Among the greatest high school traditions of Cisco High School, Cisco, Texas, is the annual crowning of King Lobo (That Damn Dam Painting! [April, 2013], The Chair/Desk Escapade — Chapter 3 (“…fellows like him could be King Lobo.”) [Oct, 2013]). The tradition is based upon the Junior class having the privilege of “putting on” or […]
The 2013-2014 NFL campaign certainly left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I had “no dog in that fight” (apologies to Michael Vick and to dogs everywhere) during the Super Bowl, though I do admire Peyton Manning and how he plays the game; but, I pretty much “flatline” success for the Denver Broncos, and you […]
Education writer Malcolm Gladwell defines “outliers” as those who operate at the extreme outer edge of what is statistically possible. Anything that is measurable and is randomly distributed graphs into the well-known “bell curve” whereon “average” is most of the population in the large middle of the graph. Therefore, by Gladwell’s definition, measurements from outliers […]
Before I make my annual college football commentary, let me give an emotional shout-out to my high school team, the new Texas State Champion 2A Div. II Cisco Loboes! The “Big Dam” Loboes! (That Damn Dam Painting! [April, 2013]) This is their first State Championship EVER! Appropriate accolades need to be made by those who […]
Returning to the question from the Introduction: Why, then, this prank? It was an impish dream made real by extraordinary, out-of-the-box teenagers — not one, or two, but the improbable grouping of four of us of like mind (4 out of 54). We had the “gall” (or, better, using words from fellow Senior 1964 Joe […]
Next, we went to see Mrs. Catherine Cole at Cole’s house. She “took it” better than we had expected, maybe because we appeared to her en masse. Then, we went downtown to City Hall, where Mrs. Lois Adling worked, to break the news to her (In addition to reacting to her son’s involvement, she now […]
It was a bluff; they were trying to “scare” confession and apology from us. We know now that if they had any evidence against us, they would have brought it up at our “line-up;” we should have asked for their evidence, but their haste in getting us to “confess” would not allow any cross-examination from […]
The day of chaos at Cisco High School, Wednesday, February 12, 1964, defied description. The chair/desk escapade caught everyone by surprise; its effects, emulating from the success of its execution the night before, far, far exceeded the expectations in the minds of a particular four Seniors. My memoirs recall two of the four minds’ first […]
However, we could not test out my idea immediately after we all four were together in the school; we had to wait on the meeting in the little church across Avenue H to end. Taking our cue from Adling’s and Berry’s excellent idea of “lining up” the chair/desks from the classrooms near the entrance of […]
The school day of February 11, 1964, at the “replacement” Cisco High School building with the flat roof seemed ordinary enough, but inside the heads of four particular individuals, that school day was far from ordinary. It was hard for us to focus and concentrate on the normal tasks and activities; good thing we had […]