RANDY KLEIN

I moved to Two Rivers in 4th grade. I was put into Mrs. Schmidt's class. About 15 minutes after I was seated in my desk for the first time, I accidentally dropped my pencil on the floor. I leaned to the right to reach down and grab it. Meanwhile, the kid sitting next to me also leaned down to grab it. I got it first. He then looked at me and said, "I steal."

That was my introduction to Randy Klein.

Randy has the distinction of being the first person in Two Rivers to say something to me. I'll bet he doesn't remember.

Later on, near the end of our 4th grade year, we all went on a trip to Green Bay, to see the circus at the Brown County Arena. So we had all filed to the hallway near the front of the school, in the 5th grade area, outside Mr. Spatz' art room. Apparently Randy spit on the floor. Why he did this, I don't know. But he was dumb enough to be seen by (I believe) the music teacher. Was her name Mrs. Hanson? Anyway, she caught him and chewed him out. But her words were nothing compared to what Mrs. Schimdt did. Mrs. Schmidt blew up at Randy to extreme epic proportions. She was really over the top. It ended with an exasperated cry of "You're the worst student I have ever had!"

Wow. She was pissed! Randy was sheepishly in the process of obtaining some paper towel to clean up his spittle. He was red-faced and nearly in tears. The students were deadly silent. There was a huge tension in the air. It had to be broken. And I was just the guy to do it. A few seconds after her "worst student" comment, I came back with, "Even worse than me?" There were some chuckles in the crowd. And Mrs. Schmidt exhaled, but still loudly proclaimed, "No Burt, YOU take the cake!"

Randy and I never got along much. But we weren't at odds with each other either. Randy never came across as the brightest of bulbs. But he was harmless.

As juniors in high school, we shared a health class with Mr. Franko. We had it during 4th hour. And our class was split in two by our lunch break. Randy sat in the front row of tables. He had this bizarre habit of rattling off absolute nonsense and drivel from time to time. Wyatt Wood sat next to me. We were directly behind Randy. Wyatt would often lift his arm up, make a mock gun with his hand, and shoot him. What was wrong with this kid? Well, I found out the answer later - from Randy's own mouth.

He was high.

Later on that year, against my better judgement, I approached Randy to see if he could score some acid for me. He wasn't able to. But in the midst of our conversation, he told me that he smoked pot at lunch every single day. That explained a lot of his antics in health class.

On our senior video, Randy made a comment about participating in the video, so he could be a member of the class of 1989, just once. Congratulations Randy. You participated one more time than I did. In the video, he claimed that after high school he had no plans, other than wanting to get the hell out of Two Rivers.

I ran into Randy several times over the years while I worked at the video store. He was married, and living in Two Rivers. When renting movies to people, I had to ask them for their phone number. One day I asked Randy for his. He looked at me and said, "You're kidding, right?" This is no joke. He'd forgotten his number! In his defense, he claimed that he had recently moved. Eventually he was able to reach into his brain and find that number.

As far as I know, Randy has now fulfilled his dream. The last information I saw on him was that he was married with two kids, and living in Minnesota. In fact, the woman he married was named Lorie. I had her in a couple of classes at UW Manitowoc.

UPDATE - 6/18/07 - Thanks to Shannon Koch for providing this photo of Randy from graduation day, June 4th, 1989. He can be seen in between Brett Gruetzmacher and Brian Klein.