Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: October 19th, 2013

Well, as I said, Grandpa Sam and the three children moved to Marcus after Grandma Alice died and things went from bad to worse. It was there, though, that pop got interested in sports. It was the only fun thing that he did and the only thing that took his mind off his mother. He was pretty good, too, but his father was against his participating in athletics because he was afraid pop would hurt his fingers for the violin. Consequently, pop did that in secret and after he played, he would sneak in the house and hide in the close until he was all “puffed out” and could come out and see his father. As I said, it was at that time that Aunt Berchion married Uncle Cliff and went to Coos Bay (then Marshfield). A year later, grandpa gave up and shipped the other two down to the Perrys. So, pop went there and turned out for football.
As I said he was an excellent athlete. He started out on last string but by the first came was on the second string and by the second game was on the first string. Years later, the team had a reunion and their old coach, Fred Osborne, who later moved to Corvallis and has the aquatics center named after him, came as well and he was in a wheel chair. He reached up and grabbed pop by the ear. Pop in the meantime had put on a bit of weight and Coach Osborne said, “My old speedster, my old speedster, what happened to you?” Football in those years was different. You played sixty minutes, substitution like it is today was not allowed, the quarterback called the plays and the captain met with the referee and decided on the penalties. The game was different, too. You had something called the flying wedge which was eventually outlawed and where the ball went down, that is where the next play started. If you went out of bounds, the referee stepped one yard in and the play started from there.

Hazing was a problem in those days as well. The first thing they did with pop was to kidnap him and two other boys, strip them naked, drive out to the beach past Charleston, left them with shoes and socks, and told them where they could find their clothes, and dumped them. When they finally made it back to Coos Bay, it was late at night and they found their clothes all died in knots and soaked in water on some old lady’s porch. At the time, everybody laughed and said that boys will be boys. Halloween was different, too. You did not worry about the treats, but right away got down to the tricks which meant random acts of vandalism. One of the “fun things” to do was to go knock down everybody’s stacks of wood. In those days, everybody had wood stoves. Also, another favorite was to knock over the outhouses. Nobody had indoor plumbing then. However, one fellow, the meanest man in town lived on a hill and the kids loved to knock his outhouse down the hill, so he put out a rope and fixed it so that when the kids knocked over the outhouse, the rope came up and pulled them into the well. Everybody laughed at that one, too.

Pop was a poor student there. He was a star athlete, but studying was not his thing. He was thrown out of the Latin class, he and a friend of his. He thought that the chemistry teacher was the toughest and meanest man in the world. His name was Mr. Queen and later Don Megale and the other athletes agreed with that. For a while he held the count record for the hundred yard dash and 10.6 seconds. The tracks in those years were primitive so this was a good time. Actually, his sons and daughters were all athletically inclined so we all inherited that. I do not know how we would have compared with him. I do know that years later when Don Megale came in second in the state in tennis, he took Don over to Mingus Park and beat him and that was without practice. I remember, too, after we first got our tennis court, that he hit a drive down my alley and it hit me in the head and really made my head spin. So, he was good. I remember, too, that Bob and I loved to play. Initially, I was better than he was, but after we got into High School, he was better than I was in everything. Bob was good. He was also good looking. I remember when I took the bus to high school, there were two cute girls that I wanted to get to know but they would not give me the time of day. Then Bob got on the bus when he started to high school and they both ran up to me and said, “Introduce us to your brother.” So, I did. Bob was really good looking, but he would not give them the time of day. On the other hand, I think we can all agree that nobody was cooler than Big John. Big John was really cool. But I am ahead of myself.

Pop was two years at Marshfield and he loved it. One of the friends that he made was Fred Owens and they remained in contact for the rest of their lives. Then one day, grandpa appeared on the scene and said to pop and Noma, come on, we are heading back to Marcus, back home. Aunt Noma just said, no, she was not going with him, she had met a good looking boy that she wanted to marry. He was of Swedish descent and a good carpenter. He was also a legendary drinker. But Aunt Noma was adamant, she was going to marry Lester Davidson and that was that. So she did and pop and grandpa headed back to Marcus.

To be continued.