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Stories Shared by our Alumni

Ken Glanister (‘65) ,Julia Carolyn Keane DeWitt (‘66), Ben Bernales (‘70)

Ken Glanister (class of ‘65): It was the year 1958, around the middle of that summer, dad came home and said that he was being sent to Bermuda, to build the jet fuel tanks for Kindley Air Force Base and we were to get ready to move. We all asked, where on earth is Bermuda? When we found out it was a little Island way out in the Atlantic Ocean, well, we probably had the same reaction you did when you found out you were going to Bermuda. We got everything packed up and shipped, mom got the house rented and we were off on the big adventure. We boarded the plane for Bermuda. None of us had ever been on a plane, nor had we ever been on an island way out in the middle of the Atlantic. When the captain called over the intercom that we were approaching the island of Bermuda, if we looked out the windows on the left side of the plane, we would see the island below us. When my sister Ellen looked out and saw that small little spot we were supposed to land on, she panicked. She cried that we were going to die. There was no way that plane was going to be able to set down on that little road below us, without going right off into the ocean. Well, we landed without incident and a great sigh of relief. It was a beautiful day, dad was waiting for us and we headed off to our new home in Riddles Bay. Dad had found a beautiful home that was just built, it was called “Down-A-Long.” The house was situated right across from the 18^th hole of the Riddles Bay Golf Course. We had the golf course for the front yard and Hamilton Sound for the backyard. We thought we died and went to heaven. It was paradise. We got all settled in. The house was just beautiful. That night, we were totally exhausted. It was our first night in our new home in Bermuda. It was around midnight, when we were awoken from a deep sleep to the sound of my mother screaming in sheer terror. We knew mom was in the bathroom because that is where the screams were coming from. We first ran to the kitchen to grab a pot or pan, as we thought we might need a weapon, as the terror in mom’s voice indicated she was in extreme danger. We all arrived at the door to the bathroom at the same time. Mom was standing on the toilet seat, screaming hysterically. Mouse, rat, she screamed. Where, my sister Donna screamed? Mom pointed that way, towards the bedroom. We ran after it, all the while mom was screaming, be careful, be careful. Donna was the first to see something scurry out of the corner of her eye, under the closet door. Donna was onto it in a flash. She approached the closet door with extreme caution, with her pot raised above her head, ready to strike. She flung open the closet door, ready for her encounter with the mouse, rat. She saw something move under a pair of my dad’s pants on the closet floor. Down came the put, in one big swish and smack. Nothing could have survived such a brutal attack. She lifted the leg of the pants up to see what she had smacked. There was nothing there. She could not have missed. Then all of a sudden, something leaped off the pants leg and landed on Donna’s foot and started to run up her leg. Donna started to scream and stomp her foot on the floor, trying to shake off whatever it was running up her leg. My brother Mike, sprung into action and brushed it off her leg, onto the floor and Ellen gave it a good smack with the iron skillet she was carrying as her weapon. The mouse, rat, did not survive. It was dead. Mom got down off the toilet seat, regained her composure and calmed down, but, what was it? It was not a mouse, it was not a rat. We had never seen anything like it. Dad took a look at it and began to laugh. It was only a ROACH he said, a Palmetto Bug. They are all over the Island, dad said. They can’t hurt you. Mom immediately went to the closet, grabbed her suitcases, told us kids to grab our suitcases and get packed. We were going to get off that island in the morning. She was not going to live where the bugs were as big as a mouse or rat. We were getting out of there. Well, 20 years later, we were still on the beautiful island, a pearl in the Atlantic. Mom learned to accept and tolerate those bugs that were the size of a mouse or rat.

“Duck”…This little story is about Don Johnson (Duck), I know many of you knew Don (not the Donald Johnson in our freshman class of 1962), so, I thought I would share a little story about the time Don and I went fishing. It was the first and last time he went fishing. Don and his family transferred into Kindley in the summer of, if my memory serves me well, 1963. My dad was asked to meet them and get them settled. We had planned on having one of our big fish fries that weekend, so dad invited the whole family to come over and spend the day at our house (the Shelly Bay Beach House). Dad told them they could swim, lay on the beach and we would have the fish fry that afternoon and Don’s dad could meet a bunch of the people from the base that he would be associated with. Don’s family arrived late morning, his mom helped my mother get things ready for the fish fry, dad took Don’s dad out to his boat that we had moored in front of the house, so he and Sandra Morrison’s dad could do some work on it before the big Sandy’s fishing tournament. So anyway, Don and I seemed to hit it off pretty well. I let him take my Zundapp, I took my brother’s and took him on a tour of the Island. We had a great time. When we got back to the house, I asked him if he wanted to go fishing. I told him that Shelly Bay was originally named Barracuda Bay, because the barracuda would come in there and spawn and they were in. We spotted a couple of large schools in pretty close to the beach, Don got pretty excited about the prospect of tying into one of those big ones. I got the rods and reels and tackle out, got the bait out of the freezer and we were ready. We decided that we would take the little boat out, without ht motor. We figured we would just row out and drift, that way we would not spook the barracuda. We launched the boat, rowed out into the center of a large school of barracuda. Don hooked up right away, he tangled with a big five and half footer. He was having a blast. We hooked up with one right after the other…all the time drifting, without noticing, further and further out into the channel. I just happed to look up and notice we were in the middle of the channel and there was a huge tanker heading right at us. Don was hooked up with a real nice barracuda. I told him we need to cut it loose. He said why, I said, look. The sunburn on Don’s face instantly faded away to pure white, his eyes got like two big saucers and he said, Oh my God! We are going to die! I said, grab an oar, I took the other oar and we started to row as fast as we could towards the beach. It looked like we were going to be fine, that we were going to get out of they way of that tanker and then it turned. It was heading right at us again, but now it was much closer. We picked up our pace again. Faster and faster we rowed, each time we thought we were out of the way of the tanker, it would turn back into our direction and each time it was much closer. We were both starting to panic by this time. That tanker was close and it did not see us. I said, Don, somehow we have to get out of the way of that tanker, so we just took a last ditch effort to get clear of the tanker. We rowed as hard as we could. This time, it looked good. We were clear of the tanker and it did not turn back into our direction. We were not out of danger yet though. That tanker had one huge wake and it could swamp us. The tanker was right on us, so, I turned the boat into the wake. It was a rough ride, but we were not swamped. We made it back to the beach. We were exhausted. We spent the rest of the day swimming and ridding the bikes. I asked him later that day if he wanted to go back out fishing. He said NO! That was it for him. The fish fry was great and we did have a really nice day. We lived to enjoy it.

Snipe Hunting: One night Terry Saber, I know many of you remember Terry, came over to the house and asked if I wanted to go “Snipe” hunting. I asked him what the heck Snipes are. I said I did not think there were wild animals in Bermuda, that you could hunt. Well, my brother Mike (Eugene), chimed in and said, well of course there are. It is just that they are so hard to catch. He said, I think we need to go out and hunt for them. So, I said fine, let’s go. Terry says, first we need to get ready and gather up a few things. He and Mike made up a list of things we needed to acquire. We had to each get: a large brown paper bag, a roll of toilet paper and a big stick. The object was, you needed to have a full moon and it had to be around midnight, as that is when the snipes came out. You had to put the roll of toilet paper in the paper bag and beat the paper bag with the stick. That was supposed to attract the Snipes. Terry said that we needed to go to the cemetery, over by the Church of England, down the road from us, as we would have our best luck there. Off we went, we got out into the cemetery. I was told we would do best, if we split up. I asked how I would know if I found a Snipe? Terry said, just keep beating on the bag with the stick around the graves. He said you will know. My brother agreed. Here I am, going around this graveyard for about three hours, beating on a brown paper back, with a roll of toilet paper in it, saying, “here snipe, here Snipe.” Then I found them. I found what must have been a huge nest of them, as all of a sudden, I was covered with them. They were flying all around me, landing in my hair and crawling all over me. It was awful. I managed to get a couple into the paper bag and I ran out of there. I tried to locate Terry and my brother and they were nowhere to be found. So, I brushed those snipes of me and I ran back home as fast as I could. I ran into the house screaming, “I found them, I found them, they attacked me, but I got a couple of them in the bag.” Then I saw Mike and Terry must have been home for a long time, as they had a big bowl of popcorn almost eaten and a tall glass of Coke almost gone. They started laughing hysterically at me, letting me know what a fool I was for falling the joke. Joke…I said, but, they attacked me. I caught a couple of them, I have them in the brown paper bag. They could not contain themselves and finally asked to see what I caught. I opened the brown paper bag and there were two huge Palmetto Bugs… I must have gotten into a huge nest of them and disturbed them. It was many years before I lived down that “Snipe” hunt.

Julia Carolyn Keane DeWitt (class of ‘66): As most of you know, Mike and father came to the Island first. Mike and I were close growing up because our older brother used to beat on us for his own reasons. My first thoughts as I was coming down the stairs of the plane and seeing Will, mike and Dad there waiting to greet us (Mom, Patrick and Me) was the image of Will and Mike. I got so excited - In the short time Mike was on the Island, he had grown taller than Will and was skinny (when he left NC, he was chunky). I was so proud and excited when he stepped off the cinder block - well, he was skinny! When we arrived at our new home, like most women, I checked out the cupboards, only to be showered by 3” flying cockroaches, Daddy said if it was Friday, they just picked them out of the food they were cooking and if not, a little extra meat didn’t hurt anyone. Dad loved telling Mom and I things like that. The cupboards got heavy cleaning before we unpacked! The first Bermudian we met was Arthur. As we were sitting down to dinner, dad saw Arthur walking up to the door and added him to his dinner call routine, “Come and get it Tom, Dick, Harry, Pete and you too Arthur.” Hearing his name, he didn’t knock but just came right in and sat down at the table. Mom did not notice the add-on and sat there without a word for a long time, wondering if this was normal for people to just walk in. Needless, our house rarely didn’t have teenagers there, Ed, Henry, Virgil, Arthur, Greg and more. My best friends were Sherry Peck (who I wish could find, boy the fun we had), Diane Bauer (Ever more fun), Deborah Baskum (Sp) (boy, did we have memories) and anyone hear from June Smith? Virgil Allen was one of my closest, dearest friends, (his father was a riot and the best kind of chaperon we could have picked - remember the Island parties?) I miss Virg very much.

Ben Bernales (class of ‘70): I was in the class of ‘70, Kindley High’s last year at

that name since it was changed the following year. Lived in Bermuda from 66 - 70. Lived at the west end of the Island on the Navy base. Great memories, weather and friends. Involved in Track, Basketball and Rugby at KHS plus also played Football and fast pitch softball in other leagues. Hung around classmates, Dally Tucker, Dennis Reider, Richard Campeau and Ron Garrow. I wonder if any of our classmates remember

the film we put together, Our Trip to Russia!” … I drove a purple Cyrus. Penny Holt and I were voted “Most Versatile.” Sandy Trevis and I were Prom Queen and King. Donna Parrish and I and the group would play imaginary skiing and submarine with the group at the pier… Yes… Lots of great times in Bermuda…

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