Richard Crane wound up at the private women's college where i got my dance degree--really a funny experience. he got a full scholarship to the drama department to act in the plays and go to school at Stephens College in columbia missouri. i walked into the commons the first day of sophmore year and there he sat, big as life. a face from home. nice to have him there. when his hair loss got too bad i was the one who talked him into a decent haircut to end the comb-over, which in a 20-year-old was really terrible, and i was his barber for the rest of the time at college. Richard won national recognition for songwriting after college. I gave him my Gibson Guitar, and he threw away the bridge with the packing paper, so he never got to use it....the truck took him out one morning as he walked his bicycle across the street on the way home from his night watchman job in houston after college. He played 'Renfield' in the stephens production of DRACULA with masterly skill. We agreed that whatever he did in the theatre would be with wigs, so the comb-over had to go. Richard was really a Shakespearean actor. he was a real talent, he would have been one of our generation's great charachter actors, had he lived.

Joe Clement promised to subsidise my pointe shoes with his doctor's salarie. i really missed that, and his 'mr. spock' delivery of terrible jokes. with his French heritage and his olive skin he looked green in the winter, very much Spock. Joe dated my best friend, Shelley Palmer, so we were together alot. Junior year in the English class we had group reports on authors. we tried to get him to put his straight hair in curlers for the section on Percy Bysse Shelley, because he played Shelley(the poet) in the presentation, and we chased him all over Cathy Bryant's house at the work session, even pulled off a belt loop from his corduroy jeans, but he refused the curlers. his jokes were so bad that one day in the lunch room i kicked him with my steel toed army boot i was wearing, and left a dent on his shin that is probably still there...i felt badly when he showed me the goosegg...When he drove off the road in his early years at medical school the rest of us were still undergraduates. At A&M the first day of school freshman year, i was there with my boyfriend, (my first husband, Larry Cooper from Memorial high school, also deceased ) and every hour or so we ran into Joe. He placed out of Freshman chemistry, Physics, math and english in the course of three hours while we were unloading Larry's stereo from his mustang...Joe finished his bachelor's at A&M and was into medical school in three years. an unbelievable loss. After Shelley Palmer married Bill Hayes (they met in Boston ), i went on a date with Joe, and we discovered what we always knew, that we were great friends, but not romantic interests for each other. I love him to death to this day.

candace

Don,

That's right, I think my Dad appointed himself official documentarian for the Macy's trip and set out to capture the faces of every band member at least once with his Super 8 camera. Though there were some clowns and beauty queens who obviously had a magnetic effect on the camera and appeared often in the raw footage. . . you know who you are.

I love your edited version and I'm sure he will too when I show him at Thanksgiving. You've certainly done it justice.

We stayed with Dad on our way to the reunion and he reminisced about the night he and my Mom grabbed a taxi with the Hammerle's (presumably after we were all safely tucked into our hotel rooms) and went to Chinatown for a late supper. It was the night before garbage day and the streets were ripe with big piles of refuse set out for collection. Many of the restaurants were closed but the taxi driver wound through the trash and found a good one. It may have looked questionable, but it was a slow night and rather than ordering from the menu they brought out their specialties, one after another.

Who were the other chaperones on the trip? The Thomason's, the Miller's, anyone else? I'm surprised, bordering on amazed, that so many of us made that trip with so few adults to herd us.

Dad said that each of the chaperones decided to pick something to do one night and let the kids choose, which is how around 90 Texas kids came to invade the ice rink at Rockefeller Center on an otherwise quiet and serene weekday evening. When we arrived, one couple had the place to themselves, practicing a dance routine. We spilled onto the ice (literally) with whoops and hollers and a commotion that soon attracted so many bystanders that the balcony around the rink was packed with gawkers. There was some jeering too and if there had been fewer of us, Dad thinks there may have been some trouble. But we had safety in numbers.

Melinda

Who picked the music at www.westchester1972.com? The person that picked the music on the web page dedicated to music from our era has exquisite taste. I must tell you how wonderful it makes me feel to hear it all again and it brings back memories of those days (that were spent mostly in a fog I am afraid to say, but I do not regret it at all). I wish I could capture all those mp3's for my iPod, going to have to figure out how to do that...I already have some of them but not all of them. [Editor’s Comment: right-click the song title and select "Save target As . . ."]

Many thanks!!

Charles (Carlos) Guerra, Westchester class of 72

My husband, Tom and I have lived on Lake Travis in Lakeway for almost 20 years and love it! We have two grown children, Marc (30) and Alison (28) and 3 grandchildren with another on the way. We own NHRG Technical Services, a high tech consulting and recruiting company and we are very fortunate to have both of our children working for us. Hopefully, we will soon retire and they can run it!! We spend our spare time water skiing, playing tennis, snow skiing and babysitting the grandkids!

The group picture was taken at our daughter’s wedding. Pictured from left to right, Tom, our daughter Alison, her husband David, me, our son Marc, his wife Ashley and our oldest grandson Avery. The other 2 pictures are our future UT Students, Cameron (3), Avery (6) and Rylee (18 months)…Hook ‘um Horns!

Vicki

Hi All - What great pictures! That was so much fun, then AND now! Something special I remember about that day........My dad was Executive Vice President of the largest oil DRILLING company in the world and they did a lot of business with Chase, and at that time, he was on the Board of Directors of Chase Manhattan Bank. He used to go to NYC once a month for the meetings - He knew we were going to go there that day and he had one of the men that he knew at the bank come downstairs and get me to come back upstairs with him and talk to my dad long distance. Does anyone remember that besides me? Probably no one else even knew. How about you, Mr. Hammerle?

Sadly, and rather tragically, close to 9 years ago my dad passed away - I would have loved sharing those pictures and reminiscing with him!

Kind of a funny tradition that started with my daughters as early as they were able to sit in front of the TV, I insisted that they watch the parade (Macy's, of course) on Thanksgiving Day - As they got older, there was a lot of eye-rolling although I secretly knew they enjoyed it. Now, my daughter that has 3 children of her own (she'll be 31 in December) insists her children watch, telling them "X number of years ago your Nini marched in that parade!" She grew to be as proud of it as I am!!

What an experience!!

Something else kind of odd happened recently and I wanted to share with all of you - Do any of you remember a student band director when we were sophomores named Danny Potter?? Well, a month or so ago, a lady passed away in Bryan and her folks had all used our funeral home because they were all from here (Hearne). Her adult children called us and we directed the funeral. I noticed on her paperwork that she had a brother from the Dallas area named Danny Potter and sure enough, he came for the funeral. I chatted with him a little bit and he said to tell everyone hello - especially when I told him we would be having a reunion at the end of September and I would hopefully be seeing a bunch of fellow band members. He remembered a lot of us, even asking about some of you by name. What a small world, truly! I have his email address on a little scrap of paper somewhere, if anyone is interested.

Paula Yount Ritter

Kerry - this is Janet (Lilja) Woods and my sister, Peggy Cameron, told me about the reunion. I can't believe that it is our 35th (I can't be that old!) reunion! I tried to send an update on the reunion website but it didn't go through. So here is my info - married, 3 kids, no grandchildren (thank goodness because I have one still at home), two cats and have worked in the Central Tx area for 30+ years in the ED/ICU after graduating from Baylor. I keep up with Kay Klotz and Debbie Rollert and would love to hear from Katy Luby. I ran into one of our classmates, Peter Scholl, who is an ENT in the Austin, Round Rock area. He played baseball and football, some of the guys would know him. Well, I hope you have a great time and tell anyone that remembers me hello! And tell my sister hello from me also! Please put me on the mailing list if you think about it.

Janet Lilja Woods Class of '72