Chuck Beach:  

Grade school and High school days were as it was for most of us - an idealist existence with little or no real issues of concern ... except of course fall out shelters and hydrogen bomb drills in grade school and how to avoid homework in high school. My times at Henry Ford were great. Not the center of my world but at least a required addition to the then real important stuff - greaser life. Teenage highlights were not necessarily school related unless you count the hallway interplay, arrival at school either on a motorcycle or in Jim's Hoskin's red Ford (RIP), or Henry's Drive-In events (a stretch). No academic highlights (unless you count the Key Club) - most of us were fine upstanding school students interested in helping our Key Club events certainly. Just good citizens (see '62 year book if you can find one). You also got a full hour off every other week to meet! The real important stuff surrounded cars, motorcycles, and racing. I was actually one of a few thousand who really did cruise Woodward and race out there (or on Telegraph) starting in 1960 and stretching up until around 1965 when authorities really started to shut things down with pursuit cars other than Ramblers. Now every year over a million people participate during the Woodward Dream Cruise but only a few of us really had the chance to play at it back then. It wasn't a big deal in my memory at the time - just something we did. I guess the same is true about the birth of Rock and Roll, Motown, Vietnam, etal. Vietnam ...Expand for more