The Life and Times of Bob Moats

1963-67 - My Junior/Senior High School Years The story continues... Well my seventh and eighth grade classes were evidently not very significant in my life as I don't remember a whole lot about them. I do remember one thing in, I think, eighth grade, was my first "steady" girlfriend. OK so it lasted only a couple of days and we never really spoke to each other but it meant something to me. I had this crush on classmate Bonnie Broyles and one day on the school bus I got brave enough to pass a note to her more or less asking if she wanted to go steady and she replied yes. We sort of had a couple of days of this before the school district split and she was shipped off to a different school and I didn't see her again till high school where I think she forgot about me. Oh well, such is young love. I finally graduated out of eighth grade and was on my way to high school in 1963. Fraser High School was this really weird building laid out like, what I called, an octopus. It had main corridors and these arms jetting out with circular endings (pods) that were the classrooms. They had to give us maps so we could figure out which arm to go down to the class we needed. Just recently my brother Mike, who worked for many years as a custodian for Fraser schools, told me that the school was originally designed for use in Arizona which explained all those open glass hallways that were freezing in our Michigan weather. This past few months around April 2002, the "pods" and the glass arms were torn down, along with my fond memories. I did manage to grab a brick from the walls to keep as a souvenir. Ninth grade was an awakening for me, moving into what I considered a new phase of my life, I was a "high schooler". Ninth Grade - 1963-1964 One of the activities I started in ninth grade was becoming the school photographer for the yearbook and school newspaper. Picture of me with yearbook staff on left, me in upper left corner. I spent a good deal of time in the darkroom and Henry Wong was the teacher/advisor. I remember Mr. Wong as being the drivers ed teacher ("there's the right way to drive and the Wong way") but I don't remember what else he taught. Mr. Wong has since passed on to that big DMV in the sky, but I'll always have memories of trying to understand him when he was trying to explain things. He also claimed I was the only student he knew who could stall an automatic transmission. I also worked on the school yearbook and newspaper as photographer and being the photographer wasn't bad because I could wander the halls with my camera and rarely got stopped since I had the excuse that I was taking pictures. Picture of me on right in the darkroom. Adding more as I remember... Tenth Grade - 1964-1965 I was still school photographer and still wandering the halls with my camera. One memory that stands out in my sophomore year was my first big kiss. I was at a Sophomore school dance and at the end of the evening, I somehow asked a girl to slow dance. Her name was Carol Collins and the dance was warm and close.. wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you know teenage hormones developing. When the music ended we just went for instinct and kissed, not a "thanks for the dance" kiss but a full on the lips wet one. The lights went up on that special moment, darn, and we went outside just past the main entrance doors by the gym and locked lips again. I do remember Mr. Lusk, then coach, telling us to move on. Well, we parted and I went home that night with a special memory. I tried to pursue Carol for the rest of that year but had competition from some kid named Freddie something, and then one day I received a note from her telling me she couldn't get involved with any one person, she had a big crush on those "mopped top" guys named the "Beatles". I guess I was giving up on the chase, it was a long drawn experience, so I gave up. My memory falters here, I think she left school or something, but I went on to bigger conquests. On a note of interest I discovered a few years back when I worked a second job as a substitute custodian for Fraser schools, that Carol ended up teaching at Fraser High in, I think, it was math. She may still be there. Hi Carol. School was over for the summer and I took a job at the Fraser Department of Parks and Recreation, working for Park's Director Tim Skubick (now a news broadcaster in Lansing) and one day we were registering the little league teams, during which I sat signing kids up. Later came the older girls softball sign-up's and this one girl popped up to join. Sue Her name was Sue Kendall and I had one of those teenage hormone feelings again and later that day while I was alone in the DP&R office, which was located above the Police/Firehouse building by the park, she came up to visit. It was one of those teenage movie moments where we ended up necking while sitting on two office chairs. Amazingly no one stopped by to interrupted, well one phone call from one of the Park's directors, but we had our moment alone. The rest of the summer I tried to see her as often as possible and we had our young love up's and down's. We never really went steady, she was never ready for that, plus a prior divorce of her parents made her a bit gun shy as she explained. Not that I was ready to get married and divorce in the sixties was still something not dragged in public. To say the least she became another pursuit for the next few years. Adding more as I remember... Eleventh Grade - 1965-1966 Last year during 10th grade I was using my Dad's 8mm movie camera to make sci-fi, monster and spy movies. I enlisted my friends to help and I liked one of the movies well enough to submit it to the 1964 Eastman Kodak's Annual Teenage Movie Contest and I won an honorable mention in the contest and received a nice certificate in the mail. I was in a class this year around the first of January 1965 when I was called down to the principal's office to answer a phone call from Newsweek magazine! They were doing an article about the contest and got my name from Kodak. I answered their questions and the next week I was a national news subject. If you'd like to read the part of the article I was in then click here. As for my love life, it was still up and down for me and Sue. I never really knew from one week to the next where I stood with her, but I kept hanging in there. I was still school photographer and still wandering the halls with my camera. Adding more as I remember... Twelfth Grade - 1966-1967 My senior year had many interesting things going on. I got my first car close to the end of the school year. It was a 56 Chevy Belair that my Grandfather Gliwa gave me when he bought a newer car. I was in heaven so much so that when Sue Kendall and some other friends drove by to ask if I wanted to go to the beach, I turned them down to clean the Chevy. I was so happy I decided to drive it to the Macomb Mall to test it out. On my way back I stopped behind some car at a stop sign and as he took off rather fast, his tires spun a rock right at my windshield and shattered it completely. I managed to drive it home, heart broken. My dad called around and found a junk yard that had a replacement and we went to get it. We put the thing in by ourselves and I was happy and back on the road. In June of 67 the City of Fraser had asked our school art class to submit designs for the official city seal and my design won. I received a savings bond and got my picture in the local paper. Here is the text of a recent anniversary article in a local paper about the logo: 25th ANNIVERSARY CITY BANNER While many cities employ a firm to design a banner or flag, ours is the result of a design created by a Senior in the Class of 1967. It appears that at that time our City fathers wanted a banner or logo for our City, and held a contest at Fraser High School, open to the Art Class students. Robert Moats, the winner, received recognition from the Mayor in June, 1967. The image he designed is part of the Citys' letterhead. Robert Moats said he began his design by first drawing a circle. He then thought about what the strong points of our Community were, or what our City stood for. Then he put the features inside the circle: Industry, Education, and Community. Around the outside of the circle, he arranged the words, "The Growing City," but the City elected to omit it. Mr. Moats also suggested that the City insert the year when our City began. I donated the original seal drawing to the Fraser Historical Society a few years back for display at the museum in the Baumgartner House but when I went there a month ago I found out that it was still packed away in some box. It turns out they were afraid to display many of the items from Fraser's past in case they get damaged, but if people can't see them, what good does it do? Oh Well. During this time I was getting back into magic after a number of years performing for mostly family. In my senior year Mr. Shook, the high school principal, found out I was a magician and asked me if I'd like to perform for the Fraser Kiwanis at a dinner on April 5, 1967. I agreed and performed my first real public show. From that show I got others and started really getting into my craft. The two green business cards on the below left were my first, the top for myself and the bottom for the Mandaras. The photo on the below middle was one of the first pictures taken of me while performing at a Fraser Lions Father and Son dinner. Later I had put an act together and had my friend, Paul Petrucci, help with the act. I named us "The Mandaras" after a range of mountains somewhere in Africa that were supposed to be magical, at least according to Lowell Thomas, a famous explorer. Paul and I did a few shows during various classes and a few shows for local organizations. This all was just the beginning of a great semi-career I enjoyed later, but more on that later. Picture below right is the "Mandaras" performing in Humanities Class performing the Sword Cabinet which I built. I'm holding the swords, Paul is in the box. The big time in every high schooler's life is Prom night! I wasn't involved with any one girl at the time but was attracted to a sophmore girl and asked her to go to the prom with me. Her name was Carol Kuhn and she accepted my invitation to go. Her sister, Debbie was in my class and we decided to double date that night. I rented the tux and got the flowers then prom night Carol and her sister and date came over to pick me up and we headed to the school and the prom. It was the most boring time I ever had, Carol didn't talk to me at all that night. After the prom we all piled into the car and headed across the border of the U.S. and Canada and went to a night club in Windsor, Ontario, Canada to continue our night. They dropped me off at the end of the night and I hit the sheets feeling very miserable. I never spoke much to Carol after that, so much for my one and only prom. I was still school photographer and still wandering the halls with my camera. But this was my last year to enjoy my freedom to roam, I hope my successor had as much fun. Adding more as I remember... Graduation - June 1967 My graduation was simple but extremely hot in the Fraser High School gym. My parents brought my Grandparents and everyone brought those little battery operated fans to cool off. After the ceremonies we all went back to my house and had a little party for the relatives and Sue Kendall was my guest of honor. Sue gave me a graduation present, a pewter mug with my initials, RJM, engraved on the front. The picture on the right is the mug as it looks today, I took this picture August 24, 2002. I find it hard to part with a lot of stuff which is why I have to rent a garage to store my "junk". Someday I may part with a lot of it, we can't all carry our "stuff" from the past if it does us no good today. Nothing earth shattering more to tell.

My Photo Scrapbook Graduation Pictures 1st Picture: Parents and myself, 2nd picture: me and cake, 3rd picture: Dad, Sue Kendall and myself, 4th picture: me with Grandparents Gliwa, 5th picture: me with Grandparents Wells.

486