50 years, it's been 50 years

Dennis L. Clay

by Herald Outdoor Writer & DENNIS. L. CLAY
| August 27, 2015 1:45 PM

The Moses Lake High School Great Class of 1965 will hold a class reunion this weekend. This is the big one, the big five zero.

The entrepreneurship class at Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center designed and organized a Facebook page for our class, as part of their studies. It is a closed site, meaning a person must be invited in order to get to the page.

All photos and original messages must also be approved before being allowed on the site. While we realize no Internet site is completely secure, this is our way of making our site as secure as possible.

The entire 1965 yearbook was scanned and placed on the page.

The Facebook page has been wonderful, with 135 members. These are not all classmates, but members of classes before and after ours, along with friends and family members.

The page has allowed us to become reacquainted before the reunion. We have shared stories, photos, newspaper articles and more. This has been somewhat of a pre-reunion without the handshakes and hugs.

Here is an example of the banter taking place on the page.

Merrily Harris: I was thinking this morning, hoping Mr. Calbick is coming to the party. Jim and I met in his geometry class and will be celebrating our 49th wedding anniversary next month. My grade went from a strong B to barely a D! Imagine that!

Larry Major: Yeah, sure! Blame it on Mr. Calbick.

Dayna Dent: I'm sure it had nothing to do with that cute guy you were flirting with.

Sometimes the banter was a bit more on the edge.

Harold Stadshaug: Dennis, a quick question. Is dinner Saturday evening summer casual or business casual?

Mick Pfaff: Good question Harold my man. I would assume that in Moses Lake business casual is still collared shirt and slacks and summer casual is a jockstrap and a cape?

Dennis Clay: I'm going to wear a collared shirt and slacks, but if anyone wants to wear a jockstrap and a cape, I'll have the camera ready. All ties will be burned at the door.

Willis Clark: Good I gave away all my coats and ties years ago.

Dennis Clay: Oh, hey...I will be surprised if any of the females know what atomic bomb was and what it was used for and what we did to an unsuspecting male and a jockstrap from time to time.

Carol Harper: Thanks Harold, almost forgot to pack my cape.

Mary Crane: This makes me glad I'm female!

Harold Stadshaug: Makes me sorry I asked the question!

Carol Harper: Holly smokes, did that hurt.

Reunion events

We will begin with a no-host pizza party at Chico's. I posted an old ad for Chico's when they were still in Westlake. John Walsh said he wanted to have a Chico's pizza when in town.

I told him we had meals planned for Friday and Saturday nights, so when could he go for pizza? It was suggested we have a no-host pizza party on Thursday evening and many classmates changed their arrival dates.

In addition, the Chico's menu was scanned and posted. Classmates were asked if they wanted to order ahead of time, because sometimes it takes two or three hours to get a pizza after ordering. Several have taken advantage of this offer.

Friday night we will have a catered picnic-style dinner at the home of Kris and Bob Chudomelka. Saturday morning we will tour the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center followed by a tour of the high school.

Saturday evening we have planned a class photo, followed by a dinner at Pillar Rock Grill, which will be a formal as we get. We will have a program, a memorial ceremony with photos to honor our classmates who have passed, a bit of history and will honor our veterans.

On Sunday, Kris and Bob has invited any class members who are still in town to head to their house and visit some more. And then the reunion will be over for another five years or so.

The Class of 1965 was and still is a great class. Allow me to reminisce a bit. The limit for rooster pheasants was three. After school or after football practice, we could head for a nearby field and shoot a limit before heading home, because we usually carried our shotguns in the back seat of our vehicle. One year we were allowed to shoot one hen as part of the three-bird limit.

The limit for trout was six pounds and one fish. This seems so odd now, because none of us carried a scale and if we had, wonder how accurate it would be? None of us had heard of a walleye, but we caught many large perch, crappie and bluegill.

Every service station sold waterdogs and white gas. The white gas was used in camping stoves and lanterns. Waterdogs (salamanders) were used as bait for burbot, also known as freshwater ling cod. We fished for them at night near the Lind Coulee Bridge, but it was against the law to have a light of any kind near the water.

One night I brought home five of these fish, which are ugly, but good eating. I didn't want to clean them at 2 a.m., so I placed them in the bath tub with an ample amount of water to keep them alive.

My sister, Denise, was up at 6 and getting ready to take a shower. She opened the shower curtain, saw those ugly fish and let out a five star, grade A scream. Well, I was chewed out for the incident and I didn't even do anything wrong.

The excitement is growing. As Merrily Harris posted two days ago, "I'm so excited about this weekend I can hardly stand it. I feel like a little kid before Christmas."

I feel the same way, Merrily.