FPHS Class of 1957

Summer Reading

Bill Shaw — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:13:38 GMT

What are you doing with those lazy summer days? It's a good time for reading. Here are some recommendations.

If you are a mystery fan and haven't tried Sue Grafton's "Alphabet Mystery Series," you have missed something. A number of year's ago, Grafton set out to write 26 mystery novels featuring female detective Kinsey Millhone of Santa Teresa, Calf. She began with A Is for Alibi and has run through the alphabet to t with T is for Trespass, published in 2007. I have read them all. You don't have to start with the first one because Grafton fills in background the reader needs in each of the novels.

If you have seen No Country for Old Men, you will enjoy the novel by Cormac McCarthy. It is brutal and bloody but an amazing character study.

When I read the magnificent "tome" Shakespeare: The Creation of the Human by Professor Harold Bloom, Bloom alluded to Judge Holden in Blood Meridian by McCarthy as being influenced by Shakespeare's Iago in Othello. I bought the book and finished it last week. Bloom is right. Holden is a devil's apostle incarnate; he is the Mephastophilis that tempted Faustus in Marlowe's play and in Goethe's poem. Some critics call McCarthy a modern Melville or Faulkner. He does have the lyricism of Melville and the stream of consciousness of Faulkner. He also has the terseness and economy of Hemingway in dealing with dialog.

Blood Meridian led me to McCarthy's "Border Trilogy"--All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. I like to read several books by the same author to get a sense of his style and importance. I'm about a third through All the Pretty Horses, and I am not disappointed or bored with McCarthy.

What are you reading or what have you read lately that you would like to recommend?

Let me hear from you.

Horror Movies

Bill Shaw — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:05:00 GMT

The feature section of the Halloween Houston Chronicle featured an article about the most reviewed popular horror movies. The editor challenged four reporters to list their top ten in the horror movie genre. The article and the reporters' lists inspired me to blog about our horror movie experiences. What are the most "horrific" 1950s movies for you? Second, what is your top ten list of the most "horrific" movies you have seen.

For the 1950s I chose two: The Thing from Outer Space (the original, not the remake by John Carpenter) and The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original version of 1956, not the remake). Remember who played the creature from outer space in his film debut? James Arness, who later became Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke.

What are your top scary movies of the 50s? What are the top ten scary movies of all time for you.

Here is my list in the order of the scariest first:
1. The Birds
2. The Omen (1976)
3. Psycho (the original Alfred Hitchcock version)
4. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
5. The Thing from Outer Space
6. John Carpenter's The Thing
7. The Haunting with Julie Harris
8. Jaws
9. The Exorcist (original version)
10. It (made for TV movie based on Stephen King's novel)

If we can get enough bloggers, we can compile a couple of lists--the top scariest movies of the 50s and the top scariest movies of all time. Please blog in with your lists.

Sometimes all you have to do is show up...

Bill Shaw — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:31:44 GMT

Sometimes all you have to do is show up at our age to triumph. I finished my 25th triathlon in Sugar Land, Tex., Sunday, Oct. 14, and won third place in the 65-69 age group because no one else in my age group showed up to compete. I made the 300-meter open-water swim, the 10-mile bike route, and the three-mile run in 1:36:01 and finished 509 overall in a field of 750.

I was anxious only during the swim because it was open water, and we started in the open water treading water before our wave of 40 plus males started. I struggled through the swim in open water because I train in a pool, and I can hang onto the wall a few seconds after every twenty-five yards. There's no wall to hang onto in open water, so I take it slow and cautiously. In fact, some of the 40 plus women in the second wave who started six minutes after I did passed me before I hit the shore and the transition area for the bike ride.

In a triathlon, our race number is marked on our arms, and our age is marked on our calves. It is a special thrill when a twenty or thirty-year-old runs past me on the run route and tells how much he or she admires me and says that he or she hopes to be able to complete a triathlon at 68. One female runner called me "awesome" in a triathlon in May. It gave me a chill.

I am luckier than many of our classmates. I can still struggle through the swim, labor through the bike route and slog through the run. For these abilities and my spirit and discipline, I thank God every day, and I pray for my old friends and classmates who are not as fortunate as I am.

Live the life you have left as best you can and prosper. Perhaps some of our old memories and the strength of our friendships and fellowship will sustain you in times of crisis and ill health.

Jenny Jones and Shakespeare

Bill Shaw — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:09:47 GMT

   Those of us who had Jenny Jones for English IV probably remember Macbeth and memorizing 100 lines from Shakespeare's dark tragedy. Who would have thought that in just a few years I would be teaching Macbeth to seniors at Byrd High School and later to seniors at Brazosport High School in Freeport, Tex., and requiring them, too, to memorize lines from Macbeth. At the 50th reunion dance, Andy Dalyrymple and Ellen Neely Doran remembered parts of those lines, and I recited the great soliloquy from Act IV:

   Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
   Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
   To the last syllable of recorded time,
   And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
   The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
   Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
   That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
   And then is heard no more. It is a tale
   Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
   Signifying nothing (4.5.19-28).

   What did those lines mean to me in 1957? Not much. Then I lived life, and at times, I knew exactly what those lines meant when I was facing some crises, deep blue funks and dark nights of the soul. Of course, my situation was not as bad as Macbeth's situation: his wife just died, Dunsinane Wood would march to his castle; Macduff, the man whom Macbeth was told to "beware," a man "not born or woman," but from his mother's womb "untimely ripped," was on his way to chop Macbeth's head off--all these things prophesied by the three witches.

   Once in a sleazy bar restroom in Shreveport, I wrote Macbeth's soliloquy from memory on the wall beside those classic lyrics that begin, "The night was dark, the sky way blue, / And round the corner...," well, you know how it goes. I wonder what those who wandered later into the restroom and read those words above the urinal thought?

   The point of all this is that we learned things from Jenny Jones and our other teachers we didn't really realize we were learning, things we didn't understand until maybe five, 10 or 20 years later.

   . . .and we are the better for what we learned unaware and should be grateful to our old teachers.

Welcome to the FPHS Class of '57 Blog

Bill Shaw — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:55:49 GMT

Welcome to my new adventure in cyberspace for the Fair Park High School Class of '57. I am establishing a blog for our class to accompany and to complement our Web site. Our blog will be sort of an asynchronic chat room, which means that we will not be online when we write, but we can communicate personally. Once I master or at least be able to handle this blog, I shall tackle the chat room project to see if I can pull that off.
   I was so excited when I returned from our 50th reunion that I launched our Web project. I thought the potential of our Web presence was much larger than a page on my personal Web, and I wanted to add more specific pages about our class.
   If you have checked out our Web at www.fairparkclassof 57.net, you will see that I have created pages for our deceased classmates, a search list for those we have not located, a bulletin board, a page for reunion pictures and comments and some links, one to the FPHS Class of '53 put together by Jimmy Stockard, who is quite active in alumni work. I hope you will make use of the bulletin board and now this blog to help all of us keep in touch.
   We can also use this blog to reminisce about old times and our experiences. Just a few rules. Don't make insulting remarks about anyone, don't post anything that might embarrass anyone, and don't use vulgar language. In other words, be tasteful and courteous.
   Let's make use of this blog to keep in touch as we move closer and closer to 70 and beyond.

Your old classmate,

Bill Shaw