RCHS CLASSMATE MEMORIES - THE EARLY YEARS

Do you ever find yourself wondering at times just how much of your childhood you've forgotten?  What about the classmates you grew up with...those who moved away, whose direction in life steered a different course from yours, or perhaps one or more who influenced your life in a positive way without their ever knowing?  Well, I for one can say that much of what seemed forgotten has been reawakened with seeing and talking to my pals from yesteryear.  Whatever those memories are doesn't seem to matter so much as just that they are still there.  For me, what comes from those memories is just an overall good feeling of being from a small town with a lot of great people.  Whether we all got along or not, whether we all knew one another or not, I feel fortunate to have grown up in the company of classmates I've known.  When someone speaks of "great camaraderie", I know what they're talking about...they are speaking of the what we enjoyed as the Roane County High School Class of 1979.

Whether you have memories from kindergarten, grade school, junior high, high school, I invite you to share them here.  At our high school reunions, we have shared our thoughts in the memory books.  But, I say lets go beyond that.  As few or many as you like, e-mail me the memories you'd like to share and I'll add them to this page.  Who knows, perhaps one person's thoughts will trigger those of someone else.  Maybe somewhere behind the years one of us will uncover a memory long since forgotten but very dear.  Or, perhaps as in my case, the memories will just be silly or fun to think of.  Care to contribute?  I hope this can be a fun page for everyone to read.  Let's see what I can get us started with...

This page will probably get rather lengthy...I hope so!  Over time maybe I'll organize it for easier browsing.  For now, just get friendly with the scroll bar.

Daryl Pritchard remembers...

...riding the school bus down to Cherokee School when I was in 1st grade, repeatedly spelling the words "Czechoslovakia" and "Encyclopedia" as fast as I could for older students who still couldn't spell them.

...Pitts and Arthur Lesane - nearly the fastest runners in our early grade school years - racing down Alma Lane to Cherokee School, challenging anyone in the neighborhood to a race.  I was never fast enough but I do also remember trying to run to Cherokee School as fast as I could upon seeing the bus start its route up West Ridgecrest Drive; my challenge was to beat the bus to the school.  A few times I did, but not many.

..T-ball vaguely, and being on the Gold Bugs team in grade school.  I distinctly remember STRIKING OUT at a game!  That was my first clue I wasn't destined to be an athlete! : )

...birthday parties at friends homes down in the Cherokee subdivision, especially at Kay Dew or Renie Strain's homes.

...my best friends during grade school - Patrick Williams, Marvin Freels, and Mark Nunley.  Patrick, Marvin and I enjoyed getting out our Major Matt Mason, Sergeant Storm, and Captain Lazer toys.  Sure, there were G.I. Joes, but these guys were astronauts and they had Firebolt Space Cannons, Space Crawlers, and other great stuff!  G.I. Joe?  Forget it!...He just had a boring Jeep.  Meanwhile Mark and I always had fun shooting our BB guns, flying Estes rockets, and generally just doing whatever we could get away with.

...hooking Dale Brown in the nose with a fishing lure.  While in Boy Scouts, one of our activities involved a cookout at Roane County Park.  We also tried a bit of fishing.  Dale walked up behind me while I was beginning to cast my fishing rod forward.  Wrong move!  He said the hook didn't hurt, but the tassel was ticklish.

...I sometimes used "big words".  Lisa Cox was visiting Lisa Burney down East Ridgecrest Drive from where I lived.  I went down to talk to them and found them trying to tie a rope up between two trees.  In talking about the rope, I used the word "portion"....they both laughed at how I didn't use a simpler word like "piece".

...bicycling out to Crestwood, where I hoped to find Jennifer Tweeton or Jennifer Emch outside as I "just happened to be cycling by".

...all the neighborhood friends from East and West Ridgecrest Drive, who would often get together and play "Kick the Can" or other games, many times playing out of Patrick Williams' front yard.

...neighborhood activity gradually moving further down West Ridgecrest Drive to Connie Guinn's yard and later to Karl Bedwell or Cheryl Cook's yards.  If there was basketball involved, it was always on Karl's driveway basketball "court".

...our junior high principal, Mrs. Hobgood, who had a knack for curing hiccups.  She told a hiccuping Sally Tayor to go get a drink of water from the fountain, then promptly proceeded to sneak up on Sally and give her a friendly scare.  The water didn't work, the scare did.

...the high school Math Club trip to Six Flags over Georgia, and the water fights that ensued as soon as we got inside the Tales of the Okeefenokee Swamp boat ride.

...taking dance lessons and, finally, feeling brave enough on the dance floor to ask the girls to dance.  Disco was the music then, and I remember dancing quite a bit with Patty Hearn.

...those repetitive Spanish dialogs with Mr. Pogue that began each day of class....but I'll not repeat them here.  Yes, I still know a few.

...my bicycle wreck during my senior year and how - yes, I was an oddball - I amazed the ambulance medic when, at his request to check my alertness, I easily said the alphabet backwards...Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T....Ha!  Heck, when you help your mother in a daycare center with teaching the alphabet to kids, you get bored after a while and try something different.  It stuck with me!

...the RCHS band trip to Mexico City:  band members hid liquor bottles outside our hotel room window and under the tin awning of the adjacent building -- disco dancing of the top floor of the Hotel San Francisco -- Mike Howdyshell's failed attempt at speaking Spanish when he mistakenly asked the hotel clerk for "una puta" (prostitute) rather than "una pluma" (pen).

...all the boating and skiing down at the city park.


Tommy Guinn remembers...

...the time big Al (Albert Pounds) and I laid out of school to duck hunt.  Mr. Porter called us to the principal's office the next day and made us write a book report for punishment.  We copied something out of an encyclopedia and Porter cussed us out.

OK, who's next?