Dee,
Please alert the media (blog):
With much regret I must announce that I will be unable to attend this year’s affair in Alabama.
My new job (and schedule) will not allow the required time off. Won’t happen.
I am not happy. By next year (if I live) I should have enuf vacation time piled up to make BALTA2009 a possibility.
Above, back row lto r: Fran Labree, Karen Drafs (Lar’s sister), Terry Baer
Front row, l to r, Carl Baer, Alan Drafs (Lar’s brother-in-law), Larry Labree
In Bemidji, l to r, Larry, Fran, Terry, Carl
Larry, Fran, Terry, Carl
Hello Dee, I’m sure you will be caught by surprise by this reply. The ditty referred to was not to the best of my knowledge incorporated into a song but was a chant that our post softball team used before each game we played. It went “ala ka zip, ala ka zam, son of a bitch, god damn, horses ass, cows titty, we’re the boys from B.A. city… yeaaaaa weasel shit!
I am very late in sending the attached photos when Fran and I visited Carl and Terry while vacationing a couple of summers ago. Of note was that on that visit Carl referred to the song with the line about Frannie dancing as fast as she can etc. The other two characters in the one photo are my sister (Karen) and brother-in-law (Alan Drafs) who we often travel with. (Blogger note: see next post for the photos. dee)
Fran and I are doing quite well, we now have two grandchildren, ages soon to be twelve and seven (girls) both of whom we, of course, dote over. They live here in Bellingham so we see them often. You might remember that I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999 and had surgery that year. I unfortunately had a reoccurrence last spring (2007) and underwent some 37 radiation treatments. I have come out of both feeling fine with no real side effects and continue to watch and wait as to whether or not I have finally licked this. Fran can still dance as fast as ever although she takes longer to recover. (more…)
After all the delay and VA red tape, my total knee replacement surgery has been scheduled for May 22. It could have been about a month earlier but my niece is going to be married in the Naval Academy Chapel in early May and I wouldn’t have been recovered enough to make the wedding.
I have always regretted not accepting my appointments to West Point or The Naval Academy so I don’t want to miss her wedding so I can at least see the Chapel. Her husband to be is apparently a bit of a dolt since, upon graduating, he requested that he be commissioned as a Marine Officer rather than Navy. His secondary MOS is as a Communications Officer and it may even be as a Communications Intelligence Officer………Of course I won’t be able to share any “war stories” from the “Big War” because, as you all know, I have always taken my vow of silence about our highly classified work quite seriously..
Back to my knee amputation……..For years I’ve told Elizabeth (my first wife) that if I ever lost one of my legs, I was going to get a wooden peg leg, place a patch over one of my eyes, put a stuffed parrot (less maintenance) on my shoulder and move to Key West to work the sunset crowd at Mallory Square. So if anything goes wrong with the surgery and I loose my lower leg, I’ll be OK because of my early planning. (unlike the retirement planning deal)..
I should be fit for the reunion (that I have only heard about second or third hand) – I understand it’s going to be on the Red Neck Rivera of Alabama sometime in September – dates and exact locations would be appreciated..
Love to all-
.
J.M. (AKA BannaBoy) Hannan
(Johnny Mike)
(Mikey {likes it})
Tony May (BA ‘69-’71) posted The Chant on an ASA discussion group with the question, “Anybody remember this and who used it?”
Doug
Doug also sent me the site for the above referenced discussion group, which features some 1958-era photos of BA. Check it out. You will need Adobe to open the pdf. The link is below. dee
Gary Hendrickson scanned in a bunch of headshots of some of us. They are a real treat to look at. Thanks, Gary.
Go see for yourself!
dee
