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SOUR GRAPES |
By JIM MAGDEFRAU |
The Class of 1944
The glasses of champagne were raised and a toast was made to the greatest class to come out of Belle Plaine High School – The Class of 1944.
Saturday the class had one of their many reunions at the Legion Hall in Belle Plaine. I was an honored guest since I took the group shot of them, as a favor to a friend who has done many favors for Belle Plaine, Henry B. Tippie. Plus, I didn’t want his classmate and organizer Gladys Werner to be mad at me. Again.
Class reunions are a different experience. I was attending them way before our class’s reunions, lining classes up on the front steps of the Legion Hall. Sometimes it was done in a few minutes. Sometimes it took an hour. It depended on what stage of the social hour the picture was taken.
Reunions are also universal in that the first few reunions one attends, you’re either trying to show that you’re not the same person you were in high school, or you’re a completely different person than the one you were in high school. After a while, you eventually become yourself and don’t worry about impressing your peers. You are who you are.
I didn’t see much jockeying for status at the reunion Saturday night. These were folks who looked out for each other and genuinely enjoyed being with each other, which is probably why they don’t hold to the five-year rule for when they get together. It could be every year. It could be every two years.
I scanned the room and recognized the folks that my Dad looked up to when he was growing up. Naturally, I look up to the folks my Dad looked up to.
They gave each other a hard time, joked, told stories, and recalled classmates who had passed on.
I was lucky enough to sit next to Bill Nichols, who sent me on a research project of when his baseball team played the Kansas City Monarchs in 1946 and he hit a ball pitched by Satchel Paige.
I was surrounded by the Bevins boys, who recalled their Van Horne relatives and the namesake of the Van Horne Legion Post, Thomas Bevins.
But when it comes to total recall, you just have to mention one small detail about the past, and Henry B. Tippie will give a detailed account of every facet of the detail. We were visiting about our buddy Jack Miller, which led to tales of Jack’s father being police chief, and the enforcement of bootlegging laws in Belle Plaine. Henry could recall every place that it could be found, how it was shipped and the ingenious ways it was hidden. He stressed the bootlegging business was going well even before prohibition.
As for the present, this class is still together. As we walked up the ramp to the stairs in front of the Legion Hall, there were some walkers and wheelchairs involved. It took some time for them to get there. But they got there.
Henry handed me a purple and gold cap – Belle Plaine’s old school colors – making me an honorary member of the Class of 1944. I join my Dad with the honor, who has taken the class’s picture many times … another job I’ve gladly inherited.
It is a great class. Is it the greatest? I like to think the greatest things are yet to come, but it’s hard to argue against it when you look at what they have accomplished in the time from World War II to now.
I’m just glad that I’m an honorary member. It is the greatest.