MY BOOK ………….LILAGCS B4 - 19

Wednesday June 27, 2012

continued………

My College Years

Freshman Year

I can remember beginning my classes. I had English, Speech and History on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays and every afternoon I had art classes. Somewhere in there I had a Psychology class also.

I had to take English, History and Speech as a freshman. Fortunately, as an Art major I had no math, foreign language or science requirement. I was very glad because it meant I would have a lot less reading to do.

Most of my classes my freshman year were located in the Old Main building pictured below. I had my English and all my art classes in Old Main.

Freshman English Class

My English class, I soon discovered to my pleasure, was English Literature and we were going to be studying Shakespeare's play Macbeth. My senior year of high school we also studied Macbeth for almost an entire semester. My high school English Literature instructor was Mrs. Farmer, one of my favorite classmate's mother. (note: I spent a lot of time at the Farmer's house visiting and practice dancing with my classmate.) I picked up a lot of the Macbeth information by just having that interest. I even memorized Macbeth's soliloquy that was one of the best things I could have done

Every time our instructor would ask a question, I had my hand up with a response. I had taken good notes in my high school class and was able to actually read them pretty well. Actually I had memorized most of the questions and in a short time I had the instructor that I was an expert in Shakespeare

One day she had to leave the classroom, she turned to me and said "Mr. Logan, will you please come up here and monitor the class for about a half hour?" WOW I was flattered.

Needless to say I got a very good grade in English Literature that semester. The second semester was basically just subjective writing which I had no trouble with because I had no questions to read and answer. I was just expressing things in my own words. My only downfall was my spelling, but fortunately she was more interested in content than spelling...I lucked out again.

American History

History was a different story. The class was held in a very large lecture hall and there must have been 100 students. The instructor stood in from and lectured on the subject assigned the day before. My inability to read caused me to do very poorly. I think I got a "D" fortunately I didn't flunk.

 

Speech Class

My freshman speech class was very interesting. The instructor was a woman and she informed us we would have class Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But also on Tuesday we would have a television lecture in a large auditorium.

          

Somewhere I was told that the TV lectures didn't count too much on our grade so I choose not to attend the TV lectures after the first one. I remember we would be assigned a subject and take turns giving the speeches in front of the class according to the number we had drawn at the beginning of the semester. I was number 7.

Based on the kind if subject and the type of speech, we usually only were able to do 5 speeches a day. I remember this one week my subject was "Why we should eat a good breakfast" (I never ate breakfast.) We were to start on Monday with speeches and I figured I would not be called on until Wednesday of that week so I was not prepared at all on Monday.

 

Interestingly 3 of the first 5 students were absent that Monday so that meant I was going to have to give my speech. As the first 3 students gave their speeches I sat there preparing my speech as best I could. The speeches were supposed to be in oration form meaning I need to follow an outline and script. I got up and did an extemporaneous speech and was given an "A" for the speech. From then on I never prepared a speech the prober way again that semester.

That's not all, remember the Tuesday TV lectures? I had been getting A's and B's on all my classroom speeches and at mid-term the instructor handed out grade to date. I looked at my paper she handed me and it indicated I had a D.

I waited until after class and went up to her and asked why I got a D when all my speeches had been A’s and B’s. She turned to me and said that unlike the other speech instructors; she gave 50% of our grade based on our scores on the Tuesday TV lectures. There was always a quiz at the beginning of the TV lecture based on the previous weeks lecture. Oh my gosh what was I going to do this late in the semester?

I asked her if there was anything I could do to bring up my grade. She looked at me and after a period of silence she said that if I was to enter into the upcoming intercollegiate speech contest and do well it might influence my grade.

                          

I had no choice, I entered the speech contest. The only category left open was the oration speech category. This meant I had to prepare an outline and basically read my speech. I had spent a lot ot time in high school working with Graphology and had done a term paper on the subject. I prepared my simple outline and when I stood up in front of the judges.

I acted as if I were reading the speech but I actually exempted the whole thing. I was awarded a "Superior" rating for my speech on Graphology and ended up getting a B+ in my freshman speech class that semester.

All the rest of my classes that semester were art classes and the head of the art department made the announcement that as long as we handed in all of our assignment at the end of the semester we were not require to attend class if we chose not to attend.

I attended some of the classes but eventually just worked on my other subjects and never thought to much about not attending the art classes. I was able to hand in my assignments at the end of the semester and got all as for them.

I might mention that one of my classmates was a boy named Larry Lumas, who went on to be a very good "Free Lance" Artist in Des Moines, Iowa. I ended up using some of his work through an ad agency in Des Moines.

Extracurricular Activities

my First Semester

Freshman Year

I like to remember the feeling of "Freedom" I had the first weekend after I had attended my first week of classes. I remember waking up in my Julian Hall dorm room and thinking...I can do anything I want to do.

My first activity was to go for a walk to downtown Vermillion then I took a walk around the USD campus. In the late 50s the campus was pretty small. It didn't take too long to cover the whole campus. I remember I ended up at the Student union where I purchased a hamburger and a soft drink. As I left the student union I stopped and read some of the announcements on the billboard outside of the eating area. There was a notice asking that anyone interested in training on the campus radio station to go to the 5th floor and submit an application.

I had done a little radio work in high school on KAYL, the Storm Lake radio station so I figured it might be fun to check it out so up to the 5th floor I trotted.

When I got there I was told that quite frankly they didn’t have enough Radio/TV majors to participate in the night training classes offer to radio/TV majors. So I was told to come back the next evening to start. It took 3 people each evening and my group was scheduled for Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

We would take turns editing the news from the associated press teletype machine to give on the newscasts, select music to play and run the control board we called simply "the board". We were to follow a preset script format. The first hour was Semi-Classics the next 2 hours was modern classics and the last hour was popular music that was called "Campus Bandstand".

The program was called "Carrier Current" and was a closed circuit program that had enough power to carry over most of the town of Vermillion and maybe some surround areas. I ask my roommate, Denny to record the program so I could hear how I sounded. I would return to our dorm room all excited about what I was doing there on the radio station and would share it with Denny.

                             

After 2 weeks, Denny decided he wanted to also participate. He went up and got put on Tuesdays and Thursdays with two other people in his group. Each night when we came home we would be so excited about what we were doing at the radio station. It didn't take too many more days until we decided to ask the station manager if we could combine our efforts and talents and be together on 3 nights a week,, Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. We drafted up our own schedule and format and presented it to him.

He approved and we were off and running. The station was an educational station and there were no commercials.

We observed that the station would receive new releases of records mostly 45 records and they were the Rock and Roll songs of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holey and recording artists like Fats Domino plus all the currently popular Rock and Roll musicians. The people at the station would automatically throw them into the waste basket.

Denny and I started rescuing them and it didn't take long to build up a good selection of the popular Rock and Roll songs. In our reformatting of the night’s program we changed the format to 1 hour of semi-classics and the rest of the evening till midnight devoted to "Campus Bandstand" . Denny and I decided we wanted a different name so we came up with the "Denny and Dave" Show. Not only did we play music we did impersonations and pattered our show after the "Bob and Ray" show.

I made up posters and hung them up all over campus but our listening audience was not growing much. I was about then that the radio station was changing from the old 78 records to the long play records and 45s.

                 

There were 4 stacks of old 78 records in the office ready to be hauled to the dump. Denny and I took them all to our dorm room which was just across the street. We then decided to come up with a call-in quiz program and give 5 old 78 records away for each right answer.

                     

We promoted this quiz program with the on campus posters and in the school newspaper, Denny talked his girlfriend into coming up and answering the phone for us, which she did.

We started getting so many calls that we could barely keep up. We had a lot of fun and gain a lot of experience at the same time.

                                       

Once a year the station would run what was called a power check. They would broadcast at full power which was 1,000 watts at night to check and see how far the signal carried. The "Denny and Dave Show" was selected to run the power check. We eventually got a postcard from someone in southern California that had received the program that night.

The Denny and Dave Show Dance

One of the most interesting things that we did was sponsor the "Denny and Dave Show" dance and had a live broadcast from the dance.

Now keep in mind, this was basically before remote control was used and we figured out our own "remote control". the radio station was on the 5th floor of the memorial union building and there was a large dance floor on the 4th floor. We put our heads and brains together and decided to drop microphones out the window down to the 4th floor and it worked!

                 

                                      

There was a group of music majors that were trying to form a musical group and we invited them to play live music at our dance. Before the "Denny and Dave Show" the USD Symposiums didn’t exist at the dace they preformed their first show and we helped them get started.

MY BOOK ……….LILAGCS B4 - 18

Monday June 25, 2012

My College Years

1959 to 1961

The University of South Dakota

Vermillion, South Dakota

USD College (2 years)

Things I Remember: College at USD

Sometime during my last year of high school, I made the decision to apply for admission to the University of South Dakota. A friend of mine had been a big influence on my decision. This friend was a good acquaintance of the Dean of Men, (Howard Connors) there at USD.

   Dean if Men USD Howard Connors

I remember that when I was applying, I had gone to visit the campus and I had met Dean Connors at that time. I had thought that I would major in psychology.

 

Time came for me to pack for college. My parents drove me to Vermillion, South Dakota the week that we were supposed to be there. I don’t remember the specific ways that I knew the dorm room that I was given, but I think when I received my letter of acceptance to the University I was also assigned a dorm room number.

   Denny Williams and my dorm room

When I got to Vermillion, South Dakota I was so excited. The dorm I was to live in was called Julian Hall. I recall we moved all of my belongings into the room. Shortly after I was all moved in, my roommate arrived. His name was Denny Williams and he was from Sioux City, Iowa. We got acquainted in a short time. I also remember that right across the hall was a boy that was from Spencer, Iowa. His name was Dick Latch. His roommate was also from Iowa, Smithland, Iowa.

My memories of Julian hall and events that took place my first year are many.

I am going to just write as I think of them and try to keep them in some sort of order.

                Julian Hall our dormitory

                                      

My First Year Fall of 1959

Tom Lewis …. Tom was a black boy that I met very soon after I moved in to Julian hall. He was crippled from polio as I remember. He was a very funny person, always clowning around. I spent many hours in his room listing to him and just chatting with others.

My roommate Denny and I got along very well. He had a girl friend. I had preregistered as a psychology major but changed it to an art major and, of course, had to sign up for all my required courses. I remember that the requirements for an art major were much less than many others. There was no math, science or foreign language requirement to graduate with an art degree.

Denny was a business major and he was from Sioux City, Iowa not too far away. (about 30 miles).

His dad was the manager of Lincoln Feed and Seed Company located downtown Sioux City. He had one brother that was still at home. I don’t remember too much about his mother except she was a very nice lady.

I recall waking up the first morning after my parents had left me there. The feeling of “being FREE” from all my home rules was really different. I can really remember the strange feeling I had the first morning I woke up in my dorm room. I was “Free” and on my own. It was a strange feeling at first, but it didn’t take me long to get use to it. I could go anywhere or do anything I wanted at any time I wanted to.

We had a dining cafeteria in Julian Hall where we ate and our dorm was directly across from the student union where we could go to get snacks and the like.

The first Christmas was the first time that we returned home, and I was never “homesick” for the 3 or 4 months between when we arrived and the Christmas vacation.One very interesting story came out of our first return venture. It was Denny that brought an electric “hot dog” machine back with him that he had received from his parents for a Christmas present. Next is the story………

The Hotdog Machine

                                      

After we returned from Christmas the first year, Denny brought an electric hotdog maker that he had gotten from his parents. You could attach a hotdog to each end by two carbon pointed rods. Plugging it in completed the electrical circuit and would cook the hotdog.

We lived directly across the street from the student Memorial Union that served Hamburger sandwiches and many other short order things. Each evening about 8 PM they would cook hamburgers and bring them to the dorm to sell. I think they sold for 20 cents.

Denny and I got the idea of going into business with our hotdog machine. We went to the store and purchased a couple of packages of uncooked hotdogs and fresh hotdog buns, a bottle of ketchup and a jar of mustard.*

We started by going around to our friends on our floor of the dorm. Before we knew it we were so busy making and selling hotdogs because we sold them for 15 cents, 5 cents less than the hamburgers being sold by the Student Union.

We had to quit because we were not getting our studying done. We each earn 10 dollars from the hotdog sales profit.

* We purchased buns, hot dogs and condiments at a local grocery store each afternoon before evening!

 

MY BOOK……….LILAGCS B2 - 17

 Tuesday June 26, 2012

My First Job

I wasn’t sure where to place this Blog since it actually started while I was in high school. After great consideration I decided that I could place it at the end of my High School Years and add this explanation. This job came before I started college which will be my next section.

Job with Wilber Winchell in 1957

I had worked in the summertime for the individual contractor that had built our house that we moved into during my sophomore year of High School. I need to insert this job here so here it is.

When I was still in high school about a sophomore, we had moved to a new house on the corner of 13^th and Gishwiller in Sac City. The new house was built by a contractor that Mom and Dad had gotten acquainted with a year or two before.

After we were moved in to the new house, dad noticed that Wilber (that was the man’s first name) was in the process of building another house a few blocks north on 13^th street and approached Wilber and asked him if he could use any additional help with the construction of the house.

                                            

Wilber said that he usually hired school age kids to help him but the one that had been working in the past was not home from college yet. He said that I could help him by painting the outside of the house so that is when I got my first job.

Wilber was an interesting man. Wilber always had a pipe hanging out of his mouth so it was very difficult to understand him when he spoke. I always had to say “Huh?” To everything he said. That is why I formed a habit to say “huh” to anything anybody said and I still do to this time.

I had not worked too long before the other boy finished his year at college and joined us. His name was Jerry and we got along very well.

After the painting was finished outside, Wilber had be try my hand at doing finishing work like cutting and applying the wood trim around the doors and the other placed that required wood trim.

                                

Before I knew it I was working everyday from about 6AM until dark which was sometimes as late as 9PM. I forgot how much I was paid, but it was around $1.50 and hour, I think. It was more than $20 a day usually.

                    

After we finished the house I had started to work with, Wilber had already started another house. He did that all summer. He would get the houses framed up and Jerry and I would usually take it from there. I got a lot of construction experience that would stay with me my entire life.

Wilber actually did everything except dig the hole for the house’s basement. He did the brick laying, the electrical work, the plumbing and yard finishing work. I got a very good education working for Wilber.

The beginning of the third summer Wilber was very slow at contacting me to work for him. That is the summer I started painting signs. My dad was president of the Sac City Little League Association. The Association had gathered funds top build a wooden outfield fence and planned to have advertising painted on the 4’ X 8’ plywood panels. To help finance the fence, they had hired a local sign painter, “Buzz” Corderman to paint the signs. They soon discovered he was not going very fast. He would paint one panel then disappear for a few days.

                             

They soon learned about his love of wine and that was when Dad approached me and asked me to try painting the panels.

                            

By then I was in art at the University of South Dakota. That is when my sign painting business started and I will cover it in more detail when I write about the family business mom and I started in 1962...The Story of DaLe Monogramming & Signs.

See the complete DaLe story later in this book writing.

                                 

We shingled a lot of houses during my experience working with Wilber!

MY BOOK ……..LILAGCS B - 16

Sunday June 24, 2012

Going To High School

12^th Grade – Senior Year

What can I say about my last year in High School? Kelley Hoskins was my locker mate for the fifth year (That is something neither of us has ever forgotten and we are now 70 years old!)

We also won the “Red Jug” for the best homecoming skit for the fourth year in a row. Dave McCauley and I wrote most of it with a lot of help from others in the class.

I may have forgotten to mention it, but during my early high school years I wanted to learn to dance. I wanted to be “popular” ha! ha!

I remember I asked my mother how I could be popular and she told me that boys that could play the piano or dance were always popular when she was in high school. I couldn’t play the piano and it would take too long to learn so I decided dancing was the best choice.

I was at a “Sock-Hop” after one of our football games and I asked Paul Laughin to teach as he seemed to be a good dancer. He agreed and that is how I started dancing. Well, that was at the beginning of the “Rock and Roll” era and all the tunes were Rock and Roll type music. During 10^th and 11^th grade I developed quite a reputation as a good Rock and Roll dancer.

My partners were many of my female classmates and  all together we won over 80 dance contests. I would Toss the girl over my head and all sorts of gyrations.

One time during my senior year we had the opportunity to travel to the Roof Garden, a very popular dance ballroom located in Arnold’s Park at Lake Okoboji. They were going to have a State Dance Contest for fast (Rock & Roll) and slow (Waltz) music.

The dance started and slowly couples were eliminated. My partner and I together with another couple were selected to “dance-off” to see who would be selected as the winner. The selection was made by the audience clapping. We had 3 times the selection and tied all three times. The other male was very good and he looked to be Asian (Hawaiian) maybe. After the fourth dance off they won. My partner and I got second place.

Note of interest: 4 months later I was watching the Lawrence Welk Show on television and Lawrence introduced a couple who had won a nation “Rock & Roll Dance competition. It was the same fella I had danced against at the Roof Garden. I felt good that I had gotten second place up against the National Champion! (Special note, Bobby Burgess, the famous dancer on the Lawrence Welk Show was a fraternity brother of Paul Laughin, the one who taught me to dance.)

Well so much for my senior year of High School. In May of 1959 we graduated and all went our separate ways, some went  to college, or to a job and Paul Laughin and Kelley Hoskins decided to go to California. I read more and refer you to Kelley’s comment in the Memory Book we got at our 50^th class reunion.

MY BOOK……….LILAGCS B - 15

Saturday June 23, 2012

continue……..

Going To High School

11^th Grade……Junior Year

Editor’s Note: I didn’t have any photographs for this Blog so it is only text about the 11th grade year.

Going into 11^th grade meant we were only one year away from our last year of high school. We had a very unique class. The class was made up of 58 students and we had 13 straight A students. This was unusual to have that many straight A students in one class of that size.

It made it very difficult for me especially. I was in the top third of my class in Spencer but when I started at Sac City I was struggling to stay in the top half of the class. When teacher’s graded on the curve it mad it especially difficult for me because most of the straight A students were in the classes that I was in. The classes would range from 20 to 30 students. So figure it out yourself. I was always fighting to stay in the grade “C” level when the grading was done on the curve.

With my special way of learning by rote, I managed to figure out ways to overcome that challenge.

Our class was a very strong academic group and we were also very conceited about it, as I said before .

A Few of our Instructors

Some of the instructors that I remember were; Mrs. Farmer, our English Literature teacher, Lowell Perry, our History teacher, Dana Wall, our English grammar teacher, Mr. Wallinga, our science teacher, Mrs. Earheart our math teacher, Mr. Ole, Our Civics teacher to name a few.

I’ m not sure if I got all of their subject correct and some of them we had in both our junior and senior years.

I remember Mr. File, our vocal music teacher and Mr. Marshall our instrumental music teacher. I had trouble playing a record player so I was not in the instrumental music classes but I did like to sing,

All State Choir

I remember that each Thanksgiving time we had the opportunity to try out for “All State Choir”. If we made it we got to go to Des Moines over the Thanksgiving vacation and participate in the “All State Choir Program”.

Well I really wasn’t that good as a singer, but I tried out with 3 others I remember I was the bass, Dick Schram (sp) was the tenor, LuRay Sharp was the soprano and I cannot remember who our alto was. (I think it was Shirley Larson)

This was the tryout which was an honor just to get selected. I remember singing in front of the judges and I was standing next to LuRay. I started shaking so bad she had to help steady the sheet of music I was holding. We were not among those selected to go to “All State”, but it was fun to say that we got to try out.

Our Science Club

I think our junior year was the year that I was selected as president of our science club. I remember that David McCauley and I made Lithium by electrolysis. We took Lithium oxide, I think it was, and by electrolysis we created a very small amount of pure Lithium. Now that might not mean too much unless you realize that Lithium is more volatile than either pure sodium or potassium. If you throw pure sodium of potassium into water, It literally explodes. That is definitely something I remember.

Building and Launching a Rocket ship

Now talking about exploding has triggered my memory to another event that had an explosive result. I always had a chemistry lab, I called it, down in the basement. During these days of school you were able to purchase all of the chemicals to make gun powder, Charcoal, Sulphur and Potassium Nitrite. I was able to purchase this item at the local Sac City Drug store run by a Mr. Wilson

I was experimenting with those chemicals to produce fuel for a small rocket ship that I was building. I took a “spent” skyrocket tube and with the nosecone of a plastic model airplane and some balsa wood wings I formed I created my rocket ship. Keep in mind, this is just a short time before they outlawed making your own rocket ships from solid fuel like gun powder.

I had this rocket ship all ready to launch and my parents were not home when I had a small accident. I was testing my gunpowder formulation and I accidentally caught my backup rocket ship on fire and it streamed across the basement where I had my chemistry table. It ended up in the corner where our fuel oil barrel was located.

Fortunately I was able to put my foot on it and get it extinguished before any more damage took place. I think the smoke came from the fuel that had too much Sulphur in its mixture created a total smoke screen in the basement.

I opened the basement windows to get the smoke out and found out later that our neighbors, the Stoltings, noticed the smoke coming out the basement windows and almost called the fire department. They didn’t, however because they knew I was experimenting with my home-made rocket fuel.

I was more careful after that. I did continue on to launch my home made rocket. I took a common doorbell button, connected it to a dry cell battery and hooked the wire ends to a flashbulb (That was back when we used flashbulbs for the portable light source when taking photographs.) I made the wires I connected to the flashbulb long enough that I could get down behind a barricade for safety when I launched the rocket.

I placed a pencil down the center of a spent sky rocket tube and packed my home made rocket fuel down around the outside of the pencil and the side of the sky rocket tube. I made a fast burning fuse from the gun powder mixture and placed the fuse down the center of the rocket tube after removing the pencil. I then positioned he rocket ship over the flash bulb so then the flash went off it would ignite the fuse to the rocket.

I knew I needed a witness so if I recall correctly I talked Tom Wellindorf, a fellow classmate over to witness the event.

I had a stop watch ready to time the rocket as it left the ground and hoped I could track it to see where it landed. I knew there was a physics formula that I could use to determine how high it traveled.

One thing II forgot to do. I forgot to install a parachute for its decent and I didn’t think about where it would come down.

Well Tom and I got down behind our barricade and started the countdown. We came to “0” and I hit the doorbell button….there was a short pause after the flash bulb went off and “swish” off went the rocket. I kept track on my stop watch, Soon the smoke trail went out of sight. A few seconds later we saw the smoke trail come down as the rocket returned to the ground.

There was one big problem. The rocket came down about 2 blocks from where it was launched and it came down in the yard of a family with 6 kids out playing in the yard. I located the rocket stuck about 4 inches in the ground less than 5 feet from the side of their house.

I wasn’t long at all after that launch that homemade rockets of that nature were banned.

The only other thing that stands out in my memories is the junior/senior prom when I was asked to be the master of ceremonies. There were some things that happened there that I can’t really share with you, but I made a big Boo-Boo in my attempt to be humorous.

MY BOOK,,,,,,,,,,LILAGCS B2 - 14

Friday  June 22, 2012    

Going to High School     

My sophomore year 10th Grade 

Meeting Father Tolan

Editor’s Note:  Father Tolan was a Right Reverend Monsignor but he asked me to call him Father

That was the only time Caye and I managed to get together I finally had to quit writing to her because it was starting to affect my school grades. That is when I met Father Tolan, the little league baseball coach that I use to dread because he was always talking loud and hollering at the players and I was not use to that kind of a coach.

Below is the only Photograph that I have of Father Tolan

                                                                                       

Father Tolan uses to spend a lot of time watching us play basketball at the high school gym and we actually became good friends. He gave me lots of tips about how to be a better basketball player.

He came out of his parsonage one afternoon as I was walking home from school. His home was very close to where I lived and I would walk past his home on the way home. He saw I was really troubled about something and came up and ask me what was wrong.

    

The famous “Fireplug” where I became friends with Father Tolan

I broke down and told him the whole story right there by the fireplug on the corner near his place. We became close friends after that.

As I mentioned above I had actually gotten acquainted with Father Tolan through my basketball playing in high school. There were 4 or five of us including one Jewish boy that use to go over to Father’s place after Friday night basketball games instead of out carousing around like some of the others. We would verbally replay the games at his place and watch his color TV while having Pepsi and popcorn.

                      
Pepsi, Popcorn and Color 1960 Television Set

Father taught me a lot about growing up. He had sayings like “The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions” and always made sure we showed respect when somebody did something nice to us like taking us out to eat.

Father was very ecumenical and didn’t ever mention anything about religion except that we should go to our own church and Sunday school every week.

                    Strawberries & Ice Cream

 

My brother Jim played baseball for him and we attended most of the ball games. After every game, Father Tolan would always come over to our house for strawberries and ice cream. He would come over in his T-shirt and just really enjoy himself.

My dad was always pretty straight forward about everything and ask him one time why a catholic priest would come over to a protestant’s home like he did all the time. Father answered by telling dad that at our house he didn’t’ feel like he had to be a priest. (Whatever that meant).

Father was the first one to ever take me to a fancy restaurant. I remember he took two other boys and me to “The Gold Coast Restaurant” in Fort Dodge, Iowa one night. I had never been to a restaurant like that before. He would also take us to basketball tournament games in Carroll, Iowa at the Catholic high school

 Below is a Photo of the Wall Drug Store in the

Black Hills of South Dakota

                                    .

  

Other photos from our trip to the Black Hills

One time he took another protestant boy and myself on a trip to the Black Hills where we met my blind uncle that was a chiropractor in Bella Fourche, South Dakota and stopped  at Father’s aunt’s farm near Wall, South Dakota. Father never did anything to make me disrespect him, ever.

I must say that I had some challenges with my dad’s mother, Grandma Logan. She was very narrow-minded when it came to Catholics. She wouldn’t even walk on the same side of the street as the Catholic Church she was so narrow-minded.

One weekend afternoon after one of my brother’s little league games Grandma Logan was visiting. Our phone rang and I answered. It was Father Tolan and he asked if he could come over for strawberries and ice cream. I had already told him about her narrow-minded attitude toward Catholics but he insisted. He asked me if I thought he should wear what he always did (T-shirt etc.) or his priest’s habit. I told him that it was up to him.

About 15 minutes, the front doorbell rang. (Usually Father always came in through our side kitchen door). It was father in his black habit and white collar. I opened the door and he made a bee-line right to my Grandma Logan who was sitting on the couch across from the front door.

He started taking to her and before the strawberries and ice cream were done they had discovered that both he and Grandma and some of her widowed lady friends all went down to the same place in McAllen, Texas about the same time in December and that the following December they were all going to be there at the same time.

Well there was a turn of events and attitude, to say the least. Father took Grandma and her friends out to eat and from that day forward you didn’t say anything bad against Catholics in front of her again. I don’t know what they talked about, but he had changed her narrow-minded attitude.

 

Father and my good high school friend Terry had advised me to forget about the girl in Eagle Grove which I was able to do without too much trouble and my sophomore year ended.  I was relieved to have gotten out of the girlfriend situation and my grades started getting better as well as my attitude.

Remember last year as freshman we had won the “Red Jug” at homecoming for the best homecoming skit? Well we won it again our sophomore year.

We were a conceited class “We were good and if you didn’t believe us .....just ask anyone of us and we would tell you that we were the best class ever to graduate from Sac City High School (The next year 1960 the school name was changed on the diploma’s to Sac Community High School)

 

 

MY BOOK..........LILAGCS B2 13b)

Wednesday June 20, 2012

Going To High School

Special insert from 10th Grade Memories

I just got an email from (Pranger) Don Kingfield that reminded me of another incident that happened during one of our basketball games in 10^th grade (I think it was when we were sophomores) It was one of the most exciting and funniest things we ever did. Chuck Jons and Ronny Barlett were both players at that time and Sammy Long was our coach.

We had an out-of-town game in Harlan, Iowa. I remember I went as a second string substitute and played on the junior varsity team. Some of the others that I remember that were basketball players were Paul Laughin Don Kingfield (he was the only sophomore that played varsity, as I recall) There were also other Sac City students attending the game one in particular was Dave McCauley.

I recall this happened before our game started, I think there was another game that had to finish before we were to play. The gym was located in the Harlan high school building and for some reason the door that gave us access to all of the classrooms in the building was left unlocked. Dave McCauley and I (not sure who else was with us, I think Paul Laughin) started exploring the different areas of the classrooms. We came to a room that all the dramatic arts props were kept for past plays. After rummaging around in the room we discovered an old mummy case propped up against the wall.

We got our heads together and decided we would play a trick on some of the Varsity players. So we put one of the students that was with us in the mummy case and closed the cover (I think it was Paul). We told him that we were going down to where the basketball games were played to bring the other unsuspecting players, who were watching the other game, up to show them what we had found.

I remember that two of the players we brought up were Chuck Jons and Ronny Barlett.

We tried to be as unsuspecting as we could as we lead these guys through the hallways and up to the third floor where the prop room was located.

As we searched through the room eventually we came to this strange looking mummy case. One of us started to open the case when it popped open, with Paul’s help and you have never in your life seen two more surprised people in your life as Chuck and Ronny. (Note: keep in mind that Ronny had steel brace on his leg from polio that he had when he was a young boy. He was able to play basketball even with this brace. He was out the door of the prop room faster than anyone I could ever imagine, running faster than Chuck even with the steel brace. Once we caught up to them and explained what we had done things worked out all right. This event made the “Sentinel” (Our section of the Sac Sun Newspaper for school stuff) We got a talking to from the principal, Mr. Rutherford and that was the only consequence as I recall. It was very funny as we looked back on it.

Thank you so much Don for reminding me about that memory

MY BOOK……….LILAGCS B2 - 13

Tuesday June, 19, 2012
continued…………

Going to High School

My sophomore year

 

Sac City High School Building

Going into 10th grade meant I was going to be a Sophomore in high school. I am racking my memory to try and place some things in order. I remember specifically that I was a sophomore when mom and dad purchased our first television. I think I talked about that in a prior Blog when Kelley Hoskins sparked my memory about the TV set.
I am not sure what part of the year it was, but mom and dad also purchased our first house when I was a sophomore. (1957) see below:
 
                                                                                          Our first house in Sac City
I also now remember that I was active in our MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) and about 6 of us decided to go to church camp located up on West Lake Okoboji. It was our local Methodist church camp (the one we attended) and my grandfather’s sister, Matilda (aunt Matilda, I called her) owned a small cabin that was located with in the camp’s area. She would allow MYF students to occupy her cabin during the summer camping days.
A previous Sac City Methodist Pastor before I moved to Sac City also owned a small cabin in the same area of the camp as my great aunt Matilda. He had moved to Eagle Grove, Iowa from Sac City.
As we prepared to travel north from Sac City to the camp on Okoboji we were all excited because there were going to be three towns that would be sending MYF students to our same cabin. They were from Eagle Grove, Algona and Sac City.
                                                           
 Views of Lake Okoboji
We arrived there at the cabin first and waited for the ones from Eagle Grove and Algona. The 2 cars caring the kids from the other two locations arrived

                                                                                                                  
                                             Church MYF Members at Church Camp
As they filed from the cars into the cabin, one of the girls caught my eye as someone that I knew. She came directly up to me and said; “ Don’t I know you?” I replied without blinking an eye; “Yes, I kissed you in the cloak closet in 3rd grade at Reynolds grade school in Spencer, Iowa.” (See comment in the 3^rd Grade Section)
I was correct and we became inseparable the rest of the time at camp. We were always together during the classes and at meal time. In the cabin, the boys slept in the converted garage and the girls slept in the cabin. There was always the pastor and a girl’s chaperone present.
It was very difficult when camp was over to say goodbye. I remember my grandmother came up to the camp from Spencer to pick me up to take me back to her house in Spencer. The girl, Caye, and I wrote letters back and forth all the time. I became very stressed because I had no transportation to drive to Eagle Grove to see her.
 
One time, we attended a dance at WOI-TV in Ames, Iowa that was patterned after the national dance telecast “Bandstand”.
 
                                       
                                              Betty Lou McVay
It was called “Sixteen” and hosted by Betty Lou McVay, (also she was originally Mary Lou Varnum, a previous family name) a kids program called “The Magic Window”  and Dick Green another WOI-TV program host. We danced and people back in Sac City watched us on television. We had a great time.