Flashback Friday

Yesterday was the anniversary of the infamous Bomb Threat at Aledo High School.  While occasionally I am wracked by the notion that it is "too soon", I am prepared today to give you some recollections of that day, for the first time on this blog.  Well, for the first time ever, I guess.  I'm sure memories have dimmed some of the elements, but here's what I do remember.  

I was a senior whose graduation was assured.  In a few weeks I would receive acceptance papers to Iowa Wesleyan College for the Fall.  Sweeping the country was a new craze - high school bomb threats.  Back then it was construed by school officials as a kind of inconvenient disruption rather than the terror threat it is now.  There had been a couple already in nearby schools, Kewanee and one in the Cities.  The national mood was edgy:  the social fabric was ripping.  Vietnam was in disfavor with student rioting and groups taking over university administration buildings.  It was a time of free-wheeling protest and youthful unrest.  Combine all that with a personal domestic upheaval and you had the perfect storm:  boredom, stupidity, goal and means, and a kind of messed up kid ready to get more messed up.   

December is always a kind of strange month in school - nothing is too earth-shattering since you are really just running-in-place until the two week Christmas vacation.  Monday, December 7th.  So it was with a certain kind of anticipation that I approached a table at third hour study hall.  Already there were Doug, Tony, and Gary.  These guys weren't part of my entourage.  But they were there, and that was good enough. 

It was at this point I mentioned the possibility of perpetrating this crime in an effort to get the rest of the day.  Contrary to popular myth, there was no real reason to do it that day other than the fact I was bored.  Had I targeted December 7th because of its historical significance there surely would have been more planning than the 15 minutes we devoted to it. 

At our school you could come and go for particular reasons but you had to sign out.  I told my fellow conspirators that I would sign out and go uptown to a phone booth not far from the Frontier building and say there was a bomb at the high school, set to go off at noon.

All four decided they were "in".  And why not?  They didn't have anything to do except sit back, and wait for the announcement to go home after the call was made, right?  The plan was hatched.  No one would ever know who called.  Soon, we'd be told to go on home and ready to enjoy a nice long weekend.

At approximately 11:30 am I signed out.  I found the phone booth, inserted the coins and called the school.  I told them there was a bomb set to go off at 1:00.  I returned to school.  Perfect planning.  No one would ever know.  I should say at this point that the amount of time planning the plot was likely shorter than my trying to decide between an apple fritter or vanilla frosted cake donut at Casey's.

By the time I returned the announcement was made.  We were all told to walk out to the bleacher area at the football field.  On the way, I stopped to take a bathroom break.  There was Eddie, who was part of my entourage and I exclaimed to him, likely giddily, that I was the one who called.  Eddie and I now have old cars and we meet at various shows in Northlandia and somehow he still brings that up to me.   

     

      

    The picture above is a likely interpretation of that day of the student body shivering out on the bleachers.

Once school ended, and I don't remember now if we got the rest of the day off or not, I went home and as usual, started watching Star Trek which was our must-view TV at that time.  I recall being half sick at this time, with the approaching foreboding of what I'd done beginning to sink in.  About that time a police car drove up and I was whisked away to a holding cell at the old police station, and what is now The Slammer, a restaurant in Aledo.

Half miffed about not being able to see the last of James Kirk and crew wriggle out of another jam, the questioning was more telling me the consequences of not telling them who else was in on it.  I didn't tell them.  There were 3 personal triumphs in this sordid tale, which I'll get to a little later.  What I was unaware of is that all the others had.  And why not?  The thing that tripped us all was that I signed out.  Ever the rebellious law-abider, I followed the rules.  The record was checked, the times were synced and my goose was cooked.  

My early Monday off scheme resulted in a suspension of seven days.         

I honestly can't remember the above noted meeting but I can remember the evening of the 7th once I came home from the questioning, and subsequent reveal that all the details had been fleshed out by the local authorities.  Not that there was any future book or miniseries in the discovery.  It was a spur of the moment activity and had the complexity of a an eraser.  

That night was, as you can imagine, a tense evening at the Blythe household.  Herb was upset and vocal, but to this day I believe Marj helped tamp down the recriminations.  I think she realized the person who would be the hardest on me would be me.  And she was right.  In the following week she and I took many road trips, had some fun, chatted about things and she never once, not once, ever laid anything on me other than things would be fine and I was a good kid.  My mother was always in my corner but never more than that week of suspension.  

One other thing that happened that week, and I have to thank Bro Phil with this little project.  After chatting with him that evening, we decided the best move might be to apologize , in person, to all of the teachers whose day was disrupted by my stupidity.  I found them at their homes after school within a few days of the hoax and everyone accepted my apology with grace and politeness.  In fact, more than one said that I had actually done a good thing in that it helped to mobilize and organize emergency services for the school.  

But that was not the end of it.  In fact, it was just the beginning of my punishment.  The school district meted out the following conditions:

1.  Students will voluntarily work on school related jobs at the direction of school officials.  Mike Blythe to be the lead worker of the group.  Students and parents to cooperate in every way possible to accomplish the work schedule as presented to them.

2.  All days off from school to be cancelled with the time to be spent on the program of work (Dec. 24exception).  Saturdays may be used as work as necessary.  

3.  All students collectively must make up total number of hours missed by students, faculty and other adults because of bomb call - total 550 hours.  

4.  Diplomas of all students so cooperating will be issued with their class after above hours of work have been satisfactorily achieved, plus up to eight Saturdays work on the curve beautification project adjacent to the athletic field along the highway, between Mar. 1, 1971 and the close of the school year.  

5.  If at any time a student fails to complete his share of he necessary hours of work on the above mentioned project, he will be expelled from school by Board action.

Dated Dec 14, 1970.

And so my little afternoon off scheme has now resulted in most days off of school would be devoted to working for District #201.  And then, come March, all Saturdays would be spent on a beautification project.  All of it tied neatly to graduation if successfully completed.

And it began almost immediately with Christmas vacation.  Those couple weeks were spent at the newly constructed Apollo Grade School in Aledo.  I painted classrooms.

In the ensuing weekends I would go where the coordinator would send me.   Some of the work was at the high school, some of it was in other local schools, but mostly Apollo.  Once in a while they would call and say they had no work for me and give me the hours anyway.  

In the spring, we began work on the football field beautification project which consisted of cleaning and landscaping the area and planting evergreens.

A posed photo for the yearbook.  Me with an ax seeming to be chopping down the school sign.  Behind me is the beautification area next to the football field. 

Tony decided the risk-reward wasn't worth it and dropped out.  My memory is foggy but I think the rest of us buckled down, put in the hours and graduated.  

Doug went on to have a media company in the Quad-Cities.  Gary joined the air force and then worked in the Galesburg area.  Tony died in 2012 in Muscatine where he lived.  Except for Gary I never saw any of them after graduation.

Apollo is still in use.

There are no longer any evergreens at the area that was beautified.

I mentioned earlier three triumphs.  The first was loyalty to the classmates who entered into this scheme.  I didn't snitch.  Secondly, I made a personal effort to make amends for my actions.  And thirdly, I persevered.  I completed the conditions set out by the Board and graduated.

 And that was the end of it.
    

Except, of course, even today once in a while I will run into someone who sat in those cold stands that Monday afternoon and will make a comment when they see me.  I take it all in good cheer.  Today it is simply something that I did which was stupid.  I own it but it is such a small part of who and what I am that it is no more than a penny in a jar full of quarters.



ADDENDUM:

Memory is a funny thing, or maybe I should say elusive.

1.  I thought Dec 7, 1970 was a Friday.  Turns out it was a Monday.

2.  I can't for the life of me figure out what the other three guys did in this hoax.  If saying "yes" was all they did then their consequences, it seems to me, were very stiff. 

3.  I can't remember the Board meeting on the 9th.  I'm sure I went and it would seem both parents accompanied me, but thankfully, the memory of that is gone.

I should also note that at the post-graduation party we had as a class at the VFW there was a gift given to me which was part of a board game at the time.  It was a small black bomb that when you twisted the red top would tick for a few seconds then go bang.  Presumably much laughter ensued.

There was a second bomb scare at the high school in 2007.  I didn't do that one.

I also want to apologize to any reader who caught cold sitting in the bleachers that day.