Gary Brown and the Eternal Pee-Chee

By Randy Haglund

Every now and then you meet someone that carves a memory in your life and affects you forever.

Gary Brown was like that.

We met at Salk Junior High School and there was a connection, even though we had very different interests. He was one of those A/V nerds complete with the coke bottle glasses and pocket protector.

I wasn’t.

Despite these nuances, I liked Gary. He was smart, amiable and he laughed at my dumb jokes. Plus he had a talent that I have not seen before or since. I recently found that it is referred to as “voluntary nystagmus.” It’s the ability to wiggle your eyes rapidly. Check out the link below.

It’s kind of freaky, but when we were in Junior High, freaky was the fashion. Once I learned about his super power I spread the word to all my friends and Gary became the toast of the school. He performed this stunt repeatedly on demand.

Gary sat next to me in Mr. Manuel’s ninth grade art class. One day, when the teacher was out of the room, I grabbed a roll of two-inch wide masking tape and re-repaired my Pee-Chee folder that was falling apart again.

He asked me why I didn’t just buy a new folder.

“Buy a new one? Are you kidding? Pee-Chees cost money, this tape is free.”

Gary didn’t bother to reason with me about how much the tape actually cost the school district, which in turn was passed on to the taxpayers. “A new Pee-Chee is ten cents at Payless.”

“You can buy two Butterfingers for that,” I reasoned. “And this tape costs nothing.”

“But you can’t just keep taping up your folder. Someday you’ll have to replace it.”

“Who says?” I gave Gary a nudge as I continued to add tape to my folder. It had become a complete rehabilitation project. “I bet I’ll still be using this Pee-Chee when I graduate high school.”

“Mis-ter HAGLUND!” Mr. Manuel’s deep booming voice startled the entire class when he re-entered the room. The floor shook and art projects hanging on the wall nearly fell to the floor. He took art very seriously and would not allow talking while we were supposed to be doing something important like painting a watercolor or tooling copper relief or whatever it was we were supposed to be doing.

He steepled his fingers. “Do you have something you’d like to share with the entire class?”

“No, I was just telling Gary something.”

Mr. Manuel’s face turned a dark shade of red and his jowls trembled. I couldn’t look directly at him because of the severe frown manifesting through his thick eyebrows. Not to mention the bright reflection of fluorescent lights off of his bald head.

“There will be plenty of time to visit after class,” he boomed.

I could’ve corrected this false notion, knowing that at dismissal we would have exactly three minutes to go to our lockers (not in the art wing) to get the proper textbook for our next class and get there before the bell. The hallways of the school between sessions reminded me of hundreds of pin balls caroming off each other in a massive, cruel arcade game.

But I was just relieved that he hadn’t noticed I was using up his masking tape.

For the next three years Gary and I attended Shadle Park High School, where my infamous Pee-Chee accompanied me to every class. It was a big school, but we still had a few classes together. Whenever I brought the relic to his attention he reminded me that it would have to get clear through my senior year in order for me to win our wager. Even though we never set any amount of money, I took the bet as seriously as if ten dollars were riding on it.

Sadly, I didn’t see Gary after graduation, but just to one-up him, I took my beloved Pee-Chee with me to all of my college classes as well. When I completed my higher education I stored it away, but longed to get in touch with Gary, just so I could get it out again and show it to him.

In the years following I noted that Gary was working at our local CBS affiliate—KREM television—as (not surprisingly) a photojournalist. I saw him on TV all the time, covering a major car crash, an important court appearance or some such thing. Well, I didn’t actually see him. I saw what he saw through his lens.

All the while, I intended to catch up with him and show him my well-traveled Pee-Chee. The bet was no longer important to me, though. I mostly wanted to just talk about old times. That was reward enough for me.

But I never did.

In May of 1985, Gary was covering a popular event in Spokane known as Bloomsday, one of the largest footraces in the world. But he was not on the sidelines of the race. As Chief Photojournalist at the station, he had pulled rank and would cover the race from the air in a helicopter—just as he had for the last two years.

He loaded his equipment in the chopper and it lifted off. But the main rotor touched a television tower guy wire and the chopper came down in a fiery crash. Both Gary and his pilot, Cliff Richey, died instantly.

Gary had won numerous awards in his field prior to the crash. At twenty-eight years old, he left behind a wife and a young daughter.

He was laid to rest and I was left with only a dilapidated old Pee-Chee to remember him by. It stayed in storage for years until recently when I got it back out. I decided it was time to put it to use again. There’s nothing wrong with it, except that it’s stiff, and a bit heavy.

Here’s to Gary Brown, his crazy eyes, weird sense of humor, and his friendship. I’ll never forget him.

Here’s another story from my days at Salk Junior High. http://randyhaglund.com/archives/the-day-my-teacher-shot-me/

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What memories do you have of Junior High School? Bitter, or sweet?