Donald's Blog

  This old house was only a few blocks from the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. All the neighborhood cats lived in the basement during the winter. The house has long since been torn down, but in 1972 there were AR2ax speakers in the front room, and a lot of good music was heard there.

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In the 21st century I am just as opinionated as ever, and I now have an outlet. I shall pontificate here about anything that catches my fancy; I hope I will not make too great a fool of myself. You may comment yea or nay about anything on the site; I may quote you here, or I may not. Send brickbats etc. to: dmclarke78@icloud.com.

 

October 1, 2014

Bill Perry

Bill Perry

On Monday I had lunch with Billy Perry in Lititz, Pennsylvania. I have known Bill since I was seven or eight years old; we both grew up on Pershing Boulevard in Kenosha, Wisconsin; we double-dated in high school, and all that. And after graduating in 1958, we completely lost touch. Recently our high school class website notified me that he had registered there, and we lost no time in getting in touch.

We had a wonderful time catching up with news about our families, the home town and so on. He's still up on Kenosha because his daughter attends college there -- he says that the house that my dad built less than 70 years ago is gone; somebody tore it down and built another one.

Bill was a chaplain in the U.S. Navy for over 27 years; he saw the world, met five presidents, and buried Nixon; since his retirement he continues with his visitations, conducting funerals at Arlington National Cemetery, and mentoring a teenager he's been seeing for years, feeling very strongly about damaged kids.

Bill has done a lot of good in his life and he hasn't done any harm, and I am pleased to be just about his oldest friend.