McDougal Salutes the Class of '54

To the greatest class of all time, the St. Paul class of 1954. From Hogue and McDougal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mluh8BrZpTw

Buzzy

Once upon a time in our youth

There was a very happy gang

Who were sometimes a little uncouth

But being teenagers we didn’t have sense

to give a hang.

We went to Saint Paul’s High School

One of us was lanky and tall

A smooth talker who was no fool

Even when convincing you spring was fall.

Buzzy was his nickname

Gerald Farnsworth Fitzgerald his real

Yet we loved him just the same.

Arguing with him was no big deal.

He played football, basketball and ran track.

One winter night with eight of us in a 40’ Hudson car

He argued with us to go back

As we slid down a toboggan slide under a bright star.

Buzzy through it all always hit the books

Even when we were mischievous as Tom Sawyer

And giving him mocking looks

You see Farnsworth like his dad went on to be a lawyer.

Nigh on fifty years Buzzy practiced law and many briefs he had to file.

Married to Carol, three children, three grandchildren

they had.

Charitable endeavors became his style.

Thus when mortal life ended is it really sad?

Because now before heaven’s court

There is a new barrister standing at that bar

Arguing when their time comes a case of this sort

To grant clemency to the rest of the souls who rode in that

40’ Hudson car.

Marilyn My Love

The 40’ Hudson car was the legendary “Blue Goose” of our tenth year in High School. Mr. Bejin, Joe Bejin’s dad, had some dents taken out in his trucking company’s garage after the girls using the goose backed into something denting the trunk on the way to the boys’ baseball game. ( Joan Heidt was steering and Lynn Van Tiem was working the gear shift) Then a short time later we guys crashed head on into a milk truck (my first accident). Joe’s dad not only had the dents taken out but had the car painted a deeper blue with matching fender skirts.

The following story tells of the last trip of the “Blue Goose”.

Back in the summer of 1952 my cousin, David McCarron (18), myself (Had just turned 17.) and David’s friend Bob Walker (His dad was our football teams doctor.) were invited to Niagara Falls by our California Cousin, Betty Lou, who was traveling companion to actress, Jean Peters. They were in Niagara Falls with the film company making the movie: “Niagara” starring Ms. Peters, Joseph Cotton, Don Wilson and Marilyn Monroe. The following poem is my tribute to that adventure and the last of “The Blue Goose”.

My forty Hudson putted along

To the hotel garage in Niagara Falls

Here I hoped to see a living song

As I parked in one of the stalls.

Once inside the hotel room

Of movie star, Jean Peters

My heart gave a boom

As a knock caused a few titters.

In Marilyn Monroe came through the door

Draped only in a towel and bath robe

I prayed not to be a seventeen year old bore

As she touched her left ear lobe.

She asked Jean to borrow a blouse

Standing there, no-make-up, raw beauty

“Gee Lord keep me from being a louse”

As I thought: “She sure is some cutie”.

Later that evening we all had dinner.

She sat across from me, down just a bit

And in my mind I was quite a sinner

But all I could do was be there and sit.

However in my dreams I wanted to

Dance with her, Maybe an adagio

She looked at me and I wanted to coo

Not knowing my rival was Joe DiMaggio.

On our way back home David, Bob Walker and myself were brought back to the real world as I forgot to check the oil in the Hudson and the engine blew up thus the end to the “Blue Goose”.

We were in Canada half way home. Hitch hiking we caught a ride with a hog farmer and his son so we had to ride most of the rest of the way to the border in the bed of the truck with the hogs. We were lamenting: “Whose going to believe that two nights ago we were dining with the stars and now we are riding in a back of a truck with a few pigs?” Looking back they served ham with that dinner. “Could this have been the pigs pay back?”

It All Started With “The Log”

By phone back in nineteen hundred eighty five

I talked to a guitar and recording innovator so alive

He told me of working with a guy named Bing

And the close miking technique used to sing.

Also he, Bing and a company named Ampex

Advanced multiple track recording available to any sex.

Inspired by the Andrew Sisters, he and wife, Mary Ford,

Recorded many “fifties” hits no matter the cord.

Remember “How High the Moon”

A song I used to badly try to croon.

“The World Is Listening To the Sunrise”

Listened to under the stars of the night’s skies.

“Brazil”, “Lover When You’re Near Me”

A warm feeling not difficult to see

“Bye, Bye Blues”, “Tiger Rag”

His magical secrets are out of the bag.

It all started with “The Log”

That took guitar sound out of the fog.

A 4x 4 piece of lumber

Woke a musical sound from a deep slumber.

It evolved into an electric guitar made by Gibson

Played by millions having lots of fun.

The world’s most popular was given his name.

The unique musical sound will always be the same.

This man known for “The Gibson Les Paul”

Probably was picking “Vaya con Dios” as he wandered down the long hall

The end of which has a shiny, shiny light

To a new world that must be a wondrous, wondrous sight.