my older brother was attending Pomona High School on May 15, 1956, when the fire destroyed the original building, and I was down in San Diego attending Brown Military Academy...
Today there is a shopping Center where the old Pomona High once stood and they have built a new high school further north of the old location...But, anyway, Bob Seagren followed his older brother`s example and is the reason he also got into Pole Vaulting...And Art sort dropped out of Pole Vaulting all together and went into the Army...However, Art still remained active in sports...And Art had a friend, who I also disliked a lot, "Mike Flanagan", who also was into competition Pole Vaulting at Ganesha High School on the other side of town...Art and I used to go to movies together while in high school and he occasionally would stay all night at my house...I lived just up the street from where his house was located...My family`s home was at 671 Elaine Street in Pomona, at this particular time which was our third and final move while living in Pomona..And Art`s house was on San Bernardino Avenue, at the time...But now, the last time I checked, anyway, they are still living in the high class district of Claremont, which is a College town just next to Pomona, in Los Angeles County...My friend, who I had known for only five years from our first residence on Kenoak Drive, Terry Densley, well, I had lost track of him because, believe it, or not, his parents sent him to a Catholic Military School in 1956...Probably copying what my parents did to me....In downtown Pomona, in those days, Pomona was not at all like the Pomona of today where you fear for your life just walking down the street...On the contrary, Pomona then was a nice, decent city to live in...And Vic Tanny`s gym was downtown, also, where I had a "lifetime" membership and I would regularly go there to workout...
Art Seagren would sometimes go there with me...I used to also assist Bob, his younger brother, in working out, at his home on San Bernardino Road, which was walking distance just a few blocks from our house...My older brother, John, began going with me, also, when I would go to Art`s house to visit ...Art Seagren, also, had a real nice mother, and father, too, for that matter...She was always so friendly and cheerful and never an unkind word from her...Art and I would pull a lot of teenage pranks, together, on people, but his parents always seemed to just "go with the flow", so to speak, and never get all "bent out of shape" over something ..Something, of which, I cannot say the same for my folks, at the time, meaning my dear grandmother, and my dear mother...Anyway...so now you know about my friend, Art Seagren, who I have not seen since the year 1966...And I have not seen Bob either since the year 1970 when I drove to their house in Claremont and had a short visit, but Art was not there and that was the reason I had gone to their house...Bob was there, however, with his girlfriend, and by this time, he was a celebrity because of winning in the Olympics and it was no longer the same and I felt very uncomfortable just being there ...so that was that And so much for this bit of trivia of my past history...
Arthur Seagren, Jr., 1960 Pomona High School graduation photo
1 comment:
My father use to have the pole vaulting record at Pomona High he graduated in 1955. I believe Art Seagren broke my dads record. The vault was much more enhanced with the fiberglass poles resulting in higher levels that before more difficult to attain with the older bamboo and steel poles.
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