by Shelley Bennett
This is one of those columns that is going to make me feel old. Old, because I’ll start a sentence with “Forty years ago…” when it feels like ten years ago and suddenly I am my dad telling a story from the days of yore.
Forty years ago, I was a freshman at LHS. I was loving high school.
I had figured out my locker, changing classes on the big campus, how to get lunch at Susanville Supermarket with plenty of time to return to school, and even navigating how to change out in PE with the scary senior girls.
(They were very scary. And they all had names that started with letters at the end of the alphabet, so they were right next to Templeton during roll call.)
I loved my classes: English with Mr. Adams, Typing with Mr. Mendonca, Frosh Orientation with Mr. Terrill, Algebra 1 with Mrs. Wilczynski, Spanish 1 with Mr. Ramsey, and of course PE with Mrs. Morelini.
Except FAST Science. I hated FAST Science. I don’t remember what the acronym FAST stood for, but it was the downfall of my freshmen year. The only thing I remember from that class is another acronym: Roy G. Biv.
And yes, current students, we had 7 classes in the days of yore, not a measly 6.
My friends and I were flourishing as freshmen girls do. We had just attended the annual Reverse Dance, held in the student center. I wore a Gunne Sax dress, emerald green dotted swiss, and gray pumps of course. We were looking forward to basketball season because we were cheerleaders. Life was grand.
To top it off, our Varsity football team was headed into a section championship game on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving break.
The game against Red Bluff was held at Shasta College and for some reason, my mom decided we would take a detour on our way to Thanksgiving in Modesto at my great aunt’s house.
I remember it was cold and kind of rainy, a fine mist I could see in the glare of the stadium’s lights. The small visitor’s stands were packed with Lassen fans: parents and siblings, a rooters bus, and other families like ours.
I’m going to be honest. I don’t remember any details of the game. I don’t even remember who I sat with. It was a hard-fought contest, the score going back and forth and with seconds left in the fourth quarter we were losing.
Somehow, we were in field goal range, so sophomore Todd Amrein went on the field and kicked an insane number of yards (like 47 or something?!) to win the game. It was a crazy mix of yelling, jumping up and down, and celebrating in the rain that had begun to come down in earnest. One of my favorite high school memories.
This has been on my mind since our football team seems to be on a similar journey. With a decisive win last Friday over Live Oak, the league champ Grizzlies look to be contenders for a section title forty years after the first one.
It will take a victory this Friday over Gridley to get to the championship game on November 30th. Celebrate 100 years of LHS Football by coming out this week to support them. I know it’s cold and the ticket prices are a little higher, but there is nothing like a Lassen home field advantage.
Let’s make some more Grizzly history! See you Friday at 6:00. Bring your snow gear.
Remember when news was ‘newsy’? When you read about weddings, family events and engagement announcements in the newspaper? If you have something that might be newsworthy, please submit it to [email protected] and I’ll do my best to include it here in “The Good Stuff.”
