||||"Poppa Cougar"
The morning after the reunion, a Dave Barry column ran in the Dayton Daily News, describing the "Perpetual Reunion Weight Loss Plan". The idea was, that since his wife had just starved herself to slim down for her class reunion, he thought he could make money by charging dieters to plan a class reunion for them every weekend.
While a good idea, I find this a tad greedy. I have a much more altruistic take on the matter. I think we can use this phenomenon to completely wean the country from depending on fossil fuels for home energy production (except to the extent that reunion goers are fossils themselves).
Here is how it would work. Each household in the country would be equipped with a treadmill hooked up to a generator. The government (yes, this is one of these big government projects the liberals are so fond of) would then schedule a class reunion for .4% of the adult population every weekend. Assuming each adult then devoted four weekends to getting into reunion shape (actually, the older ones like us would have to work considerably longer), there would be about 5,000,000 Americans at any given time, working out for their reunion every 5 years.
Just think of it. 5,000,000 treadmills spinning away, day and night, night and day. We could close all the power plants. The miners would no longer have black lung disease as they would now be put to work producing treadmills. We could stop importing oil. Stop invading oil producers. Dick Cheney would be out of business (reason enough to implement the plan). We would be a Utopia, the shining city on the hill, and have buns of steel to boot. This is the perfect win-win situation.
As a public service, George, I offer this plan to you with no strings attached (well, I would like to inspect some of those steel buns occasionally).
... Cobra
October
Disclaimer--- You may find the following article offensive. I ran the premise past Don, and he made me write it. If you like it, it is entirely my work. If you hate it, blame Thompson…
Okay, So I walked into the reunion Friday night and everyone was having a great time. There was drinking, laughing, hugging, screeching, lying (you look like you’re still 18), all the usual stuff that make our reunions so great. I was having a wonderful time doing all of the above including a couple of glasses of wine. Around 10:30, things were slowing down so I decided to liven things up by having “a spell”. I sorta, kinda, got real sick real quick. Pain, sweating, dizzy, etc. Sharon Skolnik (sigh-her mom used to say I cried heart shaped tears over her) called 911. They checked me out (Sharon flirted with the EMT’s all night) and said I should go get further checked at a hospital. I refused and later the pain came back, so Kurtz, Neff, Lake, and McCoppin lovingly delivered me to the emergency room at good Sam (that is, they slowed down slightly before ejecting me from the speeding car). I was fine, but got out barely in time to get to the Saturday dinner.
So. Saturday, I sit down at the table just in time to hear Janice Adkins
memorialize those class mates that are no longer with us. Since mortality
was already on my mind, I thought of the Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross and the five stages of grief she defined:
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. As I listened to
Janice read the roll of departed classmates, I decided Kubler-Ross had
it entirely wrong.
The stages I went through were:
Shock (can he really be dead), Nostalgia (remember
all the times we played basketball together), Relief (better him than
me) and Greed (as long as my classmates are dying anyway, can I profit
from their demise). This brings me to the actual topic (yes, I had a topic
in mind when I started this) of today’s rumination.
A Tontine ? - What the hell, you are asking is a Tontine?
Since you ask--In 1653 an Italian named Lorenzo
Tonti came up with the scheme for a sort of lottery. Each subscriber would
send in a sum of money (let’s say 10 Florentine Guilders). If 100,000
people subscribed, this would net 1,000,000 Florentine Guilders. The pot
would be invested, and the whole sum would go to the last surviving subscriber.
(If it earned 5% interest As I am sure you all remember the money would
double every 14 years. If the next to last survivor died after 70 years,
this means the pot would be 32,000,000 Florentine Guilders, and this was
back when 32,000,000 Florentine Guilders was still a lot of money).
Dreaming of all those Guilders piling up if I could only outlive the rest of you, I immediately thought, let’s start a CW ’63 Tontine. I could see collecting enough money to have upwards of $100 in a few years. But then suppose Thompson and I were the last survivors. We would be tracking each other all over the world, like a couple of crazed bounty hunters with blood lust in our hearts for that kind of money (it would at least double my family fortune).
If the money thing wouldn’t work, I thought we could do it like the military company always does in the movies (you may remember, Mr. Burns on the Simpsons had one like this). The group buys a bottle of world class hooch. When there is only one survivor left, he cracks it open and gets sloshed while drinking to the memory of his dear departed friends. But, I didn’t know how the mechanics of this would work. Where would we keep it? If I were the winner, I wouldn’t want to come to Dayton to get it and by definition there would be no one to send it to me. Who would keep it? If the keeper died, would it be lost forever? What if the winner was a teetotaler? As you can see, while a wonderful concept, the real world logistics are mind boggeling.
So I guess we will have to continue what we have always done when we hear that a classmate has gone to that big study hall in the sky. Shed a small tear, remember the fun we had together, wish their survivors well. And, most important, remember that any of us could go at any moment. Live your life so that you won’t regret the path not taken, and so that everyone’s last memory of you will be a fond one. Having done that, and having finally gotten the kiss from Becky Apple, that I missed out on 40 years ago I could die happily tomorrow (if I died to day, my wife would kill me cause I haven’t unpacked and done the laundry yet.
Til next time,
Cobra
November
Why, you ask, would a male pig like Kottler be interested in feminism? Well, it is a little known fact that males were the biggest beneficiaries of the movement (leaving out the little matter of women no longer having to be chattel property, household drudges, and baby machines who died of exhaustion by age 35). After the movement, I no longer had to open doors, pay for my date’s dinner, or achieve sexual congress through trickery (I now had to beg for it as God intended). My wife worked, allowing me to acquire a lifetime’s worth of toys and now continues to work while I sit on the beach and write this drivel. Destruction of my traditional male ego, handing over the family cojones, and the occasional charge of being a PW were a small price to pay for this plethora of benefits.
But, I digress. What the ladies made me realize at the reunion was, that Colonel White class of ’63 was filled with a bunch of beautiful intelligent women. As far as I remember, and according to what they told me at the reunion, they didn’t have to hide their intelligence, lose at tennis, or play the “Oh poor helpless me” games in order to get the guys. In fact, I think that they were some of the most sought after girls at school. Yet, a few years later, we heard that feminism came about because of the work of Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, and other icons of 60’s radicalism. I think that instead of creating the movement, these media darlings merely reported a pre-existing phenomenon. What I heard at the reunion was that the moms who lived through WWII already knew what they could do and raised their daughters to live the way they knew they could.
(There was going to be a deep discussion here about the media, and their role in American popular and political culture, hippies, the Gulf War, Iraq and Kurt Vonnegut, but I came to my senses in time to delete it).
Why you are asking yourself, Why in heaven’s name did Kottler ever get into writing about this? Well, it’s cause reunions always spark in me the age-old question “Why couldn’t I get a date in high school?” (on prom night, Tim March and I drove to Cincinnati for a Coke). I now realize that it wasn’t some deficiency in me. It was that the girls of Colonel White were a group of trend setting proto-feminists who did not need a man to validate their worth. Did not need a White Knight (or a Chancellor) to rescue them from a dateless Friday. Did not need ME in their already fulfilling and satisfying lives. (Or perhaps it’s just that I was too big a wuss to ever actually ask anybody out.) In any event, all these years later, it is satisfying to know that I was rejected by such a wonderful group of women, and I wanted to let them know, I have always respected them for it.
Until next time,
Cobra
December
When you think high school reunion, what comes to mind? I think most of us would agree that you would expect to see the old big cheeses from high school days. Football players, cheerleaders, class officers, you know people like that. Well, I think it is interesting to see how our latest reunion compares to that stereotype.
Let’s look to the football team. Consulting the old yearbook (well, not mine, I lost mine years ago, but looking at a bad photocopy of someone else’s yearbook), I see the following seniors from ’63 who played for the Cougars:
Rod Keish, Larry Braunstein, Les Mayerson, Jim Lawton, Doug Chitwood, Joel Goldman, Tom Meyer, Bill Sheets, Neil Paulson, Tom Lorton, Dan Diers, Paul Kottler (if you allow a very liberal definition of “played”), Mark Stockstill, and Tom Miller.
Leaving out those who are dead or deathly ill (I think they can be excused), all were at the reunion except for Chitwood, Paulson (who as usual sent his Root Club buddies to do his dirty work while he stayed, grinning, safely out of trouble), and Diers. Pretty good representation, I think, so the gridders did their duty and came to the reunion.
How about the cheerleaders? The senior cheerleaders in ’63 were:
Pam Oswalt, Linda Matusoff, and Barb Wallace.
How many of these showed. Exactly zero. In fact as far as I know, in 40 years of reunions Pam attended once (the 35th , after having been read the riot act for failing to show up at the 30th), and Linda and Barb have never shown up. I guess they are so busy practicing their new routines they just can’t make it. Who knew that pompom shaking was such a complex art? Maybe they tried to do a split and at their current age they are stuck. (Help, I’ve done a split and I can’t get up.)
OK, moving right along;
let’s look at our elected leaders, the class officers:
Jim Apple (president), Mike Patton (vice president), Pam Oswalt (secretary),
Susie Young (Treasurer), and Neil Paulson (sergeant-at-arms).You already know
that Neil and Pam left us in the lurch once again, but what about the rest.
Well, Mike Patton was there, but he was the only one. So, out of five elected
officers, four showed their disdain for our class and general lack of respect
for their high office by refusing to show up (a slap in the face if I ever
saw one). I wonder what their excuse was. Do you think that the CIA was keeping
them safe from terrorists in some undisclosed location? I know that with great
power comes great responsibility (Ah, the wisdom of Spiderman), but I don’t
think they are showing up on Al-Queda’s radar. More likely, the hubris
of being safely ensconced in lifetime appointments made them think they could
skip the reunion with impunity. This is the unintended consequence of having
given them lifetime appointments back in 1963.
How, you ask, can we stop this travesty? Don’t these people know that they have got to come to class reunions? The rest of us either want to suck up to them as we did in high school, or see how far they have fallen (nothing makes an old bench warmer feel better than seeing the guy who used to kick his butt show up fat, balding, divorced and broke). Well, we don’t have much leverage with most of these people but let’s focus on a key member here, the Class President. If we can make an example of him, the rest will have to fall in line.
Well, I happened to have dinner in San Francisco with Apple on my way to Dayton. I begged him to come. I tried guilt tripping him by reminding him of his moral responsibility as our elected leader. I tried to get him to wax nostalgic by showing him the list of confirmed attendees. I tried appealing to his lust by telling him Barb Carvill might be there. I appealed to his greed by offering to pay for my share of the dinner if he would come. (I did manage to end up sticking him with the check, an accomplishment in itself, which I am very proud of) He looked me dead in the eye and refused to come. (Some lame excuses about being busy, it being too expensive, having no reason to go to Dayton anymore, his wife not wanting him mingling with old girlfriends, etc.). The only threat that made him blink at all was when I pointed out that his lack of attendance threatened his huge political power base among his minions from gold old CW ’63. It was the usual politician’s BS when explaining why he has once again stiffed his constituents. The only thing he cared about was the continuation of his vast (or in this case, half vast) political influence.
Then it hit me. The conversation was taking place in California. Jim was acting like a politician. Like a bolt of lightning, the solution came to me. I had a vision of rippling muscles and incoherent speech. No not Jim’s muscles and alcohol induced slurring of speech but Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Gropenführer himself, the best political mind amongst all the former Mr. Universes. Yep, that’s what we needed to do. Recall Jim Apple.
When I got to Dayton for the reunion, I immediately checked the Constitution of the Colonel White High School Class if 1963 to see what it had to say about recall of the president and found the following items:
Article 8-
The duties of the president are:
1. Pose for silly pictures in the year book
2. Faithfully execute the provisions of the class constitution
3. Attend any and all reunions as may be called by the class reunion committee.
Article 27, Section VI, Part 8, Paragraph 12,
Sub-Paragraph 19-
If the president fails to perform these duties he
shall be recalled at the whim of any class member who shall be writing an
article now or in the future in any medium which may or may not exist now
or in the future in res partum, ad ligitum, e pluribus unum, semper fidelis.
While Jim performed the first duty admirably, he has failed miserably at the last two. Therefore, as directed in the above sub-paragraph, I hereby regretfully state that Jim Apple is hereby recalled as class President.
So here is how it works. If you would like to be the new class president, just collect 65 names of former classmates on a nominating petition and mail the petition to me. Oh, don’t forget the $3500 fee for shipping and handling. (Make sure you spell the name on the check correctly, that’s P-A-U-L-K-O-T-T-L-E-R). All successful nominees will appear on the ballot to be voted on at the next reunion. (Unless, of course, I get enough of those checks, in which case it is Hasta La Vista Baby, screw the next reunion).
So, do your civic duty, stick it to the man, take back control of the class of ’63. Send in those nominations. With any luck we can all become candidates, vote for ourselves, and whoever accidentally gets a second vote will win. Let’s get a president who will actually show up at reunions and not desert us for the gold lined streets of California like the last one we had.
Keep those checks rolling in,
Cobra
January
I thought it was just about time
To do a piece strictly in rhyme.
The rhythmic parameter
Ain’t strictly pentameter.
Writing Limericks is really a crime.
The topic this time is the fact
That reunions are really a pact.
We all must be there
Or it’s not really fair.
Showing up is your job, that’s a fact.
You’re the reason that everyone’s
there.
To them your old face still seems fair.
We don’t need the truth,
We remember your youth,
When you were still thin and had hair.
We never indulge in the blues.
We gossip and catch up on news.
We show lots of tact.
Never mention the fact,
That Bonnie Best’s now joined the Jews.
Cheryl Silverston came, (she’s
still short)
And others I’ll try to report.
Dave Neff, Dick McCoppin,
Greg Marsh, there’s no stoppin’
Remembering all’s quite a sport.
Louick and Weine both showed up.
Mike Waggoner looked quite the young pup.
Rod Keish and Tom Lorton
Were there and cavortin’
I was drinking box wine from a cup.
Karen Decker, Chip Jones (though
not married),
With classmates like Joel Goldman tarried.
Sheets and Coach huddled.
They both looked befuddled.
Jim Lawton a glass of wine carried.
Some came from close, some many
miles.
Wava Miller, Kathy Ehman brought smiles.
Bruce Hulman had fans,
For his musical hands,
I also hugged Mary ‘Laine Pyles.
Jean Dykstra, Bill Hinshaw, Darlene
Thornton, they all made the scene.
Mike Mershon, Bob Savage,
Were way above average.
Bob looked surprisingly clean.
Some classmates to others are wed,
Don Thompson , Linda Lewis it’s said.
Scott Davis and Fennel,
Are still sentimen’al,
And Arlene Scher’s hair is still red.
Leslie Ridenour’s name just
won’t scan,
But she showed up looking blonde with a tan,
JoLynn McNealy,
Becky Apple, yes really,
Wayne Maxton still looked like da man.
My great buddy Sharon was there.
(I think that she colors her hair)
She laughs at the years,
When I cried heart shaped tears,
But she knows that I always will care.
The Root Club was turned out in
force,
Tim March and Mark Stockstill of course.
Sam Kurtz and Jim Lake,
Now make no mistake,
Bad jokes always flow from this source.
If I have left out your name,
I’m still awf’ly glad that you came.
It’s just that the damp
Gave my poor brain a cramp.
I was happy you’re there, all the same.
But where was Neil Paulson you
ask,
I really must take him to task.
P. Benkel, Jim Apple,
We’ll save them a Snapple.
For Jeff Brown we’d break out the flask.
Pam Oswalt you should have been
there,
And Cindy for cheerleading flair.
Bruce and Barb Wallace,
They just never call us.
They’re scarcer than Ron Haendel’s hair.
Rick Garlikov and Nevin Katz,
Don’t bother to come, I say rats.
If they never are there,
Then they must be square.
But they should come, they’re really good cats.
So please be there next time my
friends.
I beg you as this writing ends.
Start saving your dimes,
Don’t miss these good times
Before we’re all wearing Depends.
Now that this Limerick’s
done,
It’s certainly been lots of fun.
My brain’s out of gas,
I’m flat on my ass,
And now it is past time to run.
Later,
Cobra
February
When my wife’s grandfather began to reach the end of his life, we asked him to make a tape (do you remember tape?) recounting his long life for future generations. Since he was a young man in the early twentieth century, what we got was a litany of all the jobs he had ever had and how much he made at each one. (“I vas in de Roosian army. I got tirty nine cents a mawnth”).
With the turn of the calendar, I was in the mood to wax nostalgic, and having been a young man in the late twentieth century, I think in terms not of jobs, but of cars. So here come remembrances of all the cars in my life from 1948 through 1963. The earliest car I can remember in my family was a ’48 Frazer. What the hell was a Frazer you ask? Well, I’m not all that sure myself. All I remember is that it had large round buttons inside that you pushed to open the doors. What high tech.
The Frazer went away in 1951. It was replaced by a new Pontiac. Green if I remember right. It had sort of a smooth curve from the rear bumper to the roofline and was known as a turtle back. The coolest feature of this car was, it had a sun visor. Very stylish.
Next we got a ’53 olds convertible. It was white with a black top. Early on, my dad somehow destroyed the top and it was replaced with a dark green one. That was a slick car. A rocket ’88 just like Douglas Edwards advertised on the evening news. I remember once when we took it to Chicago in a summer thunderstorm. The new top looked great, but due to a slight manufacturing defect, the rear window would not zip shut. When the storm hit, I was asleep lying across the back seat. When the storm ended, I was more or less swimming across the back seat, soaked to the skin in the summer heat. Ah, that lovely Midwest weather. We kept this car for quite a while and my brother (CW ’59) drove it in high school for a while.
After the Olds, our ship came in and we became a two-car family, acquiring a brand new ’56 four door Bel Air four-door hard top (Laurel green and yellow). What a great car. Shortly after, having more or less learned to drive, I offered Diane Warshawsky a ride home from Temple Israel. Feeling very proud of my newly acquired license, and full of teenage lust, I pulled away from the curb (but not far enough away), and ran the bumper of the car in front of me down the side of the Chevy, creasing the lower right side of the car for its whole length. But, I was cool. I managed to ignore the sound of grinding metal, and just keep going. I’m sure that Diane not only noticed, but was in mortal fear for her life, but she had the good grace not to say anything. (Is that a wonderful girl, or what?) I went home, parked the car with the damaged side away from the house, and a few days later, told my dad that someone must have hit it in a parking lot. I skated on that one, but that was just the beginning.
I had a friend named Larry Sokol who lived just off Euclid Avenue near Jefferson School. One night, when his parents were out, we were playing pool and drinking his dad’s beer over at his house. When I came out, the car wouldn’t start. I tried and tried until the battery went dead. We decided to jump start it so we pushed it over next to his family’s car, and got out the cables. Well, since I was doing this operation while wearing beer goggles, I missed a few things. First, the reason the Chevy wouldn’t start was that it was flooded and there were gas fumes everywhere. Second, the red jumper was supposed to go to the positive battery post. As I connected the crossed jumper, the resultant spark ignited the gas vapor and the whole thing went up in a lovely pyre of flame. Fortunately, Dad was in the insurance business, so leaving out the beer part, I concocted some plausible cover story and, a new engine and paint job later the car and I had more or less survived.
In 1958, my father bought a used Jaguar Sedan with walnut burl dash and leather seats from Ralph Skilken. My mother saw this car and decided immediately, that we could not afford it. She made him take it back. So, in one of those great decisions that are made in a rush of testosterone and repented at leisure, my Dad plotted his revenge. I was at Camp Buckatabon in Conover Wisconsin with Jim Lawton, Larry Braunstein, and several other future classmates when on visiting day my folks roll in driving a Black ’58 Impala two door with air conditioning, power leather seats, twin power mirrors, signal seeking radio, and best (worst?) of all, the continental kit. My father had decided to show that he could buy a Chevy that cost more than the Jag. He succeeded, but that car (which I called the pimp-mobile) was such a pig, even I was embarrassed to be seen in it. Maybe that’s why it was the only family car I never wrecked.
Now, my mom was really, really short (4’10”). She could barely see over the steering wheel of the Chevys, so when the Corvair came out she thought that was the perfect car for her. So she got a white 1961 Corvair four door. I ran this car into a tree, breaking the steering wheel with my mouth and fracturing my jaw while substituting on John Wolfe’s paper route. I was looking for an address and the tree just jumped off the curb in front of me. By this time, my parents were calling Jenkins School of Driving and inquiring about a refund, but we were well insured, and they let me keep driving. One Saturday afternoon, I was watching a football game when my brother called. His car was having a problem and he needed a ride back from Dorfman’s Shell on Salem. Well, I was waiting for Neil Paulson to show up and was incensed that there was this horrible intrusion on my hangin’ out time. I jumped in the Chevy, threw it into reverse, and backed it directly into the side of the Corvair. I knew there was no escape this time. I walked into the house, pulled out my driver’s license, tore it into quarters, threw the pieces into the air, and retired to my room for the next six months.
I must have driven my father completely over the edge, because at some point he traded both the ’56 and ’58 Chevys for a red and white Corvair wagon. To have gone from a family with two hot Chevys to one with two Corvairs was embarrassing beyond belief. At this point I was telling people that I was adopted.
At some point my parents wised up and instead of letting me keep wrecking the family car, they decided it was better to buy us $50 refugees from the junk yard and preserve their cars for their own use. There was a gray Karmann Ghia (actually my brother’s). I drove this to the graduation party with Tim March, Neil Paulson, Mark Stockstill, me, and a fifth person who I no longer remember all stuffed into this little VW sportster.
For a while I had a ’48 Ford with a stick shift and no starter. I drove it when I was taking American history in summer school at Roosevelt. I gave several guys rides and we had to get there early every morning to be insured of a parking spot at the top of the hill. After class, the other guys pushed, I popped the clutch and we prayed it would start before we ran out of hill.
Senior year Neil Paulson, Mark Stockstill, Tim March, Jim Apple and I had a brilliant plan to go to Ft. Lauderdale for spring break, drink beer, and have sexual conquests with college women. (As you can see, we had not worked out all the detail yet). My parents supplied me with another fantastic set of wheels, a green, four door, 1954 Pontiac (some of you may remember this car as the famed Cobra mobile). Well, we had a little parents meeting to go over the plan. The Apples were aghast when they saw the car. The Stockstills said they had bought Mark a new baseball glove that was worth more than that car and Mark was going to stay home and play baseball (they obviously had never seen him hit). Rex March was a man of few words, but managed to come up with “NO”. The only parents who were in favor of the trip were mine. I guess they figured that if I were in Florida, at least I wouldn’t be wrecking their cars. Anyway, the trip was cancelled (some of us did go as college Freshmen, but that’s another story).
The summer after we graduated, I met Tim and Mark at Triangle Park to watch a baseball game. They left early, and when I got to the parking lot, I couldn’t find my car. Now if you saw this piece of crap, you would know that a car thief would pay someone to haul this thing away. There was obviously some prank action going on here. I eventually found the car on DeWeese Parkway. It had been redecorated by having obscenities painted all over it. It was clearly the work of Mark and Tim. I tracked them down, and Mark assured me that it was watercolor and would wash right off. Well, it didn’t come off in a car wash. It didn’t come off with rubbing compound. Perhaps sand blasting would have removed it but by then it was nearly dawn and I needed to get home in time to lie to my parents about where I had been. Strangely, even though you could make out the writing for the rest of the time I had the car, they never asked about it. I think by then, they knew that there were things about me that they were better off not knowing.
Now, the car that was the love of my life was given to me by my Grandfather when he could no longer drive. It was a 1948 Hillman. Bright green with school bus yellow air horns on the right fender. Leather Seats, a convertible top that you could roll back to cover just the rear seat, or put all the way down. It had an 18” square hole in the floor where I had jammed in a 1952 transmission and, in the winter, slush would come through the hole and soak your legs. The tranny transplant had managed to reverse the shift pattern, which was weird anyway since it had a four on the column shift. There was no car anywhere that was anything like it. Whenever you saw it you knew who it was. I loved that car (did I mention that before?). It had originally been owned by a doctor who had put a switch in so he wouldn’t have to search for his keys when he made night time house calls (House Calls? Remember when doctor’s would come to your house? Boy are we old). Since the top was usually down in good weather, and you didn’t need a key to start it, my buddies would “borrow” it whenever they felt like it. I would get to CW early and park on Niagara. When I would get out of school, I would have to walk up and down the street until I found it. Sometimes, it ended up farther from school than my house was. (Did I mention that I loved that car?)
By this time, I had pretty much quit running into things, so I invested a lot of time and money in fixing up that car. Besides the transmission, I put in a new engine, new top, replaced the brakes, fixed all the body rust, etc. I knew the car was unique, and since I already had a love of nostalgia, I intended to keep it forever. When I went to college, I stored it in my Grandmother’s garage. Now, my Grandmother kept an immaculate house and the garage was included. You could eat off the floor in that garage. So, a few years later when she decided a mouse was living in the Hillman, she sold it (without the title, which I had) to a guy for fifty bucks. I was heartbroken when on a visit home I went in the garage and found my car gone. (I loved that car.)
Now, some people our age say that the end of their innocence was when JFK was killed. Others say it was Vietnam or Watergate. For me, I think my youth ended when I lost my beloved Hillman.
Until next time,
Cobra
March
Dayton Daily News, March 1, 2004
FORMER FOOTBALL STAR ARRESTED FOR SHOPLIFTING
Mark
“Sylvester” Stockstill, aging former football star at Colonel
White High School in Dayton was arrested yesterday on shoplifting charges,
stemming from an incident at the former Sam’s Pizza Cottage on Salem
Avenue. Stockstill allegedly stole a quart of 3.2 beer while his friends
distracted restaurant employees by ordering a small, plain pizza. The beer
was allegedly Hudepohl. At the time 
of
his arrest, Stockstill was heard to shout, “Who the hell would steal
Hudepohl? They couldn’t give that mare’s piss away”. While
Dayton police admitted that it was unusual to arrest someone at such a late
date for a misdemeanor occurring in 1962, they said the exceptional lengthening
of the statute of limitations was justified by the fact that Stockstill
allegedly killed the pizza. Sergeant Tyrone Whiffenpiffle of the Dayton
Police said, “There ain’t no statute of limitations on murder”.
Stockstill, who is also being investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for an incident at about the same time involving explosives on a nearby family farm, was identified by a dancer at a local strip club for aging baby boomers. The club features elderly dancers to appeal to the sexual fantasies of their over the hill clientele. The dancer who had been a clerk at the restaurant in question, recognized Stockstill when his hand became ensnared in her G-string while attempting to get her to refund his money after she performed a lap dance. Apparently due to her advanced age and inability to afford reconstructive surgery, her tassels landed in his lap without her actually leaving the stage. Stockstill allegedly became so enraged at this sight that he reached into her G-string to retrieve the dollar he had tipped her earlier. When he could not get his hand back out, the dancer, a Middletown resident, put on the bifocals that she had recently acquired from a local optometrist, and exclaimed, “I have seen that wrist before". "You ripped me off in 1962 and are trying to rob me again, you cheap son of a bitch!”, she continued. Several local policemen, who happened to be investigating the club at the time, immediately swarmed on the suspect, beating him mercilessly with stale donuts. Stockstill screamed “You’ll never take me alive, unless of course there is a chance I might get hurt”, and then surrendered meekly.
Stockstill refused any comment on the case, speaking only through his lawyer, noted Dayton attorney Bob Signom. Signom insisted that Stockstill was innocent, and had no knowledge whatsoever of the alleged crime. However, he did note that Stockstill had suffered a romantic setback at that time due to religious discrimination on the part of the family of a girl he had been stalking at the time. The one time girl, formerly known as Linda Weine, is now disguising herself as an elderly hospital administrator, and is currently hiding in Columbus under an alias which the Daily News has not yet been able to penetrate. It is thought that the former Ms. Weine and the current Mrs. Stockstill were both members of a well-known paramilitary organization of that time known as the Little Colonels. Speculation about that group centers on a suspected plot to ensnare the local football team in a sadomasochistic relationship. Witnesses describe having seen the Little Colonels dressed in dominatrix style uniforms while practicing military drills in an effort to instill “discipline” on their enslaved sexual conquests. Sgt. Whiffenpiffle commented, “We think, in fact, that this is one of the earliest recorded instances of gang activity in the Dayton area.” Signom indicated that while he was certain that Stockstill was innocent and had no doubt he would win the case handily, if the need arose, he was fully prepared to plead insanity based on the alleged romantic frustration. Said Signom “I can find hundreds of people on a moments notice who are willing to testify that Stockstill is insane.”
Childhood friend Lamar Gene Gumgoughty who now goes by the ridiculous alias of T.E. March commented, “He always was the quiet one, and you know, these are the ones who always turn out to be mass murderers and such”. Another long-term acquaintance, John Olt was quoted as saying “I always thought his refusal to sleep on his roof was very strange. I never really trusted him.” Stockstill was thought to have accomplices in the crime. The Daily News attempted to interview two men with whom he was known to associate at that time, and who are being sought as material witnesses. One, Neil Paulson has fled to Michigan and denies any knowledge of the incident. Another, Paul “Cobra” Kottler was quoted as saying “Mark “Sylvester” who?” Sgt. Whiffenpiffle stated that while both Paulson and Kottler would be interviewed in conjunction with the case, neither was expected to be indicted at this time due to lack of evidence.
Stockstill’s wife, a much younger former high school beauty queen was devastated by the charges and the revelation of the alleged romantic entanglement with Ms. Weine. She went into seclusion after muttering quietly, “What a bum, I should have listened to my Dad.”
Stockstill has spent many years running an alleged advertising business. Word on the street is that the once thriving business has been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by Stockstill’s addiction to Internet pornography. His partner, Nick Stamas, refused comment, saying only “I have to go check the books now” upon hearing of Stockstill’s arrest.
May
5/26/04
I always assumed that no one but Thompson and I ever looked at the website. This morning I checked out the “Green and Gold Website Honor Roll” and was astounded to find that at least 14 of you actually care enough about our pitiful little efforts to send money to keep it going. This, of course, has dramatically increased the pressure on those of us who have taken on the task of providing content. Like the would be porno star who can’t perform in front of the cameras, knowing that there are actually readers out there, has induced in me a massive case of writer’s block. So, please accept my apologies for any weaknesses in this month’s article, I will try to do better next time. (Maybe a pair of nubile Swedish twins would help with the writer’s block, It’s worth a try.)
This month I was going to write about the Root Club. Sounds like a simple task. They were a highly visible group at Colonel White. Everyone knew them. They were at all the games, open houses, court hearings etc. There must be tons of pictures, right.
Well, guess again bunky. For starters, I can’t even determine who the members are. The ones I know for sure are Neil Paulson, Mark Stockstill, Tim March, Tom Meyer, Sam Kurtz, Jim Lake, Larry Braunstein, Jim Apple, John Olt, Mike Heymann and yours truly. I contacted most of these people and asked who else might have been Roots. I got back a different list of suspects from each of them (at least from those who would admit to actually being Roots themselves.) So, I give up on identifying the members. If you read this article and were, or know who else were members, please let me know so I can keep a complete roster.
Moving right along, I thought I would write the story of the founding of the group. Well, again, no matter who you ask you get a different story. There are people who know, but those people have a life long rule of never giving you a straight story (yes Felix, I mean you). Regardless of where it came from, it is generally acknowledged that the Roots were a bunch of losers who banded together because no one else at Colonel White would socialize with them. Then, due to one of those quirks of teen age society that can only be the result of a bizarre mixture of out of control hormones and 3.2 beer, this group of social misfits somehow became the in crowd.
I do remember how we dressed. The uniform consisted of Khaki pants. A white dress shirt, the official orange Root shirt with the sleeves cut short over the shirt, A WWII flying helmet (with goggles) and a Hav-A-Tampa cigar. This outfit was worn everywhere, any place any time. Pretty stylish, huh? The logo was designed by Sylvester and executed (as Sylvester should have been) at the ever-popular Tuffy Brooks sporting goods store.
The name obviously referred to the fact that we liked to go to basketball and football games and root for the cougars. We were basically a pep club in ugly shirts. If you believe the other stories you may have heard about references to certain characteristic parts of the male anatomy, then you have a dirty little mind and I feel sorry for you, you pervert.
Some random Root Club memories:
1. Nicknames
These are merely the ones that come to mind after 40 years. For one thing, I already told you had writer’s block. For another, I did live through the 60’s. not a particularly good decade for memory function. If I left your name out, be sure to post it on Tunnel Talk.
|
Felix |
Neil Paulson |
|
Sylvester |
Mark Stockstill |
|
Lamar |
Tim March |
|
Sid |
Tom Meyer |
|
Cobra/Vet |
some jerk |
|
Melvin |
Larry Braunstein |
|
Laizell |
John Olt |
|
Grenelda |
Suzy Miller |
|
Penelope |
Elaine Pyles |
(Being mere women in that unenlightened age, Suzy and Elaine were not actually members, but since they were constantly with us, due to romantic arrangements with key figures, the two had to have humiliating names)
By refusing to answer to anything else, we trained Mrs. Treue to call us only by our Root names. It made for some pretty funny dialogue in class…”Felix, please stop talking to Lamar so we can all here Cobra’s report”
2. The great gas station robbery
One night, while driving around doing nothing (our main activity), we stopped for gas out in the country somewhere. As we drove away a certain individual (who was not a regular member and shall go unnamed here) produced a small picture frame and bragged that he had just stolen the gas station guy’s first dollar. Felix whipped the Plym around. We drove back to the gas station, ejected the culprit, yelled “Hey gas guy, he stole your first dollar” and sped away. Leaving the guy stranded and at the mercy of his victim.
See, while we like to affect the attitude of a bunch of anti social trouble makers, it was all a joke. Every once in a while, a guy would hook up with us who couldn’t tell the difference between our act and reality. Those people really scared me. I think they still scare me. I avoid them at reunions.
3. The talented Laizell
Olt had a rare talent. While probably best known for sleeping on his roof, John could take a cigarette, swallow the smoke, and then belch it up later on demand. One day we went to a playoff Basketball Game at the old UD field house. Laizell took a cig, smoked it and swallowed the smoke. Then wearing his flight helmet and with an unlit Hav-A-Tampa clenched firmly in his teeth, we stood in front of a security guard while John brought forth clouds of smoke. The guard ran over to eject us for smoking, only to find the cigar in its unlit condition. He stood there scratching his head while we dissolved in peals of laughter. This is what passed for humor in 1963.
4. The great party
Some time after our senior football season. My parents went to visit my brother at Ohio U. in Athens. The guys, of course, all insisted that his would be the ideal time for a “small” party. About fifty people showed up. Olt had several fifths of booze with him. There was also a lot of wine (the Artie Bonanno connection) and a lot of adolescent boys. Always a volatile mix. Someone decided that the pockets of my pool table made a convenient urinal. Someone thought it amusing to write obscenities on the painted brick walls of my basement with toothpaste. Sid trying to knock on the glass window in my back door, managed to stick his arm through it. He also managed to cut his head while trying to dunk a basketball (proving that my basket was well under the regulation 10 foot height). Someone (I thought for 40 years that it was Laizell, but recently found out it was not him and I hereby apologize) squeezed a tube of glue into a tube of toothpaste and fed it to Sid. Then the fun began. Sid got the dry heaves and proceeded to nearly die. The rest of us were too debilitated to do anything about it except for Sylvester who did not drink at all ever (although he made up for it later) and therefore, as usual, had the responsibility of seeing that none of us died. By some miracle Sid survived the eight hours of retching, and in the morning everyone left and I got to spend all Sunday in a semi-futile attempt to clean up.
When my folks got home, they asked if I had had a party. I said yes. They asked if there was beer. I, of course. Said “NO”. When the letter from school came, My long suffering mom asked why I had lied about the beer. I pointed out to her that she had failed to ask about hard liquor. For some reason my parents did not kill me.
I could go on and on about this topic, since, unfortunately, my relationship with this demented group pretty much defined my Colonel White experience. Obviously, this is only a smattering of reminiscences on this ever-popular subject. If you were a Root, or a Root hater, or a Root wannabee, if you want to set the record straight or start your own rumors, or have your own memories of this gang of orange clad thugs that you would be willing to share, please post them on Tunnel Talk.
Until next time,
Cobra
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Paul Kottler
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