Class 1961 Memories by Jim Branson
When Ruth (Smith) Branson and I went to the twenty year
reunion, seemed like we didn’t spread out very well and ended up spending most
of our time with Dawn (Smith) Shepherd and Paul, along with Linda and Rod
Lockett who are all neighbors and we knew all about anyway. I thought perhaps a better way to have a
reunion would be to have a virtual reunion and just type up some ideas and
maybe a few questions. You will probably
ascertain that I don’t have my year book to consult. I am trying to get it back from Ruth.
It could be that young people embarking on their high school
and college hopes will benefit from seeing how “one couple did it”. Yes, times have certainly changed, but things
have changed both ways. Wages are five
to six times what they were in our time but the amount of credits you need to
get a BS degree in engineering has dropped 10-12%. There still are housing bargains available
and foods have a lot more avenues of preparation. And for those politically inclined, it is high
time we did some serious soul searching and made some serious cuts in the cost
of tuition, electronic books and internet assistance. But on with the story.
I didn’t have much of a social atmosphere after the sixth
grade because I had a job right after the last period and in high school I had
a work release for a sixth period study hall, being the swing shift clerk at
the Milner Hotel, near Grove and 10th Street. In the summers, I went
to Lowman and even at Christmas, Thanksgiving and hunting season. So I just
wasn’t around that much.
.jpg)
My first taste of school was the old version of Garfield
Elementary which was across Boise
Avenue
.jpg)
The new school (existing) had a huge playground and plenty
of basketball hoops, softball diamond, soccer and even a separate hardball
court. It had a large gymnasium and a
soil area for marbles and plenty of smooth concrete for jacks that many of the
girls played in the younger years.
I am not sure modern folks even have experienced
“semi-professional” marbles but many of us had a barrel of marbles we
accumulated. I couldn’t even bring them
all to school. They used to make
reflectors for stop signs out of clear, red marbles that were always a prize
possession if they somehow fell out of the signs into your possession…..I am
not sure how that happened.
At least some of the teachers organized a photographer to
come in and take a class picture. I
remember having at least some, but they have slipped away. So if anybody has copies they can share,
please let me know at “knowhow at ctcweb dot net”. I had Mrs Coxs (sp?) in the second grade; Mrs
Chatburn 3rd; Mrs. Queer (pronounce Gweer) 4th; Mr. Robb
5th; and Miss Huber 6th.
We also used Mrs. Burns for Health in the sixth and another man for art
who I have forgotten. I sent an email to
the existing principal with the Google image marked up with names and
the rooms as I remember them. She is new and could not find much of anything
but promised to keep looking.
I made contact with Mike Stout who left Boise
after East Jr High and graduated from Shadle
Park in Spokane Spokane Spokane Community College Mission Street
My Evening Paper
Route
In the seventh grade I acquired an evening Statesman paper
route. Papers were truck delivered to
the corner of Boise Avenue Boise Boise
I remember my dad complaining about having to walk to school
five miles near Pagosa Springs ,
Colorado
I had this one customer who used to always tip me a silver
dollar for “cigar money” as he called it.
I think he was an undercover cop.
One time I was pretty upset and he inquired why. There was a huge black lab that would just
about attack me near his house. Somehow
the next delivery day the dog went missing.
Later he admitted that he had taken the dog on a picnic and it
apparently got lost. J That’s when I realized there are friends that
talk, others that walk.
I remember Edgar Cummings, a year ahead, and I got major
wisdom and decided to try and ride our bikes to Idaho City
My Stradivarius Violin
My Dad played the banjo and his dad Dave played the violin
and you could look inside his violin that I still have and see it was made by
Stradivarius in 1727. It had a photo in
the bow and you could see all the major violinists of the era. But it was cracked and much later I found out
it was a fake, but a really good one. I
wanted to play the guitar, but my grandmother Irene played a guitar and she and
Dad were not close, to say the least.
And in those days, there was no organized teaching of guitar in private
school that I knew about. I always
thought the violin was a sissy affair and would ride my bike clear from South Boise to 22nd
Street
I remember Carol Gabriel was always a much better player than
me and I had to fight to have a descent chair in the second section. All in all it was a good experience for the 7th
and 8th grade. Being in
orchestra caused the funneling of students into a certain schedule so many of
the East Junior High students I didn’t meet until the
.jpg)
9th grade when we had more individualized
classes. I do remember a girl named
Marylyn who could really play the cello and I wonder if she went on to play
professionally. She was a year ahead of
me, but since Borah got built, they moved the tenth grade back to BHS. I don’t remember Marylyn at BHS but then I
went into ROTC and again got out of schedule with musicians and sports people.
They didn’t have computers then so I don’t know how they decided who went
where.
I can’t remember how Corby Smith and I got hooked up at
East, but I used to ride my bike to his house past the end of Warm Springs
after school (post paper route) and then ride back home. I haven’t checked it on Google, but I am
guessing that it was a couple miles from his house to mine. Teacher Mrs. Farr (sp) lived nearby and her
husband Tom delivered diesel fuel to our mine at Lowman.
With the paper route funds, I would buy old National
Geographic Magazines at the downtown bookstore and cut out pictures and used an
old Smith Corona typewriter to type up special reports. As difficult to type on as that old machine
was, it made me an outstanding typist when I got on the newer, but still manual
ones we had in Mrs Youngstrom (not sure) class in 9th grade. She was the girls PE class teacher and Liz
Livingston and I sat next to each other in her homeroom and frequently got
kicked out of class together for talking.
Mr. Sandmeyer (sp) the assistant principal finally gave up and didn’t
even come down and scold us after a while.
At least Liz and I could talk all we wanted in the hall if we kept it
quiet.
In the summer between 7th and 8th
grade I worked for my dad in the mine at Lowman and made $1.75 per hour….man’s
wages…holy hog heaven. My main job was
to run the air driven tram that pulled the muck out of the mine but I also made
up the primers…yep…for the dynamite. You
took a stick of dynamite, jammed a sharpened 60 penny spike and stuck it about
6 inches down into the folded end of the dynamite. Then you put the electric cap in there. The miners gave me a list of how many of each
time delay they wanted and it usually was about 13 in total.
When dad and I were blasting stumps for a local rancher, he
would dig a “coyote hole” under the stump, and then cut the dynamite in half
and then tamp it tight into the hole. I
asked if he wasn’t afraid it would go off while tamping. He said it took 10 lbs to set it off and he
wasn’t going over 7.5….that really helped me a lot. Later I learned it was nearly impossible to
set it off with mere compression.
We also used “ditching powder” to drain a swamp. The idea was you only put a primer (blasting
cap) in the first stick and then the next stick was only a foot or so away and
the blast from the first one would set the next one, and so on. It made a beautiful ditch….blew crap up in
the trees and laid the wet sod back for a ditch about 7 feet wide and 3 feet
deep. You couldn’t dig that with a
backhoe even today. One bite with the backhoe
and the bucket is plugged.
Wonderful Miss Dart
In the 9th grade algebra at East Jr High we
mostly had Mrs. LeRoy and I remember Dennis Brandt and Jim Brady sat near me
aphabetically. Apparently missed the “d”
in his name as he sat behind me. I can’t
remember who all was in there, but a great group of kids. I remember Alora Johnson and Janet Forney
were in Latin, but not sure if we were all in the same LeRoy class at the same
time, because I think there were several.
But Alora and I were in study hall together and Mrs. LeRoy was the camp
keeper. We had to get permission to talk to each other. When Bill Zurcher and I
went to the Professional Boise Braves game, Alora and her mother were running
some type of hot dog/hamburger stand and she introduced me to her mother as the
guy helping her thru algebra. I remember
Bill was impressed. I had no idea what she was talking about.
Mrs. LeRoy is the one who set up the students who would
eventually be in an accelerated math class under Miss Dart at BHS the following
year. There were a ton of people that
stayed in that same class all three years.
Miss Dart always organized things by alphabet so last names starting
with A or B sat near the door and people like Corby Smith and Mike Viani and
Bob Venning were on the opposite side of the room. Alora and Janet more centrally located. Bill Brewer was in my row but a seat or two
back. Olga Blair sat in front of me.
With Miss Dart’s blessing I challenged calculus successfully in college.
Miss Dart was a no nonsense teacher but far more realistic
than Miss Hogarth (sp), the Latin teacher.
When I would go to get a release for tennis or debate excursions, she
would break out crying. When I walked
back past Miss Dart’s area, she called me in and said that Miss Hogarth takes
her teaching very seriously and that I should always pay her respect. That kept
me from going ballistic in the future.
This is probably not true, but it sure felt that way back
then. Like everybody, I would be called
upon to make a translation from Latin to English and Miss Hogarth would go into
a tirade how bad my translation was. She
would then call on other students, getting frustrated with all of them. But finally it would get to Alora or Janet or
somebody she liked, and she would say what I said earlier, and it would be
right then. Oh well, as they say in high
energy physics, “shit happens”.
Science at BHS
I have to say that what I was taught in Biology (Bjornson),
Physics (Pranks??) and Chemistry (Gavin) at BHS put me in good shape for
engineering school at the U.
of Idaho
Rod Lockett got shot in the arm accidentally in our senior
year by his brother and he missed a lot of class. Rod calls it physics but I
think it was Mr. Gavin in chemistry who asked me to help tutor Rod. All I did was give Rod my tests and
apparently Mr. Gavin used the same tests on Rod. I am certain that was not my worst crime.
Maybe Mr. Gavin recognized a budding criminal.
He never said anything if he knew.
Debate
I don’t remember the debate instructor but I did learn a lot
of methodologies in there that helped with contract negotiations and
presentations in my consulting exposure later on. It seems the last semester I was doing more
debate judging than anything else. Maybe
that is like “promoting somebody who isn’t worth a crap as a team member”.
History
I certainly didn’t get off to the right side of Mrs.
Hanks. She gave me a C at mid-term and
my Dad had a fit. Hell, they had to burn
his high school down to get him out and he was certainly pressing me. He always said I was going to college, and by
the way, you are paying for it yourself.
That’s a funny story to come.
Then there was American Government where there was a male
part-time teacher and I think I was beginning to discover girls and struggled a
bit in there. I got out of there hating
that instructor. Without the grades in
the two history classes, I might have graduated higher. But….never took another history class in my
life, yet I did get interested in Lewis and Clark and went over to Lemhi Pass
English
I have to jump ahead to college to tell this funny
story. I had this duck tailed, hippy
male English professor who on my first paper put about seven F’s on it. He said he went and checked my high school
record and when he saw I had been given mostly A’s, he put some more F’s on the
paper. I never had a clue what was
setting him off but finally got smart and paid a few bucks to his wife as a
tutor and got thru ok. This was my first
experience at politics in the education system.
I guess the English teachers at BHS had their agenda and if
you did the assignments, you got the better grades. But obviously, I didn’t learn a thing from
them other than spelling and questionable grammar. My English SAT score was close to half of the
math and science score. I am sure glad Bill Gates came up with spell checkers
or I still would be in trouble. I
finally became a pretty good technical writer for engineering proposals,
however. J
ROTC
I really liked ROTC at BHS but I knew I was going to have to
take it again at Moscow
But ROTC from BHS served me well because at Moscow
Cruising with Arguinchona and Bean
When my Dad started moving to Boise
I remember John had parents a little older than average and
of course, my Dad was in his seventies when I graduated from BHS. John’s folks had to go somewhere on business
and didn’t want John staying alone, so I spent a week at his house. How we avoided wrecking his car is beyond me. His folks had a vintage Dodge with push button
transmission shift. But we were only allowed
in his 1953 (?) Chevy. But it got us
around ok. He was driving west bound on State Street
Dad & co would just rent during the 9 months of school
and then go back to the property at Lowman.
So in the junior year, we rented an apartment at the Milner Hotel and so
I was walking to and from school the same basic way Larry Arguinchona was from
his folk’s Basque boarding house also on Grove around 9th Street. Since
I was making money as a desk clerk and general council to the old folks at the
hotel (just kidding) I had money available for gasoline, even though it was
dirt cheap back then. So Larry and I
would use his Dad’s 1956 Chevy Bel Air(?) and drive all over hell and then
refuel it. I had told my Dad that I was
going to the library. I am sure we drove
past it a time or two.
Apparently Larry’s Dad checked the odometer one evening and
the next morning when I came by to meet up with Larry, I could hear yelling a
block away. I am not too good at Basque,
but apparently we had put 200 miles on the car.
I am glad his folks didn’t contact mine or else I probably would have a
much higher pitched voice now. Phyllis
White lived way on the other side of town and we must have gone by her house
three times. I don’t remember why? J My Dad did walk up to the library to check on
me but fortunately I got home early that night and was home when he got back
and he assumed we just passed on different streets. I think I cooled my jets after that.
Even though Larry and Howard Mylander were playing
basketball, between working and not being allowed out much I didn’t see much of
the games. My Dad was always afraid I
would meet a girl and want to get married before completing college that I was
going to pay for.
My internship at the Milner was something else. When I took the maids and their heavy dirty
laundry carts to the basement where the washing equipment was, if I hit a
little too low, the elevator controller would not work. So I had to enter the high voltage screened
area and take an old board and bounce the high voltage spool manually to bounce
the elevator up enough for the inside controller to work. Sparks
The manager Mr. Buckley was about 50 or more and he had a
wife that was barely older than me. We
received the Statesman bundle on Sunday and I was supposed to deliver it up to
Mrs. Buckley shortly and she would answer the door in a night gown and with big
windows in the background, I could see all she had. But being the naïve dude I
was, I didn’t see a thing. Of course, I
knew Mr. Buckley slept with a 45 and was host to the local Hell’s Angels
team. Probably lucky I was naïve. J
The Sweetheart Ball Senior Year
Well, my Dad’s worst nightmare happens and Ruth Smith asks
me to the Sweetheart’s Ball (girl ask boy) and I guess I can say I was
literally swept off my feet and that ended my career with any other social
activities. Ruth and I went to separate
colleges but got married in Ann Morrison Park in 1964 and fortunately Larry’s
Dad got over the 200 mile incident because he was the superintendent of the
park and the sprinklers never came on at the park during the wedding. J Larry
and John were in the wedding and my roommate from college, John Ashburn, shown
barely on the right side below. These
are photos taken by other people and are not that high of quality. I think
Bonnie McKean was in the wedding ceremony on Ruth’s side.
Ruth filed for divorce in 1987 but we have remained friends
and contact each other now and then.
Paying for College
My summer job for 1961 was on Red Mountain Lookout on the Boise National Forest
near Bear Valley
I will include some modern day pics that I took much later
on hikes and bike rides. It was truly a wonderful experience even though they
later burned the lookout down since it had no road to it and there became much
more aerial support.
.jpg)
.jpg)
This is a pic of the Sawtooths from Red Mtn Lookout taken in
early summer.
I got the job fairly easily because I had lived at Lowman
and worked with my Dad repairing the USFS #9 wire telephone system and knew the
ins and outs of that type of work and of course, I knew the area better than
the guy I was working for, Charlie Enlow, Alternate Ranger. I went to work right out of school and so it
was a few weeks before the snow went off enough to even pack into the
lookout. In those days, the radio was
the size of a modern dishwasher and it took about 90 direct current batteries
to run it all summer. That required a
mule just for batteries. Good ole
Charlie said I had to pack my personal belongings in, and that sure limited how
much I could take….his plan came to fruition.
We didn’t take a lot of pictures back then so I don’t have
any, I don’t think, of Ruth hiking in with her parents a couple times. I think Wally Hauck came up once. The only other visitors I had were Basque
sheepherders and ten million sheep.
There was the lookout spring about ½ mile down the trail from the
lookout and if the sheep got in there and crapped all over the place above the
spring, the thunderstorms washed the sheep crap down into the water. So I had a five foot sling, like the David
sling that he used on Goliath. I could
throw a major rock about 100 yards down the hill and funny thing….the sheep
didn’t like it and would stampede. Of
course, the sheepherder didn’t either, but I couldn’t understand him who always
yelled in Basque.
Lightning striking the lookout is a terrifying affair. I don’t recall my Dad ever being afraid of
anything prior, but the night he spent up there in a storm proved he was
human. If you are not familiar with
lightning up close and personal, there are a bunch of little fingers of static
coming up from the ground and another group comes down from the clouds. When two fingers connect, the bolt
happens. Before the strike, there is
absolutely terrifying static in the lookout and they recommend you stand on a
glass bulb insulated stool and stay away from metal. But they wanted, before modern satellite
tracking, you to write down the azimuths of all the strikes. Since it was pitch black between strikes, you
had to write in the dark and often could not read it the next day.
The next day you were pretty busy trying to find any smokes
because it was important to get on the fire right away. Since manpower was going to likely have to
walk along trails, it could be several hours before they arrived on the fire. We did have a couple helicopters like the
ones in M*A*S*H but they were not all that reliable and did not have much
range. But you can see by my striped
four legged friends in the lookout photo that I had plenty of entertainment. Of
course, now they just “let it burn”.
So I made about $1100 for that tour on the lookout. My room and board at Shoup Hall at Moscow
So I did make it thru my freshman year on my own finances
and I returned to the forest service a second summer. On my third summer, the dietian had a
contractor friend and I got a job as a carpenter’s helper for $3.15 per
hour!!! Can you imagine that? Most of the people said at the wood shop I
wouldn’t last two days but they didn’t know that the owner’s wife was a close
friend of Mrs. Hollen. The foreman’s
name was John Brady and he even let me drive his 1937 chevy pickup since I had
mastered the floor stick shift on my Dad’s 1957 jeep. Now I was really rolling in the dough….and….I
went back to work as the “head hasher” at the girl’s dormitory Hays Hall. It actually didn’t pay as many hours as pots
and pans and vegetable cleaning, but was a substantially greater “contact
sport” with the ladies. I remember the
girls coming down for breakfast in their braless sweat shirts even clear back
then, night gowns, etc for Saturday breakfast.
I was happy to serve them. If they got caught by the lady in charge,
they were scolded…but….I was such an innocent, naive fool, nobody thought
anything of it. The head mistress, an elderly lady, liked me.
Of course, when Ruth and I got married in 1964, that ended
any job at the University….strict rule then…no mingling of married students
with non-married students. But as fate
would have it, I landed three part time jobs and Ruth a couple and we made it
mostly thru. I ended up having to barrow
$600 from my Dad my senior year, but easily paid him back at my first job with
Shell Chemical, in Los Angeles
But for those younger people reading this, keep in mind I
had a heck of a work resume when I finally needed it my senior year at Moscow
Why Go to Los
Angeles
Ruth had completed three years at U.
of Colorado , Boulder
I bought a 1956 Dodge 1 ton flatbed truck and build a moving
van on the back of it and we set out for Lowman temporarily and then onto
Spokane. Both of us got good jobs in Spokane
When we were at the 1981 Class Reunion we were in the throws
of building a sodium cyanide heap leach operation for the gold mine and gold
had topped at over $800 an ounce.
Unfortunately, the price dropped precipitously in subsequent years but I
did get the heap leach running in 1984.
In 1982 I had taken a management job with Trus Joist and we were doing
Lowman part-time and Ruth was doing Spokane U. of Colorado
I finally quit TJ and took a job in Coeur d’ Alene
In about 1988 the Titanium Plant closed down and I went to
work for a large consulting firm. I
became the VP of the Industrial Division and then left in 1991 to start my own
consulting firm, Manufacturing Knowhow.
I wrote highly specialized software called “Expert Systems” which
provided lesser trained operators the ability to operate the plant at much
higher levels, even higher than the better trained operators without the
system.
I pretty much retired to Lowman in 1993 and sold some bug
killed timber and developed subdivisions with the property in the homestead. I
spent the last couple decades studying stone monuments around the world which
you can see on my other blogs listed under profile.
Well, I think that is about enough for this edition. I hope
somebody benefits from it and I expect some rebuttal from any digs on other
folks.
Jim Branson
52 Canyon View
Lowman, Id. 83637
knowhow at ctcweb dot net
I only answer the phone when I recognize the caller ID
