RAY KASZUBA

Ray joined me at Washington. I have no idea where he came from. But for whatever reason, I got the impression that he had just moved to Two Rivers.

I had Ray in a couple of classes. In sophomore year, we had Mr. Conrad's biology together. I can recall a couple of things. For one thing, one day Valori Franco brought some sort of erotic paperback book to class. And she read a few passages out loud. At one point, she let Ray borrow it. And he sat and read it. Then someone (perhaps Tammy Franzen) motioned towards Ray's crotch, while looking at Valori. There was an insinuation that Ray had a hard-on. Valori of course wasn't shy to say something, and blurted out something to the effect of, "A little excited are you Ray?" I can assure you, if in fact Ray was aroused (which is doubtful) you certainly couldn't tell.

Ray must have been hungry for a little attention. Or maybe he was hungry for frogs. When it came time to dissect them, at one point Ray ripped off a tiny piece of frog meat, and asked if anyone dared him to eat it. People did. And he swallowed it. Several minutes later, someone asked Mr. Conrad if it was dangerous to eat those frogs. Of course he said yes, as the frogs were filled with poisonous formaldehyde. Oh well.

Later on that year, Ray and I were lab partners for awhile. So we got to know each other a little bit. He was big fan of horror movies. So we had that in common. I may have even taped some movies for him.

We had to boil water for some reason. And I told Ray a little trick I knew. If you throw even the smallest amount of soap into a pan of boiling water, it foams up and makes a huge mess. So I did just that. I plopped it in very sneakily. Soon after, it began to overflow. Ray and I were laughing. Mr. Conrad was not pleased. He went and cleaned up the mess. But he had no idea who had done it. And since he didn't make a fuss, no one else in class even saw it.

I have one other memory of Ray in that class. He played a joke on Chris Soppe. He either took her purse, or I handed it to him. He then put it in the sink to hide it. Once Chris noticed it was gone, she of course told Mr. Conrad - who made a really big deal about it. He demanded to know who took it. Of course no one fessed up. So he started looking for it, to no avail. For you see, Chris' purse was black, as was the sink. So you could walk right by it and not even notice it. Eventually, it was found.

After sophomore year, Ray disappeared. I think he moved to the Milwaukee area. He lives there today, with his wife Stephanie.