Here we have a bunch of us kids at a church picnic from the former Christ of the Lakes in 1980.
That’s me on the far left. If I’m not mistaken, next to me is Bob (Robert) Meyer and his brother John Meyer.
I’m not sure who the obscured person is. There in the front shirtless is Walter Svenkesen Jr. Behind him in the glasses is Geoff Switzer. Throwing the ball is Matthew Schantz. On the far right is Dick (Richard) Meyer, Bob and John’s father.
I don’t keep in touch with anybody here but I know that Bob is currently head football coach at Walled Lake Central High School. I don’t know anything about his older brother John. I believe they lived in White Lake and may still. Their dad I have seen occasionally within the past few years at my mother’s church. Walter now has an insurance agency in Waterford. Geoff I see occasionally but it’s been a couple years. And Matt I heard left the state after divorcing his wife Shelly. The Meyers probably went to Lakeland High School. Matt and Geoff went to Waterford Kettering. I think Walter went to Clarkston High School.
Here’s Walter’s mother’s obituary from a few years ago. I saw her about five years ago at the church before she passed away. She’d been a smoker all her life and there she was on oxygen looking about as good as one can look in such circumstances.
K. Svenkesen, 73, of Waterford, died Sept. 29, 2012, at Otsego Memorial
Hospital in Gaylord. She was the dearest wife of the late Walter J.
Svenkesen; the loving mother of Kari Jo (Michael) Stefanski of Gaylord,
Walter (Diane) Svenkesen Jr. of Clarkston; the loving grandmother of
Cameron, Joshua, Sean, Dominic, Ryan, Anona and Niklas; and the loving
sister of Judy Camperud and Sheri Hanson. She was preceded in death
by her parents, Joseph and Fern Johnson. Karen was born in Fargo,
N.D. She married Walter J. Svenkesen on Oct. 26, 1957, in Minnesota.
On that same Waterford Kettering class trip in 1987 I caught our physiology teacher Mr. Hook with a twinkie. Since he was also a coach and heavily into fitness I thought it was amusing. Although to be honest I think I was the one who had the twinkie and gave it to him in the first place.
Here’s another backdated post. It aligns with the previous one. This is a picture of Amy Patterson, former classmate from Mason Junior High School and Waterford Kettering High School, eating a twinkie. This was an Ecology Field Trip with Mr. Hook. I don’t recall doing anything related to ecology on that trip but we all had a good time canoeing and camping. This was in 1987 just before high school graduation.
Hopefully someday Amy’s kids will find this and see this shocking, unhealthy behavior.
I’m so bummed at myself for not continuing this blog in a timely manner; I’m backdating this entry and pretending I issued it three months ago. Part of the problem is that I haven’t been scanning old photos lately.
Anyway, this photograph is of some nerds at Mason Junior High School in Waterford who got some academic awards in, I’m guessing, 1984. I’m one of them but I don’t remember the award. Probably something to do with English. But possibly math.
On the left is Chris Switzer. For some bizarre reason the school secretary or whoever it was that did this fancy construction paper mounting and caption typing put his name as Jeff. (He did have a brother named Geoff but he was several years out of the school by this time). Chris and I are still friends to this day. Suzanne Kunse was a year younger than us so I don’t recall much about her. Amy Patterson was another one of the “smart kids” that I went to school with for years up to high school graduation at Waterford Kettering. I think I saw her once as an adult around 2007 or 2012. I believe she was doing well, had a family etc. Steven Brown I don’t recall after junior high so I think he probably went to the other high school — Waterford Mott. With a common name like that it will be quite a coincidence if he or his family finds this post but stranger things have happened.