1962-1965 Rockhurst High Part 1A: Freshman Year Classes

Posted on July 30, 2020 by Mike

High school is different. Continue reading →

We were so lucky. Our class was the first freshman class at Rockhurst High in the new building at 9301 State Line Road. That meant that none of the upperclassmen were any more familiar with the layout of the new place than we were. Nobody tried to sell us an elevator pass. I made my way to my homeroom, #204, on a September morning in 1961.

Construction of the new school was still taking place during the summer of 1961.

Rockhurst has always been an all-male school. In 2020 Rockhurst High School is still in the same location, and it is thriving. The tuition is over $14,000 per year, as opposed to $300 in the sixties. There are now about a thousand students, an increase of roughly 25 percent.

St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Rockhurst is a Jesuit institution. The Society of Jesus was founded by a Spaniard, St. Ignatius Loyola. Pope Paul III approved the order in 1540. In the last few centuries the Jesuits became primarily known as educators. Rockhurst was certainly one of the best high schools of any type in the KC area.

About half of the teachers in my day were Jesuits, almost all of them from St. Louis. Many were “scholastics”, i.e., Jesuits who had not yet been ordained as priests. We students called them “mister” just as we did the laymen, but they dressed in black cassocks as did the priests. There might have been one female who taught typing. I say “might” because, by a strange twist of fate, typing was never offered to my class. In 2020 there are very few Jesuits at Rockhurst. The theology department, with a total faculty of thirteen, has only one! There are more than a dozen female teachers, including two department chairs.

One person in my freshman class was black. He played no sports, and he was never in any of my classes. I don’t remember his name. The other three classes had none, and none of the subsequent classes (while I was there) had any. Rockhurst High in 2020 had a considerable number of black students. I don’t know how many were athletes.

In the sixties a considerable number of blacks lived in KC on both sides of the state line, but I have no idea how many were Catholics. At any rate, the new school was on the far southern edge of the city, ninety blocks from downtown. I doubt that there was overt discrimination, but most of the blacks probably went to KC public schools. They might have had trouble with the entrance exam.

The freshmen class was divided into six groups, as designated by six homeroom numbers, based on test scores. We all took classes in the same subjects: religion, English, algebra, health, world history, phys ed, and, of course, Latin. So, everyone whose homeroom was 204 had no classes at all with anyone from any other homeroom. In subsequent years only minor adjustments were made to the groups. By junior year the schedules were more varied, but at the end of four years I had been in classes with less than 25 percent of the 200 or so guys in the class of ’66. So, there were many that I did not know at all.

From day one it was obvious that the classroom experience would be fundamentally different from the educations that most of us had received from the nuns. The only thing that seemed familiar was that we sat in alphabetical order so that the teacher need not waste time calling roll every day.

Discipline was strict, but there were very few incidents. Nearly everyone who attended wanted to be there and appreciated the value of the environment and the education. Each of us was issued a demerit card. Demerits were punched by faculty or staff. If you were given five demerits in a semester, you got a “jug”, which meant that you stayed after school. I got a few demerits over the years but only one jug. That occurred when Mr. Rothermich, SJ, got annoyed with me for practicing basketball moves with my rolled-up stocking cap in the speech room after school.

We had a dress code that prohibited sneakers, sandals and the like, jeans, and shorts. Shirts had to have collars and buttons. The most popular style of shoe was black leather with pointed toes (roach-killers). Facial hair was out. No hair was allowed on the collar, ears, or forehead. That was fine for the first year and a half, but in February of 1964 guess what happened.¹

We were not required to attend mass every day, but we did write AMDG (Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam) and BVMH (Beatae Virginis Mariae Honore)

In the first religion class Father Bauman, the vice-principal, began by walking up and down the aisles asking various students a question none of us had considered: “The bible, book or books?” The right answer is definitely “books”, but I bet that a lot of devout Christians would get it wrong. The message was simple. We were not going to memorize the catechism any more; we were going to learn the basis for our common religion.

This is easier if you understand glopitude.

In the very first Latin class Mr. Kister, SJ, wrote the following sentence on the wall “The gloppy glop glopped the glop gloppily.” The purpose was to show that even in English, which is a word-order language, word endings are often used to identify the nature of individual words. Gloppy is clearly an adjective, glopped is a past-tense verb, and gloppily is an adverb. In Latin word-endings are everything. Mastering Latin is largely a matter of learning to look for and listen for word-endings. Once again, we were being taught to think and understand, rather than memorize. Latin was my favorite class for the first two years. It was edged out by Greek the last two years.

Seldom used, but easy to throw and catch.

Mr. Stark’s world history class was a little different. He made us memorize this six-phrase list: pencil, pen, eraser, assignment book, folder, paper. We were required to have them at all classes. Every so often he would require us to lay out all six items on our desk for inspection. A demerit was punched for each missing item. Fairly often an eraser would be launched by a student who had already passed inspection in the direction of someone yet to be checked.

Mr. Stark also gave a quiz every day. Everyone hated this, but I think that it was a good idea. I, for one, would probably have put off reading or just skimmed the assigned lessons until right before the test if he had not done so. When I taught at Wayne State, I borrowed this technique.

Mr. Stark, who died in 2008, was not my favorite person, but I appreciated his dedication. The one thing that I did not like was when he showed us slides of Greek and Roman ruins. Many years later I saw most of these in person, and even then I found them tiresome after a while. Looking at someone else’s photos got old really fast.

I never thought about this much, but I did not really like Mr. Stark or Mr. Ryan, the basketball coach who also taught American history, a required course for sophomores. I respected both of them, and I took all the history courses offered at Rockhurst, but I did not even consider enrolling in history classes in college. Many years later I became really interested in papal history, and by extension Italian history, and by extension European history. In fact I became obsessed with these subjects. I think that I could have been a really good historical researcher, writer, and teacher. Oh, well, that ship has sailed.

What I remember most about the algebra class taught by Mr. Sisler, SJ, was his peculiar lisp, which, I suspect, came from a slight German accent. One day he asked a question, and I volunteered an answer. He then wrote it on the board and said, “Mistuh Ravada gave us this run to twy” with all the r and w sounds reversed. Not many students sniggered, but everyone talked about it after class.

Nevertheless, he was quite good at teaching algebra. However, he disappeared after our freshman year. I don’t know where he went.

By far the weakest of our teachers was a priest, whose name was, if memory serves, Father Wallace. He taught English, and sometimes he actually dozed off in class. We read nine or ten books throughout the year. The selection was not that stellar—he had a penchant for westerns. He also made a mistake in ordering one book. He ordered The Great Impostor, the biography of Ferdinand Waldo Demara, when he meant to order a novel with a similar title. So, we wasted a few weeks talking about Tony Curtis. I don’t remember this priest being around in subsequent years, either.

I am not sure why, but we also read Mutiny on the Bounty, the non-fiction book by Nordhoff and Hall that has been made into several movies. I remember that after we had supposedly been reading it for a week or so, Father Wallace asked someone whether the sailors made it back to England. The guy whom he asked said that he had not finished the book. Eventually, when it was explained that the answer was on the first page, he had to admit that he had actually not read any of it.

Father Wallace

When we were assigned to write a short story, mine was about two twins named Judy and Jody and how they treated their dog. I wasn’t very proud of it, but my classmates voted it the best. I was quite surprised.

Phys ed was fun. Coach Tuchness, who died in 2014, had us do all kinds of interesting stuff: wrestling, marine basketball (no fouls called), tumbling, crab walks, and regular games. The best part was that he did not make us try to climb a rope. I was one of the few guys who could do a headstand out of a backward roll. I found out that my peculiar spider-shaped build with amazingly flexible wrists was ideal for both types of crab walks. In either type of crab walk race, I was unbeatable.

Coach Tuchness set up a wrestling match between Pat Dobel and me. We were both built like spiders. He was slightly taller and heavier than I was, but I really thought that I could take him. We wrestled for what seemed like a really long time, and once I almost flipped him. However, neither of us could pin the other. Coach called it a draw.

Rockhurst graded on a 100-point scale. I don’t remember any individual grades, but my average was over 90, which qualified me for “first honors.” The teachers at the Rock were tough graders, but I finished in the top ten of my class in all sixteen quarters. Where is my scholarship?

1. I found a copy of a yearbook from 1975 online. By then the hair standards had been considerably relaxed.

1961-1962 QHRS 8th Grade

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Mike

Last year at the Queen. Continue reading →

The enrollment at Queen of the Holy Rosary School (QHRS) increased dramatically while I was there. By the time that I was in the eighth grade, almost one hundred kids were in the graduating class. The school buildings still exist in 2020, but QHRS has been replaced by a new school called John Paul II School, which serves two parishes, Queen and St. Pius X. The athletic teams, known in my day as the Rockets, are now called (I think) the Huskies. I counted twenty-one 8th grade graduates in the 2020 class, only eight of whom were boys. The school’s website says that they compete in the CYO football league, but I don’t see how.

The great tragedy is that when QHRS was eliminated, so apparently were all of the records. So, this website may be the only extant source of information about my heroics on the gridiron.

Final report cards in 2020 were delivered via something called Educonnect. Father Ryan, who read aloud every student’s report card in every six-week period of all eight years that I attended QHRS, must have rolled over in his grave.

The 2020 staff comprised twenty-five women and two men. In my day almost all the teachers were Ursuline nuns. We had a nurse, a Spanish teacher, and a math teacher who were lay women. Perhaps there was one more woman. There were definitely no men.

The JPII school website now mentions core classes and “specials”. At QHRS every class was a core class. When I was in eighth grade we attended mass at 8:00 every day. Our classes were religion, English, math, Kansas history, and Spanish. Ms. Jancey taught math, and Ms. Goldsich taught Spanish. The rest of the classes were taught by Sr. Ralph and Sr. Kevin. It seems reasonable to expect that we would have been taught some kind of science and/or civics, but I have no memory of either. Since we got grades in music and art, some time must have been allotted for them.

There was definitely no phys ed. We had two recesses, which I think lasted thirty minutes each, and a lunch hour. So, maybe we only had time for five or six classes.

By the way, there was no food served at lunch, but you could buy milk for almost nothing. I had a big grey lunch box, and I am positive that my mother prepared the best lunches.

What did I learn? I learned a technique for approximating square roots that I actually used in my first summer job. I learned a lot of trivia about Kansas that no one at the University of Michigan knew. I learned to count and to say a few phrases in Spanish. There probably was other stuff that stuck, but I cannot pinpoint any.

My eighth grade graduating class had close to one hundred students, but I only attended classes with half of them. We had two groups, dumb and dumber. I never took any classes with any of the students in the dumber group. If they did not participate in any activities, I might not know them.

We sat in alphabetical order in the same classroom all day long. The teachers came to us. So I will list the students in that order. Here are the boys that I can remember:

Ricky Ahrent was on the basketball team.
Bernie Bianchino was on the football team.
Tommy Bitner
Brennan Botkin
Andy Brown, who had asthma, played on the 1960 football team. I don’t remember him on the ’61 team. He might have been in the other class.
Bob Dalton was definitely not in my eighth-grade class. He might not even have been at QHRS that year. We had been very good friends several years earlier, when he went by Leo. His parents owned a set of greenhouses in which they grew flowers. I was shocked to discover that Dalton’s Flowers is still thriving in Overland Park in 2021.
I think that Joe Fox was on the basketball team.
Mike Farmer had red hair.
Gary Garrison was in Boy Scouts. He was also in my class at Rockhurst.
Jim Glenn was one of the linemen on the left side for the football team.
Tom Guilfoyle had a brother in the other 8th grade class and another brother in 7th grade. I think that Tom played basketball.
Arthur Gutierez. Nobody seemed to recognize that his dark complexion and last name might have indicated that his family might have come from a former Spanish colony.
Joe Hrzenak was on the football team.
Mike Kirk was on the football team. He was also in the Boy Scouts.
Joe Landis was on the football team.
Jim Neal was on the football team and Bauman’s Red Goose Shoes.
Denny McDermott was on the football team.
Mike O’Shea was on the basketball team.
Larry Pickett was on the basketball team.
Gary Renner arrived for the last two years. He was a pretty good friend. He went to Rockhurst, but he was not in my homeroom class.
Kent Reynolds was on the basketball team. He was the only person who was in the same class that I was for all eight years.
John Rubin’s Wikipedia entry is here.
John Rutherford was on the basketball team.
Mark Schoneman
John Skuban
Mark Smith
Mike Wiedower sat behind me.
Pat Wise played on the basketball team. His dad was the coach.

I had virtually no interactions with the girls who sat on the other side of the room. Here are the ones that I can remember

Pat Clooney was, I think, the girl who read the dictionary.
Linda Ernie
Mary Ann Furst
Mary Ann Gallagher
Antoinette Garcia moved before 8th grade. For some reason she was considered to have cooties.
Ann Grady
Anita Habiger
Patty Lally was my foe in the spelling bee in seventh grade. She must have been in the other class.
Christine Lutz
Mary Pat Maher
Mary Margaret Martin was big.
Barbara Miller was a very good singer.
Nancy Miller
Vicki Morris was very tall.
Mary Mulcahy worked on the News and Views. She called me at home once. I don’t remember why.
Kathy O’Connor
Gloria Shorten was the shortest person and the first girl to begin to fill out her sweaty.
Sally Shawberger
Barbara Yeado.

Of all these people, I have only had subsequent contact with three: Gary Garrison, Gary Renner, and John Rubin, who all went to Rockhurst High School, as I did. I also saw Barbara Yeado perform in a musical put on by her high school and Rockhurst. I think that my cousin Terry Cernech was also involved in it.

I partook in almost every available extracurricular activity.

I often served at mass (i.e., was an altar boy), sometimes at the mandatory 8 am mass, sometimes at 6 am. The best duty was a funeral or wedding; sometimes there were tips.
I was “editor” of the school newspaper, News and Views. Sr. Kevin actually did most of the work, but I did write a poem and an editorial. I also remember interviewing some guys who were trying to involve the school in some sort of scheme. I also learned the five W’s plus How with a Wow in the lead.
I played alto saxophone in the school band, which was led by Rocco DeMart. The only other band member whom I remember was Sammy Caccioppo on trombone.

The easiest safety patrol job was the crosswalk on 71st St. Hank Bauer, the baseball player, lived in one of those houses right across the street from the school. — The easiest safety patrol job was the crosswalk on 71st St. Hank Bauer, the baseball player lived in one of those houses right across the street from the school.

I was a captain of the safety patrol. Before and after school we would stop traffic on Metcalf and 71st St. to let pedestrians cross. Many kids walked to school. Metcalf was a very busy four-lane state highway. We wore white belts and carried sticks with flags of yellow and green, not stop signs. My mother did not like the idea of children being used to direct traffic, but no one was ever injured on my watch.
I played football and basketball. There are separate blog posts for these adventures.
I was in a choir that gave a concert for parents. I was not allowed to whistle. I just pretended. We sang, among other things, “Donkey Serenade” from the movie Firefly. It has remained one of my favorites. Jack Jones’s fabulous rendition is here:
I was also in the boys’ choir that sang “O Holy Night” on Christmas Eve. It was led by Fr. Finnerty. I was astounded that they let me participate in either of these choirs. My worst grades were always in music and art.
I was a patrol leader in the Boy Scouts. Our group was named the White Buffalo patrol after the Indian legend featured on an episode of Rin Tin Tin. Mary Ann Gallagher’s younger brother was in this patrol.
I was in a Great Books Club that met occasionally. I don’t remember any specifics at all.

I took the bus to school. When I had to arrive early or stay late I rode my bike or walked unless it was bad weather. If I had to serve the 6:00 mass, my mom drove me and picked me up. I doubt that I ever expressed my appreciation for this.

We had an election for the meaningless title of president of the class. QHRS did not in any way resemble a democracy. It was a monarchy; the queen was Sr. Dominica, the principal.

As usual, I was nominated by the boys’ party. I don’t remember which girl defeated me. I don’t blame the dozens of girls who voted against me. I was definitely “stuck up.” I had little use for them, and I did not care much what any of them thought of me.

We put on a panel discussion of the United Nations. I remember that someone in the audience asked why the US contributed so much more than other nations to it. I suggested that it might be because we were the richest country. My answer got a round of applause.

Everyone got to participate in one debate that was judged by the class. The topic for our match was whether to eliminate homework. My teammates were Linda Ernie and Joe Hrzenak. We each gave one speech. Joe went first, then the negative, then Linda, then the negative, then me, then the negative. Our plan was to replace homework with more time at school. Our argument was that help from teachers was better than help from parents and siblings. I can think of several good arguments against this approach, but the negative did not present any. They just read their prepared statements that praised the value work done after classes. Nevertheless, we lost the vote of the students. Despite the result, this activity sparked my interest.

I started listening to pop radio at some point. The stations were WHB (710), which produced a Top 40 list that was available at record stores, and KUDL (1380), which produced the Great 38.

Field Day was always the highlight of the year for me. We stayed outside all day! One year I was playing left field in a softball game. For some reason I did not have my baseball glove, which I ordinarily brought to school every day in the spring. Someone hit a popup down the third base line. I took off for it at full speed. At the last second I pulled off my cap and caught the ball in it on a dead run. They should not have allowed this, but, after a big confab, they did.

My most ignominious defeat came on the 8th grade field day. In the broad jump competition I won the boys’ half; Ann Grady won the girls’ half. I then had to jump against her, and I came up a fraction of an inch short. I should have congratulated her, but I did not. At the time I did NOT blame my shoes, which were orange (?) and leather. I don’t know why I wore them. Maybe I had no sneakers, which were called “tennis shoes” in KC in the sixties.

De La Salle High School tried to recruit 8th grade boys by sponsoring a math competition. QHRS always participated. Ms. Jancey one day made an off-the-cuff list of boys in our class who she thought should participate. She named everyone except for Joe Hrzenak, the universally acknowledged worst student, and me. I was going to go anyway, but the contest was canceled because of snow.

Rockhurst High School did not need to recruit. Instead they gave a test to determine whom they would accept. At least twenty boys from QHRS took the test, but only four of us were accepted. Rockhurst gave ten scholarships based on test scores. None of us got one, but three of us (Rubin, Garrison, and I) placed in the top (of six) classes.

QHRS also gave a scholarship. We had to write an essay on why we should get it. Mine argued that the prize should go to Joe Fox, whose father had recently died. The winner was John Rubin, who essentially said that if he won, he would chain himself to his desk and avoid all human contact for four years. It made me gag.

If I had been there, she would not have even gotten one.

Co-ed parties were strictly prohibited before 8th grade graduation. Somehow John Rubin got a papal dispensation for a Halloween party for six of us. I discovered there that my big mouth was a tremendous advantage when dunking for apples. No one else could grasp an apple in their teeth. I captured all the apples and won by acclimation.

Sally Shawberger threw a party soon after graduation. I was invited. Since I had my last cosmetic surgery on my lip scheduled for the same day, I was rescued from this prospective nightmare. I think that this fortuitous scheduling might have been recompense from God for attending church at least six times a week for eight years.

I played some golf and mowed some lawns over the summer. In 1962 the family moved from 7717 Maple in Prairie Village to 8800 Fairway in Leawood. The new house had a MUCH bigger lawn, and it was within easy walking distance of both the Ward Parkway Mall and Rockhurst High School’s new building on State Line.

The red rectangle is the mall. The blue rectangle is Rockhurst.

The event that I most remember was when I was minding my sister Jamie, who was six years old at the time. Suddenly I started gagging. Eventually I was able to pull a strip of gauze that was three or four feet long out of my throat. I had no idea what it was, but I felt OK when it was over. Jamie was horrified.

On her arrival my mother told me that this was padding that they put in my nose when they operated. She said that the doctor had told her that this would happen. I don’t know why she did not warn me.

The chicks really go for a guy with an OA sash.

I went with Troop 295 to Camp Nash for a week, as I had the previous summers. This one was memorable because I was chosen to join the Order of the Arrow. It was fairly dramatic. The whole troop was gathered in a big circle around a campfire one night. The scoutmasters walked around the circle and stopped behind one of the scouts. They then slapped him hard on the right shoulder three times.

All of those selected were then brought to another campfire where they were told the Order’s password, which is called “the admonition”, and apprised of the initiation ceremony. Each selected scout was escorted in the dark to a separate place in the woods and given a blanket, an egg, two matches, and a canteen of water. They were told to make a camp, sleep, cook the egg, and eat it. In the morning each had to find his way back to his troop.

I thought that this was very cool, and I was proud to be able to bring the extra match back to my to our camp. Thank goodness that it did not rain. It seldom did in Kansas in the summer in those days.

If you want to know the secrets of the society, you can learn them on the Internet. However, you must know the admonition, AND be able to key it in with all lower-case letters and no spaces or hyphens. I remember the admonition, but no one told me how to spell it, and it is not a bit obvious.

1948-1954 Kansas City, KS Part 3: My Father’s Family

Posted on July 25, 2020 by Mike

My dad’s side of the family. Continue reading →

1001 Southwest Blvd. is Holy Name. I think that the Wavada house was where the point of the red arrow is. I could be wrong. — 1001 Southwest Blvd. is Holy Name. I think that the Wavada house was where the point of the red arrow is.

I spent less time in my younger years with my dad’s side of the family. My dad’s parents were Henry and Hazel Wavada. Henry was born in 1884 or 1885; Hazel was born on December 1, 1899. In the early fifties they lived in the house at the end of S. Cherokee St. in the Rosedale section of Kansas City, KS, in which my dad and his two brothers grew up. It was only a few blocks away from Holy Name church. The Ursuline nuns who taught there lived right next to the Wavadas. I remember seeing their wash hanging outside. It was the first time that I internalized the fact that nuns were humans.

We went there a few times, and I can sort of visualize it. I think that the house was yellowish at that time, and it had a porch. You had to walk up steps to get to the porch. I don’t remember the inside much because I was fascinated by the yard. In back was a stone wall about two feet high, and beyond that was an honest-to-goodness woods right in Kansas City, KS.

My best guess is that my granddad died in 1961. He was in his late seventies, but I thought that he must be much younger than that. It never occurred to me that he could be as much as fifteen years older than his wife.

My memories of Henry are scant. I recall that on the one occasion that he fixed breakfast for me he put way too much pepper on the eggs. I can visualize his face, but I cannot picture him doing anything except sitting in a chair.

My guess is that Henry had two brothers and two sisters. For as long as I knew them Mike, Mary, and Helen lived together in a house in KC KS. My parents made it clear to me that I was not named after this Mike, whom my dad considered a layabout. Maybe that is why they called me Mickey. The other brother Vic lived in Nevada (neh VAY dah), MO. I think that we drove down to visit with him once.

I think that both of my grandparents at one time worked in the meat packing industry. Henry might have been a meat inspector.

My dad told me only three anecdotes about his father. He said that his mother would often need to go the tavern and drag him home for dinner. I never saw him drunk, but he was apparently an alcoholic.

The second story concerned Henry’s job. He was apparently offered a big promotion at a time during the depression that the family really needed the money. It would require him to move to Albert Lea, MN. He declined the offer immediately because he was “no g.d. Eskimo”.

The last one involved our family’s legendary mechanical prowess. The (coal?) burner in the basement was on the fritz. Henry got a big wrench and went down to fix it. The next hour or so was filled with curses wafting up from the basement. Then there were repeated loud crashes of metal on metal. Henry came upstairs and sat down. The burner was in shambles.

I know almost nothing about the Wavada family tree, but someone in Spokane has researched it. There are two Wavada enclaves that I know of. One is in Wichita, the other in Spokane. They both pronounce the name WAVE-uh-day. I tell people that the name is probably French. My dad told me that the family came to the U.S. from Alsace via Marseilles.

WH I and II fought for the US. WH III (above) fought for white supremacy (and won).

I know even less about Hazel’s family. Her maiden name was Cox. My dad told me that they were Scots-Irish who had been in America for generations. Grandmom informed me that we were related to Wade Hampton I, II, and III. I also heard that we were related to Mad Anthony Wayne, but I am pretty sure that that was a mixup. In any case if I am ever a guest on Finding Your Roots, Henry Louis Gates Jr. will let me know exactly how many slaves they owned. It was a lot!

We did visit some of Hazel’s relatives once in, I think, Lawrence, KS. I spent most of the time playing with their big dog. I remember that one of the daughters, who was a few years older than I was, showed us a painting that she had done. It just looked like globs of paint, but I make no claim to even average artistic judgment.

When Henry died, Hazel moved to an apartment in KC MO. We went to visit her fairly often. She always had hard candy for the kids and offered us a Coke. Our excitement diminished when we found out that “Coke” actually meant 7-Up. To people in KC “coke” is (or at least was) is a generic word for carbonated soft drink.

She somehow got a dachshund named Tippy. His breeding name was Donnys Perry von Kirsch. She eventually gave him to us.

Hazel did not drive. She liked to come visit us. She would usually persuade my dad to “go snooping”, which meant to drive to specific addresses of people whom she knew in order to see what kind of house they lived in.

My dad informed me long after the fact that when Hazel was in her eighties, she disappeared for a while. My cousin Margaret Anne tracked her down. That is all that I know about this incident.

Vic Jr. his wife Theresa (who died in 2017), and two of their kids.

My dad had two brothers. The oldest brother, Vic, and his wife Margaret lived in Trenton, MO. They had four kids, all younger than I am: Charlie, Margaret Anne (Deaver), Vic Jr., and Cathy (Wisor). I probably spent more time with them at their dad’s funeral in 2009 and my dad’s funeral than I did during the twenty-two years that I lived in Kansas City. I did not know Cathy, who is much younger than I am, at all.

The other brother, whose baptismal name was Henry, was also older than my dad. Everyone called him Joe. He was a Benedictine monk, who monastic name was Fr. Vincent. We all called him Father Joe. He died in 1990.

He was a major influence on my life. You can read more about him in this blog entry.

All three brothers matriculated at Maur Hill, a Benedictine high school in Atchison, KS. This is how my dad explained to me how three boys from Rosedale were able to attend a private high school during the depression. Hazel somehow struck an agreement with the Benedictines that, if one of the boys became a Benedictine priest, the monks would educate all three. Vic got as far as selecting a monastic name (Hildebrand, the birth name of Pope Gregory VII, a canonized saint who led the monastic “reform” movement in its seizure of the papacy in the eleventh century). However, Vic somehow got out of this obligation, and Joe was ordained as a Benedictine priest. I don’t know any more details than that.

I had a jacket just like the one that Fr. Edwin is wearing.

My dad worked with Fr. Edwin Watson (who died in 1999) for many years on promotional materials and funding campaigns for Maur Hill. In 2003 Maur Hill merged with Mount St. Scholastica Academy. The new school is called Maur Hill-Mount Academy.

I saw my cousins on very few occasions until I was MUCH older. My dad, who was living in Connecticut by then, and I went to Trenton for my Aunt Margaret’s funeral in 2007 and Uncle Vic’s funeral in 2009. Those occasions have been described here. I got better acquainted with some of them at my dad’s funeral. This blog entry is devoted to that occasion, which took place in suburban Kansas City. Since then I have communicated off and on with Charlie via email.

As far as I know, there has never been a family reunion for the Wavadas or even anything like a party that celebrated anything besides death.

1948-1954 Kansas City, KS Part 2: My Mother’s Family

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Mike

Maternal relatives. Continue reading →

My mother’s parents were John and Clara Cernech. I know very little about John’s antecedents. I was told that his father was a Croat. His mother’s name was Rose Duffy. Clara’s maiden name was Keuchel (rhymes with “cycle”), which is pretty clearly German. Her mother’s maiden name was Bartolak, which is, I think, Polish. Somebody on her side was certainly Polish. She considered herself Polish. Of course, being German was not popular in the forties.

I am pretty sure that all four of my maternal great-grandparents were already dead when I was born. In any case, I never met any of them.

My mom was born on October 2, 1925. She died in March of 1998. My grandparents were born near the end of the nineteenth century, and they died in the eighties. I found their grave marker online. She died in 1980; he died in 1985.

My mom had only one sibling, an older brother whose name was Clarence. Everyone called him Dean. I don’t know the derivation of his nickname. I called him Uncle Dean. He became an Osteopath. Many of his friends called him “Doc”. He died in 1999.

Uncle Dean’s wife was named Dorothy. They had three sons, John¹ (who was sometimes called Johnny Carl to distinguish him from his grandfather), Terry², and Rick³. Terry was my age. In fact, although we lived twenty miles apart, we were in the same class of about thirty-five boys at Rockhurst High School. John, who also attended Rockhurst, was two or three years older than Terry and me; Rick, whom we called Ricky at the time, was two or three years younger.

We visited Uncle Dean’s family pretty often, but not when we were still living in KC KS. Since we did not have a car, and they lived in Sugar Creek, on the far eastern edge of the KC metropolitan area, it would have been difficult. It might have been possible to take a bus with several transfers, but I have no memory of doing so. Besides, I was often in the hospital or recovering from the last operation.

I had the gun, holster, and hat, but not the rest of the get-up.

When we did visit them, I was very impressed. I really liked hanging out with Terry. He was only five months older than I was, but he was much more mature, and he had an older brother to show him the ropes. I remember that I always wore my toy pistols and holster when we went there in the mid-fifties. There was a play room downstairs. The cushions from the couch would go on the floor, and we had competitions over who could execute the most spectacular death by hostile gunfire. We also had extensive quick-draw practice. Terry had developed a move in which he rolled on the ground while drawing his pistol. In those days television was dominated by Westerns. Nearly all young boys had guns. I wore mine everywhere.

Also, the Cerneches always seemed to have those highly desirable toys that were on the back covers of catalogs. I remember that they had a fort with both soldiers and Indians—all plastic. I coveted it greatly.

They also had the first color television that I ever saw. I remember being awestruck while viewing “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.” And get this, they actually flew (flew!) out to California as a family and spent a day at Disneyland. They got to see the hippopotamus sneak up on their boat in person! I was so envious.

Once Uncle Dean took us rabbit hunting. Their dog Buster, a German Shepherd, ran around a field scaring up the bunnies. Uncle Dean (and maybe John, but certainly not the rest of us) shot at them with a pistol. At least one was killed. I remember that he showed us how to clean it.

I remember two other occasions rather vividly. In the first one Aunt Dorothy drove me, Terry, and Rick to a theater to see a Roy Rogers movie. Afterwards, while we were waiting for her to pick us up, a fight broke out among some older kids in the parking lot. I was excited, but more than a little scared. By then I was no longer the biggest kid; in fact, I was a string bean. Terry knew some of the people involved. Fortunately, nothing came of it.

The other incident must have occurred in 1961. Terry had a 45 of Roy Orbison singing “Running Scared”. I absolutely loved it. It got me interested in pop music. A few years later I became rather obsessive about rock and roll. I knew who recorded every song. This is barely an exaggeration.

I am not sure that my cousins ever came to our house in Prairie Village. We did not have a lot of room. It would have been cramped.

Even though they owned the house, I don’t think that my grandparents lived with us in KC KS. If they did, they moved before I knew what was going on. They lived in Grand Island, NE, and then in Leavenworth, KS. My granddad worked for the Boss Glove Company. I don’t know what his job was.

I have a vague memory that we visited them once in Grand Island, but I have no recollection of how we could have traveled there. Maybe we took the train. I remember that their next-door neighbors were Japanese, which seemed very exotic to me. My grandmother liked them, but I did not know what to think. Japanese people were NEVER on television except as the hated enemy in war movies.

We definitely visited my grandparents in Leavenworth. The big tourist attractions there were the high-security federal penitentiary and the high-security military prison. Residents of Leavenworth always kept their radios on listening for news of prison breaks from either federal prison or from the high-security state prison in nearby Lansing, the last town through which we passed en route to their house on Kickapoo St. The escapees from Lansing were considered more dangerous. Most violent criminals were locked up in state prisons.

The Wavadas drove up to Leavenworth on many Easters and Thanksgivings. Uncle Dean brought his brood, too. There were two specialties of the house, czarnina (duck’s blood soup) and povitica (rolled nut bread). Uncle Dean was crazy about the former, which I refused to sample after they told me what it was. Everyone loved the latter. No matter how much my grandmother made, we ate it up.

At least once I and a subset of the cousins (Terry and Ricky?) were allowed to stay overnight at my grandparents. This was the highlight of my youth. In the afternoon my grandmother took us bowling. After supper we had delicious root beer floats. There were no extra beds, and so my grandmother lay some cushions on the floor for us to sleep on. Best of all, we got to stay up and watch television as late as we wanted to. We watched an Abbott and Costello movie on the late show (10:30 central time). I assume that we fell asleep in the middle, and the test pattern was on all night.

On one of our last trips to Leavenworth I was exploring either the basement or the garage by myself. I came across a men’s magazine called Argosy. I read one or two scandalous stories. I still remember one line: “She wore a fishnet bra; but it did not contain fish.” I certainly never told anyone about this, which was probably the naughtiest thing that I ever did as a kid.

I have vague recollections of going to a lot of weddings and funerals involving my mother’s relatives. These were memorable occasions for me because my cousins were always there. I only remember two details: running around at full speed in dress clothes and occasionally being called on to translate for Terry and Ricky, who were less easy for grownups to understand. It’s possible that they just wanted to hear how well the young harelip could talk.

Most of the relatives at these gatherings were vague to me. Two were very clear: Uncle Joe and Aunt Josephine. Joe was a mild mannered and friendly guy. Josephine was, to be kind, portly. But then … a polka would be heard, and the two of them would fly around the room. Everyone always cleared the floor for them and loudly applauded when the song was over.

Everyone in my immediate family really liked my Aunt Dorothy, but she and Uncle Dean eventually got divorced. To my knowledge this was an unprecedented event for that side of the family, which was 100 percent Catholic. Uncle Dean married his medical technician, Mildred, shortly thereafter at Unity Village, a huge Unitarian complex in KC. I don’t remember if my grandparents attended or not. The four Wavadas did.

Dean and Mildred had a son Paul, whom everyone called Paul Stacy⁴. I don’t think that I ever met him. I might have said hello at my high school graduation or somewhere or Terry’s first wedding.

I remember that on at least one occasion we visited a Bartolak family. I think that her name was Joy, but I don’t remember her husband.

We also visited a relative who was in some way disabled. She spent most of her time doing jigsaw puzzles. I thought that she had a great life. I don’t remember the names of anyone in that household.

Terry has put on a few pounds, and the beard is new, but I would still recognize him.

1. John worked as an educational administrator. He worked at Creighton University in Omaha for many years. He died in 2023. His obituary can be found here. John came to see me when I was coaching debate at U-M. I never understood what that was about.

2. Terry is living in the Springfield, MO, area. His LinkedIn page can be found here.

3. In 2022 Rick contacted me by email. He apparently arranged cruises for people. After my solo voyage from Budapest to Amsterdam, I wrote to him and sent a link to my journal. He never responded.

4. I found a LinkedIn page for Paul Cernech. It is probably the person who was always called “Paul Stacy”. It is not a common name, and the dates seem about right.

1971 January-February: Ft. Gordon, GA

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Mike

MP Training at Fort Gordon Continue reading →

My orders instructed me to report to Fort Gordon, GA, another military base named for a Confederate general, for training as a Military Policeman. Fort Gordon is near Augusta. I flew to the Augusta airport from KC. Almost five decades later I can still remember the smell of the air around the airport. I don’t know what produced the stench—something industrial, i think. It was almost overpowering.

I was assigned to E-10-4: echo company, tenth battalion, fourth MP training brigade. I was surprised to find that, in our platoon at least, there seemed to be quite a few college graduates. I later learned that the minimum GT score for MP’s was 90. Our company in Basic had been roughly evenly split between draftees and guys who enlisted. Here almost everyone had been drafted.

We shared the mess hall and the training schedule with F-10-4, called “F Troop” by everyone including the guys who were in it.

I don’t remember the name of our platoon sergeant. He barely went through the motions of supervising, and he did no training at all. He spent most days in the rec room shooting pool while we were out training.

As in Basic, each squad had temporary corporals. The ones in Basic had just been guys appointed, apparently at random, by the drill sergeant. The ones at MP school had volunteered to spend a week or two after Basic being trained how to be a corporal. In exchange, if my memory is right, they were guaranteed a promotion to E2 (one stripe!) at the end of AIT.

This one costs $1,250. Burt’s probably cost less.

Our squad’s pseudo-corporal was named Burt. I don’t remember his first name. He had enlisted with the intention of becoming an MP for life. He kept in his locker a leather-bound family bible that was at least three inches thick. He was very proud of it. He showed me once how it included pages to record marriages, births, and deaths. He told me that how much it cost, and the figure astounded me. I asked him why he did not buy a cheap bible and a spiral notebook for the family history part. He took my question seriously.

One of the other temporary corporals was named Junkker. He allegedly scored 160 on both GT tests. I never got a chance to know him very well.

Here is a list of the guys in my squad. I might have missed one or two people.

Ken Wainwright went to Boston College. He knew two of my friends from high school, John Rubin and Pat Dobel, my first debate partner. They had both attended BC.
Since Dawson Waites was a little chubby, he was designated as a “road guard”. Whenever the company, while marching to a training area, approached an intersection, the sergeant or officer leading us would yell “Road guards post!” Dawson and the other road guards had to run to the front to stop traffic. In the Army they often talked about the (Airborne) Ranger Shuffle. Dawson perfected the Forest Ranger Shuffle, which was slightly slower than a standard walking pace.
Jerry White was a 6’9″ black guy who flew to Cincinnati every weekend to play semi-pro basketball. Since we had almost no free time during the week, the rest of us did not get much chance to know him very well.
Bob Willems was from New Jersey. He went to Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey.
AJ Williams lived in the Boston area and went to Bates College in Maine. He was the state champion in the mile run.
Ned Wilson went tp Ohio State, but I tried not to hold it against him. He was married and kept to himself most of the time.
Dave Zimmerman went to American University in DC.

As you might have guessed, we were assigned in alphabetical order. We had single beds (not bunks). Mine was between Dawson Waites’s and Jerry White’s. Aside from Jerry and Acting-Corporal Burt, we were a fairly homogeneous group of pretty well-educated draftees who were just trying to get through the next two years in one piece. It was pleasant to be able to have conversations about something besides toughness, girlfriends, and cars.

Rumors were slightly less prevalent than in Basic. Most centered upon our future duty assignments. About halfway through our training the chief cook at the mess hall disappeared. The rumor was that he had been caught selling meat on the black market.

One of the biggest differences between Basic and AIT was that we were actually graded. In theory it was possible to flunk. A couple of guys tried to fail the training, which would have got them assigned to some other MOS. My recollection is that we were required to score at least 700 out of 1,000 points. The last test was physical fitness. A guy named Walton had deliberately done badly enough that his total score was only 695. However, before they posted the total his “commander rating” had been improved enough to put him over the threshold. It was a little surprising that he even had a commander rating. He had gone AWOL once, and he absolutely refused to march in formation. He shuffled along behind us.

Some of the training classes were fairly interesting. They were all better than map reading in Basic Trainig. My favorite was learning about the various categories of fingerprints. My own set of ten, which I had never contemplated before, contained examples of almost every category. We also learned how to take prints using ink and paper.

The military law classes were a joke, which was probably appropriate. After all, there is a famous book, which I have read, called Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music. The title comes from a quote from Groucho Marx, who probably stole it from Georges Clemenceau. Before presenting any material that would be on the test, the instructor loudly announced, “THIS IS IMPORTANT!!”

We also learned to talk on the radio. We had to memorize the Army’s phonetic alphabet (in which alpha, bravo, charlie replaced the Able, Baker, Charlie series that was used in World War II) and the ten-series (a la Broderick Crawford). We were also enjoined never to use the word “repeat”. Instead, you should say “say again”.

We did not have to carry weapons with us. The only time that they issued us M16s was when we went on bivouac, a camping trip that lasted a few days. The only weapon that we learned to use was the Colt .45 caliber handgun. There was a sharp contrast between this hand cannon and the rifle that we were all now familiar with. The M16 had almost no kick. The .45 would rip your arm off if you were not careful. Furthermore, those huge slugs were very scary. The trainers told us that if one hit you in the toe you would go down. The biggest difference was that it was MUCH easier to hit a target at 300 meters with an M16 than it was to hit one with a .45 that was ten times closer!

We fired these things a few times on the firing range before we were tested on our marksmanship. “Up and down-range” was constantly yelled at us. Unfortunately, it was always yelled in English, and that was not the mother tongue of some of the guys from Puerto Rico, particularly Private Manuel.

When the instructor explained how to hold the pistol so that the recoil did not brain you, Manuel evidently missed it. The first time that Manuel fired the .45 it kicked back and smacked him in the forehead. He was only stunned, but the gun made a big mark in his forehead that did not go away for weeks.

Another time on the firing line an instructor noticed that Manuel was doing something wrong. He approached Manuel from the rear and addressed him by name. Manuel spun around so that they were facing each other. Manuel’s .45 was pointed at the instructor’s head. The .45 was loaded, the safety was off, and a round was in the chamber.

The instructor calmly said. “Manuel: about face.” Manuel knew this command, and he turned back toward the firing range. The instructor, still behind him, then reached toward Manuel’s weapon and told him to hand it to him. Once he had the .45 in his hand, the instructor loudly informed Manuel what he had been doing wrong. He may have even made him do some push-ups.

Towards the end of the training we were given the chance to try to qualify with the .45. We took forty shots at targets, and an instructor kept score. Here are the details:

- The passing score was 300 out of a possible 400.

The test had two parts. The first used standard bullseye targets with ten concentric circles. The innermost circle was worth ten points. The outermost was worth one. For this part of the test we were able to take our time, hold the weapon with both hands, and aim carefully. I think that ten shots were at twenty meters, and ten were at thirty meters.
For the second part the bullseye target was replaced by three truncated life-sized silhouettes. This time we shot twenty times at thirty, twenty, and ten meters, and we had to shoot rapidly from different positions. The last few at ten meters were shot “from the hip” like a cowboy in a gunfight. Each hole in one of the silhouettes was worth ten points.

We all took our forty shots in the first round. A few guys who were experienced shooters qualified on that round. They were allowed to return to the barracks. The rest of us remained until we qualified, or they gave up on us.

Nobody from our squad qualified on the first try, but all the rest of the guys did better than I did. My score was only 68 out of a possible 400! I thought for sure that all three of my shots from the hip must surely have hit one of the silhouettes. They were only ten meters away, but I missed all of them!

For the second round a new rule was added. If you did not score at least 100 on the bullseye, you would not be allowed to shoot at the silhouettes.

I can proudly report that I did much better on the bullseyes the second time. I looked at my target and quickly added my score in my head. It was 80 or 81. I was thrilled. That was much better than the first time. I knew that I would not be allowed to shoot at the silhouettes in this round, but I now felt that I had some chance of qualifying in round four or five.

When the instructor came around to grade my bullseye, he informed me that I would “need to hit nearly all of the silhouettes to qualify.”

The words “nearly all” banged around in my head, but I gave the correct response, which was “Yes, sergeant.”

Our silhouettes were closer together, they did not have stands, and they were green.

So, I was allowed to shoot at the silhouettes. Once again, I did much better. At the end I could see that I had hit one of the targets nearly half the time, and there were also four or five ricochets. The ricochets are easy to discern. Regular holes are round. Ricochets are much higher than they are wide because they have bounced off of the ground up toward the target at a steep angle.

One again the instructor surprised me. He looked at my targets and said, “Well, some of these holes look like they have two or three bullets in them. You qualified. Turn in your weapon.” He obviously knew about ricochets. Either he was extremely poor at arithmetic, or he just wanted to put an end to this as fast as possible.

Only a few guys qualified in the second round. The rest stayed at the testing area to go through the process again. The best part was that the guys who qualified in the first round learned when they arrived back at the barracks that they earned the privilege of being on KP for supper. By the time that I arrived with the second group, the KP roster was filled. We were actually left on our own, a very rare thing.

So, the Army allowed me to wear a ribbon touting my skill with the hand cannon. However, I knew in my heart that I was a terrible shot. I vowed never again to squeeze the trigger on one of those things. If I ever needed to use it, I would throw it rather than fire it.

We were supposed to learn how to drive a five-speed standard-transmission Jeep. We did have one class in it, but we were supposed to have two. They warned us that the Jeeps had very high centers of gravity. They said that we should NEVER drive faster than 35 miles per hour.

Most of the guys got to do some driving. The guys who were familiar with standard transmission cars leapt at the chance to drive a Jeep. I never got to drive at all.

I suspect that Private Manuel, who had never operated any kind of car, set a new world’s record for driving the shortest distance before totaling a vehicle. The previous driver had left the Jeep in first gear with the brake off and the steering wheel turned hard to the left. Another Jeep was parked to his left and less than a foot in front. Manuel turned the key and his Jeep lurched into the other Jeep’s rear corner, which was armored. Manuel still had his hand on the key, and he kept turning until something important under the hood was dismembered, and the engine in Manuel’s jeep went silent forever.

Approximately three-fourths of us actually got to drive. Two drivers flipped their Jeeps because they went too fast around a corner. One was Manuel. I don’t remember if there were injuries. If so, they must not have been too serious.

We had to take a driving test. I flunked. They gave me an hour or so of personalized instructions in the evening, after which I passed easily. Subsequently all of my personal cars (except for the Duster that Sue bought) have had standard transmissions up until 2018, when it was no longer available. I did learn something in the Army.

We had an interesting class in hand-to-hand combat. The first part involved showing us how to bodyslam an opponent. Since this technique is essentially useless outside of a professional wrestling match, they were actually teaching us how to take a fall without breaking any bones.

Our company was joined for this training by a small group of Marines. The instructors had a side bet on whether the first trainee to break a collarbone would be one of the 200 Army guys or the 14 Marines. The guy who bet on the jarheads won, but two of our guys also broke collarbones. In both cases the guys survived the first slam, but they both tried to break their falls with their hands. The instructors told both of them that if they did that again they would probably break something, but they could not help themselves.

It pretty much goes without saying that one of the guys who broke his collarbone was Manuel. They took him to the hospital, and we never saw him again. I don’t remember the other guy.

I really enjoyed learning how to escape from a side headlock. For the next thirty years of my life I secretly hoped that someone would have tried to put a side headlock on me. If they were under 250 pounds, they might have been in for a surprise.

The most memorable aspect of MP training was bivouac, an overnight camping trip. Each of us was issued a pack and half of a tent. We were paired up with another member of our squad, in my case Dawson Waites. We were also issued M16s and a cartridge full of blanks. Since Dawson was one of the road guards, he was issued an M60 machine gun, which was heavier, instead of a rifle. He also was assigned to the TOC (Tactical Operactions Command). So, we put up our tent together, but he spent the night at the TOC. I had the tent to myself.

A few of the guys were assigned to be the enemy. They were supposed to plan some kind of attack on our campsite. We were told to set up a schedule so that one of the two occupants of the tent was on guard at all times. I, however, did not have a tentmate. So, my choices were to go to sleep, to stay up all night guarding an empty tent, or to do some combination of the two. I chose the first option.

AJ Williams was in the tent next to mine. When he was on guard duty and I was half-asleep, he ran around yelling about how he had spotted the enemy. He set his rifle on my tent about one foot from my head and shot off a round or two. Then he ran around and yelled some more. He put the rifle back near my head and shot off a few more rounds. I pretended that I didn’t hear him and stayed in the tent. I kept up the act the next morning and remarked about how easy it was to sleep in the fresh open air.

On the next day we went to MP City, which was a mock-up of a few blocks of a real city. They taught us riot control. The techniques that we learned bore no resemblance with what you see in 2020. Basically, we just stomped our feet as we walked.

A sergeant taught us the proper way to search someone. To see if we learned the lesson he gave half of us a bunch of pencils and told us to hide some on our bodies. Then another trainee would search us to see if he could find all of them. The guy who searched me was from F Troop. It did not surprise me that he could not find any of the six pencils that I hid in or under my clothes.

We also learned how to direct traffic. The public is supposed to assume that you have a stop sign on your chest and your back. You never face the traffic that you want to proceed. Those cars are on your right and your left.

The written test and the physical test were both pretty easy. No one studied or practiced, and everyone passed.

The last big event that we faced before the graduation ceremony was the commander’s inspection. Our CO, whom I remember not at all, was scheduled to come to the barracks wearing a pair of white gloves. In addition to looking for dirt, he also could quiz anyone on any subject.

We were allowed a few hours to prepare our gear and our brains for the inspection. For the first time ever our sergeant appeared in the barracks. He called us together and told us, “If anyone asks you if anyone checked you out for this inspection, tell them that I did. Has everyone got that?” Then he left to shot a few more racks of pool.

An hour or so later the sergeant came back and walked around the barracks. He eventually came over to me and asked me, “Did anyone check you out for this inspection?”

I quickly responded, “Yes, sergeant.”

“Who checked you out?” he asked.

“You did, sergeant!”

He then examined the name tag on my fatigue shirt and jotted it down in his notebook.

There was one and only one place for everything in the footlocker.

The inspection itself was not very memorable. Jerry White had a skin condition that prevented him from shaving. He used some kind of depilatory cream. In the place in his footlocker reserved for a razor he had placed the knife that he used to remove the cream. The captain may have let him skate on that, but the knife was clearly marked as belonging to the mess hall. Jerry had stolen it. He got yelled at, but nothing came of it. At that point they just wanted to get rid of us.

The next day at roll call the captain announced the names of a dozen or so trainees, including Ned Wilson and me, who had been recommended for promotion. One of the fuck-ups was named Lovado, and when they called my name (mispronouncing it wuh VAH duh), he pretended that they had called his name and danced around in celebration.

We had to face a board of review of sergeants and officers one at a time. They asked us a bunch of questions. I missed one about the name assigned to some kind of flag, but I was the only person who got one of the questions right: “What is the first thing that you do in the event of a chemical, radiological, or biological attack?”

My answer: “Stop breathing.”

So I got promoted to E2. I now was allowed to sew a stripe on my sleeve. It was also worth a few dollars per month, but it ended up being worth more than that to me. I was quite sure that my promotion was all due to the fact that I had lied to the platoon sergeant about my gear being checked out.

Then came the moment of truth in which they announced all the permanent duty assignments. Wainwright got White Sands, NM. Willems, Williams, Wilson, Zimmerman, and I got Sandia Base, NM. So the last five college graduates in alphabetical order all were going to SBNM. This was great news.

We were all ecstatic. I asked one of the sergeants whatt Sandia Base was like. He was astounded that I had been assigned there. He said, “You got Sandia? That’s the best duty in the whole country.

I cannot remember anyone else’s assignment, not even Dawson Waites’. He was not sent overseas, but some people were.

It appeared I and all of my friends had avoided the threat of Vietnam. Now we had to work out some way to tolerate the next twenty months as Army cops.

Wavablog

Memoirs, bridge, popes, travel, and other stuff

Monthly Archives: July 2020

1962-1965 Rockhurst High Part 1A: Freshman Year Classes

1961-1962 QHRS 8th Grade

1948-1954 Kansas City, KS Part 3: My Father’s Family

1948-1954 Kansas City, KS Part 2: My Mother’s Family

1971 January-February: Ft. Gordon, GA