Payette Idaho

PHS '66 Reunions:  55th  50th  45th  40th  35th  30th  20th  10th Other 2009 Armory Dance

(I haven't been to Idaho since my mother's funeral in 2017!)

People from Idaho don't drive cross-country to the Northeast very often, and I mostly see Idaho license plates on cars only when I am in Idaho. Idaho license plates start with a prefix that tells you what county the car is registered in, so you can tell where people are from if you know the system (here is a list). My hometown is in the county of Payette where license plates start with 1P, the first county starting with the letter P. Boise is in Ada county and license plates start with 1A.

My thanks to my classmate Ron Shurtleff for these photos.
Click any photo to start a slideshow of all the photos starting at that point in the sequence.

It's a good thing we wore name-tags at this reunion because I would have had trouble recognizing some of my classmates I hadn't seen in decades! Jan Rogers-Levy and I semi-successfully Skyped with Wynn White in Japan, who was unable to attend. The Portia Club, where we had the banquet, did not serve alcohol so we kept wine in a cooler outside in a car, with frequent refill visits. (My thanks to Paul Strawn, husband of classmate Kathy Clark.)

We had our traditional 3-day reunion . . .

• Friday night we met at Bancroft Park (named after the hotel at that location that burned down in 1979) and listened to the 60s band, The Chancellors
• Saturday during the day we were in Kiwanis Park for lots of socializing, and there was a car show of classic cars in the park and "lawn-mower races" by the A&W
• Saturday night was the reunion dinner at the Portia Club (see photos below)
• Sunday morning was a brunch (I didn't attend because I had to fly home to Boston, where my wife Patti was having surgery the next day)

• Faux status
  My dad was the manager of the First Security Bank at the corner of Main and Center (which became Wells Fargo), the only bank in town until I was in high school. When I was a little kid, other kids were under the impression that as manager he "owned" the bank and that we were rich. Perhaps in the 1800s the banks were owned by the people who ran them (see my clock story) but by our time most banks were owned by corporations. Of course I didn't try to correct this misconception, and preferred to let people think of me as a "rich" kid.
• Apple Blossom Festival
  My dad's bank used to team up with American Fine Foods (the cannery) and enter a float in the parade every year. When I was little I used to ride on this float some years, typically in cowboy clothes holding up a bank, and when I was older I drove the vehicle that

  Tilt-a-Whirl

  pulled the float, and some years I was in the band that marched in the parade. A big part of the festivities was the Inland Empire Carnival coming to town and setting up in Kiwanis Park. I would spend several days there going on rides (my favorite was the "Tilt-a-Whirl" but if you were real daring you went on the "Loop-O-Plane"), and trying to win a prize at one of the games for whatever girl I had a crush on that year.
  
  
• The cannery
  I worked at the cannery (American Fine Foods) several years during the corn season in the fall. The first year I ran the little lab in the back that tested the loads of corn that were brought in, primarily for moisture content to see if the load would be used for "cream style" (water was added so the dryer corn was used) or "whole kernel" (no water was added so the more moist corn went here). We also recorded percentages of bird-pecks and worms, which factored into how much the growers were paid. One year I was the "Retort man" who cooked the canned corn in cages wheeled into these giant retort pressure cookers. I remember a friend of my dad's, who grew up in Payette, saying the "Retort man" was admired by the female cannery workers, which help motivate you to stand over the cookers where the temperature was 20-30 degrees hotter than the current air temperature.
• The high school fire
  

  Before / after fire

  In 1956 there was a terrible fire at the high school. It was in the evening and much of the town gathered across the street to watch. As a result of this fire the 3rd floor was completely destroyed and much of the building was damaged. During the rebuilding of the school many high school classes were moved to the junior high (we didn't call it "middle school" yet), some of the junior high classes moved to the elementary schools, and many of the elementary school classes moved to churches and other locations. My 4th grade class was held in the National Guard armory, which was really cool with the tanks and all. Oddly, I remember listening to the Everly Brothers sing "Wake Up Little Susie" and Elvis doing "Hound Dog" on a radio at the armory. Midway through the year everything shifted back to its original locations. About the only part of the 3rd floor that survived the fire was the old band room above the gym; a new band room and ag shop were located in a new building behind the high school (and this is the only building that remains of the high school.). When I started band in 6th grade at East Side Elementary, which was located next to the high school, we practiced in that 3rd floor room. I think I also had a math class in that same room at one time (possibly in junior high, which shared space with the high school), with a Russian teacher named Miss Kutkowski.

  Mr. Johnson (he passed away in December, 2018)
  

  Recent photo

  My favorite teacher at PHS was James R. Johnson (Facebook link). When I was a Freshman, instead of Algebra, I took Advanced Math from Mr. Johnson. One of the things we studied was number systems. He fabricated this very amusing story about explorers in South America coming across a tribe of people who had 3 fingers on each hand instead of 5, so their number system was based on 6 (apparently our number system is based on 10 because you can count to 10 on your fingers). We designed a number system based on 6, with different symbols for the digits.
  
      This was in 1962 but I can still remember they consisted of:     (after single digits it started with double digits at , just like ours does)
  
  We created mathematical tables for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and did many exercises with these and even had tests. I found Mr. Johnson very stimulating, and he created a strong interest in mathematics (this really paid off because I scored very high on my math SATs for college). I also had Mr. Johnson for Chemistry and Physics, so I guess I had him for more classes than any other teacher at PHS. Mr. Johnson and his wife, Leora, lived in Payette and attended several of our class reunions. He said his graduation gift to all his students was to start calling him "James." James, you have had such an impact on my life and I will miss you forever!
• Mrs. Driscoll
  A crazy incident that happened to me in high school involved Mrs. Inez Driscoll, whom most (or all?) of us had for English as Sophomores. One time she sent me to the principal's office as discipline and forgot she had done so. Mrs. Driscoll was explaining SYNONYMS and ANTONYMS to the class and she said, "Write this down. SYNONYMS are words which mean the opposite, and ANTONYMS are words which mean the same." I immediately knew she had said it backwards, so being the bold, assertive (argumentative?) student that I was I said, "Mrs. Driscoll, you said it wrong. SYNONYMS are words which mean the same, and ANTONYMS are words which mean the opposite." She said, "Eric, be quiet. I am teaching this class." We went back and forth a few times and she finally said, "Go to the office! Now!" I left the classroom and went to the principal's office, and when I walked in Mr. Todd (the principal) said, "Eric, now what are you in here for?" (Mr. Todd and I fought many battles!) I expained how she had said it backwards, and he agreed with me so he and I walked back to Mrs. Driscoll's classroom to straighten it out. When we walked in she said, "Eric! Where have you been?" (She had forgotten the incident already.) I reminded her that she had sent me to the office and she said, "Sit down. OK class, let's continue." Mr. Todd (in one the few instances of him EVER being on my side) said, "Mrs. Driscoll, Eric says you and he disagree about the definitions of SYNONYMS and ANTONYMS. Can you give us the definitions please." Mrs. Driscoll says, "Well of course—SYNONYMS are words which mean the same, and ANTONYMS are words which mean the opposite." Mr. Todd says, "That's right. Eric, sit down." I am very exasperated and I say, "That's not what you said last time! Class—I know you all wrote down what she said in your notebooks and I know you will have it backwards. Would someone please repeat what she said the first time." I got no response from my classmates (nobody was going to stand up to Mrs. Driscoll), so I had to humbly sit down and pretend that I was the one who was wrong. Despite our clashes I enjoyed having Mrs. Driscoll as a teacher because she was such a character. I also had her for Art one year (where one of her students drew a vagina and told her it was a flower when it was put up on the wall for all her classes to see!).
• Sports
  Football
  I went out for football in 8th grade (1961), the first year the junior high had a team. We started out wearing equipment that the school must have had stored for decades, because the helmets were leather with no face guards, and the shoulder pads where pretty flimsy (we got modern equipment before our first game). I still remember classmate George Cordes getting knocked out cold in head-on tackling practice, which caused several to quit the team, and all of us to question our decision to play this dangerous sport. I played football for several years in high school as a center. In the final 2 weeks of summer before school started the football practices were twice-a-day, something they may have discontinued for health reasons. As a center I attended the practice for the backs, which consisted of hiking the ball to them so they could run their plays, instead of the linesman practices which included a lot of blocking drills (this is probably why I went out for the position). The farm boys would not be able to come to these late summer practicies because they had to work on their family farms, so when the first game came after school started they wouldn't be eligible to play because they hadn't attended enough practices (a state law?). This could have put us at a big disadvantage, not having some of our big hulking linesmen, but I presume the towns we played had the same restrictions so it all equaled out. As a Freshman my physical size was larger than average and I could pass for older wearing a uniform and helmet. At some of these early season games the varsity coach (Clabaugh?) asked some of us to suit up at the varsity games and sit on the bench to make the team look like it had more players. I don't think any of us played but we must have felt honored to do this, especially with all the cheering in the stands behind us.
  
  I remember one game we had with Fruitland we had practiced a trick play where between plays 3 players would run to the sideline to confer with the coaches, then only 2 would run back to the huddle, and the 3rd guy would stand just inbounds. When the ball was hiked the 3rd guy, whom nobody saw, would be in the open to receive a pass and score an easy touchdown. We rehearsed this play several times during the week, then when we played Fruitland they pulled this same play against us early in the game! We should have been very disappointed for their easy touchdown, but the poor guy (whom many of us knew and shall remain nameless) dropped the ball. I think that play is illegal now (perhaps it was then also).
  
  Basketball
  I went out for basketball as a Freshman and they had the Freshmen and Sophomores practice together the first few weeks. Then they said 2 Freshmen would be selected to play on the Junior Varsity team (Terry Strong and I were picked) and the rest would be on a Freshmen team. I guess I looked good on the practice drills because I was not that outstanding as a player. Going on the JV team as a Freshman turned out to be a mistake because I spent the season sitting on the bench, and when I was a Sophomore and competed again for the JV team I had little experience and was out-performed by my fellow Sophomores, who had played a lot on the Freshman team the previous year, so I sat on the bench for another year. That was the last year I played b-ball.
  
  Golf
  I was also on the golf team throughout high school, where I was 2nd flight behind Dennis Carson. I remember in my first golf meet, at Crane Creek golf course in Boise I birdied the first hole on a lucky chip shot. The way it worked in the meets is that the person who had the lowest score on the previous hole got to tee-off first on the next hole. My birdie enabled me to tee-off first on the next several holes until someone got a lower score on a hole. Crane Creek had lots of gullies and one par-3 hole had no fairway, only a tee-box and a green (you had to put your drive on the green or you lost your ball out-of-bounds and got penalized). At another golf meet I was having trouble breathing and one of the golfers from another school had me lie on the ground where he performed chest compressions or something (we decided it was only hay fever) and someone from Payette said to me later they thought we were fighting. One of the great things about being on the golf team is that you got to play on all the great golf courses in the area. I haven't played golf since college and probably stink now. (An amusing incident that occured with the PHS golf team happened when I was a long-haired college student visiting Payette and passed in front of a car at a Stop sign near the school with Mr. Todd, the golf coach that year, driving the golfers to a golf meet, and when Todd saw me he remarked to the golfers that he had expected me to go far in life but was very disappointed—apparently being anti-war with long hair made me a loser.)
  
  Track
  Like a typical 60s jock I thought I had to play a sport in every season. In my Freshman year they hadn't started the golf team yet, so I went out for track. I threw the discus and thought that this was going to be my event, but coming from a small high school the field athletes (non-running events) had to also enter races to get someone in every event. I was asked to run the 880 yard half-mile (a 2-lap race on a 440 yard quarter-mile track). I wasn't very good at this but decided I would pace myself with another Payette runner in the races, but in the first track meet when we were half-way around the first lap the P.A. speaker announced, "Last call for the Pole Vault." and the guy I was pacing myself with took off to do the Pole Vault (his specialty) and I was on my own. I had no clue how fast to run and even though I lead the race for 1½ laps I got exhausted and slowed down and was passed by all the runners from the other schools. At this first meet I didn't know I was responsible for bringing the discus and I had to borrow one from another school to throw.
  
  Skiing
  I also did a lot of skiing, but PHS didn't have a ski team, just a ski club that took a school bus up to Brundage Mountain near McCall every week. I also skied a lot at Bogus Basin outside Boise, and they had night skiing, which I really enjoyed. What's interesting is that daytime rates were something like $4.50 and night skiing cost $2.50, even though they were probably both something like 6 hours, but the night-skiing only ran 1 of their 3 chair-lifts so they thought they couldn't charge as much.
• Suspended from school
  I actually got suspended from school for a few days in 7th grade. If you mis-behaved in class you were sent to the principal's office with a pink slip (my bad behaviour was that I argued with teachers). This usually didn't amount to much in the way of punishment, but I remember one time the principal and I went to the band room and I was asked to select a drum stick, which was used to swat my behind. Anyway, after I got 4 pink slips, which was some kind of milestone, I got into more serious trouble. My mother happened to be substitute teaching that day, and she was called into the principal's office with me. They told us I was suspended from school for some period of time. I remember I spent the afternoon down at my dad's bank waiting for him to get off work and take me home. My parents discussed what they were going to do with me, a kid who didn't fit in at school, and one option was putting me in a military school (whoa!). This didn't happen and I got back into the Payette school a few days later. This was just the first of many years of battling with the school people, usually Mr. Todd, the principal, when I got into high school. I just couldn't not argue when I thought people were wrong. We got 2 grades on our report card for each class. The letter grade represented how well you did in the class. A little number was next to each letter, called your "citizenship grade," which represented how cooperative you were. I ususally got A's in my classes. Most people that got an A grade usually got an A1 . I typically got A2 or A3.
• Driving
  

  Payette River bridge

  Snake River bridge

  I got my driver's license in 1962 at age 14 (licensed earlier because I took Driver's Ed?). There are 2 bridges you go over to get to Ontario (you couldn't drive in Oregon until you were 16), one over the Payette River and one over the Snake River. They are both replaced now with separate bridges for each direction of traffic, but in those days they were 2-lane iron-framed bridges and extremely narrow! The one over the Payette River was wider but the one over the Snake was so narrow that on a school bus I was on once to a game in Oregon (Ontario, Vale, or Nyssa) the mirror hit something coming the other way.
  
  
• Key Club
  For several years in high school I was a member of the Key Club, a "student-led organization that teaches leadership through serving others" and is a part of the Kiwanis International family. In addition to its local activities there were yearly conventions, sometimes in other states. I went to the convention in Salt Lake City as a sophomore and the one in Ogden, Utah, as a senior. These were really fun, taking a long bus trip with friends (including a stop at a truck stop in Bliss, Idaho, where we shoplifted), and staying in a hotel with a bunch of other high school kids. Of course one of the big thrills of these conventions was being away from home on a trip to another city with a bunch of friends.
  
  
• Boys State
  In the summer before my senior year I attended Boys State, a one-week event at BJC (Boise Junior College, the school that ultimately became Boise State University). Being away from home for a week was quite a thrill. We stayed in the dorms and elected members to a state legislature that met and passed some laws. I didn't run for office but I had a blast, including meeting a girl named Kathy from Borah High at a dance whom I dated throughout my senior year, and I went to Borah's prom with her (she couldn't come to ours because the school only allowed PHS students). Some of the guys I met there would later become friends when I went to college at University of Idaho in Moscow the next year.
  
  
• Charm theater
  I saw many movies growing up at the Charm theater, which was operated by a guy named Ira I believe. As I recall, carbonated drinks came in three flavors: Coke, root beer, and orange soda. The combination of all three, a favorite of mine, was called a "suicide." There was a room in the back with a big picture window called the "cry room" where mothers with infants could sit and the crying babies would not bother the others in the theater. In high school we would sit in this room and smoke cigarettes while we watched movies! The building was bought by the Bible Baptist church in the 60s and I think they still occupy it. I guess that was one way to keep people from going to movies, something they were against. We used to go to a lot movies in Ontario, at the Centre and the Pix. Having been away from Payette for many years, I wonder if those theaters are still there?