JAY ROZMARYNOSKI

Known as "Rozy" to his friends - or sometimes, "the bear."

For someone that I first got to know in 5th grade, I have surprisngly little material about him.

My first memories from Jay are from 5th grade. We had Ms. Krause together. One of things that a lot of us guys would do, was play some sort of war battle game on paper. We would draw a line down the middle. Then each person would draw a flag as far away from the middle as possible. We would then draw hundreds of tanks. Each person would then take turns with their pencil. You could eaither say "shooting" or "advancing." Either way, you would put the tip of your pencil on your tank, put your finger on the eraser part, then try to slide the lead on the paper. If your line hit an enemy tank, it was destroyed. If you were advancing, you would move to wherever your line ended. The object of course was to eventually shoot the other player's flag.

Anyway, Jay and I took the game to larger proportions. I got a big piece of construction paper from Mr. Spatz' art room. We then covered that with our various tanks. We played that game for weeks. And to be honest with you, it ended up being too much. I'm pretty sure we never finished it.

One of the things that distinguishes Jay was the manner in which he walked. He kind of slowly walked with a strut - with an emphasis on the shoulders. Picture Mr. Blonde in "Reservoir Dogs," when he first comes back inside the warehouse, right before he cuts the guy's ear off. That was Jay. Jay didn't move his arms when he struted. But he certainly swayed his shoulders.

In high school, I believe Jay dated class of 1990's Stacy Harms.

Jay was a member of the swimming team. I know firsthand that he had incredible lungs. No no, we never kissed. But in our junior year, I had Mrs. Berg for gym class when we had our six weeks of swimming. One of things she tested us on was underwater swimming. This is where I starred. Only one or two people in our class could swim the width of our pool underwater. But I could do two laps. Eventually I got to 2.5 and 2.75. Mrs. Berg kept a chart on the wall of the top underwater swimmers from all her classes. Only one person was ahead of me. It was Jay. He had done three laps. Everyday of class, encouraged by Richard, I set out to macth Jay's performance. I checked the chart each class. Jay was on three, as I was improving from two, and getting ever so close to three. Then one day I came to class, determined that that would be the day. I looked at the chart. "Fuck!" Jay had increased his record to four full laps! Dejected, I gave up. I know I could have done three. But Jesus, I'd never do four. Jay must have lungs the size of pillows.

In our senior year, Jay was one of the students who went to Mexico with the spanish class. Allegedly, he and Richard Wheeler smoked pot together while they were down there. I shudder to hink what would have happened to them, had they got caught. If watching thousands of movies has taught me anything, it's that Mexican prisons are not a great place to be.

I believe that Jay was also the ringleader of the senior commons poker games. Apparently several of the seniors used to play poker for big money. From what I heard, Jay used to keep track of all the winnings in a notebook. Eveyone knew what was going on. But they felt safe because no money was ever seen. The big time poker players used to settle up later on. I believe Jason Anderson and Craig Rysticken were also involved. I heard that Craig cleaned up more than anyone. My friend Dave joined the group one day - and ended up about $40.00 in the hole. He never played again. The fun came to an end when Mr. Wood busted them all.

After High School, I believe Jay went to UW Madison to learn about engineering or something. I believe he's married with two kids, and living in Berlin, Wisconsin. I believe he has coached some local swimming teams in his area.