Alumni Sandstorm ~ 06/24/15 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 7 Bombers sent stuff and Memorial INFO today: Rex HUNT ('53), Steve CARSON ('58) Janet FORBY ('60), Frank WHITESIDE ('63) Jim HAMILTON ('63), Bill SCOTT ('64) David RIVERS ('65) *************************************************************** *************************************************************** BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Craig KING ('71) BOMBER LUNCH: '63 & '64 Girls, 11:30am, Spudnut Shop (Last Wed) BOMBER CALENDAR: Richland Bombers Calendar Click the event you want to know more about. *************************************************************** *************************************************************** >>From: Rex HUNT ('53) Re: Peas I worked the peas summer of '52 & '53. In '52 I started out feeding a pea viner at a small frozen food in Milton-Freewater, OR where the drinking age seemed to be 16 as I bought my first beer over an open bar there. Think I earned $1.35/hour...7/12. In '53, I drove truck for William H. Steen co. hauling peas to the Umatilla canning Co.. again 12 hours a night 7 nights a week. was too hot to sleep in day time so we chased girls at the local park. (never too hot for that). There the pay was $1.42/hour with a 5 cent an hour bonus if you stayed the whole season. Was hard, dirty work... the only fond memories where the girls... Bless their hearts. Oh and College Place, OR. had a 7th Day Adventist college. Religious it may have been but the girls were heavenly. -Rex HUNT ('53) ~ from lovely Hanford, CA where the temps dropped all the way to 98° yesterday. brrrr *************************************************************** *************************************************************** >>From: Steve CARSON (Championship Class of '58) Re: Good memories of working the Pea Harvest on the late '50s Worked the night shift at Rogers cannery in Milton Freewater. 7 to 7, 7 days a week. $1.65/hr. but 4 hrs at per day, time and a half for day 6 and double time for day 7. Had to find our own living space. Dave SHINE ('58), Phil GROFF ('58) and a couple others rented a garage one year and a house in Walla Walla another year. A great experience. Are Richland kids still working the harvest? -Steve CARSON (Championship Class of '58) *************************************************************** *************************************************************** >>From: Janet FORBY Padgett ('60) Re: Class of 1960 - 55 Year Reunion Planning Friday morning, June 26th, 2015, at 11:00 at Rosy's Diner in Richland. Rosy's is located next to the Hampton Inn south of Howard Amon Park. This is an earlier time than previous meetings. We have the $ results of the Yard Sale as well as the costs of preparing and mailing the "skinny notice" of the Dust Storm to the Class of 1960. The attention to details to make our weekend a success will be worked out at this meeting. Join in with this great group of alumni to help make our 55 year gathering a lot of fun. Our theme for Saturday afternoon is "Eat Dessert First". If you can not attend the meeting and you plan to attend the Saturday afternoon reunion event and are available to help in other ways contact me jjpadgett@msn.com "Eat Dessert First" activity, photo, and Class pamphlet can be paid for at the door. Details will follow. -Janet FORBY Padgett ('60) *************************************************************** *************************************************************** >>From: Frank WHITESIDE ('63) To: Tim SMYTH ('62) I saw your article regarding the peas. Just wondering what you told your fellow classmates to have one refer to us as "bad guys." As I recall, we spent most of our time working, sleeping and drinking beer. The long hours were very painful…especially after a 12 hour shift and being assigned to come in early the next day. Day and night became pretty much the same after awhile. Sometimes they broke up the shifts, and I remember taking naps outside of Libby's because it was too much trouble to go back to the "boarding house." I think we made a bit over $2 an hour which seemed pretty good when the minimum wage was $1.25 an hour (in 1963). I remember small Spanish-speaking kids passing the house and taunting us with short phrases that we were sure were curse words although none of us knew for sure. Today I imagine most kids would refuse to do the grueling work that we did. I don't recall any real "entertainment" other than teasing each other and goofing off. QUANE ('63) remembered a lot of the other guys. I think most of us passed each other on the way to and from work on different shifts. I had several jobs. One was operating a big can-dumping machine. Being extremely tired could have resulted in an accident. Luckily, I didn't have any. We had one big kitchen at the house... don't remember what we ate... probably mostly canned goods. Maybe some of the other guys remember some specific events. Tony ('63) and Pitts ('63) may recall a few things. -Frank WHITESIDE ('63) ~ Presently suffering from a lot of very red, itchy fire ant bites... especially on my legs. Down here you really have to watch where you are standing at all times... good thing it was a small mound. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Red ants -- the best reason to NOT garden "down here"... I think they don't bother kids as much as adults... I've seen all three g-kids -- at about age 2 -- get into an ant hill... INITIALLY they cried, but in following days they just play like nothing happened... for some stupid reason, I decided to move my big strawberry planter one day and got bites all over both hands & arms... I'd been watching in the grass for them, but didn't expect them in a planter. -Maren] *************************************************************** *************************************************************** >>From: Jim HAMILTON ('63) Having come from a canned Hormel chili family, I didn't know any better, but the Chili at Spout Springs was the best I'd ever tasted. Maybe the 1.3 million price might be a bargain, if they include the recipe for Pete's chili. I now know better, but it was really tasted good to this eighth grader. -jimbeaux -Jim HAMILTON ('63) *************************************************************** *************************************************************** >>From: Bill SCOTT ('64) Re: Pea Harvest I, too, worked the pea harvest in the early '60s, but unlike others who have written, I worked in Dayton, for Green Giant (or, as it was sometimes referred to, The Green Weenie). My industrious mother, never one to let grass grow beneath MY feet, let me sleep in a few hours after being up all night at the Class of '64's graduation party at the old bowling alley above Howard Amon, then hustled me off, still tired, to Dayton to sign up with the Green Giant. Was I ever scared. From the insular world of Richland deep into a whole different culture, surrounded by Mexican Nationals, as they were referred to, from Texas. If memory serves, Tracy RUPP ('64) and David Miller were there with me. At first, I slept in the ramshackle worker huts near the plant, then "graduated" to a house in town, where I rented a bed on a second-floor landing next to the stairs. I remember some old guy had this scratchy old recording of "Cotton-Eyed Joe" he kept playing. Hard to get a good night's sleep on the landing. Like the rest who wrote, I worked 12-hour shifts seven days a week, but I was fortunate to have day shift. First season worked as a loader operator making $1.25 an hour, then the next summer ('65), graduated to swather tractor driver, making the princely sum of $1.58 an hour. Never made enough money to even talk about there, but it was a valuable lesson in persistence and courage. The swather driver job came about thusly: I was waiting in the early hours at job dispatch when the call went out for a swather driver. "I'll go," I said. So off they sent me to the field. I arrived, got on the tractor, and began to fumble around. How do I drive this thing? I'd never been on a tractor in my life, and this one had the transmission reversed, since it was operated backwards. The cranky field boss came over and said, "I thought you told dispatch you could drive this thing." "Nah," I said, "I just said I'd come". He gave me the evil eye and stalked off, whereupon I quickly figured out how to drive it. But he never did like me after that. -Bill SCOTT ('64 --- writing as B J Scott) http://www.bjscotthistoricals.wordpress.com http://www.amazon.com/author/billjscott *************************************************************** *************************************************************** >>From: David RIVERS ('65) Re: Oh my Well the sellers of Rooster pills are back at it... now they've got couples in the Bomber Bowl on blankets who don't want to "take time" to take a pill once the "feeling" hits... they are swimming and hot to trot... they are even flying around in parachutes... Now it seems to me, when we were kids it was described as "wild hormones"... and toe fungus... when did toe fungus become such a huge problem... no don't tell me... I don't wanna know... . Reminding you Kats and Kittens that the '65ers are in town again for CDNs... Friday nite at Cecilia BENNETT's for SPECIAL presentations (if you were there for mine you know what I'm talking about... if not I can't spill the beans yet)... and car watching kitty corner from the Uptown ... Saturday nite we'll gather at Myra WEIHERMILLER'S ('67) for more festivities... Can't wait to see what car Roger GRESS ('61) brings (that's a friendly joke Roger!) for CDNs... plenty to keep us all busy and running for the whole weekend... I will try and find out what the date is for MLW's ('63) "Housewives of Orange County"... Doug HAWKINS ('62) and I will finally meet face to face after all these years... don't be a sit-at-home... Be there! You can call me for addresses if ya ain't got 'em! -David RIVERS ('65) *************************************************************** *************************************************************** NOT a Memorial - only INFO today Re: Leo HANNAN ('47-RIP) from the Legacy.com website: A military service will be held today, at 3pm, at the Ft. Richardson National Cemetery (JBER/Richardson exit off the Glenn Hwy). There will also be a Celebration of Life reception at the Bayshore Club House, 3131 Amber Loop in Anchorage, from 6pm to 9pm. *************************************************************** *************************************************************** That's it for today. Please send more. ***************************************************************