School Story:
[All the stories told here are factual and as accurate as I can make them, but know that there may be 'fanciful dimensions' (my term for mental lapse) to any of them. Thanks for reading them-I hope they were at least enjoyable!]
[For more stories-post RBUHS years-and some of the stories that have disppeared from here, click on 'Dave's Stories' in menue bar on the left (<-) of this page.]
Peter Bartsch winning the 1963 homecoming game against Shasta High with a game ending field goal.
I was driving south on 99/I-5 one night from Redding/Anderson with a group of 'classmates' hanging BAs out my mom's car windows (front and back) when I took a wrong detour/lane (I-5 was just being built and this was one of those transitions between 99 and I-5) on the hill just north of Cottonwood and ended up in the northbound lane on I-5 facing oncoming traffic/headlights at about 75-80 miles an hour-a near death experience (one of many) for all of us.
In our senior year a group of us (Jack Allen, Larry Bouett, George Fredson, Pete Catching, Peter Bartsch, myself and others?) undertook to teach ourselves to water ski-to include driving ski boats (we had two)-on the Sacramento River a couple of miles upriver from the bridge. During one of our early sessions Peter Bartsch had completed a flawless two ski circuit of the stretch of river we used and came sailing in to land near the beach on the little island we were using. Due to a slight miscalculation of his speed, Peter was unable to slow himself enough to stop in front of the beach; so instead ran full speed onto the sand with both skis still on his feet. Well the skis stopped abruptly on the sand, but Peter continued up the beach spinning head-over-heels in a ball of sand and Swiss curses, disappearing into the brush and trees above the beach. Lucky for Peter he was not seriously injured because the rest of us were rolling around laughing so hard that we couldn't have helped him if we'd had to.
The players: Tony Karol and Larry Bouett in a VW Bug-Jack Allen, George Fredson and myself in Jack's Model A Ford coupe.
The Location: Driving out the Lassen Park road from the ski area just approaching the junction with Highway 36.
The event: We were conducting a running snowball fight, the Model A in front with Jack driving; and me on the right running board holding on to a ski rack and George in the rumble seat, both throwing snowballs back at the VW where Tony was driving and Larry was throwing snowballs at us. As we came to the highway junction there set a car (driven by George Perkins of Mineral) stopped at the STOP sign! The road was snow covered and it was obvious that we were not going to be able to stop before hitting the stopped car. Jack put the Model A into a hard slide to the left and as we passed the stopped car its rear bumper brushed the calf of my left leg-remember I am still outside on the running board hanging on for dear life. We are now sliding across Highway 36 at 25-30 mph and Jack realizes I am about to end up between the 'A' and the 6 foot snow bank on the far side of the highway, so he cranks the wheel hard and reverses the direction of the Model A as we slam into the snow bank with the left side of the car. In the meantime the VW with Tony and Larry had no room to maneuver and, with us out of the way, they proceeded to slide into the rear of the stopped car. Well.., some cuts and bruises, a bent fender or two, and a couple disgruntled people (in the stopped car), but no great harm to anyone and we had another great story to tell.
March 24,1964 the great Alaska earthquake occurred, sending a tsunami down the west coast of Canada and the U.S. that arrived that night along the California coast. That day several of us from RBUHS were attending a 3 day human rights conference at Asilomar Beach State Park in Monterey along with hundreds of other juniors and seniors from schools all over California. Well, yada, yada, yada and that night when the police came to warn people of the tsunami (several people had already died in Crescent City) and clear the beaches they found scores of teenage couples in various states of disrobement scattered all over the sand dune beaches at Asilomar-future RBUHS alumni among them. That is how I will always remember where I was when the Alaska Good Friday Earthquake occurred-being herded by flashlight with 50+ other partially dressed teenagers off the beach at Asilomar-you've got to love it.
Another story: This story involves one of our classmates who shall remain undisclosed for now, but I will call him???Red. (For those-including Red-who try to identify this classmate, Red has attended all our reunions and lives in California. Red and I were close friends in elementary school but moved in different circles at Bidwell and RBUHS.) One night in the Fall of our senior year Red and I were at an event where he consumed a fair amount of alcohol-he was lip dripping drunk!! Red knew he couldn't go home in this condition and my mother had always told me to never allow my friends to get in trouble if we could help them, so I took Red to our house to sleep it off. I put Red in my room sprawled on the bed and went into the living room to sleep on the sofa. As I drift off to sleep-about 1:30 am-there is a great commotion and crashing around in my room. I enter and turn on the light to find Red trashing my room in search of some 'unbearable noise' that is wreaking havoc with his pounding head. We stand silent a moment and I hear nothing, but Red is shaking and pointing at my electric clock and then I too hear the quiet whir as the second hand sweeps around. I unplug the clock and Red sinks back to bed to sleep until Grandma wakes him for breakfast. All ends well. (Who are you Red???)
Our senior year and a bunch of us 'guys' are staying up at Jack Allen's cabin in Mineral and skiing and .... One night several of us (myself, George Fredson, Tony Karol, Gary Lotze and ???) find we are a little bored with 'night life' in Mineral and decide to drive to RB for the evening and Saturday night dance at Stout Hall. To make the excursion more interesting we pool some money as a bet on who will 'get lucky' and 'score' that night. After making complete fools of ourselves-as only 17 year old males can when they think they know how to impress girls at a dance-we drove back to Mineral with George being the winner of the money. As you can guess, it didn't take much 'getting lucky' for George to win. He 'scored' a kiss -just one.
The Spring of 1964 was a busy time at the Liebersbach house. Beside our core family of my mom, my grandmother, my sister and I, we had a bit of an extended family living with us that spring. Right at the beginning of the year Peter Bartsch moved in with us to finish out his exchange year at RBUHS. A little later that semester, Liz (ebeth/'Scootie') Ruttencutter (Rusk) came to stay with us, also to finish out her senior year at RBUHS (her mother had to move for employment-'Liz' left to rejoin her after graduation). So, the Guidance Counselor and three seniors of the class of '64 (to include our Swiss Foreign Exchange student-who had just won the homecoming game for us), one RBUHS sophomore, and the unsurpassed 'Grandma' all under one roof (1600 sq. ft., 3 bdrm, 1 bath). That combination drew quite a crowd at our house on most nights that spring. One evening, a 'school night'-Tuesday?, Wednesday?, Thursday?-I was having trouble doing homework due to the rumble of the background noise in the house, so I decided to take a count. BESIDES THE SIX PEOPLE IN RESIDENCE, THERE WERE 26 PEOPLE VISITING!!! at that moment. (And none of them were there to see me-I was doing homework!) That was how it was at our house that Spring of 1964. (And then Gary Lotze moved in-that story under 'In Memory", 1967, Gary Lotze)
It was the Fall of 1963, the week before our football game with Shasta. Myself, Tony Karol and ???. decided late one night to show our school spirit anonymously by painting 'BEAT SHASTA' on the front steps of the old main building of RBUHS. We did our 'artwork' using a bright green paint-it was ugly-and the next day the school administration was in an uproar. The paint was removed, there were no clues left and we were not found out. I had used my mom's Buick for our transportation that night; and two days later, as my mother and I headed home after school-me driving-mom says "Isn't that paint spot on the back seat the same color as was on the school's steps?" BUSTED, but that was the last I heard of it. (As always Mrs. Liebersbach did not cross the line between her students and the school's administration.)
One winter night (of many) a bunch (8-10) of us skier guys were staying at the Allen's cabin in Mineral-Jack, Larry, Tony, Peter B., Pete C., George, Gary, me,..? We were spread all over the cabin for sleeping-two bedrooms and the living area floor covered with mattresses. Tony had secured one of the bedroom beds, which included the luxury of an electric blanket. Just as we were collectively falling asleep for the night, I (sleeping on a mattress in the living room) smelled smoke and, while quietly alerting others, got up to investigate. The cabin was small, I rapidly found the source of the smoke; and when I opened the door to the bedroom where Tony and ?? were sleeping, I was confronted by the flames of a small fire on top of the blankets covering Tony, and by Tony's eyes the size of silver dollars looking over the edge of his flaming blanket. I realized immediately by the 'sweet' smell of the smoke that it was an electric fire started in Tony's blanket and my first action was to dive for the wall outlet and unplug the blanket. At the same moment Gary charged through the bedroom door, grabbed the burning blankets and dashed out the front door of the cabin with them still flaming. By that time the whole cabin was responding and the fire was rapidly quenched while Tony was checked to be sure he wasn't injured-he wasn't, just a little shaken. A good laugh, the cabin saved, Tony another blanket to stay warm and back to sleep-another story to tell.
Model A Travels
[I'm sure most of you remember Jack Allen driving his (really his dad's-J.D.) Ford Model A (the A) around town our Junior and Senior years, usually with Fredson, Catching, Bouett, Bartsch, or... riding along-often in the Rumble Seat on the back of the car, From the summer of 1962 until summer 1963 the A was a coupe (car body with a fixed roof). The summer of 1963 the coupe car body was changed out for a roadster (car with no fixed roof) body-same car (engine, axels, frame, etc.) underneath. This is the vehicle in the following stories-stories corroborated by Jack Feb/2021.]
The winter of 62/63, when we were up skiing and staying in Mineral, Jack and I used the A to learn to drive in adverse conditions. We would take the car to the Lassen Park Ski Area parking lot during off hours-often at night-after a fresh snow. We would take turns 'roaring' up the park road and as we entered the parking lot stomp the brakes as hard as we could, crank the steering wheel and then try to recover from the spin(s)-often several 360^ worth-before we hit something. We got pretty good at it as demonstrated in the story above recounting the running snow ball fight with Larry and Tony.
It was a nice spring day in Mineral when four of us (Jack, George, Larry or Pete C. {not sure which one} and I) were headed back to Red Bluff in the A and decided to see how far we could get 'on fumes'. We left Mineral with one gallon of gas in the tank, Jack at the wheel and a lot of optimism. We knew we would need the engine to get us up the grade from Mineral to Lassen Lodge, but after that it was all down hill to Dales Station and we could run that in 'Chinese overdrive' (coast with engine turned off). We made it to Lassen Lodge with fumes to spare and Jack shut the engine down to start the long, 25 mile coast. Jack spent the next many miles finessing the A between too much speed for the skinny tires and too little speed to reach the next good downgrade. Crossing the almost flat stretch just above the Paynes Creek CDC camp (now a full Cal Fire compound); the three of us 'along for the ride' (me up front, George and Larry/Pete in the Rumble Seat) were hanging out the sides of the A with ski poles pushing for all we were worth to help reach the last little downslope before firing the engine for the run past Dales. Timing the start to maximize coasting distance, but minimizing speed loss (causing the engine to use extra fuel to accelerate) Jack set the throttle, turned on the ignition, released the clutch and brought the engine to life about two miles east of Dales. With cumulative breaths held we motored past Dales, the McKenzie ranch and up the grade to Hog Lake/Flat. Passing over the flat by Hog Lake Jack slowly accelerated to get up maximum speed-45 to 50 mph-before shutting down again for the last 'overdrive' run down to the junction with Highway 99E. Well, we made it; and with the last drops of gas available we arrived at Jack's house with an empty tank-once turned off, the A would not start again until we pored gas into the tank!
[The following story was told to me by Jack A.-I have no recollection of it-and he asked it be told here; so I have chosen to tell the story with Jack in the first person.]
One night Dave and I were in my Model A coupe on the old Mill Creek Road (Mill Cr. Rd. {MCR} ran between Childs Meadows and Mineral somewhat parallel to and south of Hwy 36) returning to Mineral from?? I was driving, Dave enjoying another/any adventure-the main reason we liked to drive the MCR was to test our driving skills on the little used, very twisty road. As we came down the grade approaching the straight away into Mineral we were in a series of fairly sharp switch-back turns when the A's headlights went out-nothing but black night in front of me-no idea what had gone wrong with the lights-a bit terrified as I tried to remember the road ahead now gone from my vision with the car doing 35-40 mph-a steep cliff-like drop off one side of the road. The switch for the headlights on the A was mounted on the steering column; and in the dead dark of the car's interior David-without saying a word or showing any sign of concern-leaned past the gearshift stick, reached to the switch and toggled the headlights back on. We drove into Mineral and Dave had another adventure under his belt. (I never figured out what caused the lights to go out, but David figured out how to get them back on in time for me to keep us on the road.)
Spring (then called 'Easter') Break of 1964 Jack, George, and I decided to give ourselves a little pre-graduation gift by going to Disneyland in style; and in style we went driving the Model A-then a roadster-to L.A. and back. We planned to drive straight through nonstop both going and coming. With a top speed 45-50 mph, that amounted to 3-4 days-we would use the rumble seat as a 'sleeper cabin' with driver and 'navigator' in the front seat. We would have a two day/three night stay at a motel near Disneyland and have a great time-none of us had ever been there. The trip from Red Bluff to the L.A. area was pretty uneventful. We averaged about 45 mph, but felt like we were doing 65+ as the roadster had no top (hard or soft); so we were always 'in the wind' and occasionally damp, but lucked out with no major rain events. We often were passed by cars with the occupants waving to us in encouragement. They were most often cars we recognized as having passed us a couple of times before and probably had stopped for refreshment or ??? as we repassed them-tortoise and hare. (We don't think we won any of the 'races'.) Two other occurrences on the southbound part of the trip of note were, first: the seemingly wild ride-probably hit 60 mph-down the Grapevine just north of L.A. (We made sure we were all awake for that experience!), and second: the phenomenon of doing 45-50 mph in the far right lane of a six lane freeway and suddenly the two right most lanes-including us-are sucked off to merge with another freeway going away from where we wanted to go. Us 'country boys' had no experience with such big freeways; and it was quite a ride trying to quickly cross-at 45 mph-those lanes to our left where cars and trucks were roaring past us at 70-80 mph, horns blaring and fists-often with extended finger-shaking. No sooner had we successfully negotiated that maneuver than again the two right lanes-us in the far right-were being exited to another freeway going to ???' We made it though; and found a motel within walking distance of Disneyland, so we would not have to drive the A around the big city the next few days. After a couple of uneventful, but great fun filled days at Disneyland we started our trip back home to Red Bluff. We decided to be a little adventurous and drive the coast highway (State 1) at least as far as the Bay Area. Well things went well for the first few hours of the trip-late morning thru mid afternoon-and we were feeling pretty full of ourselves...as usual. We had made it to north of Morro Bay and were on some of the most picturesque stretches of that highway when trouble started. We began to loose power (and there wasn't much to loose in the Model A) in the engine and could maintain only about 35 mph top speed. We pulled over and Jack got under the hood to see what might be wrong. Distributor cap-ok, spark plug wires-ok, fuel pump-pumping, radiator-ok, oil-good, belts-ok...we found nothing. We started off again, and again lost power; so we continued on at 30-35 mph hoping the engine would correct itself, cough and come back to full life. This went on for miles-stopping to look at the engine then driving on in hopes the Model A gods would help us. [I remember one evening stop beside the highway with Jack and I under each side of the hood and George sitting in the rumble seat wrapped in a blanket puffing on a cigar; another stop with Jack fuming under the hood and George and I climbing down a cliff to the ocean to look at sea lions we had spotted below us.] Afternoon turned to evening, evening turned to night and on we sputtered. Finally, in the wee dark hours of morning, we reached Monterey, parked on a street in front of an auto parts store and went to sleep in the car. As soon as the parts store opened we started replacing parts under the hood to see if we could get things fixed. After many tries and no luck, it was decided to limp the car on toward home with fingers crossed, breaths held and good luck talismans held close. Well it took us all day and night, and finally, the next morning, we reached Red Bluff with the Model A barely running. Upon being told of the trouble, Jack's dad opened the hood, lifted the engine valve cover and proceeded to adjust the valves-they had closed down on us. Problem solved, a couple of long nights and a story to remember!
[All post RBUHS stories that were here are now on the page 'Dave's Stories'-see sidebar at left.]
