Dilbert - Pointy Haired Boss on a Tear

A whole week of the boss on a tear. And below, remember this boss from the past?

Adios

Susie Wadlington & Paul Tate

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

Note that Paul says he had started developing a taste for several musicians including "Ralph Bacardi."  Steve Means said that same thing in his Lad & Lassie bio.  Tate and Means and their TARTAN insider confederate, Dillard, were proud of slipping that little bit of naughtiness by Mrs. Priddy, the TARTAN sponsor—she retired about a year later.

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.

Susie was one of our kindest Highlander hearts.  She always had a ready smile and a positive attitude…just one of those really neat people to count among your friends.  Smart as a whip, too; she graduated Magna Cum Laude, was inducted to the National Honor Society as a Sophomore (Paul, too), and was a 3-year Leonard Star Award winner.  However, no one topped Paul…he was our top male graduate, finishing first in our class among a tough crowd of academic competitors.


Adios

Honor Roll - Meadowbrook & Eastern Hills HS

While doing some online research into the particulars of the Leonard's Star Award last year I discovered that the topic was a fairly tough one to address. The article linked above may be the only reference to the award currently found online using a Google search. The problem was that the pins and the program occurred a long time ago, a lot of the recipients may no longer be with us, or may simply not be online in this space so they can communicate. However, there was another aspect of those awards that made things difficult...they were given to a relatively small number of students.

I was thinking that the cards shown in this article might well suffer some of the same threat of oblivion...small number of original recipients, of the survivors only a small number of them still have these things available to scan, and perhaps fewer still know how to use a scanner; and fewer still of those know how to post the images to a blog...etc.

Anyway, these cards were given out each 6-weeks with the report cards to those who had earned the requisite grades. A "B" honor roll required an "A" in citizenship and no grade below a "B". The "A" honor roll was tougher...no grade below an "A". There weren't too many "A" honor roll cards given out.

The EHHS cards were a different color each 6-weeks, resulting in a kind of rainbow collection if you got some of them. But the Meadowbroook cards were just 2 colors--a dull gold for "B" honor roll and a bright white printed on glossy card stock for "A". Further, the EHHS cards were all the same with the differentiation being only the letter "A" stamped on their centers. The official sounding words "entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto" was printed prominently below one's name, but

I never quite knew what any of those rights and privileges were. Maybe like so much else in life, they were just words...maybe I should have asked and possibly gotten the pregnant silence in response. That would have been amusing.

Adios

Meadowbrook Elementary School Grades 1 - 6 1951-57

Most of the kids shown in these pictures would be members of the EHHS Class of 1963.

There was a 3rd third, fourth, fifth and sixth grade class--do you have one of the missing pictures?  Need 4th grade pictures...teachers were Mrs. Nail and Mrs. Flemming.

NOTE:  The large 2nd grade class sizes were ~25% smaller the next year for 3rd grade.  Was another (3rd) class added?  (YES, Mrs. Schulz)  Have you got one of the 3rd class pictures?  Burton's in them...don't know who else...maybe Sam.

Similar class pictures from EHHS Class of 1962 & 1964 also sought.

Adios

Andy Rooney's 1943 Wilhelmshaven Story

The previous posting referred to Andy's good bombing raid story...here it is:


Originally published in The Stars and Stripes, European Edition, Sunday, February 27, 1943.

A U.S. BOMBER STATION, Feb. 26 — From the nose of Lt. Bill Casey's Banshee, I saw American Fortresses and Liberators drop a load of destruction on Wilhelmshaven today.

We flew to Germany in the last group of a Fortress formation and Banshee was in the trailing squadron.

Soon after dawn the bombers thundered down the runway. Lt. Casey's windshield was splattered with mud on the way. It really was a blind take-off.

Like a pickup football team on a Saturday morning, we grew in strength as we flew, until all England seemed to be covered with bombers.

Everything was quiet — almost monotonous — for an hour after we left the English coast.

Sees First Enemy Plane

Then the trouble began.

Peeling out of the sun came shining silver German fighter planes, diving at one bomber in the formation and disappearing below the cloudbanks as quickly as they had come. They seemed tiny, hardly a machine of destruction, and an impossible target.

My first glimpse of a German fighter came when the navigator, 2nd Lt. William H. Owens, of Tullahoma, Tenn., nearly knocked me into the lap of 2nd Lt. Malcolm A. Phillips Jr., the bombardier, whose home is in Coffeyville, Kan. Owens swung around at what appeared to be an Me109 as it whipped down through the clouds on our left.

From that time until three and one-half hours later, when we were half way home, no one had to look far to see a German fighter. They were all over and they were all kinds of planes — Me109s, Ju88s and Me110s. There were no FW190s, by far the best plane Jerry has to fight the Forts. Their absence strengthened Allied contentions that Germany is desperately short of fighter planes.

From a vantage point in the pilot's cabin Lt. Casey and his co-pilot, 1st Lt. Kelly G. Ross, were calmly giving information over the inter-com.

"Here comes one at 2 o'clock, Elliot. Get the son-of-a-bitch."

T/Sgt. Wilson C. Elliot, of Detroit, Lt. Casey's top turret man, is the only man from the original Banshee crew left.

Before we were very deep into Germany deadly black puffs began to appear around us. It seemed as though they were "air mines" that were touched off as we came to them. A puff would appear to our right and then in quick succession a row of five more black splotches flowered out, each one closer as they caught up to us.
Lt. Casey zigged, and the puffs appeared in the tracks of our zag. He was one jump ahead of the flak. All but once he was one jump ahead.

Thought Plane's Nose Torn Off

Lt. Phillips was leaning far forward in the nose, between his guns and bomb-sight, when suddenly the whole nose seemed to break out of the ship. My first impression was that they had given up the flak and had thrown the gun at us.

Lt. Phillips sat back on his heels and covered his eyes with his hands. Splinters of flexiglass formed coating over his helmet. It was a minute before he recovered from the shock to open his eyes and find that he could see and was unhurt.

What appeared to be the nose being ripped off actually was only a small hole the size of a man's fist.

The formation was perfect, and the German sky dotted with Forts in front of us and Liberators behind us was comforting. Below, the land seemed to be farmland for the most part. Even that was divided into aggravatingly square plots. It looked German and unfriendly. You had the feeling you would have known it was Germany even if you hadn't attended the briefing.

German flak didn't seem to bother German fighter planes. They poured in even when their own flak was thickest.

Approaching the bombing run, the doors of the ships in front of us could be seen swinging open, and not far above us the yawning bomb bay of a Fort revealed more bombs, hanging by some mechanical hairpin, waiting for the bombardier to push the tiny button that sends them to the target.

Lt. Owens was having trouble with his oxygen and Lt. Phillips' fingers were nearly frozen. I was healthy but helpless. Finally the valve of the navigator's air intake froze completely and the next thing his head had dropped to the top of his caliber .50, and his face was an unlovely greyish purple. Both of them had work to do in the nose. I was strictly cargo. The oxygen on my side was okay. We fitted the mask to Lt. Owens' face, revived him and I started back for the pilot's cockpit.

By the time I struggled back without oxygen, with a backload of equipment that would make Santa Claus look sick, I was almost out. Lt. Casey almost yawned at what I was sure was a major crisis in my life.

He fixed me up with oxygen and the remainder of my brief first glimpse at the war was from the pit behind the pilot.

As we started the bombing run I was up in the nose of the ship, standing over to the right trying to keep out of the way of the navigator and bombardier. I had a camera, and that was probably the greatest underestimation, or something or other, of the Germans anyone ever made. I definitely did not feel like taking pictures. I made an effort once or twice and I got a couple of pictures of a small bunch of six little ships down on the water, but it's elementary that you have to be able to hold a camera still to take pictures.

We were well into the run and the flak was puffing to the right and left. The boys said it was not nearly as intensive as over St. Nazaire, but there was more of it, spread out in different places, they said.

Fighter planes were always there while we were making our run. They come in so fast it's hard to tell where they're coming from, but frequently you could see a vapor trail start to form, like a cloud standing on end. You knew that was a fighter starting a run.

As the bombardier crouched low over his sight, I was just in back of him, trying to take a picture of the bombs falling from the plane ahead. They dropped theirs, and I guess we must have the next second but I couldn't feel it.

Behind the tail gunner, T/Sgt. Parley D. Small, of Packwood, Iowa, reported that he had seen a Liberator go down with one engine flaming. Although on fire he said it was under control for a crash landing. Small himself picked off one German plane as it tried to tie a stream of machine-gun bullets on our tail. He described the end of another German fighter.

Jerry Stopped Cold

"It looked like a piece of cardboard that had been thrown out of a plane," he said. "It came up under the belly of a B24 and someone let him have it right on the nose.

He stopped dead and fell away. The plane didn't seem to be burning. It must have killed the pilot."

As Nazi planes kept nipping at the formation, far away from the coast of Germany, they probably picked us up from the French coast. It is improbable that German-based fighters followed the USAAF bombers that far, even though many of them seemed to be twin-engined planes.

Almost half way home, three Ju88s could be seen diving at a B24 that had fallen out of formation and was in distress.

After 20 minutes without sign of Jerry, things began to look more pleasant.

Song of Triumph

Lt. Casey and the crew began to sing over the intercom. Casey had the bends and was squirming in his seat — but smiling and singing. Next to him, Lt. Ross had to do most of the flying on the way home. Finally England was sighted and believe me, whatever you think, it is one of the most beautiful islands in all the world.

As Lt. Casey says, "I'm an Irishman, southern Ireland, but that is still the best looking damned little island I ever saw."

After a roof-lifting "buzz" (hedge-hopping) over the field, not orthodox, Lt. Casey brought the ship in smoothly.

Looking over the Banshee, we found that it had been hit in about ten places. The biggest hole was a gaping wound in her metal near the tail gunner. The chip of flak tore a hole through an English penny that Sgt. Small had left on the floor behind him.

With the exception of one frozen finger — Lt. Phillips' — the Banshee had what the crew called "a quiet trip."

I don't want to go on a noisy one.

---

Copyright ©, 1943, Stars and Stripes. Reprinted with permission of Stars and Stripes.

Better Than Typical

Andy Rooney, 92, perhaps our nation’s favorite curmudgeon, passed away Friday night. Nearly anything you would want to learn about him can be readily found elsewhere online, so I wanted to share something about him that you may not too easily find online.

During WWII, Private Rooney was a London-based writer for Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper. In that role he lived a safe and comfortable life, but was forever affected by his observations of American soldiers, particularly the Army Air Force airmen. His contemporary writing and post-WWII reminisces involving those aviators were, in my opinion, some of the most insightful words on the subject ever crafted.

Over the years he expressed similar thoughts in a number of published pieces. I particularly liked the chapter in his 1995 memoir, “My War,” in which he told his heartfelt story of the young airmen he had known in WWII England well enough to bring tears. While that chapter is too long to post here, the following introduction Mr. Rooney wrote for a 1981 book entitled, “One Last Look,” is a fine example of his masterful wordsmithing.

MEMORIES
By Andy Rooney

London—There’s just so much sentimental baggage you can carry through life. I’m not much for reunions. Anyone who has reached the age of 60 could easily spend the rest of his days just sitting around, remembering.

I’m here at this old U.S. 8th Air Force Base near Bedford, England, though, because members of the 306th Bomb Group are having a reunion and I flew with them on the first U.S. bombing raid on Nazi Germany in February 1943. It’s sentimental baggage I carry easily and with great pride.

It’s been 40-years now since these men flew their four-engined Flying Fortresses out of here. They’re the kind of men Americans like to think are typical Americans, but they’re better than typical. They’re special. A lot of World War II Air Force men are.

It was a terrible war for them although during this reunion they’re managing to recall a lot of the good things about it. It would be too sad if they didn’t. It was terrible because so many of them were killed. One evening they’d be sitting around their huts talking, worrying, playing cards and writing letters home. The next evening, if there had been a bombing mission that day, the bed next to theirs or the one next to that—and maybe both—might be empty, its former occupant, their pal, dead. Perhaps he had gone down in a parachute that caught fire. “Who burned Bailey?” MacKinley Kantor wrote. “Was it you?”

It was a great and terrible war for me because, as a young reporter for the Army newspaper, The Stars and Stripes, I was in a strange position. I came to this base often when the bombers went out, and when they returned—if they returned—I talked to the crews about what had happened. Then I’d return to London and write my story. I often felt ashamed of myself for not being one of them. I was having the time of my life as a newspaperman and they were fighting and dying. That’s how I came to fly with them just that once to Wilhelmshaven. It made me feel better about myself.

Looking out at the crumbling remains of the old runways at this airfield, I’m haunted by flashes of memory. Often the bombers came back badly damaged and with crew members dead or dying. In April 1943, I was here when they came back from a raid deep in Germany and one of the pilots radioed in that he was going to have to make an emergency landing. He had only two engines left and his hydraulic system was gone. He couldn’t let the wheels down and there was something even worse. The ball turret gunner was trapped in the plastic bubble that hung beneath the belly of the bomber.

Later I talked with the crewmen who survived that landing. Their friend in the ball turret had been calm, they said. They had talked to him. He knew what they had to do. He understood. The B-17 slammed down on its belly…and on the ball turret with their comrade inside it.

 
There are funny stories, too. Everyone here remembers the eccentric gunner Snuffy Smith. Sgt. Maynard Smith. He was an oddball kind of guy, but he did his job well in the air. The Air force loved to give medals and they had good reason in Snuffy Smith’s case. On one occasion, Henry Stimson, then called secretary of war, came to England, and officials, thinking this would be good time for publicity for the Air Force and the secretary, arranged to give Snuffy Smith the Medal of Honor. The whole entourage came to this base with the secretary and a dozen generals, but the hero was nowhere to be found. It turned out he was in the kitchen washing dishes. He was on KP, being disciplined for some minor infraction of the base rules.

This reunion is a bittersweet experience. Last evening I had a drink at the bar where there was a gathering, and a strong-looking weather-beaten man came over and quietly said he’d like to buy me a drink. He’s a Nebraska farmer now. He had been the tail gunner on the Banshee, the B-17 I flew in over Wilhelmshaven. We’d been hit that day and it was a terrifying trip, but it made a good story for me. We laughed and talked together and he paid for the drink. As we lifted our glasses in a mutual toast, I noticed that two fingers on his right hand were missing. It often happened to crewmen who stuck by their guns while their hands froze.

And he was buying me a drink.

Roby Morris - 1964 Highlander - First EHHS Basketball District Championship Team

Roby was our quarterback on the 1962 football championship team and had by then established himself as probably the most accomplished multi-sport athlete at EHHS. I think he was on the varsity football, basketball, and track teams all 3-years he was at Eastern Hills, meaning that he may have accumulated something on the order of 9 varsity letters.

This will be the second article that is substantially written by one of Roby’s 1964 classmates; however, I had some of my own experiences with Roby I wanted to relate. When I arrived at Meadowbrook 8th grade in fall 1958, Roby was already getting quite a bit of attention for his excellence in sports. The picture above was somewhat typical of the coverage he was getting in our school paper. I don’t know about other 1963s, but as an older kid, I was getting my craw full of Roby by the end of our Meadowbrook days. Yep, unvarnished jealousy!

For me, that age was about the first time I had noticed that it was possible that someone younger than me could possibly be better at sports than I was. And at Meadowbrook, it was Roby. Of course, during 7th grade at Richland Jr., I had already been introduced to the notion that someone my own age might be better than I…you see, I was the best athlete in the 6th grade…and that was the last time I was ever the best athlete at any school!

To add insult to my bruised adolescent ego, Roby was also fawned over by the girls of all the classes, both older and younger. Girls were just then becoming more important elements in my life. Good gracious, what a predicament. From my personal perspective Roby got an excessive amount of local press attention which I always thought was coming from the coaches…perhaps that was so, perhaps not—I don’t know.

There was no denying the kid was good at sports; a bit better at basketball than football, but not by much. However, he was also good at carrying himself on field and off. It would have been difficult for other kids that age to bear the amount of adulation he received without becoming an insufferable twerp, but Roby kept his head and humility remarkably well. As the team QB, he was a solid leader and a stellar punter who earned All District Honorable Mention recognition. The following, somewhat more sympathetic paragraphs are from one of his Class of 1964 classmates:

Roby joined us at Meadowbrook Elementary in the 5th grade. His parents lived in a restored farm house way out in the country, in far east Handley, but his parents had a thing about Handley and transferred their three sons to Meadowbrook as soon as they could.

Roby had two older brothers, Jack and Phil. Jack was short but gutsy, and Phil was an outstanding athlete – but Roby was the cream of the crop. Roby’s real name was Robert White Morris III, named after his father (and, I guess, grandfather). Roby’s dad was a Continental Trailways bus driver who was a genius at investments, especially land, and he took an energetic and particular interest in Roby’s athletic achievements – sometimes to Roby’s detriment. I remember his mother as a sweet and generous lady who adored her sons.

Roby was the Babe Ruth of our class – anything which involved physical coordination came naturally to him. He also was smart and good-looking, had a natural charm, and cared about people. The most popular girls and the dorkiest guys got the same treatment from Roby – his full attention. He was very popular, but in a distant sort of way. He always had his own mind.

In 9th grade, in the big game against Handley, Roby played both ways, broke for a long touchdown, and passed for the winning touchdown on a down-out-down to end Randy Blake. As a junior in high school Roby uncorked a 94 yard punt against Carter that tied! the national record. As mentioned before, he led us to a stupendous upset of Paschal in 1962 and a district championship.

But, it was as a basketball player in his senior year in high school that I will always remember him. If you needed a clutch basket, he got it. If you needed a timely steal, or the perfect pass, he did it. If you needed leadership, he supplied it.

All this is leading to the Best Basketball Play I Ever Saw (and at this writing, 2004, it’s been 40 years!). As the prelude, though, I have to describe what was going on in the 4A-5 district in the winter of 1963-64.

Poly High was loaded that year. They had Ronnie Stevenson at point guard (although we had never heard the term at the time), Tommy Horn at the other guard, Don Ballew at forward, Randy Hyde at forward, and big Gene (I’ve forgotten his last name – but he was a glandular case…huge) at center. They should have run away with the district title. 

  We played in district competition that year in two halves – we played each other once for the first half title, and then played each other again for the second half title. The winners of each half, if different, played each other for the district title. Poly won the first half going away.

Our coach was Johnny Howerton --- an intense, intense man who was a superb coach. He had played for, ironically, Poly High in their championship season of 1952-53. Our starters our senior year were Roby Morris at point guard, Duane Williams or Ward Ericson at the other guard, David Richardson and Wayne Templeton at forward, and Roy Burklow (a genuine character) at center. The latter three were our tallest players, at 6’2”.

I was involved in all this because, although tall by this time, I was remarkably uncoordinated (I still am – tall and uncoordinated) and was the manager for the team. A manager in 1964 threw out towels and kept score.

Our team won the second half because of three remarkable events: we almost beat Poly with Howerton’s weave offense (giving us the idea they could be beaten), Heights beat Poly, and we beat Heights.

It was against Heights that I made my major contribution for the year. As I said, the manager always kept score of the game, although the official score was kept by an adult in the employ of the Fort Worth public schools. With seconds to go in the Heights game, we were ahead by one point; Heights got the ball, and called time out. I looked at my score book, and Heights was out of time outs. I alerted Jack Billingsley, the official scorer. The Heights coach, Joe Prater, heard me and wheeled around. Coach Howerton jumped straight up. Both referees came running over to the official scorer. Mr. Billingsley looked at his score book, announced “He’s right!” Too many time outs called for a technical foul. Roby sank the technical; we got the ball out of bounds, made another shot, and won the game. Howerton gave me a big hug, but I don’t think the team ever had any idea what role I played in that win.

So, it came down to the playoff game for the district championship between Poly and Eastern Hills.

Poly came out hot and jumped to a 14-3 lead, largely on set shots from the top of the key by Stevenson. It got so ridiculous that Tommy Horn ran out to Stevenson, grabbed the ball from him, and sank his own set shot – he wanted some of the action.

Coach Howerton called time out. I don’t remember what he said, but it was uncharacteristically low-key. It worked, and the team came out to rally to 14-13. Then came The Play. Don Ballew flipped a long pass to the near sideline which Burklow intercepted and tossed to the middle in front of an alert and streaking Roby. Burklow came back in to fill the left lane, David Richardson took the right lane, and we had a classic 3-on-1 break against Stevenson. Roby feinted to his right, passed behind his back to Burklow, who hot-dogged a right-handed reverse layup for the lead. The crowd went nuts. We were never behind after that, and won the game 52-43.

I should explain that passing behind the back was unheard of in those days and frowned upon as a low-percentage play. Likewise the reverse layup – we had been trained to lay up with the left hand from the left side. Burklow was just being Burklow, as was Roby Morris.

Roby received two athletic scholarship offers – one to punt for Darrell Royal at Texas, and the other to play basketball at SMU. His brothers were already attending Texas, so we figured he would go there, but he chose SMU instead. His college career was average, but he majored in Chemistry and ended up with some big oil firm. He lived for awhile in Venezuela, then moved to Houston.

He has never attended any of our high school reunions. 

Adios

Link Hub – Elementary & Junior High Class Pictures

Meadowbrook Junior High  (1959, 1960, 1961, & 1962 - EH Classes of '62, '63, '64 & '65)

Handley Junior High

Meadowbrook Elementary

Tandy Elementary

Sagamore Hill Elementary

East Handley Elementary

West Handley Elementary

Little Elementary (now part of Arlington ISD)

Consider this page as a hub, similar to an airline hub where you can go directly to your destination in one jump. Due to the random nature with which reference material comes in and the random nature of things coming into my mind, a lot of information is scattered throughout this now massive blog.

Link to Meadowbrook Elementary Collage.

Various organization tools available through the Blogger software are useful, but require a bit more than a casual knowledge in order to get the most out of them. “Labels” will quickly find all articles I have flagged with a given term; the internal Google search will find all articles having the key words or names you select, and the “Archive” will take you to specific articles, but searching it is tedious due to the large number of articles.

Using the “quick links” you used to get to this page is efficient, but as you can see, putting too many of them in can clutter the side bar, ultimately making it much less useful (user friendly?). Using the links above will take you directly to that page and the page is internal to this blog which should result in no dead links—something I don't like in other web pages.

If this works well, I will apply the idea to other multi-page topics located in the blog. Remember, this page only deals with class pictures.

Note to Class of 1962 & 1964: Consider adding your class pictures and other material, if you have them—we knew you pretty well, too.

Dilbert - Marketing

A little harsh, maybe...not too far off about marketing, though.

Adios

Headlight - A Real "Game Changer"

Regular readers may recall that I don’t like to use clichés and that their overuse in popular media tends to make my skin crawl. This or that thing being proclaimed a “game changer” by some breathless, young TV talking head…well, you get the point. However, let me take a moment to share something I really do view as a “game changer.”

Had the heating tech out yesterday and ushered him into the bowels of the house where the heating beast resides…not much light in there. I was ready with a long power cord and bright work light, but the guy never asked for it!

When I checked in on him, I saw he was wearing the most amazing “game changer” I had seen in a long time. It was a small headband with a very bright LED light array attached to the center of his forehead. He was quietly and effectively working away with BOTH of his hands, a bright light shining wherever he looked, and absolutely oblivious to the fact that he was in our black hole of Calcutta.

This topic doesn’t need many words…if you work with your hands doing anything, you will immediately see the benefit. Cost: about $12 to $20 at your local home repair warehouse, uses 3 triple A batteries, life is about 15-hours or more, mine weighs just under 3 oz with batteries—hardly noticeable, light element section rotates downward so you can see what you are doing while sitting.

Caution: The added benefit of it throwing light where you are looking will also blind an innocent bystander, should you turn to look at them. On the other hand, most “innocent bystanders” are usually offering unsolicited advice about the job YOU are doing, so maybe the retina boiling beam will discourage those irritations, too.

Maybe these lights have been around for a long time and the rest of the world has long known of them, but then again, I haven’t spent much time browsing the fix ‘em up emporiums in recent years. Go get yourself one of these, or maybe 2 or 3….you will be pleased.

Adios

Dilbert - Apps & Creativity

Adios

Miss Fort Worth 1963 & 1964

George Bradford (Class of 1960), probably said it best in his reunion bio, “…To be able to go to a brand new high school was something that could only happen once at Eastern Hills. I thought that we had the best looking girls in Fort Worth and I was right.” To tell the truth, I don’t recall if any ’62 or ’61 Highlanders competed in the Miss Ft. Worth contest or not, but I did stumble across these two pictures of the 1963 and 1964 contestants. Eastern Hills contributed 2 of the final 12 contestants in 1963 and 2 in 1964. They were Celia Beall, Susan Begley, Shelia Ward, and Sharon Parks. Susan finished second and I don’t recall how Celia, Sharon, and Shelia came out.

After we left EH for college, Judy Hill was named the 1965 Maid of Cotton and Pam Shear finished second in the Miss Mohair pageant. George Bradford had it right…we did share the EHHS hallways with some of the best looking girls in Ft. Worth.

 
Adios

Computers & Fords

I don’t normally forward email jokes etc. around, but this one sent to me by a friend, is worth sharing.  For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

'If Ford had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.'

In response to Bill Gates's comments, Ford issued a press release, stating:

'If Ford had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash......... twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as in the old car.

10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off.

PS - I 'd like to add that when all else fails, you could call 'customer service' in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!!!!

Adios

Girl Scouts

These members of the Class of 1963 earned the Girl Scouts’ highest award, The Curved Bar, at the beginning of 9th grade at Meadowbrook. I think the Curved Bar was somewhat equivalent to the Eagle Scout award achieved by a few boys in each class.

Awarded the Girl Scouts’ Curved Bar pins were: Linda Barr, Nancy Barnes, Jeanette Barber, Nancy Lathrop, Francina Mason, Jametta Long, Susie Wadlington, Susan Hofmann, Janet Hooton, and Susan Begley.I recall Susie and Susan as being class scholars; Linda, Jeanette, Jametta, and Janet as being athletic; and the Nancy(s) were active with student publications.
Adios

Tom and Steve and Sam and Football

Eastern Hills was already a cohesive society when most of us arrived Fall 1960. The older classes of 1961 & 1962 had already been together for a year or two and the new school had already started to establish some of its first traditions. The first graduating Class of 1960 had just moved on to college, but their names still echoed in the hallways, classrooms, and locker room…Spain, Gregory, Bradford, and others. I didn’t know them, but the older ones did.

Before that, I found transferring into Meadowbrook as an 8th grade student somewhat difficult. It wasn’t so much a matter of finding acceptance as it was in trying to understand the existing relationships. And, if you were like me, Junior High was a pretty wretched time with its variety of social, academic, and athletic pressures.

One constant I saw at Meadowbrook Jr. Hi. that continued all of our years at Eastern Hills was a trio of accomplished football players that always were amongst our best—Tom Koebernick, Steve Means, and Sam Scott. In seeking older class pictures, something I’ve found intriguing has been discovering visual evidence of certain relationships that existed years before many of us joined this class. Tom, Steve, and Sam were one example.  

Tom Koebernick was a perennial favorite…we elected him to the class presidency twice at EHHS and at least that often at Meadowbrook JHS. Tom was a leader starting in the 1st grade at Meadowbrook Elementary and by the time we reached EHHS, electing him to office had become a 1963 class tradition. Over the course of those elementary school years, he developed friendships with a number of our future Class of 1963; some of the closest of them being, Steve Means, Bob Larmer, and Sam Scott. 

 
The pictures accompanying this article: The first picture was published in the Star-Telegram in 1956 above a caption telling of Sam and Tom scoring 90-points for the Meadowbrook Mavericks Peewee football team. Another picture shows Sam Scott’s father, Sam Scott II, wearing his Peewee football sweater…Sam Sr. was the team coach.

The 8th grade Meadowbrook Jr. Hi. team picture taken fall 1958 show Tom and Sam together. When those group pictures were organized, it was relatively common for friends to place themselves nearby one another. The 1952-53 second grade class picture shows an obvious affinity between Tom and Steve at an early time.

And below, perhaps the most remarkable picture of this small collection…the 1962 EHHS championship, first-string football defense showing Steve, Sam, and Tom in their positions. In addition to their having achieved starting positions on that first championship team, Sam was named to the All-District 4A-5 team; Steve and Tom were named All-District Honorable Mentions.

Further, these kids were not dumb jocks; Tom and Steve graduated with Magna Cum Laude honors, while Sam graduated Cum Laude. The coaches and local newspapers frequently commented on how smart this team was and here is one example of it. Neat story, isn’t it?

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1962 EHHS vs. Dallas Samuell Publicity

During the week leading up to the first foray EH made into the State football playoffs, the Star Telegram and Fort Worth Press writers and photographers spent quite a bit of time at the school gathering special interest stories and pictures. These are some of those pictures featuring some of the team players and lovely young ladies from our Senior and Junior classes.

Featured are Shelia Ward, Pam Shear, Mike Moore, Sam Scott, Jackie Howe, Tom Koebernick, Ted Harris, Mollie Howell, Julie Hudson, Susan Begley, Judy Hill, Phil Nixon, and Bill Winkler.

As one of the headlines shows, our strength was significantly cut by injuries. In addition to the loss of David Bane and Gene Cartwright, we also lost Ted Harris and Tom Koebernick at the corners and Sam Scott was weak, recovering from the flu. The final result was 0-7 which was a bit of a blessing, given the talent mismatch made worse by the injuries.

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Early EHHS - Poly - Handley Class Rings

Thought it might be a good idea to post some good quality images of our class rings when I can find good quality files online. I'm looking for a Handley ring to round out this post; then it will show an early EHHS ring along with some contemporary pictures of rings from the 2 schools that contributed some or all of their student populations to form EHHS.

Balfour made the Poly ring while Haltoms made the EHHS ring shown.

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Day the Music Died

Steve Jobs died recently and that’s a shame. The shame is that he only got 56-years; the blessing was that they were very good years. Our own Steve has been gone for 6-years now and he got 4-years more than did Steve Jobs. Just pondering….

The purpose of this posting is not to eulogize someone I didn’t know. Except for a project on the other side of the earth where an Apple computer was all that was available, I’ve not used any of his company’s products. The purpose of this posting is to suggest that when the music stops, one’s opportunity to sing along also stops. What does Gus mean?

Gus respectfully suggests that when he asks you to contribute a picture or scan of something for the Highlander blog he thinks you may have, maybe while the music is still playing, you could find a minute or two to send Gus what he requested. We’ve already gotten 11-more years than Steve Jobs got, so who knows how much longer we have? Could be a lot; could be lights out tomorrow.

What do you say? And for those of you who think no response is a legitimate response, let me suggest that it is not. It’s just bad-mannered.


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Dilbert - Servers Down

Scott Adams has nailed it again. When bankers buy a company, they usually have a 5-year horizon to "add value" and improve EBIT "matrices" before they dump their "financially engineered" creation off to another group of moneyed morons. Watch the old Wall Street film, ("greed is good") for a dramatization of what I'm talking about.

Generally, they have little clue about how the companies they purchase do their thing, but do know from the starting balance sheet that they can't screw things up so badly that it implodes before they dump it within their 5-year window.  In the meantime, they install a temporary "management team" of revolving door flunkies to watch over their pillaging of the company and do what they must to keep the bones together during that 5-year window.

Invariably, leaders similar to Dilbert's Pointy-Haired boss are installed at key positions and given the charge to reduce their “headcounts.”  One of the commonalities these pointy-haired leaders share is an almost manic drive to avoid taking responsibility for any of the technology being used by their “headcounts.”  To their underlings…the ones who are often responsible for the success of the enterprise the bankers bought…these new leaders are viewed as empty suits, which they often are.  Adams has captured one small glimpse of this dynamic very well indeed.

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Same Space, Different Time

Sixty years separate these pictures...note the shades descending from Truman's new porch on the left.  The kid has no clue about the significance or history of the place, nor I suspect, do most of those on the right.  However, the 29-year old man on the far left understood the place very well.

Dad had been recalled to the Air Force during the Korean War and the picture was taken during a working trip to the Pentagon.  Six years earlier, he was in the air over occupied Europe flying with the Eighth Air Force bomber streams.  He saw over 40 airplanes go down nearby him, came home, went to college, worked  a couple of years for a power company, and here he was in Washington.  Better than anyone else in the pictures, he understood the history and significance of the place.

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