Recently, a couple of parents had memorable birthdays. Rodney Koehn's father just turned 100, while Marilyn Anderson's mother reached her 90th birthday. Congratulations, and may they continue to have good health. I believe Rodney's father was an auditor at SDSU for many years. I became acquainted with Marilyn's mom when I taught at the Middle School. She worked with students who had difficulty reading, and did a wonderful job. If memory serves correctly, her husband was in real estate. I believe my parents bought our house from him in 1963, where I am presently residing.
Last month, the South Dakota Rock and Roll Music Association (http://www.southdakotarockandrollmusicassociation.com/), which began in 2009, inducted some more bands. One of the bands inducted that first year was the well-known Myron Lee and the Caddies (http://www.myronlee.com/ and http://blog.keloland.com/lund/blog/2009/05/12/myron-lee-and-the-caddies/). In 2010, Marlys Roe and the Talismen became members (http://www.mykxlg.com/marlys-roe-and-the-talisman-come-together-for-50th-reunion-gig-in-brookings/ and http://www.southdakotarockandrollmusicassociation.com/inductees/talismen.htm). Pat O'Connell, Kevin's oldest brother, was the drummer for the group. Pat was in the same class as one of my older brothers, and was back in town for the 2013 ceremony. We went down, and had a good time. Don't know if it's old age, but the music was really loud, forcing me to stuff some wadding in my ears to deaden the sound. A number of Brookings people were in attendance because Hort's was inducted in the ballroom and dance hall category (http://www.southdakotarockandrollmusicassociation.com/2013/horatios.htm) . Many of these bands had played at Hort's, and some of them were inducted this year. In the crowd were Tom Salonen and Mike/Brenda Anderson, who were proudly wearing T-shirts featuring Horatio's.
Passing away recently was Bernie Van Essen (http://rudesfuneralhome.com/sitemaker/sites/RudesF1/obit.cgi?user=970705VanEssen). For most of you, that name probably means very little, but for some of us boys, he was a big part our summers in 1965 and 66. He and Bob Webbenhurst, Nancy's oldest brother, were our teener baseball coaches those years. In 1965, we qualified for the national teener tournament by winning our section tourney in Brookings, (Brookings, Watertown, Sisseton, and Milbank), the state tourney in Madison, and the region tournament at Igloo in the southeast corner of the state. I think it was called Igloo because it was a munitions depot, and the munitions were stored in buildings that looked like igloos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hills_Ordnance_Depot). We stayed in some old barracks that were there. Only two other teams were in the tournament: Miller, South Dakota and, I believe,a team from Crawford, Nebraska (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford,_Nebraska and http://crawfordnebraska.net/. Fortunately, we prevailed, and were on our way to Hershey, PA, for the national tournament. It was a great time. The bus ride was long, but memorable. We had picked up Judd Bergan, a pitcher from Watertown. He brought along his guitar, playing I'm Henry VIII, I Am by Herman's Hermits regularly. Bob Webbenhurst liked the Kingston Trio, so MTA (he will ride forever through the streets of Boston, he's a man who'll never return) was also played with some frequency. When we stopped to eat, the jukeboxes were quite busy, playing (if memory serves correctly) I Got You Babe (Sonny and Cher); Baby, The Rain Must Fall (Glenn Yarborough): What's New Pussycat? (Tom Jones); Satisfaction (Rolling Stones); Catch Us If You Can (Dave Clark Five); Eve of Destruction (Barry McGuire); Down in the Boondocks (Billy Joe Royal--this song may have been Walter Osterberg's favorite). We stayed at the Hershey Ballroom, right across from the amusement park. For me, that was the first time I had been more than a couple of hours away from home, so it was a thrill. We also visited the world-famous Hershey Chocolate Factory, and saw how they made some of their products. The Philadelphia Eagles conducted their pre-season football training camp at Hershey, so Bob Webbbenhurst, who played football at SDSU, arranged for Pete Retzlaff (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/846090-crazy-canton-cuts-pete-retzlaff) to visit with us at one of our practices. Pete had played at SDSC (as it was then known) over a decade earlier. He also gave us an autographed picture, which I can no longer find. In the picture above, we are receiving our trophy after the championship game in Igloo. Judd Bergan is the recipient, while in the back are Bob Webbenhurst, Tom Bozied, Phil Trautman, Lloyd Beneke, Doug deBoise, John Iverson, and Bernie Van Essen. In the front are Walt Osterberg, Tim DeWitt, Tom Osterberg, Chip Kabrud, Barry Buehler, Don Tordoff, Jim Arndt, and Randy Hofer. Also going along to Hershey were some of the fathers (Bozied, Kabrud, Buehler, DeWitt? others?) to help as chaperones. At the wake was a scrapbook with a number of pictures and news stories about that team that Bernie and his wife had put together. Looking at that brought back many fond memories.
