Name: Walter Holt () on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 at 16:29:25
Email: wholt48@socal.rr.com
City and State: Surf City, CA
Maiden: CowabungaSouth
Class: 1966
Message: Just got caught up on feedback. Been a little busy lately with surfing, work and a new lady in my life. All I can say to our esteemed Cougars who seem to find fault with our beloved Beach Boys. I really don't know of too many Superstar groups who haven't had demons they have created and dealt with. I get apalled at some of the videos they are producing in todays music with violence and robberies going on. Sharon, Yep I will be bringing the Tunes. "Well have fun fun fun now that daddy took the T-bird away".
Hey Walter, Glad you're back and see you at the picnic.
Name: Bud Rhoades () on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 at 14:27:09
Email: rhoadesb@fullmercontract.com
City and State: Belmont Shore
Class: 1974
Message: Two members of Which Ones Pink were on the Mark and Brian show this morning plugging a gig up in Sactown...good press for D.J's other passion.
Name: Ingrid Larson () on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 at 08:58:06
Email: ingrid.larson@marsh.com
City and State: Long Beach, CA
Maiden: same as it ever was
Class: 1974
Message: Happy Birthday to Duke Snyder! I'm so glad I finally got to meet you, man. And again, it's all because of Cougartown.com (Thanks for making THAT happen, JB!)
You are Welcome, Ingrid.....Happy Bday, Duke
Name: Anita () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 22:30:01
Email: anita.m.bell@erac.com
City and State: Fair Oaks, Ca
Maiden: Harmon
Class: 1969
Message: Joseph.....While I tend to lean a little closer to JB'S commentary about your Beach Boy's post, nevertheless - it was a "thoughtful" analysis. After all, our "Heroes and Villains" were quite a vivid group.
But their PET SOUNDS album? The titles on that album alone could be woven into a psychodrama about Brian's state of mind at the time: "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)," "Let's Go Away for Awhile," "God Only Knows," "I just Wasn't Made for These Times," and "That's Not Me." The songs for the most part were under three minutes. Many remain classics of their kind. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," in particular, is a song expressing the longing for the age when one could do what one wanted, get married, have children - and stay overnight together. "God Only Knows," was perhaps the most beautiful, a song about the love felt for someone who transforms life for you. ("God only knows what I'd be without you.....") There was also "Caroline No," a song about a young girl who personifies Brian's loss of innocence. The album ends with a remarkably forlorn and melancholy sound effect, Brian's two dogs barking in the faraway distance and the fading sound of a lonely railroad train. The title PET SOUNDS was actually Mike Love's contribution.
This was Brians's first fully realized album. He was extremely proud of it, but most people weren't ready for it - it was too much of a shock, but for those who understood it.....they really loved it.
Thanks again Anita.....
Name: EL ROJO () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 20:08:12
Email: I'M FORGETTIN
City and State: UH...SAME PLACE
Maiden: NO MATTER
Class: 1981
Message: Joe I didn't quite understand why you feel the rejection in all this stuff? Could you please explain it again? "C" student here..MAY THE COUGAR BE WITH YOU! Jake N Jude>
Thank God, as I was like a Gorilla in the Mist too..... Name: Heather Collins () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 18:46:41
Email: purrrtykitten@aol.com
City and State: San Pedro, CA
Maiden: Collins
Class: 1980
Message: I'm the daughter of Denise Collins/Weber. I never went to this school. My mother died in 1987, when I was five. I think she might have been in the c/o 1980. I found a blob in this site about someone referring to her, it was written on Mar 20, 2000. If you would like to contact me I would love to know more about her. Thank you.
Name: Baxter Dodd () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 17:41:55
Email: baxterldo@aol.com
City and State: Riverside, CA
Class: 1957
Message: ??going in a ?Jerry Springer" direction.? Now that?s funny, John. Jan P., I think you have hit on something with how old music is being made new again. Maybe what we are discussing here is the same thing that is causing much of the entertainment industry to go into a ?remake? frenzy. They are remaking many, many successful old movies, music, TV shows, stories, etc. Maybe they are recognizing that all their efforts to create new stuff is still not as good as what we had a long time ago. So what is left but to do remakes of the time-tested music and movies using new technology. I am sure all of you have been waiting breathlessly for the remake of ?Dukes of Hazzard? or a ?Gilligan?s Island? reality show. But come to think of it, I would like to see the new ?War of the Worlds? movie. Like you said, there is enough room for the old and the new and we are all the better off for it. That being said, I like the original Beach Boys, warts and all, don?t mess with them. ...Baxter...
ps. I don?t know about that photo, John, it looks like Joseph is wearing a mystical burka. No wonder he does not post on here as often as we would like.
Does anyone know how many went to see the remake of the Honeymooners with Cedric the Entertainer? I think 7 people saw it before it went to video. Do not mess with the classics...
Name: Patty V () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 17:23:41
Email: pending
City and State: Laguna Beach, Ca
Maiden: Valencia
Class: 1974
Message: Would I have been the hero or the villain? Or both? Joe, John and Patty has a nice ring to it. Maybe we should get a statue or something for the Haytowners that coulda been contenders.
UH....I like Johnny, Joe and Mary (you'll have to change your name) just a little better....
Name: Sharon () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 17:20:56
Email: sharonlleach@cs.com
City and State: Long Beach
Maiden: Moore
Class: 1966
Message: Cougartown Picnic. For those of you who have not signed up for the CT Picnic, just a reminder that it is September 17 at El Dorado Park in Long Beach. We have reserved space for 350 people. Go to the top of the page and sign up. Those of you who are having reunions that night, start out early and come to the picnic. That's what the classes that were having reunions last year did.
Also Anita Bell has given the following helpful information on where to stay, if you are coming in for out of town:
1. Best Western Los Alamitos Inn and Suites
10591 Los Alamitos Blvd.
Los Alamitos, Ca (1-652-598-2299) located 0.8 miles from the Park
2. Ayres Hotel Seal Beach
12850 Seal Beach Blvd
Seal Beach, Ca (1-562-596-8330) located 2.4 miles from the Park
3. Residence Inn Cypress Orange County
4931 Katella Ave
Los Alamitos, Ca ( 714-484-5700 ) located 2.5 miles from the Park
4. Marriott Long Beach
4700 Airport Plaza Drive
Long Beach, Ca ( 562-425-5210 ) located 2.8 miles from the Park
Hope to see you all there. Get ready for some fun, games, music and a really good time.
Yes, if you haven't signed up for the 2nd Annual Cougartown Picnic, please do so soon so we know about how many to plan on. We had a great time last year and this one should be even better, so sign up now. Thanks Sharon....
Name: Jan Peterson () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 14:35:07
Email: jpeterson50@aol.com
City and State: Carmichael, CA
Maiden: Freeman
Message: John, I have to tell you that your response we can sometimes sound like we are ready for "The Jerry Springer Show", still brings a smile to my face.
Music and our appreciation for it does change over the years and we suffered the same woes that our parents did when we were introduced to Hard Rock, Heavy Metal and RAP. Our sons (now 30 and 32) both liked Heavy Metal in their teen years. We were all getting ready for work and school one morning and the boys were playing a Heavy Metal version of "Ring Of Fire" and both my husband and I started singing. Next thing we knew there were 2 teenagers standing in front of our bedroom door in amazement at our singing one of their tunes. We still laugh at that especially when we told them that song was made popular years earlier by Johnny Cash. "Johnny, who?" That incident closed a small gap in our appreciation of others music. Although my husband & I never started up with Heavy Metal, our boys started listening to other types of music, County and Rock.
I promise I will not complain when some of the younger Cougars are talking about their music style and sharing their memories, but give us OURS!!!
I vote that we just "remember" here. NO FIGHTING!! There is enough of that all around us.
Even more than Disneyland, this is the Happiest Place on Earth!!
Hugs, Jan
Hey Jan, I don't know about the Happiest but at least we can't strangle each other through the Internet, and I can't wait for Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath to do a Burl Ives retrospective.
Name: Baxter Dodd () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 14:28:40
Email: baxterldo@aol.com
City and State: Riverside, CA
Class: 1957
Message: Good posts!! John, in a more superficial tone, where is Joseph Mailander?s photo?? Or are you honoring an agreement between you two? ... Never mind... After reading his post, I have an uncontrollable urge for a BB&BD party, i.e., listening to Beach Boys while sipping Boat Drinks. Hey, maybe we can do that instead of, or while, standing in line at Pink?s sometime. Joseph, you left out --perhaps on purpose-- mentioning the disguised loneliness that precedes -and is sometimes the successor to- inviting and combating demons in the creative types. hmmm... or is that one of the demons?? ... Baxter
Hey Baxter, joseph is so apparitional that he doesn't very often have a face. I did capture this much of him once at a Cruise Night after a few boat drinks. See below..
Name: Don D. () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 12:53:49
Email: dondt(at)hotmail.com
City and State: South Bay
Class: 1975
Message: Ref:"For some reason music and lyrics touch our souls. Then we go through a lot of crap and get old. Then we die.(Sharon B...)
Sharon, listening to the music can help us while we go through 'c..p' uh'...stuff...'
Name: Sharon Branigan () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 10:40:44
Email: srbranigan.srb@verizon.net
City and State: Thousand oaks, CA
Maiden: Bierman
Class: 1976
Message: BTW that was in jest, I really do love you, Joe. I just couldn't resist having a little fun, especially since I am still mentally that shallow 15 year old blond cheerleader. Okay, the blonde comes from a bottle these days, but the rest is all mine.
Name: Sharon Branigan () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 10:38:15
Email: srbranigan.srb@verizon.net
City and State: Thousand Oaks, CA
Maiden: Bierman
Class: 1976
Message: Please allow my translation of Joe's feedback: We're all major narcissists in high school. For some reason music and lyrics touch our souls. Then we go through a lot of crap and get old. Then we die.
Thanks Sharon, that's a little less Sontagesque.
Name: Keith D. Jones () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 02:12:22
Email: cmi50@yahoo.com
City and State: Kona, Hawaii
Maiden: always been Jones
Class: 1976
Message: Wow whatever Joe Mainlander said I agree. That read great, even if I didn't understand much of it. HHS should be proud the BB went there and I am sure we all are.
Yep, I gotta say joseph had me reaching for my Roget a couple of times too. Name: Tom Buckingham () on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 01:21:37
Email: dukebuckingham@bigfoot.com
City and State: Clovis,CA
Class: 1964
Message: Another story about Mr. K. I was a soph. taking biology which I had absolutely no interest in. He sat me between two young ladies (I think one was Kathy Brown) neither of them would do the disecting of worms, frogs, etc. So I was stuck doing that wonderful surgery. Mr. K thought I was a wiseguy, you know always making "smart remarks", so he nicknamed me Homer and put a name card in front of me that said that instead of Tom.
I thought he was a great teacher but I was a terrible student in that class and got a D especially since my science fair project got an F. I did learn how to study Mr. K, eventually got a B in college biology during summer school at El Camino.
Name: joseph mailander () on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 23:34:42
Email: joseph.mailander@gmail.com
City and State: los angeles, ca
Class: 1975
Message: John, I love you enough to know, man, that this is the wrong place for a Sontagesque essay. For one, alas, there are no paragraph breaks here. But I'd like to comment on some Beach Boys discussion that's been going on of late, and sorry if it gets scrolly. It's certainly difficult for many to identify precise feelings about them--did they "represent" something that we all should automatically honor? On the surface, it's not so easy to say. But we can all remember the way that high school set up the paramount idea of emotional tensions in our lives, of winners and losers, "heroes and villains," the precise things the Beach Boys zeroed in on. And there was a reason why they zeroed in on these topics. It turns out that residing right there in these far-and-away most famous exemplars of our high school, these qualities were both side by side within the band, indeed, even within each brother, each cousin, each relative, and they certainly reside in the music, almost all of it. It's often neglected that the music often has a surprisingly shocking dark side, but it does. It's OK to make of the Beach Boys anything at all, sinners or saints, because each one had very paradoxical, at times crushing doses of both, and this is the kind we always see creating the tension that drives artists to create. Even something so apparently simple as "God Only Knows" is alternately assertive and mature and also fraught with psychological cowardice. But "Caroline, No" really takes the prize as being expressive of the kind of archtypical barely-mature high school predicament that at once makes us cringe at the kind of drama we could bring to our lives but which we nonetheless admire in ourselves and let it play itself out all our lives anyway. I've always been on the creative side myself. All I can add to this from my own life experience is that you don't get the crystalline, emotionally sumptuous work without also inviting in and combatting some attendant punitive nasty demons. So on balance, for me, the Beach Boys are neither good nor bad, they are simply...artists, and artists are worth looking at, puzzling over, brooding over, and arguing over, as all artists are, and you should be so lucky as to keep such an argument alive...For single line from a song, a single well-turned phrase, even if it comes from a night or a year or a life with a demon, has enough emotive force packed into it to transform a whole life, and that's what keeps one coming back to them, again and again, though it's been so long ago.
joseph, Susan Sontag would be proud, even though she went to North Hollywood high.
I do not become so philosophical when it comes to the "Boys", as they were just that.... 5 South Bayers trying to get on American Bandstand. I don't try to disect "Caroline, No" or "Heroes and Villians" (which is one of my favorites, BTW). I tend toward the dummied down "Surfin", "Little Deuce Coupe", "409", and the one Dennis said they did for me, but didn't write, "Sloop John B", YEAH RIGHT!!
If you're going to credit anyone with their success, in the beginning, I would say it was Murray Wilson. He knew who to see and talk to and that got them going. Brian took it from there. As far as their dark side, everyone has that. If you, me, and Patty V would have become Peter, Paul, and Mary, our critics would find our "Hero and Villian" side.
The fact is The Beach Boys ARE the Beatles of America. Dark side or not, let's all be proud they came from good old Hawthorne High.
Name: Laura Anderson () on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 23:17:32
Email: mrsanderson404@hotmail.com
City and State: Hemet, CA
Maiden: Anderson
Class: 1979
Message: I must have missed the feedback on Mr. Kyllonen...never sat in his class but he was my counselor. He noticed that unlike my peers I had not done much in the way of making further plans for my education after college. I came from one of those hard working families that were proud to have their first born graduate high school. College just wasn't considered other than on a part time basis. Mr. Kyllonen let me know he believed in my potential and encouraged me to keep at it. I thought of him when I picked up my BA 21 years later. I guess I'm just a late bloomer but I took his advice and never gave up! Thanks Mr. Kyllonen
Mr. Kyllonen was pretty much a regular on Ctown for some time, and now has been lost for the last couple of years. Bob, if you're out there, you have your kids who are thanking you here. It would be nice to hear from you again.
Name: Marilyn Ross () on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 22:11:48
Email: mlr922@hotmail.com
City and State: Garden Grove, CA
Maiden: Wisham
Class: 1956
Message: I also got the Hawthorne book of pictures. One picture really grabbed me. I mentioned in a previous post about a Mr. Peano that lived in a "haunted house" by the railroad tracks. He had all kinds of statues in his front yard. Someone told me his wife's ashes were in one of the statues. We were so afraid to go near that house. One of the photos in the book shows a Mr. Peano who was an artisan. It also shows his yard which was full of statues and ornate work. Now the mystery of Mr. Peano is solved after all these years. A photo of the old library brought back memories. I remember it was really small. In my sr. year in Mr. Goodfellows class we had to do a biography of an author. The small town library didn't have the needed info so me and Linda Dally, Claudette Marshall and Gloria Lowrey got on a bus and went to the Los Angeles Library to do our book reports. We had a blast and got the giggles on the way home. I'm sure we drove everyone on the bus nuts. What fun!
Name: Kris Hayhurst () on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 19:44:28
Email: k4hayhurst@aol.com
City and State: Killeen, TX
Message: I recently located names of Hawthorne and Lawndale Vietnam casualties to post for LeuzingerHS, and one of the older alumni pointed me to Cougartown to see a good many of the same names in memory. It's particularly fitting for me to see these names; we are a military family, stationed in TX and have experienced Iraq. I don't think I'll return to California to live, but the Californian lives on in me.
Name: Curry () on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 18:19:16
Email: currypc@sbcglobal.net
City and State: El Segundo
Class: 1982
Message: I just found this website and am truly sorry for the Haynes family. Your father was a great person. I hope all is well with you and your families Dana and Dawn. And Dana if you get this message lets go Diving
Name: Matt Peterson () on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 14:44:12
Email: mattpete6.yahoo.com
City and State: El Dorado Hills, CA
Class: 1974
Message: On Sunday there was an article in the Sacramento Bee regarding a Mock Rock festival. Guess who one of the main headliners is? Which One is Pink? CT Dan Johnson?s group. I figure I better mention it since he so shy and never would.
Thanks Matt, and WAY TO GO THERE, DAN! ! !
Name: David Neuschafer () on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 12:57:04
Email: Dendan2@aol.com
City and State: Vista, Calif
Maiden: Leuzinger
Class: 1959
Message: I have received Walt Dixon's book and enjoyed it. The pictures and facts are great...but I felt it missed something.
John, I really believe what you have created here with Cougartown gives us so much more history than any one book could ever hold. C'town is living history...it allows for live, daily inputs by all of us who lived Hawthorne. I don't know if you've ever considered yourself a historian, John...but you are! You use a different media than Walt (Electronic instead of ink) but the results are the same or(I feel) even better. This site gives us history from a different prospective and includes opinions. Pictures are great (& C'town has them too) but memories of our Hawthorne, put into words with real peoples feelings are far more important to me. How can a picture ever describe how you felt seeing your first flick at the Plaza...or cruisin' into the A&W on a Friday night with your girl? Keep up the great work, Mr. Historian! This site's too cool! Hi Dave, and thanks for propping me up. Here lately I thought we were going in a "Jerry Springer" direction.
I also received my Walt Dixon book and absolutely love it. Lots of these pictures I've seen before, but many I never knew existed. If you haven't sprung for one of Walt's books, please do so as you will be well educated in early Hawthorne history.
Name: Jackie () on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 12:55:15
Email: jj4two@pacbell.net
City and State: Hawthorne, CA
Maiden: Benjamin
Class: 1961
Message: I would like to respond to a comment that was made about Mr. Robert Kyllonen, Life Science/Counselor at Hawthorne High School and his teaching practices.
As a student of his in my freshman year, I recall that he was a good teacher and never once did he tell me to read the book although that was what we were supposed to do. He made me work very hard for my "C".
I wonder if we lack some form of maturity when we attack a teacher from the past about his teaching abilities and that is all we can remember about the past. I know there had to be some good times.
So to you Mr. Kyllonen, I apologize for my classmates.
Name: Kelley () on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 11:22:36
Email: surfbabe@charter.net
City and State: Englewood,OR
Maiden: Currie
Class: 1967
Message: I was just looking at the Tribute Page and notice Butch Kratz's name under class of '69. Can anyone give me information about Butch's death..I'm an old friend..Thanks much, Kelley
