John R. Rogers

Faculty Lounge

It's hard to imagine that it existed, but it did: the FACULTY LOUNGE, more commonly known as the "teacher's smoking room."

Located in the first floor hallway on the west side, during class passing time, it was amusing back in the 50s to walk by the faculty lounge and notice the cigarette smoke pour out into the hallway whenever a smoking teacher emerged. Even then I wondered how anyone could possibly breathe in a room so smoke-filled. Certainly no non-smoking teachers could go in there, could they? Where did the non smokers go? Maybe there were no non smokers, being the 1950s when smoking was a common as, dare I say, breathing in the
adult population.

As I recall, when we were freshman, the smoking area was the boiler room. It was very handy for band director Bob Foster, being right next to the band room. Mr. Foster seemed to be a really addicted smoker, had the look of a smoker, even had the tell-tale smell of a smoker and tobacco voice.

Interesting that at the school I taught at, smoking was eventually banned anywhere on campus. In fact, the school district banned smoking ANYWHERE on school district property. Oh, yes, the smoking teachers complained about rights and so on, but our faculty smoking room was tucked away in the telephone/copy room off the teachers' lounge, so that's what precipitated the demand to end smoking privileges. Who would or could make a phone call and breathe the smoke?

Some things about the good old days were not so good. Good riddance to such...faculty smoking lounges. "Light up a Lucky it's light up time!" my eye!

- Wyatt Newman

Disjointed Fragments

Only fragmentary memories remain after writing about big memories of the 1956-1960 Rogers period. Some follow no particular order:

• One-way stairwells
• Broken-field running down the hall to make it to the next class
• The publishing of “Jingle Bell Rock” during Christmas of our sophomore year. I heard this earworm again today
• The song, “Tequila”
• The pass report on the early morning news while getting ready for school during the dark winter. “Stevens pass: light snow; chains required. …”
• Double doors to the auditorium balcony that resembled Paulson Building elevators
• Pep cons with Dick Churchill towering over the proceedings in a band uniform
• The daily bulletin read in homeroom every morning
• “Con this morning. First and second periods cancelled. First lunch will start at …”
• Senator Scoop Jackson talking at a con. I remember looking down, so I was a frosh and it was 1956. He said Communism would fail because they would need to educate their people who would then wake up and smell the coffee. In reality, it took 30 years and was more driven by failed economics.
• Violinist Rubinoff featured at a con in my freshman year. He mentioned his God-given talent, a vane statement that still puts me off
• A Volkswagen Beetle on the stage of the auditorium during a boys' fed meeting. Mr. Russell and another teacher dragged its back end sideways to give us a more favorable view
• Mad Magazine, Alfred E. Neuman, and "What, me worry?"
• Beatniks, coffee houses and Jack Kerouac's, On the Road, and Everett Neuman,
• Sputnik
• Elvis, Pat Boone, Fats Domino, Rick Nelson, Sam Cooke, Chubby Checker, and innumerable others
• Honky Tonk Part II, by Bill Dagett
• The Stroll. The Twist. The Bunny Hop
• Cheerleaders constantly looking sideways at one-another – to maintain alignment, I hope. See an example of in the 1960 Treasure Chest
• The cheerleaders wearing shorts at a game – once – only once
• A free Renault Dauphin if you could find the key -- hints provided once a day on KNEW
• Nice, competent librarians. Haggard study hall “teachers”. Proctors. Hall patrol. Parking patrol. Skids pitching pennies in front the Pirate.
• Standing in front of the NC debate team, at NC, to argue about something that I knew nothing of and cared even less. This was voluntary. Why did I do this? I don’t know. It planted a seed that sprouted 40 years later. The subject was foreign aid. I have recently talked about it in before a group in church.
• The annual Merry-Go-Round game at Memorial Stadium (now Joe Albi Stadium)
• Basketball games at Spokane Coliseum (RIP)
• KNEW, the Four (or Five) Bobs, Frantic Frank, and Ron McDonald. The latter spoke at a vocation day and did a remote at Rogers once. I got him coffee from the teachers’ lounge. The teachers behaved as if I was after a controlled substance. They were not too happy about my violating their sanctum either
• Did you Frantic this Morning?
• The 1956 state basketball tournament in Seattle
• Ray Miller playing superb tennis. It was and is stylish to be a boor on the court. Ray was always cool and usually won
• Meeting kids from other schools at science fairs.  Going to San Diego on a science fair prize in 1959. Speaking to a group in Nelson, B.C. with L.C.'s Skip Lauderbach and a kid from L.C. about our science projects. Staying in the Nelson mayor’s house with the kid from L.C.
• Pushing a tennis ball around the court under the tutelage of “Mabott”
• Arguing the meaning of life with Mr. Coleman. He told me I didn’t exist according to my argument. He was right. I didn’t, but I had fun anyway
• Exchanging small talk with core members of the track team who made one or two trips around the first floor hallway system each morning. I keep in contact with some of them today: Ken Kelling, Wyatt Newman, and Everett Neuman
• Sitting next to valedictorian Dick Mather in home room for four years (Mauget followed Mather alphabetically at Rogers)
• A Mother-Son banquet
• Future Medical Doctors of American club meetings
• The art deco auditorium with its ticket booth (still looking good)
• Glazed brick and tiled construction designed to last ages
• Terra cotta stair treads that were cupped and worn by the time we arrived. Gone now
• Working at W.T. Grants store 404 in downtown Spokane my junior and senior years
• A few poor teachers. Many good teachers. A few great teachers. Hey! They form a bell curve
• Sadly growing apart from some elementary school friends as our personalities fully formed in divergent ways
• Happily gaining new friends discovered at Rogers. Keeping in contact today with the survivors
• Meeting Bob Parry in the third grade, maintaining contact through high school, college, and adulthood. Bob and I live 120 miles apart and had dinner together this week
• Double dating and going to a mixer with a girl, but dancing with others. Shame
• Sadie Hawkins Day
• Visiting Sacred Heart Hospital with the FMDA club
• Inner-tubing the Little Spokane river with Ron Royer, Bob Parry and others during our last week at Rogers

  That’s enough. This ends the Memshot series of 2003.  We will have a new themed series in 2004.

- Ed Mauget