Some very sad news

Tom Jones' wife, Jeannette, passed on Friday, November 12, with family by her side only 4 & 1/2 months after her first symptoms and diagnosis of cancer. Tom told me that her strength, dignity and calm through the whole process and to the very end was incredible. He said she was Jeannette to the end--strong, selfless, and loving.

I had the pleasure of knowing Jeannette and I liked her the minute I met her years ago. Jeannette was so genuine and down to earth; and I found myself talking & opening up to her as if we had gone to school together and had been best friends. Through these last 4 & 1/2 months, Jeannette was always thinking of other people. Even when she barely had any energy, Jeannette always posted what was happening to her on CaringBridge. I have been following her updates on CaringBridge and her sense of humor never faltered.

Tom and Jeannette's family are having a celebration of Jeannette's life December 11 in Richmond.

Anne Snyder & the Holiday Studio Tour

Today and tomorrow are the Valley Craft Network Holiday Open House & Studio Tours I emailed everyone about a few weeks ago. Today, Fred Ullman, Bobbie Lanzer, Bobbie's lovely daughter, Marissa, and I decided to take a field trip over to Maryland and stop in on Anne Snyder's Studio and beautiful old farmhouse. We surprised her and had a wonderful visit, some tasty snacks and OMG you should see her incredible paintings! I had hoped to buy the painting Anne did of all of us kayaking on the 2008 NW trip, but Helen Roberts beat me to the punch. However, I fell in love with a painting Anne did of the harbor in Annapolis and it is now on my wall at home looking like it was made for me. Bobbie nabbed another one that was spectacular. We had a great time today and I hope some of you were also able to take this tour. If not, take a tour at:

anne@annegibsonsnyder.com or www.annegibsonsnyder.com

Our Classmate, Lee Millette, speaking at....

Cathie Wilkins Ring just notified me that in the local PrWmCo newspaper this morning there was a feature article about Justice Lee Millette speaking THIS Wednesday, 11/17/10, at the Manassas NoVA campus (see below). Cathie is trying to find out if Lee will be going to the lunch with the group afterwards, and if so, which lunch spot. Cathie is hoping to go. Let her know if you plan on it, too.

VA Supreme Court Justice to speak IN MANASSAS...

Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr. was appointed in 2008 to the Supreme Court of Virginia by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. As a Circuit Court Judge in Prince William County, Millette presided over the capital murder trial of D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad and the marital rape trial of John Wayne Bobbitt. He will talk about those cases and explain the workings of the General District Court and his days as a trial lawyer on Wednesday, from 10 a.m. to noon at Colgan Hall, NVCC Campas, 6901 Sudley Road, Manassas.

Please use Event Parking. There will be LLI Shuttle cars for anyone wanting to use them. The forum is free and open to the public. Following the forum, there is a "Lunch Bunch" gathering at a local restaurant - Dutch Treat. For more information, e-mail llimanassas@gmail.com or call 571-606-0247.

Check out "Odd Couple" for Willis' performance

Mike Willis is at it again.

Our class's resident star or stage and screen is part of the cast of "The Odd Couple" in a production that will be running for two more weeks as part of Theater J's 2010-11 season.

"Odd Couple" at Theater J

 I'm excited about it because I'm in Washington this week for a fraternity reunion of the George Mason University Sig Eps, and since I won't be leaving for home until Monday morning, I picked up a ticket to go see Mike and the rest of the cast in Sunday night's performance.

Here's a link to the Washington Post review of the production.

When I get back home and get my stuff unpacked, I'll revisit by DVD of "Tin Men" again and see Mike in one of his finer film performances.

Let's get this site rolling again

I really want to get this site going again, and I'm going to need some suggestions.

I can post from time to time, but since I'm not really in close contact with a lot of you, when I do that I end up writing about myself. I can tell you I'm a more interesting subject than I was in high school, but you definitely don't want to be reading about me and my family all the time.

Besides, I have other blogs for that.

I would love for the lovely and vivacious Dale Morgan -- the mother of our country -- to use this site for the e-mail info bursts we get from her from time to time, but I suppose I could just as easily cut and paste those e-mails into this site when I get them from her.

But Mike, you're way too lazy for that.

Unfortunately, there's more than a grain of truth in that. Why else would it have taken me three years to get "When I'm 64" close to the point where it's finished and ready to go out to publishers.

Anybody know a good publisher?


Or even a not-so-good one?


My big accomplishment this year has been getting my weight and my health back under control. When I attended the class reunion in the fall of 2007, I weighed about 235 pounds. Earlier this year, I had ballooned up to 280 and my blood pressure was becoming a real problem.

Me, left, in the fall of 2007, with my wife Nicole and Mike Willis.

So I decided I needed to do something if I wanted to see my baby granddaughter grow up.

I went to a fitness ranch in Texas for 11 weeks -- one good thing about being unemployed is that you can go lots of places -- and dropped nearly 65 pounds.

Then I came home and kept the diet and exercise regimen up. As of this morning, I weighed 168 pounds, which is three pounds more than I weighed as a senior in high school.

Me today -- 168 pounds

 My blood pressure is back to normal and I'm feeling really good physically for the first time in more than 20 years.

That's it, though. Except for the fact that we're moving to Georgia at the end of this month, that's all I have that's interesting.

The ball's in your court.

Mike Sullivan, our other Vietnam casualty

FORTUNATE SON

Mike Sullivan was no senator’s son, but he carried himself with pride, did his duty and enjoyed life for as long as he could.

When the male members of the Class of 1967 graduated from Woodson, most of them had two choices.

College – or Vietnam.

In a class of more than 800 people, many of whom scattered to the four winds after graduation, no one really knows exactly how many members of the Woodson Class of ’67 served in that controversial Asian war.

We know Mike Scott and Mike Willis served and returned, and we know Mike Beall died in an Army training accident at age 18 while preparing to go to Indochina.

Then there are the two names on the Wall.

Many of us knew Jon Rumble, who had made his mark despite spending only his senior year among us. He had played the male lead in the senior class play and had made many friends.

Mike Sullivan

We didn’t know Mike Sullivan as well. Other than his senior picture, the only other shot of Mike in the 1967 yearbook is as one of the students who participated in Distributive Education, going to classes in the morning and leaving at noon to go to work.

If there’s one thing many of us have learned over the last 41 years, it’s how few people we actually knew in our class of 804 seniors in a school of 3,300 students. If we didn’t share classes with someone, the only way we knew them was either from after-school activities or from our own neighborhoods.

Kids who spent only half a day at school – kids who weren’t in band or clubs or on athletic teams – weren’t as well known. So while plenty of us in the Class of 1967 remembered Jon, not as many knew Mike all that well.

One who did was Randy McDaniel, who grew up right across Route 236 from Sullivan.

"We played a lot of sports together at the YMCA," McDaniel said. "His dad worked for the government and my sister carpooled with him. She told me that at one point while we were in high school, his dad actually blocked incoming phone calls because too many girls were calling for Sully too late into the evening."

Of course, that was hardly the worst problem for a teenage boy to have.

Randy went through 11 years of school with Mike, and during grade school, junior high and most of high school, both hung around with Butch Fagot, Hap Hodges and Willard Totten. They all spent a lot of time playing sports together.

"Sully was a very fast runner, although not as fast as Hap," Randy said. "He was very fun loving and extremely witty."

We know that he was 20 years old when he arrived in Vietnam and that he was married. And we know that he died there.

***

Jim Regn was one of Sullivan’s best friends, and nearly 50 years later, he still remembers the evening they met.

"We both delivered newspapers for a Washington daily," he said. "I was waiting at the driveway for Mr. Manning, the district manager, to show up and collect the subscription money collected from the customers on my paper route. He would often take one of his carriers with him for company and to meet the other kids. You would get to ride around in his panel truck and get dinner at Topps or McDonalds.

"That evening he arrived with Mike, a kid who was wearing a baseball hat I recognized as a Fairfax County Little League Eastern Division team. East and West divisions were divided by Ox Road. In those days every kid that played baseball wore his hat everywhere. By it you could tell if a kid played for a good team and on what side of the county he lived. Since I lived on the west side I didn’t think Mike and I would likely run into one another beyond the occasional newspaper connection."

A year later, Regn and Sullivan found themselves in the same home room at Sidney Lanier Intermediate. Since teachers had a tendency to seat their students in alphabetical order, the two boys often found themselves within "talking distance" for a good part of the day.

"Mike was friendly and funny; he had charisma," Regn said. "I wanted to be his friend. In English class our equal distractions developed into collaborations on ridiculous stories written more for the amusement of ourselves than completing the English assignment. Mike Schmidle must have had a similar background, because when the three of us got to Mrs. (Lorraine) Gorey’s English class at Woodson we fell right into the same practice using Dylan’s LP liner notes and John Lennon’s books for inspiration."

It took them a while to get together in high school. Regn didn’t live in Woodson’s district and spent his freshman year at archrival Fairfax High. The two boys talked on the phone to keep in touch, but didn’t see each other very often.

In the spring of 1964, though, Regn’s family moved into the Woodson school district.

"Our friendship became a fixture," he said. "We spent the summer hanging out at the YMCA pool but also doing some gainful things."

He remembers that Sullivan always seemed to have a job, and that anyone who wanted to spend time with him pretty much had to work too.

"But the way he did it was more like fun, or at least funny," he said. "Sully was a performer with a likeable, easy manner. We pumped gas and customers loved him. We would caddy at the country club and golfers wanted him to carry their clubs. We worked at Bernie’s Pony Ring at Bailey’s Crossroads and kids having Wild West birthday parties needing a sheriff or bad guy were delighted when he got right in with them playing the role. He was comfortable with kids and enjoyed making up cowboy names like Tex and Cimarron to give them as he led the ponies around the ring."

Regn remembers that it wasn’t so much about earning money as it was simply wanting to keep busy.

"The pay just added options, and he liked to be generous," Regn said. "One Saturday morning we were caddying at the Fairfax Country Club and one of the two guys he was caddying for got a hole in one. At the end of the round, the guy gave Sully a huge tip. We usually carried two bags each in the morning and two each in the afternoon. But that day, he shared the tip, giving me what I would have made working that afternoon. We snuck away early and hitchhiked to Fairfax to catch the bus to Seven Corners."

As sophomores, both boys tried out for junior varsity football. Sullivan had been one of the stars of the freshman team. His position was assured. Regn had never played on a team and was apprehensive.

"With his encouragement and wanting not to be left out, I went along and made the team," Regn said. "I even got a starting position as a lineman which, at that level wasn’t hard if you would just hit, block and tackle. But it was his show. He was a running back and receiver with speed, awareness and maturity. It really was amazing to see the plays he made. He was graceful and made it look easy and natural, like a pro."

By all accounts, Sullivan enjoyed himself and did pretty much what he wanted to do.

That included not going out for football again after his sophomore year, something Regn still wonders about more than 40 years later.

"I don’t know why he didn’t go out for varsity," Regn said. "He was sure to have made it. I’ve thought some in recent years that maybe he knew I wouldn’t have made the cut and his decision was a courtesy to me. I don’t recall ever asking him about it. We had driver’s licenses by then and we got interested in other things."

There were parties, various jobs, get-togethers at Washington restaurants and trips to the beach that wouldn’t have been possible with football practice every day. Regn thinks maybe they allowed their "less good instincts" to prioritize and arrange things so that they could have more fun. "It probably would have been better if football had been more important," he said.

For whatever reason, they didn’t play.

The last two years of high school passed quickly, and graduation brought the very real threat of being drafted front and center. Neither boy had any intention of using student deferments to dodge the draft, but they did spend a year at Northern Virginia Community College trying to figure out what they wanted to do.

"In the summer of 1968, Sully had an apartment off Duke Street in Alexandria," Regn said. "His popularity made it a busy place night and day. Sully worked full time and usually left the door unlocked for friends to stop by for food or drink. Just put back what you took when you can was the house rule. Most evenings were a perpetual open house with all sorts of people dropping by."

Some of the other tenants in the building were young soldiers stationed at various local military installations, and Sullivan and Regn were hearing first hand information from guys just back from Vietnam and the Tet offensive earlier in the year.

"Sully liked GIs and got along well with them," Regn said. "They had money and fast cars and Sully admired both. More than a few times we all went into Georgetown together and ended up crashing in the empty bunks in the 3rd Regiment barracks at Fort Myer when we couldn’t quite make it back to Duke Street."

They were keeping busy, having fun but knowing all the while that time was running out; the war and the draft were always there.

***

By August 1969, Regn was in Vietnam. Sullivan arrived three months later. The two best friends had hoped to be stationed near each other, but Sullivan was assigned to the 11th Light Infantry Brigade at Duc Pho, while Regn was 300 miles to the southwest with the 1st Cavalry Division.

Sullivan took pride in the fact that he was part of the 4th battalion, 3rd regiment of the 11th Light Infantry. That unit is known as the "Old Guard" and was originally assembled by George Washington himself during the American Revolution.

The unit’s home is Fort Myer, so Sullivan knew that once he completed his time in Vietnam, there was a good chance he would complete his service obligation only 15 miles from home.

"We kept in regular contact by Army in-country letters," Regn said. "His were always positive and decorated with drawings and funny remarks. I somehow managed to save most of them, each one stained red from sweat and the laterite soil the place was made of. We wrote about what we were doing or news we had learned from back in the world. Mostly we talked about all the things we would do when we got home."

For most of his time in country, Sullivan was excited about returning home to his wife. He had learned soon after arriving in Vietnam that she was pregnant, and his letters to Regn would ramble on with hope and plans for the future.

"He would make suggestions for my involvement as 'Uncle,'" Regn said. "His enthusiasm was infectious. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote in return, but I must have wanted in on it, as he kept them coming. After all of my careful re-readings only once is there the now sad bid for agreement that those things would actually happen."

A lot of dreams died in Vietnam. There are 58,195 names on the Wall – most of them fathers, sons, brothers, husbands – and it’s a fair bet that nearly all of them spent time in Vietnam thinking of what their lives would be like when they returned home.

Sullivan was in Vietnam only for a few months, but he made his mark. Regn says he talked to others in his company who said he was always cheerful and steady, "just the kind you want around in serious circumstances."

For the first three months of his tour he was a rifleman, often volunteering a share of the duties involving more than the usual risk.

"He was proud when he was awarded the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, which signifies meeting a required amount of contact with the enemy," Regn said. "Of any collection of veterans, there wouldn’t be but a handful of guys authorized to wear it."

When attrition hit his company and created a need, Sullivan volunteered to become a combat medic. At age 20, he was doing a job not many anywhere could or would do.

Regn says that March 11, 1970, started out like most days in Vietnam. Attack helicopters that provided transportation and fire support for Sullivan’s company had been busy engaging targets identified during the night.

The dry season was coming and the numbers of North Vietnamese and organized Viet Cong were increasing in the battalion’s area of operations. The mission was to locate and destroy enemy units while providing security for the civilian population. Evidence of enemy activity such as slick trails, bunkers and weapons and supply caches was obvious and contact was becoming more frequent.

At that time, practically every American unit in the country was under strength and Sullivan’s D Company was no exception. Before noon that day, two men were medevaced out for non-combat injuries and malaria.

It turned out that a battalion-size unit of the North Vietnamese army was using a nearby mountain as a base to gather resources from the local population and launch combat operations against American and South Vietnamese. As the day progressed, the tempo of action was picking up.

D Company discovered a bunker complex with a large amount of weapons, ammunition, medical supplies and food. They destroyed the ordinance and sent the food and medicine to the rear for distribution to the civilians around Chu Lai. While this was going on, a medevac helicopter was hit by enemy fire and crashed.

Sullivan and others were sent in to secure the downed chopper as soon as they could get clear. When they reached the crash site, they set up a night defense position to guard the crew and the chopper.

About two hours after dark, their position was hit from three directions by small arms fire, rocket propelled grenades and mortar fire. Shrapnel from one of the RPGs hit Sullivan and killed him instantly.

"The following combat action was so intense that the two medevac choppers that responded to the call for assistance were shot down," Regn said. "The pilot of a third chopper was wounded while trying to get in for an extraction and couldn’t land. The area was just too hot to get choppers in to pick up the dead and wounded.

"Sully’s friends spent five hours carrying him in a stretcher made from a poncho through the rain, down a rocky, slippery stream bed to where a helicopter could land to pick him up."

Ironically, the final entry in the brigade’s daily journal describes the action of March 11, 1970, as "light."

Jim Regn was at Landing Zone Buttons when a radioman asked him if he knew Mike Sullivan. He said Sullivan had been killed in action and Regn had escort duty to return with his body.

"On my way back to Phouc Vinh, I was hoping maybe it was a mistake, that it was another with the same name," Regn said. "I was stunned and didn’t want to believe he was dead."

When he read the orders and saw that the final destination was a funeral home on Backlick Road in Springfield, he knew it was his friend.

"At the time a request could be made by the family of the deceased for a friend also serving in country to be the escort," he said. "Sully’s family wanted me to have the honor and I’m grateful for it."

Regn didn’t catch up with Sullivan until he reached the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Because of the distance between their units and the difficulty the Army had in locating him, Regn was a few days behind in transit.

When he arrived in Delaware, a sergeant who had recently returned from a tour in Vietnam with the First Division led him through an aircraft hanger with dozens of bodies in various stages of repair. They located the casket and carefully loaded it into the hearse for the long drive to the funeral home. They drove down into Maryland and hit Route 50 just east of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. While they crossed it, Regn found himself thinking of the many times he and Sullivan had made the trip to and from Ocean City, with or without dates, with or without money.

"It didn’t matter," Regn said. "We always made it fun."

On that final trip, it was the sergeant and Regn in the front seat and Sullivan in the back in a flag-draped coffin. He doesn’t recall seeing any acknowledgement or respect from others on the road that day as portrayed in some recent movies about the subject. That didn’t happen until the casket arrived in Arlington, back with The Old Guard.

For the last 40 years, Sullivan’s home has been Arlington National Cemetery, about 15 miles from where he grew up and attended high school. His grave is located down the hill on the west side of the Mast of the Maine Memorial. Facing his marker, looking just to the right, you can see the Custis-Lee Mansion. A glance to the left across Jackson Circle past the brown stone fence yields a view of the barracks of the 3rd Infantry Regiment.

Regn says the setting is beautiful, worthy of the life his friend led and hoped to continue.

"The elegant landscaping and quiet dignity of the place makes the incoherent din from across the river hardly noticeable," he said. "Each time I go, I’m inspired to appreciate what I know were Sully’s ambitions, things that I’ve come to believe are as important as anything else in life.

"He wanted to be a good father, a good soldier, a good friend. All of these things he did by deed or example."

First experiences are the most intense

I wonder why the things that happen to us when we're young seem to stay with us so much longer.

I have lived in Southern California -- the world capital of female beauty -- for 20 years, and I have met some incredibly lovely women, including world-famous ones like Jane Seymour and Annette Bening.

But I still think the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life was Karen Theurer, who I first saw when I was 15.

Strange, isn't it?

I worked 16 years as a sportswriter, and I attended some amazing events. I saw Villanova upset Georgetown at Kentucky's Rupp Arena for the NCAA championship in 1985, I saw John Elway lead innumerable comebacks for the Denver Broncos and I saw Fernando Valenzuela pitch a no-hitter at Dodger Stadium.

But I never cared as much about who won and who lost as when I attended football and basketball games at Woodson in 1965 and 1966.

So much of what happens to us in adolescence goes such a long way toward shaping the lives we have. I saw that with my own kids, who were much better adjusted than I ever was, and who survived high school with flying colors and have gone on to become successful adults at an earlier age than I ever did.

Let's face it. We were maelstroms of emotion in high school, and all too often we saw enemies were none existed, slights where none were intended.

All I can remember is that everything mattered so much. Even when it didn't matter at all.

I never dated anyone in our class when I was at Woodson. I dated younger girls, older girls and one my own age from another school. I was tyhe epitome of Albert Brooks' classic quote from "Broadcast News."

"Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If 'needy' were a turn-on?"

Of course it wasn't.

It still isn't, which is why it was a good thing I shed that part of my persona sometime in the '80s. It's odd, though. For all the intense emotions -- both good and bad -- I have gone through, falling in and out of love, going in and out of marriage, I don't think I ever cared as much or felt as intensely alive as when I was 17 and dating Cheryl Newman.

I can't explain it. I doubt if I ever will be able to explain it.

Another chapter to whet your appetite

Note: Here's another chapter, another of the stories that made our class special.

KEEP ME IN YOUR HEART

Tony Barile lost teammates, friends and a cousin in the 1970 Marshall University football tragedy that he avoided because of an injury -- and a trip to Woodstock.

If you want a perfect example of that old saying about the size of the fight in the dog mattering more than the size of the dog in the fight, look at Tony Barile.


He was only 5-foot-8 and 158 pounds, but he lettered in four sports at Woodson. He was a standout running back for the school’s first winning football team, and he was the starting point guard for a basketball team that went all the way to the state quarterfinals his junior year.

He also played third base for the baseball team as a sophomore and ran the 440 and the mile relay in track as a senior.

"My size never really bothered me until I got to college," Barile said. "I was the same size from junior high on, and the first time anybody ever referred to it was when I was a junior on the basketball team."

Walter Hawkins, a transfer who played center on that team, called Barile "Midget Pizza."

Midget or otherwise, Barile could play. In what turned out to be the last game of the season, at state against top-seeded Patrick Henry High of Danville, he sparked the Cavaliers to a halftime lead that disappeared in the third quarter when Coach Paul "Red" Jenkins sat Barile down for too long.

He could play.

Of course, when colleges came looking for recruits, 5-8 and 158 spoke a lot louder. Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, offered him a full scholarship to play football. He accepted, never realizing he would become part of one of the most tragic stories in the history of American sports.

By now most people know the story. On November 14, 1970, after losing a close game to East Carolina University, players, coaches and fans of Marshall’s football team boarded a DC-9 with a crew of five for the return flight from Kinston, N.C., to Huntington.

It was only supposed to be a 52-minute flight, and players and friends who hadn’t made the trip had beer on ice waiting for their friends to return.

The flight never landed. The crew scrubbed the landing and began an effort to go around and try again, but the plane crashed to the west of the airport, killing all 75 people aboard. It was the worst air disaster in American sports history.

Barile, a senior reserve on the team, hadn’t made the trip. Two weeks before the game, a teammate had speared him in practice and lacerated one of his kidneys. He spent three days in the hospital, his kidney packed in ice as doctors waited to see if they would have to remove it.

He was fortunate that he didn’t lose the kidney, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to play anymore for the rest of the season. He started letting his beard grow, and when he was eating dinner at the training table, the head coach came up and confronted him.

"He told me to cut my beard, that I was still a representative of the team," Barile said. "I told him I knew my football career was over and I wasn’t cutting it. There was total silence at the table. The coach looked at me like he wanted to punch me and then he turned and walked away."

Five years earlier, that might never have happened. Barile grew up in an era when if the coach said jump, the only question the athlete ever asked was "How high?" But college sports – particularly football – had gotten really nasty at many schools in the 1960s. Books like Gary Shaw’s "Meat on the Hoof" and Dave Meggysey’s "Out of Their League," published in 1970 and 1971, exposed how players were treated in college and professional football.

Marshall wasn’t much different. In fact, during Barile’s four years at the school, the Thundering Herd was put on probation for numerous violations and was also expelled from its conference. Prior to the 1969 season, the school fired the coach responsible for much of that and promoted Rick Tolley to head coach.

"He was a sadistic madman," Barile said. "He used to have an ambulance at all our practices because someone inevitably would get hurt. Sometimes we would finish practice and then he would make us start all over again."

It was family that had brought Barile to Huntington. He had an aunt living there, and her husband was a major university booster.

"I went there and I loved the campus," he said. "It wasn’t too big or too small. My cousin Frank Loria said he could have gotten me a scholarship to Virginia Tech, but he had been a two-time All-American there and I didn’t want to follow in his shadow."

Loria actually came to Marshall for Barile’s junior year as an assistant coach under Tolley.

"He was my size, but he was really tough and loved contact," Barile said. "He taught me that toughness, hard work, determination and heart went a long way."

After the training table confrontation, Loria talked to Barile privately.

"He told me if I cut the beard, to come see him on Friday and he would get me on the plane for the trip," Barile said. "I didn’t say anything. I just didn’t show up."

***

It wasn’t the way he had envisioned his football career ending, sitting in his dorm room on Saturday night with a couple of teammates who hadn’t made the trip either. The game was over and they were waiting for their friends to return when somebody came running into the room.

"He told us to turn on the television," Barile said. "There was a plane crash at the airport."

The first thing they heard was one of the news anchors saying they thought it was the Marshall plane. In the background, they heard someone say three words.

"They’re all dead."

Then the station went blank. To Barile, it seemed as if time had stopped.

"Everybody ran out of the room," he said. "I was just sitting there, not knowing what to do."

Most of the other people in the dorm went to the airport, but Barile knew there was no way he could go. It was beginning to sink in that not only his roommate and his teammates had been killed, but that his cousin had died in the crash as well.

He drove up to a park that overlooks Huntington. It was one of those dismal autumn nights when the rain that was falling was so fine it was like a mist creating halos around all the lights below. As he looked down, he could hear the sirens from all the police cars and fire trucks racing to the airport.

"I was devastated," he said. "I sat there in the rain for hours, and when I finally got back to the dorm, there was no one there. They had all gone to the airport. I left and went to my aunt’s house."

He returned to the dorm the next day to find pandemonium. Parents and family members of the players who had died, as well as players from previous years, were looking for the right rooms.

"Guys who had been my teammates would see me, grab and hug me and start crying," Barile said. "They didn’t know I hadn’t been on the trip and they were stunned to see me."

He found himself directing parents and friends to the rooms of the departed players, and many of those rooms had large football pictures on the walls. Memories of happier times. The toughest was when he showed one player’s fiancée his room.

"There was a big picture of him on the wall, along with other guys, hugging after a touchdown," he said. "The girl just collapsed into my arms. That same scene went on and on; I was the one who had to show everyone to the rooms."

When it was over – at least when he thought it was over – he returned to his own room. For the first time, he looked at the wall and his roommate’s face was looking down at him.

"He was a good-looking, 6-foot-5 receiver," Barile said. "I got him stoned for the first time in that room. I remember us sitting there and laughing so hard I thought we were going to throw up."

***

The next week was particularly brutal. Searchers spent six days trying to identify each of the bodies so that they could be properly buried. One of the ones they had trouble identifying was Loria, and members of Barile’s family asked him to go down there and see if he could help.

He told them he couldn’t do it.

"All those boys were my friends," he said. "Those bodies were charred like burned pieces of wood."

Searchers finally identified Loria from dental records. Six other victims never were satisfactorily identified, and a number of the coffins that were buried held only pieces of bodies.

It’s difficult for people who have never played competitive sports to understand the closeness that develops between members of a team. Especially for Marshall, which had gone through some terrible seasons and had started to improve significantly in 1970, one could have said that closeness was something akin to people who had survived some sort of disaster.

It was why Roger Childers, a linebacker who had suffered a head injury and undergone brain surgery, had decided to stay with the team as its student manager. Of course, his dedication put him on that plane.

Twenty-two members of the varsity team weren’t on the flight, either because of injuries or the fact that they weren’t on the traveling squad. One player just missed the flight.

They buried their teammates in a mass funeral at the basketball field house. Barile sat in the audience throughout the heart-breaking ceremony, looking at the basketball team standing behind the caskets as pall bearers.

"At the end of the ceremony I started to walk up to the front," he said. "I saw this one basketball player who was a good friend of mine. He was crying. For all I had gone through for six days, I didn’t cry or break down, but when I saw him, I broke down and started bawling."

***

Most people who know the Marshall story now probably learned it from the 2006 movie, "We Are Marshall," which starred Matthew McConaughey as the coach who rebuilt the program after the crash.

It was definitely inspirational, but it wasn’t the story of the team that died.

"My brother Joe wrote a screenplay," Barile said. "We talked about it before the other movie; it was more about the team that died in the crash and my own personal experience. I thought the movie they made was actually kind of sappy. If they would have incorporated more about the team that crashed, I think people would have had a greater sense of the real loss."

Unfortunately, Hollywood doesn’t make that kind of movie anymore. If it’s about sports, it has to be inspirational, even when it comes to changing the truth of what happened. That’s why all sorts of false drama was built into "Remember the Titans," despite the fact that the football team in the story didn’t actually play one close game all season.

And it’s why "We Are Marshall" had to be the story of how a university came together and came back from tragedy, instead of the story of all that was lost when the plane went down on November 14, 1970.

We look forward, though. We always look forward, and if anyone spends too much time musing about events that have already happened, we accuse them of living in the past.

***

After Barile finished up at Marshall the following spring, he married a girl from a small town on the other side of the Ohio River. He worked for her father in a small construction company and then managed a wine distributorship. The marriage didn’t last, and neither did two others.

Eventually, Barile moved back to Virginia and met his fourth wife Michele at the old State Theater. During our high school years, the State was a popular movie theater, but in this era of multiplexes, it has become a venue for live music. Acts like Little Feat, Gregg Allman and top local and regional talent have played there.

"The fourth time has been the charm for me," Barile said.

The two had a baby in the fall of 2008, and Barile is thrilled.

"I had a son in my first marriage," he said. "Miletus is in his thirties now, but I wasn’t around enough for him when he was a kid. My daughter Sofia has made my life much more rewarding. I have a lot of time to give her that I didn’t have for my son. Being older does have some benefits. You know where you are in life, and you’re better off financially and emotionally.

"I missed out on so much with my son, even though we are close now. He is a fine young man and I am very proud of him. Sofia will have my full attention and I am very excited about that."

He says he doesn’t think of those days at Marshall all that much anymore, although he has returned for an occasional game or presentation. When the Thundering Herd went 13-0 and won the Motor City Bowl, led by future National Football League stars Chad Pennington and Randy Moss, the school presented Barile with an engraved ring with his name on it, the same ring the players got.

They remembered him and honored him as a survivor of those worst days.

Another classmate – this one from Woodson’s Class of 1967 – remembered him too.

"I didn't realize that Tony was on the Marshall team," Diane Dunkley said. "I was at East Carolina in the fall of 1970, and the Marshall game was the first home game we'd won that year. There were celebrations all over town, and a lot of noise and excitement. As word came in and spread about what had happened, everything got very quiet, and the evening's celebrations ended.

"I was so glad to know that Tony wasn't on that plane."

***

Before all the marriages, before the plane crash that changed everything, there was Woodstock. "Three days of peace, love and music," the festival that grew from almost nothing into a crowd of 400,000 that shut down the New York Thruway and became the symbol of a generation.

It changed Barile’s life, and according to at least one of his friends in college, might have saved it.

"Woodstock set my life on a different course," Barile said. "I was a pretty straight-laced athlete before Woodstock."

Barile was home that summer when his younger brother Joe asked him to go with him. Their parents had told him he could only go if Tony went along.

"I love music, so it was a no-brainer for me," Barile said. “I told my brother I hoped there would be at least 50,000 people there. We left Virginia on Thursday night and drove all night to get there."

When they reached the area on Friday morning, they stopped for gas and asked for directions. The attendant pointed to a dirt road, and Barile saw a line of traffic heading in one direction. He got into line, and the traffic got slower and slower.

Eventually it stopped, and cars pulled onto the shoulder in an effort to move ahead. When the traffic on the shoulder stopped, cars moved to the other shoulder and eventually into the left lane. Four lanes of traffic moving slowly on a two-lane road.

"I remember music playing out of vans," he said. "Then people started abandoning their cars and walking. We walked for a while and the crowd got bigger and bigger. I was like walking down the streets of New York. Joe looked and me and asked me if I thought there were enough people for me."

They walked a few hundred yards more until they found an opening in the woods. Then they looked down into a bowl-shaped area and saw a massive stage, 50-foot speakers and spotlights at the top.

Everywhere they looked were tents and tepees.

"It looked like an Indian nation," Barile said. "We looked at each other and we knew this was going to be the most moving experience of our lives."

The music hadn’t started yet, so Barile and his brother got as close as possible to the front of the stage. Then, just after 5 p.m. on Friday, Richie Havens came on stage and started singing "High Flyin’ Bird."

Folks near the Bariles lit up a joint and started passing it. Eventually it made it to Tony.

"I looked at it," he said. "Then I looked around at everything and took a big hit. It was an amazing weekend – three days of love, peace and tranquility. It was like everyone was on a high the whole time and it changed me.

"I started growing my hair and my beard," he said. "Then it was time to return for fall football. I walked into training camp with long hair and a beard."

Of course the coaches didn’t like it, but Barile had changed. The kid who had never questioned a coach had realized there was more to life than football, and he wanted to experience all of it.

It probably did save his life. In 1968, if a coach had told him to cut his hair, that he was still part of the team, Tony Barile would have rushed out and grabbed his razor. But in November 1970, with his lacerated kidney, he knew football was in his past and the coach was just another guy yelling at him.

He stayed home and lived.

"I was talking with my brother Casey about that after the crash," Barile said. "He told me going to Woodstock had saved my life."

***

All that was a long, long time ago, and the boy who said no to his coach is now a man looking ahead to 64.

He still has dreams from time to time, one in particular.

"I dream that I’m in the locker room," he said. "I dream that I’m trying to get my equipment together. My teammates tell me that I’ve got to hurry, that the bus is getting ready to leave for the airport. I’m looking around for my stuff but I can’t find it.

"I’m getting desperate, because I know I’m running out of time. Then the bus leaves without me."

D-Day still important to us

There are dates in all our lives that have significance -- birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases.

Then there are those that matter to all of us as a nation, and today is one of those dates. On June 6, 1944, thousands of young Americans and Englishmen came ashore at Normandy Beach in France in what was certainly the beginning of the end for Adolf Hitler's Germany.

That was 65 years ago today, and President Obama was in France with other national leaders for a commemoration of the honored dead and those who survived.

I wonder how much longer D-Day will matter, how many more years we will celebrate it. I was in France the summer of the 50th anniversary and I will be there later this summer as well. The youngest veterans of World War II are now in their 80s, and it won't be too much longer before they're all gone.

We no longer celebrate the signing of the peace at Appomattox in 1865, and most Americans would have no idea on what day the Maine was blown up in Havana harbor.

Eventually, all things pass.

There will even come a time when the date Sept. 11 won't mean much to Americans.

All things pass.

Forty years now since Woodstock

When you talk about our g-g-generation, one of the biggest things that ever happened was Woodstock.

Four hundred thousand people and three days of "peace, love and music" in August 1969. Who can forget it?

I remember that fall, registering for classes at George Washington University, talking with a couple of people who had been there. Even then, I knew it was going to be remembered as one of those legendary things.

Didn't make it myself. I was in New York City a day or two before the festival, and the thought crossed my mind of hitch-hiking up there and going. But I wasn't that kind of kid; I was a very immature 19 and my parents would have been horrified.

I know two members of our class who went -- Jayne Houghten and Tony Barile. I know one other -- Lee Millette -- who had wanted to go but his dad talked him out of it because he might have trouble getting back for work on Monday.

It has been 40 years now, so all the statutes of limitations are past. I'd love to hear some Woodstock stories in the comments section.

Feel free.

Alas, no Northwest Roundup this summer

I'm really disappointed.

I've been hearing about these WTW Northwest Roundups ever since I went to the 40th anniversary reunion, and I always figured that someday I might be able to make it to one.

Ever since my daughter married a kid from Seattle, the odds went up that we would someday visit the Pacific Northwest. Well, Pauline and Ryan are finishing their tour in China in a month or so and they're spending their two months of home leave and vacation in Washington State.

They'll be in Seattle with Ryan's family during July and they're renting a house outside Snoqualmie in August. We're taking our vacation up there, and I was hoping we could time it so that I could catch the Northwest Roundup.

Alas, there isn't going to be one this year.


Not that I needed another reason to go. I don't get to spend nearly enough time with my wonderful daughter, who is an officer in the U.S. Foreign Service. And of course, there is little Maddie, my first and to date only grandchild.

By August she may be walking. She's already managing to do it with support, so at this point it's just a question of balance.

So I'm sure I'll enjoy myself.

Still, a roundup would have been nice.

Classmates still striving in new directions

That was great news we got from the lovely and vivacious Dale Morgan, wasn't it?

Penny Viglione -- and who could ever forget her "Molly Brown" -- is opening an art gallery and wine bar on June 18 in New Bern, N.C.

What's really great about it is that for all we hear about life winding down toward retirement and our part of the baby boom generation getting ready to shuffle off the stage and make room for those damn kids (who won't get off our lawns), here's someone going out and starting a new business.

I also just received an e-mail from Katie (Reichel) Dyer about her trip to the Sahara Desert in 2005. Of course that'll be in the book, in a chapter to be called "Midnight at the Oasis."

Looks like more than one person in our class is still enjoying adventures.

We'd love to hear from more of you.