Name: martha lopez ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Mar 21, 2006, 3:26 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1971
City & State: apple valley, calif
E-mail
Message: I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS WEBSITE I ALSO JUST FOUND OUT A STATEMENT MY BROTHER WROTE BACK ON JUNE 20TH 2003 WAS IN HERE. I HAD TO READ IT IT WAS WONDERFUL READING SOMETHING HE HAD WROTE. I JUST WANTED TO LET ANYONE OUT THERE WHO MAY HAVE KNOWN MY BROTHER JOE BROWN FROM HAWTHORNE PASSED AWAY OCTOBER 31, 2005. HE LOVED HAWTHORNE AND OUR FAMILY THAT IS LEFT HAVE WONDERFUL MEMORIES OF HAWTHORNE, I WENT TO HAWTHORNE HIGH BUT I GRADUATED FROM LEUZINGER.
MARTHA LOPEZ

Name: Cliff Hitchcock ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Mar 21, 2006, 1:44 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1973
City & State: Van Nuys, Ca
E-mail
Message: Im glad to see that MY friends and I werent the only ones who did things we wouldnt want our own kids to do. But our daftness seems to have known no boundries. In particular was our Freshman year at HHS when we figured out how easy it was to cut a class or two. We soon figured out we could actually skip a whole day here and there and get away with it. So in the true spirit of dumbness we expanded our little vacation in the spring of 1969 to 41 days in a row. All went well until we took our forged notes to the attendance office to get back in and the red flags went off in somebodys head (it sure wasnt ours). Anyway, as my Dad reminded me a few times over the years, it was only thru the grace of my counselor Mrs. Heller I wasnt expelled. The principal Mrs. Dicker wanted us outta there but Mrs Heller really went to bat for us. Needless to say I flunked most of the classes that semester and had to work triple duty in my Senior year to graduate on time. Ya know, I wish I could Thank Mrs Heller for saving my bacon.

Name: Raymond Smith ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Mar 21, 2006, 1:31 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1981
City & State: Portland, OR
E-mail
Message: Oh hum..how I miss the days when we had bottle rockets and firecrackers. I was never brave enough to take firecracker to school but one time at Hawthorne Intermediate sometimes you hear a firecracker or 2 going off in the halls. The echo's was awesome. I was never brave enough(or stupid enough more the term). Wonder if anyone ever got caught w/ the loot in school? My buddy "Mike" had a firecracker he was gonna hold with his hand and throw it at the last second only to have a fuse go out on him. So, instead of throwing away a perfectly good firecracker(you can break them in half and have fun with the powder) he stuck it in his pocket only to have it explode in his pocket with his hand still inside! I guess he went home that day....wonder what he told the school nurse? I used to put firecrackers in my "Broken" model airplanes and once the fuse was going I would throw the airplane high in the air and watch it explode! But I was never adventure enough to do anything wicked.

Name: Sheree Klingenhagen ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Mar 21, 2006, 12:17 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1975
City & State: somewhere in America
E-mail
Message: Has anyone noticed there aren't alot of stupid stories that we women have to share? Now I've done stupid things before, said the turtle pushed me in the mud, but I was about 5. Breaking the front window, NEVER. Mom and Dad woulda killed me! I did hit a large trash container leaving the parking lot of the Job's Daughters meeting place, I scratched the passenger side of the '71 Malibu my Mom drove. Well she didn't see it for like 3 days so I felt pretty good about it. We went to Lucky's shopping on a Friday night and what does she see? The scratch, well the trash had been picked up in between and she just assumed that the trash people did it. Who was I to straighten her out about that. Well, I did tell her about 20 years later and we had a laugh. But I still have that quezzy feeling just thinking about it.

Name: Tom Hoffarth ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Mar 21, 2006, 12:16 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1979
City & State: Redondo Beach CA
E-mail
Message: Lost and found, after all these years: A 1974 HHS girls class ring, size (approx.) 4 (which is pretty small). It's been with my mother in law for years but she just recently came across it during her move to Arizona and wondered how to find its owners. That seems almost impossible, but the fact Cougartown exists, who knows if someone may want to claim it. Anyone from '74 ever lose their class ring? There's no name engraved in it, but there could be initials xxx and xxx on the sides of the middle part, but it's hard to tell. i'll search '74 list for any xxx-xxx names. Thanks.

Name: Jerry Miles ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Mar 21, 2006, 10:12 am - HHS Time
Class: 1966
City & State: Fair Oaks, CA
E-mail
Message: Another Stupid Kid story. One time I had procured several M-80?s and decided to pull a trick on a friend. I put the M-80 inside an empty toilet paper roll and stuffed it full of toilet paper so only the fuse would show. I then went over to my friend, Fred Kaiman?s house and told him I manufactured it by taking apart a dozen ladyfingers and rerolling them into one big one. We proceeded to the alley in the back of his house to audition my handiwork. Fred was going to light it and I, knowing what it really was, advanced to a safe twelve feet away. As he lit it, Fred gave me the look of ?you know this isn?t going to work don?t you? and stayed about six inches from the burning fuse. I quickly ran back and started to physically drag him away. We had only made it three or four feet when it went off with like a thunder clap. I?ll never forget the look on his face or what he said, ?You did pretty good?. I don?t think I ever did tell him what is really was.

Name: Keith D. Jones ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Mar 20, 2006, 8:41 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1976
City & State: Kona, HI
E-mail
Message: This is kind of dumb if if you saw it in person it was one of the funniest things I used to allot. I lived across the street from Hol Glen. Allot of dogs went there and they did their business on the grass allot. There was the parking lot by the tennis courts and kiddie pool. There a tree that we used to climb all the time right by there. In fact there was a branch that was very comfortable that we used to lay on. Anyway, I used to take a stcik and find some dog stuff on the grass and stick the branch in it. Then I would put the stuff under the door handles of cars. Both sides. We would then hide in the trees and wait. When the driver would come and open his or her door they got dog stuff on their fingers. The reaction was unbelivable. But when they always smelled their fingers is when we usually lost it and we had to jump out of the trees and run home. Now I know this is a bad thing to do but we were young. To this day I think it was a childish thing to do. But, it has the same effect to this day cause when some girls cut my friend off for a parking spot once over on Oahu and the girls flipped us off, I started to get flashbacks. Well needless to say the reaction from two girls getting it at the same time is way more funny than it was when I was a kid. But, a few years later I have grown up and I will never do do that again. Yea right

Name: Jim Rowley ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Mar 20, 2006, 5:31 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1979
City & State: Redondo Beach
E-mail
Message: Hey Dennis and Laura Eric and I hung out through much of HHS years. We used to go to the dairy on Inglewood Ave. all of the time. There was always a line of kids sitting against the wall of what used to be the drive through. We used to throw all kinds of snacks out the open side to the first wall support (kid eatin' lunch) and they would pass the booty back in an assembly line fashion to be collected and passed around from the back. One rainy day, I was wearing my army coat. We came in to a packed dairy. I slung the coat over my shoulder, hanging on by a finger and Eric slipped behind me under the cover of all the kids waiting in line and slipped a six pack under my coat, looping the handle over my finger. We did this on several occasions, but stopped without getting caught. I'm sure the SOL is up on that one!

Name: Larry Bach ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Mar 20, 2006, 1:36 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1972
City & State: Seal Beach, CA
E-mail
Message: Several of us Cougars were reminiscing(?) the other night about the dumb things I did as a kid, the most interesting being the "Dog-doo" mortar I deployed in the back yard when I was fifteen. Since my dad was designing missiles and aircraft for Northrop, I thought I would design my own "weapons" too. So I drilled a small hole in the metal cap that screwed on to a two foot section of iron pipe. A firecracker (or two) was inserted into the cap then screwed onto the pipe so the fuse projected from the cap. A "doggie doodle" was then dropped down the "mortar" tube and the fuse lit, BANG! Depending on the strength of the firecracker(s) the angle of the "mortar" tube, and the size/weight/density of the "doodle", the "mortar bomb" would hopefully clear the garage and land on the sidewalk to worry passersby. "Bombs" badly aimed or too heavy to clear the roof stuck to the back of the garage. Unfortunately for my project and fun, my dad was one of the passersby and stepped on one of the "mortar bombs". Though he encouraged innovative mechanical ingenuity, my dad was not one to suffer fools gladly and was double-plus-unhappy with my "mortar" battery, and especially about the "bomb" stuck to the sole of his shoe. He was even less impressed with the many "duds" stuck to the the back of his garage. Amid a barrage of barnyard words and irreverent references to The Savior, immediately dad retired the "mortar" from service and ordered a police call of the garage wall to remove all "duds" forthwith. Since creative minds cannot be fettered for long, the former "mortar" tube was soon retrieved from a corner of the garage and redesigned as a bottle rocket "Bazooka", but that's another story.

Name: al rocca ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Mar 20, 2006, 1:08 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1970
City & State: mesa, az
E-mail
Message: After reading Dewey's rocket story (by the way, if he hit the Dalton's window we probably would have never seen Dewey again!! Their father did not have a sense of humor!!), I have a dumb(not so young) kid story. A friend of mine which will remain nameless, Jim Henderson, and myself used to build a few rocket kits and for added excitement put firecrackers in them. Well, one day we built a two stage large rocket and lit it behind a strip mall in Torrance. Before it took off it tipped to the left and rocketed straight into the back door of the Sears business office. We heard a loud bang and we were sooo out of there. I can just imagine how many people had to change their pants that day. I feel so much better getting this off my chest

Name: Robert Sanchez ~~~~~~~~~~ Sun-Mar 19, 2006, 8:58 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1977
City & State: Austin, Texas
E-mail
Message: Hello to All: Just a Quick Note to Keith Jones......the whatever street is Ocean Gate. Kurt lived at 129th and Ocean Gate. Oh yeah I remember that day, couple of Nuggets, as Mr. Mack the wood shop Teacher at Dana Jr. High would say!
Take care and be good. Robert

Name: Keith D. Jones ~~~~~~~~~~ Sun-Mar 19, 2006, 7:49 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1976
City & State: Kona, HI
E-mail
Message: Aloha from the horrible weather state, especially right now. Just rain, rain and more rain. Floods and dams breaking making paradise unbearable. Not sure how stupid this is but it was funny. Me and my friend Kurt Morlock both had 66 Mustangs. Well we did some professional enginne work on Kurts Stang and had to take it for a test run. He lived on 129st or so and whatever street that is that goes to El Segundo Bl. by Jack in the Box. Anyway, we drove and ended up by Mr. McCarroll's house over in Holy Glen. Well I think we got out to say hi to someone and when we got back in the car was running but the gas pedal was going to the floor and nothing happened. when we lfted the hood we noticed the carb linkage had broken. By using both or brains we came up with a coat hanger and bent it so it worked. And it did. So now we are off. well not exactly. When we put the car in gear nothing happened. We kept pulling and pushing the stick shirt but nothing but reverse. Again by putting our heads together to form a rock we decided to drive all the way back to his house in reverse. Now this was weekend and baseball season and man we have to go buy the field in reverse with everyone watching us. It looked pretty funny I bet. Other cars were pulling over not knowing what was going on. We made it though. Not really stupid but kind of inventive. we adapted and conquered

Name: Neil ~~~~~~~~~~ Sun-Mar 19, 2006, 7:13 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1971
City & State: Crestview FL
E-mail
Message: Dennis YES ...I forgot about THAT stupid Kid Trick!!!! We did almost the same thing back in 1968 in rich greedus' Rumpus Room behind his folk's house ...Rich Cougar class69 would tie the dry clean bags really tight in knots about every 4 inches like a ribbon or rope of shear plastic then pop a thumb tack in the end and tack it to the ceiling , we put a bucket of water under the bottom end about 3 feet of drop then...Off with the lights Once lit the thing made a BBBBRRRRwwwwOOP woop - woop - woop sound almost like those Nazi British ww2 Buzz bombs . As the flaming drops released and tracked down in random sequence the whole thing would sputter and blink . We called it a "GRINCH" , which was what the sound of the burning globs sounded like when they splashed into the bucket of water! Yeah ...I'll have to try that again with proper safety precautions of course!!! Yes Dennis you do need a rather non flameable metal "lid" above the Grinch ...Why didn't you guys think that through? Boy was that stupid or what! PS did any one ever try to sneek into the Friday night Football games through the hole in the chain link fence on the Railroad track side of Halcap Field behind the Food Stand? Mike Huerta & I did it once without getting caught...It was a silly thing to do , but the only excuse I have is Mike had just come back ALIVE from Infantry Combat duty in Vietnam and he insisted we could get away with it. He threw down the challenge and I guess it was my patriotic duty to assist the American War hero Vet. in his quest to celebrate his return to America... anyway that is my story and I'm sticking to it! "Were we ever so innocent?"...as B.Mitchell Reed used to say on KMET FM.

Name: Dennis Rigdon ~~~~~~~~~~ Sun-Mar 19, 2006, 5:25 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1979
City & State: Killer Dana
E-mail
Message: Neil reminded me of another Stupid Kid Trick. For several years growing up, I lived on 120th Between Doty and Kornblum across from the airport. Since my mom worked and went to El Camino all day my house became the natural hang out for my sister dawn and all her friends. People like Mark and Craig Olin, Dicky and Gary Ellis, Sherry and John Redmon, Cheryl and John Lynch, Pat Tusky. I could write volumes on the stupid things this group pulled off. Our Gang had nothing on us. Anyway one day we got the bright idea to try the little hot air balloon trick that Neil spoke of. All we managed to do is catch a plastic bag on fire. No big deal. Not until some one noticed how cool the flaming globs of molten trash bag looked as it dripped to the ground. Then someone suggested that it might look even cooler in the dark. Next thing ya know we got a black plastic trash bag nailed to a beam in the garage. Always keeping safety in mind, we placed a pan of water beneath it to catch the burning globs. The thing got lit and we were having a great time watching the show and all the neat shapes the plastic made when it hit the water. Never noticing not only is the garage filling up with toxic black smoke, but the flames from the bag are lapping at the rafters. When we did notice the flames, someone threw open the garage door. I guess the sudden change in tempter or backdraft or something made the flaming trash bag blow up into the ceiling and sticking. Now we got us a fire. We threw the pan of water on it but that didn?t help much. Ended up putting it out with a garden hose. What a mess we had. We managed to clean it up pretty well. My mom never found out.

Name: EL ROJO ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Mar 18, 2006, 7:31 pm - HHS Time
Maiden: BRUINS!!!
Class: 1960
City & State: YOU KNOW
No E-mail
Message: WIN, WIN, WIN. 8.8 Sec's left. One point lead./ 2 points. These guys can't tell you how much time is left. Now it's 15.45000. Give me a break. Go Bruins Go!!!MAY THE COUGAR BE WITH YOU . Jake N Jude. YES! YES ! YES!

Name: Glenn ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Mar 18, 2006, 7:24 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1964
City & State: Sonoma, CA
E-mail
Message: My father?s cousins, as young adults, improvised a cannon of sorts in ?somewhat rural? Modesto. They filled the end a piece of stove pipe with concrete, drilled a small hole in it for a fuse, dumped in some gun powder and were able to loft rolls of toilet paper 300 yards or so with their creation (kids, don?t try this at home, it was filmed with using professional ...). The cousin that revealed this to me, didn?t say if the roll remained intact, or if they were confetti, when it arrived at their rather unguided destination. Hardly effective TPing of houses, one would think. And where was the safety officer for those in the launch parties, anyway?