in commemoration

On this day in 1967, Corporal Donald Woodward McNamara lost his life in a six-hour firefight with the enemy near Highway 9 at Ca Lu, Viet Nam, four months after the birth of his son Shane, the child he never met nor held in his arms.  McNamara was the only casualty in Viet Nam who listed Northwood, IA, as his hometown.

Yes, "Don", it is ME!

"Little, Lyle"

My best friend, Larry S. Nelson, USMC introduced us just before you TWO headed to Okinawa.

Remember, Blue and Red? First Marines, Third Marines?

Life WAS simple!

Blue and Red!

The more you DRANK, the more your threw your head back and and said "GAWD".

You said "GAWD" many times before the night was over.

You had such "inner peace"! Was there something you wanted to tell us besides "GAWD"?

More than once the "fellas" who served with you TRIED, really TRIED to recover the ground they were PUSHED back from. Ground that YOU held. Overrun, pushed back! Overrun pushed back! Overrun - pull the pin!

That (now hallowed ground) could NOT be recovered. Those Marines knew they were NOT "supermen".

In the end, you destroyed the M-60. "One last grenade"! You hugged the "60" until the end!

Thanks, Don!

--  Lyle C. Frazer, posted at VVMF.org  

The story of Donald McNamara and the discovery of his son Shane has been an emotional one for all involved, a testament to the sense of hometown one feels being raised in Northwood Iowa, and a statement about the importance of remembering those who served our country in uniform.  I personally never served, and this project has become a way for me to contribute, and an honor to do so.

In the words of a Marine who served with McNamara, Lance Corporal Ray Calhoun, San Diego, CA: This all reminds me a quote from a WWI Belgium man who as a kid was liberated by the US Army. He came to America, became a famous architect and married into wealth. To thank the USA for all this he established a military museum and library in Santa Barbara, Ca. Asked about his special feelings for the military he said: “I still feel an obligation to the United States, especially to the military. That’s why I am behind the idea of a Museum to honor the soldiers who died. To be killed in a war is not the worst that can happen. To be lost is not the worst. To be forgotten is the worst.” 

Searching for his gravesite at Graceland Cemetery in Albert Lea, MN, Larry Patterson finally found the headstone, overgrown by sod.  Since restored to a presentable condition, it remains a sad statement that for years it had been slowly forgotten.  Today we remember, 45 years later.

Editor's note: the above post was scheduled to be published on Saturday, July 21, the anniversary date, and is published today due to an error.  My regrets.

A Look Back in the Blog

The blog has been updated to show all the YouTubes presented at the Saturday evening banquet.  They're on the About the Class of 62 page, and you can view it by clicking here . . .

With politics now in full bloom I looked back and found a post from two years ago regarding the politics of our time, when we didn't know there was such a thing as a swing state, and living in a location where the chosen TV stations don't cover your area is a blessing.  You can read the post here . . .

In my conversations with Butch Pederson (LMHS '62) last week we also discussed the football season that I discovered had been a downer for both teams/schools.  By the time we played against each other in the last game I am sure he was looking more favorably at the upcoming basketball season than our last football game.  Both teams limped to the finish line, NKHS because of the loss of key players and in his opinion their misfortune came from people playing in the wrong position.  He's right - he probably should have been their running back.

Strangely enough, I didn't know or had forgotten that he was playing across the line from me, although we were not head-up.  Regarding the incorrect score posted in their annual he laughed and said, "Yeah, we saw it and knew it was wrong.  But I figured what the heck, it meant another win for us!"  Ha Ha, I said.

It was about this time of the summer in 1961 when we were beginning to fantasize about a great senior football season, so we determined some illegal summertime practice would be a good thing.  It lasted one night, and you can find out why by reading this post . . .

a boy and his horse

Larry Holstad

Preparing for a class reunion meant we spent some time looking over old pictures.  One day Lonna laid a photo in front of me and said, "Who is this?"  The bigger question was probably "Why do you have this in your collection?" because it turns out to be, as I guessed, Larry Holstad.

We sent the original photo to Larry and he has confirmed that he is the rider, on a picture taken at his grandfather's farm just south of Austin, MN.  We don't know for sure what year the photo was taken but do know that on at least one occasion he rode his horse to Lake Mills for the heck of it, and perhaps the picture was transferred to Lonna on one of those occasions.

Nobody really knows for sure but all the conjecture is fun.

Another Letter to the Editor

I was pleased to see the photos from the parade in the Anchor last week, especially the entries for the NKHS Class of '62 including the '62 Anniversary Gold Impala holding the four NKHS Homecoming Queens, '58 to '61. Unbeknownst to your staff, the caption missed a great story since it did not identify the queens who were, in the front seat, Gwen Hillman Hanson, '62, and in the back seat Julie Nelson, '62, Serena Shields Holstad, '62, and Betty Ryan Mathews, '62. Not only was our basketball team undefeated, our queens were, too. One of the starters on that basketball team, Larry Holstad, was driving the car. The attached photo taken Thursday evening features the four remaining starters from the 61-62 team reading newspaper clippings about their season. Seated left to right they are Holstad, Chuck Hendrickson, Phil Johnson, and Gerry Pike.

thoughts following the reunions

There's a whole lot of things that will run through your head before, during, and after a 50-year reunion.  Here are some examples.

Most of us would wonder why we did those stupid things that we did in HS.  Chuck Helgeland has become known for apologizing, but like the rest of us cannot undo what has been done.  Linda Loken is a world-class historian with scrapbooks of practically every event of our four years, and I found in them the "senior interview" we all did for the Anchor.  I read mine and was embarrassed by what I wrote.  Somebody should have slapped some sense into me, but it's too late now.

Lonna's class had a float (created by Richard Hrubetz) for the Lake Mills Jubilee on Saturday, so we were there for the parade, and I noticed the Class of '52 had a float in the parade as well.  Imagine this - There we will be, 10 years from now...  Are you ready?

Their lives were certainly different since they lived through and likely can recall World War II and the Korean War.  So then I projected in a different way - backwards - to realize that in 1962, it was the Class of 1912 that would have been celebrating their 50th!  That may change your perspective.  It did mine.

The Lake Mills reunion was pretty much a one-day event, confirming even further that with holding a four-day affair, our class is pretty unique.  I have heard from NKHS grads both before and after our time who say their reunion is pretty much a three-hour meal and that's it.  I described to some folks on Saturday our four days together, and they just kind of stared at me like, "ok, really?"  Think of this: would any class ever purposely try to arrange either style, limiting itself to the three-hour dinner or creating the four-day gathering?  Probably not.  Either one just sort of "happens."  The design flows from the people and their relationships, though I think the Lake Mills folks might enjoy an extended reunion, too.

Do you realize we had classmates returning from Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, and numerous points in between?  And Dick Brunsvold who lives in Norway, missed it.

Our classmates have experienced a pretty good level of success, but so have the LMHS grads.  Makes me think that Norwegian ancestry may have a hand in all this, although I once knew a fellow from Kansas who graduated in a class of four.  Three of them earned doctorates while he was a successful business owner.  That sets a pretty high standard.

"Butch" Pederson

Saturday evening I had a chance to visit at length with Wayne "Butch" Pederson, the Lake Mills shooting guard with the high-arching shot that probably was inadvertently blocked at one time or another by the arches in our gym.  Butch lives in Chicago where he was a teacher/administrator for a number of years.

Like the other players on the floor for those games in '61-'62, he recalls the high level of competition between NK and LM that all agree made everyone better. "You know, it started in junior high and just carried through," he commented.

His memories of our final game have a little different perspective.  "We trailed, what, 18 - 4 at the end of the 1st quarter?  I thought we were done.  I did.  Then in the 3rd quarter I got hot, shots going in that I couldn't believe.  And I won't forget my 2 free throws with 15 seconds left.  We were leading by four and I knew how important they were because it could be the game.  I hardly recall the ball leaving my fingertips, and it just floated in."

Paul Charlson was quoted in an earlier post about his own memories of the season, and you can read his story here . . .

Just before we left, Butch and I looked around and hypothesized about our common future, what with the incidence of cancer, heart disease, tumors . . .  Some of the people attending their reunion - just like ours - won't be there next time, and that's a sad reality.  Until then, let's stay in touch.

a Bulldog 50th

Another Reunion has gone by, this one held at Rice Lake Country Club last weekend for the LMHS Class of '62.  Paul Charlson reports he has set up a Facebook page for the group, so if you're a Facebook user you could probably enjoy their photos.  If not, here are a few that we took, and I'm sure you will recognize many faces.

Paul is a good man and has been the organizer of the past few Bulldog Reunions.  This year they very appropriately copied our recognition of classmates no longer with us.  Two names in particular struck me - Arlen Stensrud and Allen Holstad, both members of their basketball team and good athletes, well known to Northwood athletes.

I don't have a headcount but I believe their turnout was about the same as ours, with several classmates returning for the reunion for perhaps the first time.  I also discovered that one classmate, David Rosheim, is a "writer of history, short stories, articles and poetry . . . and is Norwegian by descent . .  . "  We purchased Old Iowegian Legends (what a classy, memorable name, eh?) and will be quoting from it from time to time, I suspect.  Lonna tells me he is familiar with Dan Sorenson, the Iowa Farm Boy, and the two  will surely provide more for the grist mill.

I flipped open the book and found this story on page 113:

In late summer of 1962, the administrators of Luther College finally came out of their long established fortifications against student dancing and at long last decided to allow the once taboo activity to become a legitimate student recreation.  When I heard this I was surprised.  I had been rocking and rolling and bopping along at sock  hops since 1957 and was amazed to know that the college I had chosen had not been permitting it.

Those of you who were Norsemen will remember those days, and the rest of us will scratch our heads but recall that times were indeed significantly different 50 years ago.  Change is good.

The Story of Man - in 2 Minutes

We tried to tell the Life and Times of the Class of '62 in three minutes.  And before we could post it, this YouTube came out - "Our Story in 2 Minutes."  It's tough competition so I stowed it away for a few days.  Makes The Life and Times of '62 look amateurish.  Oh well.

Click the full-screen icon in the lower right corner of the photo frame to get your best view.

Here's the description from the young man who created it:

My final project I made for my video productions class "Cutaway Productions" (Search them for their channel) at my high school. I don't own the rights to the song or the pictures and I am not trying to, I just did this video for fun and I spent many a hour on it so please don't sue me.

Pretty impressive for a high school class, and I can assure you that culling from millions of options, then fitting the photos to the music would be daunting.  Probably helps to have the right equipment and software.