Bo Nevue

The 1972 Harvard Avenue reader board caper comes to mind but for the details you need to talk to Alsen.

As sophomores, when we were just in our apprenticeship phase as screw ups, we completed the great frog liberation. Remember in those science rooms with the big tables that sat about 8 students. Our table was in the back and many days we would play table top football with paper triangles fabricated from notebook paper. The frog aquarium was just next to the table and unfortunately we were not great neighbors to the frogs.

In some moment of enlightenment, we realized these frogs were destined for some experiment and our frog friends would be pithed (yuck) and lost to our antics. So we devised a plan to liberate them. It involved the frog, a parachute, and a teacher who thought we were paying attention to the blackboard.

In the middle of class, we captured the frog, put it in a specially designed and tested frog parachute box and threw it off the second floor of what was then called the main building.

A successful landing and the frog was liberated! We did have a frog catcher on the ground who brought it back into the classroom and presented it to Mr. Boyce. “Excuse me Mr Boyce, but I think this frog wants to escape experimentation”. He got the joke and we were on to our next caper. The frog got lucky and as sophomores we knew we could do more damage in the future.

Many years later Alsen and I would parachute out of an airplane together. When I was drifting over the Willamette Valley I couldn’t help but think about that frog. Maybe it is telling its frog friends about the escapade at its 50th frog reunion.

Wow 50 years. I will certainly attend but hanging out with a bunch of old people for a weekend may be a little taxing.

So lets see. 50 years in a few sentences. This should be easy……. When I was 20, I was hitchhiking on I-5 between Eugene and Roseburg (remember how common that was) and was picked up by Sarah Paulson (RHS 76). A side note, I was also picked up by Jim Badden and Dr Skogland among other burgers on various trips. It was about 12 years and a bunch of miles but Sarah and I reconnected and have been married and having fun ever since. She is the best. I just got lucky. As Clay Betcher would say, “ She is so great, why is she marrying you?” Clay always had a great way with words.

In our 38 years together and travels to various sites and tourist traps we would always say, “ this is nice but it isn’t as beautiful as the 100 Valleys of the Umpqua.” We all got lucky to grow up in such a great place.

Thanks to all who assembled this event. It is a lot of work and responsibility. I know this because nobody has ever trusted me to organize a similar event. Special thanks goes out to committee member Peter Alsen, for without his clear sage guidance this event would have never happened. Oh wait…