St. Lawrence Band Reunion

August 28th, 2005

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WOW! Dave Lucking (the band related links work if you’re on the list and signed in to the site) and Cookie Ostrom did an amazing job! Saturday was the St. Lawrence Band Reunion. Great turnout, standing room only in the church basement. Tim and Paul McGovern had put together CD’s and videos of collections of photos and Super 8 movies which were running non-stop in two classrooms, there were scrapbooks and photos from several generations. Tim made awards for all the Directors, I had a great shot of him presenting to Doug Jarosh and deleted it — oops — and same with the one where he introduced his mother, Pat McGovern. SORRY!

Talk about long strange trips… it was so weird hearing over and over “Oh, I joined the band in 1948” or “1952” and here they are:

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No one could really claim any generation gap when the photos of the first New York trip look just like the photos of the 1972 New York trip, same antics, same poses, and what a hoot to learn that my in-laws first got together on one of those trips!

Here’s Hap Corbett telling of his St. Lawrence adventures, and Clete McGovern, Director for many years (and my father-in-law!), sitting on the left.

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Clete was a big influence on me. He taught me some of the finer points of argument, which has served me well. He had to chortle, and said he’d heard I was a lawyer and asked me what I was up to. When I told him, he said, “I hope you’re not saving the screeching owl!” I explained my economic approach to utility regulation issues, and that he’d probably get a kick out of it, and he said, “Well, we probably wouldn’t agree on much, I am conservative, you know.”

As Tim McGovern said, it was an organization that welcomed everyone as family, and he’d not found anything like it since. But for him it WAS family — he needed more than just two hands as he listed off just his immediate family members in the band! It was a family reunion for me, too. I recognized them all except for “baby Tommy” who was maybe a year and a half when we met, and now has kids of his own. Here’s moi and my mother-in-law Pat McGovern, and favorite sister-in-law Peggy Roethke (McGovern).

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Oh, my, some of those old photos, as someone said, “That’s back from the days when you were hot!” His brother almost smacked him upside the head… should have… I don’t remember those days well, seems my floppy crashed somewhere along the parade route… we all know that sax player… and who’s that with the red hair in front?

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And guess who this is, photo compliments of Jan Fennell (Shupien)? Isn’t that the same guy on bass drum above?

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And also from Jan Fennell, this one’s for David, back when he had hair and wasn’t pregnant! That’ll teach you not to show up!

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Yes, it was well worth the price of admission.

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And for Randy, here’s from Kathy Pulkka’s scrapbook:

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And today:

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