2011 Jim Wavada’s Funeral and Estate

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Mike

The last of the Mohicans. Continue reading →

My dad died at Hartford Hospital on Tuesday, September 13, 2011. At the time he had been living in Connecticut for almost six years. That period has been described in some detail here. After his death it fell to me to make all of the arrangements for his funeral, disposition of his estate, and other such tasks.

My wife Sue definitely helped, and my dad made it easy for me by making a lot of preparations. He had written a carefully worded will, and he made me its executor. He had also added me as a signatory on his bank accounts and beneficiary of his investments.

The first thing that I did was to call my sister Jamie and notify her that he had died. I asked her to attend the funeral and told her that there was enough money in his accounts to pay for her and her five children to come to the funeral that I planned to schedule in Leawood, KS, where my dad had spent the bulk of his adult life. This was the first time that I had talked with Jamie for several years, as explained here. She thanked me for taking care of him, but she would not consider coming to the funeral. She said that he would have hated her being there, which I am quite certain was not true. None of her five children attended either. I don’t have any evidence that she had anything to do with their decisions, but …

My dad and mom had been active members of Curé of Ars church. I called the pastor, Monsignor Charles McGlinn¹, to arrange the funeral mass. Somehow the subject of Boy Scouts came up. I told him that shortly after my family moved to Leawood back in 1962 I had joined Troop 395 and was the troop’s first Eagle Scout. I had spent most of my scouting days in Troop 295 at Queen of the Holy Rosary. He had also been the pastor there, but well after my time.

He remembered my dad and mom, and he scheduled the funeral mass for 10AM on Friday, September 23. I told him that my dad wished to be cremated. He said that that would be fine. In fact, it was the usual practice for deaths in distant locations. This surprised me quite a bit. I had been taught that the resurrection of the bodies would occur on Judgment Day. I supposed that if you believed that, you could imagine some way that the body could be reconstituted from ashes.

I had been composing dad’s obituary in my head while he had been in palliative care at the hospital. Since newspapers charged by the word for obituaries, dad would have appreciated that I kept it short and to the point. I sent this to the Kansas City Star.

James E. Wavada, 87, died on September 13, 2011, in Hartford, CT. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 23, at Curé of Ars Church, 9401 Mission Rd., Leawood. Jim grew up in Rosedale, matriculated at Maur Hill, and served in the Army in WWII. He worked at BMA for almost four decades, starting in the mail room and ending as a vice-president of public relations. He had a great love of words, except for “I,” which he almost never used. His astounding memory could produce an apt literary quote for any occasion. After he retired, he wrote Yup the Organization, a tongue-in-cheek guide to climbing the corporate ladder. The best day of Jim’s life was when he married Dolores Cernech. The worst was when she died more than 50 years later. Jim is survived by his son, Mike, daughter, Jamie, five grandchildren, and innumerable friends and admirers.

Four decades? Where did I get that? Well, as usual, nobody checked my work. I was very proud of this little essay at the time, but given another chance I would at least remove the commas after “son” and “daughter”.

I am sure that there was some sort of reception. I think that my dad’s friends had set up something in the vestibule, and there was a reception line there before mass. I don’t remember going to a funeral home there.

I don’t remember calling anyone else about the funeral. Sue might have called the Raffertys. They probably notified their friends and others who knew dad. Two of my cousins lived in KC. One of them probably saw the obituary and notified the others. Charlie, Vic, and Cathy were certainly there. I am not so sure about Margaret Anne.

Somehow dad’s old army buddy, Jake Jacobson², heard about it and came down by himself from Milwaukee. I think that he might have called me to say that he was coming.

I was thrilled that he was able to make the trip. I knew that he was five years older than my dad, but he seemed to be quite vigorous. However, he confessed to me that whenever he changed locations, he made sure that he knew where the nearest bathroom was located.

The other surprise was Joan Dobel³, the mother of Pat Dobel, my friend and classmate at Rockhurst High School and my very first debate partner. I had never met her, but evidently she had been A friend of my parents.

Sue and I made arrangements with Leete-Stephens Funeral Home in Enfield. We decided not to hold any gatherings in Enfield. The people at L-S took care of the cremation privately. They gave me an urn containing the ashes. I was shocked to learn that I was required to carry them on the airplane as carry-on luggage.

Sue and I flew to KCI a day or two before the day of the funeral. We certainly rented a car from Avis.

I am pretty sure that we stayed at the Hampton Inn that was near I-435 in Overland Park. We may have made arrangements for Jake to stay there, too.

I have a vague recollection that Sue and I picked up Jake at the airport, but I am not positive. If I did not, I have trouble imagining how he got around. I don’t remember him taking taxis.

The funeral mass itself was well attended. My parents had a lot of friends in the area. One of the ladies that had worked closely with him at BMA was also there. Dad sometimes talked about her when I was still living in Leawood many years earlier, but I cannot remember her name.

I did not take an active roll in the ceremony. I don’t think that anyone spoke about my dad, but I could be wrong. This was a marked contrast with my mom’s funeral as posted here.

I remember that Sue and I rode in one of the funeral home’s cars out to the cemetery. It seemed like a long drive. We were in the same care as Monsignor McGlinn. I felt uncomfortable, but he did nothing to cause me to feel that way.

By far the highlight of the entire trip was supper at RC’s in the Martin City neighborhood of KC MO. My dad and I frequented this restaurant on my visits to KC (documented here). All my cousins and some of their kids joined Sue, me, and Jake. Cathy’s future husband, Patrick Wisor, was also there. My dad’s estate picked up the tab.

I don’t know what about the atmosphere at RC’s⁴ made this such an enjoyable evening for me. I don’t remember any of the details of the conversation, but I do recall that everyone seemed relaxed and having a good time. It helped to cement some relationships between me and my cousins. We had known each other for decades, but we had spent very little time together.

Disposition of the estate: This was a surprisingly easy job. My dad left his financial records in remarkably good condition. He had previously added my name to his accounts, and his will was straightforward. I was the executor. The will left everything to me, but in private conversations he told me that he also wanted to take care of Jamie’s children.

I made one or two visits to the office of Richard Tatoian, a probate attorney in Enfield. I told him that I was worried that my sister might give me some trouble about the will. He advised me that my dad made his intentions very clear, and he did not think that anyone could contest it. The total estate was worth about $180,000. I sent checks for $9,000 each to Cadie and Kelly Mapes and Gina, Anne, and Joey Lisella. After the first of the year I sent a second check for the same amount to each of them.

After Sue and I had taken the few things that we wanted (electronic equipment and mementos) from dad’s apartment Sue contacted Golden Gavel Auctions in East Windsor to pick up all of the rest of dad’s stuff at Bigelow Commons. They were able to sell some of it, but it barely covered the cost of carting away the rest of it.

Dealing with Bigelow Commons was a pleasure. They waived the right to the rent for the rest of the term of dad’s lease. They also told me how much they enjoyed having my dad as a tenant.

Many years later I discovered in my dad’s papers two very interesting tickets: one for Super Bowl III (the Joe Namath game) and one for the 1970 Rose Bowl, Bo Schembechler’s first.

1. Monsignor McGlinn was the pastor of Curé of Ars from 1986 until his retirement in 2015. Before that he had been the pastor at Queen of the Holy Rosary, our parish for eight years. He died in 2020 at the age of 78. His very revealing obituary has been posted here.

2. Jake died in 2023 at the age of 103 and a half! His truly fabulous obituary is posted here. It is by far the best that I have ever seen. The obituary contains a story written by his son Paul (introduced here). It mentioned, among many other things, that Jake was in counter-intelligence in Europe in WW II. This surprised me greatly. My dad was in the infantry in the Pacific. I wondered how the two of them met and managed to develop a relationship that lasted for so long. I could not figure out a way to contact Paul to see if he knew the answer.

3. Joan died in 2013. Her obituary has been posted here.

4. RC’s changed hands in 2023. Its history is documented here.

1965-1966 Rockhurst High: Senior Year Speech Team

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Mike

The quest for the Double Ruby. Continue reading →

Before my senior year at Rockhurst I had paid little attention to the NFL (National Forensics League, renamed in 2014 as the National Speech and Debate Association). The school had long sponsored a chapter of the league, and our results from tournaments were always sent to the NFL headquarters. Debaters all had NFL pins, and most guys wore them to competitions. The inlaid gem(s) indicated ranking in terms of points accumulated. The highest rank at the time was double-ruby, which indicated 500 points earned. Points were awarded for debates, rounds in speech events, and miscellaneous speaking events, including the state’s annual student congress. The maximum number of points in each category was limited.

This method of scoring suited my style perfectly. I participated more and in more varied events than anyone else on the team. My results had not been stellar, but early in the year I calculated that I could possibly amass 500 points by the end of senior year. It seemed like a reasonable goal, but it meant going to a lot of tournaments and other events. I decided to go for it.

Our NFL chapter elected a president and vice-president every year. My recollection is that Bill Locke was elected president, and I was vice-president. Since Bill was playing football during the tournament that Rockhurst sponsored each fall, it was my responsibility to “run it”. I don’t remember that I actually did much. Mr. Marchlewski and Mr. Rothermich did most of the preparation and tabulation of results. I might have arranged for timekeepers or something like that. At any rate, everything seemed to go pretty smoothly.

The NFL at that time awarded trophies to schools that had amassed a large number of points over the years. It just happened that Rockhurst won the trophy my senior year. Bruno Jacob himself, the founder and patriarch of the NFL, paid us a visit. All of the students assembled in the gym for his presentation of the award. I was chosen as master of ceremonies.

Bruno E. Jacob died in 1979.

The students were seated in the bleachers on either side. A lectern with a microphone was placed halfway between one of the basketball goals and midcourt. A wire ran from the lectern back to a corner of the gym. Mr. Jacob, myself, and some faculty members were seated in folding chairs behind the lectern. I have no idea who was responsible for the setup. I had never been involved with one of the assemblies.

The microphone did not work, and no one seemed available to fix it. I went on without it, and I think that I did a pretty good job of projecting my voice. However, I could hardly hear Mr. Jacob’s presentation at all, and I was only a few yards away from him. So, most of the students probably had no idea what he said. It was not memorable enough to last for in my brain for fifty-five years either.

Since Bill Locke was busy on the gridiron, I got to debate with John Williams for the first few months. We did exceptionally well together, winning almost all our debates. However, when Bill came back, he was paired with John again, as he should have been.

I am pretty sure that I had participated in the annual student congress event in my junior year at the RLDS headquarters in Independence. I had been very active and won a lot of NFL points.

I think that the congress in my senior year was held at the state capital in Jefferson City. I was somehow chosen to give the prayer to open the session. For a second my mind went blank (for the first and only time ever in a public speech), but I recovered and said what I intended. I did not take the advice of a student from St. Louis University High (another Jesuit school) to start the prayer with “Almighty God, if you exist, …”

I worked pretty hard preparing for all of the bills, and I received high marks from the judges in the first session. I was selected to chair the second session. I was surprised to discover that the first chairman had not made a seating map. I made one for myself so that I could fairly allow people to participate. Even so, the coach from (I think) Fort Osage High School interrupted the session and humiliated me by insisting that I call on people whom he designated. That soured the experience for me, but I still won quite a few NFL points.

John Lindsay.

My best moment almost occurred in the finals of the extemp event at a tournament in senior year. I don’t remember which one. In extemp you draw three topics, select one, and then spend 30-45 minutes crafting a speech on the topic. I think that the time limit was 5-7 minutes. My topic was whether the Republican Party was doomed after the Goldwater fiasco of 1964. I argued that the party would bounce back because of some younger people like John Lindsay, Chuck Percy, and a couple of others whom I can’t remember. Two of the three judges ranked me first, but the other judge, who said that he was a Republican himself, claimed that my speech was too obviously biased in favor of the GOP. So, I lost out to a guy who got a first, a second, and a third.

Incidentally, both of my parents were Democrats. My dad told me that in 1948 he went into the voting booth intending to vote for Dewey, but he couldn’t do it. I have never even considered voting for a Republican, and I had several chances to vote for Lowell Weicker, who was very popular in Connecticut.

He might have said it.

I started doing better in extemp because of some advice from a fellow extemper from Parkview High in Springfield. I noticed that he spent no time researching his speeches and little time writing or rehearsing. He explained that he mostly made up the facts that he cited and that he usually started his speeches with “Wasn’t it Coleridge who said …?” He insisted that this was kosher. “I didn’t say that Coleridge said that; I merely posed the question.”

I was too much of a Boy Scout to do that. However, I did lighten up a little. Once, in a tournament at St. Paul’s in Concordia, MO, I was in a bind. The guy who selected the topics wanted to make life miserable for extempers. The three that I chose included one on fashion, one on a relaxation technique, and one on the effect of the Papal Line of Demarcation of 1493 on Latin American politics.

Actually, there were two lines.

I had heard of the last one—the pope ceded the east to Portugal and the west to Spain. However, at that point in my life I did not know the pope’s name. I knew a few pope’s names that were fairly common; so I just called him Pope Urban.¹ I argued that Portugal was too weak to control its properties for very long, and Spain was likewise unable to control its more distant properties. So, in the end all of South America was susceptible to foreign influences. In the sixties that opened the door to Communism. I had no evidence whatever to make that claim, but at the time it seemed like something that Time or Newsweek might say.

I finished second in the round, which earned some NFL points. That was a lot better than I would have done talking about fashion.

In the NFL state tournament I got to the semifinals in extemp. I didn’t expect to win, but my goal was to make the finals. I did make the finals of another unusual event, oratorical declamation. The idea was to deliver a speech that someone else had given. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but it gave me a chance to compete in another event. I picked a translation of a speech from the French revolution.

I made the finals, and so did Tom Mulhern. They announced me as finishing third, for which I won a trophy. When I looked over the results I realized that the tabulation room had gotten confused. Actually, Mulhern was third. I mentioned this to Mr. Rothermich on the ride back to KC, and he sternly told me to shut up about it. I did, but I would have preferred to let Tom know that his work was appreciated.

It was a near thing, but I won enough points to get the double-ruby pin. Pat Dobel, John Immele, John Williams, and Bill Locke repeated as champions of the state debate tournament.

1. The line was actually drawn by Pope Alexander VI, the notorious second Borgia pope, in 1493. It was redrawn in a peace treaty the next year. You can read about this and Papa Borgia’s other tricks here. That thing on his head is a tiara, which was the official headgear of popes up until Paul VI set it aside in the twentieth century.

1962-1965 Rockhurst High Part 3: Speech & Debate Team

Posted on August 4, 2020 by Mike

The start of my career in speech. Continue reading →

Early in September, 1961, an intercom announcement at Rockhurst advertised a meeting in Mr. Marchlewski’s classroom in the basement for students interested in speech and debate. I attended, along with quite a few guys in my homeroom, including John Williams, the guy who sat behind me.

The faculty representatives were Michael Marchlewski and Arnold Rothermich. Both were Jesuit scholastics from St. Louis.¹ They explained that the team competed throughout the state in many types of events. I was mostly interested in debating, but I was willing to try just about anything.

I am not sure whether any upperclassmen talked with us that day. I do remember two seniors who debated, Doug Kingsbury and Al Riederer.² As I recall, Kingsbury won all the academic awards at Rockhurst that year. I have only a few vague recollections of any guys in the classes of 1964 and 1965.

Bishop Lillis High no longer exists.

Initially I was paired with Pat Dobel. Our first debate was against two novices from Bishop Lillis High. I am not sure that we even had a practice round before this. One day after school (or maybe on a Saturday) a bus brought a bunch of guys on the speech team over to Lillis. Pat and I were on the negative against two girls from Lillis. I was first negative. I had brought a few quotations that I had cut out of the J. Weston Walch handbook and taped onto index cards. I probably brought a pad of some sort on which to take notes. I don’t remember the resolution, and when I looked up the national topic recently, it did not seem even vaguely familiar. I seem to recall that a priest was the judge.

I have one very vivid memory of this debate. I was giving my constructive speech when I heard an unusual sound coming from below my waist. I stopped speaking for a couple of seconds to identified the noise. I had lost control of my knees, and they were knocking together.

My performance was abysmal, but Pat must have been pretty good. At least the judge voted for us. Unfortunately for me, that was the last time that I got to debate with Pat.

After that victory I lost FOURTEEN debates in a row. This may be a record of some sort. Certainly, ten or so losses in a row would be enough evidence for most people to realize that they should try something else. I wonder what my parents thought. The thing was that I really liked going to the tournaments. The humiliation of all those defeats was mitigated if not outweighed by the fun of being with a bunch of friends on a road trip.

I could not blame my partners. I debated with Tom Mulhern and Rick Collins, who were in the class of 1966, but not in my homeroom. They were both very good speakers. I was certainly the weak link in both of these partnerships. I got over the extreme nervousness soon enough, but I was immature, and I was so ignorant that I had no idea of how ignorant I was.

Two examples should suffice. The first happened when I was debating with Tom. The other team quoted from Hugh Hefner, the Playboy magnate. I thought that we should make an issue of the fact that they had based their case on such an immoral and unqualified person. I mean: anyone who had even mentioned the name Hugh Hefner at Queen of the Holy Rosary School, which I attended just six months earlier, would have been marched into Sr. Dominica’s office. What would happen after that is speculative, but it would not be pretty.

Fortunately Tom did not bite. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it did not work. When we got the results, I was stunned to see that the judge voted for our unashamedly immoral opponents.

Rick was my partner for the other truly embarrassing anecdote. For some reason the two of us were chosen to represent Rockhurst at an important six-round varsity tournament at Smith-Cotton High School in Sedalia, MO. It was an 83-mile drive. The format was 8-3-4, which means that after each eight-minute constructive speech, one of the opponents was allotted three minutes to ask questions.

Well, we dropped our first five debates. None was memorable. The last round was “reverse power-matched”, which meant that the teams with the best records faced the ones with the worst. Why they did this I cannot imagine. I have attended hundreds of tournaments over the course of fifteen and a half years of involvement in competitive debate, and never once did another tournament use this technique.

So, in the sixth round we were scheduled against a pair from William Chrisman High in Independence, MO, who were among the very best teams in the state. I gave the first negative constructive. The round was over after the after one of the affirmatives cross-examined me. I got so flustered that I said that Rick would explain what I meant in his speech. When I sat down, Rick was justifiably furious at me. He asked me what he was supposed to say. I admitted that I did not know. Needless to say, we lost.

Mr. Marchlewski did not work with any of us much. After one of these bleak outings, I asked Mr. Rothermich what I could do to improve. He said that maybe I needed a new suit.

I did not quit even after the fourteenth loss, and we did get a little better. We won a few rounds before the end of the year. I kept signing up for trips. I often did extemporaneous speaking. I think I tried original oratory, although I cannot remember the topic. I read “The Death of the Hired Man” in the poetry reading event.

Frederick March was a little better than i was, but he had that fan, and we could not use props.

Rick and I even did a scene from Inherit the Wind in duet acting. I played the William Jennings Bryan character. Before my senior year I was mediocre at best in all of these events, and my results reflected it. Nevertheless, I still loved going to tournaments.

I enjoyed working with and performing with both Tom and Rick. Tom sometimes brought his guitar with him on overnight trips, and I was very impressed by his ability to play it. I knew how to play the saxophone, but (1) it was not nearly as cool, and (2) for a period after my last lip operation it was uncomfortable to play, and I got out of practice.

Rick was a real card. He started every morning by growling at the mirror and then intoning “Oh, Rick, you handsome dog, you!”

Not at Rockhurst.

The team attended several tournaments in southern and central Missouri. Things are different there. From other Rockhurst debaters I heard some incredible stories about the debate team from Webb City, which is near Joplin, MO. One male debater was shocked to hear that Rockhurst had no female students. “What do y’all do for beaver?” he asked.

A Webb City novice team’s affirmative plan allegedly gave 2 percent of the weapons from the fifty largest countries to an international organization. They claimed that the organization would thus have control over 100 percent of the world’s weapons, but each country would maintain its own deterrent.

I remember that we stayed at an old hotel on the main street in, I think, Monett, MO. I have not read the town’s building code, but I cannot believed that this hotel passed. My room was on the second floor. There was no fire escape. Instead, a very long rope that was at least an inch thick was tied to the radiator, which was located near a window. The rope was knotted ever foot or so. There was no instruction manual. Apparently in case of emergency occupants were expected to throw the rope out the window and climb down. I wonder how the hotel adapted to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

We had a few practice debates, but I never received anything that I would characterize as coaching. Mr. Rothermich did help me a little with my poem. Mostly I learned from osmosis by listening to others.

There were a few dramatic moments. If I was only participating in individual events like poetry reading or extemp, there would be times when debates were occurring, and I was not busy. I would often walk around and listen to portions of debates by standing in the hallway near the door. At one tournament the coach of one of the teams that I had listened to complained to Mr. Rothermich about my behavior and demanded that I hand over all of my notes, of which I had none. He was really incensed about it, but Mr. Rothermich told me not to worry about it.

Junior year ended with something of a surprise. The four-man team of Pat Dobel, John Immele, John Williams, and Bill Locke—all from our junior class—won the state debate tournament. They received some public recognition for this, but probably not as much as they deserved. I did not feel envious; these guys were all my friends, and I was happy for and proud of them.

The problem for me was that I was now clearly a fifth wheel as far as debate was concerned. There would be little or no chance for me to debate at the varsity level as a senior, and I was too experienced to compete at any other level. It would be necessary for me to adjust my goals.

1. Fr. Marchlewski recently celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination.

Mr. Rothermich did not become a priest. He died in 2020. His obituary is here.

2. Al Riederer died in 2012. His obituary is here.

1962-1965 Rockhurst High Part 2: My Classmates

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Mike

Guys in my homeroom. Continue reading →

Here are the guys in our homeroom class whom I can remember.

I think that these guys were all in the class for at least some of the years, but I did not know them very well: Jim Cecil, Carl Cordes, Mike Griffin, Jim Hafner, Robert Hudspeth, Mike Loftus, Jim Murtha, Mike O’Connor, John O’Malley, and Mike Ulses. There was another guy named, I think, Mark McSomething.

I was pretty good friends with Chuck Blumentritt. Chuck, Joe Montanari, and I played golf at Blue Hills on caddy day once. The caddymaster got angry at us for some reason; maybe no guests were allowed. I also recall that Chuck later wrote a satirical play called Knifesmoke. The leading character was a saloonkeeper named Philip McGlass. I think that Chuck also played on the soccer team that was initiated in our junior or senior year. It was a club sport; in the sixties Americans did not take soccer seriously, at least not in KC. I think that Rockhurst only had four official sports in those years: football, baseball, track, and basketball.

I knew Michael Bortnick from when my family first moved to Prairie Village. His house was on Nall Ave. immediately behind ours. His family moved away a few years later. He was not at Rockhurst in our freshman class. I think that he enrolled when I was a junior. I had only a few classes with him, and he always sat on the other side of the room.

I am uncertain whether Jock Bracken was ever in our homeroom. He ran for President of the Student Council. His slogan was “Jock supports athletics.” I don’t remember whether he won or not.

Terry Cernech, my cousin, played on the varsity basketball team. I think that he also was associated somehow with a musical that was put on by Rockhurst High and Notre Dame de Sion, a girls school. I think that at one of those rehearsals he met his first wife, Debbie Lieschman, who, believe it or not, lived directly across the street from us in Leawood. Terry lived twenty miles away.

Dave Chappell was a good friend. I went over to his house a few times to play chess. He had a fancy chess set. It was difficult for me to identify the pieces. The queen looked a lot like a bishop. He used to say “Jethro Bodine is my ideal.” For some reason he decided to go into the Navy rather than go to college after graduation. He had a pronounced southern accent.

Pat Dobel was two-time state debate champion. He was also very good at extemporaneous speaking. He and his debate partner John Immele finished first and second in the overall GPA race. I don’t recall who won. He is on the faculty of the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington.

Bill Fischer was on the speech team, and he also acted in the school’s plays. He was easily the best actor in the Class of 1966. I remember him being very upset when Bob Dylan brought an electric guitar to Newport. He is on Facebook.

Gary Garrison was my friend from grade school and the Boy Scouts. At the 8th grade graduation he was one of the shortest guys, but he grew nearly a foot over the next summer. He has published two books and now lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

Michael Huslig, a very quiet guy, was one of the top students, especially in math and science. I think that he is now at Kansas University.

John Immele was also on the debate team that twice won the state championship. He was either first or second in GPA. As of 2005 he was associate director for nuclear weapons technology at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Bryce Jones was one of the guys that I hung around with, but I don’t remember any good stories. He died in 2019. His obituary is here.

Mike Kreyche took both Latin and Greek at Rockhurst and then studied the same subjects at the University of Arizona. He was the Systems Librarian at Kent State, where he published many articles.

Bill Locke was a friend from grade school. He played on the varsity football team at Rockhurst and was also on the two-time state championship debate team. He went to Notre Dame on a speech scholarship, but I never saw him on the collegiate circuit. For a while he was a barrister in London. His Facebook profile says that he is now a criminal lawyer in California.

Bill’s family lived fairly close to our house. One evening he and I decided to roll hedgeapples under cars driving on 89th St. When a car’s tire hit one it sounded like a blowout. One driver stopped to talk to us, I wanted to run, but Bill held fast. We said “yes, sir” and “no, sir” for a few minutes, and then he drove off.

What’s a hedgeapple? It is the fruit of the Osage Orange tree, which is very common in KC.

I remember that Bob Malone was pound-for-pound the best wrestler in our phys ed class.

Jim Mansour was easily the hairiest guy in the class. He played on the junior varsity basketball team. I think that he is a doctor.

Joe Montanari was a pretty close friend. He was our homeroom rep on the student council in freshman year. For some reason many of the guys wanted to impeach him. Then we voted him back in. In 2021 he was president of Montanari Fine Art Jewelers in KC.

Kent Northcraft was the tallest guy in the class. He worked very hard on his basketball skills, and by our senior year he was one of the best players in the KC area.

Vic Panus, who usually sat directly to my left, was a real character. I remember that he once did a very tight forward roll in Mr. Stehno’s Latin class. When a guy from Junior Achievement tried to recruit us, Vic asked him this question. “How can I too become a J. A.?” He wanted to go to Spain because the señoritas were all beautiful, and the guys were, well, not serious competition. He debated with Vic LaPorta for a little while. In one practice debate he talked for a few minutes and then said, “Please ignore everything that I just said.” There are a lot more Vic Panus stories. I think that he is a lawyer now.

I think that Gene Ramirez joined our class as a sophomore. I remember that he finished geometry in two quarters, as I did. So, we were together with a few other sophomores and a bunch of seniors in the second-semester probability class. The seniors called him Rammo, and made fun of him. It was one of the very few disgraceful incidents that I experienced at the rock.

John Rubin was a friend from grade school. He competed in public speaking events, but I am not sure that he ever debated. He later worked on the Prep News. He was in all of my classes.

He was first elected to the state legislature of Kansas in 2010. His Wikipedia page is here.

Jay Ryan was a very good ping-pong player. He was also deadly accurate shooting a basketball.

Big Ed Schafer played varsity football. He also was a camp counselor at Camp Nash, the local Boy Scout camp on the Kansas side.

Pat Tierney was inducted into the Rockhurst Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.

Pat Tierney was probably the best athlete in the Class of 1966. He was a very good point guard on the #1 rated basketball team in KC. His goal was to play center field for the Yankees.

Mike Van Dyke also played varsity basketball. As of 2017 he was an attorney at Polsinelli PC in KC. He also has been active in the alumni association.

Dan Waters sat in front of me. He was in the chess club, and he usually beat me. I remember once that we played Stratego at his house. He put his flag in the front row where it could easily be captured. It never occurred to me that he would do something so outrageous. I did not think that of Dam as much of an athlete, but he beat me in the only 100 yard race that we had. I should have known better; his brother was a sprinter on the Rockhurst track team.

We were very good friends throughout the four years. We exchanged a few letters in college but then lost touch.

John Williams, whom everyone called Willy, sat behind me. He was also a very good friend and my debate partner during football season of my junior and senior years. The rest of the time he debated with Bill Locke and won two state championships. One night he called me, and we spent about two hours trying to determine if John Williams was the most common name in the KC phone book. It was second to John Brown.

He got married and had a kid while I was at Michigan. I saw him once in KC and once at a debate tournament at UICC in Chicago. He also had a band and was in theater productions. He became a lawyer and a judge. His obituary is here. It says that John Immele was his partner. They may have teamed up occasionally, but his primary partner was Bill Locke.

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

Tag Archives: Dobel, Pat

2011 Jim Wavada’s Funeral and Estate

1965-1966 Rockhurst High: Senior Year Speech Team

1962-1965 Rockhurst High Part 3: Speech & Debate Team

1962-1965 Rockhurst High Part 2: My Classmates

1971 January-February: Ft. Gordon, GA