Classmates

Bryce and Katie Lofts are living in Oregon with their two beautiful daughters and one more child is due in Feb. Bryce moved to Oregon when he was a junior in high school and now his parents live in Montana.
I've got a story to tell about Bryce. I was hoping that Bryce and Mitch could make it to the reunion so that Emily and I could challenge them to a three-legged race. It's a bit of a rematch I guess. Back in third grade Emily Froerer and I signed up to do the three-legged race at the Western Roundup. Our desire to do this came from the awards assembly the year before. We had seen the tall twisty coke bottles filled with bubble gum that they were giving to the winners of the three-legged race and that's all we needed to make the decision. We were going to be in that race next year! When the time came we practiced and practiced every recess we could, many times racing against Bryce and Mitch. Every single time they would woop us. But we didn't get down. We had visions of bubble gum-filled bottles in our minds and nothing was going to stop us. The day of the race came. We lined up with our legs tied together and our game faces on. When the gun went off we took off and headed toward the orange cone. As we rounded the cone and headed back to the finish line we were shocked to find that we were way ahead of the pack, including Mitch and Bryce. Kids were falling down everywhere and we didn't miss a step. It was a glorious moment when we finished in first place. Coke bottles here we come! Unfortunately when we proudly stepped up to collect our award, we were given lawn darts instead of the bottles. It was a sad day. Of course now we love to look back and remember the day we beat Bryce and Mitch and the rest of the world in the three-legged race.

Noelle Green Stevenson lives in Layton with her husband and three children ages 6, 4 and 2. Noelle likes being a mom although she said it is harder than she thought it would be. Noelle joined us in junior high and also went to Weber High. I've got a good story to tell about Noelle too.
When I was a senior at Weber my brother and I would take turns driving to school. He turned 16 in October that year, before most of his classmates, and he thought he could drive really good. Our mode of transportation was a silver Chevette, diesel. It wasn't fast going up the pass, but it was sure fast going down if you know what I mean. In fact it was so slow going up that people behind us would be right on our tail wanting to pass. It was at this time that we would do what we called the "smoke trick." Whichever one of us was driving would gear down and a big cloud of black smoke would shoot out the back like a skunk spraying an unwanted guest. We'd laugh and laugh as the cars kept their distance the rest of the way up.
Obviously we didn't keep really good care of this car. It wasn't cool and it certainly wasn't new. When you're in high school you think money or cars for that matter grow on trees. Not only did we burn up the Chevette on the pass, but we shook her up on the rest of the way to school.
The stretch of road from the bottom of the pass to Washington Blvd. had a series of "jumps" or high spots where the intersecting road met up with the main road and created kind of a bridge over the gutter. Driving our car off the jumps created great entertainment for us especially if we had "guests" with us. This is where Noelle comes into the picture. Noelle and I think Katie Bushell were with us one time and of course we had to take them on the jumps. You'd have to drive really close to the curb, but not in the gutter or you'd really do some damage. Even at the posted speed of thirty miles an hour that Chevette could really fly. Noelle laughed along with us as our car hit jump after jump. Well, Noelle had so much fun that she decided to try it out the next time in her own car. Her attempts weren't as successful as ours and she busted the tailpipe loose. She told me recently that it dragged for years. I still feel bad that I showed her such a poor example. As for our car, it was dead before year's end thanks to my brother's drive off the pass. Thank goodness he's still alive to tell. Unfortunately you can still see the "dead" car over at my father's repair shop. Thanks for the memories Noelle!
If you're reading this and you haven't sent in a family photo, do it soon. Let us know what you're up to.