Name: Armand Vaquer ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Apr 10, 2007, 11:21 am - HHS Time
Class: 1972
City & State: Tarzana, CA
E-mail
Message: Thanks also to Larry Bach. Whenever the price of gasoline jumps up, people are ready to badmouth the oil companies. Their anger should be directed at the politicians who tax us all to death, mandate seasonal additives that also drive up costs and who won't allow for new refineries or expansions of existing refineries to keep up with the demand. At least for the next two weeks I won't have to shell (no pun intended) out money on gasoline as I will be making good use of Japan's rail systems (we could sure use those here).

Name: Jim Schroeder ~~~~~~~~~~ Tue-Apr 10, 2007, 7:50 am - HHS Time
Class: 1966
City & State: Central Point, Or
E-mail
Message: Classmate Alan Lee's father was a recurring character in the "Our Gang" shorts. Debbie Lee is a Cougartown contributor occasionally. His character was "Spike".
Gas was $3.13 last evening here in Southern Oregon. When gas companies report annual profit (that's profit -- not earnings) in the BILLIONS, I wonder, how much is enough? (My facts are based on a dream I had last night in which Sandra Bullock was a member of the Hawthorne ruff-neck gang, "Bare Clods," worked at the Sonny Tanger Shell Station and kept rotating the tires on my canary yellow Corvair - much to my delight.)

Name: Bud Rhoades ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Apr 9, 2007, 2:48 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1974
City & State: Belmont Shore
E-mail
Message: Larry, you are right on with the break down on the price of a gallon of gasoline, actually though the gp margins are actually closer to single digits at about 9 and three quarters, We would go out of business if we were making 10-11%GP. Price gouging....I dont think so either, California taxes and emissions additives costs, now thats another story. I love the grocery add from 1942. What caught my eye was the anti-japanese sentiment that ran amuck. I was up in El Durado County at an antique shop and they had a Gas Station game to raise money for U.S War Bonds called "slap a jap" which was really a kind of Pichinko game, a bit ironic really, you'd drop a penny and it would track down through the tiny nails killing the Kama-Kazi pilots one by one, the guy wanted 5 grand for it.Hope to see you all out at the 4th annual C-Town Classic.

Name: Dave Keller ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Apr 9, 2007, 11:37 am - HHS Time
Class: 1981
City & State: Quincy, CA
E-mail
Message: Thank you, Larry Bach, for providing balance. I think a lot of folks also forget that oil companies also provide a lot of jobs for Americans.

Name: Ray Nelson ~~~~~~~~~~ Mon-Apr 9, 2007, 2:50 am - HHS Time
Class: 1973
City & State: Fayetteville, Ga
E-mail
Message: Hello from Amsterdam. The price of gasoline here is about $6 a gallon. I don't want to deny the oil companies the ability of making a profit but, you got to sometimes wonder. The US is blessed with its own supply of crude which, by some accounts, is roughly about 40% of what we consume. This crude is extracted from domestic oil fields and after some taxes and royalties are paid is place on the world market. So when some little thing happens somewhere in the world which is related to oil production guess what happens to the price of our domestic crude, it's pegged with the world market. The oil companies simply cash in. So is OPEC the real villain?

Name: BRUCE HANSON ~~~~~~~~~~ Sun-Apr 8, 2007, 3:20 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1959
City & State: CATHLAMET WA
E-mail
Message: OUR GANG (LITTLE RASCALS) 221 SHORTS 88 SILENT 133 TALKIES (ALL B&W) FROM NOV 14 1922 UNTIL APRIL 15 1944. PORKY CAME IN #140 LITTLE SINNER APRIL 15 1935. PORKY WAS PLAYED BY GORDON EUGENE (PORKY) LEE AGE 2 BEING BORN OCT 25 1933. HIS LAST WAS AUTO ANTICS #183 JULY 22 1939 (43 IN ALL) HE ONLY PLAYED IN LITTLE RASCALS. HE DIED OCT 16 2005 IN MINN, MINNESOTA OF LUNG AND BRAIN CANCER. I FIND NO SCREEN CREDITS FOR DANNY (DAN) FIX OR WALTER DIXON. NONE! O-TAY. MY FAVORITE IS 'THE KID FROM BORNEO'1933 #122 A WILD MAN FROM BORNEO "BUMBO" WHO LOVES CANDY AND WHEN HE SEES SOME ALL HE CAN SAY IS "YUM-YUM EAT EM UP EAT EM UP.SPANKY HAS CANDY AND THINKS BUMBO WANTS TO EAT HIM SO SPANKY FEEDS HIM EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE.JUST THINK OUR GANG WAS INTEGRATED RIGHT FROM THE FIRST SHORT 1922. I WONDER DID THEY PLAY IN THE SOUTH?

Name: Jim Gibson ~~~~~~~~~~ Sun-Apr 8, 2007, 1:14 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1967
City & State: Redding, CA
E-mail
Message: When I played college baseball @ Cal State Northridge, for a short time, I roomed w/ William (Willie) Thomas, Jr. Rumor was that Buckwheat of The Little Rascals (supposedly William Thomas, Sr.), was his dad. Willie would never admit to it, but I'm almost certain the rumor was true. Since everyone on the team had a nickname, like it or not, Willie got the obvious nickname, in honor of his dad. Can anyone verify that Buckwheat's real name was William Thomas? It would solve a 30+ year mystery.

Name: Ron Reinholdson ~~~~~~~~~~ Sun-Apr 8, 2007, 8:18 am - HHS Time
Class: 1965
City & State: Claremont, CA
E-mail
Message: I am not anti-big oil or anti-big business by any means. I believe in capitalism and "what the market will bear". But some things really frost me. In the Business section of Saturday's LA Times was an article about the salary of Ray R. Irani, CEO of Occidental Petroleum--$460 million in 2006. What part of each gallon of gas was that?

Name: Larry Bach ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 11:48 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1972
City & State: Torrance, CA
E-mail
Message: Happy Easter, especially those who have to drive long distances and then fill up at the gas pump. The prices of gasoline are so high for many reasons including foreign oil cartels setting artificial prices for crude oil. The cost for oil companies to make a gallon of gasoline is about 53% or more to purchase crude oil, about 20% for federal and state taxes, about 9% for refining costs, about 9% for marketing and distribution, leaving the oil company about 11% profit in making that gallon of gas. That kind of profit margin is not exactly price gouging. On the other hand, federal taxes on gasoline are around 19 cents/gallon, California taxes are about 45 cents/gallon, plus CA state sales tax, county sales tax, local taxes or fees, and finally, a 1.2 cents/gallon CA transportation user fee. It's tax gouging, not price gouging that makes the price of gasoline so high.

Name: Dewey Storie ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 10:55 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1974
City & State: Chandler, AZ
E-mail
Message: Ok lets put this urban legend to bed. Danny Fix was my brother-in-law. He played the part of porky till Robert Blake came in to the picture, who later on in the series played the part of Mickey.

Name: Terrence Poublon ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 10:50 pm - HHS Time
City & State: San Jose, CA
E-mail
Message: Hey John... You are absolutely right! The Little Rascals and The Our Gang comedies were all filmed in Black and White. I only referred to "Black and Whites" because there are DVD sets out there where the shorts have been colorized. I'll always remember watching them on UHF Channel 52... with the signal broadcast from the top of Mount Wilson. Felix The Cat, Kimba The White Lion, Speed Racer, The Three Stooges, and The Little Rascals/Our Gang comedies. Those were great days!

Name: John Crotty ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 5:57 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1969
City & State: Hermosa Beach
E-mail
Message: Mention Watts and everyone who grew up in Hawthorne can remember the '65 riots and the National Guard on our corners....if you were old enough to remember '65. Little did I know that 27 years later, I would find myself smack dab in the middle of the '92 riots. I was working Homicide back then and my office was at Crenshaw Blvd and MLK Blvd (once called Santa Barbara Blvd). Needless to say, that first night was an "E" ticket ride all the way. I never went home for four days. Talk about dodging bullets....and firing a few back too.....

Name: Bob Fraser ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 5:51 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1960
City & State: Hawthorne, Ca
E-mail
Message: The Roth Brothers had several stores. The one my mother worked at was on the southwest corner of Hawthorne Blvd. and El Segundo Blvd. It was formally Forrest Market. Now it is a Union Bank. I think the ad was for all of the markets. Thanks for posting the ad, John. Karen and I would like to wish all of our Cougartown friends a happy and blessed Easter. We will be sharing the day with our friends , Larry and Loretta Cuiper. Hope everyone likes what they find in their Easter baskets.

Name: John Guerra ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 5:30 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1960
City & State: Buena Park, Calif
No E-mail
Message: HI JB, This doesn't have anything to do with HHS news, I just want to let Jack Young know that Lake Tahoe's gas price is good compared to (CITY OF BAKER) off I-15 hwy toward Vegas which is 4.19 per gal for 87 oct. The refinery ceo,s are really putting the boots to us and getting richer. So your 3.79 per gal isn't that bad after all. You live in a beautiful city, anywhere in the eastern high sierra's is gods country. JB, my friend Bob Fraser came thru with that classic picture. HAPPY EASTER COUGARS.

Name: BRUCE HANSON ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 3:43 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1959
City & State: CATHLAMET WA
E-mail
Message: WASTE FATS AND GREASES WERE SOLD BACK TO BUTCHERS WHO SOLD THEM TO RENDERING PLANTS WHO TURNED THEM INTO GLYCERINE FOR EXPLOSIVES.

Name: Jack Young~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 2:44 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1973
City & State: Lake Tahoe
E-mail
Message: Hello everyone, I think Lake Tahoe is the highest price gas in the country. For the low grade it is now $3.79 per gallon, yikes what a rip off! We can go off the mountain to Carson City NV where it is now $3.39 per gallon. Anyway Im currently in Florida and am enjoying their gas prices for a while until I go back home, hopefully the price will drop before I go home. Hey Wade Jill and Bud, Riley Stoops and I are planning on attending the golf tournament this year.Take care, Jack

Name: Michael Kratz ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 1:40 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1971
City & State: Vegas
E-mail
Message: Yes! Hawthorne High gave me a very good Education and being the Majority there was nothing like my 8 year tenure at Max Factor & Co.(1971 to 1979)located at Van Ness Ave and El Segundo Blvd. I was the minority here, it was the greatest education of Mankind I could get. I knew people and had friends from citys like Willowbrook, Lynwood, South Gate, Downey, Bell Gardens, Vernon, yes even from Watts and Compton. Which brings me to the question of the Watts Riot. I ask my co-workers who were working that hot August Summer of 65 how did everyone get along. The collective Answer was very Quietly. And I'm glad that I had the opportunity to work at Max Factor & Co. And to this day, I hold No Ill Wills or Prejudice Towards Anyone.

Name: Ron Dickson ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 10:21 am - HHS Time
Class: 1967
City & State: Norco,Ca.
E-mail
Message: In 1965, the market on San Pedro and Manchester was an ABC Market. I know that because that is where I worked as a box boy and stock clerk during high school. As you know..1965 was the year of the Watts riots. Yes, I was there dodging bullets, grocery carts and flying objects. Those were the days..

Name: Jim Peppers ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Apr 7, 2007, 9:40 am - HHS Time
Class: 1961
City & State: Athens, Greece
E-mail
Message: Hello Cougars! We've been paying about 1.30$ a liter (close to a quart) for a long time now here in Greece. I think that would translate to more than five bucks a gallon. Of course, you know who we blame for the high prices. We've been experiencing very weird weather phenomena here as well. Again you know who the blame falls on for this. Blame put aside, I hope that the world will get responsible soon and stop the madness. It seems like almost a dream that we cared nothing about gas prices or the environment as we were growing up in Hawthorne. I don't remember being concerned about the planet or politics. I was more concerned about where I could park my car to make out with whatever girlfriend I could get into the back seat. Happy Easter Cougars! Jim Peppers