This column originally appeared November 17, 1999, published in The Seattle Press newspaper.
At risk of being called maudlin and sappy, I’d like to step back in history. Back to the 1930’s, when the Ross Elementary School Parent/Teacher Association (P.T.A.) met on Wednesdays in the assembly room. The minutes from those meetings mention ‘kootie’ parties and toxoid injections for the children to guard against diphtheria. The “Failure Prevention” committee told of the need for Vitamin D to build strong bones while the Motion Picture committee warned against the film ‘Scarface’.
Meanwhile, their children were practicing baseball and football skills to compete in The Seattle Times contest for the “Old Ozzie” and “Old Woody” trophies. In the summer the kids played volleyball and roofball in the Ross playfield, adjacent to the school. Roofball was a kind of volleyball; a tradition passed on by the ‘big guys’ to the ‘little guys.’ The ball was bounced off the roof of the field house and the best players could aim for the gutter, causing the ball to fly off where the other team couldn’t reach fast enough. In the fall the kids gathered up leaf piles and leaped into them – from the nearest tree.
These are the stories of the Ross Raiders. They recently told me many of their hair-raising antics, few of which are as harmless and idyllic as the past is often painted.
Like the time three members were arrested. In a boat they had permission to use, they motored down the Lake Washington Ship Canal. As they approached the Fremont Bridge, police descended from every direction including the Harbor Patrol boat. The 14-year-old boys considered jumping in the water and swimming away until the Harbor Patrol threatened to blow them out of the water with the fire hose. The boys were taken into custody. The charge? Piracy.
Then there was one of their many football games. The Ross playfield is located in west Fremont and has parallel bars, or acting bars as they were called, close to the field. These were often in use, while the 20-ft. metal pole, planted too close to the end zone, served no discernible purpose. It may have once been a flagpole, or a May pole, but when yet one more player was knocked unconscious when he hit it, it became an unbearable nuisance. The young boys decided they’d had enough. They marched to their homes, got shovels, dug up that pole, dug a trench and buried it. It’s probably still there.
They have stories of the tree that had a fat limb sticking straight out from it. It was just low enough to get up on, with the help of a good friend, and just high enough to fall off of. Or about the times they climbed up on the back of the elephant in East Fremont. This elephant, now a landmark at 88th and Aurora Avenue, once stood atop a restaurant on 34th Street.
They also recall the nicknames of the group. Bill Harley Davidson told me there was Pug, Spud, Deadeye and Speed. John Ross was called ‘Bones’ because he was so tall. There was also Punchy, whose name may have come from a fondness for punch drink, or from a fondness for punching other guys in the stomach.
As for the name of the Raiders, that came from a favorite pastime. The Raiders could tell you the location of every fruit tree in the neighborhood, down to identifying a Roland from a Bing cherry tree. They routinely ‘acquired’ the fruit, careful to leave some for the tree’s owner.
These children, now grown with children and grandchildren of their own, are still the Ross Raiders. On each Tuesday before Thanksgiving the Raiders gather at the Ballard Grill for their annual strategy meeting. Every Thanksgiving morning, for many years, a football game was held at Ross playfield. The last game was in 1971 when two Raiders ended up in the hospital and too many of them spent the holiday couch-ridden.
Still, they continue to hold the ‘strategy’ meeting. Jim Stroncek keeps everyone in contact. He maintains the address lists and acts as linchpin for this now diverse group. Why does he go to the trouble? Ron Nelson told me “as you get older you see how valuable these connections are.” It is impressive that they have managed to stay connected when more stable parts of the neighborhood didn’t survive.
In the minutes of the Ross School PTA for 1939, you can read, “…first returns on child census show increased child population in district.” With the passage of a Seattle “3 mill levy”, the community felt they deserved a new school building. The May minutes report a meeting called with the School Board. The June minutes give details of the dissolution of the PTA. The school was closed and the children were divided and sent to several other Seattle schools.
And yet the Raiders endured to play together again.
Thank you to Joan Reid for providing the PTA minutes from Ross Elementary.
©2013 Kirby Lindsay. This column is protected by intellectual property laws, including U.S. copyright laws. Reproduction, adaptation or distribution without permission is prohibited.