Memory Snapshots Beyond the Treasure Chest

John R. Rogers

Pop Quiz

Why do such insignificant events remain in one's memory bank? Maybe it's the unusualness of such events, even if they have no bearing on anything ... just one of those things.

Such is the case of my witnessing an impromptu game of Desk Soccer in the halls of John Rogers High School.

One morning, while joining the liberated

pouring into the first floor east hallway after being liberated by the bell, I particularly remember the door of the Business of Living classroom opening and some guy kicking a desk, one of those one-armed college type desks, into the hall. Others would kick it a few more feet as players would do to a soccer ball. It nearly went all the way down to the typing classroom before (d) above, either

I wonder how that desk ever got back to its proper classroom.

Correct answers to this pop quiz: d and d.

- Wyatt Newman

1957 State Basketball Tournament -- Sort Of

I never went anywhere that Boy Scout troop 42 didn't take me while growing up in Spokane. I only visited Couer d' Alene three times yet could see the higher parts of state line from my house. Seattle may as well have been Paris. Thus I jumped at the chance to board one of the two buses heading to Seattle to the state basketball tournament in 1957.

We departed Rogers on old US 10 sometime after midnight. We were the second bus. The lead bus was one of those bullet-shaped jobs with a medallion on the rear. I had never seen Ritzville, Moses Lake, or Ellensburg. I surveyed them as we whizzed through. I marveled how abruptly the Cascades started  after Cle Elum.  Yup. I'd been well-confined to NE Spokane.

Snow was blown by the plows into drifts higher than the bus. At daybreak we stopped for breakfast at the summit of Snoqualmie Pass. It was in a Bavarian chalet-type building. Today as I drive across that summit, I wonder if any of the present chalets are that one.

We traversed the floating bridge and Renton. Then we arrived in downtown Seattle and de-bussed. I was hooked up with Ron Waldo, a Cooper classmate that lived two blocks from me. We were to stay with one of his cousins that lived on the east side of Lake Union near the University of Washington campus. We didn't know how to use the Seattle transit system, so we started walking, carrying suitcases. It rained, of course. After a couple of miles, we found the house okay.

The rest of the stay is a blur punctuated with concrete memories.

• We walked on floating sidewalks among run-down houseboats on Lake Union
• Seaplanes used Lake Union for an airport
• The NW shore of Lake Union looked industrial. It doesn't today.
• We ran around the University of Washington track at night
• Ron Waldo's cousin was a juvenile delinquent. He took out a street light with one well-placed rock.
• We learned the transit system. There were "Zone Fares" where you put in extra money or you couldn't leave the bus.
• Saw the Incredible Shrinking Man at a movie house downtown.

The aim of trip was to cheer Rogers in the tournament held at the University of Washington . We probably played two games. I attended, but cannot recall who we played or the score. This was my first cut at being sleep-deprived. I tried not to fall asleep while everyone around me was going crazy cheering. I was not to be this tired again until I attended US Army basic training.

Our return was in the morning. Since I'd hung out only with a couple of guys for two days, at least one female classmate looked pretty good to me as we waited for the buses. The trip home was quiet. We arrived in Spokane late at night. I remember one guy (could have been Don Renz) was let off the bus near his home. Lucky guy. I got to walk three miles home from Rogers at night carrying a suitcase.

I was so tired the next morning that I could not make it to school. The day after, I got a red card  just like a class-cutting skid. My mom tangled with Mr. McGown over his declining her written  excuse. He rescinded the red card -- after I walked to the front of every class to get it signed. He was a good guy doing his job.

I supported Rogers in that tournament only by warming a bleacher seat, but I got a lot out of the trip. I found a World out there, and I wanted to see as much of it as possible. My focus was the United States, but I hit a few foreign countries too. The latest was Guatemala last October. Eight states remain to visit.

- Ed Mauget