John R. Rogers

Thanks for Giving Me the Long Distance Run-around, Coach Brown!

I had two goals when I entered Rogers as a skinny freshman in 1956: avoid getting pantsed in the hallway in front of a bunch of girls and being on the football team. I was successful at the first, largely because the rumors were apparently untrue, merely scare stories. However, try as I might, I never came close to being a football hero--thanks, and I mean that seriously, to Coach Fred Brown.

I watched the boys in purple and gold at Shrine games before entering Rogers. I read about fellas like Jack Fanning and Jerry Dormeier. Dormeier was the varsity team center. One day, I saw him enter the cafeteria in his letter sweater with the Big R on it, flattop, scrubby-clean. He was my first role model. I wanted to be the next Jerry Dormeier.

So, in pursuit of my dreams, I tried out that first fall for the frosh squad, Coach Larry Coleman, presiding. He had us to wind sprints among other things, complimenting me on my speed. I thought I was in. Then, about the third day of practice, he called a small group of us guys into a huddle, gave us a little speech, not a word of which I remember other than we were told to turn in our uniforms, shoulder pads and all.

I was crushed. I walked the whole mile home (no, it wasn't snowing and the weather was early-Fall, Spokane nice) with misty eyes--heck, I was only 15, so I was probably bawling.

But not to be daunted! Mustering my Finnish spirit of "sisu," I thought I'd try harder my sophomore year to make the team. Rogers had a neat system to avoid the dreaded PE classes: turn out for a sport, and all we had to do was report to study hall instead, an easy hour with time to do math and such and just stay out of trouble with the proctors. Get our PE teacher to approve our going out for a team in lieu of attending PE class by signing the permission slip, and we were free from having to dress down and shower in the middle of the school day.

I walked into Coach Fred Brown's office in the locker room and asked him to sign me out, telling him I was going out for football. In his drill sergeant style, he looked me over, sizing me up, with his usual stern, unsmiling look, and asked, "Did you make the team last year?" "No," I mumbled, and I probably said a few words to assure him I could do it this year. But I couldn't fool Coach Brown. He, being the varsity football coach, knew on sight if one had a future with pigskin athletics. "How about cross country?" he asked. Before I could say anything, not even knowing what cross country really was, he signed my card, which meant I was drafted into cross country, told me where they met for practice, and the rest was, as they say, (one of my favorite clichés, being a career history teacher) "history."

So I showed up for the first practice, which met outside the locker room near the ball field. Coach Tracy Walters gave us a welcoming pep talk of some sort. Cross country guys were smaller and thinner than football players, so I felt I fit in, being skinny enough to pose for one of those Charles Atlas ads as a pre-enrollee in his fitness swindle program, as seen in the back pages of comic books I read in my one-digit-aged years.

Coach Walters sent us off on our first run through the neighborhoods south of the school. It was hot. I knew not what the course was, but followed everyone the other guys, trying to keep up. I don't recall really liking it, but I did like the guys, especially a kid I'd met in drama class the year before, Ken Kelling, his brothers and his future brother-in-law.

I was never that good in cross country. I didn't get my letter until my senior year. In cross country, only the first five across the finish line score, out of the seven on the team. I never scored. I was one of those also-rans, you know the type, the ones that bystanders say "good job" when you finish, apparently being applauded merely for finishing--not really an accomplishment in my book.

But here I am, only three years from a half-century later, still puttin' along on the streets. If I'd been out for football, who knows--I might have bummed up a knee for life, like a lot of former football players I know. Football is not a life sport to participate in. Running can be, as much as golf or tennis, if one keeps modest goals and can manage to stay healthy.

Fred Brown's words, "Why don't you go out for cross country," had enormous influence on my life. Interesting that last week after my doctor had finished with my annual physical, as he was leaving the examination room, his last words to me were, "Keep on running."

Heck yes!

- Wyatt Newman

Mary S. Parry

My first mate among first mates is Mary Parry, hands down. She's alive and doing well for an octogenarian. Who is Mary Parry? Was she a teacher at Rogers?

Technically, she WAS one of our teachers. She was a home economics teacher in School District 81, but for a while she was a substitute teacher. I had her for as study hall substitute for Mrs. Schmidt in the old cafeteria, so you might say she was my teacher one day in 1956 or 1957. Remember how Mrs. Schmidt would wallop the podium with her gavel? Mary showed up that substitution day to find the desk blotter marked, "Warning! Explosive! Do not hit!" Mary appreciates good humor. I think she took the blotter home. If she did, she still has it, because her home is a museum.

Mary is classmate Bob Parry's mother. She is also a second mother to me. I come from a semi-dysfunctional family, so Mary fills in. Last month she (nicely) called me on the carpet for not visiting my brother more in Spokane. I suspect she also wanted me to visit her. I like that she would call me to try to get me to come to Spokane this summer. You see, no finer person walks this Earth. She's also funny. A few words of background follow.

Mary tells a story about substituting in a Rogers algebra class. Remember, she was a home economics teacher. She was apprehensive because of the subject being math and the fact that Dick Mather was in class. His reputation preceded him as a straight-A student, and future valedictorian. As Mary tells it, "Sure enough, my worst nightmare comes true. Mather walks up to the desk with an open algebra book in his hand. He asks his question. Miracle of miracles, I know the answer! I am so proud!"

So why does Mary and deceased husband Warren (nicknamed "Parry") mean so much to me? Read a partial list:

• They fed me countless meals. I was eating okay at home, but the family atmosphere was better at the Parrys. I think she wanted to fatten my skinny self up. Worked. I'm on Weight Watchers now.
• They took me to innumerable Spokane Flyers Hockey games.
• Parry gave me, and others, a ride to Rogers any morning I showed up at their house. Mary was the instigator.
• Mary gave me a ride home anytime I showed up at Whitman when she was teaching there.
• Mary still sends me a humorous birthday card EVERY year without fail (I do not merit this as I do not know her birthday). Those cards are funny!
• Bob and I were science geeks. Mary signed for hazardous materials so we could blow ourselves up. Maybe Mary was being too helpful, but her heart was in the right place.
• She sewed a pouch for a huge slingshot so Bob and I could shoot water balloons three blocks from the top of their garage. Same comments as previous item.
• The Parrys took me to Geiger when I went out into the World to seek my fortune.
• Mary embezzled money out of the family coffers to help me through college in Michigan. Can you believe it? This really means a lot to me.
• Mary got her mother to loan me more money to further help me through college. I benefited. I got the degree. I hope her mother benefited from the interest too.

Read on.

One day my own mother died. Carey, my sister Luanne, and I descended on Spokane for the funeral. We stayed in a hotel near downtown. We visited Mary and gave her some of the funeral flowers. She told me that we didn't ever need to stay in a motel in Spokane. Instead, we  should stay in her deceased mother's house next door to her. Within 18 months I was doing just that during my father's funeral.

I return to Spokane every year, staying in that house (alas, missed last year and this summer looks iffy), Mary's only requirement is that I let her treat me to breakfast or some other restaurant meal each day. Can you believe that? She wants to do something for me as a requirement for staying in her house!

There is a slight downside to staying in Mary's mother's house. Remember I said that Mary virtually runs a museum? Two actually. When Parry died, she filled her time by making dolls. Hundreds of them. When I wake up in the morning in that house, there are many many sets eyes looking at me. There are even two full-sized mannequins in the living room that gave me quite a start when I got up in the night during the first couple of stays.

• Three years ago Mary spent the night at our house here in Durham, NC. I consider this an honor.
• Mary has befriended my wife Carey, saying that she regards Carey as a daughter. This is also an honor.
• Every time I leave Mary's house, she sends a doll home with me.

Thanks to Mary, our own house also has extra little eyes. Carey, a craftsperson,  dresses the dolls in doll clothes she made. At Christmas, they get capes and muffs. Mary noticed the new duds when she visited our home. Since then, I get only nude dolls and a chuckle from Mary, because "Carey just makes new clothes for them anyway."

Today, Mary still lives alone, near Minnehaha park. She turned in her car keys a couple of years ago, so she is a virtual shut-in. I worry about her getting enough groceries in the house. Her eyesight is failing. She loves visitors because then she can go out to a restaurant with them. I'm trying to find a hole in my schedule to spend a week at her place in Spokane. Currently Bob and Pat Parry are visiting Mary without me, her phone call to me not withstanding.

Mary, I hope you read this. You are the best.

-Ed Mauget