How it Began

 Through high school and my first year and a half of college the Vietnam War was something that I may have read about in newspapers or seen stories about on the news but it didn't really seem real to my friends and me. After we lost a guy from our high school who was killed in a helicopter incident we may have paid a little more attention. I don't know any details and had he not also been married to a popular classmate of ours I'm not sure how much we would have known about it. 

The stories I am writing are how I remember things that happened. I've talked to some friends that are part of this story and not all of us remember things exactly the same way but all our stories are close enough that I know they're all honest with just details being different in our memories. 

The majority of the guys that hung out as a group graduated in 1966 and 1967. Many of us went to Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights, California and others went to La Puente, Baldwin Park, Wilson and West Covina. Some of us were friends and teammates in high school and others were just acquaintances or friends of friends from their jobs but eventually we all became best of friends and jammed an amazing amount of living in what was actually a very small part of our lives. I remember talking about this with Clarence Green when we were on a road trip a few years ago and I said; "How can such a short period in time seem like such a large part of our lives?" His response made sense then and makes more sense the more time that passes. He said, "It's because we remember moments and we shared a lot of amazing moments."

The thing that brought us all together and was the catalyst for all these moments was Ted Engle's house. And here is where I'm vague about a lot of details particularly the exact timeline. Ted lived with his mom who had cancer that eventually took her life leaving him alone in the house. I don't know details but I think Fred may have moved in with him first, he was a year behind us in high school and left home but still graduated. I know Rob and Clarence got involved with "The House" because they worked at Thrifty Mart with Fred. Clarence eventually moved into the house as well. 

Clarence worked for me when i was an assistant manager at Tony’s Liquor in City of Industry right near my house and that might be how I started hanging out at the house if not before; there were quite a few of us that were the regular group plus many others who came and went.

Like so many decisions we made at that time I'm not sure when we decided to get matching tattoos but at some point we did and we all got the "Hot Stuff" devil on our arms. Myself, Fred, Ted, Rob and Clarence were first and then at different times but not long in between were; Al Maples who had an army cap on his because he was one of the first of us to enlist, Bill Kennedy, Johnny Ramos, Elson Holland, Mike Biswell and Larry Bachmeier. After we went in the service two more got tattoos a marine friend of Bill Kennedy's and Ken Peters a friend of ours from boot camp of course by then there was no longer a house.

Another decision we made more or less together was to buy motorcycles, Me, Rob, Ted and Fred all bought Honda 305 Scramblers and then another friend Jeff Bailey who sometimes hung out at the house bought one as well. Bob McGowan, Bill Sumner, and Mike "Paisano" Preziose were other regulars but no tattoos for them or Bailey. 

So we all worked when we were no longer going to school and then we hung out. The House was party central with no adults around and it was where we all met up to go places and do things. We spent the night on the street at the Rose Parade, we were constantly going to clubs on The Sunset Strip and entering dance contests at Manzanita Park in West Covina where Casey Kasem was the DJ. We spent a lot of time at the beach, mostly Huntington and sometimes in the mountains. We took several trips to Tijuana, Ensenada and Rosarita Beach in Mexico. Bottom line is that we worked and we hung out together a lot. Sometimes my Dad would say enough was enough but he liked all of the guys that he met, a lot of us had been high school and some of us college cross country and track teammates so he knew them from that.

I can honestly say that even though we did some stupid things we were never in trouble with the law other than possibly some traffic offenses. If so we wouldn't have been able to serve. Al was one of the first to go in when he joined the army where he received a Silver Star for heroism. Elson went in the army and drove tanks in Germany, Johnny was in the Air Force, Bill Sumner the Army, Preziose the Navy and Randy Theleman the Navy  I'm not sure about some of the other guys. 

Me, Ted, Fred, Rob and Clarence decided that our draft number was coming up so we decided to go to the army recruiter and volunteer for the draft for two years to get it over with, The army recruiter told us if we really wanted to serve we should enlist for three years so we walked out, went around the corner and enlisted in the Navy for 4 years. (I guess we showed him!) The reality was although it was a longer enlistment it was probably safer and we all made it out alive. We enlisted under the Buddy Plan so that we would all serve together. 

Here are a few pictures from before we enlisted. 

The first two pictures are from a trip to Tijuana one of several we took to Mexico as a group. 

The third is from a motorcycle trip we took to a cabin in Big Bear. Clarence and McGowan were supposed to be there to but after Fred hit gravel and lost his bike with Clarence on the back and it hit the tree Fred is next to, you can see the scar, McGowan the only one who had a car had to drive Clarence back to the doctor. 

The next one was taken right in front of my house as I was getting a ticket. I think it was because my car was smoking. Smog tickets were big back then. 

The party was at an apartment that Bill Sumner and Ted rented after The House ceased to exist. They actually lived with my parents for a time. Ted longer than Bill. 

The last picture is from a cake for our going away to boot camp party. It says “Good Luck To The Devils” and has five toy army men on it because there were no sailors. 

These two pictures were taken the week before we went to boot camp. The top picture was taken in my bedroom at my parents house when we were goofing around and showing off our tattoos. The guy in the back is Bill Kennedy’s friend from the Marines who became a devil. The one we hid in the middle is Jeff Baillie, not a devil. 

The second picture was taken at Knotts Berry Farm on New Year’s Eve 1967. We took a motorcycle trip. That’s my brother John standing between me and Fred.