The Daring Rescue at Squaw Queen Creek by Bob Kaufman

I remember vividly the moment I saved Glenn Hull’s life. Everything else that day is just a blur.

1965 Basketball

Glenn was unquestionably the best all-around athlete in the class of 1966. A few guys might argue that point, but they’d lose. Being the best in Portola isn’t necessarily saying a lot, but if I recall correctly, Glenn did have some success after high school. While he wore the PHS Tigers uniform, he played football, basketball, baseball, and track all four years. He was a four-year letterman and a Feather River League Allstar in football both our Junior and Senior years.

According to the program for the Westwood basketball game, January 22, 1966, Glenn stood 6’2” tall – nothing remarkable, but he had long arms and a vertical leap better than anyone around. He could hold his own on the basketball court with opponents from Quincy and Greenville who boasted a towering 6’8” on the event programs. Sometimes they fudged the numbers a bit, I think, trying to get into our heads, but these guys looked every bit that tall, or taller. That was especially true of a couple of games where Glenn was suspended and I, John Hein, and a few other sub-six-footers were called on to play center for the Tigers. I saw a clip once showing a tall giant of a guy, standing flat-footed, holding a basketball in one hand with his arm straight up, and five little guys running around, trying in vain to jump and take it away. We were those little guys. To say it was hopeless is an understatement!

Fall 1965 Football

Glenn was a pretty nice guy…most of the time, but he chose to be ornery on occasion. For mouthing off to Coach Wise near the end of football, he was suspended at the beginning of our final Varsity Basketball season. After losing the first four games by a combined score of 246 to 152, including back to back games against the Quincy Trojans who outscored us by 57 points (remember the 6’8” giant?), Bob Hurd and I cornered Glenn and persuaded (begged) him to apologize to Coach so he could come back and try to salvage our season. Glenn capitulated and apologized. In the remaining 14 games he averaged 22 points and 16 rebounds per game to lead the team. Even with Glenn on the roster, though, we were small. Coach Donnenwirth’s parting words in the Pineneedle were: “The team was lacking in height but not in spirit as it turned in many outstanding efforts during the season.” That’s how coaches sugarcoat a 4 and 14 season. What he really meant was we got our rear ends kicked, but we tried hard.

And that's not all he said. He closed his message by saying "Six seniors will be departing from the present team, but the juniors showed great improvement during the season and should form the nucleus of a contending ball club for next year." Dang, I hate it when they say "Wait till next year." Thanks a lot, coach. For us there wasn't a next year!

1966 Basketball

Glenn’s orneriness didn’t stop at badmouthing Coach. He knew I always wanted to wear jersey number 14, no matter what sport. I was born on the 14th, and somewhere along the way, 14 became MY number. I managed to get it for football and basketball that year, but before the start of baseball season, when Coach Cimaglia was handing out uniforms in the boys’ locker room, Glenn muscled his way ahead of me in the line and deliberately grabbed number 14 before I could get it. Now, mind you, I had no sense of entitlement in the matter. He did it just for spite and wouldn’t give in when I tried to persuade (begged) him to trade with me. So, for baseball, I wore number 15. I’m still mad at him about that – maybe…. Come to think of it, most likely, I was able to wear number 14 for basketball because of his suspension – maybe….

I saved Glenn’s life, and for that, I had to wear number 15! Is there no justice in the world?

Well…perhaps there is. It’s time to rewind the video tape.

The Daring Rescue at Squaw Queen Creek happened four years earlier, near the end of the eighth grade, before any of us superstars in the class of 1966 took the fields, stormed the court, or ran the track in a Tigers uniform. Notwithstanding his athletic prowess in high school, in the eighth grade, Glenn could not swim. Completely in character with his machismo, he would never admit that to any of us guys. But then one day, in the heat of battle, we discovered Glenn’s Achilles Heel was aquatics.

Our eighth-grade band class was a wonder to behold. We boys made for an interesting ensemble:  Bob Hurd (aka "Turo"), Pete Thill, and Glenn Hull – Trombone; Rory Luce – Tuba; Stan Ghidossi (aka “Bugs”) – Baritone Horn; Bob Kaufman – Clarinet. I think I was the black sheep in that group of brass players.

Our music teacher, Mr. Ivan Thompson, who also taught seventh and eighth grade English, had a tradition of taking the boys from eighth-grade band class on a camping trip out in the wilderness – without our instruments. Notwithstanding our instrument-less-ness, we took our vocal cords wherever we went and made good use of them riding through Clover Valley in the back of Mr. T’s pickup singing:

“I got a gal named Bony Maroney.
She’s as skinny as a stick of macaroni.
Oughta see her rock and roll with her blue jeans on.
She’s not very fat, just skin and bones.
But I love her, and she loves me,
And oh, how happy now we can be
Makin’ love underneath the apple tree.”

I Got a Gal Named Boney Maroney, by Sha-na-na

Glenn Hull, Class of 1966

Yeah. Glenn taught us that song. Can you imagine six eighth-grade boys riding through the woods in the bed of a pickup truck singing that one? Better that than dancing to it with a girl at a sock hop. That gig didn’t launch any stellar music careers, but a half-century later, I did make it to the grand stage in Carnegie Hall…but that’s another story.

On Squaw Queen Creek, somewhere before the confluence with Little Last Chance Creek, was a swimming hole, guarded on every side by the tall willow bushes that grow along all the creeks and rivers up home. We once played a basketball game in Westwood where the court was so short the top of the Free Throw Circle was only a couple feet from the mid-court line. This swimming hole was no more than half the size of that half court.

On the west end of the swimming hole was a huge round boulder, protruding high enough above the water to make a small diving platform, but low enough that you could almost sit and dangle your feet in the water. There might have been a small patch of wild grass on the side of the creek, but at best, it was a soggy bog. The only sure way to exit the swimming hole was to climb up the rock. It wasn’t much of a climb, but it was slippery when wet and only had a few handholds we could use to pull ourselves up and out of the water. Three or four boys could sit on that rock and just barely bump elbows. I don’t know how high Glenn could reach in a vertical leap in the eighth grade. None of us had yet finished growing, but that swimming hole was deeper than that – deeper still by the height of one more thirteen-year-old. I know because many years later, Turo told me so. The water was dark and murky. I was only able to see a couple of feet below the surface.

To get to Squaw Queen Creek, we had to drive to Beckwourth, then take the Beckwourth to Genesee Road up to Clover Valley, cross over into Dixie Valley for a few miles and then hang a left to follow Squaw Queen Creek into Squaw Valley (not ‘the’ Squaw Valley loved by skiers). It might have been 25 to 30 miles away from town, but it was all dirt roads from just a few miles north of Beckwourth. I’m sure driving time was an hour or so, especially with boys in the bed of the pickup. It was a remote area. Still is today. It was the perfect place to get away, if nothing went wrong.

There we were on that rock – Glenn, Turo, me, and a couple others. Given that Rory, Pete, and Bugs were the only other candidates, it should be easy, but I simply do not remember who else was there.  Somebody asked if we all could swim. Everyone answered yes. A couple guys jumped in followed by Glenn. Suddenly the water was splashing and churning like it was full of piranha on a feeding frenzy! Glenn’s arms were flailing around as he tried to get his head back above water. The only other time I remember his arms waiving around so vigorously was during the 1965 Quincy football game when he was open in the pass pattern, but our QB, Mike Nally, was desperately trying to run away from a couple of Quincy’s defensive lineman and ended up with a mouthful of grass and a ten yard loss right in front of our bench – and a screaming Coach Wise.

The noise around the swimming hole was almost as loud as Coach’s screaming. During the commotion, Turo jumped in. I stayed on the rock, trying, but failing to grab hold of Glenn’s arm. Turo disappeared into the turbulent water for what was probably only fifteen seconds or so but seemed longer than one of Mr. T’s English classes.  His arms still flailing, Glenn drifted closer to the rock, and his head popped above the water. My reflexes were too slow for me to catch his arm, and his hair was just too short. In desperation, still having not seen Turo come up, with my right hand, I clinched Glenn’s ear! Holding on for dear life (not sure whose), it must have been enough to keep him safe until the others could get out of the water and help pull him up.

Pete Thill, Glenn Hull, Glenn Schwartz

Hearing Hurd tell the story decades later, one would think he thought he was the hero. I mean, he said he jumped in, but Glenn grabbed him and was pulling him under. With considerable effort he managed to break free from Glenn’s grasp. He sunk down, and standing on the bottom, he  grabbed Glenn’s legs and started pushing him up and toward the rock. All I remember is my hand clutching Glenn’s ear…and then singing Boney Maroney in the back of Mr. T's pickup the next afternoon. Everything in the middle is gone. But, I can still see Glenn’s face while we were singing. When he was being goofy, we all had a lot of fun!

Forty-five years later, at our 40th class reunion in the Log Cabin, Hurd and I were joking with Glenn about the rescue. He said he did remember the event, and in his goofy way said, "Yeah, and I haven't been swimming since!"

A few years ago, during a reunion as several of us gathered around a fire to reminisce, in the clear night air at River’s Edge RV Park in Clio, under the canopy of his trailer, Hurd said there was one casualty that fateful weekend. As he told it, a few hours after his daring rescue, we were all laying around the campfire in our sleeping bags when a lizard scampered toward the fire, jumped in, and was burned to a crisp. Sadly, that image did not stick in my memory. If my brain had been able to retain three images instead of two, definitely I would have wanted the third to be the fire-roasted lizard.

I Wish Don Joy Wore a Size 9 Shoe! by Bob Kaufman

Don Joy wore a size 16 shoe.

OK, so I’m exaggerating again, but he was a big guy compared to me, the skinny 98-pound weakling.  He lived a block up Gulling Street from my house.  We played together a lot when we were kids.  His dad, Irwin Joy, owned Joy Hardware.  The name is a bit misleading.  I only went there to see Don, buy model airplane kits, and later, 45 rpm records…but that’s another story.  Though it does explain why I still call a plumber if I have a leaky faucet today.

We spent many long hours on the kitchen table at the Joy’s home playing Stratego, Battleship and Risk.  In a personal message recently, Don expressed that one of his great pleasures today, fifty or so years later, is playing Strageto with his grandsons, allowing them to move their bombs and flag, leveling the playing field so they could beat him.  When they play Battleship, he lets one stand behind him telling the other where to hit next.  Believe me.  He NEVER extended such a courtesy to me in the 60’s!

We also spent many hours in the basement of the Joy house.  Actually, it wasn’t really a basement.  Their house was on the corner of Gulling and Magnolia where the ground dropped down 20 feet or so to the creek that ran in the gully behind both of our houses.  The front door to the Joy home was on Gulling street.  Go down the stairs in the kitchen, to the “basement”, hang a right and you could walk out the garage door onto Magnolia Street.  In the corner by the garage door Don and his older brother, Ken, had built a huge HO scale model railroad.  If we weren’t running the train, we could be found playing ping pong in the “dungeon” to the left at the bottom of the stairs.  Don was no more kind to me at ping pong than he was at Stratego and Risk.  I remember many summer nights playing Hide and Seek at the Joy house with all the other kids in the neighborhood.  We couldn’t lay on the lawn and do much stargazing, though, there were too many pine trees in the yard.  For stargazing we went to the Hein’s just a few houses away.

Don was a year ahead of me in school, and in my mind, many steps ahead of me on the smart scale.  Maybe he wasn’t a genius, but I leaned heavily on him in Math, Chemistry and Physics.  Don was a good friend and I have many fond memories of the times we shared in the little mountain railroad town of Portola, California in the 50’s and 60’s.  I JUST WISH HE HAD SMALLER FEET!

I had thought for many years that this event happened at the Loyalton football game in the fall of our 1964-65 school year when Don was a senior and I a junior. But checking the 1965 Pineneedle for that year, I see that the Portola Varsity defeated Loyalton 10 – 7 on our home field.  That certainly was the year Willie Ghidossi kicked a field goal in the closing minutes of the game to secure the victory.  Field goals simply weren’t part of the game in those days, so that was an amazing feat (pun intended).  But that, too, is another story.

Willie "The Toe" Ghidossi, Tigers No. 33 Kicks a field goal to defeat Loyalton 10-7, Fall 1964.

Portola at Loyalton, 1975
(Photo Credit: Lance Studebaker)

So, my Don Joy Big Foot story must have been in the Junior Varsity game in the “pasture” at Loyalton
in the fall of the 1962-63 school year.  The 1963 Pineneedle says Portola JV defeated Loyalton 39 – 0.  Why else would Coach Rowden put a 98-pound weakling freshman in at half back?  Our lead was secure enough that there was no risk of losing the game.  Coach called for a Quick 7 (or Quick 4 – after 50 years, I don’t remember which way the numbers went – from left to right or right to left).  I was the left halfback, Don was left tackle.  The Quick 7 was a simple halfback dive over the tackle spot.

I remember the ball punching my gut as I clutched it between my arms.  In that instant, the big guy opened a hole wide enough for a WP diesel engine and I could see daylight to Don’s left.  There was nothing in my view but open field to the goal line about 80 yards away.  In fact, I think there was nothing beyond the goal line for another half mile or so.  I could have run like Forrest Gump!

Coach Rowden

We lost our next two games to Greenville and Herlong and narrowly defeated Chester for the season finale.  I am certain that that one moment in Loyalton was the only time my number was called to carry the ball that year.  As my glorious 80-yard run to pay dirt flashed in my mind, my right toe caught the heel of Don Joy’s size 20 cleats, I went down on my face, got a mouthful of Loyalton pasture and recorded a whopping gain of about 18 inches.

I have always wondered if Coach noticed the ball hitting the ground just before I fell on it.

Portola JV Football Team, Fall 1962

Portola at Loyalton, 1975
Beckwourth Peak in the background.
Photo credit:  Lance Studebaker

The Twelfth Man by Bob Kaufman

Portola Tigers JV Football, 1956-1957
Bill Rees #34, top left
Joe Kaufman, #39, bottom left

Every boy who has ever struggled to put on the pads of a football uniform has had visions of making the big play. In another story about Don Joy’s size 16 shoes, I told of my vision of an 80-yard touchdown run in the Loyalton game sometime in 60’s – a short-lived vision that ended with my getting a mouthful of Loyalton grass after a whopping gain of 18 inches. For most of us, those visions just drift away like a puff of smoke from the score keeper's final gun on a breezy mountain afternoon.

Sometime in the fall of 1956, I was on the west sideline of the old football field doing whatever an eight-year old might do on a sunny fall Saturday afternoon. I was watching the JV football game while sitting on my bicycle as close to the sideline as I could get without getting into trouble. My brother Joe was on the team or else I probably would have been riding my bike in the woods checking chipmunk traps and just kicking up dust. I remember how he would sit on the porch at our old house and polish his cleats and clean his helmet on game day. I’m sure I wanted to go to the game to see if he would get them dirty again.

The Old Football Field and THE HILL
1964 Before the "New" Gym and Science Wing were built
Photo by Carrie Neely

That day, Portola was defending the north goal, facing south with a clear view of Beckwourth Peak, and THE HILL, frequently used in practice on Monday as "incentive" meant to encourage good performance on Saturday ...but that's another story.

Dan Olsen told me recently that the Tigers were playing the Grizzly's from Loyalton. I would never contradict Dan, a Hall of Fame QB from yesteryear who was the Varsity signal-caller that same day, but who missed the play because he was in the locker room getting dressed at the time.

The line of scrimmage was near our opponents 30 yard line.  The teddy bears ran a sweep play around their left end, right in front of a bench full of Tigers. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Big Bill Rees, all 300 pounds of him came off the sideline and flattened the runner, who only seconds before had visions of a 70-yard touchdown run.

For over 60 years, I have had that memory in mind, although like a faded photograph from the good old days, so blurry you cannot recognize any of the faces. I don’t remember anything else about it. Surely, we were penalized for too many men on the field and Bill was ejected from the game for his infraction – definitely a personal foul for unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct!

Well, at the Alumni Picnic last month (July 2018), I had opportunity to tell Bill about that memory, and he just laughed and laughed. Then he told me the rest of the story and filled in a little of the detail in that long-since faded photo.

Bill and Kim Rees (Kimberley Lowerison)
PHS Alumni Picnic 2018

Bill said he was playing defensive tackle (where else?) and it seems he thought Coach Rowden had sent in a substitute for him. So, he was hustling to the sidelines, as fast as his 300 pounds could move, trying to get off the field before the Grizzly's center snapped the ball, in order to avoid the penalty. Then he said he must have been mistaken, because the coaches and everybody on the sideline were yelling and waving frantically at him to stay on the field. As fortune would have it, Bill got the message in the nick of time and dug in his heels, creating a trench in the turf somewhat resembling the Marianas. The enemy running back had his vision of a 70-yard touchdown run dashed in an instant. Suddenly, Bill turned, took aim on the bear cub, and mashed him to bits!

Personally, I think it is a better story the way I remembered it. Bill was a legend in my own mind. But, instead of being a hero, the likes of Jesse James, or maybe The Incredible Hulk, I guess he was just plain lucky. Either that, or Coach Rowden had just invented a new and very effective defensive play.

On second thought, I think I am going to have a senior moment and forget our conversation at the picnic.

Here’s to Bill Rees, Portola JV’s Twelfth Man!