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Our Memories of “Skeet”

Skeet taught me so much about life and how to live it successfully.  He used to compare our lives with walking across a desert carrying a full bucket of water.  He told us that how you used that water would determine how successful you were.  The idea was to get across the desert without running out of water.

He used to read us articles about things he found interesting in the newspaper or a magazine, and then he'd talk about them and involve us in discussions about what he read. He was death on us getting good grades in school.  He would help with homework and encourage or scold us, whatever the occasion demanded.

And who can forget the wonderful birthday cakes his wife used to bake for all us kids?  Being with those two was like having another mom and dad.

The obituary failed to mention that Skeet started a barbershop quartet.  The original members were Bob Brown, Dave Walle, Michael Barber and Steven Barber.  After Bob graduated, Gary Gjerstad joined and it continued.  We performed in many different places and had loads of fun together, and you could tell Skeet thoroughly enjoyed himself.

I can't tell you how much I will miss him. He was a very dear friend.

Michael D. Barber

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He was very musical and very humorous.  everyone knows that he sand in a barbershop chorus in Cedar Rapids and played a keyboard.  I was surprised that he even took u; a trumpet at a convention at IBSSS a long time ago.

He learned to fly and bought a small plane with 2 other house-parents.  One bought the other two shares (including Skeet's) and flew away.
He tried to invent thinks, but none was a big winner.  As I recall it, one of his inventions was to make it safer when trucks backed up from loading docks.  Now trucks and other vehicles have reverse beepers as standard equipment.  He said that the prospective collaborator on his invention told him to go back and be a dormitory house father.

One time he bought a used Cadillac just for the heck of it, but found that it was a gas guzzler.

He even tried running a small motel in, I think, McGregor, Iowa, during the summer.

One time I asked him, "Where's Billy Hunerdosse?"  Reply: "I don't know.  I'm not a Billy Hunerdosse keeper."
During one period he would spell and pronounce people's names backwards, getting the idea from a product called Serutan (which is "natures" spelled backward).  So Creig Slayton was Gierc Notyaols.  I was Dlanor Nekco.

I helped him put clean laundry into the bins.  He liked to change the numbers.  Twenty-four was forty-twen.
One time he bought a cheap pool table for the dorm.  It was so cheap that it was warped and we had to remember where the warps were.  He ended up doing really expert things such as putting spins on the Q ball so that after it hit another ball it would stop right there or would proceed to a selected place so that it would be near the next ball that he wanted to put into a pocket.

He would become very good at anything he tried.  He would go skating with us at the Vinton roller rink.  He could dance on skates and skate backwards.
 

Ron Ocken

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The first time I met skeet was in the fall of 1960.

A second grader, I had just moved to Roy Waldhelm's dorm in the east side of Rice Hall, known at that time quite simply as the boys' dorm. We were fooling around, just outside the east door, and one of us noticed the push button that was mounted on the side of the building, next to the entrance. Not knowing what it was for, quite naturally, we had to press it to find out. Little did we know, it rang a buzzer in Skeet's apartment, over on the other side of the building. It brought Skeet on the run, none too happy about the fact that some little twitlets were incessantly ringing his buzzer. He seemed kind of frightening to me. He was intense, and gave you the impression that he was not to be messed with.

The second time I met him, was a few weeks later, when I needed a haircut.

He was the barber at the school. He cut hair for over 70 boys. I don't know how he ever did it. He was just full of energy, and had lots of great ideas. I always thought it was cool that the school barber would be so interested in barber shop music. But he sure was. I remember, much later, when I was actually in his dorm in the late 60's, I sneaked home from class one day, to get a piece of homework I had forgotten. Skeet never even knew I was there. He was in the room across from his apartment, totally absorbed, slaving over a hot piano, meticulously working out intricate harmonies for his barbershop arrangements. I remember, in the mid 60's, he organized some guys into a barbershop singing group,a couple of the guys actually having the last name Barber. The group was originally called the Three Blind Mice, then later mercifully renamed to the Bell Tones. I still have a recording of Skeet introducing the group, followed by a performance of some of the songs he helped them arrange and sing.

Skeet had a really rye sense of humor, which I enjoyed, once I came to understand him a bit better. He always liked to rearrange the letters in a persons name. I was Snimmie Joebarger. But, I never got up the nerve to call him Peet Skours, like I really wanted too. So, I settled for the more acceptable, but slightly suggestive Pister Mours, which fortunately never pissed him off. Oh yes, and he was capable of that very loud, very shrill whistle, which he used to get attention. Usually, it was followed by some pronouncement in that high-pitched, but very intense voice, which always meant that Skeet meant business, and that you had better fall in line.

And, We always did. One day, we were standing in line, waiting to march off to lunch, like the compliant little blind soldiers most of us were, when Skeet launched into one of his famous, and not infrequent rants about the importance of education. He was right of course. Later, we would learn how true that was. But, we weren't always, well, make that, never really were, a receptive audience. I'm sure it came from the heart, signifying the degree to which Skeet himself wished that he had a better education. He was actually possessed of a remarkable degree of natural creativity and intelligence and, I think, thought, probably quite rightly so, that, while he enjoyed what he did for a living, he could have done so much more, if only he, Skeet, had the education to make it possible. And, he didn't want us to miss that boat. Bless him for that. I think he really did have our best interests at heart, and knew that, as blind people, we would have extra challenges, which would make self-discipline, and the development of skills and knowledge of even greater importance.

But, on this glorious day, in the spring of 1968, I really wasn't in the mood to hear about it. I heaved a very loud, massively exaggerated, totally obvious sigh of boredom. It was so dramatic, that guys all up and down the line started twittering with laughter about it. I was so pleased with the degree that my compatriots had enjoyed my rude and arrogant outburst, that I felt a self-satisfied grin stretching across my face. But, at that point, Skeet had really had enough. He seemed to be the only one there in the hall that day who was not amused. My first clue was when He grabbed me by the collar and lifted me completely off the floor. "it's real funny, isn't it Jim," he yelled , jerking me around, and banging me against the wall. "it's real funny, isn't it," he repeated. Frankly, I was so confused by the shaking and banging, that I wasn't really quite sure what he had said. But, whatever it was, I figured I had better agree with it. So, I said, yes, and I even added extra emphasis for his benefit.

Yes? It's real funny?

In retrospect, It probably wasn't the best thing to say, but it seemed right at the time. I guess I'd say that it was a real testament to Skeet's sense of propriety and self-restraint that I didn't die on that auspicious day.

And no, for those of you who might be thinking it, I did not feel abused, or seriously threatened. I certainly had not been injured. But, I did learn that there was really just so much crap the big people are willing to put up with from me, and that being a smart mouthed showoff maybe wasn't such a good idea after all.

So, I did survive, and with a valuable lesson learned. And, as the day wore on, it became apparent that Skeet, while he meant business, didn't hold a grudge.

Skeet told me later how much he actually enjoyed my generation, even with all the trouble we gave him, because he loved our creativity, our energy and our drive. Despite the run ins we all surely had, and having definitely hated his guts at one time or another, I think we all remember him fondly, and feel fortunate to have call him our friend in the end.

The last time I saw him, he was in the bowling alley at the school, with several of his old boys gathered around him, myself included, all of us doing our level best to make sure he knew how much we now appreciate having known him, and the contribution he made to our lives. Not only do we have lots of amusing stories to remember, and tell one another over and over, education, taken seriously, was important after all. And those of us who have done well economically know the pivital role it played, and have Skeet to thank for relentlessly pointing it out to us. I know for certain that Skeet found it deeply gratifying, in his last years, to know that, despite how it may have appeared in those earlier, trying times, we did listen after all.

So long, my friend. Go gentle in to that good night, and rest in much deserved peace.

Jim snowbarger

March 2009

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I remember M, (as we called him), also.  He retired at the end of my junior year.  I was privileged to have him as a houseparent for several years.  Things had changed quite a bit during his time. 

He always turned words around, and often we would have these conversations it totally screwed up language.  It would be fun to go back and forth with him in that way. 

He always had this rubber band and called it "my squitor", and if he thought you should be moving faster than you were, or he just wanted to have some fun, you would receive a "squitorbite" from it. 

One time, a pole from the high jump had come down and opened a huge gash right below my eye, and causing me to have several stitches.  It swelled up something fierce.  One morning we were standing there talking and he did something with his hands and produced a lot of heat from them. He held them up to the swelling and it gave some comfort to it.   As you can imagine, it caused me a brief amount of pain for a while.  The heat felt good.  The warmth was very soothing. 

He gave a song to three of us, (Monte Ness, Denise Klahn, and myself), and we recorded it on an album we made.  We up tempoed it and made a pretty good upbeat version of it.  Later, Denise would rerecord it in a style more as he had envisioned it. 

Another memory was that every Friday night after school he would pop popcorn for us. 

Anyway, these are just a few of my memories of him.  I hope he is in a much happier place now. And Ron, I sap your fitishoed. 

Loren Wakefield

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Mr. Powers was a good house parent who cared about us.  During mail call, he would say our names backward.  When he wanted your attention, he could whistle loud enough to hurt your ears.  He had a special spot for those who were learning disabled.

John Schwery

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Iowa Braille School Alumni Association

P.O. Box 87

Vinton, Iowa 52349

president@ibsssalumni.org -- Robert Spangler

vice@ibsssalumni.org -- Jeannie Miller

secretary@ibsssalumni.org -- Julie Piper

treasurer@ibsssalumni.org -- Stephen Barber