda…Larmer, Bob…Latham, Mike…Lathrop , Nancy…Lavelle, Cheryl…Long, Jamenta…McCauley, Melita…McCollum, Daniel…McCook, Kendall…McCoy, Danny…McDonald, Bruce…McDonald, Suzanne…McGee, Kay…McVean, Jim…Maddux, Dennis…Martin, Douglas…Massey, Bob…Massey, Dan…Marcotte, Carolyn…Matthews, Tee…Means, Steve…Milburn, Marilyn…Miller, Neldon…Miller, Reynolds…Moore, Forrest Mike…Murley, John…Nelson,  Kim…Newman, Sharon…Newsom, Ernest…Nixon, Phil…Nusbaum, Jeff…Paul, Robert…Peacock. Juanita…Perkins, Guy…Per1ick, Don…Perrino, Karen…Perry, Pamela…Pridgeon, Pat…Proctor, Louise…Quire, Patricia…Reams, Lonnie…Reaves , Albert…Redtford, Carol…Reader, Cheryl…Richardson, Madelda…Riedel, Rita…Rigby, Charles…Ritchey, Donna…Roberts, Shirley…Rodriguez, Mike…Rogers, Bobby…Ryder, Janet…Rucker, Sharon…Sanborn, William…Sands, Robert…Scott, Carl…Scott, Kenneth…Scott, Sampson…Searcy, Terry…Sells, James…Shetter, Lonnie…Shields, Paul…Shore, Sandy…Slay, Jack…Smith, Barbara…Smith, Berta…Smith, Greg…Smith, John…Smith, Joyce…Snow, Sharon…Southard, J.W….Sowell, Donald…Speakes, Patricia…Spence, Richard…Stallcup, Carole…Stephens , Surrynda…Stewart, Tim…Sutter, Sharon…Swanson, Betty…Sweet, Harry…Tate, Paul…Taylor, Fred…Taylor, Mac…Tekstar, Danny…Thompson, Benny Lee…Thompson, LeRoy…Van Pelt, Paula…Visney, Bob…Von Diest, Terry…Wadlington, Susie…Wakefield , Eddie…Warren, Patti…Weimann, Dianne…Wellborn, Jane…Welch, Pamela…West, Robert…Wilkerson, Donna…Wilkins, Reginald…Wilkinson, Mike…Williamson, Kris…Winkler, Bill…Wippert, James…Wippert, Larry…Withers , Dennis…Wofford, Beth…Womack, Julie…Womack, Ronnie…Woods, Robert…Woodward, Candy…Yarbrough. David…Young, Mary

June 24, 2012 Update - EH Class of 1964 
Your 1961 Meadowbrook Junior High 9th Grade Pictures from the Meadowlark.

July 11, 2012 Update - EH Class of 1965
Your 1962 Meadowbrook Junior High 9th Grade Pictures from the Meadowlark.

July 21, 2014 Update - EH Class of 1962
Your 1959 Meadowbrook Junior High 9th Grade Pictures from the Meadowlark.

 

July 21, 2014 Update - EH Class of 1961

Your 1958 Meadowbrook Junior High 9th Grade Pictures from the Meadowlark.

Adios

Freedom is not Free

 

At the Strategic Air Command Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, there is a static display of an SR-71 Blackbird.  Carved into its base are these words,

“We must never forget that freedom is never really free, it is the most costly thing in the world.  Freedom is never paid in a lump sum.  Installments come due in every generation.  All any of us can do is offer the generations that follow a chance for freedom.”

Adios

1959 Poly & Handley High School Seniors

Those of us who had older brothers and sisters were somewhat aware of the existence of Poly and Handley. In fact, some of us dated and even married some members of those classes. However, those of us not having older siblings were only aware of their existence if a girl we liked was unavailable because she was dating someone from one of these other schools. It was always a bit confusing to me.

Fine reunion sites have proliferated over the past few years and continue to improve as time passes. Some of those old questions are increasingly being answered through the availability of this additional information. We tend to have good recall of our own years of attendance but understandably, none at all of the years that just preceded or followed our own.

I’ve long been curious about the particulars of how EHHS came to be with respect to its population having originally been drawn from both Poly and Handley. Influences from both of those schools were palpable when we were there, but in my mind, more strongly from Handley.

The pictures show the 1959 graduating classes from both Poly and Handley, the last graduating classes of both of those schools before the effects of EH were felt. In them, you can clearly see the relative sizes of the 2 schools, 424 Poly seniors; 74 Handley seniors. All of the Handley juniors, about 60 by George Bradford’s count, and about 85 Poly juniors were assigned to Eastern Hills as its first graduating class…the Class of 1960. A number of names in both of these classes are familiar to me and most likely older siblings of many of our classmates.

HQ scans of these individual yearbook pages can be found on the 1959 class sites, POLY and HANDLEY.

Clearly Poly was the principal donor school for the first EHHS classes, contributing about 20% of its 1959 population to EH. And it appears that the Handley population may have been in some decline from 74 (1959 Sr.) to 60 (1959 Jr.that became part of the EH Class of 1960)

Adios

Eastern Hills High School 1961 - 2010

A c. 2010 HQ picture recently uploaded to Wikipedia stimulated putting it together with an old one I had from the early 1960s. It's pretty remarkable that not much has changed.
There are some additions that have been made to the rear elevations, but this one from the front looks quite familiar. Aside from the minor changes in the signage about the only thing I see that causes me to question what's going on, is the addition of some kind of fencing along the roof lines. Wonder what that's about?
Adios

Mollie Howell & Steve Means

Interesting short bios from February 1963, just before they struck off for college.

Note that Steve says he and Tate had started developing a taste for several musicians including "Ralph Bacardi". They, and their TARTAN insider confederate, Dillard, were proud of slipping that little bit of naughtiness by Mrs. Priddy, the TARTAN sponsor.

They and some of their friends had started trying a little "demon rum" and beer during their last semester at EH. I'm reasonably certain there hadn't been much, if any, drinking before that. Believe it or not folks, a lot of us in those days didn't drink, nor smoke, and unless I was entirely clueless, do any drugs. I can say with certainty that I don't recall any whispers in the hallways of anyone doing drugs, although there were probably a few that did...they just weren't a part of our clutch of friends.

Adios

4th Grade

The more I’ve delved into this look back exercise, the more I’ve discovered that whatever was going on in my small world was also going on in the small worlds of a lot of others. I doubt that changes much throughout life even though specific elements that made up our individual lives changed over time. We moved from toys to games to cars to girls/boys to work to children to homes and whatever else we could stuff into our lives along the way.

For me, the film Animal House showed that what I experienced as a college student was similar to what the Animal House writers experienced during those same years—even though they went to school elsewhere in the country far from my home turf. And as I watched some of the details written into that film, I saw some elements of my 4th grade year in it.

I recall drawing war scenes almost daily while the teacher was teaching—I was bored. While I don’t have any specific recollections of any of my classmates doing the same thing, I’m sure some of them were, we rarely did anything that others were not doing. A short scene in Animal House showed that some of the writers were drawing the same scenes. Unfortunately, none of my art work survived but the scenes were pretty much the same…fighters zooming down, shooting everything in sight on the ground.

Then I wondered where the idea came from….TV was only black & white in those days, only 3-channels, and full of WWII documentaries and movies. Maybe the idea came from those films. But I also recall having a lot of leftover Life magazines from the WWII years…Dad never threw anything like that out. Then I saw the 1944 Cadillac ad (below) online recently. That ad closely matches what I was drawing...anyway, that’s one of my 4th grade memories.

By the way, one of the Animal House writers is visible online and answered a few of my inquiries...kind of neat.

Adios

The Sit Room

This picture came out along with a lot of others in recent days. It is reported to depict some of our top government officials watching the end of Osama in real time. In the interest of some inexplicable nod to keeping a non-existent peace, we the people are not to be permitted to see what they saw...the corps (sic) of Osama.

As a result, conspiracy theories are multiplying like wildfire. We may never know what they were looking at, but there have been some unsubstantiated reports...

Adios

The Clan - Eastern Hills High School Yearbook

If we attended classes at EH for 3-years, we came into contact with 5 different classes; 2 older, and 2 younger, plus our own. I got a yearbook each year...suppose most of us did. They came out sometime during the summer months and we spent a few hours of a summer evening having others sign the books. Some of those sentiments can be interesting reading even now.

I've picked up a 1965 Clan which was issued a couple of years after we left EH. In it the Sophomores of our 1963 Clan are in their Senior year. It's interesting to see the growth and maturity that took place after we left. Of course, every generation did exactly the same growing during those same years.

In reviewing the yearbooks I've seen some significant differences between them, in terms of picture quality and layout. Those are areas where the individual talents and skills of each annual staff reveal themselves. Personally, I think the 1962 Clan was the best layout and photo quality, followed closely by the 1961 Clan.

Our 1963 Clan cover is the best to my eye and the photo quality and layout, while still good, was not quite up to the earlier standards. The 1965 Clan I received recently is significantly lower in terms of photo quality and layout.

The Clan cover pictures in this posting are the first 6 Clans issued. I have not yet seen a 1964 Clan.


Adios

1962 - 1963 Football Team Managers

For 3-years Tom Hendrick and Fred Alvord were the varsity football team managers. I think John Alcon was a year younger and joined them in their second year, 1961. To tell the truth I don't quite know what all they did, but they did serve at the pleasure of Coach Mitcham and apparently did their job quite well.
As a player, all I saw was a fairly uniform cranky attitude from all 3 of them. Why they stayed cranky, I never did know, but the only contact I had with them was when one of them stayed by the showers as guardian of the stack of towels...one per customer and no more! Maybe that's what kept them cranky, because almost everyone could have made use of a second towel and many tried to filch an extra one.
I'm sure they were the keepers of the game uniforms, hauled ice water out to the practice field every day, taped some ankles, and a lot of other things that needed doing.
All in all, it must have been a pretty thankless job in close proximity to more than a few prima donnas. Anyway, they did a good job.

Adios

Yes, Dear - plus one year

Well, it's been a year since I tried to die. Feeling fine now, thank you.

Wife continues to amaze me. She watches some of those cooking programs and sees things she would like to add to her kitchen tools. We don't have any more space for them unless she throws something out. Wife is a packrat - she throws nothing out; chaos seems to suit her. Oh well, we'll find some space.

Adios

Memory Storage

Over the course of the past few years I’ve undertaken to scan all the old family pictures that go back about 4-5 generations, also all the certificates and hundreds of pages of written history about the ancient generations. Currently, there are something on the order of 7500 files occupying about 3GB of memory. Of course, I backup these files to 2 or 3 different drives, including a flash drive and will probably consider using an online file storage service before long.

As you probably know, memory has been growing exponentially over the past few years and the cost has been plummeting. Like I’m sure most of us have done, I’ve migrated data storage from 5” floppies to 3” floppies to compact disks to external hard drives, and now more and more to flash drives.

A few days ago while checking out of some store I spotted the little flash drive shown above, hanging near the register. It’s about the size of one of my ring finger joints and is rated at 4GB, enough to hold all my family files with 1GB to spare! I can put an entire Office suite of software in less than half the remaining space and take everything I need to operate independently from any computer someone would lend me for temporary use.

Cost - $10. Amazing stuff.

Adios

Eastern Hills High School Football 1959 - 2007

An interesting historical chart found on the school site showing all the season football results from the beginning.
Adios

1963 Tartan Newspaper

Many of the clippings included in this blog came from old copies of the school newspaper, The Tartan. The pictures taken from the yearbook, The Clan, show the 1962-63 staff of the Tartan. Lot of good looking gals in that class.

I think that in addition to having a desire to work on the paper, you also had to have some aptitude for it; however, I don't recall how the selections went.

In addition to regular classwork, these students also had to put together and publish the paper about once every two-weeks. Bob Dillard went on to own his own newspaper out in West Texas.

Yorktown Murmurs

While chasing an ancient family line back to an early Jamestown grandfather, many other interesting stories flowed from the study along with a much increased appreciation of this society’s amazing journey through history. In Jamestown Murmurs, I mentioned my earliest New World ancestor, a 10th great grandfather who disembarked during Jamestown’s 14th year.

Discovering a personal connection to an individual who lived here when the New World was populated by only 1200 or so English settlers takes your breath away, especially if you have an active imagination and a reasonable grasp of history. I wondered, if I were he, what I might have wanted to tell some of my descendants if I had had the means to record and preserve my thoughts. That set off a sort of mental time travel exercise where you spend some time in both eras…now and 400-years ago. What would I like to tell and what would I like to hear from each perspective?

For the most part, our lives whether lived in the present or lived 400-years ago, are somewhat similar. The sun comes up, we wake, we’re hungry, maybe a little roll with the gal, must work the crops or we don’t eat later, must work for Dilbert’s pointy haired boss or we don’t eat later, it’s a pretty day—mind wanders, later we’re hungry again, goodness that’s a good lookin’ little gal walking by, maybe another roll with ours later on, getting sleepy, nodding off…tomorrow is another day.

Mixed-in are interactions with other people, irritations, joys…a few truly dumb bastards, fewer still really nasty farts, and now and then a war with another tribe over something no one really understands.

So, what would I really like to hear from g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-grandfather Pete? You know, it really doesn’t matter. Anything would do...Pete, tell me about that gal that caught your eye today.

And what would I tell him? Boy, that’s tougher. Could he understand 4G, iPods, Safari, WIN 7, VISTA, XP, or a blue screen flashing “fatal error” usually just means to reboot? I think within an amazingly short time, he probably could. Paris Hilton interacts with her technology, doesn’t she?

We had learned in our corner of the corporate cyber world that once something was digitized, it had the potential to never die which was not any different than any written document. It also had the potential to be misappropriated and misused, so we had to be thoughtful about what we put “out there.”

However, it was also apparent that putting certain things in the hands of others is probably one of the best ways to ensure its survival. Easy duplicating and transmitting brought to us by present day computer technology could be selectively pressed into service as a means of perpetuating the very things you would want to perpetuate; the family tree preservation being one of the most obvious positive aspects.

One of my 4th great grandfathers (1 of 32 individuals at that level) commanded a Virginia County militia during the Revolution. In that position he was responsible communicating with the Virginia governor who at that time was also Virginia’s military commander. In seeking to learn something about grandpa Phil, I found a 1782 letter he wrote to Benjamin Harrison V, then governor of Virginia, a position previously held by Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, among others. Six years before this letter was penned, Harrison along with Jefferson and several others signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.

Grandpa Phil’s letter was apparently saved as a part of early Virginia government correspondence and has resided in the Library of Virginia archives for many years. It can be downloaded from the Net. Here at least was something in the hand of an early ancestor that, although not directed to me or any other descendent, as I envisage it, provides a fascinating glimpse of a man who is a part of me. Seeing his words written in his own hand was interesting enough, but deciphering the old handwriting was even more interesting.

Grandpa Phil was responding to Harrison’s order that he supply some of his troops and guns. He was complaining that he didn’t have them to give. He explains that he has his hands full defending his own citizens from British depravations along the river and that what canon he had were taken away by the Continentals when they came through the neighborhood some months earlier.

Comparing his words to what was going on in that area at the time the letter is dated revealed that Grandpa Phil’s County was about 25-miles north of Yorktown and the Continentals he mentions were some of the Revolutionary forces assigned to the Yorktown Siege of General Cornwallis that brought an end to the Revolution a few months earlier! What extent Grandpa Phil participated in that historic event isn’t known, but it is reasonably certain that he was there with his militiamen if only to observe or provide replacements now and then.

This small painting is generally considered to be one of the most accurate depictions of the British marching out of their fort bound for English ships that would take them back to England. It was painted a short time after the Yorktown surrender and relied on eyewitness accounts for its detail. Grandpa Phil's County was across the river and north to about the horizon. This view not only portrays the surrender field accurately, it shows enough detail to pinpoint where Grandpa Phil lived and fought.

Adios

1980s (FBG) Slang

Following is a list of slang words and terms borrowed from another site that focuses on 1980s memories. Our FBG brethren claim to have invented or embraced these terms as a part of their culture. Maybe so, but I seem to recall some of these terms in use in the sixties also. I think most of this kind of stuff originated in California youth cultures.

See my sixties slang listing if you are interested in comparing slang from 2 different generations.


airhead - An intellectual lightweight. A term invented to describe a Valley Girl.

awesome - Equal to or slightly better than "cool," but not tubular.

bad - Something that is very good or very cool.

barf bag - Like "jerk", a disparaging term used by one person to describe another.

bitchin' - Adjective for something that is very cool, or very hot, as in "Dude, that band is bitchin'!"

bodacious - Usually used as an expression of appreciation for a woman's attributes, but also generally as a form of enthusiastic appreciation for a member of the opposite sex.

bomb - Used to describe something in a very favorable light, as in "That movie was totally bomb!"

bottom line - Yuppie-speak for getting to the crux of a matter, as in "Okay. This is the bottom line."; previous generations might have said "getting down to brass tacks."

boy toy - Initially used to describe a young woman who had a reputation for being "easy". In her first incarnation, Madonna exploited the boy toy image. Later used to describe a young man who was the plaything of an older woman (or man).

carpe diem - A Yuppie term, from the Latin for "seize the day," meaning to go for it, take a chance, get on with life.

cheesy - Something that is way too sentimental.

chill/chill out - Relax, calm down. Take a chill pill. To be practicing this is to be "chillin'."

couch potato - Term coined to describe those who spend way too much time in front of the television, thanks to the VCR and the advent of cable.

cowabunga! - An '80s battle cry, sort of like "Geronimo!" was to a previous generation, uttered when someone is about to do something crazy or adventurous.

DINK - Acronym that stands for "dual income, no kids" -- a Yuppie couple with no children and lots of money to spend on themselves.

dipstick - A dumb person. Popularized by Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1984).

do lunch - A Yuppie term expressing a desire to get together in the future, but without a firm commitment as to when.

do the wild thing - To have sex.

downer - Anything -- an event, a movie, a person -- that is depressing. The Challenger disaster was a real downer for everyone.

dude - A pronoun made popular in the 1980s, synonymous with "Man," as in "Hey, dude, what's the word?"

dweeb - A synonym for "nerd".

eat my shorts - An expression of mild contempt. Used by Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club before Bart Simpson made it even more famous.

for sure - An expression of heartfelt agreement. "Man, she is hot!" "For sure, dude!"

fresh - Hip term used as a synonym for "appealing" or "original".

gag me with a spoon - A Val Gal expression connoting extreme disgust.

gang banger - A member of an urban street gang.

get horizontal - To do the wild thing. The phrase originated with Olivia Newton-John's song "Physical".

gnarly - Valley speak for something that is very good.

grody - Something that is extremely gross. "Dude, this burger is grody to the max."

gross out - Synonymous with disgusting. To "gross me out" you had to do something that was really disgusting.

guppie - Variation of yuppie to denote a gay, upwardly-mobile person.

have a cow - To be over-excited or upset almost to the point of hysteria. "He's, like, just a rock star. Don't have a cow!"

hellacious - Used to describe something that is very difficult, as in, "That final was hellacious!"

homeboy - Term used to identify someone as a friend, or a member of your clique, originating from urban street gang jargon.

hoser - A loser, a rube. Canadian in origin, made popular by the film Strange Brew.

hottie - Term used to describe someone, of either gender, who is sexy.

hunk - A majorly handsome male. See also studmuffin.

I'm so sure -A sarcastic expression of disbelief, as in "Chad asked you out on a date? Like, I'm so sure!"

ill - Uncool, not hip; "You be illin'" is to say "You don't look good" or "You look miserable."

joanie - Derisive Val-speak for a square, un-hip girl, derived from the Joanie Cunningham character on Happy Days.

jock - Usually a term of derision directed at self-obsessed athletes.

lame - Anything -- an event, a person, a movie -- that is dumb, uninspiring or just not with it, as in "That song is so lame!"

like - Originating with Valgals, it can be used as many times as necessary in a sentence, usually to herald the upcoming use of an adjective, such as "That movie was like so lame that it like grossed me out."

major (majorly) - As in "He is a major hunk!" or "That was a major gross out!"

make my day - Derived from the Clint Eastwood "Dirty Harry" flick Sudden Impact; could be used as a macho response to a challenge, or, in the past tense, sarcastically, as in "Oh, yeah, that just made my day!" -- which is to say, it didn't.

mega - Prefix that can be attached to nearly any word for enhancement, as in "That megasucks!". Also, synonymous with major.

Omigod! - Valspeak expression denoting surprise or disgust, with each syllable separated by a pause.

party hearty - The warcry of '80s fratboys everywhere, meaning to party with a dedication sometimes sadly lacking in calculus class.

PC - Short for political correctness, as in not saying or doing anything that might hurt anyone's feelings, and which first reared its ugly head in the '80s.

pencil you in - Yuppie-speak for making an appointment or date that is subject to change.

preppie - They of the polo shirt and khaki trousers, all the rage in the '70s, but who either became yuppies or nerds in the '80s.

psyche! - After you tell somebody something that upsets or excites them, you say this to demonstrate that you were just fooling.

queer - A pejorative unrelated to homosexuality, used to describe something or someone that is peculiar or lame.

quiche - Meaning "weak" or "iffeminate" and derived from the 1982 book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche.

rad/radical - Term coined by skateboarders in the '80s to describe something that is very cool.

rock my world - As in "amaze me!"

rush - A big thrill, as in "That concert was a major rush!"

scumbag - A derisive term denoting an extremely undesirable person.

skank - Like scumbag, with an added connotation of lack of morals or hygiene.

slamdance - Started by punk rockers, a form of dancing that required participants to hurl themselves bodily at one another.

space cadet - Used to describe someone who is dumb or just wacky.

stoked - Fired up, ready to go.

studmuffin - See hunk.

take a chill pill - Calm down. See chill.

to the max - To the ultimate level, as in, "That skank is, grody to the max."

totally - Completely, to the max.

tubular - To describe something that is so totally cool as to defy description.

UVs - In sunbathing, to catch some rays. Stands for ultraviolet, as in "I'm heading down to Malibu to get some UVs."

Valley Girl - Term originally applied to spoiled girls who lived in the San Fernando Valley and who developed their own lingo, known as Valspeak, but which in time was used to describe any slightly goofy mall chick.

veg (out) - To take it easy, to not do anything. "I think I'll like veg out today."

wannabe - Derived from a 1985 magazine story about obsessed young female fans of Madonna, who wanted to be just like her, and did everything in their power to look and act like her.

waycool - Beyond cool, or at least very very cool.

wicked - Really good. Related to bad and radical.

word! - A very utilitarian slang word; used as an expression of enthusiastic agreement, an exclamation, or when you just didn't know what else to say.

yuppie - The upper-middle class Baby Boomer who is obsessed with career and conspicuous consumption; stands for Young Urban (or Upwardly-Mobile) Professional.

Air Traffic Controller Snoozing

Six sleeping air traffic controllers and counting. There was another one caught this weekend in Florida, I think. So, it’s back to my pounding the FBGs—it’s under their management these events are occurring. Listening to blather about circadian rhythms as an excuse for dereliction of duty is growing tiresome. These people make me want to puke.

When I started flying in the 1960s it was obvious to even a youngster that the adults in charge of the system were a serious lot. In fact, as a life-long critic of government bureaucracies, the FAA earned significant respect in my youthful appraisal of such things. One thing I didn’t think much of at the time, but consider frequently these days, is the fact that both the sixties professional aviator ranks and the FAA air traffic control system was in the capable hands of a heavy contingent of ex-Air Force people. A lot of them had either flown or worked in the Eighth Army Air Force during WWII where they learned about the serious business of aviation and their responsibilities for attention to duty.

Sometime in the 1970s things began to change as unionization and the bureaucracy grew. More and more airspace came under air traffic “control” and more and more rules crept into a formerly open operating environment. For pilots, delays mounted and dissatisfaction grew. It was the time that our generation was coming of age. By the early 1980s air traffic controllers had convinced themselves that it was they, not the pilots who were responsible for the safe conduct of a flight. In a real sense, those beliefs led to the firing of the air traffic controllers by President Reagan in 1981 and the decertification of their union, PATCO.

Pilots are trained differently. They are trained to be competent in the safe operation of their aircraft, including the takeoff, accurate enroute navigation, and safe landing at a destination—all without the “control” of ground controllers. If the weather is bad at a desired destination, the pilot always plans for an alternative destination and carries additional fuel for the possible diversion. He also knows how to use the instrument landing resources of a destination airport without the need to talk to a ground controller.

The clash comes when ground controllers and pilots disagree over who is in charge of a flight. There is not a single pilot who would relinquish control and decision making to a ground controller…it’s a “set in stone” kind of thing. So, if the controller is asleep at his post, it’s really not much of a problem for a pilot with respect to operating his aircraft safely.

In the present commercial air traffic system, airlines tend to bunch their flights in and out of destinations at certain times during the day. Not much is happening at the airports during the wee hours except for light plane traffic and freight carriers. They, too, are trained to operate without benefit of a ground controller.

When I started in the sixties, most airports were NOT staffed with controllers after about 10 or 12 at night. If you came in late, your radio transmitter would turn on the runway lights and you would put the plane down in accordance with a standard operating procedure. All licensed pilots knew that procedure and operated accordingly. What has changed? Not much, really. There may be less overall traffic in the skies today since the number of active licensed pilots has been declining for the past few decades. Perhaps the only difference between now and then, is an overreaching controllers’ union that has sought to increase staffing when and where it is not needed. Beware of a call for additional staff in the wee hours in order to help keep people awake…I would argue that there is another agenda at work.

Note: If you watch some of the old WWII movies showing the Air Force in action, you can see that the ground controller was mostly a messenger who relayed local winds, altimeter settings, and active runways. The rest of it was left in the hands of the pilot to put it safely on the ground.

During the period following the 1981 firing of the air traffic controllers and subsequent rebuilding of the corps, one of my closer friends, an AAL captain, related a funny little story. The Captain was a gray-haired veteran (possibly WWII) and headed to Las Vegas on a recent evening. The young controller taking the Captain’s flight plan filing was well-versed in the aviation acronyms for navigation equipment aboard and was nonplussed to find that the Captain had almost nothing aboard his old 727 by way of modern navigation equipment.

Growing frustrated with the Captain’s series of negative responses regarding not having certain equipment, the controller exasperatedly asked, “Captain, how do you intend to get to Las Vegas tonight?” “EYES” was the Captain’s response. The Captain relished both telling the story and the young controller’s incredulity.

It’s been 30-years since he told me that story and it still brings a chuckle. Pilots are trained to get where they’re going by looking outside the plane and comparing landmarks to a flight chart they carry with them.

A final thought...I'm sympathetic to the notion that long, late hours of boredom are difficult to bear while remaining alert. I've done them, a lot of us have. However, while pilots can handle the safe operation of their aircraft, there are times that competent ground control is a vital service. These times involve seriously bad weather when visibility is poor and in areas such as large metropolitan concentrations where air traffic tends to accumulate in the vicinity of busy airports. Generally, in these areas the ground control functions around the clock and activity is great enough to keep everyone on their toes.

Football Captains 1960 - 1961 - 1962

These guys were elected by the teams and as I recall, the coaches had no input in selecting them. Although like most high school elections there was a popularity component to the elections, there is not a dud in this lot. They were all good guys.

Adios