Hip, Cool, Groovey & Far Out

Meet the High School Class of 1969
From the Village of Birch Clump, Michigan
















← Jon Swanningson, ↑ Cynthia (Cici) DeLeon
Iggy's 1965 Freshman picture ↓

Viva la Revolucíon!

    The 1960s and 70s was a time of social change. Baby Boomer teens wore granny glasses. Both genders favored long hair, hippy beads, sandals and skintight jeans. The nightly news made the war in Vietnam up close and personal.
    The Birch Clump Village High School didn’t have the budget or the population to foot the expense of a proper yearbook since 1965, the year most of the 1969 graduating class was freshmen. Making up for this, Cynthia DeLeon permitted us to scan some of the drawings classmates did back in their art classes of each other.
    I don’t have picture of each of the fifty-seven member graduating class of 1969, but I hope classmates may hear of this project and send in snapshots.

← Jon Swanningson, BCHS 1969 Class President: Neither of my novels mentions a 1969 class president. I have been thinking about developing such a character for upcoming books.
     Cynthia DeLeon dated Dean through much of their high school years. She was also a special friend to Randy in their grade school years. →
         ↓ Iggy is only portrayed once in Hawk Dancer and that was in their freshman or sophomore year. He was the genious of the class, a likeable nerd. The pictures of him on this page are from around 1965 when most of the classmates were fourteen or would soon turn fourteen.


Randy Vanwestderdyke, though he went to school in Gaylord, was considered an “honorary” classmate of the Birch Clump class. Randy and Jig Rajan, according the Cynthia, were the ultimate in cute guys. The picture right is of him towel drying his hair. Left is Cynthia’s attempt to recreate his misadventure in 1966 when thieves knocked him out, robbed and tied him up. Randy is a major protaganist in the novels. ↓ →

















     Jig Rajan from Surinam was the only foreigner in the graduating class. His family moved into Birch Clump in October 1968, seven months before graduation. His smooth looking mix of Native American, Asian Indian, African and Dutch made him quite the wonder to the girls in the class. He took Cynthia to the prom, but his only appearance in the novels is on a one-day picnic with a handful of class members about two weeks after graduation.
     The drawing here was made from his prom photo. →




          Reunion: Dean and Mott came to blows during the post graduation picnic in Fayette, June 1969. It ended with the discovery of a long lost relative, thus the sub title of Reunion.

(↓ Dean (Thompson) Phelan and Danielson ↓)

 :

Below:   Jerome Mott ↓                          Alex ↓                                   Reunion in Fayette State Park ↓
              

Flip, Floppin’ Fightin’

    Young men of the Class of 1969 sometimes settled differences in matches that quickly gathered an excitable crowd of witnesses. The male witnesses felt that fisted skill decided differences, while Cici and Trudy preferred to watch vigorous wrestling action, especially if the contesting boys wore skintight jeans. The fight at Fayette State park between Dean Thompson and Jerome Mott satisfied the interests of both parties.
    ← Dean, the teen in the faded blue jeans, had Mott (faded gray jeans) in a headlock and was about to deliver a punch to his face when he tripped over a birch limb lying on the ground. Both boys tumbled. Some of those country boys know how to put on a good fight.

    The lower half of my "More Drawings" page explains how I make a composit drawing from multiple photos. This painting was drawn from two separate photos. The guy in blue jeans attempted to duck from the cammera. The one in gray jeans fell from a chair in a totaly different setting. I repossitioned his picture to look like he was tangling with the first subject.