Memories - an open commentary

jeanne boyer
As I said ....  we were the luckiest generation.  I loved the bit about the street lights.  THAT said it all.  They should have added we strung bed sheets or blankets over clothes lines to make tents and sat in them (probably 120 degrees) to eat peanut butter sandwiches or things made with mayonnaise that had lived beyond it's live expectancy...and survived.

robert pflanz
You DO remember, don't you?  Those were sweet innocent days when we could roam the neighborhood with impunity and feel safe.  All we had to remember was to be home for dinner at the proper time.  In this day of instant world news, I miss the simpler innocence of those days. I remember the tents and the sticky peanut butter on the roof of my mouth.

jeanne boyerI
also remember sitting on our garage roof.  Riding the street car on Prospect to downtown for a dime.  The Velvet Freeze on a summer night on Prospect...47th I think.  Neighborhood grocery store let you run a chit until the weekend and they had a butcher that used to give me the heels of the long balogne tubes to eat...I thought they were wonderful.  So full of fat that my face was well lubricated.  Did you have roller skates that hooked to your shoes?  I remember having to jump the places where the sidewalk didn't match up and feeding sugar cubes to the Manor man's horse before they went to trucks.  Lots of good memories from those early years.

Claudine Weiher
Hi Bob:
Thank you so much for "we survived "and the Jay Leno quote.  So very, very true!
I would add to the list of deprivations a TV which our household did not obtain until I was in the fourth grade.
I would add to the list of activities hours and hours of roller skating, and sledding in the winter.
And, I would add to the harmful things done to us by ommission or commission  toilet training before we were old enough to read.
Thanks again
Claudine

robert pflanz
You're stirring up long lost memories.  I lived at 49th & Wabash - just 1 block up a hill from Prospect and 2 blocks away from Velvet Freeze.  I used to love double dip cones for a dime at Velvet Freeze (especially lime sherbet).  Did you live somewhere around there?  We used to catch the prospect trolly bus downtown or the 47th st streetcar over to the plaza or Swope Park.  I had forgotten about the Manor bread man.  I do remember the milk man and getting ice chips from him to suck on.  We lived on a hilly area, but would roller skate on some of the side streets with our clamp on roller skates.  I remember my older sister got some with rubber wheels instead of the metal ones like the rest of us had, but then she was spoiled.  Of course I wasn't!  Fond memories.  Thanks for stirring them up.
Bob

jeanne boyer
Yes to the iceman, too.  Also the milkman with glass bottles often full of dead fireflies by the time he got them back.  I lived 0n 35th Terrace at South Benton during elementary..two blocks east of Prospect.  Later at 5504 Euclid.  Do you remember picking dead locust husks off the elm trees where they had split their outer covering to emerge.  Everyone had a clothes line, too.  We could go trick or treating by ourselves once we hit 4th grade.  I also had a big red wagon I pulled Girl Scout cookies around with delivering them and went far afield to sell them.  My parents didn't ask anyone at work to buy them...that was my job.  We knew our neighbors, too.  Walked around the block some summer evenings and stopped to visit with the neighbors on their porches or they stopped at ours.  Mom always made ice cold lemonade to serve.  Gracious!  Look what you started.

robert pflanz
I really remember the porches.  I had forgotten.  Summer evenings, to get out of the heat from the house, we would sit on the front porch.  We had a porch swing that hung from the ceiling above and the chain would squeak just a little bit as we gently rocked back and forth.  The swing was big enough for 2-3 people and it faced the street.  We could look out and see the neighbors on their porches or the kids running around in the yards.  Our neighbor, who was really quite close (just a car width between the houses and a shared driveway) would sit out on his porch and listen to baseball games.  It was peaceful and comfortably homey.  
I remember the locust shells, all tan and crispy.  I remember the sound of the locusts at night and the fireflies blinking in the dark.  Apparently there wasn't too much city light glow, because we would lie in the yard and look up at the stars at night.  I had forgotten about the milk bottles, we always had to shake up the milk because it would separate and the cream would float to the top.  Do you remember going to the country club dairy at 57th and Troost?  It was a real treat to have one of their milkshakes (I always got a root beer milk shake).  Or we would go the the crown drug store and get a cherry phosphate.  Do you remember cherry cokes at the drug store?
I remember going shopping downtown (on the bus) especially at Christmas to see all the street decorations and the store displays.  I always liked going to the huge dime stores downtown because they had so much stuff that I could afford.  I still remember the smell of the wood floors  in the dime stores with the slowly revolving fans way overhead.
But that's enough for now.  What a trip.
Later,
Bob

Rex Weddle
Activities:

At the corner candy shop (49th and Woodland), we'd play a game where we'd pull an empty Coke bottle from the wooden rack. The bottles had the town of bottling embossed on the bottom.  Whoever got the one furthest from KC won .05 from the others. Learned more about US geography that way than in school.

There was so little car traffic on the back streets, the city would close the ones with hills and open them up for sledding after a heavy snow. From 50th and Brooklyn or 49th and Euclid, all the way to Brush Creek, you could really pick up a head of steam.

Deprivations:

How did any of us grow up normal without day care and preschool? 

And last - and a question I meant to ask everyone at the reunion but failed to - 'How did you get to school?'  No one ever took me, but I had a relatively short walk.  Regardless, getting yourself to school was a real deprivation.

Harmful Things:

Did any of you ever visit the stockyards? My grandfather delivered meat from there and gave me a tour when I was 14. I switched from lunch meat to tuna salad right after that.

Riding bikes miles into the huge storm sewers that fed Brush Creek - eh gads!

Claudine Weiher
I walked 14 blocks.
 It was as far as  one could be and still be in the Paseo District.  One more block north and it would have been Central and the border for Westport was right there too.
 Mary Lynn and I met each morning at 42nd and Euclid and walked the rest of the way.  It was quite a hike.
 I was the first of us to have a car of my own, given to me by my Dad about two days after my 16th birthday our Junior year,and the only one  of the girls to own a car for the last two years of high school.  I picked up Mary Lynn, Twila, and Sally each morning and ,when it was required, we bought one  gallon of gas for the '53 Chevy at 25 cents per gallon and the attendant pumped it and washed the windshield.
 We had only one snow day in my five years at Paseo.  I was out driving around and ended up in the front yard of some lady near Rodney's. 
We were fearless.  I still don't mind driving in the snow.  You should watch the folks around here.
 Claudine

JRTerry
I use to meet with David Smiley and sometimes Steve Blackburn to make the trip from 41st and Olive ( just around the corner from Mary Lynn).  No buses in those days.  I use to tell my kids that I had to walk uphill both ways to school and back.  Hell!  I did!
 
Roy

jeanne boyer
Easement drives are popular in the older part of KC.  We had one on Euclid.
 
I don't remember the country club dairy, but remember the cold frosty mugs (felt like they weighed 10 pounds) we sometimes got at Mugs Up.  They had good root beer floats, too.
Walking home from Paseo I often stopped with whoever I walked with that day at a small grocery for cherry cokes.  We combined them with fat dill pickles from a barrel.  Yuck! What a combination.
 
Do you remember the displays at Hartzfeld's at Christmas?  Beautiful mechanical dolls in snow/winter scenes.  Emery Bird Thayer had the bit Santa (also mechanical) in the window on the east side of the building..  They had a machine in the shoe department you put your feet in so your parent could check the fit.  Those are outlawed today, but I remember how much fun it was to see your feet and the bones and would wiggle my toes just for the fun of it. 
 
Yes, we did lie on blankets or just the grass and look at the stars.  Must have made a million wishes ...  wonder if any of them came true?  We could write a book!

Twila moody
Hi Claudine,
I walked to school also, I lived at 4105 Tracey, I walked down 1 1/2 blocks and picked up Bonnie Harvey, then we walked about 4 or 5 blocks down and picked up Sally.  Then on over to Paseo.  It was probably a total of I'd say 12 to 14 blocks each way.  We didn't think anything of it at the time.  However, after your Dad gave you the Chevy we were riding in style and yes I remember us all putting together 25 cents for a gallon of gas.  I was so embrassed I'd put your megaphone on my head...HA!  Do you remember that?   My Dad got a new '57 Chevy when I was 16 and I drove to school at times myself after that.  He had a pickup truck he drove to work, so the '57 Chevy was at my disposal.  I used to drag alot in that car down Paseo Blvd.  What fun we had then and it was all innocent fun.  We truly lived in a magical time, no drugs, no crime (or at least we didn't know about it), just buzzing Allen's Drive In and Max's Drive In.  I wish in many ways I could go back in time..I'd love for my grandchildren to have seen our teenage years.  Time changes everything and not always for the good.  Thanks for letting me remember...Love, Twila

JRober5974@aol.com
Hi Bob and all,
    What a "trip down memory lane"!  I grew up at 44th and Tracy (not far from you, Twila, and also Bonnie Harvey).  In the 8th grade we moved to 66th and Paseo area.  I took the public bus to and from Paseo.  When I turned 16 in November of my junior year, I got a job at Macy's downtown and rode the bus from school to town and then home at 9 pm - got off the bus and walked 2 blocks home in the dark - talk about a more innocent time!  Do you think we would allow our daughters (or granddaughters) to do that now??  Sharon (Reeves) Robertson

JOHN STEPHENS
reading comments from Rex about sledding reminded me of a ride Mary Lynn may well remember from Olive all the way to Brooklyn...1st part being real steep...fire in a barrel to keep warm...what a ride!!

saljimdew@aol.com
I remember Twila, Bonnie Harvey and me walking to Paseo every morning when we were in the 8th and 9th grade.  We always passed Newcomers Funeral Home and said they sprayed there grass with blood and that's why it was so green.. We were only kidding....I think.

William Koste
Reminisers:
Just a few thoughts kindled by your collective memories. How old were you when you saw the first ballpoint pen (Papermate)? My trip to grade school 5 Blocks (three long two short) sounds like Morse Code. Morning trip as long as it took not to be tardy!! Trip a lunch time full out sprint home and back to tag up for "Scrub" before George Parke, After school trip 12 to 15 blocks regardless of length, eventually spending some time at Tiffany's house.  High school a mere 12 block with a stop off here and there to wait for others to walk with; I have to admit I was glad when Warren Lyle got his new Ford convertible my live became a little easier. Claudine's reference to 25cent fuel brings tears to my eyes, but brings back a found memory of a mutual friend, that would put his oldish Ford in neutral and turn off the ignition to preserve that precious fuel, I guess everything is relative!! Rex do not check this text for grammar or grandpar.                                                        
       Koste

Rex Weddle
Jeanne, I loved your contributions.  I'd forgotten laying in my second floor bedroom that overlooked the city skyline listening to the cicadas singing away. When we were boys we used to catch them, tie thread around them, and had our own little flying machines.

Your memories of the downtown department stores at Christmas are really nostalgic for me. I'm sure you have seen the movie, A Christmas Story, set in a neighborhood like ours about 1950.  (Wow, I tell my kids that's exactly like my childhood, even down to a similar father.) A great scene involves a trip to their downtown store.

Macy's used to have a Knothole club on Saturday mornings. Any kid could come downtown, come to the 5th floor cafeteria and they would have ball players from the KC Blues there for autographs and to give the finer points of baseball discussion. Since the Blues were the Yankee farm club, they had some pretty good players pass through. We were pretty young, but took the street car or bus by ourselves.

Recall how seldom you'd ever see a commercial airplane overhead?

Or how we took our lives in our hands just being out. I mean, there were no leash laws, and I always lived in terror of dog packs.

Claudine and I previously reminisced about how we LOVED the Forum cafeteria on Main. 

I remember that Velvet Freeze. I thought you used to get 2 scoops for a nickle.  The Crown Drug store on the corner where we would get zombies at the soda fountain (a squirt of every flavor they had) and kids would get empty cigar boxes from them to keep all our treasures in. 

I used to hang out at the Nu Way Drive-in at 47th between Prospect and Wabash and play pinball.  One day Judy Webster walked by on her way home from school (I think she may have caught the Prospect bus) and she was shocked to see me playing pinball with the low-life that hung there.  Come to think of it, they were.

OK, one last one. The Oak Park Theater on Prospect. Saturdays. With a quarter, you got in for .14, had .11 for popcorn, drink and penny candy. Two feature films, one serial, one newsreel and two cartoons.  And they would have a free drawing with everyone in a certain row receiving free popcorn.  But it was the honor system and always easy just to go on up and claim one.  

Tom Conkright
While in KC, Jan and I took a couple of hours and went to the Nelson Art Gallery.  “Free” (except for a special exhibit on India miniatures).  One of my memories was riding there on my bike on Saturday mornings for free movies.  And yes, I road my bike all over the place until I was almost 17 when I finally got a car.
 
Tom Conkright

tmcnally
Speaking of gas prices, did anyone else drive all the way to North Kansas City during the “gas wars” to buy 11 cent gas ?  Wasn’t “mystery meat” invented by the KC public school system?

Mary Lynn Sherwood
Sooo many memories!  Do you remember the oleo that came in the plastic bag that had a dot of orange in the middle?  My sis and I used to get into big arguments as to whose turn it was to squeeze and smoosh the bag around to get the orange dot (food coloring) totally mixed into the oleo (maybe lard for all I know).  Also, do you remember the mills?  There were green ones and red ones.  I think the red ones were 10 for 1 penny and the green were 2 for 1 penny. Imagine things costing (or being taxed) to the 1/10th of a cent - and carrying all that around!   I still have one of each.  Do you remember being on the buses that had the trolleys?  Just like the streetcars, they would jump their connection and the driver would have to stop the bus, get off, go to the back of the bus and try to align it back up again.   I loved watching the skywriting and trying to figure out what they were going to write before they were finished.  Do you remember the music store in Village Green?  Some of us, on our walk home, would go there after school.  Remember the rooms they had where you could go in and listen to the record you might be interested in?  I also loved going downtown.  I took dancing classes above the RKO theater twice a week.  My orthodontist was also downtown.  Macys train through Santa's Village was wonderful, but do you also remember Harzfelds (on the corner across the street from Macys) magical Christmas windows?  I could stand for hours in front of them.  Do you remember how you paid for items in the big stores downtown?  The hydraulic tube system used to carry money back and forth from the various counters and customers to the credit department.  Yes, I do remember the sledding, John.  It started at the top of my hill (Wabash) and proceeded down from there.  What a marvelous ride!!  What a very long walk back!!!!  We're all so lucky to have been born in such an era.
Mary Lynn

Claudine Weiher
Rodney did.
In fact every time we drive through or near North Kansas City to this day  he relives the gas wars.  It would be 11 cents one one side of the street then the guy on the other side would go to 10 cents.etc.  It was Rodney's happiest shopping experience.
Speaking of whom, when Rodney retired his e-mail changed. I notice on this message that it was the old one.  The new one is ,
Thanks
Claudine

John Bruce
Yeah, you ol' glass licker you!  I'm glad to hear from you!  Actually, I have been known to wipe out a shot glass with my finger to get the very last drop of alchohol.  By the way, I remember 2 hamburgers and a soda for a 35 cents when I used to sneak out for lunch, not to mention the steaks at Gene Burns Linwood Restaurant. And what was the name of that bar on Rainbow that would serve anyone who could stagger through the door? 
 
And the Lone Ranger on the radio at 6:30 PM.  We covered Sky King at the reunion,  but do you remember the FBI in Peace and War?  Or Fred Allen's Gasoline Alley?  Duck and Cover, as someone mentioned, played a big part of my grade school memories.  And the first time I saw skywriting, I breathlessly ran in and informed my mom God was writing in the sky!  He was evidently asking everyone in they had a Lucky Strike.

Twila Moody
Do you guys remember the El Torrin Roller Rink which was above the Velvet Freeze on 31st and Gilliam?   We'd go roller skating there then stop at the Velvet Freeze for a ice cream on the way home.   Also, do you remember Sike's Bar?   That of course was when we were older...Great memories...Hugs, Twila
William Koste
Twila: Of course I remember Sike's Bar, I had my 21st birthday party there three times and of course I don't remember the roller rink. You Hurra Back!!                       
        Bill Koste


Mary Lynn Sherwood
Claudine, do you remember that your car was a standard transmission and you didn't know how to shift (or barely, anyway).  I remember us trying to find the best was to get home without having to stop, on hills especially, because you'd roll backward for quite a distance before you were able to pop your clutch to go forward.  I remember one afternoon after school you picked my mom up at my dads shop (don't know why) to take her home (of course, it was after we'd been to Max's).  Anyway, you scared the living daylights out of her because you hated to stop and would gererally just roll right on through intersections.  It took a while for her to get over that ride and for me to talk her into letting me continue to ride with you!  Who all was in the cab ride from downtown?  Remember the cab driver turning off the meter, almost before we had left downtown, because we were out of money.  He ended up buzzing Allen's with us and then parking (backing in of course), taking each of us home to get PJ's and then on to (I think) Judys for a slumber party.  What a bunch of goofballs we must have looked like at Allens and can you imagine doing something like that today?  You couldn't do something like that today!

Ed Rowe
We lived at 3946 Bellefontaine sometime during my high school years and I walked to Paseo, down Prospect and would stop at the donut shop halfway down the long hill toward Brush Creek.  A black man, probably in his 30’s was making donuts and I would buy a glazed one hot off the rack after he had just glazed it.  He was very nice and interestingly, in the last few years, I had the opportunity to inquire about him (memory becomes a problem as to how this came about) and was told he was still living but quite ill and I sent him my regards through this contact.  Rex knows that later we lived around the corner from him on 48th Terrace, about a block and a half east of Paseo and a block north of Francis Willard grade school. 
Originally, in my early grade school years, as some of you know I attended Benton grade school at 31st& Benton Blvd.  I remember a mural about 15’ X 3’ of all of the Disney characters at this school that was mounted over the urinal trough in the boy’s bathroom at this school and was told there were actually two of these, one evidently in the girl’s bathroom.  About 20 years ago I was calling on a business and got to talking to a man about ten years my elder and we discovered he attended Benton when the murals were presented and said they were hung in the halls at that time.  I have since wondered whatever became of those, but probably don’t want to know.  In about 1960 this became D. A. Holmes grade school and I believe is now vacant. 
My dad & mom owned & lived in an apartment building just a few doors east of Benton on Linwood, 2917 Linwood.  The first of three floors, our apartment had burglar bars on the windows and I remember lying on my bed in the rear bedroom, facing south and to an alley behind the four apartment buildings, looking out the bars of the open window, trying to catch a cool wiff of air on a stifiling hot summer night, listening to the radio, KJLA (?) Delrio, Texas.  Pure country western music.  We used to joke that they would peddle “free, autographed Bibles”.  I remember going to the end of that alley during a given day and petting the Manor man’s horse, tethered to a weight the shape of an iron  and harnessed to the Manor wagon while the Manor man went door to door delivering bread, rolls, etc.
I remember the Christmas displays in the windows downtown and have talked about them with others in recent years, wondering where they now are.  I remember riding the streetcars from Kansas City, through a tunnel near Quality Hill over to Kansas City, Kansas to the end of the line on Parallel, just for something to do, not realizing my someday, wife-to-be was doing so from the other end.
I remember riding my Schwinn, All-American, red, white & Blue, three speed bicycle all over the hills in and around Paseo, up Woodland, etc.  I also remember running those same areas around Brush Creek as a part of cross-country track and enjoying it immensely.  One more before I go watch Ellen and calm down from this memory trip.  I remember walking, with a friend from our house at 67th & Montgall (now under the freeway) all the way downtown, K. C., Mo. and doing so in less than two hours.  Thanks Bob, Claudine and all, keep this going


John Stephens
How did I know that Koste would remember "Sikes" place on Prospect. Sikes was an Okie & lived the role...what a character...claimed he only took a bath on Saturday nite & was proud of it! He had a passion for horses....& a million $ smile....passed on in recent years. Behind that "Okie" bit was a very successful business man!
"Hurra Bak"
John


Judie Hamilton 
Reading all you memories certainly brings me back to how life was back then. SO much calmer  and easier then now.
Linda Ladd and I walked to Paseo every morning rain or shine. The last of the journey was up that oh so steep hill at the back of school. Then on the way home we would stop by the Velvet  Freeze ice cream store for something that would get us the rest of the way home. The two of us spent many hours roller skating at the Play-Mor rink. I too remember downtown KC at Christmas. What a treat! Linda and I would take the bus down town all the time. It was nothing to spend hours just wondering around like kids do at “the mall” now. I always likes to eat lunch at the Kresges counter. If you didn’t live on Prospect Ave as I did you probably don’t remember Santa riding the street car at Christmas time. My Mom always made sure we got to see him each year. Did you ever go out to the Swope Park Lagoon to ice skate in a good winter? I remember my Dad taking us out one year. I decided to skate all the way around the Lagoon and did but it was night time. Now I think how silly I was cause no one else was back there.
 Wow  what a neat idea to share what we remember from all those years ago. I really wanted to see everyone at the reunion and am sorry I couldn’t be there. I did get all the pictures and really enjoyed them. Some of you have not changed thru the years.
I forgot to mention Wolferman's in downtown KC. It was a small lunch room that my grandmother treated me to few times. It was very special and had the best sandwiches on wonderful butter buns. Linda Ladd and her Mom and I would go to the Forum too.


aladocorp@comcast.net

I lived at 3704 tracy and went to faxon grade school with Twila, Ann Ellis and Dusene and my brother John. The one thing that always bothered me was Dusene and Ann could always out run me. Always went to maxs drive in and allens. What a wonderful weekend i had at the reunion,I will take those memories with me.


Kathryn (Wilbanks) Owens
I lived at 51st and Wabash.  Joyce Mason was a couple of years older and lived across the street.  Her Dad worked the night shift and if we were ready to leave for school before he went to bed he would drive us.  We walked home and it was a ways.  There was a corner drugstore on the way home where we would stop for cherry cokes and a bag of chips on the way home.  I think that I am still wearing both.  Does anyone remember the girl that came in after school started.  She had (God forbid) bleached blond hair, ears pierced, and wore an ankle bracelet.  She only stayed for a couple of days but was the center of attention while she was there.


Glenn McCoy
Wow.  .  .  you all took all the “cool” places – I’ll go down the sports line – back to Kumpf elementary aka “grade school” which like Paseo no longer exists! Noticed that Mary Lynn (a Kumpf colleague) was on this string – we were the fastest when playing whatever the game was where someone was “it” and tagged folks as they ran across the playground.  Playing hockey on the asphalt playgrounds using clip on roller skates, real sticks for hockey sticks, and a taped up “chewing tobacco can” as a puck.  For the baseball players – wool uniforms in KC’s summer heat and humidity. Football helmets with a single hard plastic face mask – I think as Juniors we were the first to have them.  Unlike today, we played basketball in short shorts and ran track in baggy uniforms. Speaking of sledding – much like many of you I lived on a “long” block hill (45th and Olive) – we started about half way up Olive in the 44 hundred block, down the 4500 long block, across 46th and down that block ending up in Brush Creek Park  which ran from Prospect to Woodland (before Brush Creek Parkway was built).   Ah, the good life ~


Larry Cameron
Hey Twila, sorry I didn't go to the reunion to see you.  Unlike most of you I grew up at 31st & Benton; attended Benton grade school and went to Central Junior until the middle of my Freshman year when we finally moved to 49th & Woodland where I transferred to Paseo.
As a kid I remember the streetcars and the old time soda fountains.  I worked at Wood's Drugs at 31st & Benton as a Soda Jerk until I graduated in '59, then enlisted in the U.S.A.F. for 4 years, then going to work at the Bendix Corp., 95th & Troost as an Experimental Technician.  I took early retirement in 1992 as Manager of Technical Security.  While in the U.S.A.F. I was stationed at a gap filler radar sight on the coast od Labrador, Canada where I met and married the love of my life, Pearl.  We moved to Goose Bay, Labrador in 1999, and returned shortly after 9/11.
I remember most of the things mentioned above but will add a few.
The streetcar downtown, transferring to the Saint James streetcar which ran under Quality Hill through a tunnel emerging on the west side on a high trestle which ran down to the west bottoms.  Can still remember the streetcar rocking back and forth on that trestle.
While at Central JR. can remember being on channel 4 TV on their version of American Bandstand.
Who can forget drag racing on Paseo between Max's and  Allens Drive In on 63rd and the cop Fitzgerald who would run you out of Allens if you racked your pipes?
The Country Club Dairy for Hot Fudge Sundaes?
What about the "Hole", 4600 block of Troost?
"Antonio's Pizzeria", 4700 block of Troost?
"Village Green Record Shop"?
"Gene's Barber Shop" at the Village Green?  Best Flat Tops and butch wax in town.
I would be remiss if I did not report on a few of our friends.  Late last fall Al Beach, class of '60 passed away.  Al retired from the K.C.P.D. but later suffered from an incurable lung disease.  I spent every day with Al when he was in hospice and was there the evening he passed away.  Al had a heart of gold, always helping friends in need and at his wake there were in excess of 250 people who loved and remembered this remarkable individual.
My good griend Don Matney quit High School in 1957.  Don later obtained his G.E.D. and went to work for the K.C.F.D. obtaining the rank of Captain.  Don is now retired and suffering with health problems but is still the friendly guy he always was.
There are many more memories, some good, some bad, but those are for another time.


Memories from Wanda Melching
Hello everyone,
  Does anyone remember Young Life meetings at my home on Brookwood? Snow camp and summer camp in Colorado with the Young Life Group?  Meeting on the 2nd floor before school started?  Year book signing ?
  The Teague Drug store at 55th.  The drug store at 49 and Woodland?  Blue Hills Country Club parking lot?  When all the jocks and cheerleaders would buss Allen's drive-in after a game? 
  The night the pirate boat that  Larry Demarea worked on all summer was launched at a football game The boat  hit wires and knocked off the sails.  Who was the tiger and the pirate on the boat that night?
  The launching of the boat took place at Southeast high.
The pep club was instrumental in getting the boat finished in 1959. 

Claudine Weiher
Rodney and I went with young life to Colorado to ski our senior year. It was a chance to get away during Christmas vacation, but ,regretfully, neither of us learned much about skiing.
The Teague drugstore was owned by the parents of Walter Teague, contemporary student at Southeast and part of a crowd or Paseo/Southeast kids that hung around together for a couple of years.  Bob Hill, Pat Yaryan, Jay Smith, Craig Urett, and ?  who drove a Thunderbird., and other whose names have left me.
Terry Tiffany belonged to Blue Hills and I always thought it was a really big deal when we could go there in the summer to swim.
Rodney and I used to buzz Allen's regularly our Senior year.  Before that I was accompanied by other, more generous, guys.  Rodney worked at Howard Johnson's as a Soda Jerk part time and used to help himself to the packets of hot chocolate mix.  When we would pull into Allen's he would try and order me a hot cup of water to mix with the hot chocolate mix in lieu of a coke.
This is just one of the signals I ignored. (put a smiley face here)/ I could go into refusing to buy the 10 cents french fries at the MacDonald's in Columbia Missouri,in College, but that is a story for another day.
I remember the boat incident but do not have a clue who was on it.

tmcnally
Speaking of work, Marvin & I worked at the APCO gas station at 55th & Prospect the summer after graduation.  When a girl from Paseo or SE would pull in to get gas. . . . itwould be foot race to see which one of us could clean the windshield. . . . what a view! (We made $1.00 an hour.) 

tmcnally
I’ll say this & then leave it alone. . . . none of you are clogging up my in box with your emails.  They’re the first items I look for when I go to the office everyday.  Being an investment banker in these times doesn’t make for interesting reading, your emails make my days a lot more fun!

JRTerry
Would someone out there please tell me why the hell we wanted to grow up?



Rodney Weiher
Roy, Speak for yourself--I still haven't and probably won't ever.

JOHN STEPHENS
way to go Rodney.....in Texas they have an expression......."ain't he precious"!

William Koste
Rodney et all:
       Its great a free ranging discussion going from Cuddles & Tuckie (KC law firm?) to blackunderware ( heavy metal group) to growing up, all thru four time zones in a few moments, I guess times have changed a smig (New Mexico expression).
       Koste

JRTerry
I'm thinking the reason Rodney and I still look so good is because we "didn't" grow up!  hahahahahaha!

tmcnally
I haven’t really enjoyed music since folk music died and that awful morning we got to school and found out Buddy Holly died in that Iowa corn field.

jeanne boyer
Because we wanted to make our own money and be independent of parental rules.  That's my story.

Claudine Weiher
Yes, Twila
I know you were a "nice girl", I think.
On the other hand, I have not checked out your underwear lately, and do you keep your knees closed at all times when sitting?
There is more to this than being properly virginal.

tmcnally
I still ponder Paseo Mysteries:

Did Ms. Kramer and Coach Fessler have an affair?
Was Mr. Crocker. . . . well you know.
Did the Traffic Squad ever arrest anyone?
What went on in “the Tower”?
Why didn’t girl’s sport teams have uniforms? If anyone could go watch boy’s basketball, whycouldn’t we watch girl’s basketball?
Was Mr. Coulter really in the CIA?
What did Mr. Bond do all day?

Just a few things that keep me up at night. . . . .

JRTerry
I don't know Tim, maybe you need to go see your analyst again! hahahahaha!

tmcnally
Speaking of work, Marvin & I worked at the APCO gas station at 55th & Prospect the summer after graduation.  When a girl from Paseo or SE would pull in to get gas. . . . it would be foot race to see which one of us could clean the windshield. . . . what a view! (We made $1.00 an hour.) 

I’ll say this & then leave it alone. . . . none of you are clogging up my in box with your emails.  They’re the first items I look for when I go to the office everyday.  Being an investment banker in these times doesn’t make for interesting reading, your emails make my days a lot more fun!

Larry Margrave
Hello
Larry Margrave from 49th in Euclid.  Did not get to reunion was out of town.  Remember a lot of you from Paseo high school.  I came from Frances Willard gradeschool.  Rex you and I go back.  Tom Cobkiright and I were an ROTC together.  Do not have time right now but will try to get on later with more memories