Del Sutton was a good leader during my 6 years in the National guard. I was proud of him when he went to OCS and became an officer!
And speaking of Bud Barry...
He was strong..and brave..!
He brought a piece of furniture to Colorado Springs for me
after my mother passed away in 2000..
Bud and his loving and dedicated wife, Angie
were our guests for dinner one evening..
During the dinner, Bud and Angie related this amazing story..!
It seems that on one summer night they left their bedroom window open
inviting the intrusion of Mr. Bear..right there in their bedroom..
Bud leaped from their bed in his underwear
and grabbed a trusty .22 rifle and with repeated firing finally felled the bear..
Angie was quick with praise of Bud as her Hero..
And national newspapers screamed their headlines:
"Man kills a Bear in his Underwear...!
---Charles Coon
Nancy Poer Ryan was there!
Hi Anne, Class Reunion -- I will be thinking of all of
my classmates more so than usual, classmates are even on one's mind! I
wish everyone a spectacular time getting reacquainted. I know it is lots of
work to pull off and thanks to all who made this reunion possible. Wishing
I was there! Warmest regards to all, Nancy
Adrian Wade remembers Robert Grosley, and a lost ring..
After high school, I spent the next 4 years in the army. I was stationed on Okinawa from 1957 to December 1959. Walking out of a movie theatre in Naha Bob Grosley was going in. I did not know he was on Okinawa. As I remember he was in the Air force. That may have been the last conversation I had with him.
In 1955 or 56 our class mate, Veral Shores’ parents were having a
picnic at their home near Marvel, South of the old Fort Lewis College.
Louella Snyder wore my class ring around her neck. When we were ready to leave the picnic, she noticed the ring and chain were gone. The group looked in the yard, but to no avail. The next day we went back to the Shores to look for the ring again. The ring and chain were just lost.
17 years later, I got a call from Barbara Ward Owen that her next door neighbor had a relative visiting from California that had a metal detector and was combing the grass in front of the First Baptist Church and had found a class ring with initials AW and 1956 on it and knew that Barbara Owen had graduated that same year. The nice folks returned my ring and I took them out to dinner.
Yes! We had met in front of the First Baptist Church to car pool to the Shores picnic and that is where Louella had lost the ring.
I still have the ring, but it only fits on my left little finger now.
Don Brown's long Memory...!
I have great memories of our time at DHS, some are good and some not so good. I am forever grateful for the many friends. I sincerely thank our classmates and appreciate each and every one.
I remember:
As freshmen, Jerry Knitsel, Benny Gallegos, and I ditched class and drove Jerry’s Nash up and down third avenue. We went back to school late and ended up with spats from Hoyt Miller.
Reese Miller’s daily blat.
Mr. Toltec, Bob Hatfield and Ferdie Romero. Miss Toltec, Eileen Haffey, Helen Cummins and Ciona Davis.
All the royalty: Eileen Haffey, Nancy Poer, Rosalie Slade, Elaine Lucas, Sue Ayers, and Anne Zink.
Leo Loyd, Eileen Haffey, Helen Cummins, Sue Ayers, Frank Anesi and Nancy Poer out of the DHS Class of 56 at St. Columba School.
Larry Dennison and our group going to the Eureka Grange Hall dances. Larry playing the guitar all the way out there.
Frank Anesi, Mark Downtown, John Ashback John Hitti, Matt Martinez, Norm Putnam, Gerald Franchini on the State Champs of 1954 football team. Speaking of that State Champ team, I have great memories of Coaches Leon Burrows and Cal Putnam.
When I hurt my knee in the JV game in Dove Creek, as a Freshman, it was Leon Burrows who arranged for my surgery. Leon helped pay for the surgery and 10-day hospital stay. He gave me guidance throughout my recovery. He was a compassionate and caring man. Leon and Cal helped me re-focus and move from running back to guard on the football team.
Cal Putnam has been my personal friend and mentor over the years. He was responsible for helping me get the school bus driver job as a senior so I could afford the cap and gown. Cal was still at the high school when I returned to Durango to teach and he recruited me to drive school bus and activity bus trips. I have countless memories of our discussions of life philosophy. He was a great friend and was a great man.
Other teachers I have fond memories of are Werner Schneider. There was no messing around in his shop class. I still use some of the methods learned in shop in my woodworking.
Harvey Hollar planted the seed for my love of History and my major in U.S. History at Adams State. I enjoyed renewing our friendship when I served on Durango City Council and Harvey was a LaPlata County Commissioner.
My memory is very vivid of the compassion and kindness shown me when my Mother passed away our senior year. The entire class showed so much empathy and respect with love. Especially the parents of Frank Anesi and Mark Downtown, lifelong friends. Edie Anesi and Flora Downtown were always offering me Polenta, spaghetti and other Italian delights. Excellent food, friends and I still appreciate their support.
The Class of 56 truly is the best! We were a close knit class, who never let each other down. We may have been separated by time and space but always
---Don Brown
Don Aspromonte's Greeting and his MUSIC...
Charles,
Sorry to miss the reunion but after 40 years of constant International travel I really only travel from Dallas to Austin monthly to see my sister. She has had M.S. for 27 years and is now entirely paralyzed but is a strong Christian and surprisingly cheerful most of the time. My wife, Sandi, retired from being a Nurse Anesthetist for many years and is adjusting to slowing down a bit.
I am keeping busy doing branding for law firms in Canada (thank you very much, Skype!) and performing with my trio (Happy Hour Ukuleles). Our name says it all, we are only available to perform during typical Happy Hour festivities and our current gig is the Four Bullets Brewery Tap Room...a real kick! Then to bed earlier than seems reasonable...but there it is.
We pray all is well with everyone at the reunion and those who cannot attend.
Love,
Don & Sandra Aspromonte
6007 Marlow Ave
Dallas, TX 75252
214.734.0278
SKYPE: donaspromonte
Attached Picture is from 1980 at Copper Mountain where we took the kids skiing every weekend when it was still affordable.
also from Don Aspromonte:
Children of “The Greatest Generation" A Short Memoir
Born in the 1930s and early 40s, we exist as a very special age cohort.
We are the Silent Generation. We are the smallest number of children born since the early 1900s. We are the "last ones."
We are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.
We are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.
We saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans.
We hand mixed ’white stuff’ with ‘yellow stuff’ to make fake butter.
We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren't available.
We can remember milk being delivered to our house early in the morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch.
We are the last to hear Roosevelt's radio assurances and to see gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors.
We can also remember the parades on August 15, 1945; VJ Day.
We saw the 'boys' home from the war build their Cape Cod style houses, pouring the cellar, tar papering it over and living there until they could afford the time and money to build it out.
We are the last generation who spent childhood without television;
instead we imagined what we heard on the radio. As we all like to brag, with no TV, we spent our childhood "playing outside until the street lights came on."
We did play outside and we did play on our own.
There was no little league.
There was no city playground for kids.
To play in the water, we turned the fire hydrants on and ran through the spray or jumped in a creek or river.
The lack of television in our early years meant, for most of us, that we had little real understanding of what the world was like. Our Saturday afternoons, if at the movies, gave us newsreels of the war and the holocaust sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.
Telephones were one to a house, often shared and hung on the wall.
Computers were called calculators and were hand cranked; typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.
The ‘internet’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that didn’t exist.
Newspapers and magazines were written mostly for adults.
We are the last group who had to find out for ourselves.
As we grew up, the country was exploding with growth.
The G.I. Bill gave returning veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow.
VA loans fanned a housing boom.
Pent up demand coupled with new installment payment plans put factories to work.
New highways would bring jobs and mobility.
The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.
In the late 40s and early 50's the country seemed to lie in the embrace of brisk but quiet order as it gave birth to its new middle class (which became known as ‘Baby Boomers’).
The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands of stations
The telephone started to become a common method of communications and "Faxes" sent hard copy around the world.
Our parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.
We weren’t neglected by our parents but we weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus. They were glad we played by ourselves ‘ until the street lights came on’ or supper was called. They were busy discovering the post war world.
Most of us had no life plan, but with the unexpected virtue of ignorance and an economic rising tide we simply stepped into the world and started to find out what the world was about.
We entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where we were welcomed. Based on our naïve belief that there was more where this came from, we shaped life as we went.
We enjoyed a luxury; we felt secure in our future.
Of course, just as today, not all Americans shared in this experience just because that is real life.
Depression poverty was deep rooted.
Polio was still a crippler.
The Korean War was a dark presage in the early 50s and by mid-decade school children were ducking under desks.
Russia built the “Iron Curtin” and China became Red China.
Eisenhower sent the first 'advisors' to Vietnam ; and years later, Johnson invented a war there.
Castro set up camp in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power.
We are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no existential threats to our homeland.
We came of age in the 40s and early 50s.
The war was over and the cold war, terrorism, Martin Luther King, civil rights, technological upheaval, “global warming”, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with insistent unease.
Only our generation can remember both a time of apocalyptic war and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty. We have lived through both.
We grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better; not worse.
We are the Silent Generation; 'the last ones.'
The last of us was born in 1942, more than 99.9% of us are either retired or dead; and all of us believe we grew up in the best of times!
---Anonymous
