What is one to do? 1961/1962 here we come!

Here I am alone in the house on a Sunday when NOBODY is supposed to be out and about.  I tend to wander from room to room when I am alone without any plan for the day.  Well I can go for a swim just outside our patio doors but that only lasts so long SO I decided to go down memory lane.  If there are any persons who read this blog you may want to skip today!   My memory lane today is the school year of 1961/1962.
It is my freshman year so instead of getting off the bus in Cayuga I stay on the bus and we go on to Forman.  At this time my stuttering days are pretty much behind me BUT still I tend to not be all that talkative as for some reason I have this idea that this country bumpkin is just a tad behind city folks.  I did get somewhat of a head start as I have been going to football practice for several days and that has allowed me to get to know some people.
So what does one do if you decide to go down memory lane of your freshman year of high school?  Well Terry and I do bring our yearbooks back and forth so I paged through the book and took pictures of the activities I was in.  Actually it was kind of fun.  It brought to mind many good memories but then to level the playing field it also brought to mind how immature I was at that age.  I mean REALLY immature in relationship to many of my classmates!

I will start out with the teacher who turned out to be my all time favorite.  Mr. Hansen was the shop teacher, the football coach and the coach of the freshman basketball team.  He somehow knew that John C and I did not have money to buy wood for making things so he came up with the idea of the school buying wood for picnic tables.  Then John and I made them and teachers bought them.  We got some of the money!  That was great.  He coached varsity football.  I did not get to start as a freshman but I got to play a lot and lettered.  Our freshman basketball team went undefeated.  When both the B team and the freshman team played Mr. Hansen would limit John C and myself to maybe 3 quarters as we played on the B team as well and the high school rules stated that you could only play in 6 quarters a night.  Mr. Hansen coached football my first 3 years and then I THOUGHT he retired but I found out in the summer of 2018, when Terry and I visited his daughter, that he actually moved to Briton SD and became the superintendent there.  A story for another day but Mr. Murry replaced him as football coach and that was a disaster plus!

I guess I have already talked about basketball.  Four of the guys in this picture were on the varsity team when we were seniors.  My all time best friend Larry is in the front row #9.  Other than Larry I never really became great friends with any of the guys.  I think some of it was me living 25 miles from school but some was also my shyness in high school.  

Our football team went 5-2 with a low light of a 0-26 loss to Lidgerwood and a highlight win against Tinah of 75-0!  It was 9 man football and the next season we changed conferences so that we would play 11 man.  I loved football and started the next 3 years a left end most of the time but at fullback some when I was a senior.  My sophomore year, as a starter, I got to pick my number which was 18 and kept.  Here I am 49.

I really enjoyed singing and joined chorus as a freshman.  I sang bass.  It turned out to be a very fun time.

Perhaps one of the things I was most happy with my freshman year was by lettering in football I became part of the Lettermans' Club.  Did we do much, I don't think so but it was made up of athletes and I felt that by being in it I was not any outsider from the country any more!  I am in the middle row in the middle with a funky shirt that probably came from California!

I joined band but of course had never played an instrument.  Of course Mom and Dad could not
afford to buy one so I chose to play the baritone as the school owned them.  A short while into the school year Mr. Piehl asked me to switch to the sousaphone.  There I am on the right upper side of the picture.  Band was one of the things that I felt badly about.  I never really got into being a good player.  My excuse, it was pretty legit, was how in the world is one supposed to practice that darn thing?  To bring it home one needed to be a strong man!  AND I pretty much never went right home on the bus as there was usually football and then basketball practice.  Once is a great while I would take it home on the weekend but that really was a lost cause.  Many Friday afternoons were spent at school waiting to get on the team bus so that was the way it was.  I do admit band was a fun fun activity BUT really I short changed the program.

My best friend Larry and I were both class officers.  The class voted.  I don't really remember doing anything as a class officer but it did get us another picture in the yearbook!  To this day I have no idea why I ended up being a class officer.  Maybe kids felt sorry for me living so far away from school.  A side note here.  As you can see I am about 2 or 3 inches taller than Larry.  By the time we were seniors I was the same height and Larry was 2 or 3 inches taller than I.

Wow that is it and maybe a lot more than anyone would ever want to read.  By the end of my freshman year I pretty much knew what kind of student I was going to be.  I was going to pretty much live for sports and be a "B" student.  Not a good thing but seldom did I do homework at home.  I am not sure if it was lazy, unconcerned or just terrible habits.  Perhaps the senior graduation program got it correct.  The office failed to print my name as an honor student.  At graduation the superintendent did say that my name was inadvertently left off the program!!!  I could also mention that during my freshman year I did discover that girls were kind of nice.  No details will be given but I still remember the homecoming dance!  After the dance I felt I had a girlfriend!  Did I need one?  Well as one can guess it was not the best idea and as summer came at the end of my freshman year I found out I was not the only one!!!  As a father and grandfather now I would say that my interest in girls in high school was not the best thing for me.  Don't get me wrong, I was pretty innocent but still too much thought and energy went into the wrong place.

That is memories for today.  It is currently 78 with a high of 83 today.  Possible rain later.  Now what am I to do?  I doubt Terry will get much IF any info about her health today, Sunday, at the hospital.  I talked to her this morning and she said she pretty much did not get any sleep last night.  I have never figured out WHY, when one is in the hospital, nurses have to bother you in the middle of the night.  As I have said I can not visit her.  I am hoping she starts to feel better soon and can come home.  I think I may take a short bike ride, jump in the pool for a bit and then ??????  I did have my FP this morning.