DAY 1 - COUNTING DOWN TO THE 50TH

Good Morning, Class of '64

Class Reunion - James Killen

 Class Reunion

(Elizabeth Lucas)

It was my class reunion, 

and all through the house,
I checked in each mirror and

begged my poor spouse
To say I looked great, 

that my chin wasn't double,
And he lied through false teeth, 

just to stay out of trouble.
Said that 'neath my thick glasses, 

my eyes hadn't changed,
And I had the same figure, 

it was just a mite rearranged.
He said my skin was still silky, 

although looser in drape,
Not so much like smooth satin, 

but more like silk crepe.
I swallowed his words 

hook, sinker and line
And entered the banquet 

feeling just fine.
Somehow I'd expected 

my classmates to stay
As young as they were 

on that long-ago day
We'd hugged farewell hugs. 

But like me, through the years,
They'd added gray to their hair, 

or pounds to their rears.
But as we shared a few memories 

and retold some class jokes,
We were eighteen in spirit, 

though we looked like our folks.
We turned up hearing aid volumes 

and dimmed down the light,
Rolled back the years, and 

were young for the night.

Another Day with Larry

Reunions

Yesterday
Written by Paul McCartney.
It remains popular today with more than
2,200 cover versions, and is one of the most
covered songs in the history of recorded music.
Voted the No. 1 Pop song of all time by MTV and
Rolling Stone magazine. In 1997, the song was
inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) asserts that
it was performed over seven million times in
the 20th century alone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday_%28Beatles_song%29
The Beatles - 1965 

Reunions were big. We always went to the Hamrick Reunion, a huge one with up to 2,000 people. We usually went to one or two others.

The food was great. Several families set their food out together on large picnic tables, and we ate together. There were lots of different kinds of food and foods prepared in ways that were new to us.

The adults saw lots of friends and distant relatives and met new people. We kids had a great day of play. The young people got to see new people their age, and quite a bit of courting went on. A few marriages started at reunions. The old hillbilly joke about going to family reunions to meet girls has some truth. Many reunions were big with very distant relatives from very distant places attending.

Reunions are still important to me. I go to three each year and look forward to them from one year to the next.

Reunions are always bittersweet. They are sweet because we see family and friends, people we love. We exchange reminisces and update each other on grand kids, aches and pains, etc. The bitter part is remembering those who have died. Another is looking around knowing that that exact group of people will never be together again and wondering who may not be able to come back next year.

One reason I love reunions so much is that they are preludes to the great reunion in Heaven. We have great food here; there we will sit down at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. We go back to the place of our birth, our home place, for reunions; we will go to the place we came from and our eternal home then, Heaven. After the reunion, we have to leave to go back to our earthly homes; there, we will be home. There will be nothing bitter at that reunion - only joy! The joy we feel at our family reunions will be multiplied many times there. Of course there will be only one reunion there - no need for more. We will be home to stay.
 

Tygarts Valley High School 

Class of 1964 

Reunion 

August 9 and 10 this year.

Be there or be square! 

(How long since you heard that? 

And, Yes, we do all remember it!)

Memories are Made of This

Reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart for 

six weeks in 1956, and became 

Dean Martin's biggest hit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memories_Are_Made_of_This 

Dean Martin - 1956

Class Reunion
 
(Ann Luna)

My class reunion's coming,
and I don't know what to do.
My weight and chins have doubled
since the year of '62.
I look into the mirror and--
Good Grief! How can this be?
Gray hair, false teeth, thick glasses--
It's my mother's face I see!
But I head out to the party.
No sense moping, I decide.
I'll just have to grin and bear it.
(But I'm dying, deep inside.)
Then I walk into the banquet hall
And stop. There's some mistake.
Not a single classmate do I find.
Did I confuse the date?
Still the faces seem familiar,
As each one I keenly stare at . . .
Then I realize I'm looking at--Good Grief!
My classmates' parents!

Class Reunion - Joseph Schippers

DAY 2 - COUNTING DOWN TO THE 50TH

Good Morning, Class of '64

 

Another Day with Larry

 Crime and punishment can be 

summed up in two classifications: 

there are bad people and there are 

people who get into bad situations. 

The lines for liberation and rehabilitation 

should first begin with the people who 

get into bad situations.

Johnnie Dent, Jr.

 
Bureau of Prisons

I had not decided what I wanted to do with my life when I returned from the Army. I was pretty sure I did not want to teach Vocational Agriculture in the public schools. Since I returned in November, I had plenty of time to decide before the next school year.

I took a job in a service station. I probably learned more in the 14 months I worked there than in the five years I spent in college. I learned how tough it is to work with the public. I discovered that the most successful people are much more likely to respect and treat with courtesy those who serve them than less successful people do. We had some rather wealthy customers and some West Virginia University professors who were a delight to serve. The WVU head football coach, Bobby Bowden, treated us as equals. Other customers made us want to hide.

I learned a lot from the trash pick-up crew. When I had the time, I pulled our 18 - 20 trash cans from behind the building and helped the crew load them. That gave them a few extra minutes so we often had a quick cup of coffee together. We had some great conversations, better than many on college campuses. If those men had known that I was a college graduate and Army officer, those conversations would not have happened. I learned much from them.

 

While I was there, a customer came in to pick up his car one evening. There was a problem with it, and as I corrected it, I engaged him in conversation to try to keep him from getting too upset. He was an assistant supervisor of education at the then-called Kennedy Youth Center. I told him about my degree in education, and he invited me to the institution to look it over. When I took him up on the invitation, I was warmly received. They assigned an inmate to show me around. I asked him a lot of questions; he was pretty positive about the education department. 

Many of the teachers welcomed me and explained their programs to me. They seemed proud of what they were doing. They were using a term new to me - Performance Objectives. I soon learned that P. O.’s as they called them and what Dr. Sheldon Baker had taught as Behavioral Objectives were the same. All real teaching is based on behavioral objectives, but the public education system pays lip service to them. I was sold. It took over six months to get hired, but it was worth it.

I met two teachers on my inmate-guided tour who impressed me. Gary Huffman explained the Performance Objectives to me. Gary is one of the best teachers I’ve ever seen, and he became one of my best friends. Dan Brown was very candid - he described both the good and the bad aspects about working there. Dan also became a close friend. He was my boss for 10 or 12 years. In all those years, I never once read the annual evaluation he was required to write on me before I signed it. I knew that if I did my job, he would do his. That kind of trust and respect was common there.

 

When I started work in 1974, there was a really strong family feeling among the staff. I have never felt so much a part of a group dedicated to doing the job right. It was a special place to work. With increased inmate population and increased staff along with staff turnover, we lost much of that closeness. But we never lost it all; working there was always special.

I taught basic literacy and GED preparation most of the time. Our classes were not at all like the public schools. We got new students each week. In my basic math classes, I had students working on everything from subtraction of whole numbers to decimals in the same room at the same time. All of our instruction was individualized. We were managers as much as teachers; getting the right student the right materials at the right time was the first thing to be done. Getting that done efficiently gave me time to teach. Fumbling and paper shuffling eliminated the possibility of teaching anything.

       

Our students had all experienced failure in education. Some had flunked out, some had dropped out, and some had been kicked out. (A very, very few had quit school to support their family.) We had a 100% failure rate from the beginning. I had three strikes against me with new inmates. First, I represented the pooe-leece (their pronunciation). Second, I was white - my classes averaged 75 to 90% minority at any given time. Most were Blacks, but a few Hispanics, South Americans, and American Indians were included. Third, I represented school, a place where most inmates had experienced only failure. After failing repeatedly in public school, he gets in trouble, is sentenced to federal prison, and is ordered to go to school.

      

Many came in with a chip on their shoulder - “I don’t need this bull----! I was doing good on the street!” Before I could teach the inmate, I had to convince him that I cared about his succeeding. I did that by getting into his face and being confrontational - “Sure, you were doing great on the street, so great you’re locked up in  federal prison!” It was painful and emotionally tiring, but it worked for me. It created stress; that’s one reason I retired at age 50. It is also a reason I am perfectly content to stay at home most of the time; I do like my peace and quiet.

I cannot be sure how effective I was. I did keep the inmates occupied helping to keep them out of trouble so I fulfilled my correctional mission. If I influenced or helped even one inmate to clean up his life and become a productive, tax-paying citizen rather than doing life on the installment plan, America got a big return on my salary. I hope I did.

I quickly learned that there are three groups of inmates in a prison. One group will never change. They are already doing life on the installment plan. Another group will make it on the streets no matter what the prison does. We can give them tools to make it easier, but they have already made the decision to succeed. The third group lies somewhere in the middle. They can be influenced; in fact, they are influenced by their prison experience, some positively and some negatively. The real challenge is that we can never be sure which group an inmate is in. We have to treat all inmates as if they can be influenced. That makes the job harder and more stressful and makes the failures more painful.

Education in a prison has more of a correctional purpose than a rehabilitative one. Rehabilitation can only come from within - the inmate does it himself. The best the prison can do is give him some tools. Our prisons are for punishment and separation of offenders from the rest of society not rehabilitation. The correctional purpose of education is the same as that of recreation and work assignments - to keep the inmates busy. It is cheaper and more humane to hire teachers, build recreational facilities, and provide meaningful jobs or even make-work jobs than to build cell blocks, hire more guards, and patch busted heads. We are not coddling inmates with these programs - we are managing them as economically as possible. Any rehabilitative benefits from education is a welcome bonus.

     

Teaching in a prison is a wonderful opportunity for a good teacher. When I closed my classroom door, the warden, the associate wardens, the captain, and the department heads did not know, or care, what happened in that room. As long as I produced a reasonable number of class completions and there was no blood on the floor, I was on my own. I could, and did, design my program any way I chose. I could teach it the way I wanted. I could try the wildest things, and I did. I could be as good, or as bad, as I chose. Lazy teachers in a prison continue to be lazy - it’s easier. Poor teachers remain poor teachers - it’s easy. But good teachers can become great teachers. It is a wonderful place to teach.

Unfortunately, too many prison educators never try to understand where they are working. In a prison, custody and corrections are central; the entire prison revolves around that. Too many educators believe that the prison revolves around them. Teachers generally have a well-deserved poor reputation in a prison. All too many think they are the elite in the prison. I learned quickly that I would not have a clean, safe, comfortable classroom if the correctional officers were not doing their jobs. I tried hard to support them. I respected them and their work; in fact, I was more like them than I was like other teachers.

I received two compliments that I can never forget while working in the prison. A correctional officer, perhaps the best I’ve ever known, said to me, “You’re the best correctional officer in that school.”  It doesn’t get much better than that. One of my students came out with another. I had taught a unit in writing skills, and the class was doing a practice worksheet on the unit. Suddenly an inmate said, “Mr. See, you actually think us dumb SOB’s can do this stuff.” Success! Much of my time was spent trying to convince the inmates that I did believe that they could succeed.

In addition to teaching, I was fortunate to do quite a bit of staff training. I taught firearms to staff for nine years, about eleven or twelve days per year. I also taught interpersonal communications, security, hostage survival, and riot squad training. I even commanded a riot squad for two or three years. We were required to have 40 hours of refresher training each year. Working in training was a great experience; I got acquainted with many people who had been only a name and voice on the phone. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

People who have no experience in prisons have two questions, questions I have answered dozens of times. The first is, “What are they (the inmates) like?” The answer is that they are people, people who grew up in your community and who will be coming back to your community. Some are good, some are bad, and most have some good and some bad in them, pretty much like you and me. 

The second question is “Aren’t you afraid?”  Not once in 22 years. We had some dangerous inmates, but we had well-trained, competent, professional back-up close-by. I would be much more afraid in a public high school. We have written so many silly laws and rules that a public school teacher cannot defend himself from an assault by a student without getting in trouble. I certainly would have no confidence in having good back-up in a public school if the worst happened. Our public schools are the only place in America where a citizen cannot even defend himself.

By the way, low-security prisons are more challenging than high security ones. We had several staff transfer in from higher security prisons. Most had trouble adjusting; many did not stay long. Conversely, we sent many staff to other prisons - most did very well. The difference is simple. Our best restraints were not cells and bars. Our “restraints” were our ability to out-think and out-talk the inmates. If that is your best tool, you have to learn it quickly. Once you learn that, you can work effectively in any prison.

Working in a prison is a fun job. It can be exasperating, it can be stressful, it can be disgusting, and it can be hilarious. But it is never boring. Once you experience it, no other job will ever measure up.

The best part was the staff. Wardens and administrators are sometimes good, sometimes bad, and often mediocre. They come and go - few line staff are much affected by them. But the line staff stay. The line staff keep the prison going. We talked a lot about being a family; much of the time we were. We grew to love each other. Sometimes that love went too far; I saw a few good marriages break up. But I also saw at least one great marriage start  there. 

The nature of the work requires an intimacy found only in the military and law enforcement organizations. If I made a mistake at noon on Monday, by Tuesday morning everyone there, staff and inmates, knew about it. We had to depend on each other just like a family. It was a special job working with special people.

It is interesting that women, who made up about 10% of the staff, were, on the whole, higher caliber than the men. It takes a very special woman to be successful and happy working in an all-male prison. Most of our ladies were special, really quality people. 

I most appreciated the ladies who were confident enough to dress attractively letting their femininity show. That is important in a male prison; it reminds the inmates of the finer things in life and gives them more incentive to stay out of trouble and get back to the street. A well-groomed feminine lady who conducts herself in a professional manner raises the entire tone of communication with the inmates. The inmates show her respect, and some of that carries over to other communications.

I could never have been as happy in any other job. I doubt that I would have been as effective in any other job. I would not have had the privilege and joy of working with so many high-caliber professionals elsewhere. For me, it was the perfect job.

DAY 3 - COUNTING DOWN TO THE 50TH

Good Morning, Class of '64

South Korea

South Korea

Another Day with Larry

Experiences in the 

Republic of Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea (South Korea) is often called “The Land of the Morning Calm.” Initial impressions on arrival were more the land of the morning, midday, evening, and night stink. In 1972, open sewers were common. Night soil, or human waste, was used to fertilize rice paddies. And kimchee, the second national food after rice, smells so bad that it makes our ramps smell like the finest French perfume. Kimchee is roughly equivalent to our sauerkraut. It is fermented cabbage, but the additions make a vile concoction. They eat a protein-deficient diet with so much rice and noodles. So they add any sources of protein they have to kimchee - fish parts and fish heads among them. They also add hot sauces and fish sauces. The smell is overwhelming.

Despite that, my year in Korea was a great experience.

Koreans are the hardest working people I’ve ever seen. They are also the most security-conscious and disciplined. Their country was devastated pretty much back to the stone age by the Korean War. By 1971, they had rebuilt their capital city of Seoul. It was a beautiful, bustling city. They had built a 4 to 6 lane superhighway from the DMZ in the north to Pusan on the southern tip of the peninsula. Their economy was really beginning to expand then. I am not surprised that we are now importing automobiles from them.

Seoul is a close distance south of the DMZ. It is also close to Red China. Their north-south freeway had tank traps every few miles to slow an invasion from the north. They also had quad-fifty mounts all along the road to mount the four-barrel .50 caliber machine guns. They take their security very seriously. While I was there, the ROK Army took over security on the DMZ from our Eighth Army. I felt safer.

I was initially assigned as Club Steward in the Eighth Army Golf Club. I was responsible for the kitchen, dining room, and bar. I had as much expertise in rocket science. I worked with the Korean cooks and wait staff - a terrific group. They were hard workers and a pleasure to work with. They knew their jobs. I asked their advice and paid attention to them.

While I was there, I planned a party for the 20th Evac Hospital, the one that the patients were transferred to from the 4077th on the M.A.S.H. television show. It was still active in Korea. They partied a lot like the M.A.S.H. doctors!

I bought a jar of jalapeno peppers for my head waiter. We went into the bar one night after closing. He ate the entire jar, washed down with straight vodka. They do like their spicy foods.

He had served with the Korean forces in Vietnam. He hated the Vietnamese. He said that if the Koreans had the climate and soil the Vietnamese had, they would be the wealthiest country in Asia. I think he was right.

At our Christmas party for the staff, a waitress introduced her 2-year-old son to me. He was dressed in a formal black suit and tie. He bowed deeply from the waist and addressed me as “Sir” with the formal Korean greeting. He was so cute I had a real struggle to keep from laughing. That party got pretty wild; the Koreans like to party as much as the doctors from the 20th Evac.

One of our waitresses got married while I was there. She invited the three Americans in the club to her wedding. The Club Officer, a Captain, said that one of us had to go, but that he wasn’t. The accountant, a department of the army civilian, said,”Not in my job description” so I was volunteered. I went with my head waiter, Mr. Pak. He suggested that I wear my green uniform. I told him to keep me from doing anything rude.

They were married in a wedding chapel. It was rented to wedding parties by the hour. There were often 8 to 10 weddings the same day. We arrived early, and Mr. Pak wanted to sit up front, but my Methodist background kicked in. We sat in the rear as far to the side as possible. As the people filed in, I felt more and more conspicuous. The average height of Korean men is probably about 5’7”; I am 6’2”. The men were all wearing black suits, black tuxes, or white traditional Korean garb. The women were all wearing white formal dresses or white Korean garb. I was a head taller and the only one wearing any color besides black or white.

As I slumped as low in my seat as possible, the wedding party assembled at the front. The person officiating, a Buddhist priest I think, bowed in all directions and greeted everyone with the formal Korean greeting. Then he started talking directly to me. I whispered, “Pak, what’d I do?” He told me that they wanted me up front with the wedding party. I refused, but Pak insisted. “Great honor for them for you to be here,” so I reluctantly did. 

Must have been quite a spectacle - a wedding party dressed entirely in black and white except one person a head taller than the rest dressed in green with a lot of bright red on top. Somewhere in Korea, there is a wedding album with those photos. Wonder how they explain them to their grand kids!

The reception wasn’t any better. As the “honored guest” everyone wanted to give me Korean delicacies. I quickly learned to hold my breath and quickly swallow. I don’t want to know what I ate, but raw fish is a prime suspect. I washed it all down with rice wine, a drink far more potent than our wine. I’m thankful that I got away without making a complete fool of myself and creating an international incident.

I greatly admired and liked the Koreans. If I had stayed in the gulf club my entire 13 months there, I would have formed lifelong friendships. 

They hate the Japanese because of their cruel occupation of Korea during World War II. They value face as do most Orientals. They are hard working and ambitious. I watched them pave a dirt road. They had one ox to pull a wagon. The rest was hand work with 2 or 3 men and a dozen or so women and children. They all worked long hours in the hot sun around a hot fire melting the tar. They are very disciplined. Their army is one of the best in the world - tough, well-trained, well-led, and deadly. They are a remarkable people.

I’ve seen night satellite photos of the Korean peninsula. South Korea looks like an island. It is lit up like much of America. North Korea is dark. There is no better visual image of the contrast between capitalism and communism than those photos.

I would enjoy going back. The improvements between the end of the Korean War and 1972 were breath taking. No doubt the changes since then are as dramatic. It was a good year.

King Sejong - South Korea