Maarten

[Maarten]

Who I am or rather who I was? I'm sure not many of you will remember me as I've only attended CHS for one year.

I was pleasantly surprised by the warm welcome I received by many of you during the first few weeks of the school year and think I can say that I integrated fairly quick and easy because of your help. It must have been on the first day of school when the basketball coach came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play for the school team. He thought I was really good because of my length (6.4). After 1 lesson of PE, where even the short proved to be better than me, I was glad I didn?t take the invitation

I did join the soccer team (few names that pop up: Joey Gauthier, Jorge(?) Almeida, Donald, Pat Himel, Robert, Jason), even though I hadn?t played for 5 years or so. Everybody had high hopes of me and I think I didn?t do too bad as a striker but other teams were generally stronger. We had fun anyway.
Besides soccer I joined the cross country team halfway season and the track team (Mark Leach, Tim Rogers, John Gazzo, Doyle Hebert, Allen Buras, Dustin Butscher, David Ayolo and others) in January.

I think I didn?t belong to a specific group in school. I was dating Audra Holden and my best friend during the year was John Gazzo. I also got along great with Roger Butzman but I better not mention more names as I may forget others.

How about teachers then? My favourite was coach Smith, I really liked him. I also remember Mr. Byrd, Ms. Wolfe and Mr. Naquin very well.

That?s me at CHS in a nut shell?

[Connie]

Audra Holden???? I think my younger brother, Rick, dated her too, but not at the same time (I think). You might remember Rick, he was the one with the maroon '64 Chevy Impala. He still has it but it is in about 40 thousand pieces.
I know the Netherlands is a big country but...do you remember Christina? She was an exchange student from the Netherlands, I don't remember which year.

[Maarten]

I was dating her from March until I left in June and am pretty sure I was the only one at that time . Your brother I can't recall at the moment but the name sounds vaguely familiar to me.

I do remember Chris (Landzaat) but haven't seen her since. Although we arrived together in the US we kinda went separate ways during the school year, don't know why really as it was nice to speak some Dutch every now and then. Come to think of it I believe she didn't have a great time with her family. I was lucky to be placed with a very nice family who took me waterskiing almost every weekend.

[phimel]

I'm just getting to read these, most are pretty funny, and it's amazing how the time has flown.

Soccer was pretty fun back then. We were pretty bad (except for Hammond & Pearl River!)) and no one showed up for games, but I think we all had a good time. Coach Cleve badly needed a haircut and some shampoo and Coach Loupe was probably wondering why he was stuck coaching soccer.

I'm not sure how I ended up playing for 3 years at Covington, but I think it was Ada's brother Travis that talked me into it and I'm glad he did. (Class of '84). I'm glad you're coming, and will be there in October.

[Maarten]

Yeah I believe we beat Hammond 3-1 or something like that. Most of the games we lost by large numbers...

Looking forward to seeing you!

[JerryFish]

Maarten,

I just checked out your website again. Pretty cool write up about the reunion. Has anyone from Holland commented on the "football" pictures?

[Maarten]

Thanks for the compliments, I do my best to keep it up to date. Yes I received many positive feedback on the football pictures from my friends. I think I must have told my story about a year at CHS almost a thousand times over the past 20 years