Pretty much the best people ever

By ART CULLEN

It was pretty much confirmed over the weekend that St. Mary’s Class of 1975 was the most successful, charitable and handsome section of students ever to matriculate in Storm Lake. About half our class of 44 showed up for a two-evening soiree, the first Friday at the Bel Air beach home of Dave and Mary Drey, and the second Saturday at Legacy Steakhouse. We all enjoyed the chance to reconnect, and it gave me pause to reflect on old friendships.

First, a note about the Dreys: We sat on their lakeside lawn as the sun set on a perfectly calm evening, a rarity on Storm Lake. Pleasure boats gently rippled the golden still water while I snarfed down chilled shrimp. It could not have been any better. Dave and Mary are the success story: a place on the lake, children who love them, common and unassuming as their roots, still growing corn, always quick with a laugh. All they asked of us was to eat more of their food and drink more of their beer.

We missed Karen Lindsay, who possibly was the first friend of my life. Our mothers were great pals. When we were about five, she barged in on me using the bathroom. It was the first time I recall being embarrassed. No harm no foul. We were sitting on the back yard trampoline with a couple other classmates when Dad ordered me to come in and watch man land on the moon. I wanted to stay on the trampoline. Karen and her fine gentleman husband Randy still live in Dick and Mae’s house on Hudson Street, which sort of continues to help anchor me.

Every one of us missed Dan Statz, who blazed into the world on Christmas Day but whose star shone so bright it could not last. Dan was the most alive, energized, engaged person any of us have known but he died in his 20s of cancer. We spent some glorious summers together as boys. We signed up for adjacent Des Moines Register carrier routes and applied for our Social Security numbers together. His is one digit off mine. Nothing could contain him. He drove the smoking car to St. Mary’s baseball games, his golden shoulder-length hair blowing out from beneath his cap. Dan was fleet afoot patrolling center field and wielded a dandy bat — what harsh word could a coach muster looking Dan straight in the face? Anyone who piled into the car with him was guaranteed for the best and most harrowing ride they would ever take to Granville.

Dan, Guy Colvin and I had to stay after school every day for our seventh-grade year. Our reputation from sixth grade had preceded us when we produced an awful underground newspaper that was quickly confiscated. Guy was the illustrator, Dan was the humorist and I was the printer. Sister Celine cracked down on us early in the year by detaining us to clean blackboards and sweep the floor. The real detention lasted just a week or two, but we continued to report for duty because we liked the reputed toughest nun at St. Mary’s.

Guy has become the greatest catfish cleaner in the world, he proclaimed. I’m not willing to contest him. How about you?

Ron Sippel went off and made a fortune on the Chicago Board of Trade after working his way through college at Hygrade. He couldn’t make the reunion because I think he might have been at his home in Naples, Fla. Not bad for a kid from Early whose parents ran a little variety store, Sippel’s Sundries. Now Early doesn’t even have a bar, Biz Drey (Dave’s brother Dennis) lamented. Maybe Ron could open one in his retirement.

A great surprise Friday was to see John McDermott make a grand appearance. He went from pumping gas for Norm Taylor’s Phillips 66 to become a top performer for Massachusetts Mutual Insurance. He has a cement pond in Austin, Texas, to prove it. He says he floats and drinks foo-foo stuff. He bragged that he has sold in one-horse Texas towns that no Texan has heard of, and he has a raft of clean jokes.

It was even a greater surprise to see Marty Shellenberger, our Nemaha farmer friend. He had just sawed off his left thumb, got it reattached on Friday in Des Moines and made it to supper with us on Saturday. He explained how he unplugged his brain before he plugged in the Skilsaw, and was able to laugh it off with us. He said he is waiting for a buckin’ bronco to kick him in the head to straighten everything out.

Rick Robel did God’s work teaching and coaching basketball at an inner-city Minneapolis high school. He would develop tremendous young talent to be recruited away by Twin Cities prep academies, and some of them ended up playing in the Big Ten. In the days before jet skis, Howard Robel had a boat. It was a big, big deal to get a boat ride with Rick Robel. He taught me how to ski on chicken legs. I could last at least 200 yards, maybe more. To this day I live by the motto that it is good to have friends who have boats. Rick never got to ride in the smoking car because he had to ride with Howard, who drove players to every single basketball and baseball game in a four-year period. He was the bus that drove only on blacktops.

I have never seen Cathy Toohey without a smile on her face. Ever.

Julie Hoft had an eighth-grade mixer at Don and Sally’s farm. It was the first time I heard Rod Stewart on a 45 rpm. Nobody danced with me, but I had been introduced to the British Blues before high school. I want to thank her for that.

Raenette Peck recently married an African American man. Hooray for Rae and her beau! It was unthinkable in 1975. For one, there were no people of color in Storm Lake then. We really have come a long way.

Plenty of friends weren’t there for whatever reason. That’s okay. We thought about them all and probably told a few lies about some. Mates would ask about so-and-so, and I would explain that I had not talked to him or her in five or 10 years. And here I thought we would be buried in an avalanche or die on a dirty bar floor together. He and she are hither and yon, doing whatever it is they do, and I still love them. Some friends live in the same town and never cross paths for no good reason. Some cease contact over something I said or did. I love them, too, and wish we could get past it. With most, it is like riding a bike. Terry Landgraf sees John Snyder for the first time in too long and they start hurling insults and backslap each other. It was at that moment that most analysts agreed that St. Mary’s Class of 1975 probably was the best ever. A toast to it.