Story Telling

Reminisce - share some of your funny stories during your high school years. Help us to relive that magical time 50 years ago. Please fill in the blanks, then tell us of your special recollections. Below you will find a memory of mine. Lets hear from the rest of you.

Submitted by Rich Heffner March 20, 2023

THE ELDERLY:

We were born in the 40-50-60’s.

We grew up in the 50-60-70's.

We studied in the 60-70-80’s.

We were dating in the 70-80-90's.

We got married and discovered the world in the 70-80-90's.

We venture into the 80-90.

We stabilize in the 2000’s.

We got wiser in the 2010’s.

And we are going firmly through 2020.

Turns out we've lived through EIGHT different decades...

TWO different centuries...

TWO different millennia...

We have gone from the telephone with an operator for long-distance calls to video calls to anywhere in the world, we have gone from slides to YouTube, from vinyl records to online music, from handwritten letters to email and WhatsApp.

From live matches on the radio, to black and white TV, and then to HD TV.

We went to the Video Club and now we watch Netflix.

We got to know the first computers, punched cards, diskettes and now we have gigabytes and megabytes in hand on our cell phones or IPad.

We wear shorts throughout our childhood and then long pants, oxfords, Bermuda shorts, etc.

We dodged infantile paralysis, meningitis, H1N1 flu and now COVID-19.

We rode skates, tricycles, invented cars, bicycles, mopeds, gasoline or diesel cars and now we ride hybrids or 100% electric.

Yes, we've been through a lot but what a great life we've had!

They could describe us as exennials; people who were born in that world of the fifties, who had an analog childhood and a digital adulthood.

We're kind of Yahseen-it-all.

Our generation has literally lived through and witnessed more than any other in every dimension of life.

It is our generation that has literally adapted to CHANGE.

A big round of applause to all the members of a very special generation, which will be UNIQUE. A precious and very true message that I received from a friend. TIME DOES NOT STOP*

Life is a task that we brought ourselves to do at home.

When you look... it's already six in the afternoon; when you look... it's already Friday; when one looks... the month is over, when one looks... the year is over; when one looks... 50, 60 and 70 years have passed!

When you look... we no longer know where our friends are.

When you look... we lost the love of our life and now, it's too late to go back.

Do not stop doing something you like due to lack of time. Do not stop having someone by your side, because your children will soon not be yours, and you will have to do something with that remaining time, where the only thing that we are going to miss will be the space that can only be enjoyed with the usual friends. That time that, unfortunately, never returns...

*The day is today!*

*WE ARE NO LONGER AT AN AGE TO POSTPONE ANYTHING.*

Always together
             Always united
                         Always Brothers & Sisters
                                      Always friends

Submitted by Ray Nims

Kevin Danner (RIP) and I were adventuring one day on the property of my parent's friends near where Ann Miller and I lived. There was an abandoned house on the acreage that I had visited several times. I took Kevin there one day, and while there he somehow lost his wallet (how in the hell did that happen?). Well, the owners of the property found his wallet and were going to call the police, but then decided since he had a YMCA card he couldn't be all that bad. Kevin and his wallet were reunited, and Kevin never spilled the beans about me, or I would have been in dudgeon with the owners and my parents.

Susie Shaffer's 9th Birthday at Ft. Detrick Officers Club.
Submitted by Dennis Easterday

Submitted by Sally McMurry

Title: Bob Lebherz, Do You Remember This?

Comment: Bob and I got to be great friends at TJ. To keep my story short and to the point, Bob offered to teach me "how to drink" alcohol. In my senior year, I had never tasted booze....never cared to. Well, anyway, on a Saturday night, Bob took me out drinking for my first time....maybe it was a Friday night? He bought me a bottle of Bali Hai (is that how it's spelled?) and rather than telling me to drink slowly, or in lesser amounts, that fool allowed me to drink the whole bottle!! This I did, as Bob drove us around Frederick! Well, we had to pull over quite a few times. I remember first "leaving my mark" on North Market Street. Eventually, we made it to Ernie's. (Y'all do remember Ernie's, right?) I remember making it to the bathroom where I definitely got "sick" again! There were several girls from our class there to take care of me in my inebriated state!! If you were one of them, I thank you, again! So obviously, that was a night that I have never forgotten! I might forget what I had for breakfast, but that night I vividly remember! So, Bob, if you are reading this, thanks for teaching me how NOT to drink! Love ya!

Submitted by Rich "Paul" Heffner

Sent to me by a dear friend, passing it on to others of my dear friends.

To all of my family and friends,

I've had this email saved in my email file and today I decided to sent it out to my family and to my friends. Some of you I haven't heard from in years but this weekend is for everyone, regardless of what political persuasion you cling to, regardless of your religious views, I hope and pray that all of you know that we live in the greatest country in the world and we are losing it by those in power at this time. I won't elaborate any more than that. Please remember where we have come from and where we are today. Freedom isn't free! Even with our problems, it's still the greatest country in the world!
Let's protect it.

Love to everyone.

Submitted by J. Dennis Easterday

During high school years before having a car, the gang (Bruce Roberson, Bob Lee, Dave Bach and myself) would frequently walk down Market Street to spend time in downtown Frederick. We would shop, go to the Tivoli or catch lunch. In our opinion some of the finer eating establishments at that time were White Star, Snow White Grill, but more often than not, Dave would convince us to enter Porter's Grill.

Dave's favorite was the small "slider style" burgers. Often being famished about the time we reached Porter's, Dave could put away quite a few rapidly. One day after leaving, the topic came up of how many burgers he could eat in one setting. This led to a bet. The bet ended up being that if Dave could eat 20 of these burgers, Bruce, Bob and myself would pay for them - but if not, he would have to foot the bill.

The day arrived. Dave, not wanting to lose the bet, avoided breakfast just to give him that special edge. We arrived at Porter's with all placing our orders. Dave started with 4 burgers. Within 30 minutes those and the next 2 orders of 4 had disappeared (a total of 12). At this point I hoped that Roberson had brought his egg money with him (he had an egg route, while Bob and I both made the real money - with our paper routes). By the time Dave was on 13 you could see that he was getting uncomfortable. 14 went quietly, a bit slower and of course we had begun to aggravate him with our mocking and barfing sounds. Our big red headed eating machine had met his match ending at 15. For the next month on our way to downtown, Dave never said a word about stopping at Porter's.

Submitted by Pat Howard Ray

Richard Cook, Brenda Robinson and a few others thought it was time for us to hook school one day. We loaded up in my car and was going to my house because no one would be home. At that time I lived on Butterfly Land where the catholic school was. As we pulled in the lane we looked up and there was my father cutting the grass. I tried my best to turn around before he could see me (us). I think that was the last time we did that. I remember Donna Fisher and I would ride and ride the circuit every Friday night. Then we would stop at Circle S for a snack before calling it a night.

Brenda Robinson, Class of 1971

Submitted by Ted Lewis

In either our Jr or Sr year, a couple of my buddies and I decided to go to Washington, DC instead of school one day. We were on the Washington Monument grounds and one of us saw a man with a lady and baby carriage heading our way. The man, from a distance, looked much like Mr. Johns, one of our Assistant Principals. As both parties continued to walk towards each other, we again remarked that the gentleman really, really resembled Mr. Johns. Finally, within 20 feet or so, we realized it WAS Mr. Johns! It was obviously too late to save ourselves so we continued towards them. Being the nice people that we, and they were, we stopped and Mr. Johns said something to the effect of, "I bet you never thought in a million years that I'd be here today." He explained that they got days off just like any other working staff and he was taking one with his family. He was then quite cordial, introducing us to his very nice wife and child. Of course we were all shaking in our tennis shoes, sure that Mr. Johns would turn us in and that our parents would soon find out. Being the nice family man, a side we had never known, he did not turn us in, leaving this as a pleasant memory from long ago.

Mike McLeod,
Class of 1969

Submitted by Jack Spinnler

My family moved from Bethesda to Frederick in March 1968 when I was in 10th grade. My parents enrolled me at TJ and I started making friends there and along Shookstown Road. When school ended in mid-June, I looked for a summer job but I had no success. So, I mostly did three activities that summer: I did chores around our 40-acre farm including building stone walls around our farmhouse; I played softball with friends at the Shookstown Community ballfield off of Old Receiver Road; and I swam in the waters of the old Shookstown Quarry behind the Elks Club. That quarry had flooded out many years before from aquifers seeping water through its lowest levels, so most of the local kids used it as our “swimming hole.” It was there that I almost died at age 16.

By mid-summer of 1968 I had made many “jumps” into that quarry from cliffs about 40 to 50-feet high. (Once, some of us went swimming at the Dickerson Quarry near Sugarloaf Mountain, and I jumped off a 70-foot cliff into its flooded out waters!) I let this dare-devil information slip out one night at my family’s dinner table, and my shocked mother made me promise never to jump off another cliff into a flooded out quarry. Obedient son (ha ha) that I was, I promised to never do that again. But on the very next day (!), after playing softball and getting dusty and sweaty, I was back at the Shookstown Quarry with my friends. Then came “the accident.” After jumping off the cliff a few times, I stepped back about 15 feet for another jump. (At this quarry, you had to jump out far enough -- about 5 feet or so -- to get to the deep water.) But this time, as I approached the edge of the cliff and was about to leap out toward the water, someone below shouted “stop!” When I heard the word “stop,” I instinctively tried to stop; but I couldn’t. I fell over the cliff’s edge, “bounced” twice on the cliff face on the way down, landed on some rocks at the water’s edge, and then rolled into the water. (If I had “flipped” rather than “bounced” on the way down, I probably would have struck my head on the rocks and been killed…) I knew I was hurt badly, especially my legs which took the brunt of the damage – but I could not see my legs as I was now treading water, trying to keep my head up. Some friends who were already in the water swam to my aid, and helped me get to a concrete dock on the other side of the quarry. Then they carried me up a steep trail, through a patch of woods, over a barbed wire fence (with a “no trespassing” sign), and to Mike McLeod’s panel truck that he’d parked in the Elk’s Club parking lot. At that point I finally looked at my legs to assess the damage, and saw that I had gashes on my shins, calves, and feet. Curiously, I was not bleeding, possibly because I was going into shock and some of my blood was pooling internally. After Mike sped his van to Frederick Memorial Hospital’s emergency room, some friends carried me into the ER. At first, no one in the ER noticed me; so I screamed “somebody help me!” and then I started bleeding profusely. That got their attention! By the time the ER doctors finished injecting my legs with pain-killers and stitching me up, they had used 88 stitches to close my various gashes! After the pain-killers wore off, I was really hurting!

My parents reacted better than I expected to my quarry accident. They had driven down to Bethesda that day for a party with our former neighbors. The folks at the Frederick Hospital ER allowed me to use their telephone. I told my Mom over the phone “You were right, Mom. I should have stayed away from the quarry! I fell and hurt myself badly there today.” Then I told her about my injuries and how many stitches I had in my legs. After they drove home from Bethesda (by then, Mike McLeod had driven me back to my house on Shookstown Road and helped me upstairs to my bedroom) and saw the bad shape I was in, my parents said “We would punish you for disobeying us, but it looks like you’re hurting enough as it is.”

It took four weeks for my legs to heal. By then it was mid-August and time for tryouts for TJ’s football team. Since I missed my opportunity to play football on Walt Whitman High School’s JV team, I was determined to play on TJ’s football team. But my legs were still recuperating from the quarry accident; my gashes had healed and the stitches removed, but my cut muscles were still healing. Fortunately, TJ coach Jack Molesworth understood my condition and excused me from full contact for one week; instead, he had me run laps to strengthen my legs. By the second week, I was on the practice field next to TJ’s stadium catching passes and tackling teammates. As school started at TJ after Labor Day weekend, I was informed that I had “made the team.” I had survived the summer (and the quarry!) and was ready to start 11th grade.