Marion High School

Patti and Tony attended Marion High School. they kept busy with school work and extra activities. I loved going to all the events from teachers/parent conferences, to plays, ball games and band concerts. I wanted to attend every event they took part in because I enjoyed all of it!

Patti played basketball in Junior High and her freshman year. She decided she wasn't willing to put all the time in for practice if she was going to sit on the bench and play only a few minutes now and then. I hated it that she decided she'd rather concentrate on music and drama. I loved watching her play because she had a wicked left-handed hook shot! However, she was the one who had to put in all the practice time so she made the decision and I backed her in it.

She and Tony both played clarinet. I think my Mom wished two clarinet players on me to get even for all the squeaking I did with the clarinet when I was growing up! They both played in concert band, pep band and jazz band. As the photo shows, Tony was drum major for the band. He did hate that shako hat! Patti was first chair clarinet and Tony was second chair during Patti's senior year. That was the year the band marched at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I think it was also the year the jazz band competed in Fremont, Nebraska. The kids often volunteered me to chaperone some of their trips. I was along on the Fremont, NE, trip. Tony became first chair clarinet his jurnior year, after Patti graduated.

The high school play during Tony's freshman year was "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." The cast was made up of seniors, one sophomore and one freshman - Tony who was cast as Linus. The senior girl who played Linus' sister Lucy became good friends with Tony. It was a fun play. I think Tony can probably still sing most of the songs. He became more interested in the technical aspects of drama - sound and lighting. It seems to me he built a sound board for the school.

Patti played Bar-Bar(e)-A in the play, "The Apple Tree." The photo shows her in costume for the play. I don't know whether we can see the jewel in her naval or not! It was a fun play, also.

Our 1948 Stinson

The Stinson's wings and fuselage were covered with heavy duty cotton that had many oayers of paint and wax. We had the plane several years before the wings needed to be recovered. We towed the plane, minus the wings, to our house. The wings went into the basement and we enclosed the area under the deck for the fuselage.

We recovered the wings with heat-shrink nylon - we actually ironed the fabric to make it shrink to fit. After that was done, Chuck built a paint "room" where he could spray the paint on the wings. We chose bright yellow for the paint. After each coat of paint, we used rubbing compound to smooth the paint. We put many coats of paint on the wings and many more coats of wax.

An FAA inspector okayed the wings and we put those bright yellow wings on the brick-red fuselage and flew several more years. People could certainly see us coming!

We flew to Ness City and Coldwater in the summer. We even flew in to the EAA convention at Oshkosh twice. The airport in Oshkosh was the busiest airport in the country during the week of the convention. Planes would be landing long (farther down the runway) and short (touching down at the beginning of the runway) while other planes landed on the grass parallel to the runway. That was a real experience.

Some time during this period we purchased a 1949 Piper Stinson. Piper bought out the Stinson company and the planes were on the production line. The company put the Piper name on those planes. So we had the 1948 Stinson and the 1949 Piper Stinson. They were not both airworthy at the same time, if I remember correctly.

We did enjoy flying. Tony was always interested in learning to fly and soloed the day before he left for his freshman year of college. Patti was more interested in driving.