WOODROW WILSON HIGH SCHOOL Alumni
PORTLAND, OREGON

http://www.wilsonalumni.com

RECALLING GREAT MEMORIES AT WILSON THROUGH STORIES AND PHOTOGRAPHS Richard Small '62 was going over old Wilson alumni newsletters and stumbled upon these great memories: http://www.wilsonalumni.com/school-history/Band-stories.html. Richard tells us, "I don’t believe I ever saw it before. I also have some great memories of the four years 1958-62 I spend in the percussion section of Mr. White’s band class. I recall many of the things that others have written about. One thing that sticks in my mind was one day when we were rehearsing for ‘An American In Paris’. In one part of it there are taxi cabs and horns to represent French traffic. Mr. White’s son John (I’m pretty sure it was he who gave it to me) brought in a hand cranked Japanese air raid siren and handed it to me with the instructions to crank it in the taxi scene. Obviously I didn’t know what it sounded like, but I was glad to help make percussion sounds. As the music moved to the taxi scene, I bent over and gave it a crank. It started with a low howl and quickly raised in pitch and strength until it was really howling. I kept cranking and pretty quickly I could see Mr. Whites shoes standing in front of me. I stopped cranking, but the sound kept coming (for several minutes). I had no idea it would continue like that and I also had no idea how much trouble cranking it was going to get me into. I spent the rest of that rehearsal (and at least one more) in one of the practice rooms with that siren (it finally stopped). It was several weeks before things settled down for me but in the end Mr. White and I became good friends and I also visited the music shop in Beaverton when he opened it. Below is a photo of a Japanese air raid siren (like what John gave me) and some scenes of the percussion section from 1962. I wish I could remember more of the other student’s names." Japanese hand-cranked air raid siren Dance band (I think it was for the musical ‘The King and I’) This is Gary Hertz on bass, Mike Detlefsen on piano, Andy Rosenthal on trombone and me on drums. Percussion section (Mr. White’s senior band): The names of the percussion section students are actually Mike Kaiser, Dick Greenhalgh, Pat Johnson, Bruce Brown and Dick Small. 1962 Rose Parade (we sure kept good marching formation) (I have the snare drum and Garry Breckon ahead of me). Sitting in the band pit as Cheri Viggers (1962 Rose Festival Queen) is escorted onto stage. Richard suggests, "we start a new part of the alumni newsletter and publish photos from the past. It would be great if you could call for a few photos from the Wilson scrapbooks of alumni and print them by year. That way we could enjoy what other people’s cameras saw and perhaps trigger some terrific memories for ourselves." If you would like to share stories and/or photographs, please send them to Linda Doyle: Lsdoyle@earthlink.net.