Some money going to a good cause - SWCS

Whitey Lindquist and Tom Priester
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

JAMESTOWN, New York - If the guys in this photo look familar, well, they should, just add a few years.

On the left is Tom Priester and the right Whitey Lindquist (SWCS Class of '60).

Tom we all remember from his days of being a P.E. teacher and coach at SWCS (the butt of many jokes, as he taught girls P.E. in a time when women taught women and men taught men).

Whitey, I believe, ran a Mobil station at the four corners in Lakewood, getting a good share of the money I earned when I was about 18-20 because my cars (first a Triumph Spitfire, then a Ford Mustang) were perpetually in need of repair.

And Whitey had the best - nearly only - place to go. At least it was a place close enough to push my car(s) when they wouldn't run.

The check being passed from Whitey to Tom is not hush money or a payoff from some bet they had on the 1966 World Series. It's from an alumni golf tournament. Tom says the money is slated to go for a wireless computer lab for the middle school, with the funds routed through the Southwestern School Education Foundation project.

Tom is very involved - in fact maybe he's the Big Kahuna - with the foundation and will likely be at our reunion next year, in part to let us have more fun at his expense (remember the shower scene in the Senior Days skit with Chris Henderson playing Tom, with a blindfold on ONE eye). But he will also be there to put the arm on us for the SWCS Foundation which is just getting underway and needs support.

In case you can't wait to make a donation, you can email Tom now at:
tpriester@stny.rr.com.

I've already agreed to buy one of the bricks saved from demolition of Lakewood Elementary School, bricks Tom mentioned in an earlier email that the foundation is somehow going to use to raise money.

Now I'll have two bricks, thanks to Bud Hooper going by and bagging me one, too, when the school was tumbling. I am now officially relieved of the label my mother frequently attached to me when I did something particularly stupid or dangerous. (How often was that, well...?)

Can you see the joke I'm setting up here? Maybe the expression grew out of her Brooklyn years? She had so many.

OK. If my mom were still alive, I would tell, her, "See, 'I'm no longer two bricks short of full load...'"

She would laugh - she loved a good pun - then probably tell me I needed a lot more than two bricks to get even with the kind of crap I pulled. She would love that I am still limping around on a injured knee - hurt while doing the Twist.

Damned knee brace worked for two days, then it hurt more. Enough about ailments.

Steve Sewell sends along the following special request as our song of the day for the Class of '66.

Sounds like a slow dance to me:

What's Your Name
Don & Juan

What's your name
I have seen you before
What's your name
May I walk you to your door
It's so hard to find a personality
With charms like yours for me
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ee

What's your name
Is it Mary or Sue
What's your name
Do I stand a chance with you
It's so hard to find a personality
With charms like yours for me
Ooh-ee, ooh-ee, ooh-ee

I stood on this corner
Waiting for you to come along
So my heart could feel satisf-i-ied
So please let me be your Number One
Under the moon, under the stars
And under the sun

Oh-oh, what's your name
(What's your name)
Is it Mary or Sue
What's your name
Do I stand a chance with you
It's so hard to find a personality
With charms like yours for me
Ooh-ee, ooh-ee, ooh-ee

What's your name
What's your name

Shooby-doo-bop-bah-dah