When I was a freshman in college, I met the guy on the top left of this picture. He was a junior at the time and had worked with my dad at Faygo Beverages in Detroit. I’ve forgotten his last name, but John was from Grosse Pointe. He liked my dad and loved Faygo, the company and the pop. He was a business major and offered up a bit of advice to anyone who would listen.
“I work for Faygo each summer. It’s a family-owned company in Detroit. The locals love it. If it goes national, they’ll have to go public and start selling stock. If you get in early, you’ll make a ton of money. I’ll buy all I can.”
Darrell, second guy from the top right was a freshman like me. I don’t recall his major, but he flunked out at the end of our freshman year. He partied more than he studied, got drafted, and went to Vietnam. He became a dog handler. I ran into him during my junior year. He was “on leave” and came back to campus to “see some of the guys”. That’s when I learned he worked with a dog.
His dog was trained to find explosives. Darrell described a couple of their missions in Vietnam and said, “I have a long leash and I send him out ahead. As much as I love him, if he makes a mistake, I don’t want to get blown up with him.”
The only other guy I know in the picture is me. I’m in the second row from the top, fourth from the right, standing next to the blonde. John, Darrell, and I are in the picture because of John’s girlfriend. I don’t recall her name but she’s in my row, third from the left. She was a member of the Young Republicans and she talked John into joining. John, in turn, recruited Darrell and me with the promise that we’d get our pictures in the yearbook. The picture taking meeting was the only one I attended.
If you get your hands on the 1969 edition of Western Michigan’s yearbook, the “Brown and Gold”, you’ll find this picture. You’ll know three young guys whose only purpose for joining the group was vanity. Our joining had nothing to do with politics. We just wanted our pictures in the yearbook. Mission accomplished.