Memoirs of a Walsh High Basketball Junkie - A Putnam Brother & Hayseed from Iowa

Go Gaels

You know there is a time and a place for everything and now that it has been a lot of years since the emergence of the Walsh High basketball dynasty of the 1960's I guess I can comment on what I know of the first half of the decade that laid the foundation for the dynasty.

First to address some background.  When Mike, Bob and I lived in Iowa City we had a basketball court in the attic of our garage.  Our dad played for Iowa City High School and graduated from the University of Iowa so we were hard core Iowa fans from birth.

In fact even after we moved to Ottumwa we returned to Iowa City every weekend for football games and cheered the Hawkeyes on to two Rose Bowl championships in the late 1950's.  When possible we also came back for basketball games, especially when Iowa was playing Ohio State and other legendary teams of the time.

When we lived in Iowa City we were supposed to go to St. Mary's High School and even our high school to be was a basketball powerhouse, thus increasing our desire to excel in order to make the team when we got to high school.

In fact after we moved to Ottumwa the Iowa City St. Mary's team won the Iowa State Class B high school championship in 1956 and 1957 and finished second in 1958, such was the quality of the players and organizations in our hometown.

Once in Ottumwa a different set of issues was involved as the Walsh Gaels had no legacy, in fact they even had no home as they played in the old Ottumwa High School practice court with the track overhead.

We joined the YMCA leagues in 7th and 8th grades where we played with and against the future stars of Ottumwa High School and together we made the All Star teams.  In other words, long before the so called bitter rivalry between Walsh and OHS which supposedly culminated in the 1963 District championship we were competitors and we were friends.

I think people perceived something that was never there.  We were fierce competitors in Little League, Babe Ruth and basketball but were always able to leave the game behind after it was over.  That was the nature of competition and sportsmanship.  If we had to lose in the tournament it might just as well be to OHS.

Of course we didn't really lose to OHS in that 1963-64 war did we?

Since Walsh never had enough students to mount a football team, my first love as a sport, we were also big supporters of the OHS Bulldogs and went to every home football game on Friday nights.

So along comes high school and Mike spent his freshman year at the old Walsh in South Ottumwa.  By the next year when I was a freshman we moved to the Airbase 12 miles away from Ottumwa into an abandoned building while work began on a new high school.

For basketball practice the team would have to get back to town and go to the civic auditorium basement, crawling through the city road vehicles and snow plows to a court, concrete of course, dimly lit, with no heat, and a steel girder directly over the baskets.

Needless to say there was no hot water for showers and in addition to having your shots blocked by freezing defenders you might have your vision blocked by the smoke pouring out of your mouth from the extreme cold.  Did I mention that the baskets were mounted on the coliseum walls so if you were charging to the basket for a lay in a second after the ball left your hand you crashed into the concrete wall?

In truth the conditions and the environment were far more suited for a Dicken's novel than for the foundation of a basketball dynasty.

Official games were played in the OHS practice gym with the running track above and you often had to strain to hear the ref when track runners were pounding overhead.  On one side bleachers pulled out from the wall and seated about 100 people (slight under-exaggeration).  The overflow had to stand on the track high above the game.

My freshman and sophomore years were spent commuting between the airbase, auditorium basement and practice court with the track overhead but something went right because we were 21-2 the first year I got to play varsity, in '61-62.

That was when I made a decision that Walsh had the potential to become good, really good, but no one would ever know around the state.  It became my mission to be the secret source of all Walsh basketball statistics for every major news outlet in the state.

Every week under a pen name from my sophomore year on I submitted weekly background for stories to the top newspapers, radio and TV stations from Des Moines to Dubuque, Davenport to Iowa City about the achievements of the Walsh Gaels.  Sports writers and broadcasters were inundated with Walsh info and stats and a running update of the career statistics of my brother Mike.  These same people were the ones who voted for the top ten basketball teams in the state in each class.

Only two people really knew what I was doing those three years because I had to share the strategy in order to be successful.  One was my close friend and sports editor for the Ottumwa Courier Alan Hoskins because I knew the sports people from around the state would want follow up info from a local reporter.

The second was my principal once we moved into the new Walsh High School, Father Ryan, aka Mister Golden Gloves, famous writer, etc., etc.  Now Father understood the value of publicity and I needed to stay on his good side because I was constantly in trouble with teachers, coaches and priests.

Like the time we borrowed a truck with a crane to move a 3000 pound bell out of the backyard of some unsuspecting people and mounted it as a victory bell at the airbase to generate school spirit.  I just knew we were going to have a great team and wanted to do something for the school.  Of course we had no driver's licenses nor permission to take the bell and we were all sworn to secrecy so no one knew from whence it came.

That is until photographer Michael Lemberger showed up one fateful day and took a school picture for the newspaper with the entire student body surrounding the bell out at the airbase.  The rightful owners had reported it missing and we did intend to return it after the last game of our first winning season but one day they found their missing bell on the front page of the Courier and eventually the cops forced a confession from us.  Still, we did get to keep it until after the last game since we would not be returning to the airbase the next year.

As for my secret journalism efforts, by the time we moved into the new school in 1963 Walsh was ranked number 1 in the state in class B where we stayed for two years.  My brother was all state his junior year and All American his senior year and Walsh, well we went 21-2, 22-2, 21-2 and 20-5 the four years I was there.

Mike broke the career scoring record in Iowa basketball and from 1960-64 Walsh had one of the best four year records in state history at 84-11, all while having to play schools up to 12 times as large during the tournaments.  At least I had something to write about those years.

The power of the press paid off as it helped us get the top ranking and kept me from getting expelled.  Of course Alan Hoskins and Father Ryan protected my secret.  It also might explain yet another mystery at Walsh.

Through no fault of my own (of course) I had been kicked out of journalism class from November until I graduated my senior year yet I somehow remained on the staff of the Unitas newspaper and was co-editor of the yearbook with Maureen Dessert.  Then I got the outstanding journalism award at commencement.  Perhaps the years of ghost writing were secretly recognized.

But there is more to the Walsh story and this part few know about.  I mentioned this to my friend Doug Potter who does an excellent job keeping the natives informed and now I will share it with you.

There is a class issue regarding Walsh basketball that often goes unnoticed like most class issues.  We all recognize that a team is made up of five or more key players but it was rather unusual that three of us were brothers and were starters for two years.

In the past 55 years Iowa boys high school basketball had 49 split state champions (two or more classes) and 6 single state champions.  The single champions were from 1960 - 1966.  My brothers and I played from 1959 - 1965.  In other words we played in 5 of the 6 single state champion years, and every year more than one of us played together there was only a single state champion.

Walsh was ranked #1 in class B both years the three of us started.  The highest state tourney finish by Walsh during the single champion years was 1964 when we reached the Sweet 16 before losing to eventual state runner up Cedar Rapids Jefferson.

Ottumwa High and Cedar Rapids Jefferson who knocked Walsh out of the state tourney in 1963 and 1964 both were in the top 15 largest high schools in the state for enrollment with over 1,500 students.  Walsh ranked about 360th in enrollment in Iowa with about 125 students.  Both times Walsh lost to schools 12 times larger.

By the way, that Sweet 16 finish in the 1964 season when I was a senior was the first time I got to play back in my home town, Iowa City, and finally I got to play in the University of Iowa field house before 14,000 fans, a far cry from the few hundred just three years earlier.

A few other notes from my ghost writing days.

In my three varsity years we never lost a home game.

Our worst record those years was 20-5.

Every year after winning sectionals we played Class A or AA teams from much larger schools.

During the time we played there were 3 All Americans from Iowa, Mike Putnam, Jerry Waugh from Mt. Ayr and Jim Cummins from Cedar Rapids Regis.

Regis won the single state championship in 1962 and finished 2nd in 1963 and Cummins went on to become a famous NBC News reporter.

Walsh in 1962-63 played against both other Iowa High School All Americans during the season, Cummins once and Waugh twice.

There were a whole lot of scoring and other records and Mike was inducted into the Iowa High School Basketball Hall of Fame for holding the career scoring record for some time.

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Farewell to our Friend Patti Wagner Counter

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Goodbye Patti

It's not often that one gets to walk with an angel.  Yet, if there are angels surely we shared one named Patti Wagner.  She was just a country girl from an Iowa farm who came to the city for school and taught all the kids a thing or two about life.

In my little world I was a late bloomer when it came to girls.  I was far too busy in grade school to give them much notice.  There was adjusting to a new town, new friends, an overwhelming sports schedule, learning to play rock and roll, trying to keep up the grades, and being a model alter boy among many pressures.

Add in paper routes, caddying at the golf courses, Cub and Boy Scouts, working for my dad and practicing thousands of hours at baseball, basketball and golf and time was a very precious commodity.

All the time I expected to be attending Walsh High, an all boys school at the time.  Then came the Ottumwa Heights fire that destroyed the girls high school.  Suddenly everything changed and the boys and girls were thrown together for the first time at the old Navy Base.  Our class of '64 would be the first co-ed class to graduate.

It was tough being a new freshman with those upper classes determined to put us in our place.  In addition, the freshmen came from three different schools and were together for the first time far from town.

That was where I first noticed Patti and before long we became great "secret friends."  Over the next four years we would run in to each other at different events and times and if neither of us had a date, which was quite often for me but not so often for Patti, we would talk and talk and just enjoy each other's company for hours on end.

There were times others would be with us like Edith Tray, Curt Trilk, and Mary Ann Conroy and we wound up in some rather odd places as we talked through the night like graveyards, houses under construction, and even just sitting along the side of the river.

Like I said, the times were not often but we made up in hours for the lost opportunities.  Patti could talk about anything and everything and to me she was a stabilizing force because she could laugh about my wildly fluctuating passions for world affairs.  Yet we chose to keep our occasional meetings a secret.

After graduation, our lives changed but our friendship didn't and Patti was the only person in the class I stayed in touch with for every decade of our lives.  First it was by letter and phone, then email and phone.

We counseled each other through our problems, disappointments, dreams, and hopes and it seemed whenever either of us needed a friend the other was always there.  That was Patti.  Solid as a rock and always ready to help out a friend.

After she got sick we talked and emailed often as she moved from Colorado to Maryland to North Carolina and my only regret was five years ago when I got sick and was not able to go see her these past few years.

My many adventures over the years gave her a lot of laughs but she was genuinely interested in them and wanted to hear every detail of the good and bad.  Then she always encouraged me to keep pursuing dreams.

We talked a few times about how it might have been if we had been together all those years but Patti was never one to dwell on lost opportunities.  Besides, she would point out, had we been together we would not both have our wonderful children.

She was very special and will be missed by family and friends.  But, she would never let her own health problems stop her from living, from loving and from inspiring others.  I was one who found her shoulder always there to lean on whether I was in Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Arizona, or California.

Another empty chair

I was honored to know and cherish Patti Wagner and will always remember her smile, strength, adventurous attitude, curiosity, and genuine interest in everyone who knew her.  Mostly, because she was so connected to her faith in Jesus and strength in God, I will know she is home and one day we will see her again.

Farewell Patti

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Memoirs of a Walsh High Basketball Junkie - A Putnam Brother & Hayseed from Iowa

.

Go Gaels

You know there is a time and a place for everything and now that it has been a lot of years since the emergence of the Walsh High basketball dynasty of the 1960's I guess I can comment on what I know of the first half of the decade that laid the foundation for the dynasty.

First to address some background.  When Mike, Bob and I lived in Iowa City we had a basketball court in the attic of our garage.  Our dad played for Iowa City High School and graduated from the University of Iowa so we were hard core Iowa fans from birth.

In fact even after we moved to Ottumwa we returned to Iowa City every weekend for football games and cheered the Hawkeyes on to two Rose Bowl championships in the late 1950's.  When possible we also came back for basketball games, especially when Iowa was playing Ohio State and other legendary teams of the time.

When we lived in Iowa City we were supposed to go to St. Mary's High School and even our high school to be was a basketball powerhouse, thus increasing our desire to excel in order to make the team when we got to high school.

In fact after we moved to Ottumwa the Iowa City St. Mary's team won the Iowa State Class B high school championship in 1956 and 1957 and finished second in 1958, such was the quality of the players and organizations in our hometown.

Once in Ottumwa a different set of issues was involved as the Walsh Gaels had no legacy, in fact they even had no home as they played in the old Ottumwa High School practice court with the track overhead.

We joined the YMCA leagues in 7th and 8th grades where we played with and against the future stars of Ottumwa High School and together we made the All Star teams.  In other words, long before the so called bitter rivalry between Walsh and OHS which supposedly culminated in the 1963 District championship we were competitors and we were friends.

I think people perceived something that was never there.  We were fierce competitors in Little League, Babe Ruth and basketball but were always able to leave the game behind after it was over.  That was the nature of competition and sportsmanship.  If we had to lose in the tournament it might just as well be to OHS.

Of course we didn't really lose to OHS in that 1963-64 war did we?

Since Walsh never had enough students to mount a football team, my first love as a sport, we were also big supporters of the OHS Bulldogs and went to every home football game on Friday nights.

So along comes high school and Mike spent his freshman year at the old Walsh in South Ottumwa.  By the next year when I was a freshman we moved to the Airbase 12 miles away from Ottumwa into an abandoned building while work began on a new high school.

For basketball practice the team would have to get back to town and go to the civic auditorium basement, crawling through the city road vehicles and snow plows to a court, concrete of course, dimly lit, with no heat, and a steel girder directly over the baskets.

Needless to say there was no hot water for showers and in addition to having your shots blocked by freezing defenders you might have your vision blocked by the smoke pouring out of your mouth from the extreme cold.  Did I mention that the baskets were mounted on the coliseum walls so if you were charging to the basket for a lay in a second after the ball left your hand you crashed into the concrete wall?

In truth the conditions and the environment were far more suited for a Dicken's novel than for the foundation of a basketball dynasty.

Official games were played in the OHS practice gym with the running track above and you often had to strain to hear the ref when track runners were pounding overhead.  On one side bleachers pulled out from the wall and seated about 100 people (slight under-exaggeration).  The overflow had to stand on the track high above the game.

My freshman and sophomore years were spent commuting between the airbase, auditorium basement and practice court with the track overhead but something went right because we were 21-2 the first year I got to play varsity, in '61-62.

That was when I made a decision that Walsh had the potential to become good, really good, but no one would ever know around the state.  It became my mission to be the secret source of all Walsh basketball statistics for every major news outlet in the state.

Every week under a pen name from my sophomore year on I submitted weekly background for stories to the top newspapers, radio and TV stations from Des Moines to Dubuque, Davenport to Iowa City about the achievements of the Walsh Gaels.  Sports writers and broadcasters were inundated with Walsh info and stats and a running update of the career statistics of my brother Mike.  These same people were the ones who voted for the top ten basketball teams in the state in each class.

Only two people really knew what I was doing those three years because I had to share the strategy in order to be successful.  One was my close friend and sports editor for the Ottumwa Courier Alan Hoskins because I knew the sports people from around the state would want follow up info from a local reporter.

The second was my principal once we moved into the new Walsh High School, Father Ryan, aka Mister Golden Gloves, famous writer, etc., etc.  Now Father understood the value of publicity and I needed to stay on his good side because I was constantly in trouble with teachers, coaches and priests.

Like the time we borrowed a truck with a crane to move a 3000 pound bell out of the backyard of some unsuspecting people and mounted it as a victory bell at the airbase to generate school spirit.  I just knew we were going to have a great team and wanted to do something for the school.  Of course we had no driver's licenses nor permission to take the bell and we were all sworn to secrecy so no one knew from whence it came.

That is until photographer Michael Lemberger showed up one fateful day and took a school picture for the newspaper with the entire student body surrounding the bell out at the airbase.  The rightful owners had reported it missing and we did intend to return it after the last game of our first winning season but one day they found their missing bell on the front page of the Courier and eventually the cops forced a confession from us.  Still, we did get to keep it until after the last game since we would not be returning to the airbase the next year.

As for my secret journalism efforts, by the time we moved into the new school in 1963 Walsh was ranked number 1 in the state in class B where we stayed for two years.  My brother was all state his junior year and All American his senior year and Walsh, well we went 21-2, 22-2, 21-2 and 20-5 the four years I was there.

Mike broke the career scoring record in Iowa basketball and from 1960-64 Walsh had one of the best four year records in state history at 84-11, all while having to play schools up to 12 times as large during the tournaments.  At least I had something to write about those years.

The power of the press paid off as it helped us get the top ranking and kept me from getting expelled.  Of course Alan Hoskins and Father Ryan protected my secret.  It also might explain yet another mystery at Walsh.

Through no fault of my own (of course) I had been kicked out of journalism class from November until I graduated my senior year yet I somehow remained on the staff of the Unitas newspaper and was co-editor of the yearbook with Maureen Dessert.  Then I got the outstanding journalism award at commencement.  Perhaps the years of ghost writing were secretly recognized.

But there is more to the Walsh story and this part few know about.  I mentioned this to my friend Doug Potter who does an excellent job keeping the natives informed and now I will share it with you.

There is a class issue regarding Walsh basketball that often goes unnoticed like most class issues.  We all recognize that a team is made up of five or more key players but it was rather unusual that three of us were brothers and were starters for two years.

In the past 55 years Iowa boys high school basketball had 49 split state champions (two or more classes) and 6 single state champions.  The single champions were from 1960 - 1966.  My brothers and I played from 1959 - 1965.  In other words we played in 5 of the 6 single state champion years, and every year more than one of us played together there was only a single state champion.

Walsh was ranked #1 in class B both years the three of us started.  The highest state tourney finish by Walsh during the single champion years was 1964 when we reached the Sweet 16 before losing to eventual state runner up Cedar Rapids Jefferson.

Ottumwa High and Cedar Rapids Jefferson who knocked Walsh out of the state tourney in 1963 and 1964 both were in the top 15 largest high schools in the state for enrollment with over 1,500 students.  Walsh ranked about 360th in enrollment in Iowa with about 125 students.  Both times Walsh lost to schools 12 times larger.

By the way, that Sweet 16 finish in the 1964 season when I was a senior was the first time I got to play back in my home town, Iowa City, and finally I got to play in the University of Iowa field house before 14,000 fans, a far cry from the few hundred just three years earlier.

A few other notes from my ghost writing days.

In my three varsity years we never lost a home game.

Our worst record those years was 20-5.

Every year after winning sectionals we played Class A or AA teams from much larger schools.

During the time we played there were 3 All Americans from Iowa, Mike Putnam, Jerry Waugh from Mt. Ayr and Jim Cummins from Cedar Rapids Regis.

Regis won the single state championship in 1962 and finished 2nd in 1963 and Cummins went on to become a famous NBC News reporter.

Walsh in 1962-63 played against both other Iowa High School All Americans during the season, Cummins once and Waugh twice.

There were a whole lot of scoring and other records and Mike was inducted into the Iowa High School Basketball Hall of Fame for holding the career scoring record for some time.

. 

What does a Spanish Civil War revolutionary, The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, one of the most influential architects of the 20th century and Walsh High School in Ottumwa, Iowa have in common?

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Felix Candela

Probably unbeknownst to most people from Ottumwa when the new Walsh High School opened in 1962 students stepped into an unusual building using a design by one of the most famous architects of the 20th century, Felix Candela.

Born in Madrid, Spain in 1910, Candela was a national sports champion in Spain and a noted award-winning architect who was pursuing graduate studies in Germany when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936.

He left school to return to Spain and fight for the Republic against Franco and when Franco won he slipped into a refugee camp in France to avoid becoming a prisoner of the Franco regime.  In 1939 he was selected for relocation to Mexico and moved to his new home.

In Mexico Candela pioneered the use of thin shelled concrete in building construction and among the nearly 1,000 buildings he designed were the revolutionary 1968 Olympic Stadium in Mexico City and the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

The Guadalupe Basilica is the most popular Catholic pilgrimage site in the world drawing over 20 million visitors annually to see the tilma of Juan Diego with the image of Our Lady that was made December 12, 1531.

As a point of reference, at that time America had not been settled and Henry 8th was still King of England.

Candela developed a thin shelled concrete material for use in buildings called the "hyperbolic paraboloid" and his structures are located in Mexico, the United States, Spain, Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Great Britain and Norway.

My father, Wayne E. Putnam arranged with Felix to use his designs for the new Walsh High School as well as our home overlooking the Ottumwa Country Club.  And that is how all those pieces in the title tie together. Felix Candela, a very nice man and world renowned architect whose world famous "hyperbolic paraboloid" design was incorporated into Walsh High School.

Local architects for both of the projects were Ken Steffen and Steve Stoltz.

Felix moved with his family to the United States in 1971 and taught at Harvard University and the University of Illinois.  He died at the age of 87 while living in North Carolina.

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Farewell To My Friend Patricia McGuire Rock

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Patricia McGuire - aka Pat Rock aka Sister Louis Marie

• Born in Rock Springs, Iowa
• A Sister of Humility (As in a Nun)
• A public school teacher
• A professor at the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study
• This Inspirational Gallatin professor was one of the first recipients of the School's Excellence in Teaching Awards

 

Hardly the kind of credentials that would make one like me, someone lost in the creative explosion of thought and world affairs, shed a tear.  But this Patricia McGuire was no ordinary teacher and I was no ordinary kid, or so she said.

 

Pat died last April 29, 2013 in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.  Our last conversation was just a few months earlier when she told me she was not feeling well but still wanted me to come up and see her.  I hoped to make the trip this past summer.  Her obit was impressive but grossly understated.  It went as follows:

 

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"Pat was a lifelong educator and held teaching positions from grade schools to professorships at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, N.Y., and New York University in New York City. She was a specialist in the works of Shakespeare and taught legions of students about his poetry and plays. She was the inventor of the Great Grammarian, a successful board game she developed to teach the nuances of grammar skills, a particular interest of Pat’s over many years.

She was born in Rock Rapids, Iowa, and grew up in a large, loving and joy-filled family.

Pat was an active member of her religious community, the Sisters of Humility, Davenport, Iowa, and served in many roles over the course of her life. She was a faith-filled and loving member of the church, a zealous proponent of peace and justice and an unflagging opponent of their absence in her world view. Above all else, she was a gentle woman whose legacy to her family and friends was in her modeling of the Christian ideals. She will be greatly missed but held forever in our hearts.

THE GREAT GRAMMARIAN(R) Home School Edition is a junior version of an adult educational game that has been used by many Fortune 500 companies to train their employees. These games were developed by Patricia Rock, who has taught English from elementary through graduate school. She currently teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at New York University, and has also been a national consultant in Written Communications for over twenty years. She has received numerous grants and awards and has been a speaker for a variety of national associations.

Longtime Gallatin faculty member Pat Rock died on April 29 in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. She was 83 years old and had taught at Gallatin for 25 years. She was one of the first recipients of Gallatin’s Excellence in Teaching Award just before her retirement in 2011. “Pat was one of our great teachers,” said Dean Susanne Wofford. “Year after year, her courses--Shakespeare and the Uses of this World, The Medieval Mind, The Meaning of Home, The Simple Life--filled to capacity, and in their evaluations students praised Pat not only for her knowledge and passion, but for her profound impact on their lives.”

She was born in Rock Rapids, Iowa, and over the years she was a grade school teacher as well as a professor at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, New York, and at Gallatin. A specialist in the works of Shakespeare, she also invented a board game called the Great Grammarian, to teach the fine points of grammar. She is survived by a brother, James McGuire, a sister, Kathleen McGuire Pareti, many nieces and nephews as well as friends and colleagues.

“Pat had such a special spirit,” said Gallatin Professor Steve Hutkins, “loving, caring, giving, selfless and sweet. She was always so there, so present. She truly loved teaching at Gallatin, and we are fortunate that she had such a long career here. We will miss her dearly, but her spirit will forever be a part of this place.”

“Pat loved teaching and loved her students,” said Professor June Foley, “and she inspired not only students but colleagues--especially me. Her Shakespeare courses and the courses she created, The Meaning of Home and The Simple Life, opened hearts and minds and changed lives. And she practiced what she preached: On retiring to her Pennsylvania home, she launched a passionate, full-time campaign against fracking. How many truly good people have any of us known? Pat was the rare real thing.”

“Pat and I spent two weeks in France,” recalled Professor Jean Graybeal, “exploring Paris, visiting friends, basking in a saltwater spa on the Mediterranean. Pat was happy to be wherever we found ourselves, thrilled with every meal, able to fall asleep in minutes on a futon, ready for changes of plan, changes of mind, changes of weather. Flexible, free, open, curious, communicative; when I asked her to be sure to say if she had some wishes or preferences her response was this: “I’m like the little three-year-old who had never talked. When they finally asked him why, he answered: ‘Everything has been fine so far.’” Something tells me that everything is still fine with her; it is only we who need time to adjust to this latest change.”
 

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ROCK RAPIDS - In 1871, Patrick and James McGuire were the first known Catholics of the original 13 families in central Lyon County.  I bet they were the ancestors of Patricia McGuire of Rock Rapids, Iowa.

 

Nice words were written about her but wholly inadequate for the contributions Pat made to us, those fortunate enough to have been taught by her.

 

I first was her pupil in 6th grade in Ottumwa, Iowa, St. Mary's School.  At the time I felt she targeted me for torture.  In time I came to understand she was doing it out of fear that we were not learning from her.

 

In my senior year in high school she came back and she pushed just as hard but with college and Viet Nam facing me I stopped fighting her and grew to really appreciate the knowledge, discipline and persistence she sought in us so we might understand and master such boring things like grammar, punctuation and spelling.

 

There was the explosion of creative thought she worked to instill in us and the appreciation for all the poets, writers, philosophers, musicians, playwrights and anyone who understood the sheer power of words and grammar.

 

Because of Pat words became my best friends and the proper care and feeding of words my passion in life.  Now most stories like this end with the former student coming out of the woodwork to say how much Pat had influenced their life back in high school.

 

For me, my second time having her as my teacher was only the beginning, not the end of an ongoing relationship that lasted over four decades.  About 20 years after being taught by her in high school I wound up in New Jersey working for the governor.

 

Destiny had an old classmate contact me to say she heard Sister Louis Marie left the nunhood and was a teacher at NYU in downtown Manhattan, just across the river from where I worked at the time.

 

 

So I tracked her down and found she was teaching all these fascinating courses at NYU under the name Pat Rock, and it seemed every class was filled long before open enrollment started.

 

One day we met for coffee in Greenwich Village to renew our friendship and about once a month I journeyed to Manhattan for tea, or wine, and an endless series of conversations on the world.

 

By 1991 I was working full time in New York City and we met often to discuss her concerns over the collapse of English comprehension and grammar in America and she never stopped pushing me to expand my mind, focus my creative energy, and do something to help people.

 

Many times Pat would bring other teachers or students to our sessions and they often were Broadway performers or television and movie producers.  She was surrounded by creative people attracted to her dynamic mind and heart warming personality.

 

There were books she wanted me to write.  Places she wanted me to see.  We even started to collaborate on a fiction story intertwining our respective experiences in life.  She laughed at my stories and prodded my imagination for more.  To Pat, life was a Big Chief Writing Tablet waiting to be filled with words.

 

In spite of her superstar status in the world of words one day I asked her if she would edit my first book, a mystical and spiritual adventure called The Joshua Chronicles.  She seemed pleasantly surprised that I might attempt to string together a couple hundred thousand words and still be coherent so she said she would at least read it.

 

 

A few days later we met and she said she would edit it, surprising even herself.  It needed a lot of work but she had to do it because I was the only person she ever taught who thought he was a speech writer for God.  The book was about the discovery of a missing journal of a scribe who spent 26 years following Jesus and recording his words first hand.

 

She loved the concept because she felt it was a worthy challenge to my abilities and spiritual messages needed help to reach people.  Perhaps she loved the concept but she was a ruthless editor as she convinced me to change the main character from a man to a woman, causing a rewrite of over one third of the book.

 

Pat always gave you a lesson when editing explaining why she suggested changes and how they would help the reader understand the depth of the message.  Her edits made the book far, far better than before and we were both pleased with the result.

 

She then edited a second, third and fourth book for me and said she enjoyed every minute and word because I was finally starting to get what she started trying to teach me in grade school, how to appreciate and use words and t0 respect and be aware of their consequences.

 

The first, The Joshua Chronicles, was a work of fiction about Jesus and the Prince of Darkness.  The second was a massive journal titled Dancing the Tightrope about kids growing up from birth through high school in the 1950's and 1960's.  Autobiographical as in Irish fiction.

 

The third was Take Me Now God!, a fun-filled semi-autobiographical story about the search for meaning in life and the pitfalls along the path.  I referred to it as enhanced non-fiction.

 

The final was a historical non-fiction work detailing the untold history of Communism, Nazism, Hitler and Stalin using recently declassified and missing documents from the American, English, French, and Russian archives and the Hitler SS  film footage that disappeared during Hitler's death and the fall of Berlin.  I called it Saviors of the 20th Century, Hitler & Stalin - the war of annihilation between the Communists and Nazis.

 

For the first time "teach" was happy grading my work.  We spent hours going over books, manuscripts, ideas for new works, world affairs, and her work as a National Consultant in Written Communications.

 

She was genuinely concerned that the kids of today were rapidly losing their English and communication skills.  Perhaps this is where Pat truly stood out from the pack.  Classroom teaching was never enough as I watched her teaching evolve from grade school to high school to university to Fortune 500 corporate boardrooms.

 

By 1979 Pat was a National Consultant in Written Communications and was employed by many Fortune 500 companies to teach Oral and Written Grammar, Business Writing and Introduction to Sales Writing.

 

 

Her desire to help people communicate was relentless as her workshops evolved and her games became far more popular.  She was a long time consultant to The New York Times writers, editors and executives.

 

So concerned was Pat about the disintegrating quality of education, especially in reading and writing, that she took the Great Grammarian game board she developed in 1985 to teach communication and grammar to corporate clients and then adapted it for kids in homes and home schooling.

 

We horse-traded services, her editing for my marketing help.  From the mid-1990's on I was her business consultant and she was my editor.  Ironically, neither of us liked to talk about ourselves so we worked together to help each other.

 

She wanted to pursue development of a game for homes so parents could learn along with their kids.  I pushed her to do it and over the years she did develop game boards for corporate, then home and finally home schooling use.

 

In 2003 the College Board, administrator of the SAT exams, finally acted on the continuing decline in English writing and grammar proficiency and revised the SAT to include "critical reading" and "writing" components.

 

When the SAT board announced they were reinstating Reading and Grammar into the SAT exam and giving it much greater weigh in the scoring she was elated and the need for her games became even greater.  They could be the difference in SAT scores and acceptance into the best schools.

 

 

The Great Grammarian Home Edition was the result and for generations to come America's youth will benefit from the tireless and lifelong effort of an Irish girl from Iowa who could never give up on her mission to help prepare kids to make a difference in our world.  A woman whose love of the arts drove her to encourage kids and adults to pursue careers in television, film and stage.

 

To me Pat will always be a Saint because she devoted her life to helping others find their potential.  When she didn't feel she was doing enough in the classroom she created workshops, then games, so that thousands more people could benefit from her genius.  She never gave up on believing with the right tools for effective communication America could lead the world.

 

Her contributions will be felt long after her death because of the thousands of lives she touched through teaching.  It will be felt in the books, movies, Broadway plays, writers, speakers and others she touched and influenced.  She was the epitome of selfless dedication and a model for humility.

 

Once when I was pushing her to give me more of her background in order to help establish the credentials behind her Game she wrote me, "This tooting my own horn sounds pretty offensive to me."  How could you not love someone like that?

 

For 2 years when I was young Patricia McGuire, the brilliant and demanding Irish lass from Rock Springs, Iowa was my teacher, and for 31 years after I grew up Patricia McGuire was my friend.

 

 

Soon, my friend, we will be seeing you again.  As your beloved Shakespeare would say, "If music be the food of love, play on."

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