School of Strange: Part Two

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So over the last few weeks, we have been talking a ton about how kind of strange school was growing up in North Dakota, and equally strange or sad, maybe is probably a better word, about your sports career. So, you know, Mine at High was our high school, but before high school, and we talked a lot the last time about our elementary school, right? But we had a junior high, which was seventh and eighth grade. There was no such thing as middle school. And then we had ninth and tenth grade at a central campus, which was totally separated, closed campus equals no fun. And then we had the high school. One of the other things that was really kind of fascinating, my graduating class was like 602 or 603 people, which I know some folks think that's that's the whole population of North Dakota in total, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:50

We went to the largest high school in the state of North Dakota. My note high is the biggest high school in the state of North Dakota. We went to that, and I think total enrollment was a couple thousand. So every class had, you know, five, six, seven hundred students. That's a lot of people to be graduating with. You're the biggest high school in the state of North Dakota. By the way, I also got to mention, I love our nickname at Minot High. I've always liked the magicians, the magi, kind of unique. A lot of high schools around the country have a generic name, the Bulldogs or whatever they might be called. And guess what? There's a thousand schools that have that nickname. We kind of had our own unique nickname with the magi and the magicians. Very cool, I thought.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah, we did. Except for girls, it kind of sucked because it was the Majettes, right? And nobody wants to be a Majette. I'm like, what is that? Is that like some baton twirling thing? Like, I don't want any part of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

That's a little magician. Yeah, it's a baby.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

All right. It's a Majette. All right. No, I probably forgot that.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

No, I didn't forget that because I actually still watch Minut High basketball. In fact, the girls' team won the state championship. So I did watch the Majets this year. So well in tune with uh what they call that. And one day we'll talk about Minutes State because same thing with Minut State Beavers nickname, and then the women's team called the Lady Beavers. And when they took on Dickinson State, that was a weird matchup. The Lady Beavers taking on Dicky State tonight in a big matchup in college women's basketball.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Just not right. It's a true story. They weren't the Dickies, though.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

I shortened Dickinson to just the the you know Dickey State, which I don't think it was. I don't think it was ever called Dickey State.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Okay, all right. Just wanted to clarify.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

I want to direct us back. I know we talked about Perkett in elementary school a lot the other day. I want to direct us back there for a little bit because there were a couple of stories that we didn't hit on that fall under that strange category and even stranger category. And the reason we're doing this second podcast about the School of Strange is we got to talk about Perkett and the field trips that we went on. And people are going to hear this or, you know, see this now, or field trips that we went on and go, oh my gosh, I can't believe in fact, I've told it to a couple of people that, hey, we went on these field trips and we'll get into it in a second. And they're like, holy cow. And, you know, our school didn't do that. And, you know, certainly nowadays nobody's doing anything like that. But our school at Perkett, again, you know, we talked about the paper skirts and kind of some of the weird stuff that happened to us back then. But when it was field trip time, we went and took some crazy field trips. In fact, did your class, because our class, and I don't know, maybe we went together, we went on that field trip up to Dunseet.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

We didn't go on a field trip to Dunseet. And nope, I didn't. In fact, my crazy field trip wasn't until a little bit later.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

But we'll get into your I guess we both have crazy field trips. We do. So our class, and I can't remember what grade we were in. I'm guessing it had to have been like fifth or maybe sixth grade, but we went up to a field trip, Judy. I kid you not, San Haven in Dunseath, which was the asylum. I have to tread lightly here because I'm not sure, you know, what's politically correct in regards to what that's called now. In fact, I don't even know if that facility's around anymore, if it's been closed for years, but it was the where the crazy people went, and you know, the people that were challenged and had issues and stuff like that back in the day. And, you know, and it's no secret that, you know, in America back then in the 60s and 70s, they had places to these people went.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

And I hate to even say these people because No, but they at that time that was a thing, right? So they put people that were mentally challenged in institutions. And that institution was in Dunseet, which is kind of interesting that you say that, because I thought Dunseath was a city that's in a reservation, right? So the asylum, it was on the on the reservation.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

I don't remember going onto the reservation. We went on that field trip. It was where we went up there, and again, I don't know if it was fifth or sixth grade, but we went and toured that facility, and it was this scary looking, like kind of what you see in the movies with stories again from the 50s, 60s, and 70s with these facilities, and it's dark and scary. And I remember we went in, and I don't remember exactly where we went, but we toured the hallways, and you could hear, I kid you not, people screaming, like in a scary movie, you know. And we're fifth and sixth graders walking down the hall, wondering where we're gonna play later or what we're doing after school, and we're in an asylum, and all of a sudden you just hear, waah, and people just and you're wondering what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Is it somebody trying to escape? Is it somebody being injected with something?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Or being strapped down because they had people strapped down.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Right. Or are they screaming because they're looking at Perkett elementary school kids rolling into the building? We don't want anybody looking at us.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Luckily, I did not go on that field trip. But in related but unrelated story, I have to tell you, when I was a little kid, I snuck out of bed one time. And our mom and dad were watching some movie about one of those kind of institutions. And I was peeking out from beside the from behind the couch trying to see what was going on in the movie. And the the people, the patients, escaped. They escaped from there, and all the nurses and the doctors and all those people were outside. One of the, one of the patients came up, broke a glass, and went up to the person right by their eye and went boop, and then the eyeball fell in there. And I was traumatized. So thank God I did not go on that field trip because I, by the way, I'm just a freak about anything getting near my eyes ever since I did that. You know, I quietly snuck back to bed because I was wigged out for years.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

What's crazy about that? We just mentioned that a little bit ago, is they don't really have those facilities anymore. Maybe they they have something along those lines, but nothing like they did back in the day. The fact that we went and toured it, because now you can't do that, now they're not there. But my question is, if they were still there, if that was still something that was going on, would schools and especially elementary school kids go tour those facilities? And my guess is no.

unknown 7:12

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

No, I'm gonna agree with you. And I I believe that place is closed because I've seen haunted photos of that place. Uh, it's a scary place, and I think it transitioned multiple times into different things, but it was a state institution, it was a freak show. And I probably will try to be a Tommy Topper later uh with uh with the field trip that I went on. I think it was once I was in ninth grade, but I don't even have that because I think no field trip that I can ever remember going on in junior high. But that one, like I said, I'd still be in therapy over that. I think you forgot uh to to share this story. And I don't know if it was out of shame or what your dealio was uh from uh from the baseball story.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Well, there's nothing shameful about my baseball story. It's just kind of weird because I was already kind of breaking the law back in the day and not really, you know, a law, but there was a rule that you could only play on one baseball team. And we talked about that story that I played on that team over mainly of Perk at kids and Longfellow and some other different schools and stuff like that, and where I drilled the coach on the side of the head. And that was my one-day five-minute tryout for catcher deal. But one of the weird parts is that I actually, I don't know how I did it, but I had signed up for two teams in the same league, which again is frowned upon and it's not legal. And I don't even know how I got away with it, but I'm playing for one team and then I'm playing for another team, and it worked out where weeks and weeks that the schedule allowed me to play for both teams. So I would have a jersey, then later I'd switch the jersey and play for the other team. And I'm shocked that a coach or an umpire or somebody didn't say, Hey, weren't you playing on the green team an hour ago? And nobody ever caught that. But you know what finally gave it away, and where I had a problem was when those two teams played each other Monday late in the season, and I saw it on the schedule. I go, uh oh, they're scheduled to play each other. What do I do? Do I stay home that day? Do I skip? Do I play for one team? And the other team's freaking out, going, Wait a minute, what's Donnie doing on the opposite team? He's on our team, and vice versa. So the whole thing was really weird. I think I ended up playing for one of the teams and kind of coming clean. And then that was how I kind of finished out the year was with the one team. But kind of a weird situation where, again, I don't know how I got myself in that position, but playing for two different teams, same league. Can you imagine John Elway playing for the Broncos and then also playing for the Colts? And then they end up playing each other. And it's like, wait a minute, who do I play for? The NFL doesn't allow it. Guess what? Little League and Minut doesn't allow it either.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Hey, by the way, if you guys have any photos of anything, any crazy field trips, any crazy sports stories you want to share, please send those to us at hello at stories from the middle of nowhere dot com. And we'll be happy to put them up on our Facebook and Instagram pages. So thank you for sending those in advance. One of the things that I remember, and I'm gonna kind of jump right over junior high, and I have to go to when I went to central campus and I was in ninth grade, because it was crazy then you got to pick your classes. And, you know, like college. It was the first time that we got to ever pick our classes, and it was like the coolest thing ever. So I signed up for psychology, right? Because everybody wants to sign up for psychology, just like in college, you know, everybody's a psych major. One of the things that I thought was kind of funny in that class was we had in that psychology class, there was a whole lesson or section or weeks of a session tied to death and dying. And I'm 13 years old, gonna turn 14 years old, right? And you know, to talk about death and dying to me was quite shocking. But the thing that I remember was a field trip. And you know, we talked about all the different stages of grief or whatever, but the field trip that we went on was to a funeral home. And I know it was crazy. It was we went, you know, Friday we're going to the funeral home in town, and we're gonna go tour the funeral home. And you would think that it's just the funeral home. Let's go meet the you know, I don't know who the guy is that that takes everybody, it takes things in, but you see the coffins, you see this. And by the way, there was a viewing while we had this field trip. So you can see that kind of off in the distance, and you hear you know, people looking at stuff in the background, but that wasn't the part that freaked me out. You know, you would think it was, but that wasn't the part that freaked me out. The part that freaked me out was we went to the basement. And in the basement, and by the way, nobody ever wants to go to the basement of a funeral hall. I mean, not ever. But they had the embalming room, and we went in the embalming room. And you want to talk about being in you know, the impression of seeing the embalming room? It was one of those scenes that you would just never forget. They had the stainless steel table, all the tubes. I mean, nobody was in there, but still, you know what I mean? All the tubes, whatever. And then whenever anybody died after that in my whole life, I envisioned them on that embalming table. Even pets, I'm like, are they gonna be embalmed too? So it was just crazy. It stuck with me. Then I'll see like a criminal minds, I'll see the embalming room. It's nuts that that's where we went on a field trip.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

That blows my mind. And I'm now stuck in my head is this vision of the guy or whoever was dead there. Then they're having the viewing, and all of a sudden this field trip comes through, and the relatives of this dead guy are probably going, Oh my God, Marv was way more popular than we thought.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Look, there's 30 or 40 people rolling into it.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

And by the way, the embalming room, we weren't down there for like five minutes or whatever. They were explaining what everything was, and I remember it reeked of formaldehyde. Uh so again, one of those things you could almost taste. But yeah, that was kind of my my creepy field trip. So again, just a little unusual for school.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

I didn't even know the funeral home had a basement. So the last place I want to go is in the basement. Oh, let's go see what's downstairs. Yeah. And then, like you said, the smell and you know, the stainless steel table and all the embalming fluids that are laying out are right there. And probably just a reminder for everybody, or especially you guys that are down there, is hey, don't ever die because this is where you're gonna end up.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Yes. That's I'm telling you, I've never forgotten that. It it was traumatizing. So, anyway, kind of kind of a little strange field trip, you know. And then the plethora of classes that we were offered totally changed. When we got to go, I mean, ninth grade, like I said, you could pick out a few things, tenth grade a few things, maybe what kind of history class you want. I remember I was just terrible. I took typing class too. And I had a friend who was writing a note for me. And you might have dated that friend. Uh, but anyway, she was writing a note for me to ditch to ditch our typing class. I remember I was all excited. So anyway, I gave the note to my teacher. My friends waiting at the door, and uh all of a sudden the teacher looks at me and says, You expect me to accept this? And the note said, uh, is you know, please excuse Judy from this class, blah, blah, blah, Mrs. SCH. And nothing else. Not the rest of the name. And uh Mrs. And so anyway, I said, I was in a hurry and I ripped it out of my mom's hands, is what I said. And what was funny, then I said to my friend, what the hell was that all about? She said, I forgot how to spell your last name. So I'm like, okay, totally not helpful.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Judy, I've got an extremely similar story where it's kind of funny that this is where all the forging started, kind of being sneaky and devilish and you know, doing things that we weren't supposed to be doing. But I was taking trombone classes. I think it was at Jim Hill. I don't remember playing that at mine at high. But our teacher, you know, you had to get a card signed off on by your parents with your practice, you know, that you practice 30 minutes or 15 minutes or whatever it is. And then there was just this little spot at the end of that practice session on that card where your parents are supposed to sign that. Well, again, this is where the forging started. I didn't get a friend like you. I just thought I can forge it myself. Judy, same problem as I'm writing, I'm writing dad's name in that little box. Guess what? It doesn't fit. So I got as far as Schneid. So instead of you're Mrs. Sh, I got Mr. Schneid, uh, S-C-H-N-E-I-D. And I remember our band teacher, and I think everybody knows who the band teacher, famous guy from junior high and minor high for years and years and years. I'm not going to mention his name, but he uh he looked at it, goes, hmm, I guess your dad couldn't get his whole signature in there. And I just said, Yeah, no, the box was too small. And that was the end of that. But kind of funny that we have similar forging stories that, you know, and it's not caught that, you know, the the signatures didn't match. The signatures weren't the white signatures.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

One was sh and one was Schneid. I know, totally stupid. So then when we went, and this was also really bizarre. So then when we went to 11th and 12th grade, right? And that was at the big high school, the state-of-the-art high school, I think one of the things that was just fascinating to me was the variety of gym classes that you could take. Like they had bowling, curling, folk and social dance, right? Where you're learning how to, you know, do the foxtrot and all this stuff, skiing, archery, flag football. That's just to name a few. You probably took some of those.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

Roller skating, basketball. And what was interesting about it is that if the event couldn't be handled on site or on campus, they bust you somewhere. So for example, our roller skating class, which I took to your point, you open up the catalog, there's 40, 40 different high school sports activities that you can pick from for your Fayette class. So one of them I picked was roller skating. Well, you know, there's not a roller skating rink at Minot High, so they would take you up to the roller skating rink by bus and then obviously take you back. But the funny part of that story is by the time that you got up there, you got your roller skates on, your roller skate, and then all of a sudden, after about 20 minutes, it's like, all right, class, it's time to go back to school. And it's like instead of an hour, you know, or 50 minutes or whatever you would get on campus, uh, it was just a fraction of that because the busing aspect of it. But it was still super cool that we had all these options in high school. And one of them, I think you had mentioned, was skiing. How crazy is that in North Dakota?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

I actually took it. Yeah, I was I took skiing and I took roller skating and I took bowling, which by the way, you're right about taking the bus. But the part that was really bizarre about taking the bus is the teacher drove the bus, which I'm like, is that even a thing? So you get into this frozen bus, which is like a rock. And I think you've, you know, you talk about square wheels and whatever in North Dakota when when your tires freeze, but you're bouncing around in this totally cold frozen bus. 20-minute ride, 30-minute ride almost to the ski, to the ski resort, which, you know, there's no mountains. Okay. So there's no mountains. There's a hill.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

There's a hill.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

And it's so cold in North Dakota that the snow is really ice. So that's what it is. It's solid ice. And then you get one run in, hey, let's get back on the bus. And then you'd ride back all the way back to the, you know what I mean, and the frozen bus again to the class. Bowling, same thing, right? And I remember I was out playing flag football, which was one of my other classes. And here comes the assistant principal, and he's like, Hey, Judy, I see that you you have flag football and you opted not to take algebra. And I'm like, Yeah, I said they were at the same time. He goes, Well, I put you in algebra. And I'm like, I don't want algebra. I said, put me back in flag football. I'm like, I'm not taking that. It's at the same time, and I want to totally play flag football. So obviously I didn't have my priorities straight uh at that point and uh you know wanted to play some sports.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

So you were thinking, Judy, you were thinking ahead that, you know, one day I'm gonna, you're gonna be playing professional flag football and algebra. You know, you got a calculator to do all that stuff. So, you know, you had your priorities right.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Totally, totally. Although, you know, I might have been playing flag football. At least I wasn't getting concussed like you or getting the wind knocked out of you like some, you know, pro athlete.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

We talked about the the football career at Minot High, starting at Jim Hill with those amazing stats that we talked about, where I actually had more, I played quarterback, but I had more interceptions than completions, which is just a crazy stat. So then anyway, I go to get to high school and my stats are a little bit better. I did have a touchdown pass in high school, by the way, at one point and had some you know decent stats, but I have some crazy stories as well. One of them was from practice. One of the things that everybody did at Mine at High that just drove me nuts because everybody, you know, can't just, and I can't imagine a pro team, a college team, or any other team really kind of doing this stuff. But one of the popular things to do was to take your chin strap off your helmet, and it had that little metal piece on the end of it, and then you would walk up to somebody and snap it off their helmet. And that made such a loud, ringing, you know, shocking noise that it was almost Judy, like you got a little mini concussion. Like I'm somebody walk up and go.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

That's like saying somebody finger kicked you and you got a finger custom, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Hey, I'm gonna put a helmet on you one day and let you experience this because you're making it sound like it's nothing. This actually would, you know, down goes print. No, nobody goes down up a chin strap snap thing. But no, they'd go up, come up to you and snap this off your head, and it would ring and it got banned. The coaches actually saw that happening, and that little thing got banned. So we weren't allowed to do that anymore. But you know, I joke and it wasn't because you were crying, was it? Well, nobody cried. I told you Juice. There's no crying at all right. No crying at my not high. All right. One other quick football story. I'm playing quarterback back then, full pads, practice, full hitting. I'm running a keeper outside of the line of scrimmage, and it's in practice, and a blitzing linebacker, I won't mention I'll I'll give you his first name, Jimmy, comes blitzing in and drops me. I mean, big. Buries me, blindsides me. I fall down, I fumble the football, I'm laying there. Judy, I got the wind knocked out of me. I'm thinking I'm near death. I'm laying there. I can't breathe. So one of the coaches comes up, and I didn't know this was even a thing. One of the coaches would come over and grab me by my belt or my pants and start kind of just jerking me up off the ground and going, breathe, breathe, breathe. And I'm like and I got like it sucked nothing. And then right after that, I get up and I'm like wobbling around. And the coach, this is the first time at Mine at High practice, goes and gets a red mesh jersey and puts it on me and says, no more hitting Schneider.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Oh my goodness. Because, you know, hey, in NFL training camps, NFL practices, you're not allowed to hit the quarterback.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Why would that be different at Mine at High? That's true. That's true. But uh must have been been quite a sight for people to see uh getting pulled up by your pants.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Well, talk about earning the respect of your teammates going through something like that. No, no, that no respect earned that day. It was more like, wow, look at Schneider, you know, folding like a cheap suit. But did get I did get hit. It was the heart I still talk about it. In fact, I saw this guy at one of our reunions, and I said, that's the hardest hit I ever got in football. And again, knocked the wind out of me, thought it was gonna kill me. And all I remember the coach was saying, breathe, and then wearing a red jersey after that and going, Woohoo! Judy, one more thing I want to talk about from the high school days. I don't know if you ever ran for office student counsel at Jim Hill or mine at high. I did, and I remember the first year I ran, I got beat. I think it was ninth grade and you know, wanted to be popular and run for student council and uh got my butt kicked in the election. Well, I learned a little bit of a lesson because I ran again my sophomore year and I won my election. In fact, I got more votes in that election than anybody else did that was running for any other office. You want to know how I got that? My speech that I gave in front of the whole gym of the whole class. And back then I was still a good communicator. I announced your powder puff football game and was kind of the class announcer. So my speech that I give in front of the whole class, I promise that if I win the election, we're gonna have a keg tonight at the grove. The crowd went berserk. Everybody started cheering. I said, if I win this election, this is my election promise. If I win this election, we're gonna have a kegger tonight at the grove, which is one of the outskirts of town party places that we had. But right after that, I remember walking in the hallway by myself, and I got stopped by the principal. We all know the principal of Mine at High back in the day. I think his nickname was the Silver Fox or you know, is that what it was?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Yeah, he was a weirdo. But by the way, imagine that dude on roller skates, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

He stopped me in the hallway and said, very, very sneaky, Schneider, very sneaky. That's all he said. And then I won the election. And guess what? We had a party. We had we had a kegger at the grove that night, a little victory celebration. Wow. One other story from Central Campus, this is about getting in trouble and doing bad things. Back then is when I first started kind of exploring with smoking. So anyway, I'm smoking at Central Campus outside sneaking it or whatever. Well, I thought it would be funny one day, Judy, to bring in a hundred-pack of black cat firecrackers. And I brought them into central campus in one of the bathrooms. I hid it behind the toilet. And then I put a cigarette, I wrapped like the Donnie bomber, I wrapped, I wrapped the fuse around the end of the cigarette, lit the cigarette, so it takes a while to burn. So I set this all up behind one of the toilets in the boys' bathroom. I go back, sit in class. Well, about five minutes later, I'm sitting in class, enjoying myself, listening to the teacher lecture, and all of a sudden, massive explosion, gunfire, sounds like in the hallway, everybody freaks out, fire alarm goes off. This is a massive thing. And they're going to investigate this and try to find out oh my God, who set these firecrackers off in the school bathroom? Well, this is a classic story where somebody gets caught because guess what? They can't keep it to themselves. So, you know, you're talking about it or whatever. Well, Judy, it was about a week later where the principal calls me in his office. And I'm ashamed. This is the one thing I'm ashamed about, I guess, you know, thinking back on it, because he said to me, Just the one work. Yeah, just well, okay, no, okay. No, there's more. The one I'm gonna admit to. The principal says to me, hey, listen, word is that you set off those firecrackers in the bathroom. But I'm gonna take your word for it right now if you tell me it wasn't you. Well, again, ashamed to say it wasn't me. And he let me watch.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Why would you say it, right? I mean, come on. Who would say that? You know, I'm gonna say ten, maybe nine out of ten people would probably be exactly the same way. But you were kind of a moron for saying, telling other people that it was you, but you wanted the credit to be cool.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

It's not being able to keep it to yourself and telling a couple people, and then the word gets out. This was actually a big deal at Central at that time, and they were investigating it and trying to find out who did that. They found the guy, but I didn't admit to it, and they let me go. So again, not proud of that, but a couple of uh Central campus stories that kind of show the shady side, again, from promising a kegger for winning the election to setting off firecrackers in the bathroom and again just being, you know, not only a class clown, but a school disruptor, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah, by the way, today you could not do that with like school shootings, whatever. I mean, you know, it was frowned upon them, but that's exactly right. That would, you would, yeah, your school days would be over. Welcome to homeschooling, you know. So that's what that would be. Wow. I didn't know you did that.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Judy, we did a lot of crazy things in school. School of Strange, bad stuff, and I think we revealed a little bit about us during our school years, but that also translated to doing bad stuff at home. It sure did. And boy, when we were unattended, did we do bad stuff.