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Mark Wieting

Bill,

Thanks for the alert.

Also, I just wanted to pass along a statement from my wife, Courtney, as she brought in the mail yesterday: "I'm amazed, Mark. You ask your classmates for money and the envelopes just keep rolling in."

So far, you have donated about $250, and that keeps us going through March 2016! Many of you have given more than the suggested $10! Thanks for the support. And thanks, Judy Long Reinking, for the note card with the attached photo on the front, which you said was a picture of me at the computer, "keeping us connected."

And please think about updating your profile, with photos of your latest trip, grandkid, or selfie! I promise to update mine in the next week or so!

I got a nice note from Tom Marquart with his donation--many of the rest of you sent notes as well--and Tom rued the fact that we could not find Bill Kennedy. So, does anyone have a clue? People with common names like his, or like Jim Brennan or Greg Smith, have been impossible to find--so far! Any ideas on anyone who is on the "Missing" list?

Mark

Thomas L. Bakos

Mark:

And there's more money on the way - put a check in the mail today - you have time to get a bigger mail box.

What took me so long (as noted above) was a little trip through the southwest starting in Albuquerque with an Elvis contest (we just observed).  Here is proof at the pavilion in Old Town.  As you can see, some sort of costume (which I had not brought along on the trip) was required - if, that is, one hoped for a chance to win.

Bruce F. Burianek

HAPPY EASTER

Linda Louise Crissey (Cotten)

For those of you who did the building tour in August, is our theater still known as Biester Auditorium?  If so, then this is the time of year to say "Happy Easter, Mr. Biester."  And the same to all of you.

Thomas Kent Marquardt

I recall Jerry Leggett commenting that they were naming a room after him and it was called "Leggett John."

Camilla Ray (Farley)

Just looking at the calendar Mark posted & it seems kind of mean to schedule an orchestra concert the day after Prom.  How many were really up for that? 

Thomas L. Bakos

Mark:

You kept a lot of stuff.  I guess you needed your Mu Alpha Theta certificate to fill out the 3 X 4 matirix

I like the high tech camera in the December advertisement. 

Linda Louise Crissey (Cotten)

I could certainly be mistaken (we're talking 60 year old memories here!), but I think that hamburger joint was right across from Lincoln School.  And they had great cheeseburger and fries combos in those little plastic baskets.  I remember many a lunch hour being all grown up and sitting at the counter with one classmate or another.  Not to be confused with the blue plate special lunch counter on Main Street a few doors down from the DuPage Theater.  The Ben Franklin store was my first employer and Marilynn Hess and I were left alone with all that cheesy merchandise, the old cash registers, the goldfish tanks -- tremendous resposibilities at maybe 65¢ an hour.  Little manilla pay envelopes (maybe 2" x 3") with our salaries in tired old dollar bills and sticky little coins....

Lawrence Wayne Price

I remember the burger place. Very good burgers. The couple (Brynildssen) who owned it lived next door to me on Charlotte St. when I was in grade school (hammerschmidt). My brothers & I used to go there for dinner & walk to the DuPage theater for a movie on a saturday night.

Camilla Ray (Farley)

Hi Linda--I think the hamburger place was called "Herbie's"  & we went there on Thursdays for lunch (probably not every week--but often) That was really a grown-up thing to do.  I remember sitting on the stools at the counter, listening to Tab Hunteron the jukebox singing "Young Love" & thinking about Jeff Boyd !  Also, remember the candy store right next to the school? Lots of good penny candy. 

Thomas Kent Marquardt

I believe that Herbie Dam who lived on Garfield behind my folks owned it for a while and the hamburgers were good.  That may not be the ultimate endorsement as when we were in high school I don't think that there was such a thing as a "bad burger."  It was also the place where I learned the magic of dipping an unopened straw in a milk shake and then blowing on the straw and sending the wrapper to be stuck to the ceiling.  The song that sticks with me from the jukebox was "Little Darlin'"  We also put together the homecoming floats in the building behind Herbies.  Wouldn't you like to go back and paint the windows of Hendersons and the other stores like we did for Halloween?

Judith D. Palina (Coletta)

In second grade, I was one of the students who were bussed to Lincoln School, as Pleasant Lane was being expanded.  One day my lunch was stolen.  Ms. Tenhoff, who was my teacher, brought me across the street and bought me a hamburger.  If I hadn't already loved her, I sure did after that. 

Still owe her 50 cents.  

Mark Wieting

Loved Judy's recollection of a kind teacher and Larry's about walking to dinner and the movies. I wonder when the last time a kid of any age walked to dinner in Lombard. Or Glen Ellyn, or Wheaton or Villa Park. The lens of time makes things look awfully good. It's a cliche to refer to the good old days, but a lot of them were good old days.

After I met Wayne Wipert at a bowling event in 1955, and moved on to junior high together, playing basketball and sitting in the W's section of the classrooms, I was always envious of him--especially his house. It had both a basement and a stairway up to an actual second floor. My house on Hammerschmidt lacked both. A ranch, it had a 4-foot deep "crawl space" that was kind of creepy, and the opening to it was in the closet in my room. I tried to suppress thoughts of monsters coming up through that trap door. Not a lot of success at that. My parents told me as an adult that they could have had a basement when they had the house built, but it cost an extra $800! In 1950 that was more than they could afford. Seems unbelievable today, and even then, with a 30-year mortgage on the house, it would have been $27 a year. 

Changing the subject----does anyone have any ideas for another survey?

As the official start of summer approaches, I hope y'all have a great one.

Mark Wieting

One more thing: Tom, I think the place we built floats was called Seco & Co. and none of us could every figure out what they did there. But they gave us space to stuff all those napkins into chicken wire. Another lost art. 

Thomas L. Bakos

Who would steal a second grader's lunch Judy - a third grader ???  I know I had nothing to do with it becasue I went to Green Valley.  We snuck out at lunch to go to a little store on Main Street, near Glenbard East (the building was still there as of our 50th reunion) to buy likem-aid spelled something like that.  It was flavored powdered sugar sold in teaspoon size packs for, as I recall, less than a penny.  It kept us going through the afternoon as pure sugar has a tendency to do.

Survey idea ... will we survive the next 2 1/2 years?  I don't watch reality TV but I do listen to the news - that's much more entertaining at least since, so far, it has seemed to have had no impact on us out here in Colorado.  Whatever the big O is doing, the markets, at least, are thriving.

Given that, yes Mark, those were the good old days.  The ignorance of youth, to some extent, is bliss. 

Linda Louise Crissey (Cotten)

Once again, I want to issue a disclaimer for faulty memory, but.... I think that warehouse across from Lincoln School was owned by the Thorsen/Davidson families who lived two doors down from us on Maple Street.  Remember Patty Sue Davidson?  I have no idea what was warehoused and/or manufactured there, but today (if it were still there)  it would be the perfect setting from some drug cartel's out-of-the-way midwestern distribution center.  I think having high school kids assemble homecoming floats would be just what was needed to add a touch of legitimacy to the whole operation....  OK.  I have begun my summer reading with Stephen King.  And am enjoying the TV series Fargo.  Thus the troubling direction of my thoughts...  Not to worry!

Diane Lynn Cass (Elder)

I read what Judy Palina Coletta wrote about the diner across from Lincoln school. (I too was at Lincoln- from Pleasant Lane) I forgot my lunch once & the teacher generously loaned me money to buy a lunch at the diner. I had trouble getting onto a lunch stool, but after a few tries finally made it. -- Does anyone remember the Dog & Suds near the pool park? I think that both the diner & the Dog & Suds had those plastic baskets of various primary colors. A few years ago I bought a set of the baskets & have yet to use.        As an after school job I worked at Seco. Linda is correct about who owned it.  I worked for Mr. Bryant (the chemist)  My first instruction was not to rearrange anything on his desk (it looked like a mountain "in progress").  There was a lab on the ground floor and there had been an accident (explosion) or two in the lab (not while I was on site). They produced industrial chemicals etc.- solvents. Mr. Bryant had files & files of patents- one would assume that some of their products were protected by patent. Mr. Bryant's son Bob worked there- some interesting family dynamics.    --     As Linda, I'm watching Fargo and wondering what the 90 minute finale will bring. Wondering if Carradine will save the day. I love the dark dramas: my all time favorite flick is the original "Day of the Jackal" (73?) with Edward Fox (not to be confused with the horrible Bruce Willis knockoff).  Could be one of the best movies ever made: I've seen it so many times & if it is ever on tv I can't help watching it one more time.

William Gibson Heller

I too attended Lincoln School and was a great admirer of the giant rock in the front of the school!  I have absolutely no recollection of the diner as I don't think I ever set foot in it as I would ride my bike home for lunch in good weather.  I do, however, fondly recall the candy shop next to the school.  (Wouldn't such a placement today cause a mother's march egged on by the food police?)  The red chewy "dollar coin" candy was a favorite and I often had a small bag (maybe 5 cents worth) of it stashed inside my desk top so I could surreptiously sneak a piece during class...one of the benefits of sitting in the H section in mid-classroom.  Fond memories too of Dodge Ball games in the paved play area.  And remember the fall and/or spring "fair" in the gym where the attraction was a roller coaster with cardboard sheets to carry one down the path?  I also recall Mr. Wisniewski coming to Lincoln to demonstate instruments so our parents could help us get a musical education under his guidance in Jr. High.  My first instrument was an accordian....yuck!  I graduated to a cello quickly and was able to cart that to school on my bike.

Anyone recall the excitement as Mr. Larson and Miss Black got hitched when we in about 4th or 5th grade?  They were a bit older teachers than the others.

Thomas Kent Marquardt

I think the Lincoln Fair was in the fall and the "rollers" for the roller coaster came from the Jewel store and were the rollers that they used when they unpacked the trucks.

Judith D. Palina (Coletta)

Good question, Tom.  Hopefully, whoever took it really needed it.

Lawrence Wayne Price

Speaking of candies, what was the name of the firey hot red hard candy that was forbiden in study hall?

to eat it you had to hit it against someting hard to shatter the candy in the wrapper...

Camilla Ray (Farley)

I think they were called Firesticks or Firestix.  They were so good!

Camilla Ray (Farley)

Also, back to Lincoln School--I remember the rollers & the fun of painting the store windows for Halloween & how exciting it was when Mr. Larson & Miss Black were married! 

I also was thinking about when our class put on the play The Little Rascals--I cannot remember if I was the mother or if Judy Goetz was, but I remember that I made a cake for the play & in order to get a good reaction out of "the Rascals"  when they bit into it, I put a little dishsoap in the frosting! (maybe more than a little)

I also remember a big contoversy in 6th grade--when two boys (Jeff Boyd & someone)  both wanted to walk Marcia Reidel home from school & were arguing over it.  We had a little hearing in class to determine a schedule.  The rest of us walked home with a group of girls!

James Alan Bullard

Mr. Bryant was the long time Scoutmaster at Lincoln School’s Troop 51.  When our age was joining scouting his sons had long since aged out of the program.  He was awarded the Silver Beaver for service to youth and we were told that it is a special award.  Much later in life I found out that it is very selective with only a few awarded by a scout council each year.

When you joined troop 51 you were given a rectangular piece of muslin and instructions on where to sew on tabs.  Then you took it to Mr. Bryant and he would die it your patrol color (the flaming arrows were purple) and ‘waterproof’ it with some kind of soap solution.  Just add a hiking stick and tent stakes made from coat hangers and you have your troop tent.  It was kind of a 3 sided lean to, of course without a floor.   We camped in those tents year round.  In the winter time you would build a fire just in front of the tent opening and heated rocks for your cotton sleeping bag.  It had to have been fun…..          

Diane Lynn Cass (Elder)

I appreciate James's rememberances of Mr. Bryant.  Besides the Seco business, probably about a third of the time I worked for him was spent on scout related issues. Quite often there were meetings with other scoutmasters and planning of events. I don't know if he shared with the scouts that he was an avid ballroom dancer and had many awards (his office wall was adorned with many "dance" photos).