The best friends a guy could have

 I went to two different High Schools in two different states, so naturally I had two sets of best friends.

I started 9th grade at Rancho High School, in North Las Vegas. Back then there were like 4 groups of people who attended Rancho: Base kids; Hispanics & blacks from North Las Vegas; and Mormons, whose parents seemed to work all the support businesses for the tourism/casino businesses that Las Vegas depends on.

My friends at Rancho primarily came from the base, and were split among kids with officer and enlisted Dads.

Greg Madonna lived two doors over on Hogenmiller Circle, on the other side of Michelle Aiken. Dave Curtiss and Mike McKinney lived down at the other end of Manch Manor - both dads were enlisted. Dave, Greg and I knew each other since the end of 8th grade when we all arrived at Jim Bridger Jr. High about the same time.

Greg was probably the most out-going; very adventurous, and always up to do something somewhere, and at any time. Definitely into the latest fashions, haircuts, glasses, etc. First guy I ever saw wear high wasted bell-bottoms with zippers on each side of the front. His Dad bought him this yellow MG, and we had a blast running around in it.

Dave is the guy I consider my best friend growing up. We had an easy going relationship, and just clicked. He was this quiet Oklahoma boy, and very good looking, so all the girls just gravitated to him. It was very easy being his wingman and just enjoy the groups of people we gravitated in and around. He had a white VW bug, played some sports early on, and then lost interest. Probably the best athlete of all of us.

Mike McKinney was a little tow-headed fireplug of a guy. He wasn’t small, but had a small-man’s chip on his shoulder. Lots of ideas on how things should go, and pretty much was the lead guy whenever we did things all together. Very driven. Ended up a Colonel flying F-16s. We’re facebook friends, but I couldn’t tell you what he does now except work out doing crossfit.

We all started out in 9th grade playing sports for either the base or school. Football, soccer, basketball, baseball. I was doing Boy Scouts and band for a time…We all skied, went camping up in the canyon once or twice, but then as social activities became more important, the organized sports kind of faded for most of them. I couldn’t hang with the football guys as a super skinny 130 lbs, so I switched to the base youth teams. Dave played school soccer for a season, I think.

Mostly, we hung out after school and all summer long, stalking girls in the various housing areas around base. No one had any really serious gf’s until probably 11th grade, though we tried hard!

When I moved to Luke AFB outside Phoenix, we got a house in a nearby planned community called Litchfield Park. It was one of those planned communities started in the ‘50s to support Goodyear Tire employees after the War.  We moved in the spring of my Junior year, so the rest of the year was spent pretty much getting to know the lay of the land, how the groups in HS worked, who was in what clique, etc. I gravitated towards the guys in my advanced classes, and the guys on the baseball team as I was able to join the JV team when I arrived. I wasn’t much good, but it was a great way to meet people.

Over the summer I met Don Snyder  who was my main friend for the rest of my time in HS. His dad was an F-104 pilot, I think. They were still teaching the Germans to fly them for air defense, and Luke was a training base. Don was tall, dark-haired, quiet, but intense. We clicked immediately. both being AF kids who had moved around a lot and arrived about the same time. I was actually interested in pro-basketball back then, and we had this fun fascination with the Philadelphia Sixers, and Dr. J, Julius Erving. We ‘d play basketball in Don’s  driveway a lot.

Don’s buddy was Mike Blake, who’s dad was eventually an F-16 Wing Commander at Hill. Great guy, and another 1959 Academy graduate. Mike was a different guy: kind of socially awkward, but incredibly smart, very dry humor, very sarcastic, a walking library of music and pop culture.

In the spring of my Senior year, the three of us went to a party out by the canals; there was beer and lots of people just sitting around talking in groups, sitting on the hoods of cars, the area lit by headlights. I think Don was seeing a girl named Mary Lukasik by then. She was there with some girlfriends, Polly and Susan, and we started talking to them. Spent the whole evening just chatting. Over the course of the next couple weeks, Mike started going out with Polly, and I started going out with Susan, and that became our main social group for the rest of the year.

This is Thanksgiving break of my Freshman year at the Academy. Mike, Don, Polly, me, Susan, Dad, Susan and Sandy

It was a fun couple of months, and those ties we made in just the three months between April and June, last still.

Postscript:
- Dave Curtiss went to school at the University of Reno, became a water chemistry person, and last I heard lives in Knoxville, TN.
- Greg Madonna got his pilot license, but died in a small plane accident in the 90s. Ironically, his dad died in a small plane crash also, just a couple years later.

- Don Snyder got into the AF, probably through NAU’s ROTC program, and became a helicopter pilot. I lost track of him after he left the DC area.
- Mike Blake ended up highly successful in marketing, working for sports teams like the Coyote and Avlanche NHL hockey teams, some Denver botanical garden, and now for a college financial aid company.
- Mary Lukasik became a dentist and married one.
- Polly Pucell became an elementary school teacher, married and has a couple of red-headed kids who look just like her.
- Susan and I lasted about three years long distance, broke up, and when I  graduated, I told my college roommate he should look her up at ASU because he was going to pilot training at Williams AFB, just east of Phoenix. They got married about a year later, and at some point he got out and became a HS math teacher, back in the Litchfield Park area.

Activities I was involved in during High School

 I kept pretty busy all during high school. I think that was one of the positive factors for my getting into the Air Force Academy. I was always busy with something.

In Las Vegas, while I attended Rancho High School, I was involved in the Junior National Honor Society (I was President) and then the National Honor Society, which I continued with when we moved to Arizona. I was on the Student Judiciary, which ran the school elections. All my friends where in the Ski Club, because we took trips up to Brian Head in Utah, and Mt. Charleston to ski, sometimes overnight.

I was in band in Junior High School, and at least in 9th grade, at Rancho, I believe I kept at it. I remember marching in a couple parades. But as I got older, I left band for sports and cars and activities with my buddies.

I participated in Boy Scouts up until 9th or so. I was big into it while I lived in Washington. Loved the camping and all the activities. However, when we got to Nevada, the troop wasn’t very active and by the time High School started, I got distracted out of that too.

My favorite activity was journalism. I joined the school paper as soon as I could, and was the editor of the Rancho school paper, The Rampage, my Junior year, and won an award for best layout by Las Vegas Review-Journal HS Awards competition.

After I moved in the spring of my Junior year (which did not make my Advisor, Ms Smith very happy), I worked on both the school paper and year book staff at Agua Fria for the rest of the time I was there. I loved writing and editing the paper.

We had a great newspaper staff at Agua Fria, with Judy Cunningham serving as the establishment-approved editor, and Mike Murphy as the cutting edge anti-establishment (think Rolling Stone) ranter, and I as the opinion editor mucking things up. Sometimes I was popular for my writing, and sometimes not.

When I was put on the alternate list for the Air Force Academy, my plan for college was to go to Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, major in Journalism, ski, and see if I could join the ROTC program. Obviously the major could have changed depending on what fancied me, but that was the initial plan. I think it would have been interesting to do investigative reporting for a big paper. Might have been fun… but who knows. As it turns out, I never had the chance to wonder much about it.

Sports I played in high school

 Besides the fact that I liked playing sports, my Dad had a rule (at least for me) that I either played sports or got a job. I don’t remember missing too many seasons where I wasn’t involved in one sport or another.

I played base youth league football on Nellis Air Force Base my freshman year. I was selected for the All-star game, and while tackling the QB, got hit in the knee by another defensive player and strained my MCL. I was in a full leg cast for about six weeks. The next year I played JV football at Rancho. I didn’t play the next year, though I did go out for the team. I pretty much got run over because of my size, and the coaches made the decision to do something else, pretty easy. So, back to the base and I played youth soccer with a bunch of friends. When I moved to Phoenix, I went out for the football team my Senior year and made it (#84). I mostly rode the bench, played special teams, and enjoyed the experience. Probably because I was a Senior, the coach let me play defensive end the entire last game. Had some good tackles.

I played basketball one year with the youth league at Nellis, and had fun at that, but I wasn’t really into that sport. The  soccer I played on base actually came in handy later when I played goalie at Squadron Officer’s School.

I played a lot of baseball growing up, but only as a spring or summer sport. Moving around so much, we really did view sports as a way of learning teamwork, athletics, leadership and having fun, not as a hopeful career path. I wasn’t great. I played JV at Agua Fria HS, but didn’t get in games much.

My senior year I went out for the Varsity Baseball team, but was cut; no crushing surprise. Most of the real BB guys played Legion ball and Pony league.  I didn’t even know that stuff existed.

By then I was focused on being in the military and thinking I should stay in shape, so I went to my football wide receiver coach, Coach Gray, who also happened to be the Track coach, and asked to join the track team. I figured I’d run the quarter mile or something and stay in shape. At our first meet, the coach called me over on the bus ride up to Flagstaff and said he needed a High Hurdler. Guess who he had in mind? Clearly he wasn’t concerned about me winning any of the races. I warned him I had no idea how to run hurdles, but he said not to worry and give it my best shot. I did (be the guy who says YES!). I finished my first race basically pushing the last hurdle over to get past it.

But that was my specialty for the rest of the season. I never won a race, but we never forfeited. The benefit for me? I learned something new, and met a couple great people, all hurdlers: Shelly Whit, Paul Batts, and Clint Schwald.

So just say ‘yes.’

The secret life of an American teenager

 I think I was pretty much the stereotypical American teenager of the 1970s. I grew my hair long-ish, wore bell-bottom jeans, listened to pop AM radio, and drove a used VW bug with both an 8-track tape player and a CB radio. 10-4 Good buddy!

I hung out with my friends on the weekends, and cruised Fremont Street in Las Vegas on Friday nights to see if we could meet girls.

I played sports as much as possible, even if I wasn’t good. I loved being on the team and feeling part of something. Baseball, football, soccer, even track. I was in Boy Scouts, and loved it, until there were too many HS distractions to keep my interest. I went to a lot of school dances, at least at Rancho; was in the Ski Club; worked on the Sophomore Class float for the homecoming parade; was in both Junior National Honor Society and National Honor Society. I was the editor of the Rancho HS newspaper as a Junior, and then moved and worked heavily as an assistant editor on both the Agua Fria HS newspaper and yearbook.

As the oldest child, I had the very typical battles with my parents over curfews and grades, even though I was in the top 10% of my class.  There were just high expectations, at least I perceived it that way. As a parent looking back though, that was probably a good thing.

I had a few close friends at both schools;  typically a group of people who were in all the same advanced classes and clubs, or sports teams, who I was comfortable hanging out with.

At the time, just like every other guy, I wished I had a serious girlfriend. I dated occasionally, but I never had a steady girlfriend until the very end of my senior year. And then I left!

In retrospect that was probably just as well. I did date a couple girls (i.e. more than one date), but something usually came up: moving or graduating the main culprits.

All in all, growing up in 70’s on the outskirts of western cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix, life was pretty good.  There was lots to do, and I never felt like I was missing out on anything.

8th grade.

11th grade.