Andy says: a note from mutual friend Jeff Betts led me to recall these episodes of our high school days.
One of the first few words I thought of in relation to Jeff was "escapades"; we let our imaginations run a little wild sometimes.... There was rarely a dull moment! He really enjoyed himself in his dramatic roles, getting into his characters. I remember him especially in "Flowers for Algernon".
We also had a fun run together at the Scarlet Parrot. When we were yet "cub reporters" we began reporting the results from the BGHS Lacrosse Team (which did not exist, of course; I think that we were doing really well in the conference, however!). For our next act, we wanted to run a "feature" on the upcoming visit of Pope John Paul I to commune with J. Patrick Gallagher -- but Jan Patton shot it down. A few weeks later the Pope died, suddenly, unexpectedly; Jan Patton says to us "You can thank me now -- think how terrible it would have been had we run your story!" Good grief...:)
We were editors as seniors, but lost our positions (and were relieved of our duties at the paper) after Jan discovered that, in our story about a high school kid (Percy Dovetonsils) at "Elohssa High" -- the name of which we explained by declaring that the story was set in Hawaii -- Elohssa was actually just a backwards asshole. There was some sort of "mea culpa" that we could have pursued, but neither of us had the school spirit to do so!
Anyway, more capers and adventures ensued, and we did enjoy communing up until just a few years ago -- when an explosive angry outburst from Jeff one night kind of scuttled our hanging out. We would still bump into each other at Grounds from time to time, and have a nice conversation, but we didn't hang out in the last six or seven years. Now, of course, come the regrets....