Flashback Friday

My picture from Grad school in Denver.  Classy picture.  Lord, what was I thinking? One of these days I'll get the Masters hood out and let you see it.  For a boxcar full of money and a lot of sweat and study, you get to put a hood around your shoulders and put M.A after your name.

This is a cheat sheet I used when I had to memorize something during Hell Week when I became a member of the fraternity Phi Delta Theta.  Ask me what time it is to this day and I can still rattle this off.  During Hell Week we were supposed to do many things, one of them was to memorize this paragraph and say it whenever one of the "brothers" asked what time it was.  Other things we had to do was memorize our "Skunk" names (which I have forgotten) and other historical facets of the fraternity.  We also had to wear a baby jar around with rotting squished eggs in it.  And I mean to classes, too.  EVERYWHERE.  We had very little sleep that week and a great deal of work.  Contrary to popular belief, hazing was either minimal or it didn't bother me much because I only recall the sleep deprivation, not the hazing.  Of course, it helped the Wombie and I to have older brother as a frat member when we were there.  No doubt it softened the experience.  Such as when Dave Olson ordered me up to the dorm area to warm up his bed.  I didn't know it but he never came up, thus allowing me a good night's rest.  Nice guy.    

The above pictures are of Marvin Thirtyacre.  Those who know Marvin will start smiling.  Those who don't know him have a big void in their life experience.  Funny, witty, and someone who would drop anything to help and he wouldn't even have to think about it.  A good man to have in your corner.  Marvin was Sheriff of Mercer County for a couple of terms and now keeps a bar manned in Burgess.  Marvin doesn't look like that anymore.  I'm hoping to see Marvin up North by the time this has been posted.     

This is Matt Eastman, the family's foster kid we had for a while when we lived in Galesburg.  Nice kid, strange family.  Last report we got he was happily married and working in Minnesota.

I'm going to close this Flashback post out with a couple of pictures of a house in Aledo.  An ordinary place, but back in high school it was the residence of Alice Furnas.  She was a long-time teacher in the school system there, mostly in the Junior High.  She taught English.  She was funny looking and pretty formal so we kids didn't exactly warm up to her like we did others.  Mrs. Furnas needed some help around the house at some point and not sure how many applied, but she picked me, and I did a lot of work around he place.  Not hard or complicated stuff, I was just a kid, but I painted some stuff, put up pictures, and planed some cupboards, too.  We took lots of breaks and always asked if I wanted a "Peps".  I owe Mrs. Furnas a lot.  She was quite bright and peppered me with questions about philosophy, my feelings and thought s about all kinds of subjects.  She helped me formulate those thoughts in a cogent manner and made me, for the first time, espouse an opinion and then back it up with logical tenets.  After awhile the work was secondary, if there was any work at all, to the conversations.  I corresponded with her through college and would drop by for a chat and a Peps.    Of course, classmates would make jokes and insinuate other stuff was going on, but it wasn't.  Looking back, I see what it was.  She was a teacher and must have seen potential, or at the very least a reasonably pliable brain to help mold.  She died quite a while ago. I never had the opportunity to thank her for the education.  Or maybe I just missed it.  Thank you Mrs. Furnas.