Ground Rules

(By posting in this forum, you acknowledge that you have read and will abide by these rules.)

The website was continued after the 2013 reunion for the enjoyment of the members.  They shouldn't be subjected to annoying posts when they come to the Message Forum.  Forums work when people participate - so don't be bashful.  But be respectful.  This may seem like a private chat room, but 800 of your classmates have access to it (along with ~two dozen of our former teachers), and many more classmates read than participate.  

The administrators reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.  Access and participation on this forum is not a right, it is a privilege and abuse may result in suspension or revocation of WHS60s site access at any time.  

Abuse includes but is not limited to personal attacks, offensive, demeaning, excessive or nonsensical posts, badgering, foul language, etc.  It is not a place to disparage others, especially deceased classmates.  Posting involving politics or religion are prohibited as they typically and quickly become offensive/demeaning.    

We don't actively monitor the forum, but respond to complaints and take action as deemed appropriate.

V/R, Co-site Administrators Joan Lucchesi ('60) and Gary Wegener ('66)

Click the "Post Message" button to add your entry to the forum

(you always have the option to edit or delete your post). 

Frances Handley (Jones) (1964)

I am glad the American Legion did that. As I live in Arlington , Virginia and worked for Arlington county it is not something we will ever forget here or any place else in the United States either. 

Elvis Kelley (1962)

Thank you Gary. 

Betty Ciemny (Gastineau) (1964)

Thanks, Gary.

Hi, Frances

Paul Schattauer (1961)

I wanted to tell the story of my 9/11 experience on 9/11 but Irma decided I did not need electricty.  Power is back now and other then lots of leaves and stricks and a blown over butterfly bush, the 70 mph winds did no damage.  My day on 9/11 began in Paris at our hotel as my crew gathered at pickup time to take our bus to Charles DeGaule airport.  Everything was normal, pretty day, full airplane, destination Atlanta.  My cockpit and cabin crew consisted of two copilots and 11 flight attendants.  I conducted the standard security briefing on the bus, password, cockpit acess, acountability (mine) problem solving, general stuff, see something say something.  Flight time, weather, to be announced on the airplane before boarding.  Take off climb and cruise uneventful til we were about 100 miles West of Ireland and things started to go sideways. A United Airlines flight called ATC (airtraffic control) and said they needed to return to Dublin because their company had requested that they do so.  That is unheard of.  I sent a satellite message to Delta flight control asking for information and got no response, again, unheard of.   A few minutes later ATC broadcast "all flights are required to return to point of origin due to terrorist activity in the United States".  I was stunned.   Every morning about 600 flights leave Europe (and that part of the world) for the US  and that part of the world just as every evening in the West 600 flights go back.  You don't just break out of the pack and turn around.  I called ATC and said we need a clearance as to direction of turn and and coast (back in) fix.  They began issuing clearances and fixes.  We turned and began evaluating what was happening.  We tried contacting Delta and got no response, I found out later that was deliberate.  We had a SAT phone, one of only 5 airplanes in the fleet that had one, so we tried calling our wives.  The circuits were busy (really?) but one of my copilots got his wife and she said "the towers are down and Washington is smoking" and he lost the connection.  I made an announcement to the passengers giving them all the information I had at that time (without the towers and the smoking stuff).  I then told the senior flight attendant to reassign the male flight attendants to work the area closest to the cockpit and briefed them to protect the cockpit and advise me of any threat.  I ordered a drink cart to be placed in the cockpit and shoved up against the cockpit door.  My second copilot was now in the cockpit.  I told him to get the crash axe (a very nasty weapon) and disable anyone who breached the cockpit over the drink cart.  The flight back to Paris was uneventful, no flight plan but we were handed off from one radar facility to the next.  The station manager had tears in his eyes when we arrived at the gate, he had no idea we were safe until we showed up.  Getting back to our hotel and watching those airplanes hitting the buildings again and again was a truly awful day.  There are worse places than Paris to spend three days in limbo.  The flight home went over New York and was eerie. Normally the radio goes constantly, that day we were the only flight in the air.....and you could still see the smoke.

Jean Wright (Johnson) (1960)

Paul that was a sad but great story.  I am so glad all of you landed safely.  I have never even wondered what the other planes where doing.  Thank you again   Jeanne

Theresa Eve (1964)

September 11th:  Thank you Paul, what a day that was for our Country!  I was working for the State in Sacramento and they told us to all go home, not knowing what would happen next.  All those lives lost!  All our great brave Firemen and Women; and Police, along with dogs; all did a great job.  My flag went out on this date, prayers to all.  May we never forget, and may we remain strong, United State of America.  

Marian Flores (Walker) (1962)

My husband's uncle had passed away several days before and his funeral was on 9/11.  We were in Wheeling, W Va, and my son living in Virginia, drove to Wheeling, also to attend the funeral.  We were in a motel room, just got up and getting ready for the funeral, TV on GMA, and saw the first plane crash into the Twin Tower, then the second plane.  We attended the funeral and family gathering that day, watching what we could on TV.  That evening people were lining up at the gas stations with rumors of gas going up to $5 a gallon.  We knew that there would be no flights out of W Va, so we rode back to Charlottesville, VA, with our son.  It was very strange to not see one plane in the sky.  It was a week before we could get a plane out of Richmond, VA, to Cali. A very scary time in our history.

Allene Abbott (Prall) (1962)

Paul, glad to hear you made it back o.k. after 9/11.  I belong to the Savannah Writer's Group and have a friend named Ian who had a job in one of the twin towers.  He had been out "celebrating" the night before 9/11 with a group of friends and was late for work on 9/11.  As he approached the elevator to go up to his floor, the elevator was full, so he had to wait for another.  He and 3 or 4 others entered the elevator and didn't get very far when he heard a loud bang.  He then felt things coming down the elevator shaft, which he though were the a/c units which were on top of the building.  Of course, by this time the elevator had stopped completely.  He and the others tried for about an hour to get out of the elevator, but couldn't budge the doors.  A guard finally managed to get the doors open and told them that a plane had just hit the building.  He told them to run as fast as they could outside and to keep on running.  They were astonished to learn that they were still on the main floor and did what the guard had told them.  As he ran outside he saw bodies of people he knew who had jumped.  If he had been in the other elevator he wouldn't have made it out alive.  He said that this was one time when he discovered that drinking didn't endanger one's health.  If he hadn't been frinking the night before, he wouldn't have been late for work.  If you watch any of the documentaries on 9/11 and see people coming out of the elevator, one of them is Ian.  He moved to Savannah shortly after that happened, and now is living in his home country of England.  As far as my own experience is concerned, I was at home on a rare day when I didn't have to work at my part-time job, or have classes to attend towards my Master's degree.  I was out on the front porch drinking coffee.  My son was inside watching the Today show.  When I came in to get another cup of coffee, my son told me that a plane had just hit one of the twin towers.  At first we thought it was just a crazy pilot who didn't know how to fly, but then a second plane hit and we knew something wasn't right.  

Paul Schattauer (1961)

That day changed all our lives and the world.

Paul Schattauer (1961)

Please STFU Craig

Don Murdoch (1962)

Paul,   I'm with you.

Tom Stewart (1969)

Craig Mayfield...you are really hard to figure out.  Not sure if you have all your mental capability these days.  You have been posting hundreds of political and religious targeted comments for years now, and you say it is a High School, pre-High School blog?  It appears you are pouting since so many have taken you to task concerning your continued sarcasm, personal attacks, and political bias.

Your last post is filled with sarcasm...WWII?  Nuclear proliferation?  All because someone gave some personal testimony concerning the twin towers?  Go figure!  If you can't rule the sandbox no one else can play there!

Allene Abbott (Prall) (1962)

O.K. Craig, I will play your game, although I would love to hear some other personal accounts of what people were doing when 911 occurred.  I love to hear about Woodland in the "good ole days" but I believe that variety is the spice of life.  Anyway, keeping within your boundaries, does anyone remember Peggy's Kitchen?  Or who owned it?  It was at the SE corner of East St. and Beamer St.   During the early 50's, my father used to take us there on a weekend morning to get breakfast - usually pancakes, as I recall.  The place was always packed.  I suppose the truckers traveling down the highway (East St.) used to stop there.  It closed sometime during the 50's and succeeding owners tried to make a go of it, but I think it eventually remained closed permanently.  I haven't been back to Woodland since 2007, so I don't know what, if anything, is there now.

Paul Schattauer (1961)

Craig.  Thats my dog Katy, she was almost 13, I've had her since she was a puppy, sweetest gentilist dog I ever knew.  She recently started being disorented with other symtoms and Wednesday she started having serial grand mal siezures and we had to put her down.

Linda Lopez (1967)

Paul, sorry to hear about Katy. I too had to put my MinChi down before moving back to Woodland. She had cancer. Loss of an unconditional true friend.

Any pilots out there that could say if Watts Airport has any fly-ins happening during the year? I see Clear Lake has a Splash-in this weekend. Would be great if our area would do something like that. Brings in aircraft from all over the USA. 

Tom Stewart (1969)

I remember Peggy's Kitchen very well.  It was my great grandmother's favorite place to go. 

Sorry to hear about your dog.  My dog is 14 and he is at the end of his life.  I keep hoping he will go naturally, but I may have to have him put down one of these days.  I hate that!!!

Joan Richter (Lucchesi) (1960)

So sorry about your dog. they become a very large part of our families and it's difficult to loose them.

Janet Long (Levers) (1966)

9/11 is definitely on my list of World Changing events, and just as meaningful for us to discuss here as the day JFK was show, which I believe was also discussed here quite a while ago. Both of these events were things our generation experienced first hand.

Janet Long (Levers) (1966)

SHOT, not show. Stupid auto-correct

Greg Kareofelas (1962)

Hey Allene

Yep, Peggy;s Kitchen - I lived next to the corner of Fifth and Beamer, so we could walk to Peggy;s Kitchen, Ever so often I run into the kids who's mom was Peggy, they sell out at the Marysville Flea Market, he's looking to see if he has a pic of the place he could share, The buiilding, much "remodeled" is still there, can't remember what it is now. In those days, no one took photos of the familiar, I tried to find a pic of "cruising the A&W" - no one had one :-)

And Yes, I know there is a lot of heavy stuff happening in the world today, but face it, at our age, you are not going to change our minds about anything, so you are either singing to the choir or else trying to stop the North Wind from blowing - We should keep this forum for the fun stuff:-) Like, did anyone take a pic of the "3 Jays" painted on the side of the Market??

Glenda Smith (Stone) (1968)

Joel Childers (1966)

9/11 and JFK. I was on the jam packed slow moving I-5 freeway morning commute to Seattle when the news came on the radio that the first tower was hit. I saw people freaking out in their cars until the traffic pretty much stopped. I was able to exit and pulled into a gas station mini-mart. The place was packed with people. By then the second plane had hit. Half the people in the place were sobbing and others just looked stunned. At that moment I recognized that I had felt this feeling before in November of '63 when Dale Lakey announced over the speaker system that JFK was dead. We were in Mr. Putnam's biology class. They let us all out of school, so I just wandered home to an empty house and to a changed world. I suppose it wasn't so odd, yet it was coincidental, that my employer, the Federal government, announced that work was cancelled that day. So I wandered back home to an empty house (except for our cats, Fleabag and Trotsky) and to a changed world. Speaking of a changed world, when we lived in Marysville, Washington, some kid shot and killed 4 other kids and himself at Marysville High School. We have lived for only a year and a half in Spokane Valley and this week a kid at Freeman High School just south of here shot 4 kids killing one. Remember in our day and age when there were no school shootings? I read in the paper this morning (Yes I still enjoy reading the newspaper) that there have been over 200 school shootings in this country. Really? Sorry to go on about such things. Fall arrived here with a Thud! The temperature went from the 90's and 70 days without rain to the 60's and drizzle. Time to put away the outdoor stuff. Q. What's Irish and sits out in the rain. A. Patty O'Furniture.

Janice Bell (Killian) (1966)

Janice Bell (Killian) (1966)

Robert Cowing (1965)