Hello: As you can see, I have a new address and E-mail address. It is bertg91@mycitycable.com and new home address is 1607 Seifert Dr. Poplar Bluff, Mo. 63901.
My first wife, of 65 years, passed away with cancer Jan.11, 2007. I had never been to a reunion before because my wife could not handle the heat at that time of year. After her passing I wanted to attend my first reunion, hoping to find out something about my team mates of the 1939-40 football season. Unfortunately there were none of them around but I did meet Freeda Meade, class of 39, at the Alumni Park. I was able to get her address, so when I returned to the State of Washington, I started writing to her which lead to us getting married the following year,2008. She had lost her husband in 2004, after 66 years of marriage. As much as we would like to make more reunions, I am afraid that can't happen as I will be 92 on Dec.31, 2011 and Freeda will be 90 on Feb 12, 2012.
I am disappointed that there is little to no information about the '39 football team. We had a very good team and a very productive season. Losing only one game. Score was 9 to 7 at Willow Springs but beating them 27-14 when we played them at Mountain Grove. We were the first MG team to win the Ozark Bowl post season game at Springfield, beating Nevada 19-6, On a very wet and muddy field. The total scouring for the season was MG 296 to our opponents 28. We were scored on in only 2 games, including the Ozark Bowl game. In 7 of the games the opponents scouring was 0.
I was supposed to go to MU but with a war coming on I decided to join the US Coast Guard, which I did in January 1941 where I ended up being a Radioman. While on board the USCG Cutter Comanche I was promoted to RM1C.The Comanche was operating in the North Atlantic Greenland patrol.From there I was transferred to the US Coast Guard manned Destroyer Escort USS Falgout (324) doing convoy duty to the North Africa area. My only contact with the war was on our second trip thru the Meditarian Sea, the convoy was attacked by German planes. Several ships were lost but the Falgout did not get hit.
I was in the Greenland area again when I was discharged in May of 1947.
After returning home we moved to Memphis where I worked for Westinghouse for four and a half years at which time we moved to Hollywood Calif. where I continued to work for Westinghouse until 1960 when we moved to San Luis Obispo, Calif where I took a job as service manager for a Westinghouse dealer. A year and six months later I started my own service business. My wife wanted to go back to her home state of Mississippi, so in 1978 we sold out and moved to a country home on 3 acres outside of Pontotoc Ms. where I put in a large garden. When we moved there we had no freezer, but when we left there in 1988 we had 3 freezers. All of them full of frozen food from the garden. But we still managed to make many trips in our motor home to spend time with my wife's brother and family in Oregon. He taught me how to hunt and fish for salmon in the ocean. I enjoyed it so much that we sold out in Miss. and moved to Oregon where we lived in a 32 foot travel trailer in a fishing camp on the banks of Yaquana Bay in Newport Oregon. I would fish in the summer and we would travel around the country in the winter. By 1996 most of my fishing buddy's had died and the rest of the family had moved to the state of Washington. We were offered a spot on a nephew's property in Bremerton Wa. so we parked our trailer there and lived in it until I remarried and moved to my present home in Poplar Bluff Mo.
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