Joe Hanlon
PHS memories—Class of 1962
Bev may be right that this opus magnum is way too long, but when did I ever
heed her advice? The point here is that she's not always right. But,
damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead—see you at the Reunion. Just please
don't ignore me at the Reunion because you're bored stiff or offended by these
interminable, audacious, immature and egocentric reminiscences. Skip reading it
and tell me your memories there.
Love, Joe
After reading Dave Weisert's e-mail, I'm starting to understand why he was
always smirking at PHS, smiling like the cat who ate the canary.
Peoria High School is an important part of my life.
Getting Ready—Thomas Jefferson Grade School
Those high school memories start with grade school at Thomas Jefferson. I have
a handful of old photos, those small, individual ones, of each person in my
seventh grade. I can still remember their names and I have a brief memory of
each one. The memories are mostly warm and pleasant, but lacking in the
specific details, feelings and character of the everyday events. My focus then
(as now) was on girls, grades and social acceptance. I certainly enjoyed my
studies in grade school but mostly I just tried hard to be as smart or smarter
than someone else, like Cary Schwartz or George Davidson. (I knew early on not
to mess with Craig Thiersch.) Sometime early in grade school it became the
habit for me to be class president, not so good in sports, but with good
grades. At TJ there were two classrooms for each grade, and sometimes your best
friend was in the other classroom, so you had to make some new, best friends.
That was easy at this most homogenous of schools in Peoria, in the heart of
Illinois, in Ike's America. In most ways we were all alike at TJ. Not that we
knew that at TJ then. (Later, at PHS, I learned that Tony Beitz' family were
Democrats and pro-union. I wasn't sure if this was OK or not.) The most radical
thing about my home was that we were taught not to say (or think)
"nigger" or "jew". Anyway, at TJ, for us kids, it was
pretty simple—ivy league pants with back buckles or jeans, ivy league
short haircuts or pre-Beatles ducktails, Johnny Mathis or the Four Freshman,
Everly Brothers or Chuck Berry. Even then the TJ kids didn't really have to
choose—we liked them all.
One time a new kid, Tom ____, came to TJ because he was kicked out of St.
Philomena's. He wore a real motorcycle jacket, black leather with big zippers
and everything. Somehow I got into a pushing argument with him and fell
backward off a low sidewalk, breaking my wrist. It was in a cast so I had to
learn to write my best penmanship left-handed. At the time coed volleyball was
all the rage, and I couldn't play for a while. I made up for it later when the
actor Basil Rathbone somehow visited our school, and I won the whistling
contest (after eating a bunch of crackers) for his autograph.
I remember certain teachers' names like Miss Voit, Ms. Stierwalt, Mr. Pancake
or Ms. Johnson. Our principle, Mr. Applegate, was involved in Barbershop
singing, and he coached us in the seventh and eighth grade to form barbershop
quartets. Larry Rager was so good that his parents sent him to voice lessons!
Mr. Applegate had a beautifully clear tenor voice, singing at special school
occasions. I remember that eerie, spiritual feeling when the hair on your neck
stands up from his 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. Mr. Applegate did have a big
wooden paddle hanging up in his office. He used it on me once for I forget what
kind of misconduct.
I was named a school crossing guard, and rode my bike to the corner of Sheridan
and 150 to proudly handle the crossing duties there with other guards. At TJ I
don't remember any cafeteria or lunchroom and I went home for lunch most every
day, in all kinds of weather. Mostly we had 'stay-at-home' moms. After 1962 she
went back to nursing, eventually riding in the first helicopter of the Central
Illinois emergency preemie unit at St. Francis Hospital-- her photo is over
there now. Anyway, what's wrong with little kids going home for lunch with
their moms?
Was there a classmate at TJ whose parents were deaf?
In grade school we played in the neighborhood, riding our bikes up-and-down
Stratford Drive, Northcrest and Knollcrest. We rollerskated on the sidewalks
and driveways. Occasionally I rode the bus downtown to the movies, taking it
from the corner of Stratford and Sheridan to Main and downtown on the same bus.
I also remember walking home from downtown if the weather was nice and the bus
seemed late. When Sheridan Village shopping center was built I rode my bike out
there too, sometimes to eat cheap hamburgers and shakes at Sandy's. We also
rode our bikes across Sheridan to the neighborhood of fancy houses called the
Knolls to swim at Cary's pool, or to see Cisty, Moni, Kiki, Marty, or Jim
Walser. And in the summer, some of my friends were members of the country
clubs, inviting me to swim at the club pools. I sort of envied those who played
golf or tennis but never did much about it.
Some neighborhood features stand out more clearly: the first Congregational
Church on the corner of Florence and Sheridan where I attended Sunday school
and also joined Scout Troop No. 37, the gas stations on Sheridan or University
to put air in the tires, the Buehler Home, Kenny's Market on Sheridan at
Northcrest, the Merle Lane area where lived Patty Wilson, Venetia Ball, Jody
Martin, Mike May, Greg Rushford, Paul Griebel, Ronnie Phillips, George
Davidson, Kay Kastein, the Wellner Twins, and a few others I forget right now.
(I think Becky Bourland lives around there now on North Bigelow.) Another
neighborhood was Larry Rager's, on the other side of TJ sort of near the
bowling alley on University, Carter's drugstore and the Hobby Shop at that
funny corner (near Bruce Dimler's house, although I didn't know that then). One
summer the girls over there, including my crush Barbara Walthers (?), did
extravagant baton twirling and tossing after the activities at the summer
recreation program at TJ. Finally, others lived near St Philomena's, like Mike
McCord, Craig Thiersch, Val Lay, David Byrkit, and Dick Newcomb. I first used a
chamber pot at a sleep over at Dick Newcomb's house because there was no
bathroom near his upstairs bedroom. My first sailing experiences were with
Craig on his Dad's boat in the River out of the Ivy Club. His Dad was the
silent type (as opposed to his Mom), but the three of us sure enjoyed those
breezy afternoons on Peoria Lake.
We played in the woods on the other side of University Avenue around the ice
cream Dairy and also north of Highway 150 on the other side behind that
smorgasboard place. We went out there with my older brother with .22's and
pellet guns to shoot at squirrels and birds. (In 8th grade Greg Rushford's Dad,
the optometrist, took us coon hunting out there late at night with dogs.)
Before they built Highway 150 behind my house, there was a big open field all
the way over to Jockisch's cul-de-sac off Florence (near TJ) and up to Great
Central Insurance on Sheridan. Road. In fact we walked to school through that
field before they built 150. Remember the original location of the A&W Root
Beer stand over by the Dairy on the other side of University? Someone said that
the owners went down to Florida in the winter to run a root beer/hot dog stand
down there in the winter, my first awareness of that warm, faraway place.
In grade school my special friend was Ray Ramsey who lived a couple houses away
on Stratford Drive, next to Fulford's house. I think we were inseparable on
weekends, in summers and in Scouts. We threw dirt clods at each other as
cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers in the new construction in our
neighborhood. He lived there with his divorced mom (Corrine), his little
brother, Mark, and his grandparents too. We played cards and Monopoly for hours
in the breezeway between his house and garage. The card games I remember were
Canasta, Hearts, and Authors. On hot summer nights, his mom took us to the
Drive-In Movie for John Wayne westerns and candy. He moved to California
(Covina) in seventh-grade grade when she left her job as an IBM punch card data
input operator at Great Central Insurance. His dad was famous (locally) as a
professional football player who had been a standout college player at Bradley
and later played for St. Louis and Chicago. During all those years, I don't
think I ever saw him more than once. But, his big picture was hung high on the
wall of the lobby at the Robertson Memorial Fieldhouse at Bradley where the Cat
team and the Harlem Globetrotters played basketball. My friend Ray was a great
athlete too, better than Jerry Diamond or even Mike Cook!
We played lots of games in the little vacant lot across the street from my
house between Gray's house and old Ms Portman's house (of Portman's Sporting
Goods store); 'we' were Steve Loheide, Greg Fulford, Jim Deatherage, Rich
Speers, Hank Stone, Tom Leiter, Butch Gunther and a few others. Steve Loheide's
mom was kind of old-fashioned because she'd kill a chicken on a chopping block
in the driveway; afterward it ran around headless for a while. Mike Smith, whom
I first met in Indian Guides, Bonnie ?, Barry Depuy, John Bell and others lived
over there in the Northcrest neighborhood. You could cut through the back yards
to go from street to street.
The Crest My older brother smoothed my way into adolescence. I went
overboard looking at his copies of the PHS yearbook, the Crest. I think I knew
more from those photos and captions about PHS than I did about my own
contemporaries at TJ. He also introduced me to rock-and-roll music with his 45s
and that little green and white portable record player in his bedroom. In his
absence I secretly played the records and memorized the lyrics so I could
lipsynch, watching myself in the bathroom mirror. To this day I can still
remember all of the lyrics to the Everly Bros, Chuck Berry, and Elvis. He was
also a Boy Scout in Troop 37 before I was (it was much later that Scoutmaster
Claude Foote resigned in disgrace as a pedophile!), and later I worked hard to
match his achievements to earn Eagle Scout too. I looked forward to the weekend
campouts during the year (winter?) and to the summer weeks at Scout Camp
Wokanda up near Mossville. And in the early '50s, my Mom , Dad and I took a
long family vacation driving our Chevy to California in part to visit him at
the Scout Jamboree at Irving Ranch; we also visited relatives in Seattle,
including a beach clambake in Puget Sound. Cars were a big part of my grade
school life.
I think they finished Highway 150 behind my house in about 55 or 56. Jimmy
Deatherage and I would sit up in my brother's bedroom and look out the window
at the new Highway about one-quarter of a mile away. We competed for quickly
yelling out the brand name and model of each car driving by. (And now all cars
look alike to me.) It was my Dad's habit to get a new car every other year,
always a Chevrolet from Johnson's on Main St., and we had two cars, one being a
'company car'. So we always had late- model Chevrolets with big V-8 engines in
exciting colors. But in 1959 my Mom wanted a convertible so she got the Ford
hardtop model with a retractable roof. My brother drove the car more than I
did, but she must have kept it for several years because I used it after
getting my driver's license in 1960. I remember driving Bev out along the River
route, Galena Rd, north to some bridge over the River and then back south on
the east side to return to Peoria, basking in the wondrous glory of a summer
day in the Illinois river Valley.
My dad was into photography, upgrading his cameras and equipment during the
'50s. Most of my birthday parties and other celebrations are well-documented
with black and white photos and color slides. (The eighth grade birthday party
hayrack ride is my classic favorite.) He never really got into movies. He
developed and printed his own photos and film, including 35mm slides in his
basement dark room. He was also handy with woodworking tools. It seemed like he
could do anything, and I think my neighborhood friends were also impressed with
his many skills. Our TV was down there too in the air- conditioned part of our
basement but it flooded occasionally in big rains—the one household
problem he could never quite solve.
Rich Speers' dad, Gordon, had a home office in his basement with a constant,
ready supply of those little spanish peanuts from Caramel Corn (near the
Madison Theater). We always grabbed a handful from the bottom drawer of his
desk at Rich's house. Tom Leiter's dad was a lawyer and active in Republican
politics. He was elected mayor once. For some Scout merit badge project I
interviewed him at his office during his term as Mayor, asking him why the city
didn't eliminate prostitution? I don't remember his answer. (I didn't know
about Richard Pryor then, but I learned later that he grew up in the 50's in
Peoria's red light district on 7th Ave.) Chuck Doubet's house, together with
his old car freshly painted firehouse red, were also the starting point and HQ
for lots of my PHS activities.
I well remember the steep hill on 7th Ave (in that red light district). coming
up toward Moss Ave in front of Washington school. My Whizzer motorbike couldn't
make the grade there unless I got lucky.
Sometime during 8th grade I inherited my brother's cast-off, second Whizzer
motorbike, greatly expanding my travel horizons around Peoria when I wasn't
fiddling with the carb float, the slippery belt or the spark plug. Then I could
easily ride over to the Bradley University neighborhood around Columbia Terrace
to visit Nancy Lien and Joannie Motset. I think it was that summer that I fell
for a girl named Marcia Schlotz who went to Washington school there on Moss
Avenue, riding over there for several weeks. I also rode out into the
cornfields and farms west of Peoria along 150 and out along Grandview Drive and
Detweiller Drive too. It took great planning to get home because the motorbike
wouldn't go up the steep hills along the bluffs of the River Valley. The lesser
grades of Hiway 150 by Prospect School and the Main St hill from downtown were
OK though. And the streets around Hunt's Drive In, Bradley Park, and out
Farmington Road were also a piece of cake.
My Dad was an amateur scientist, especially interested in astronomy, and so we
joined the Peoria Science Club Observatory in the Northmoor golf course. I
claim to be the second person in Peoria to see the Russian satellite Sputnik in
October of 57. We gathered out there one cold morning after the announced
launch to search the predawn sky. I saw it right away and yelled out. I also
went to some evening astronomy classes with him at the Glen Oak Park Pavilion.
Mostly it was way over my head. He subscribed to the magazine, Scientific
American, and one of my first experiences at close reading was on those
articles, pictures and captions.
I was not well organized in my studies at Thomas Jefferson. I always talked out
too much and interrupted too much. Now I look back and wonder if my exuberance
had a touch of ADHD. Ms Johnson's only comment on my weighty 8th grade term
paper on the Russian Revolution (culled and copied from a Life Magazine series)
was "too disorganized." I finally figured out what she meant about
seven years later in Law School (after the Peace Corps with Bev), but I still
couldn't do much about it. Still can't, actually, as some local judges here in
Florida have observed.
I remember a special 'health' class at Thomas Jefferson with some outside
teachers (a man for the boys and a woman for the girls) who vaguely discouraged
us from too much masturbation. I don't think I really knew what he was talking
about! (How much is too much?) My 'wet dreams' had startled me, and I was
confused about what my mother said, too, as I recall. Some of our early sex
education was from those little 'eight pagers', with obscene cartoon drawings.
We handed them around at the corner of 150 and Sheridan while on duty as
crossing guards. Seemed like the Catholic kids always had the new ones.
Fortunately no one was seriously hurt. Breasts fascinated me in grade school
(and high school too. Come to think of it, I still haven't changed much there
either), and I think I spent hours looking at the teachers and my female
classmates, thinking about sleeveless blouses and sweaters. Those were probably
some of my quietest times in class. Maybe the Taliban have a point.
PHS
In 1958 when I finally started at Peoria High School, I thought I was fully
prepared by my thorough study of my brother's Crest yearbooks from 1954 to
1958. I believed I knew exactly what I wanted to do in High School, and it was
something like wanting to be Skip Snyder, an older guy who lived up the street.
He had his picture plastered all over the Crest, while my brother was only in a
few places. After 8th grade, I went to summer school at PHS to learn typing,
and was frustrated. Since my penmanship was excellent, I resented having to
learn typing. My freshman year classes at PHS were English (Herke), Latin
(Swisher), mechanical drawing (JEMartin with his VW bug visible out the window
in the faculty parking lot), algebra (chrome-dome), and probably something
else. I tried out for football and made the freshman team. I ran for student
council and won with a funny speech that got laughs. I was very conscious of
wanting to be liked and respected by my classmates, deliberately working hard
on my appearance (Howard Heller sweaters) and expanding my friendships outside
my circle of old friends from Thomas Jefferson. We had played the other near-by
grade schools in sports like baseball and basketball, so I knew the names of
athletes' and some of the popular girls before PHS classes began. Mike Cook
from Loucks was a legend. Joan Potter was a beauty, but she wound up at the new
Richwoods HS. In seventh and eighth grade we had also gone to Miss Walsh's
dancing class at the Y and Cotillions. My first date there was Cisty Swain who
I tried to kiss goodnight on her doorstep, but she gracefully refused. Soon I
picked up some pointers on better kissing from Kitty Schaefer and Judy
Claussen, but I always imagined most other guys were doing this more and better
than I was.
Football
Football tryouts were hard work during hot August days in Peoria down on Herke
Field. The basement locker rooms were damp and moldy with sweat and
condensation. Our practice uniforms never dried out, not even from Friday to
Monday. Soon we started taking the jerseys home more often. The old 'trainer'
down there, Babe King, smiled quietly but seemed uncaring and unconcerned about
us freshmen. We gulped salt pills and stamped our feet in boxes of white
powder. I qualified as a fullback in part because of my 'speed' for 100 yards,
crossing the goal line early in the second wave of about 60 guys on that first
morning of practice. I tried to learn all the moves in practice, but somehow I
never quite grasped the mysterious, overall game strategy. It seemed like Dave
Sanderson, Denny Ackerman, and Larry Norton always knew better just what to do,
beyond merely executing their part, so I tried to follow directions and be
brave. (The last time I talked with Dave Sanderson he said he was busy
impregnating one of his paso fino mares-- up to his elbows, if I remember it
verbatim.) I had quit Little League baseball a few years earlier, afraid of
getting hit in the face by that little white ball. The older football players
impressed me with their hard-hitting bravado, and I was heartened somewhat by
the physicality, as opposed to the skill, of football. No one was more
surprised or prouder than I was when the Journal Star published my name in the
All- Conference Football Team list after our senior season. That photo hangs in
my office to this day.
Some kids stand out more from those high school years, such as Tom Koch's
frequent asides, insults, and rude, funny comments. I was always a little wary
of getting on his bad side.
My attention was also drawn to the black kids, especially my teammates. It is
amazing how little I really knew about them or their lives. Or not so amazing,
if you think about our country, Peoria, and the rest of it on the eve of the
Civil Rights movement. Then I was more interested in the '56 revolt of the
Hungarian Freedom Fighters. We listened to our leaders, Rep Michel and Sen
Dirksen.
And always the girls. And their breasts too, as well as the rest of them. I
loved looking at their faces and lipstick in geometry, English, biology,
wherever. I think I mostly studied in Study Hall and actually looked for books
in the library. (Although I specialized in that book about masterbating
porpoises.) I was intellectually curious, very interested in history and
science more than math and physics. The student council activities also guided
my schedule, with daily lunch period in Room 210 and certain other activities
on weekends and during holidays. Of course Bev and I met during those four
years of daily lunches, laughs, and Mr. Whitaker in Student Council. And I've
grudgingly forgiven her for my upset loss during the presidential campaign in
1961. (Does any one remember my funny skit authored by Sanford Gordon? I think
I found a copy in my memorabilia recently)
Girls
I remember dating girls, asking girls to the school dances, thinking about
girls at the Rec and the Apple Barrel, and necking in steamy cars in the
Northmoor parking lot after football games on Friday nights. We cruised
SteaknShake on Main St and I spent considerable time on the telephone. I don't
remember traditional dates at movies with popcorn. But there were parties in
basements at kids' houses, where we slow-danced to Johnny Mathis records and
later turned the lights down. I learned the Twist at a New Years Eve party at
Jay McCormick's house. That was a break-through moment for me because I never
knew I could dance before that. I was one of the sexually naive kids in high
school. At least now I think I was. Maybe the 'faster' ones were few and far
between? My girlfriends were Linda Thompson, Kathy Kane, and a few dates with
other classmates.
Drinking
We drank too much at Peoria high school too, I now realize. (Later, when MADD
and SADD came out, I predicted it would never catch on; I thought it was OK to
drive drunk. How else were you supposed to get home after drinking too much?)
After football season I spent a lot of weekend nights each winter and spring
drinking six-packs and driving recklessly, going through SteaknShake looking
for girls and other excitement. At one point I joined up with kids from
Spalding like Brian Murphy and Frank Heinz. I remember one Halloween in a black
raincoat costume driving around with Charlie Chance and his friends in a
convertible. Later the next morning I was sorry I'd broken my mother's favorite
sunglasses with the big plastic white frames. When they finished the Interstate
through downtown, we cruised the underpasses to turn off the motor for a second
to make a loud, echoing backfire. Fortunately my muffler and head gasket never
blew.
Graduation
In spring of 1962 at PHS, I was the unwitting but lucky product of a
nation-wide effort by the Ivy League in the sixties to 'broaden their base'
beyond the Eastern prep schools to include 'smart but well-rounded' kids from
the Midwest and elsewhere. When I opened admittance letters from Harvard,
Princeton, Dartmouth, and Yale, as well as Northwestern and some others, I knew
that my efforts at PHS were rewarded, even though I didn't make the top ten. My
high SAT scores showed that our teachers and our classes had done their work on
some willing and responsive clay. Larry Norton and I decided to room together
and go toYale, sight unseen. The rest is history.
We've exchanged Christmas cards with some PHSers over the years, keeping up
with family changes and relocations. Am I the only one to plan trips to stay
overnight or visit with old high school friends? Are we like family or what!
Although I do have to push Bev a little when I invite us over for dinner at
someone else's house in a faraway city!
Questions