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Posted on: Jan 01, 2021 at 4:33 AM

Posted on: Jan 01, 2020 at 4:36 AM

xxx HAPPY BDAY AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR WOULD LIKE YOUR NAME IN THE POSTING

HAPPY BDAY

Hi Jim,

I hope this belated Birthday greeting finds you healthy. I remember as a new student at Woodward and sitting alone in Nathan’s English class, we got to know one another. Unlike all the classmates who had been indoctrinated about the opportunities at the school like the dances after the football games, etc. which I never knew about, I just got to know several great people like you.

You told me about your target shooting abilities, and even thought I transferred into Schreiner’s English class at the semester, I didn’t forget our conversation. Nathan would say “I sure hope you boys graduate from high school” and that really galled me.

I remember our first day at work before camp started, sickling the weeds at Camp Nimrod for Boys in VA when the call went out “Fire across the highway in the dump”! We each jumped in the back of the 1950 pickup trucks and we met at the dump. When the 40“ rattlesnake slithered out of the fire, you hit him in the middle with a rake and I cut off his head with a mattock and then his tail. I still have the rattles. Make a good present for my grandson, Brayden.

You had a lot of fun as the head rifle instructor for two summers. You also got paid $250. for the first summer (me $175., 2nd $200.) I helped teach team sports the 1st summer and was head canoeing instructor the second. Remember the Carnival we put on for the campers. The winning prizes at the booth were spent 22 brass which they could turn in for candy (out of their account, at rest period). I liked some of the games because they were rigged and we could toy with the boys who thought the world was their oyster. I remember the day when you had to shoot the hog. I never saw a hogs head move around as I did that day, but with everybody in camp watching you, you shot him just once, right between the eyes; bet you were nervous. Great shot. Boy that meat tasted good after roasting on the spit for 18 hours.

Life guarding at the free swims twice a day which was a part of our mandatory tasks was a bore, but we sure had our share of hijinks, I had fun shooting skunks with a bow and arrow at night, and throwing them in the river. Next day some kid would say to me, Spida, in his southern accent, there is a dead skunk down on the bottom of the river. Oh I would say, he must of drowned overnight, the kid would say oh look there’s another, well, I would reply, must have had his friend swimming with him.

Remember all the work that went into building the obstacle course in ‘63. I knew that the job that most of the guys would hate was digging post-holes so I volunteered to dig them all. I needed to build up the strength in my shoulders and that 20-pound spud bar did just the trick. After if was completed, Dickie Griffin greased the 3-inch diameter pole that his fellow cabin-mates used to go hand-over-hand (in lieu of exercises) and three or four of the kids lost their grip at the grease spot and fell into the water. I wonder what kind of task Frank got him involved in for that ‘joke’?

We all joined the Crayfish Club that summer and were surprised that in 1957 the early Astronauts also ‘were afforded the privilege of joining’. Remember playing musical chairs on horseback?

I remember organizing the 1984 Reunion and how you and your family attended. What a wonderful steak dinner we had that evening followed by a bodacious hayride down to the Blue Hole and through the woods and missing the stumps in the fields bordering the Cowpasture River.

Now, sadly, our grandchildren will not have these types of adventures. Nimrod is an artist colony. Personalities like Frank Wood are not politically correct. Camps have to beware of lawsuits for what we deemed just ordinary incidents. Frank told me that the EPA got after him about the couple of grains of sand sometimes found in the drinking water. Remember Frank’s trout ponds and his generator at the waterfalls that supplied our electrical DC power for the camp.

I hope every day is your Birthday and you can look back at the summers we had together and be happy with our many, many adventures while most of our classmates were more than likely city kids.

Your friend,

Spida.

P.S. Look up Steve Sniteman on the internet, fighter pilot, professor of marriage and family, Erskine College SC, photographer; I always thought of him as the All American Boy.

Posted on: Mar 08, 2015 at 1:27 PM

Karen,

Sally wrote me a note dated 6 May '83 and sent me her picture for the reunion book.  We did not publish pictures in a book.  the Commitee used my copy of the Graduation Program for the book as Mendy realized that out reunion was 20 years to the day of our Graduation.  Sally was in my homeroom and I always enjoyed listening to her over the speaker when she was part of the broadcast during homeroom.

Sally and Sue attended the Pleasant Ridge School tour that I organized the Saturday of the Woodward 40th Reunion.  The sisters told us they went out for a smoke under the colonies.  Who would have thunk it!  I also either talked to her over the phone or received another note where she told me that she had worked at the Cincinnati Vasectomy Clinic.  That gave me an Idea:  I had this snotty, know it all underling who did everthing by the BOOK;  on April 1 that year he came back from lunch to find on his desk a pink "While You Were Out" telling  him that Dick Cutter had called him.  Thank you Sally for telling me about the Vasectomy Clinic!!

I believe that one or both of the Williams sisters were on the radio with me for a clasical music and composers quiz during the 6th grade.  I ws the only boy and there were 7 or 9 girls.  I think either Sally or Sue had the highest score with 7 correct answers, I only had about 3.

Sally A. Williams Artist Fund

In memory of Sally A. Williams, who served as the Arkansas Arts Council’s Artist Services Manager for 25 years before her passing on April 20, 2010, the Arts Council has established the Sally A. Williams Artist Fund. Funding for this program includes donations from Williams’s family and friends, proceeds from the sale of Williams’s artwork following her death and Arts Council funding. The Arts Council introduced the first round of grants in October 2011 to celebrate Williams’s birth month.  - See more at: http://www.arkansasarts.org/grants/available-grants/williamsfund/default.aspx#sthash.beFJoU6b.dpuf