THROWBACK THURSDAY: WAY, WAY BACK!

The boys

Uncomfortable and cold outside; no significant news on the eradicate OVCA front; so I am going to reminisce about ancient days.  This is Throwback Thursday.  Way WAY back!

The young men (boys, almost) shown in the photo are, from left to right:

Dave Clark:  Dave was my room-mate at Dabney House, Caltech, during our freshman year.  I left Tech the next year, and I think Dave did, too.  As best I can determine, Dave spent much of his life as a Baptist minister.  He now lives in Woodinville, WA.  I am hoping to contact him.  Dave once dropped a raw egg into my mouth from a second-story window, but that’s another story.

Me:  You all know more about me than will do any of you any good – but (warning!) more will follow, in subsequent blogs.

Sam Sims:  Sam was my best friend for decades, and a prince among human beings.  He was a PhD-level geologist, from Stanford, an excellent football player, a good family man, and a load of fun.  Cancer got him:

https://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com/2013/05/sam-sims.html  I will always miss him.

John McHargue:  The only one of the boys not a Caltech freshman at this time.  I don’t know much about John; he was mainly Sam’s friend.  I think they knew one another through football, somehow.  I do remember John nearly getting Sam, me and himself killed in a most-inappropriate bar in Los Angeles.  John coached football at Weaverville (CA) high school, and now lives in Fortuna, CA.

Dick Schmid:  Dick was another of my room-mates.  (Yes, three to a room, but it worked.  Our beds were on a “sleeping porch” with beds belonging to maybe a half-dozen guys from other rooms.  It’s warm in Pasadena.   All we did in our “room” was study and change clothes.  Caltech students study very silently, except when they groan, and don’t change clothes a lot.)  Anyway, Dick was a local boy; his family owned a farm in Orange County, CA.  He worked in engineering and agriculture, and apparently did well in both.  He is a Trustee of Chapman College (Orange, CA – one of very few schools my Tech team managed to beat. ) Dick also is very active in the Salvation Army.  Clearly a worthwhile guy. 

The house in the background belonged to Sam’s dad and, of course, is long gone.  It stood just west of Indio, alongside what has now become Interstate 10.  Progress, I guess.

No, darn it, it’s not progress. It’s a common disease of old people, I know, but in general I believe that the world is going to hell in a leaky handbasket. For instance, I believe that we “boys” were happier than are most lads of comparable age nowadays.  Obviously we didn’t have the gadgets and the automotive luxury that abound now – but we also didn’t worry about the world tumbling down around our ears.  WW2 and Korea were over, and surely Harry, Ike and Jack would keep us out of trouble.  Nobody dreamed of people so sick with religion that they would off themselves just to take a few strangers with them, and hardly anyone could find Iraq or Syria on a map.  Somehow we had faith that MAD would keep us out of war, and it did.  We had nothing to worry about except finding beer, pleasing girls, and passing the next calculus exam.  As Archey Bunker used to say, those were the days!