40th reunion of our entry date of 29 June 1964

The picture abover was made at a reunion of the North Texas Class for the 40th anniversary of the 29 Jun 64 entry. It was held at Big Buck's microbrewery at the Grapevine (yes, it is Texas) Bass Pro World. However, after allowances for "my grandkids need their noses whipped [wiped?]", "I can't get a kitchen pass", "What are we celebrating?", etc excuses. Only Gary Hall, Steve Mish and I showed up, photographer was Kakai. Interestingly, we were all in 13th Flight of th Elephant Squadron (stomp, stomp, stomp). Good beer. Good time.

Now, you may ask, why was this taken in 2004 and just now surfacing? Well, a rather singular story. Kakai and I arrived a bit early and started the phestivities. "Did you bring the camera?" "Uh, no. Didn't you?" "You *&*%^$#@@. Go into Bass Pro and get a disposable one." She always has a plan. So we took some pictures and departed. Now the camera has 24 exposures. We didn't take that many. So the camera migrated into my fishing kit. It recorded several adventures to the Brazos River, Broken Bow, OK, and Caney Lake in Louisiana. It wandered about the bag for some time before I discovered it and kept it in my vest, the better to record more piscine feats and thus get them developed. My brother, and fishing partner, being nimble fingered, dropped it into the Brazos a time or two. Lucky for us the water there is too thick to drink, yet to thin to walk on. So, the expected damage did not occur. It didn't exactly bounce, but did sink slowly. [I say nimble fingered, he is nimble footed, too. Once, again on the aforementioned Brazos, he went down in knee deep water. He went under, vest, waders, rod, reel and fishing hat. The only thing visible above the quickened water was a lone arm extended, with his cigar. Saved it.] Anyway, I just finished the roll and this is the result.

-Ken