Diane Larson Sjol’s memories of the garbage burn barrels brings to
mind the rest of the story. Johnnie Myer was the dray man for the city
and with this came a rather unpleasant side job—hauling the trash to
the dump ground. I still remember Carmen Myer and Jay Vanorny loading
the barrels, and sometimes the contents with a scoop shovel, of the
barrels that were too burned out– and then hauling the mess to the dump
on the back of an old red Dodge truck. This was usually a Saturday job
for them, as I recall. There were burn barrels behind nearly every house
and business in town. I particularly remember the barrel behind Marie’s
Beauty Shop. She used to use lots of hair spray! I walked or rode my
bike past the barrel every day on my way uptown. As kids, we were always
checking everything out and Marie’s barrel was no exception. We would
stop and spray the last of the hairspray out of the cans—I became
quite a judge of which hairspray was the best smelling. My favorite was
Helene Curtis, it had a sweet smell and little after taste. I guess
nowadays they call it huffing, but I never got a buzz—and only minor
brain damage, I think.

Lola’s memories of working at Dale’s brings to mind a story my dad
told me about going out for coffee. He would walk by the window and
there would be three or four high school girls sitting in a booth and by
the time he walked through the door, the cigarette smoke would be so
thick you could cut it with a knife—yet not a cigarette in sight. He
always wondered how that was possible? It was probably just another
unexplainable Dunseith phenomenon. I remember being in study hall in ’68
when a similar incident took place. I used to cover my ears with my
hands and read during study hall. It blocked out the noise and really
let me concentrate on my reading. Usually a hot rod magazine inside a
school book. Anyway, one day Big John Bogus couldn’t get my attention so
he reached across the aisle and hit my arm. I looked at him and he was
grinning and pointing under a desk ahead of us. One of the girls went to
the smoke room, oh excuse me, ‘bathroom’ and had put her cigarette back
in her purse without putting it completely out and now the contents of
her purse was on fire and the smoke was coming out and rising around
her. We just sat back and waited for what was bound to be a scene,
either way. She finally noticed it and grabbed her purse and ran out of
study hall and down the hall with the smoke trailing her—much to our
amusement. It used to be quite a ‘cat and mouse’ game with the girls
smoking in the can and the teachers trying to catch them.

Mark Schimetz is right about Frank Flynn’s house being north of his
folk’s house. You can see that in the picture—I should have looked
closer. There is a vacant lot between Flynn’s and the white house that
Gary Morgan said Conroy’s were living in at the time of the picture.
Also, I may not be right, but I believe Don Martel was our POD teacher
in ’67-’68. He was also serving as Assistant Principal that year, I
think. Please correct me if this is not right. Thanks Gary!

Dick