Jr. High Times

Last week I was playing with the idea of setting up a Face Book for my Jr. high school. I found out that someone already had and the members of the group numbered in the hundreds. Interesting most of the members are fairly recent students not a lot of people from my era but some. Since then I have been thinking a lot about those days, in Boise, in the middle of the 1960’s.

East Jr High was an interesting place. I think the only jr high in the Boise system which has rural as well as urban kids. The school was located in South Boise at the time. I was bussed from further South East Boise every day. We had a lot of young toughs—not me I just tried to blend in. There were classic names from my end of town, Pat Rossback, Don Foss, Dennis Ward and Ricky Crabb to name a few. One of the things I remember most were the fights which peppered the weeks of school. When there was a fight either at lunch or after school new of fight would slowly filter through the classes and by fight time, enough students would know to ensure a fairly large crowd. Its not that I went to a lot of these fights but I did attend one or two of the fights. I wish I could remember the fight but alass I cannot, what I do remember I missed my bus home and followed the growing crowd of students, across the street to the ally just West of the cemetery. This ally was about a block away from the junior high. The ally was paralleled on either side by high fences six to eight feet. There must have been thirty to fifty students surrounding the two combatants(it seems to me was Rick Crabb and someone from North Jr. High but I am not sure) It was tight quarters between the fences, kids all crowded round the circle where the fighters circled each other looking for an opening. Again, I cannot recall but seems all of the sudden a couple of Boise City police cars pulled into the north west and of the valley and the crowd instantly panicked and ran towards the other end of the ally when all of the sudden, I see a hand appear on the fence and seconds later the whole body of Mr Loyle Washam landed right in the m idle of the ally. What was just panic turned to shear terror as Washam stood there with hands on his hips. Kids started leaping for the fences like rats deserting a sinking ship. I think I must have somehow gotten over the fence because I know I was not one of the folks who were seized by law enforcement or Mr Washam but I know it must have been close.

I found out later that Loyle Washam was Special Forces not that it mattered but somehow made sense. I had direct dealing with the guy twice. Once he threw me against my locker when in frustration I had kicked my locker when I could not get my Master lock combination to work. I had not checked over my shoulder to see if anyone was round. The other encounter was when I had worn a Beatle wig my mom had won on a local television show. I wore the wig in the hall thinking myself cool, again I was slammed against the wall, the wig forever confiscated and that was that.

So, I have been “googling” his name all morning and found the guy is still alive and seems fairly active in the Idaho political party. He runs a “shrink shop “of sorts and does a lot of birdwatching. Very interesting. I doubt he would remember me. I listed his name as a topic for the Facebook, East Jr.High account. I wonder if it will get any hits.