The Week in Review

Four days?  What in the world will you be doing for four days?  Well, it went by pretty quickly, and having a variety of events to attend with a variety of classmates meant a chance to visit in a casual but lengthier manner, unlike the quick conversation at a stand-up cocktail party.

So here's a "picture" of all that went on during the week, starting with the lineup for Northwood's 4th of July Parade.  Click on the photo for a larger view.

The Class of '62 was represented by three entries in the parade, all shown on this photo: Robert Hall's flatbed '46, the '62 Chevy carrying the four Homecoming Queens from our class, and trailing the queens in the background a white pickup carrying members of Project McNamara.

The day was warm and did not improve much in the shade of the shelter house for the picnic.  You can see by the smiles from Jo Moretz and Dave Skellenger that we nonetheless made the best of it.

Thursday afternoon the members of Project McNamara met again for Ann Johnson's "Getting to Know You" party at her home.  The sign was created by Nancy Hengesteg and her 9-year-old granddaughter, Carly, and used as sideboards on the white pickup she drove in the parade.

Thursday evening we met at Worth Brewing Company to quaff a brew and take in some local history.  Providing their own history, these four starters from the undefeated 61-62 Viking basketball team were reviewing scrapbooks kept by Linda Hempen Loken.  Sadly, the 5th starter, Mike Lien, is no longer with us.

Friday was the "open" day but as it turned out, it, too, was busy.  Several classmates and teachers made it out to the golf course, while some traveled to Mason City to view the Historic Park Inn, Music Man Square, and Meredith Willson boyhood home.  Trivia question of the day: who did the window coverings for all 31 windows in the Willson home when it was refurbished?  Answer: our own Dianne Taylor Byerly!  Shown here in the Mezzanine of the Historic Park Inn are the classmates and spouses who did the tour.

We don't have photos of the Music Man tours nor the golf outings held Friday and Saturday (Gerry Pike won longest putt!) at least for now.

The banquet included a Necrology Service, a commemoration of our departed classmates.  Cheryl Grube Calabria did the ceremony by lighting a candle as she cited each lost classmate's name.  Quietly, we all remembered.

Emcee Larry Holstad said it best when he said "I knew some of you very well, some of you pretty well, and some of you not at all.  These reunions have given me a chance to know each of you better and I am glad to have had the chance."  For more photos from the reunion, check the slideshow embedded in the Tuesday post.

The 2017 Reunion Committee will include Robert Hickman, Linda Hempen Loken, Lee Leidal, Jo Moretz, and Gerry Pike.  The 4th of July in 2017 is a Tuesday, so consideration is being given to holding the reunion in conjunction with Northwood's Founders Day in September.  If you have an opinion on the date, please email nkhs62@gmail.com.

The Saturday Night Banquet

Here's an early look at the busy party at the VFW last Saturday evening, the banquet for the 50th Reunion of the Class of '62 at NKHS.  When time allows we'll be adding some captions to identify what's happening, particularly regarding the Jack McMullen story about the "religious kid."

The slideshow should start by itself; to start it again, click the Viking logo in the lower left corner.

Come back to this for another view.

An Email to the Reunion Committee

Five Teachers Attending Class of '62 50th Reunion

Hey, all.  Super job with the party.  I needed another four or five hours to talk to everybody Saturday night but my body was telling me I didn't have the time, if you know what I mean.

Larry, you did a terrific job as emcee.  You were kind in speaking of the blog and I totally failed to tell you in return that what you did to lead the program was top-notch.  Thanks for doing that, even if you weren't able to make a career out of music.  (an inside joke - you had to be there.)  And by the way, if I could get a copy of that DVD I'd sure appreciate watching (probably for the first time) one of only three games we won in '61...

Karen, you'll notice I do have your email address, but I suspect I have not added it to the NKHS 62 Google account.  I will get that done, probably tomorrow.  I have a lot of fixin' to do and names/emails to be adding so we can keep it current, and am hopeful all our classmates will stay tuned in when their addresses change so the roster will be forever current.  They can email any changes to nkhs62@gmail.com and we'll stay on top of it.  

Robert, thanks for bringing the power pack (that I didn't need, but if you hadn't brought it I would have) and both you and Vickie for your local leadership, Karen as well.

Cheryl, I appreciate your compassion.  It's part of the reason our class still hangs together after all these years.  The necrology service was very touching and one we should continue.

Serena, I know you did a lot of the heavy lifting, and the souvenir book was great to read when I got home.  We do indeed have a story of success in our class, and saluting those teachers was appropriate.

I didn't catch who all is going to be on the next committee so if someone could forward that list to me, I'll get it up on the blog to retain for future reference.  It's a sad thought that comes to mind that some of the people who were in the room last night won't be there in 2017, so as long as we can, let's stay in touch through the blog.

Great job, all of you.  The week is a great memory.

Lee

Post-Reunion Huzzah!

We're back home again following four days of 50th Class Reunion activities, and found this YouTube had been forwarded to me by my daughter, whose husband is farming not far from us.  The whole story can be found at this Yahoo page by clicking this link . . .  Seems very appropriate for us Iowa farm kids.  They call it a parody music video promoting agriculture, and it is.

Coming soon - some reflections on the great week back in Iowa, where the tall corn grows!

The Life and Times of '62

This week - beginning tomorrow - we celebrate our graduation 50 years ago.  The schedule for the week shows plenty to do -

• Wednesday - 11 AM - 4th of July Parade 
• Wednesday - Noon - class picnic at the shelter house
• Thursday - the golf course is open
• Thursday - 1 PM - Project McNamara celebration at Ann Swensrud Johnson's for those who have been involved
• Thursday - 5 PM - an evening at the Worth Micro Brewery
• Friday - the golf course is open
• Friday - 11:30 AM - a tour of the Historic Park Inn in Mason City
• Friday - 1:30 PM - a tour of the Music Man Square in Mason City
• Friday - 4:30 PM -  the "world premiere" of the Class of '62 story by Richard Holstad
• Friday - 6:00 PM - a Kensett reunion 
• Saturday - 1:00 PM - Reunion Golf Tournament
• Saturday - 5:30 PM - Social Hour
• Saturday - 7:00 PM - Banquet

While the week's celebration is the culmination of what the blog has been pointing towards for the past two years, the online celebration will continue.  The NKHS 62 blog has been an effort to capture and memorialize the story of our youth, the sorrow and the joy, the celebration of the teachers who did their best for us, the failures, the successes, the relative comparison of what we knew - had - and owned vis-a-vis the world today, and the cultural/geopolitical aura of those times.  The hope was to have many classmates sharing those stories.  While that participation has been limited, the fabric is there and the wholecloth may still come about.

In that spirit, we will promote the blog at the banquet Saturday night with a thought that more of the class might become engaged.  This video, "The Life and Times of 62", is a keynote effort, a three-minute encapsulation of the era, our school experience, and the days when we were on top of the world and the dream was underway.  It was our shared life and times.

We look forward to seeing many of you this week.

 

As always, for those receiving this post by email, go directly to the blog to view this video.

Our Senior Photos

Thanks to the staff at the Yearbook for including senior photos, and Richard Holstad for his work in scanning them.  We cheated a little bit in this video to include four schoolmates who graduated elsewhere, but it didn't require Congressional action so it's legit.

The fun part of the video is the insertion of a few grade school photos that were available, providing "before and after (HS)" shots.  I am sorry we were not able to collect any grade school photos from the Kensett bunch.  Maybe in five years.

You may recognize the background music, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" by Vince Guaraldi, composer and artist.  That tune came out as a "B side" in 1962.  Guaraldi is perhaps best known, at least by us, as the composer behind the Peanuts theme, "Linus and Lucy."  That theme has an interesting origin: Lee Mendelson was producing an upcoming Peanuts Christmas special, needed the right music, heard "Cast Your Fate" while riding across the Golden Gate Bridge, and the rest is history.  You probably enjoyed Guaraldi and Peanuts for years; he composed for 17 of their specials.

This music is light and uplifting, just as we felt as we were leaving NKHS 50 years ago, where our dreams began.

Your Last . . . Whatever

Sometime in the last couple of years we've made purchases that suddenly trigger the notion that "This may be the last time we ever buy . . . " that particular product.

For example, I wanted to convert our grill to natural gas but was told I could not.  Considering we had used the current grill for 18 years and it really had many years to go, I realized that if I were to buy a new grill today, it will no doubt be the LAST one I will ever buy, so let's dump the old beater and start a relationship with the newer, more valuable product.  Get what you want, because by the time it needs replacement, you probably won't want to be standing outdoors in the rain or snow trying to do the grilling anyway, so the next one WILL be your LAST grill.

We applied the same thinking to other products for the home: a new steam iron, recliners, and various other items.  Theoretically, they are our last, ever.

Morbid?  I don't look at it that way.  Maybe it's "glass half-full vs glass half-empty" but I never really understood the management application of that concept anyway.  In the sales world the notion was that those with a positive view would look to the half-full side, and those with a negative view would lean to the half-empty side.  Whatever.

I suppose our "glass" is indeed better than half-empty, yet have you noticed the imaginary contents might taste better than 40 years ago?  Could it be that at last you have the time to enjoy the flavor, to swirl it in the glass and test the "nose"?  Consider how many glasses of milk you have consumed in your lifetime.  Consider the satisfaction involved just by the quantity, but also by an appreciation of a lifetime of taste.  A half-glass of iced tea or lemonade even tastes better now in the absence of a rush to be somewhere.

Our house itself is a balancing act between lifetime/half-glass thinking.  I'm pretty skeptical about the roof we put on 2 years ago.  The siding is OK, the windows are Andersen and good to go, but the furnace is now the 2nd replacement since 1985 and won't make the lifetime list, and for sure we'll be replacing the television, computer, printer, and at least some furniture around the house.

The cars?  They are always a love/hate relationship.  They don't make 'em like they used to, which means you can run them up to 200,000 miles pretty easily even if you're sick and tired of them, which I usually am about 5,000 miles into their lifetime.  So it's a real question as to exactly when the last car will be purchased, and even then I'll be waffling over the "want vs need" dilemma.

So you just can't beat the "last a lifetime" concept.  That new grill will indeed last a lifetime, as well the steam iron, and the recliners.  Those glasses are "full."  The question now is "what else?"