Eileen Slagle Hall and I have been friends since 1952. We both were welcomed by the class members when we joined them as juniors. For sixty-seven years, Eileen and I have shared memories from the past and visions of the future. We both agree that LUSK and WYOMING are forever in our hearts.
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Eileen Slagle Hall and I have been friends since 1952. We both were welcomed by the class members when we joined them as juniors. For sixty-seven years, Eileen and I have shared memories from the past and visions of the future. We both agree that LUSK and WYOMING are forever in our hearts.
Eileen and I both had “staring” roles in the senior class play “Beauty and the Beef.” I was the beef and Eileen was Ginny Allen. There were parts in the play for more than forty. Agnes Peet was our director and prompter. From her position hiding behind the curtain she did more prompting than directing.
On different occasions I made an attempt to return to Wyoming. For 25 years I had been an owner of a nine-unit motel in Santa Cruz, the Blue Bird Motel. The Blue Bird was a working man and woman’s motel. My motto was “a butt in every bed every night.” My big desire to own a motel in Lusk did not happen.
Later I bought forty acres of what I had known as the HARRIS ranch. With a flowing creek and abundant wildlife I was going to build a home and reunite myself with my youthful days. I also became a farmer by buying one hundred sixty acres of land south of Torrington. I have sold both properties. George Flint and I talked about a once in a lifetime fantasy trip to the Cowboy State. Memories replaced the fantasies.
My sister Jean and I had a desire to go west to California. My mother always supported that desire. At the same time she always wanted a place for us to have a root in Wyoming. It was her intention that we would always be a part of what she had sacrificed and worked to achieve. In life, and in death that was her wish.
If we didn’t get home in life, she tried to make sure we would make it home and be buried next to her. She thought she had made this possible by buying two burial plots in the Lusk cemetery. The 10th District Circuit Court of Appeals vacated my dad’s trust agreement. Among the properties lost were the two burial plots.
The memories of the years 1950 – 1959 are the fondest years of my life. Wyoming will always be in my heart.
John Wasserburger
PO Box 14
Capitola, CA 95010
831-476-1874