Bruce Wilson

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh9CXnoDua4

What good is reminiscing without a little music, eh?

Bruce Wilson

And skiing and dogs

The late great Ruby and equally great Steve McKinney

Steve was likely the best speed skier of all time. Shown here at Mammoth. No turns. Point 'em downhill and go.

Kay Kozuye Ochi

Hi Andie and Gail, Thanks for adding names to the Rosebank class photo! I hope that others will chime in. And, Bruce, Your Ruby was a beautiful gal! And, please name those basketball players . . . Allstars? And, Greg Witherspoon: Hope you are well. Thanks for your last message. This has been a rough first quarter of 2019 (!).--Kay

Bruce Wilson

OK Kay O. - basketball shoe models

1969 photo of (viewers left to right) 

Bill Walton, Avery Clark, Wilbur Strong, Phil Edwards, Bruce Menser

You may notice that Bill's knee problems had an early origin. No basketball player I know of has the medical history of Mr, Walton.

Bruce Wilson

The bed still needs some cleaning.

Bea did not teach us this, but she provided encouragement

My mom loved them

Bruce Wilson

Sticking with basketball for a moment. In December of 2018, the 42nd annual Hilltop Invitational boys basketball tournament was played. New to me.

If my calculations are correct, HHS had just started it's tournamentbabout the  time former Hilltop attendee, Tom Waitswas over in Germany waltzing Matilda

So mine was actually an old '53 (Chevy) and I am not saying whose house I was driving away from.

Bruce Wilson

Remember these from kindergarten?

Especially how they were made!

My mom saved my sister's and mine (at least).

Jim Hawes

I have a 14 month old grandson who enjoys having Poppa read to him. Yesterday while reading the June/July 2019 edition of NATGEOKIDS (a magazine published for kids by National Geographics) I found this bit about Terry Maple and Willie B! Cool! 

Jim Hawes

Good day to check out Tom Rices' FB page! 

Bruce Wilson

Nice ones Jim.

I assume you saw the news about Butch. You are the one to be thanked for setting the record straight on him.

Butch was no angel (only Willie Stallings was as far as I know) and neither  was I and even some other folks who we always thought were.

This guy is the scariest person I ever met, when Leon took us down to his house one time. 

Hells Angels CV

Jim Hawes

Bruce,

Sad about Butch. He did have a kinder side, just don't mess with him. He was younger than I thought, but didn't look it. He probably had some interesting stories to tell about his life after Chulie Jr. High!

Only saw (met?) Willie once. Riding in the 55 Chevy that he built for Leon. Street racer with no inner door panels. I wonder if it was the basis for this guy! Hollywood "Two Lane".

Your comment about Richard Wehmeyer's surfers stomp made me chuckle! Easy to visualize him moving across the floor at the youth center dances. Years later I met a French lady who had been raised in Africa (parents were on a religous mission), She had spent a number of years with the Maasai and could do a great Maasai adamu. I wonder if that is where the "Surfers Stomp" originated?

Years ago (maybe decades?) I read Richards name in our local paper. I guess he is an atty and had gotten into a spot of bother in Oceanside and was defended by Jan Ronis. Good to see HHS brothers sticking together.

Jim Hawes

Oh, and then there was "this Guy". Not a big fan of Mr. Nader but don't feel like expressing my true opinion of him here. Got a couple of dash plaques and trophies at his events. Without him I know 2 things that probably wouldn't have happened:

I probably would not have met Juan Fangio!

We would't have many 250+mph 1000+HP super cars! I think Shelby started it, he said $&*$# this guy we'll stuff a big V8 into an AC Ace and look where we are today! 55 years of torque and recoil later!

Bruce Wilson

Hey Jim:

I agree! When I rode around with  him Leon drove a 55 Ford.

There were some characters in my sphere of operation that were indeed unsafe at any speed.

One of my favorite profs in college was Ralph's sister Laura Nader (anthropologist - UCBerkeley) who studied Law and Warfare.

My project for her class, which she by the way, praised, was a study of Civil Commitment proceedings in Contra Costa County (1960's - recall - the world was different).

Did not see Wehmeyer, either of the Stallings or really anybody that I recognized. Jan? Oh what can I say without getting in trouble?

Anyway:

Both Jack Kent (of HHS Golf team finger pointing  fame) and the lovely Cheryl Chase drove Corvairs (red and white respectively).

I was never hurt in either car and I should not tell, but Terry trained an ape to drived a Corvair. He (the ape I mean, not Terry) was never hurt nor did he hurt anybody in the automobile.

Here's another Cheryl, lived right up the street on First Ave, became famous long ago in Las Vegas (can you say Pike's Peaks here without being too offensive?).

I can name the other two (of three), can you? Could the shoe lady be Sharon Boyer?

Cheryl Chase (twice) and the girlfriend Butch and I shared Ms. Carolyn Coombs

I have tried and can find neither of them.

Bruce Wilson

In Martinez, Contra Costa County

Bail is an absolute right

Pay phone?

Bruce Wilson

My dad's University of Detroit Law School foto (lower left)

Note they published your address

REMINDS me of two stories: 

One re my father

and another re Jan Ronis, me and our two lawyer fathers

Stay tuned

Gail Eileen Dillon (Boone)

Bruce Wilson

Amazing about Mr Rice jumping at 97. He oughta run a marathon. I'd do it with him.

Seriously though, we got Michele's dad "The Bull" on one of the Honor Flights back to DC.

It was great for him and all the others to get personal recognition.

His line after getting back home

"If it wasn't for us you'd all be speaking German or a Japanese right now"

TRUE

Bruce Wilson

Poignant story of Frank Manchel

WWII veteran dies on last leg of Honor Flight

A 95-year-old World War II veteran spent his last day alive being honored for his service to the country. 

(Teri Simas/Honor Flight San Diego via AP)

Frank Manchel, an Army technical sergeant during the war, was on a flight back from an all-expense-paid visit to Washington put together by Honor Flight San Diego when he suddenly collapsed and died Sunday. Manchel was on the flight with his son, Dr. Bruce Manchel, who was accompanying his father on the visit.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/wwii-veteran-dies-on-last-leg-of-honor-flight

Bruce Wilson

Mr. Rice redux

Tom Rice, 97, from San Diego, California, was among some 200 parachutists who filled the Normandy skies of France for the 75th anniversary of the invasion as they leapt from vintage C-47 Dakota planes in what was a moving sight. They were honouring the airborne soldiers who jumped into gunfire and death ahead of the June 6, 1944, seaborne invasion. Their engines throbbing, the C-47 transporters dropped group after group of parachutists. Mr Rice jumped in a tandem into roughly the same area he landed in on D-Day near Carentan, a town among the main targets for the paratroopers. He said: 'It went perfect, perfect jump. I feel great. I'd go up and do it all again.' They jumped from the C-47s in Second World War colours and other aircraft, aiming for fields of wild flowers on the edge of the town.

Bruce Wilson

1932 Ironwood Michigan 

Yearbook

Jim Hawes

Shout out to Terry Maple for recommending the book. Now it is going to be a movie! Good thing "Enzo" wasn't a Pug, couldn't make that scenario into a movie! 

Bruce Wilson

Long time

No La Bamba

So 

Note marimbol (key board) and quijada (Donkey jaw)

instruments used by the musicians are varied but come from the stringed and percussive families. In The Port and along the Rio Papaloapan one is likely to see arpas (harps) and occasional  panderos  (tambourines) while further south one might run across a  bocona  (a four string bass), the  quijada  (literally an asses jaw), and violins. But no matter where one is, one will see  jaranas  (a six to ten string instrument, from 18” to the size of a small guitar, that is strummed) and  guitarras de son  (4 strings, various sizes, and plucked with a long cow horn pick). Though most people don’t realize it, the  tarima is another essential instrument. A  tarima is a platform about a foot high, approximately the size of a piece of plywood and usually made of cedar planks. This is where the dancers pound out the rhythms, interacting with the other musicians sometimes following and sometimes dictating the direction of the music. The roots of this music are Spanish and African. The belief is that for the slaves, who were deprived of their drums, the  tarima was the replacement.

Ritchie stuck with guitars

Bruce Wilson

The knewz that does not fit!

Long time no Vredenburg,, LaHaye, or Bandelin 

Sure I have corresponded with Carl and have a bit of info on Robert,

But damn  John, we were on the Little League Mortuary Yankees together where the heck are you?

Ted Testa has passed

My younger brother used to best him regularly in chess and I blew him away by doing three consecutive struggle ups on the bar when he said none of us "weaklings" with the boxer shorts could do one

Thereafter we were just one big happy family of three, Simply Semper Fi right? Fright?

Say Corinne did you get my note the day after the Annual Halsey St block party where I discovered that our old house on Minot just sold for $580K

Say Jackie I did not know of your brother's fate! Such a sad story. Condolences. He made it one year longer than my brother Woodie and many more than Jim Probert, Cathy Emerson and Mona!

Johnny Mowatt was a funny guy who left the building too early also

Bruce Wilson

Bruce Wilson

So was it Carl or Rusty who was the banjo player? Shayne?