The glorious 1959 Riverside Rambler High School year book,
the greatest high school annual in all of recorded history.

Hello Fritz! How are things in Kamiah?

I was in the eight grade at Riverside High school and marveled
at your basketball playing ability, as well as the all around
talent and abilities of your team mates.
One of my biggest regrets in life is not having bought a 1959
Riverside Rambler year book. 1959 was the best year of my life,
and the last good year of my life. I dropped out my junior year
and joined the army at 17, with Jimmy Thompson, in 1962, and
was lucky enough to miss out on Vietnam. When my E.T.S. date
was nearly up in 1965, Sargeant Wessel called me into his office
at the 504th S and T battallion in Crailsheim, Germany and told me if I
didn't reinlist I was going to have a very bad miserable life. I don't
know how he knew but he wasn't lying. ----------------! Back in 1959
We were poor, Mr. Mercer. I mean really poor looked down on by
everybody! I felt it intensely and still do. Emotional imprinting!

I remember one day in May of 1959, seeing Tudy Olander drive into
the high school drive way off highway 2 in their 1956 Chevy, and
asked me if I'd seen her brother ,, and I was so awestruck
and overwhelmed by her sudden appearance that I told her
I had not seen Loren, which was true.------------ I was so overwhelmed
by the unexpected moment that I stupidly forgot to
ask her for one of her senior pictures. There was no way for
her to know how she completely blew my mind. She made quite
an impression on a lot of those kids, didn't she? She was
absolutely wonderful ! ----------------------She was the most
gorgeously beautiful and charming girl I have ever seen. You know
what I'm talking about, don't you. I think every boy in that school
was secretly in love with Tudy.

How are your sisters and parents?
You remember . Audrey McPherson, don't you? She, was a year
behind you I think. Audrey has never liked me.-----------------

I once seen Tudy's brother, Loren, or was ihis name spelled Lauren?
I never thought to ask him at a McDonalds at the North Division Y, and I
talked to him for quite a while and he never said one word to me.
I guess he couldn't believe how dumb I was.----------------------

I remember you once asked me 'how's it hanging' in the high
school library and that really made my day. You guys were very
looked up to by us underclassmen, and still are! You played
right end on the football team and you reminded me of Fred
Belitnikoff who played for Green Bay, and smoked cigarettes.
Do you remember that halloween night someone put all the
pigs and chickens into the high school library and they crapped
all over all the books, tables, maps,chairs and everything
The faculty was pretty put out about that.

I am Star Rover on thestarlitecafe.com.. All I do is go to the Spokane
libraries and write poetry, cause nobody else has much use for me.
I was never once offered gainful employment in my life. I have done
alot of menial, stoop labor type work. farm work and worked in a
silver mine in Kellogg, Ida once, shoveling out the piss ditch.

My mother, my brothers and I were on welfare back then,
and I felt totally unworthy and out of place. I still do. There was
quuite an ugly social stigma attached to being on welfare back then.
Mom died young of cancer in 1975, My dad died of cancer in 1971.
My brother Les lives in Taiwan, and
I haven't heard anything about Danny in years. I don't like hearing
bad news when I can't afford to help anyone. What's the point?
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Letter to Seattle Times:


It seems a great pity that the spokesman review

in past years lacked the foresight and consideration to acquire

and keep at least one copy of each year's yearbook from every

high school in Spokane County, especially when the people at

K.H.Q. make such a big deal out of 'Teacher of the Month'

Think about how many kids have lost their yearbooks

to the ravages of time and mischance, and the kids who could

not even afford to buy a copy going back through the years.



Classmates.com or 'Memory Lane' or whoever they are, do

not have hardly any yearbooks. They just want money.



One of my biggest regrets in life was not having enough money

to buy a 1959 Riverside Rambler yearbook for Riverside High

School at Milan, Wa We were very poor. Wesley Storer
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