SCCS Cheerleaders

My Sandy Pond Memories will always include the high school culture at Sandy Creek Central school.

A big part of life at SCCS was SPORTS and CHEERLEADERS. Now, I was no athlete in those days, but I enjoyed going to the games once in a while and watching the teams play and Cheerleaders do their stuff. Now the Cheerleaders had talent that I could appreciate. They would practice for hours and choreograph clever cheers and routines. I think they worked hard at what they did and never really got the credit they deserved. In any case, as a teenage boy with raging hormones, I would rather watch the cheerleaders (in their short pleated skirts) than the guys playing their games any day.

I went steady with a cute, bright, freshman girl for a while who made it on to the cheerleading squad. She was jumpin' up and down squealing happy when she made the team - it was a big deal. After that, I even got to ride on the bus with them for a few games (boyfriends of cheerleaders were allowed).

After one particularly hard fought basketball game against Belleville for the local Championship in which SCCS lost by one point, we filed out on the bus to go home, a little subdued and sullen. A couple of psuedo-juvenile delinquents snuck over and let the air out of Belleville’s bus tires. Our bus driver pretended to be mad and yelled at all of us like we were all guilty, but I saw his face in the mirror after he sat down in the driver's seat and I swear he smirked.

Belleville's basketball team got home late that night, but I'm sure they didn't care.

High school was full of great moments like that, and I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.

Here is a short video of a football game at SCCS in the fall of ’71. I have more footage but haven't transferred it from 8mm to MPEG yet. I'll post that another time.

February Visitors

Almost every year, by February, winter's accumulated snow would be piled at least 5 or 6 feet high along the roads and around driveways from the incessant plowing and snowblowing and shoveling. At Sandy Pond, sometimes it would snow every day for 4 or 5 days. Blizzards with their strong winds and horizontal snow with sporadic "whiteouts", would hit maybe 2 or 3 times a month.

And, every February, our old and dear friends from Pittsburgh would brave the elements and visit for my Dad's birthday celebration on the 15th. The party usually included Dr. Rex Newton, his wife Alice, son Bobby, and Alice's brother Bob Hopkins and wife Peggy, and Regis and Jean Cannon. Oh my gosh we had some great times - ice-fishin', playing cards, tellin' stories, Back In The Day.

Here is a video of (the late) Bobby Newton snowmobiling in the winter wonderland of Sandy Pond...Bobby sure loved to ride!