140421 April 21, 2014

Daryl "Alan" Davis

Class of '66

(I received this email, but do not have additional info at this time. The site will be updated with all the information when I receive it.

Steve Cook, LHS '66 just sent me this email.

    Daryl "Alan" Davis, Class of '66, died yesterday in St. Louis. He died of complications from surgery. Alan was a Marine Corp veteran serving a tour in  Viet Nam and was awarded the Purple Heart. He had been retired from the US Government for about 4 years.

    I was proud to call Alan a friend.  We always managed to stay in touch for the past 49 years.

    I met Alan when  I started working at Big Brothers groceries over on Oakwood Ave working for Brenda Bridwell father.

Alan had 2 children, Jennifer and Christoper, and one grandchild, Alana.

    He will be missed. Alan was suppose to have graduated with the class of '65 but I think Spanish held him back.

    As of right now I do not have any more information available as services are still being planned.

Remembering Bonanza

John Drummond

Class of '65

      This week we celebrate "Bonanza", the first TV Western to appear In living color on NBC, who billed itself "The Peacock Network". Aired on Sunday nights, it ran for 14 seasons with a story set in 1859 on The Ponderosa, a 1,000 square-mile ranch between Lake Tahoe to the west and Virginia City to the east  in the Nevada Territory. The series ran for 14 seasons.  

    We all remember the iconic Cartwright family:  patriarch Ben (Lorne Greene),  first son Adam (Pernell Roberts), Hoss (Dan Blocker) and Little Joe (Michael Landon).   Quite a bit different from contemporary TV Westerns, the plots were centered around characters rather than action, though there was plenty of action involving horses, guns, chaste romance and fistfights.

    Female characters sporadically came and promptly went; they suffered what was cynically called "The Cartwright Curse," in that any woman/love interest was usually sick, dead or dying by the time final credits rolled.  Not surprisingly, Little Joe, with his handsome boyish charm, was the Cartwright most often in a relationship (however short-lived) with a lady.

    Pernell Roberts as Adam left the series after Season 6, and new characters were brought in.  Dan Blocker tragically died of a pulmonary embolus following gall bladder surgery after Season 13.  The character of Hoss could never be replaced, and the series was cancelled after Season 14.

    TV Trivia questions:  1)  The Cartwrights employed a Chinese cook/houseman; what was his name?  2)  Pernell Roberts starred in a subsequent medical TV show in the title role; what was the title?  3)  Michael Langdon, in the 1950s long before "Bonanza," starred in the title role of a schlocky black-and-white horror film; what was the name of the film?

Last Week's Gunsmoke TV Answers

    Answers to TV Trivia questions:  On "Gunsmoke" Miss Kitty ran a saloon in Dodge City called "The Long Branch."

    The brother of James Arness was the actor Peter Graves, who appeared in many films and TV shows, but was perhaps best known for his lead role in "Mission Impossible", which aired on Sunday nights.  Each episode would begin with him finding a secretly hidden tape recorder.  The voice message began with: "Your mission, should you decide to accept it...."  and end with: "This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds.  Good Luck, Jim"   The tape would then melt away into a puff of smoke, and the opening credits (with that stirring theme music) would begin.

From the Draft of the

Book I am  Currently Working On

Friday, April 17, 1964

108th Day - 258 days to follow

Clear

Had a pop-test in geometry and an open book test in economics today.  Went to M's, then home.  Paul and I went up to the Ford place and looked at the new Ford Mustangs.  They're great.  Came home then.

Watched Double Dynamite on T.V. then took a nap.  Got dressed and Paul picked me up at 6:45 P.M. and took me to school where I was supposed to usher a play, but didn't.  Three one-act plays were put on: "The Happy Journey," "Sorry, Wrong Number," and "The Still Alarm."  Got out at 8:45 P.M. and Paul and I went up town.  We were going to see Tom Jones but the line was too long.  Rode around awhile then sneaked in 72 Drive In and watched the last half of Some Came Running and all of Green Mansions.  Got out at 12:45 A.M. and came home.

It's 1:00 A.M. now and I must get to bed.  Tired am I.

    Fifty years ago today I saw the first Ford Mustang sitting in the showroom of Woody Anderson Ford and vowed someday I would own one. This was a rare occurrence in the debut of a new car line, since prior to this date I had only known of new models of cars being introduced in the fall. I remember walking into the showroom and seeing the car and hearing it was being called a 1964 ½ model due to the odd timing of its unveiling. Research shows the list price of the first Mustang was $2,368, and of course that was a lot of money to me, but people can dream. I also found on one website the original sales forecasts were projected to be less than 100,000 units for the first year, but that figure was exceeded in the first three months of sales, and 318,000 more were sold for the first model year.  Over one million Mustangs were built in its first 18 months. I remember it was first compared to the out of production original little Thunderbird sports car.

    On this date in 1964 I walked around and sat inside the car and dreamed of the day I would own one myself, but knowing it would probably never happen. The first person I knew who actually owned one was Brenda, one of the classmates I ran around with. She bought hers soon after high school graduation and I never understood how she could afford it, but she did. A friend in college had one as well, and when I first saw I was actually going to graduate and earn my Air Force commission, I had dreams of going to pilot training and purchasing a Shelby GT 500 Mustang, but those plans quickly changed when I got married soon after graduation and failed to earn my pilot wings.

    Marriage was the reason I did not buy my Mustang, and a pending divorce was the reason I finally did. In 1994, while my divorce was awaiting a court date, I was visiting my brother who was a car salesman in Huntsville when I saw a black 25th Anniversary 1990 Ford Mustang sitting on the lot. In one of the darkest times of my life, I decided it was time to keep the promise I made myself on this date in 1964 and buy the car I always said I would own. It did not matter it was made 25 years after the first one I saw. So, I traded in the Ford Tempo that needed replacing anyway, called my credit union, and drove the Mustang back home to be met by a surprised soon-to-be ex-wife. She called it a mid-life crisis car and perhaps it was, but it was a Mustang and it was mine at last.

    Less than a year later I loaned it to a friend when his car was in the shop and while on his way to work he was t-boned by a big rig truck hauling 55,000 pounds of soy beans. He survived the crash but spent two weeks in the hospital. My Mustang did not survive.

    During my search for a replacement form of transportation, I found an even better car to fit my new image as a divorcee. Though it was a year older than the one which had been wrecked, I replaced the totaled 1990 Mustang with a 1989 white convertible. I loved driving around in the convertible and made a promise that no matter how hot or cold it was, I would never miss a month without at least one outing with the top down. It was a promise I kept. One evening on our way home from a Sunset Symphony performance on the Mississippi River, Sue and I were rammed by a car entering the interstate loop. The impact knocked us into the path of an 18-wheeler that sideswiped up and sent us spinning uncontrollably down the expressway. My immediate impression of the spinning and smoke coming from the engine reminded me of the scene in Dr. Strangelove when the B-52 was hit by the surface-to-air missile. We came to rest on the shoulder of the road and we must have had God as our co-pilot, because we were uninjured except a sprung finger from holding onto the steering wheel during the spinning and Sue losing her glasses, which never were found.

    After owning two Mustangs that were totaled by big trucks, I decided I did not want to risk a third flirt with fate, so I did not purchase another one. Throughout the years I have priced many and thought many times of owing one but have never followed that path. That said, just last month on a trip to California I needed to rent a car to drive to San Diego and had reserved a Kia economy car because of the low price and the need for only a one day form of transportation. The rental company did not have an economy car in stock and after several attempts to try to get me to agree to pay for an upgrade, I was given the keys to a 2013 Red Mustang convertible for my journey.  The starting price for that model was $27,200, a big increase from the price of the first one I ever saw.

    Talk about living a dream; driving down the California Interstate with the top down and Beach Boy music blaring from the radio was the ultimate Mustang experience in my mind. The only thing better would be like my college friend who, in retirement, has bought and restored a Mustang like the one he had back in his college days and now wins trophies at car shows around town.

    I will never forget the day I was driving around and came up behind a 1964 ½ Mustang just like the one I had first seen on the showroom floor the first day it was unveiled. I felt the sharp pain of age slap me in the face when I got close enough to see the license plate on its rear. It was a specialty plate stating “Antique Automobile.” I felt my youth draining from me.

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