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Marie Costa (McJilton)

Great story Andrea!  It sure is a small world. Ask him if he would like to join the LTAA the next time you see him.  You are never to old to join!  : )

Michelle Milkovic (Weiner)

Okay first... I cannot even imagine what the teeth of a 98-year-old man look like.  Kudos to you Andrea!  Private message me with his name if it's not against HIPPA regs and I'll send you his yearbook picture.  Maybe you'll get a big tip!

And your new friend's memory is pretty good.  Here is the mural crew finishing up painting the Auditorium Fire Curtain in 1936!

Per C Pearson

Where did you get that photo from? Does the Alumni Association still have the first rendering I donated?

Michelle Milkovic (Weiner)

Hi Per!  That photo is from a publication on WPA murals in Chicago.  Have no idea about your donated rendering, (before my time) but I'll send you a private message and we'll find it.

Deborah "Debbie" Tono

OMG - look what I found while purging through my old boxes!!! If it's not legible it's from our 1976 Prom Night! "Dancing in the moonling"! Gads - can't believe I kept it!

Michelle Milkovic (Weiner)

Debbie Tono... is that your corsage in that container?  Gurl... that's a relic!

Posting this image at Maja's request for a few of you who requested it.

John Simmers

​Andrea ---- Very cool story (@#457) 'bout your new 98-year-old patient that turned-to-be an LTHS-alum (from around 1937). Appropo to your telling - here is an article from an old 'Modern  Mechanix Magazine' (published araound Feb 1937 i think).  

​And - also, for all of our graphics-folks (or, for any other that may care to chime-in) an added small-challenge .  Please do tell the flub that should have prevented this from going to press.  Print Shop!!!!!

Andrea M Adam

John,

     Could it be that the steering wheel is on the right? It appears someone needs to flip the image over. Do I win?

Deborah "Debbie" Tono

The plastic contained "angel hair", sequins in various shapes & a cut out of a dancing couple (she twirling her gown aka Grace Kelly style)....so should I keep it or toss it? My kids won't want any of my memorabilia!
 

John Simmers

YES!!!!

​ANDREA SHOOTS!!!! 

ANDREA SCORES!!!!

ANDREA WINS!!!!

Ken Ortiz

Debbie – I just have the booklet part. I don’t know what happened to the other part of it. I think I gave it to my prom date. One song that I hear that always reminds me of Senior Prom was "Can't Hide Love" by Earth, Wind and Fire. I wanted sooooo bad to slow dance to that song with my prom date, but she was SUCH a "Debbie Downer", she never wanted to dance at all! Just sit and mope all evening! (sigh)

John – Maybe that section is for the “Lane Europe” exchange students?

Andrea - That was a really good story (and that is coming from a so-called “storyteller”) Thank you for sharing. Maybe for the next time you meet, he will have some Lane items to show you and you can show him some of yours. Maybe you can even get a “Lane Tech Alumni” T-shirt for him.

So…..people seem to like the way I tell a story…”Do I amuse you? Am I funny? Funny how?” – movie reference

Michelle – thank you for posting that article about your girl power reunion. It was great  to get some local press about it. So…did you figure out  if any of them were my mystery or ​? I saw the pictures, but no names. Hmmmmmm…….

One thing I remember when I was starting out as a freshman at Lane was that our division (692) “Senior advisor” (or was it the senior who was our freshman advisor?), wore a button that stated “Last all-male graduation class”. Now I was not sure if those were their senior buttons or were there special buttons made up to state that. I was not sure what the general attitude was at the time as I was just a newbie to Lane, but my thought at the time was “Is this something they really want to tout and be proud of?”  My grade school was coed so having more males at high school was different for me at the time and I welcomed the additional females that were coming in throughout my Lane years.

One Lane memory I am trying to grasp was the hallway leading into the lunchroom. Wasn’t there some sort of booth there? Were they selling something? I know that if you got done with lunch early, you couldn’t leave the area and had to wait in that hallway until the bell rang. There were also wooden horses/barricades separating that booth from the hallway.  Is this accurate? Anybody?... Bueller?.....Bueller?

Andrea M Adam

John,

     I have to confess. During part of high school and college (for a total of about 5 years) I used the "talents" I obtained from being in Mr. Sims linotype room and was a proofreader and paste up artist at a printing company. Unfortunately for me, and a number of very late nights in college (not studying), the material I had to proofread was church bulletins. I often had to literally hold my eyes open to keep from falling asleep. Some of the bulletins we printed were in Spanish or Polish (I took German at Lane) so I had to actually go letter by letter to be sure the text was correct and that were weren't accidentally swearing or using obscene language.

     On the bright side, I loved doing paste up- another lost art due to computers.

     All this to say, I got your quiz right because I was a trained professional (Yuck, Yuck!!). Thanks for sharing.

                   Andrea

Donald Adams

Not to put a damper on the drivers ed picture but the picture appears to be correct.  My dad went to the old Lane on Diviision and my uncle graduated the first class at addison.  The cars in the pictures weren't cars but post office vehicles that were obsolete. We also know that prior in 1927 vehicles like a Zimmerman and some model T were right hand drive. For a while most cars had their steering on the right side.  It was Ford who started the wheel on the left and made it a safety requirement in 1927 for their cars because you could better judge on coming traffic from the left.

Anyways, the delivery cars/trucks used in the old days for milk, mail, and coal/Ice delivery required that the driver exit the vehicle on the right side to to attend to customers who would just wave at the driver to get the product.  Some of the stooges movies show this also as does some L&H films.  The vehicles from the pictures if my uncle is correct were old mail cars that were being scrapped made by Ford.  See dash on picture is a model T dash used on cars and first trucks.
But still a great catch. If only you could see the lettering somewhere to be sure.  Also the steering wheel could be moved from left to right and back again,just a matter on disassembling and reassembling the parts in mirror image order.

thanks to my uncle/and aunt and the Volo Auto Museum.

John Simmers

So – in good-nature and spirit that is maybe or not with or without any direct or indirect regard to the right or wrong of an aforementioned question of any flub or the details of right-hand or left-hand drives…..

​But - whilst no question remains of Andrea's keen-eyesight (still WINS!!!).... 

And, Now….. This.  

​(1 minute video)

Michelle Milkovic (Weiner)

John... that was hilarious.

Ken... I'm not sure about the senior buttons, but I know the theme for prom the year we were freshman was "The End of an Era",  cause I was there... wordly-wise 14-year-old that I was. (What was my mother thinking?)  I don't recall the actual prom for the last all-male grduating class that much, but we went to the London House afterwards to see Ramsey Lewis live, which was the coolest thing ever and began a life-long love of jazz for me.

Debbie... I also have that little card thing like Ken, (were thay called bids?), but have no recollection of the jar of angelhair stuff. I vote to toss. 

M

Ken Ortiz

Hello all,

I apologize in advance for this long post, but hopefully it will keep you all entertained for this summer. And you know that us old folk need to exercize our brain cells and what better way to do that but to think back on those "good ol days" and bring back old memories. I also saw this as a good time to post this (I have been working on this for awhile) because an aunt's husband passed away this weekend and one thing I remember as a kid, was that everytime we visited them, he would always quiz me on the state capitals. He would ask me "What is the capital of XXXX?". Even now, I can name EVERY state capital nearly 100%, because of him. I hope you enjoy this and can offer some things I missed. I am sure I will come up with more in the future. So....here we go:

Things I had/did/experienced in my yute (“What is a YUTE?” “Sorry Judge….YOUTH” – movie reference):

I am wondering if any of you have possessed/experienced/did or are familiar with the things below. Also, how many are your children familiar with? Some may be vague to you, but I can expound on several in more detail in the future to share my personal experiences with them (which may or may not match your personal experiences with them).  BTW, I define my YUTE as the years between the mid 1960’s to the late 1970’s.

For example, let’s take #8 – messing with the phonograph (or record player/turntable):

As you know, vinyl is making a comeback. Our local microbrew pub (and lots of other places) are doing turntable Tuesdays/Thursdays, etc. But in our days growing up, the record player (phonograph) was our main source of buying and listening to music at home. So, we would buy our 45’s or LP’s for our collections as our parents also had their own record collections (some were even 78’s).  Eventually, the 8-tracks and cassettes came in, especially for our vehicles. But at home, the stereo playing vinyl was the thing for most of us growing up. My stereo turntable at home had speeds of 16, 33 1/3, 45 and 78 and where my friends and I had tons of fun and laughs was when we played our records at the “OTHER” speeds. Some songs were just hilarious played that way. Imagine going to a Kareoke bar (I have done Kareoke, not always proud of it) and singing those songs you know and love at the “alternate” speeds. If you thought “drunk” Kareoke was funny, sitting in on “alternate speed” Kareoke (even sober) would be a sight (and sound) to behold. But I would not call it “alternate speed” Kareoke. I would call it something like “Bizarro” Kareoke. So….bottom line…..how many of YOU have done that in your YUTE?

Here is the list:

1.     Splicing 8mm/Super 8 film.

2.     The fire hydrant (think summer)

3.     Launching aluminum can rocket ships during the 4^th of July

4.     Slicing your fingers on those early pull tabs on soda and beer cans (related to #3)

5.     Firecracker follies

6.     Having fun with a portable cassette player/recorder with an external microphone on a cord.

7.     Skittles (not the candy) and Snap Bowling

8.     Messing with the phonograph

9.     Jumping garage roofs in the alley

10.   Dialing (yep, physically dialing) a certain number on the telephone in order to hear the following: “At the tone, the time will be Seven-Fourteen and 30 seconds…….BEEEEEEEP!”

11.   How to catch flies effectively (the insect, not the baseball)

12.   Doing the Silly Putty thing

13.   Motown 64

14.   Not wanting to get up for school but waking up bright and early on Saturday morning to watch cartoons.

15.   Metal roller skates that attached to your shoe

16.   Looking forward to the Christmas edition of the Sears catalog

17.   Setting the gap on spark plugs and points. Also adjusting the 2 carb screws (gas and air)

18.   Making computer punch cards for your program

19.   Using “carbon copy” paper

20.   Cuddly Duddly (I got one as a Christmas present when I was a kid)

21.   Clutch Cargo (that huge chin and those lips moving were freaky)

22.   Puff the magic dragon (I still know some words to that song)

23.   Playing touch football in the alley (we had some very interesting rules for that game)

24.   Going rat hunting in the alley at night

25.   Performing tape cassette surgery. Ask your children why there are holes on the back of music cassettes.

26.   “Cyclo-teacher”

27.   The number 13 - Examples: “1313 mockingbird Lane” “PO5-1313”

28.   Riding the “Chicago Loop”. Do you remember what was unique about it?

29.   “Q101 switch party”

30.   Street Gang business cards (the Chicago Reader had an article on 3/16/2017 about it)

31.   “Dave Allen at Large”

32.   “Killroy was here” and “Keep on Truckin” T-shirts

33.   Riding on the little round metal pop-up seat in the back of Yellow/Checker cabs

34.   Rapping, 70’s style (not wrapping, even though some wrapping was probably involved during rapping).

35.   “Radio Ga-Ga” back in the day. Examples: “Disco DAI” “Murph in the morning” “Long distance dedication of the week” “Steve and Gary…slimy…..wormy…..idiots….”

36.   Notable Quotes and slogans. Examples:  “Is it live or is it Memorex?”  “Plop plop fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is” “Sit on it Ralph!” “I’m a Lumberjack and I’m okay. I sleep all night and I work all day” “What, me worry?” “Back…..back….back…..hey hey!”

37.   Awesome keyboard riffs. Examples: “Point of no return” (Kansas), “Roundabout” (YES)

38.   The Flute. Examples: “Color my world” (Chicago), “Nights in white satin” (Moody Blues)

U-Tube is a great resource to view #37 and #38 (and others you may know) to see them perform, also to see the lyrics of their songs.

I hope you all have a great summer and I will be looking forward to the next events if I can squeeze them into my busy summer schedule.

Ken

Patricia Hodge (Hanes)

Wow Ken, I have no idea/recollection of most of the items on the list you posted but #2, #14, and #16 were favorites of mine!

Regarding state capitals, when I was in 4th grade, my class had to learn every state capital, largest city, and major export over the course of the year.  For years I remembered all of that information for every state.  Over the years, I have had to recycle my memory space to allow for more recent memories but I do still recall many of the capitals!

Robert Cole

Ken, always counting on you to bring back those memories of my misspent youth.  And look, we're still here!

2. Fire hydrants.
Sorry, never did that.  We lived on the lakefront and had the entire system fron Juneway Beach down past Foster Beach.  A lot went on there besides swimming!  My son is just moving into an apartment in a neighborhood I knew well, having spent enough time dating one ot the fantastic Lane girls that lived right around the corner.  Lots of summer beach time there!

3. Aluminum can rockets and 5. firecracker follies
We did a lot better in my neighborhood putting those two together, and on a lot bigger scale.  A lot more fun  attaching M-80s to model rockets.  Shoot one of those babies a thousand feet up at night and you get a great fireball!  We used to rig one of those up, then weight it and shoot it over the lake so it would sink.  Blow up about 6 feet underwater and it makes a geyser like a depth charge!  Plus, in those days we had a neighborhood chemical store that still sold all the fixins for black powder and just about any other destructive thing you wanted to goof around with.  Calvary Cemetery STILL has a 6 inch wide hole through a 4 inch thick concete wall behind my house where we tested the mercury fulminate we made!  Coach Lewis (chemistry) would be proud?

7. Snap Bowling.  Don't know what that is, but spent a LOT of nights all-night bowling at Howard & Western.  Used to close down the Burger King, then head over there to bowl til breakfast.  I never hit my stride until I was at least 6 games in!

9. Jumping garage roofs in the alley.
Again, not in my neighborhood.  I do remember burning down a garage in the alley, though.

21. Clutch Cargo
YES!!!  They just don't make that kind of quality entertainment any more!
BTW... Still mourning the loss of my personal hero... the only REAL Batman... Adam West.

24.  Rat hunting in the alley.
Again, varies by neighborhood.  You really didn't want to get caught in the alley at night in my neighborhod.  If you survived, the rats would carry you off, anyway.

27.  1313 Mockingbird Lane
Ok Laneites, who can tell us who's address that is?

Timmy Wong

Kenny, thanks for getting that plop plop fizz fizz song stuck in my head all day!!  You brought back a lot of memories as I did most of those things in your list.  I do not know what snap bowling is though so you should elaborate.   I did not jump off a garage except after the big 1979 snow storm but that was more just walking off the garage roof because of the height of the snow so I guess that doesn't really count. 

1313 Mockingbird Lane is home of the Munsters of course!

Hope you all have a great day!

Timmy Wong

BTW, Clutch Cargo was a still image with a shot of a real person's lip superimposed on the image saying the lines. Pretty weird but it worked.

Robert Cole

Ken Ortiz

I want to share with you something that happened to me yesterday morning, where a simple action that you would not think twice about..........comes back to astound and/or to haunt you, depending on your take of the following event. Maybe it’s the way I can put perspective on this very wacky and unpredictable world we live in, where we cannot take anything for granted, and reality is stranger than fiction. In other words: "You can't make this stuff up" (I would prefer another S word than stuff, but I will keep this PG). So.....if you can recall the TV show "Night Gallery", imagine the voice of Rod Serling as he introduces the following story called "The Centipede":

        So, it is Monday morning and I am in the kitchen and having some coffee before going to work. I go to my kitchen sink and I see this centipede in my sink. A fair sized one I see, but he is struggling to climb up out of my sink, as he slides back down after getting partway up. No biggie, as I have had critters in my place from time to time and I am not squeamish about creepy crawly things. So I get a plastic container and trap him in it. Since I live on the lower level of my apartment building, I have an inside door from my place that goes directly into the laundry area/basement. I am good about not harming critters and would usually just trap them and put them out of my apartment either into the basement (like in this case), or would take them outside through my back door which I use to primarily come into and out of my place. So I open the container and drop my unwanted house guest on the floor in the laundry room in the basement.

"Begone ye many legged beast, I have had me fill of ye and I have BESTED ye!" I say. "Ye hath been banished from my kingdom!"

Okay, I did not really say that, but I wanted to give this some dramatic flair. 

       It's about 20 minutes later and I am ready to go to work. I exit through my back door outside and lo and behold, on my doorframe outside at eye level is another (not the same?) centipede! I brush him off my doorframe with my hand and he falls to the floor and guess what he does? That's right! He scurries through my open door and right back into my house! So what could I do but to just shut the door behind him and go to work because......I have just been bested by "The Centipede!"

        Now.....am I out of line for wondering if that was the SAME centipede that I tossed out of my house just 20 minutes ago into the basement at the other end of my apartment? Maybe that centipede knew I would be leaving out of my back door to go to work 20 minutes later? Was it a different centipede? If it was, did the first centipede somehow contact the second one? Is there a centipede "network" out there? (cue music for the "X-files")

        What is your take on this? Is it profound in an awesome kind of way, or is it spine tingling creepy in a Stephen King kind of way? Either way, it sure made my typical mundane Monday morning a morning to behold!

Timmy Wong

It could be the start of a centipede uprising in your building.  Better beware. Arm yourself!

June K Hori (Yamasaki)

Ken, wish I could be as benevolent as you, but I would just squash the critter. I can't stand centipedes, and I'm not sure your fellow apartment dwellers would appreciate you putting insects back in the building where they can crawl into another apartment, and most likely be decimated anyway!

June K Hori (Yamasaki)

And I sure hope you're not doing the same thing with roaches and ants!