Part 17, You should have seen this coming.

FWIW, I know how to spell "ninth grade". That one got by me as have several other mistakes.

In any event and as it relates to the foundation that seems to be so important to me, the most important part of my story and the tales of my junior and senior year at Byrd High School, has to do with the friendships I made and how that effected me later on.

I made friends with kids that were in my neighborhood that I hadn't known prior to going to Byrd. Many of them lived within a few blocks of me but I  never knew them because they attended public school instead of St Joseph's and or Jesuit.

IT was a neat time and I met a ton of kids who would later take their part in society and participate in the war as well as many other things. Some were hippies, some were military minded and some, mostly the girls, were just wanting to have a good High School experience without any problems. My junior year was the year I met Melissa.

As time went on, the parties seemed to high light most of the experiences that were talked about by the group I ran around with. We had some great ones as one of the girls, Camille, came from a wealthy family that owned a farm house about 15 miles south of Bossier City which was located just across the river from Shreveport. We used to sneak down there, drink beer, listen to rock and roll and more or less, became typical high schoolers of the 60's.

I continued to read things about the second world war, continued to drive to the airport, whenever the opportunity arose, but I had to study like most kids and that, more than anything, brought my studies about Patton, Eisenhower and all the famous people in the second world war, to a halt. I didn't miss it because I was having too much fun making up for the years I'd missed while in boarding school but I didn"t let all of that interfere with my aviation curiosities.

Leland had been playing around the airport circuit as he also had a love of airplanes which eventually took him to Chu Li, South Vietnam as a plane captain in the Marine Corp. You can scroll down and see a picture of him that is titled "Big Brother" or something close to that. I'm sure those inspirations came in part, from Joe Messina and the many trips he'd made to the downtown airport as well as the smaller fields around town. Those influences as well as the fact that he had met and become friends with Charlie Harriston (rip). Charlie was a Joe Messina student who eventually became a corporate pilot. Unfortunately, Charlie was killed in an accident and has been sorely missed by many. Despite that, Leland made the rounds and discovered crop dusting hangers filled with old, radial engined crop dusters as well as a couple of dirt strips that were used to serve farmers who had their own planes.

During one of my rides through the country, I found a hanger that had a Money Mite in it. You'll have to google that but in short, it was a single seat, low wing single engine airplane that this particular farmer had painted in an RAF paint scheme like the British used during the Battle of Britan. It was cool and I visualized myself buying one at some point.

In any event, even though my two years at Byrd had many high lites like belonging to the track team, I spent more time than usual doing high school instead of doing the study of history that was so easy to do in boarding school. FWIW, I ran a 10.2 second 100 yard dash and a 52.8 second 440 yard dash when try outs were made. Both of those numbers were not far from the State record at the time and Coach Woodrow Turner figured me to be a track athlete with promise. I eventually specialized in the high jump as we had a group of runners that ended up SETTING the state records in my events.

Terry Bradshaw attended Woodlawn High School while I was attending Byrd. We both ran track for our respective schools so we met during the track meets. One meet, when I was on the south end of the field at Byrd where the high jump pit was located, we were told to hurry up and finish our event because Terry Bradshaw was schedule to throw the javelin.

He had already set a National record and was expected to break it again. Sure enough, we moved out of the way and Bradshaw came in and broke the record. It was really something to see as we knew who he was and  had watched him play as the quarterback for Woodlawn many times. As odd as it may sound, we pretty much expected him to break it as he broke every record everywhere. He graduated from Woodlawn, went to Louisiana Tech in Ruston, Louisiana and then on the the Pittsburg Steelers. You know the rest of the story from there so I won't bother with the details.

Many years later and some time after his years as the Steelers quarterback, Terry built a cattle ranch a few miles south of Shreveport. As a fascination to Tim Jr, it was located very near his grandfather's farm, the great Major General George McGovern (ret).

Melissa and I both attended summer school during the summer of 67 and were in car pool together. I was a bit careful when picking her up as her step daddy,  Eddie Joyce, always had a keen eye out for boys who came to see her or  her sister Ceil. Eddie was a Saipan and Tinian veteran and many years later, he and I would laugh about my fears when I came to pick up Melissa. We became very close and spent hour upon hour swapping war stories and our experiences in fighting the Asian.

After summer school, I was pretty fired up to get going with college as I had discovered that Louisiana Tech had a Professional Aviation Course there where you could get a bachelor of science degree in that discipline. I had an offer to run track for Northeast State in Monroe, only 20 minutes down the road from Tech but decided, after a little prodding from my sister Linda, to attend Northwestern State in Natchitoches, which is Louisiana's oldest settlement.

I took her advice and began studies there immediately. THAT is another story filled with pranks as a KA fraternity man and some flying that you will find most interesting or maybe a little perverted. In any event, I'll put this away for now and begin my thoughts for college then flight school with the Army. Stand by.