John's Old Photos 1967-75: College 1967-1974

I had a strange feeling when I left home for college in Bellingham. I was excited but apprehensive about leaving my dog, Shep, in the care of my sister. He had been a close companion of mine since the eighth grade. I loaded my '59 Ford with what I thought would be useful for my new life in a dorm on a campus I had only visited once in a town I did not know. A small typewriter was one item in the car that turned out to be my most valuable possession. The car got me to Bellingham when suddenly it stopped running. It was easier to figure out what the problem was than to find a car parts store. After replacing the gas filter the car ran fine. Though freshmen were not allowed to have a car on campus, I did. I had worked too hard for that car. Leaving Shep home was one thing, but leaving my car was unacceptable.

Even with my high school girlfriend, Laurie, still in Issaquah, I didn't go home often. I spent breaks at home, but not too many weekends. There were several high school classmates on campus but I sensed a need to make a new start with new friends and gain new experiences. I didn't see them often unless they needed a ride home or a ride back to Bellingham on Sunday nights. I immediately fell in love with the campus and campus life. It was easy being away from home.

My first dorm room was in Lower Highland Hall. The ghetto.
It was room #32, right next to the urinals.

I had a crush for the radiant blond and Clairol model, Andrea Dromm. I wrote to Clairol and requested a photograph of her. They sent me an 8 x 10 autographed photo. It is on the top left of my bulletin board in the photo above. I kept that photo for years.

My first roommate was Joe. He was from the nearby Lummi tribe. Joe smoked most of the time. He even smoked in bed. It drove me crazy. I was always aware of his smoke. Joe was a loner. He didn't say much and I never remember him opening a book. He wouldn't hang out with anyone in the dorm. He wouldn't go with me to functions. He made it through the first quarter, but not beyond. When he didn't return for winter quarter, I visited my counselor and asked about Joe. He told me not to expect him back and gave no reason. He also informed me that I had been selected to be Joe's roommate in order to help him through his first year of being off the reservation. Seems I failed. I never saw Joe again.

I had made the freshman mistake of enrolling in an 8:00 am speech class which met twice a week. For my demonstration speech I used my Polaroid camera to show proper camera technique or something like that. You can tell by the photo below how interesting that speech was. I never dressed that nicely for class as the young ladies did in the front row.

Speech 101-8:00 am TTH second floor of Old Main

The back of the photo identifies the front row (left to right):
Kathy, Kathy, and Vicki

At the start of my sophomore year, I had three roommates when I moved to room 113 in Upper Highland Hall. Steve and Butch were from Bellevue and Doug was from Gig Harbor. They were great for my weak study skills. When I would need a break from the books, I would walk to lower campus and to Mattis Hall. I called upon Chris often who I had admired ever since I met her when we were both in high school. She was a cheerleader at Sammamish High and I met her my senior year at a dance in Lake Hills. We remained friends until she married. She now lives nearby on Snoqualmie Ridge. I know that because I had a soccer player who she babysat when he was younger. She put two and two together and through him she made contact with me. She was a great friend at the time.

Doug and Steve in our dorm suite built for four.

My home away from home during my freshman and sophomore years was Highland Hall. Most of my dorm friends were college athletes. Most of them were basketball players. Wit (front row, second from left) had the most charisma of anyone I had met. He was a tremendous basketball player. He was well liked and respected on campus. One evening we took dates to Tunnel Cove on Chuckanut Drive. His date, Mary, fell while descending the trail to the beach. She rolled and thrashed her way through the brush while screaming. Wit and I were discussing something and without missing a beat in the conversation, he said, "We'll pick her up after the next switchback." Sure enough, there she was sitting in the middle of the trail. We helped her up, dusted her off and continued on to the beach.

I remember driving to Vancouver, B.C., with those two and ten minutes across the border Mary declared, "It doesn't look very different," meaning Canada didn't look any different from the States. We all laughed.

I remember going to the Mount Baker movie theatre with a group of friends. One, Gary, had brought along a can of soup and a can opener. Nothing was said about it but it was odd. We sat in the balcony waiting for the movie to start and as the theatre was filling up, Gary began to verbalize a stomach problem. He became louder about his situation. Finally, the movie, The Wild Bunch, began and he continue to be be "sick". He then opened the can of soup and pretended to vomit but merely poured the contents out of the can from the first row of the balcony.

Tim, my future roommate on Henry Street, on far left in back row. Dave, Wit's brother, is far right in back row. Neal, future roommate on Henry Street, on right of Wit.

During my first two years of college, I played soccer. When I left for college, coaches from home pressured me to play football at Western. I deemed myself too small for college ball.

Instead, my first PE class was soccer. I loved it. It was a late class and some of us would stay after and continue playing. The group grew over time until we had enough for a team and our interest in starting a varsity sport grew. We organized a campus dance in order to finance our first team. We eventually played in a league that included Seattle University and the University of Washington. Our first game was against the Dawgs in Husky Stadium. They had just installed new artificial turf in the stadium and we were the first to play a game on it. KOMO TV reported it and announced that it was the first soccer game in the history of the game played on artificial turf. We lost a close game, 0-5.

Western's first men's soccer team.

I am in the back row, fourth from the right.

Fred, second from the left in the front row, ended up teaching and coaching at Lake Washington High School. Our high school soccer teams competed for numerous seasons. He later became a referee and did many of my games. We would talk afterwards and he would offer insight about my team and I would give him advice about his refereeing. It helped. Hard working teammate. Great guy. Good coach. So-so ref.

Laurie's parents allowed her to spend a weekend visiting me during my freshman year. We set her up with Carol, a high school classmate, in the Alpha dorm for the weekend. She rode the bus up and once she was with me I took her everywhere. There was even a dance that Saturday night and we went to it. I always had fun with Laurie. She had such a positive attitude. She was spunky. Nothing ever bothered her. One weekend on a home visit I was taking her home after a spending the day together. We stopped at Sunset Elementary school to walk the grounds. We started to wrestle and we were rolling around in the sand and dirt in the playground (Laurie was tough) when we were startled by a police officer standing over us. He had seen our "fighting" from the road and stopped to investigate. He thought we were in a serious fight. When we both got up laughing he realized we were just roughhousing and he left us alone after double checking with Laurie. During a home visit I missed picking Laurie up at school so she rode the bus home. Her bus drove by me as I sat at a stop sign. Laurie saw me and stood up in her seat and leaned against the window with both palms and her face against the glass. I chuckled as it made me think about the bus scene in the movie The Graduate.

Laurie wearing my old letterman's jacket while I showed her
Chuckanut Drive during her one and only visit to Bellingham.

I used to call Lauire from the one pay phone in the dorm every Sunday night at 8:00 pm. We made it together until her freshman year in Pullman. She called me at the dorm on a weekend to inform me that she and a girlfriend were in a motel room with two guys. That was the last I spoke to Laurie. I never saw her again.

I had noticed this tall, long-haired blond in the dining hall. Somehow I managed to figure out her name and dorm. Maybe Butch or Steve gave me the information since they were both from her high school. I went to her dorm, Kappa, and asked the receptionist if I could speak to Kathy in 406. She called the room and said, "Kathy, you have a guest in the lounge." That was code for a guy is waiting to see you. If they said "visitor" then the person knew it was not someone of interest. Her roommate appeared. I was being checked out and after some small talk she made some excuse for her appearance and then left. Soon after Kathy appeared. I did my best to introduce myself and describe my motives. She was awkward and uncomfortable. She always seemed awkward and uneasy. We dated that weekend. Friday night we went to a movie and Saturday afternoon we drove to Mt. Erie for a picnic lunch. On the way home we stopped at Larrabee State Park and hiked down to Clayton Beach to join a kegger. I had never tasted alcohol until that night. That was my first beer. When I got back to the dorm I noticed that someone had taped a penny on my door with "for your thoughts" written on the tape.

Kathy and I would meet often at a well-lit but seldom used entrance to her dorm. She always wore blue jeans and a blue V neck sweater over what looked to be her brother's shirts. The collars seemed to float above the sweater. I called her "Blue". Kathy and I dated the remainder of the school year and through the summer. She lived in Hunts Point so we saw each other often during the summer. Her dad, a medical doctor, was dying, and I don't remember giving her comfort that summer. We continued dating through the fall and winter quarters. I do remember sitting in the movie theatre with Kathy, watching The Boston Strangler in Seattle. It must have been during winter break.

Then it suddenly stopped. Early spring quarter, we were sitting in my car waiting for her dorm's curfew to approach and discussing our future. We talked marriage. We talked about life together. We talked about meeting other people. We discussed our futures. We decided we were too young for such commitments. We were only 20 years old. We decided to stop dating in order not to fall into the trap. Too young we both agreed. We held each other and we both cried. She got out of the car and walked out of my life. She was a special person in my youth. The two of us were pretty brave to make that decision. She left school at the end of the quarter and never returned to Western.

It was sometime in the early 80's when I was with some friends walking toward Second Avenue in Seattle after a Seahawks' game. It was dark and the sidewalk was crowded with fans doing the same we were: looking to drink some beer. All of a sudden I could smell Kathy's perfume. Someone had walked by us wearing that same perfume. I stopped and looked around and saw a small group of people walking away from me. I approached and sure enough it was Kathy. With everyone in both parties watching, listening, and wondering we engaged in small talk. She was very uncomfortable and still awkward. It was even awkward for me. That was the last time I saw Kathy. Sadly, no photos of Kathy survived.

I was 20 years old in the spring of 1969. Sharon was 19. We met at a kegger. She was wearing straight-legged blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a light brown, suede-like coat. But it was the smile she was wearing that caught my eye.

The two of us did a lot of hiking, backpacking, and traveling. We took one class together at Western which was Accounting 101. We both enjoyed drinking beer with friends. My friends and I would invite Sharon along on Thursday's "Ladies' Night" so she could buy the beer at a cheaper price. She was a good student although I think things came to her easily. She was smart. I had to work at my studies.

We did a lot together. I was living in Highland Hall at the time and working at the Upper Saga Dining Hall running line during the dinner hour and once a month we would strip, wax, and polish the concrete floors. On December 1, 1969, the draft lottery happened the night we were cleaning the floors at Saga. I asked Sharon to watch it for me and report to me when my birthday was drawn. She did. I received 299 which kept me out of the draft. Weeks prior I had received my draft notice. We got our physicals at Sand Point and I remember how cold and distant the people working there were. To them I was nothing. As I sat waiting my turn I watched some guys put bars of soap under their armpits. They thought it would increase their blood pressure and therefore they would fail the physical. I had passed the physical with flying colors. My birthdate meant I was out. No war for me.

Once, Sharon and I went to the movie theatre with a group of friends to watch Easy Rider. There was not an empty seat in the theatre. Was it The Grand Theatre? It was the fall of 1969. The college crowd loved the movie.

I believe Sharon took this photo of me at the Saga Dining Hall

during lunch on a spring Saturday.

The next school year, my junior year, I moved off campus with Neal and Tim to a nice house on Henry Street in north Bellingham. The three of us got along nicely.

L to R: Neal, Tim, and me showing off on Henry Street.

Neal was a starter on the basketball team and I really enjoyed watching him play. He was inspirational. At the beginning of the season he would come home with bloody feet. His socks were soaked in blood as were his shoes. I remember how painful it looked when he peeled his socks off his feet. He was a technology major with a teaching degree.

Neal working on school project related to small engine repair.

I am not sure he ever did get it started.

Tim was a good guy and a great roommate. I think everyone liked him.

He actually did study at times.

I would bet the book Sharon is thumbing through is The History of Man,

which was full of photos of mankind.

Yes, I am wearing a custom made T-shirt Sharon created.

I have no clue where the photo was taken.

Look at that hair and those sideburns.

I only remember her in blue jeans. Odd pants for her.

Does she have a bandage on her left foot? Where is this?

Neal, Tim, and I eventually moved to a larger house with more roommates on Lake Whatcom. I didn't last long there so when Dana transferred from the U of W we got a one-room apartment on High Street. It was horrible. We slept in bunk beds. The bathroom had a shower curtain for a door.

The two of us decided to cut, deliver, and stack cord wood for the summer in Issaquah. We figured that if we sold 200 cords we would have enough money for the next school year if we continued to go to "Dime Night" or "Ladies Night" to drink beer. We sold 164 cords that fall at $25 a cord and $30 a cord if we stacked it. Because we also painted a house we made up for the shortage in cord wood and made enough money to get through the school year. We had purchased an old pickup and reinforced the rear axel with rebar and used it to deliver cord wood throughout the summer to pay for our expenses. Then two weeks prior to school starting we put an ad in the papers and we started getting orders, so many orders that we hired Russ and Steve to drive the rental trucks we used to fill those orders. I always kid Dana that he learned everything about how to run a successful business that summer, rather than in the classroom. Dana, Jill, Sharon, and I spent a great deal of time together that summer.

Dana found a very comfortable place for us on E Street. I enjoyed it there. Jill would come up from the U of W for a weekend or Dana would go to Seattle for the weekend, Sharon would come over, Steve and Judy would show up, and Russ. We had some great times on E Street. We drove the pickup to Henry Street and parked it on a hill. I drained the radiator for the winter but because it was parked on a hill not all of the water drained out. The block cracked. We lost a good friend that winter.

Dana became a very successful businessman.

Sharon eventually moved to Seattle and lived with her sister, Liz, and a friend, Nancy, from Western. She worked at the Federal Trade Commission as a typist. She was using a new machine that was similar to a typewriter but it used magnetic tape to store the text. She could change the sequence of various words or sentences after the lawyers' edits. Wearing nylons created static electricity and would alter the tapes. Great technology for the time period.

Dana got a job in Blaine with a fisherman and he worked long hours during the season. He eventually got his business degree at Western and then transferred to the U of W to earn his masters. The fishing experience must have caught his interest because he owns his own seafood company.

Kem moved in with me on E Street. He had spent two years in the Army and time in Vietnam. Now he was at Western working on his degree. We had been friends since childhood. We spent our weekends hiking and climbing. Sharon was with us when we spent the day hiking to Egg Lake. Normally you can drive the road but because of the previous winter damage it was closed to vehicles. So we walked the ten miles sharing the duties of carrying my pack. Once at the trailhead we found deep snow. We headed back to the car trading off the pack carrying, marking the duties by the mileage posts along the way. When Sharon had the pack, Kem and I would engage her in an intense conversation, distracting her as we neared the next mileage sign. We got her to "miss" several posts. Kem and I enjoyed each other's company.

We rented the house on E Street from the Willises. We called the Mrs. formally "Mrs. Willis" and we called her husband informally, Clarence. Mrs. Willis would at times invite us inside their home and feed us freshly baked goods. Clarence was a big man with strong, large hands that engulfed mine whenever we shook hands. As a youth he worked his way across Canada breaking horses for a living. He landed a job at the Lone Jack Mine which is north of Mt. Baker and just south of the Canadian border. His job was to haul the gold from Lone Jack to Bellingham on horseback via back trails. Once he encountered a body laying across the trail and he walked his horse over the body and continued on his way fearing if he stopped he would be the next victim. Rob was at the University of Washington when I mentioned Clarence's experience with gold mines in the North Cascades. He suggested that I tape an interview with Clarence and send the audio recording and vital information to the University for their historical records. I suppose that interview is lost in some folder somewhere on campus. Clarence and Mrs. Willis were in their nineties when I lived there and still alive when I left Bellingham. Below is Clarence Willis during the interview.

I was behind in graduating on time. I had plenty of excuses. One, redirecting my course work to become a teacher messed up my sequence of classes. The cycle for student teaching had been missed and I had to wait one year. Two, the damn electronics course. I couldn't wrap my head around resistance and ohms. It was dropped the first time to save the GPA and I had to take it again later. Fowler, the instructor, took it easy on me the second time around, I believe. Three, I had also taken on a full time job as a security guard at the ARCO refinery at Cherry Point. I worked in tandem with Fred, who was working on his thesis about a small navel battle in the South Pacific during WWII. We worked from midnight to 8 am. I would get home and shower and change clothes and head to campus for classes. My sleep period was from around 4 pm to 10 pm. My "lunch" at work consisted of two cans of Campells' soup heated up with a half can of water and poured into my thermos. To this day I can not walk by the Campells' selection in a store without turning my head away from the cans. My classes suffered, my social well-being suffered, and my relationship with Sharon suffered. It was the most difficult period in my life.

When I left Bellingham with my degree, I gave the typewriter to Kem. When I arrived home I found my dog, Shep, had passed. I regret not being able to see him one last time.

Sharon and I continued our relationship until the summer of '74. I had returned from escorting my Uncle John and his wife back east so he could see relatives for the last time. While having dinner at a Denny's, Sharon informed me she was moving on in life. I was disappointed but not surprised. Her move to Seattle was too much for our relationship to survive.

It was my first experience on the east coast.

I still have a climbing book she bought for me and wrote s short inscription in it. She dated it December 1980. We must have stayed in touch up until then. Soon after she was married. Looking back I would say she was my best friend during that time. My trusty Volkswagen lasted through my first year of teaching. I traded it in for a new Dodge Tradesman van. My hair lasted about 20 more years.

My first year of teaching in 1974 allowed me to join the school's football coaching staff. I had spent the previous school year as a substitute. At $30 a day, it provided me with enough money for rent and food. It was tough.

L to R: Kip was the head wrestling coach at LWHS. Tom was a college ball player that still has a scar on his back thanks to OJ Simpson's cleats. Gary was our head coach and our mentor. John was our line coach who later became the head coach at Mt. Si. Me, well, I learned something every day at practice. They all helped me formulate my own coaching philosophy.

When I had played soccer in college I had no idea I would coach it at the high school level. Word got around during that first school year that I had played soccer. Several young men approached me and asked me to help them start a soccer team at IHS. I jumped at the opportunity. We had a meeting prior to the season and there were three or four girls attending. One asked, "What about us?" That is how soccer for both boys and girls started at IHS. They practiced together, they ran together, they shared uniforms, and they supported each other at the games. Great memories of those players. Title IX at its finest hour.

We held our first banquet at Lake Chelan State Park during the spring of 1975. We all met for the weekend at the park and played soccer all day in the open field in the warmth of the spring sun. Doug, Susie, and Sharon helped me supervise. We had no problems. Great kids and wonderful memories.

Ron was not only a wonderful assistant coach,

but also a loyal friend.

After 30 years in the classroom I retired. During my last year I was teaching six periods (five is normal) and it wore me out. The seniors that stayed with me during sixth period throughout the year were instrumental in making my last year of teaching a highlight. They helped me get through that last year. Leaving the career with a positive year was important to me. I remember the last class period well. I was saying good-bye to them near the end of sixth period and they stood and applauded me. That moved me. They shook my hand or hugged me and I teared up. They made me feel successful as a mentor, teacher, and coach. I left the profession quietly, merely informing my principal as I was leaving.

The 30 years flew by.

My retirement "cruise" was to Muir Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska.