Reclusive and reluctant: Skipping the reunion

     I did not attend my high school class' 50-year reunion last weekend.
     Considering how much that class, that group of people, and that school meant to me -- as I said in a blog piece last week -- my absence might surprise my regular readers ... as it surprised the Woodlawn people who knew me over the years.
     Or thought they knew me. I tried to hint at it in that blog -- reunions and sports banquets are off my agenda ... for now. I have passed on a half dozen in the past couple of years.
     Why? It's complicated, and I will try to explain. But I am not apologizing, nor -- and I stress this -- am I asking for sympathy or attention. Please, please, do not post "you were missed" or any other such message in reply to this.
      Don't need it, don't want it.
      Which partly is the reason I didn't go to the reunion: I didn't need it. Can't say I didn't want it because so many of the Woodlawn students, teachers and supporters are still good friends; some are great friends. Loved them then, love them now.
      Maybe I love them too much. Maybe I'm too sentimental or emotional about those times.
      There are lots of reasons I didn't go, and some -- most -- are personal. Don't want to get into all of that. I want to be clear on this, though: It has very little to do with the many, many good people of my past.
       Sports banquets are out because (1) I went to so many early in my sportswriting days that I've done my time and (2) they take too darned long.
       Reunions are not for everyone; some people feel out of place, or uncomfortable. And that discomfort is how I felt after the past couple of reunions.
       Had nothing to do with the reunion organizers. Every time I've been to a Woodlawn reunion, they have been well-organized -- it's not easy -- and I heard and read that the one this past Friday-Saturday was the best our Class of '65 has had.
      If I remember correctly, I was on the organizing committee for our first reunion, in 1975, and helped some on the 1985 reunion. Skipped one or two -- lived too far away or the timing wasn't right -- but in 2001, I was an organizer of the 1960s Woodlawn Football Reunion ... and that was a grand couple of nights.
       I wanted to attend those reunions. But the thrill of it mostly has gone for me, 50 years after graduation. That's not my world now. 
       (Nor have I gone back for The Shreveport Times' Oldtimers luncheons or any Louisiana Sports Writers Association/Hall of Fame activities, and I've been invited.)
       A year or two ago I told one Woodlawn friend that I was cutting back on reunions; I don't think he believed me. Another friend, telling me about a reunion in Bossier City a few weeks ago, said I would have enjoyed it and said someone said I would have been there "if it was a Woodlawn thing."
      Not so.
      Don't have the want-to. People know I like talking about the past and, certainly, if you've seen the blog pieces, I like writing about them. From the feedback I receive, the nostalgic pieces are popular.
       But we don't like traveling as much any more, unless there are grandkids at the destination. Don't like driving much any more, not even in town and not at night. And this would have been an eight-hour round trip by myself because Bea wasn't interested.
       I made that trip to Shreveport-Bossier by myself in April to speak at the Holocaust Remembrance Service because Bea, who wanted to go, couldn't then.
      We have plenty of trips to Shreveport-Bossier we'll need to make in the next several years as older friends -- some friends of my parents -- leave us. So I felt that to make this trip was frivolous.
       But on the reunions ... here is perhaps the main reason I found it tough to go this time: I come away from them feeling so sentimental, it's almost a sad or depressed feeling.
       I can't explain it. I know people think I'm kind of crazy anyway and unpredictable, but I said 30 years ago in a column before the 1985 event that the reunions leave me with a bittersweet feeling. Sweet to see those people again; bitter because it's only a few minutes here and there; it seems superficial and fleeting to me.
      I know that I came away from the reunions, and it didn't feel great.
      So I ask, do other people feel that way? Or am I an exception here? Am I turning into a recluse? Do I need a mental exam about this? (Don't answer that. I know I need that about other matters.)
       I'm not a recluse; still enjoy being around people. I see friends from the past in one-on-one meetings or in a small group. Do it quite often for lunch or, unfortunately, at recent funerals.
       I have a pretty good memory of events and individuals, and I don't mind spending a short time rehashing the old days. But -- and I have written this several times -- I don't want to live in the past; I'm much more about today.
      Some of my past I'd be happy to forget. But I relish a lot of it; I just don't want stay there, re-tell it or hear it retold for very long. The stories are too old.
      I have enjoyed seeing the pictures from this reunion, but even then at times it made me feel a little down when I look at how much some people have aged or changed. With others, it's remarkable how little they've changed ... and that's great. I have changed physically and mentally, but I'm OK with that. I'm at a good time in life.
      I fought hard with myself about this reunion; I'm still fighting as I write this. My heart said go; my head, remembering the depressive aftermath, said no.
      I gave it a heartfelt effort in my blog about the Class of '65 last week. I don't need face-to-face time with people to stay connected; I don't share everything in my life, but I am out there a lot on my blog, Facebook and by e-mail.
      Saw where one person on Facebook commented, " ... Our time at Woodlawn was very special. Can we go back?"
       No, we can't go back, except for one weekend every five years (or more if you are invited and choose to attend other classes' reunions). So the "Once a Knight, Always a Knight" sentiment remains, always, but this year those nights weren't right for this Knight.                


A 50-year journey: Woodlawn to now

      My old friends -- and we are old, no longer middle-age -- will be getting together Friday and Saturday in Shreveport for the Woodlawn High School Class of 1965 50-year reunion.
      I loved all those '60s classes at WHS, but this is my favorite class, of course. It's my class.
      The past two years, as the classes of '63 and '64 held their 50-year reunions and invited members of other classes, I wrote blog pieces about those days at Woodlawn (see links below). 
      In short, we loved that place and those days -- it was a special time -- but Woodlawn isn't the same, hasn't been for decades, and neither are we.
      Because I am cutting back on attending reunions -- I did not make the previous two -- and sports banquets, this is the last reunion piece I'm planning for a long while.
      Unfortunately, there are more and more memorial services and funerals to attend these days. As my wife pointed out last week, what we have to look forward to is aging and dying.
      Can't do much about the aging process, except handle it mentally and try to do the right things to stay well physically. But when people suggest that I haven't changed much in 50 years, here is my answer: bull (shortened version).
       All I have to do is look in the mirror. As for attitude and approach to life, I've also changed quite a bit. It's not just only a sports-minded world anymore; my social and political views are expanded and probably not what the great majority of my classmates want to hear.
       So it is a long way from Sunset Acres, Oak Terrace and the new school on Wyngate Drive in the Sherwood Park neighborhood ... and the Knights of old.
       But it's sweet memories, and good friends -- some of them for 55-60 years, about 10 that I went to school with from fifth grade through college graduation -- and that's what the reunion is about.   

The headline under this photo in the front section of the 1965 Woodlawn
Accolade read: "Two Knights Win All-State Honors" and the cutline
detailed Ken Liberto and Trey Prather's athletic careers. Three years, and
nine or 10 letters for both -- and the manager-statistician who tagged along.

       The Class of '65 is -- for those of us whose '60s world revolved around athletics -- the class of Ken Liberto and Trey Prather. As long as I live, and my mind is well, I will think of those guys. 
       They left us too soon -- Trey, much too soon, less than three years after graduation -- but as we come to this reunion, from a class of 581, we look at the "in memoriam" list, and count at least 101 names, and there are 40-plus on the "missing" (no contact info) list.
       And that's not even counting faculty members. When I think of Woodlawn reunions, the person I most remember is J.W. "Bubba" Cook, assistant principal in the '60s and then principal through the '70s and '80s. He made all the WHS reunions, although I'm not sure how it went when they conflicted with LSU football. Looking at the pictures of our 2010 reunion, there he was ... wearing a Woodlawn blue shirt.
       Among those we lost -- and I don't mean to slight anyone -- in the past year and a half was Tommy Watson, a friendly, tall, lean guy who started at center for our (woeful) basketball team in our senior year, and just a few months ago Pamela Parker (I was her nemesis in our sixth-grade year). She became a college English professor (Dr. Parker), and I probably could have learned some Southern Literature from her.
       We have too many graduates whose spouses have passed away. That's sorrowful, and a recent one really hurt. Billy Laird (Class of '62), WHS' first quarterback/hero and friend for many of us, died in June; just after the '65 graduation, he married our class' Brenda Boyette (Sunset Acres, cheerleader, homecoming queen, yearbook "beauty").
       What's neat is that many of the all-Woodlawn marriages survived the long years; first true loves do last. Some didn't, but at least they gave it a shot.
       I know how I feel; I think other do, too: grateful to still be here after 50 years. We know people with cancer, heart problems, strokes, Parkinson's ... and we are rooting and praying for healing and comfort.
---
       I mention Watson because he laughingly reminded me at our 2010 reunion about something I wrote in a Shreveport Journal sports-page column before our 1985 (20-year) reunion: "We knew Terry Bradshaw when he was a second-string quarterback who sometimes struggled in B-team games."
       Yes, we did. What happened to that Bradshaw kid anyway?
       (In fact, one of the people in our class was Gary Bradshaw, Terry's older brother by a year, and -- like me -- a team manager in football. We also were at Louisiana Tech -- Gary as a trainer, me as a student sports information assistant.)
       In that 1985 column, I named many of the senior athletes and "I'm proud to say they're my friends and my heroes." I still feel that way.
       Beginning with my two years at Sunset Acres Elementary, we all picked up new friends with each step -- junior high, high school and college. I've said it several times, I thank those kids for accepting me and making me feel at home. We had been in the U.S. only 1 1/2 years when we moved to Sunset Acres.
       When I think of the Woodlawn days, I mostly think of the fun we had, the pride we had in that school, strong administrators, teachers that we (mostly) respected and liked, a five-man coaching staff that was outstanding (and people I was honored to come to know as friends), intense and exciting football seasons. Loved the cheerleaders, the pep squad, the pep rallies, the band (I can sing the fight song and alma mater, and it'd be nice hear The Stripper again), and the colors scarlet and royal blue.
       One lasting memory is how many truly smart people we had in our class, in our school. I was smart, if you wanted to know about World Series, NBA and NFL champions or Mickey Mantle's batting averages in 1956 and '57, and important stuff like that.
       Another memory: Woodlawn is where my newspaper/writing career began, with the Herald (school paper) and Accolade (yearbook). Always thankful for that path.
       The world isn't quite the same, as we're not. Much pride as I had in Woodlawn, it doesn't compare to the pride I have in Beatrice, our kids and our grandkids. My classmates must feel that way about their families.
        But Woodlawn, yeah, those were beautiful days. It was the place of our dreams, soon to turn to life's realities. The seniors of '65 are now senior citizens of 68 -- and we've tried to be good citizens. We have that school and especially those people in our hearts forever and ever.
      http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2014/10/its-only-been-50-years-but-memories.html
       http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2013/03/in-1960s-woodlawn-was-our-camelot.html
         (Thanks to Beverly and Mike Harlan for providing the scanned photo of Ken and Trey.)

It's true: Welcome to The City of Byrd

       My Woodlawn friends are going to love this, or maybe not. But this happened, so they should accept it.
       I spent parts of last Saturday afternoon and evening figuratively visiting The City of Byrd -- and it was a good experience.
       OK, I "crashed" the Byrd High School Class of '65 50-year reunion, and no one stopped me. But crashed isn't exactly correct; I was invited. Visited with a couple of dozen old friends -- yes, I had friends over there -- and they did not make me sing We Are The Jackets.
       But I could have; I know the words. Heard them far too often in the 1960s. Same for the Notre Dame Victory March, which also is the Byrd Victory March.
       Actually, I went to school with some of these people when I lived in the Line Avenue area of Shreveport. And I went to Sunday School, religious school, at the Jewish places of worship, and was in the B'nai Zion Temple confirmation class of 1962 with a dozen future Byrd High graduates. By then, I was about to be a Woodlawn Knight.
       On Saturday -- when I drove from Fort Worth a day ahead of my speaking appearance at the annual Shreveport-Bossier Holocaust Remembrance Service -- I was invited to a reunion of those Temple/Byrd High people.
      Ben Sour Jr., my best friend among the Jewish kids from the time we first met in about 1958, organized the reunion. In the 50 years since we all graduated from high school, I had seen only a couple of them.
       The afternoon get-together at a Shreveport restaurant was -- honestly -- exciting. I was happy to see them, and vice versa. Because a few didn't make it, and were in town for the Byrd reunion -- plus I wanted to visit longer with some others -- Ben suggested I also attend the night dinner for the '65 Yellow Jackets at East Ridge Country Club.
       So, a drawing of Jack The Jacket was the only thing guarding the entryway. I joined the Jackets.
---

With my friends Ben Sour, Danny Goldberg, David Goldberg

       I have written this about the Sunset Acres/Oak Terrace/Woodlawn kids of the late 1950s/early
1960s: They welcomed me, and accepted me, and were my friends. They were a big part of my life.
       The same for the Temple kids. I always considered them a classy group, smart kids from good  families, and almost all were much better at and more dedicated to the religious teachings than I was.
       On Saturday, it was hello again to Ben Sour, Roy Adell, Jay Cheatham, Cyrelle Gerson, Robert Levy, Fred Phillips, twins Danny and David Goldberg, Stephen Katz, and Marilyn Meyer.
       I thank them for the friendships and the memories of classes with Mrs. Sylvia Katz and, in our ninth-grade year, the confirmation grind under Rabbi David Lefkowitz Jr.  We were all in it together.
        There is a unique bond with one of the girls in the class, which I will get to at the end of this piece.
         But there also is a bond with four of the guys who were athletes in junior high and then at Byrd -- Fred Phillips, the solidly built offensive guard in football; Danny Goldberg, the tough All-State defensive end; lanky David Goldberg, a starter in basketball; and Jay Cheatham, a good-looking dark-haired, strong All-State outfielder.
         I was a manager for the Oak Terrace and Woodlawn teams that competed against the teams with these guys, but I didn't root against my friends. I was proud of the Jewish kids.
         Didn't like losing to them, though, and as Danny Goldberg kept reminding me, "You guys didn't beat us in anything."
         Well, it's true. Woodlawn was 0-3 vs. Byrd in football in my high school years. And, as I've written previously, it was a bitter rivalry. That was the game each year in Shreveport-Bossier; crowds of 20,000-plus.
          One of my friends who played football said to me a couple of years ago that he "played terrible against Byrd; I always regretted that." I had to laugh at that; it's a little late for lament. Believe me, I got over the losses years ago.
           In basketball, after going 0-for-almost four seasons against Byrd, we routed them in my senior year -- one of our four wins (in 25 games) that season when one of my best friends, Ken Liberto, scored 37 points, hitting 19 free throws. That was in 19 attempts.
          And in baseball, best I can remember, we won six of eight games vs. Byrd in three years. So we didn't lose in everything.
          But, yes, Byrd was king in football those years, district champion twice and robbed of a chance for three in a row.
          Then, too, Woodlawn did quite well in football after we graduated -- five consecutive wins (all of them one-sided) against Byrd from '65 to '69, five district titles in a row, one state championship and six trips to the state semifinals in a 14-year period (1965-78).
           Byrd in that time: no district titles, no semifinals.
           I think the Woodlawn people can feel OK about the '60s and '70s. Besides, we also had a great school.
---
          I always loved the history of the older schools in Shreveport-Bossier, the tradition -- whether it was Byrd, Fair Park, Bossier or St. John's (later Jesuit, now Loyola College Prep), Booker T. Washington. Once I became a sportswriter, it was a treat to go to the schools and visit.
          I was a fan of all of them, and now I have friends from all the schools in the area.
          My opinion: Byrd remains Shreveport-Bossier's "star" school -- the best academics, some of the best athletics. It was certainly that way in the 1960s. Those people at Saturday night's reunion have reason to be proud.
          All the schools were terrific then, but Byrd probably is the closest to what it was then. Its magnet-school program and its active alumni base have kept it that way, and they are updating the building and grounds, which have been there since the school's first year (1926).
          Here was one of the fun parts for me Saturday night -- not only seeing the Temple kids, but also talking with others who were athletes.
          There were old friends from baseball such as James Gillespie, who looks young enough to still pitch nine innings, and Glenn Theis; and some football players who I'd seen play but had never met -- Gene Hunt, the inspirational quarterback; Robert Pirtle; Bill Erwin, a tremendous all-around athlete in junior high and high school; and Joe Walker, who (as I told him) I considered the unsung hero of the team, a big-play guy at receiver and cornerback.
          Two other longtime friends from that Byrd Class of  '65: pitcher-turned-umpire/referee Clyde Oliver "T-Willie" Moore and Shreveport Captains owner-operator Taylor F. ("Frosty") Moore.
---

Gene Hunt, still No. 10

        I wrote about Dr. Gene Hunt previously, in relation to the Byrd-Woodlawn rivalry and his opposing QB for two years, Trey Prather.   http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/04/dr-hunt-delivered-for-byrd.html
        Gene gave a rousing speech at the Class of '65 gathering Saturday morning in the Byrd auditorium. That night, as I approached him, he was busy talking to someone and, before I even spoke, he handed me a CD entitled The Sounds of Byrd.
          I didn't even have to ask.  But I did laugh, and I gladly accepted. A few minutes later, I had a nice talk with Gene.
          On the drive home to Fort Worth the next day, I listened to the 30-minute CD, which includes sound bytes from 1964-65 -- football practice with coaches revving up players, the "Go West Day" against Fair Park to end the regular season, tunes from the Byrd band, songs from the choir, skits and cheers from cheerleaders and the pep squad, pep rallies with the principal, J.H. Duncan, firing up the students, the P.A. describing game action while Byrd wrapped up the district title with a 14-0 win against a very good Fair Park team.
           And then the raising of the Victory Flag back at the school, a rousing version of We Are The Jackets (I got chills listening to it, and sang along), the students chanting "We're Number One" (and they were), and then the Byrd alma mater.
           I discovered about a year ago that the We Are The Jackets tune is adapted from the theme song of the movie Giant.
           Listening to the Byrd alma mater -- which the CD narration said has been used since 1943 -- I thought I was hearing Love Me Tender. So when I got home, I did some research.
           Wikipedia says Love Me Tender, written for Elvis Presley for the 1956 movie, "puts new words to a new musical adaptation of the Civil War song Aura Lee, published in 1861. ... It later became popular with college glee clubs and barbershop quartets. It was also sung at the U.S. Military Academy."
            Hey, do you people at Byrd do anything original? Aura Lee, Giant, Notre Dame Victory March ... At least -- I think -- the Woodlawn alma mater and fight song were original compositions by our first band director, Richard Jennings.
            But, look, I loved the CD. We are the Jackets -- best of all!
---
            There was one more reunion within the reunion for me. Ben Sour happened to mention the name Stan Gove. When he did, I almost jumped. Stan graduated in the Byrd Class of '65, but in 1957-59, when we moved to Sunset Acres, he and his family lived just across the street from us. I jumped their back fence hundreds of times to get to the Sunset Acres Elementary playground.
            We were friends and playing companions; he was in my sixth-grade class. So to see Stan -- whose family moved to the Byrd district as we entered junior high -- after all these years was another treat.                      
             Of all the people at the reunion, though, I went back further with one girl -- Marilyn Meyer (married name Kaplan for the past six months). When I saw her Saturday afternoon, the first thing she said was, "I remember in third grade ..."

Marilyn Meyer Kaplan

        On Jan. 12, 1956, the day we arrived by train in Shreveport at 7 a.m.-- after leaving The Netherlands by boat 15 days earlier --  I was enrolled at Line Avenue Elementary School that afternoon. Marilyn was in my classroom that day; she was in my third- and fourth-grade classes, then again for five years in Sunday School.
        She was, as I told her, the smartest girl in the class -- in fact, in any class she was in.  
        Talking about those days was an emotional few minutes for me. I remember how difficult it was to make the adjustment to a foreign place. http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/05/at-first-i-got-in-line.html             
        "You were cute," she said, "and you were small. I was small, too, so I liked that. You ate strange food, and I remember that I was fascinated because you were from a different culture. That's always fascinated me throughout my life and career."
       She also remembered my frustration -- "books slamming and desk-pounding" -- and that "sometimes we liked each other, and sometimes we didn't." And, yes, I remember that, too. But when she apologized for her behavior, there was no need. Because I was not an easy kid to know.
       It's all ancient history now, and the seniors of 1965 -- Byrd, Woodlawn, etc. -- are somewhat ancient. But those of us still here are not history, and for that we're grateful. And I'm grateful that for one night, I hung out in The City of Byrd.
       Danny Goldberg laughingly told me that if I was around for their 60th class reunion, they might award me an honorary degree from Byrd.
       I told him that I have 10 years to think about it. I'm thinking my Woodlawn friends are not going to approve.
             

     
           

        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

It's only been 50 years, but the memories ...

The Woodlawn shield, introduced in the 1963-64
school year, also was the cover for the yearbook.

     Woodlawn High School's Class of '64 will celebrate its 50th reunion Friday and Saturday in Shreveport, with the emphasis on celebrate.
     This is not my class -- the Class of '65's 50th will be next year -- but we all share this sentiment: We're just happy to be here.
     Unfortunately we lose some of our schoolmates every year and that's sad. But we know we're at that point. The planning committee for this reunion, which has done a wonderful job and kept us posted regularly on Facebook, I'm sure will honor the memory of those who are gone.
    The seniors of '64 were our elders, at least by a year, and we learned a lot from them. At least they'd like to think so, and we'll let them. Actually, we were all in it together at Woodlawn in the early to mid-1960s.
     Most of us will agree, it was a heckuva lot of fun, a great time.
     I wrote a blog piece a year-and-a-half ago for the 50th reunion of Woodlawn's Class of '63 and called the school "our Camelot."
 http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2013/03/in-1960s-woodlawn-was-our-camelot.html
     So let's take another nostalgic trip to the Class of '64's senior year: 1963-64.
---
     It was memorable, on a national scale, for three notable events: (1) the Kennedy assassination; (2) the Beatles coming to America, and that first TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show; (3) only 16 days after the Beatles' Sullivan debut, one of sports' greatest upsets -- a young, loudmouth Cassius Clay becoming the world heavyweight champion by shocking "unbeatable" Sonny Liston.
     I have written blog pieces on each of those happenings.
     For many of us at Woodlawn, the memory of the day JFK was shot in Dallas is tied to New Orleans. We were already there, the football players, coaches and managers, for a state playoff game; cheerleaders, pep squad, band members and fans were probably on the road to the game.
     What we tend to forget all these years later, because Kennedy became a martyr of sorts, is that in the South, in our area, maybe at Woodlawn, he was not a popular President. In truth, many were not fond of him or his policies, his liberal viewpoint.
     And, well, his successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson -- LBJ -- might've been even less popular, and he was from next-door Texas.
     The Beatles, as I've written, is what everyone at school was talking about on the Monday after we first saw them live. Their sound was so fresh, so lively; it was like the moon landing of rock and roll. Only Elvis' TV debut seven years earlier could compare.
     We really had no idea how huge Beatlemania would become, and how 50 years later, it still has a grip on us and the whole world.
     Maybe Clay's victory against Liston doesn't rank with the other two events, but then he became Muhammad Ali, and I dare say -- and you don't have to like him -- that no athlete of our lifetime has had a bigger impact world-wide. OK, maybe Michael Jordan. Maybe.
 ---
     The Woodlawn kids of 1963-64 were several years from integrated schools, integrated public facilities, mixed seating in public transportation, from use of drugs, from the feminist movement and Title IX, from color televisions (most of us, anyway), garages at home (carports only, if that), from so many modern conveniences to come (think calculators, remote-control clickers, microwaves, digital watches, etc., etc.)
     And significantly, several years from the Vietnam War. The American "advisors" were already in Vietnam, but the military combat troops would be there in a few years -- and how deeply that would impact us. We lost a treasured friend and popular all-around star athlete, and some other noble ex-Knights in those faraway rice paddies and mine fields. A terrible memory.
     Thanks, too, to the ex-Knights who served over there, and elsewhere, and are here to tell about it. Thanks for service to our country.
     In the early '60s, we wore our hair short, crew cuts were in. Sideburns were not. Well, we did have a few "greasers," in our terminology, throwbacks to the leather jackets and ducktail hairdos of the late 1950s, some of them spoiling for any fight they could find.
     We didn't wear shorts to school, or tennis shoes. We had to wear collared shirts, tucked in.
We did wear white socks, even with dark slacks, sometimes with suits. It looks hilariously wrong in yearbook photos.
     Girls had to wear dresses, no pants. Big hair, teased hair, bleached blonde hair was in. Also, the "bouffant" style, with a flip to it, or a tall beehive. Yeah, we noticed.
     The fads included Bass Weejuns penny loafers, Madras clothing, the Twist in dancing, drag races, "submarine" races.
     We listened to KEEL Radio for the Top 40 and other hits of the day every chance we got. I guess there were country music fans, but not like there would be a decade or two or three later.
     We made regular stops at the Dairy Queen on 70th Street right near the Sunset Acres and Garden Valley neighborhoods, and we had two -- only two -- regular TV stations, KTBS (Channel 3, ABC) and KSLA (Channel 12, CBS), with a third, Texarkana-based KTAL (Channel 6, NBC) just starting to make an impact in Shreveport.
     Don Owen, Al Bolton and a very young Bob Griffin were KSLA's news-weather-sports team. If you wanted network news, it was only 30 minutes -- expanded from 15 just as the school year began. Walter Cronkite (CBS) and the Chet Huntley/David Brinkley team (NBC) were already network anchor superstars.
     The political hero in our area was Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Mr. Conservative. He would have won the Presidential election at Woodlawn. But he was swamped by Johnson in November 1964, as one-sided an election as there had ever been.
     If Goldwater wasn't the hero, Gov. George Wallace -- staunch segregationist -- was. Not at my house.
     The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a steady presence on the television news, leading the fight for civil rights and equality for blacks. As you can imagine, he was not popular at Woodlawn. The protests and scenes of violence toward blacks were shocking sights on our TVs.
     The biggest sports stars were Mickey Mantle, Johnny Unitas, Sandy Koufax, Jim Brown, the Green Bay Packers, the Navy quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner (Roger Staubach), Bill Russell (the Boston Celtics won the NBA title every year with him at center), Wilt Chamberlain, Arnold Palmer and a blond, chubby kid who was taking golf's majors from Arnie's Army -- Jack Nicklaus.
     UCLA won its first NCAA basketball title in the spring of '64 (and nine more in the next 11  years). Australians ruled the tennis world, and the Toronto Maple Leafs still won Stanley Cups (but  who in our area cared any about ice hockey?).
     The Yankees and Dodgers remained baseball's dominant teams, as they had been for almost two decades. I liked that.
     At Woodlawn, our football team -- as noted above -- made the state playoffs, but only thanks to a couple of Byrd High forfeits. An 8-3-1 record wasn't bad, but it was the worst Woodlawn did in a nine-year span.
     We didn't win enough in basketball or baseball to suit me, but as a team manager/statistician for three sports, I loved the guys on those teams, loved the games, and even loved the practices. That was my life. I made so many friends for a lifetime.
      One story I remember was the late-in-the-school year Sunday Magazine feature in The Times on our beautiful, popular senior cheerleader Barbara Norrid (now Shaver). Still have that story in my files.
     If you were a Woodlawn senior, you had to have a class ring (and they weren't cheap). If you were a student, you had to buy a yearbook. I had a special interest in that.
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     It was my first year as co-sports editor of the school yearbook, the Accolade. Lewis Allgood, a recent addition as a Facebook friend, and I agreed that we had a blast sharing the job. We had an All-American rated yearbook, thanks mostly to our advisor, Miss Willa Smith, and our editor, Robbie Ashford (now Chalk). But all the kids on that staff enjoyed the work.
     So did the kids on the school newspaper staff, the Herald. Charlotte Hudson (now Ewing) was our editor and as I looked over the molded bound of that paper a couple of weeks ago, it was an often creative effort. We remember, I think, "The Ballad of Sir Yomas Toungblood," among other gems.
     I was assistant sports editor that year, and -- although I'd had my first bylines in The Shreveport Times in the summer of '63 -- I didn't show any flair or creativity in my stories and "Spotlight on Sports" columns. I would improve some over the years.
     But here is what counted: a friendship. The sports editor that year was a fellow junior, Ray Jackson, who lived right across the street from Woodlawn. We became decent friends and two decades later, our sons played kids baseball in the Bossier City rec leagues.
     Four decades-plus later, we reunited in tough circumstances -- our mothers each were in their final days in a Shreveport rehab/nursing facility. Their obits ran side-by-side in The Times.   
     As I looked back over the Herald papers, I noticed one major error -- and I was not responsible. In an obvious late addition, a story on our playoff game in New Orleans said it was played Dec. 22. No, no, no. The paper came out before that, and of course, it was the day JFK was shot -- Nov. 22. No mention of the assassination.
     (What's more, they cut my column to get in that story. Oh, well. Like I said, my stuff was boring.)
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     I know it will be a fun reunion, and the Class of  '64 has invited members of the few classes before and after that year to attend. Also, some faculty members are alive and active, and part of many Woodlawn reunions. Sadly, one reunion regular -- J.W. "Bubba" Cook, then the assistant principal and later the longtime school principal, the man I called "Mr. Woodlawn" -- is no longer with us. He died just after New Year's Day.
     I won't attend this week; my Saturdays in the fall have another priority  (college football), but I'll be thinking of those Woodlawn kids, of my old friends.
     Because 50 years later, I value what they and the school gave me, a love and a time in my life that remains special. I will borrow the title of a Shreveport magazine piece I wrote on Woodlawn football several years ago: "They were Knights (and days) to remember."