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• 1961 Western Team Photo (Back row: L. Crum, Jim Kozlow, Alan Sotkey, B. Moosekian, Chuck Taylor; Second row: Winston  Jerrium, Danny Chambers, Jim Vaught, George Saldana, Jim McNairy, Coach Wilbur Gunnerson; First row Eddie Baird, Rick Skarbo, Salvador Prado, Ed Picard, Tom Marudas, R. Lehman)
• Western High Meet c. 1962 Ed Picard (2nd diver from left), Bob and Phil Moosekian (timers)
• Wayne State 1965 (Coach Hussey, Ed Picard, Jerry Richards)
• Ed and Jeani Picard 1994
• Old Geezers and Young Chicks (Craig and Barb Dwyer, Jeani and Ed Picard) c.1998
• Small Day at Ventura's Surfer's Point (Ed Picard) c.1999
• "The Old Kahoona" (Ed Picard) c.1999
• Wayne State Team (Coach-John Hussey, Manager-Alan Hitsky, L to R: Jim Mondro, Bob Kipp, Bill Mehan, Ed Picard, Steve Swindell) c.1966
• Patton Team Photo: (Bottom row L to R: Harry Hauck Jr., Laura Frost, Mark Manrique, Linda Foster, Unknown, Barbara Foster; Top row L to R: John Savinsky, LaJune Rodgers, Ed Picard, Lee Davis, Tom Sullivan, Carl Boyd, Harry Hauck, Dennis Manrique, Monty Blashill, Rick Skarbo, Scott Blashill, Ron Boyd, Jim McNairy) c.1962
• Doug, Move Your Big Fat Head!: (1st row: Randy Penn, Unknown, Sally Williams, Susan Williams, Elaine Cooper, Sally Sherk, Diane Greer; 2nd row: Peggy Sherk, Barbara Foster, Mary Beth Ceresko, Mary Lou Shefsky, Tina Solis, Alice Ceresko, Janice Enck, Susan Roll; 3rd row: John Szuba, Tom Koch, Sue Spilski, Marcy Snyder, Jackie Jones, Christine Szuba, Linda Foster, Carol Danboise, John Sherk, Randy Cooper; 4th row: Joyce Allen, Bonnie Danboise, Stan Johnson, Fred Johnson, Carl Boyd, Craig Dwyer, Greg Penn, Ron Enck, Doug Webster, Tom Szuba; 5th row: Rick Skarbo, David Sahagian, George Saldana, Pete Adams, Mark Manrique, Ron Boyd, Larry Dalton, Richard Szuba, Jay Osrowske, Ed Picard, John Powser, Harry Hauck) c.1962
• The Detroit White Sox: (Sue Spilski, Marcy Snyder, Mark Manrique, Unknown, Unknown, Unknown, Unknown, Larry Dalton, Ed Picard, Fred Johnson, Dennis Manrique, Marion Abbott, Rick Skarbo, Richard Szuba) c.1962
• Beehive Hairdos Popular With Martian Team: (1st row: Unknown, Lori Davis, Bobby Allred, Harry Hauck Jr., Diane Allred, Barbara Foster, Johnny Allred, Gary Davis, Unknown; 2nd row: Ed Picard, Mark Manrique, John Savinsky, Doug Webster, Carl Boyd, Rick Skarbo; 3rd row: Dennis Manrique, Lee Davis, Joan Makkonen, Mary Louise Abbey, Lynn Makkonen, Leslie Taliaferro, Vivian Carozzo, Linda Foster, Unknown, John Stewart; 4th row: Ron Boyd, Pete Adams, Harry Hauck, John Westcott, John Powser, Jim McNairy) c.1961
• Play Ball!: (Tom Sullivan, Dennis Manrique, Rick Skarbo, Carl Boyd, Ed Picard, Jim McNairy, Monty Blashill, John Savinsky, Ron Boyd) c.1961
• Ricky Trys New Method For Attracting Girls: (Not in any particular order: John Hollinger, Frank Toomey, David Sahagian, Bobby Allred, Lori Davis, Gary Davis, John Savinsky, Mark Manrique, Don Cox, Ed Picard, George Saldana, Rick Skarbo, Mrs. Manrique, Caroll Hauck, Tim Hauck, Ed Snelzer, Brother, Francis, Mr. Adams, Mrs. Sahagian, Lori Davis, Gary Davis, John Westcott, Ron Enck, Sue Spilski, Pete Adams, Janice Enck, Ray Ferguson, Tom Sullivan, Randy Penn, Greg Penn) c.1962
• Last Dance: (Carl Boyd, Ron Boyd, Linda Foster, Mark Manrique, John Westcott, Ed Picard, Richard Szuba, Jay Osrowske, Joan Makkonen, Stan Johnson, Sue Spilski) c.1962
• Musical Chairs: (Richard Szuba, Dennis Manrique, Marion Abbott, Ron Boyd, Joan Makkonen, Mary Jo Szuba, John Hollinger, Mrs. Allred, Mr. Allred, Mrs. Szuba, Harry Hauck, Ed Picard, John Savinsky, George Saldana, Mark Manrique, Fred Savinsky, Sue Spilski, Lynn Makkonen, Bobby Allred, Diane Allred, Barbara Foster, Lee Davis, Jeanie Sherk, Mary Lou Shefsky, Tommy Koch, John Westcott) c.1962
• John Savinsky, David Sahagian, Ed Picard, Harry Hauck, Craig Dwyer, Dennis Manrique c.2000
• Jean Picard and Chuck Ebinger c.2000
• Ed Picard and Tom Sullivan c.2000
• Anyone For Pull-Ups? (Jeff Longstreth, Ed Picard) c.2000
• Jean Picard c.2000
• Reunion Committee (Dennis Manrique, Craig Dwyer, John Savinsky, Ed Picard, David Sahagian) c.2000
• Y2K "Chicken Little of the Sea" Award (Tom Sullivan, Ed Picard) c.2000

V1N5P2, V1N9P6, V2N4P6, V2N6P3, V2N10P5

• 001, 176, 184

• Reunion Report

My Life After Patton:

After leaving Patton, I went to Wayne State and majored in physics and swam on the team there for coach John Hussey. Then, it was on to Ferris State College for a year to get a B.S. in math education and a teaching credential. I taught junior high math in Allen Park for six years, got an ulcer and moved to Ventura, CA. After a brief career as a newspaper carrier supervisor, I got into repairing business equipment in 1977 and have done that type of work until the present. My wife Jeani, who is a wedding consultant, and I were married in 1976. When I'm not helping to save the world from broken copy machines, you can usually find me at the beach riding a surfboard, hiking the back country of Ventura County, reading an old book, or working out with our local masters swimming team at Ventura College. Including masters swimming and surfing, I'm in the water about seven days a week (same as when I swam at Patton). (6/98)

• Harry took us to Belle Isle in April or May before our summer workouts were to begin to "test" the water. "Testing the water" meant swimming about a quarter of a mile along the beach. Now a quarter of a mile is not a long way, except that day! The water was 46 degrees and there were so many dead fish flies on the surface you could almost walk across them. I remember the girls' suits were especially well suited for scooping up the flies. After the swim, I observed Lynn removing several fistfuls from her suit! Then there was the ride home. Harry was probably afraid that most of the team would die off from pneumonia and our parents would kill him, so he decided to sweat the chill out of us by packing about 24 swimmers in the back of his gray station wagon and turning the heat on. I almost flipped-out with claustrophobia. Sully was riding up front with Harry and I would have given everything I owned or ever would if I could have traded places with him.
• The workouts at Belle Isle and swimming between the docks at 7:00AM on cold, rainy mornings. Looking up at Harry all toasty in his raincoat having a mug of hot coffee and a cigar while watching me going backwards down the Detroit River because my freestyle kick was not quite equal to the 3 mph current.
• Rat Race--the two most dreaded words in the English language, and they still send shivers down my spine when I hear them. That was the workout where we all stood in a line across one end of the pool and the swimmer on the end would dive in and as soon as he hit the water the person next to him would dive in and so on in kind of a domino effect. After sprinting the length of the pool, we would haul ourselves out and get a rest until the last person touched and then do it again. Of course, Harry hated to see us waiting around for the 5 seconds wasting time just trying to get some air--why not do push-ups to fill in the time!
• The Tonk Room--Also known as the Black Hole of Calcutta West! That dank, damp, dingy, dirty, disgusting, smelly little brick room we used to hang out in between workouts at Brennan, eating our sandwiches and drinking hot chocolate.
• Going to Virginia Beach with Harry to visit one of his old UDT navy buddies--We stopped at a diner in Virginia on the way down and it had a sign on it "white only." It was my first trip to the south and I had never seen such a sign. Going into the diner I observed that it wasn't "white only," afterall. Black people had there own section, the kitchen. The logic of racism is truly mind boggling! A person is supposedly not fit to sit at the next table to you in a restaurant but it's OK to if he takes care of one of the most personal aspects of our lives: handling and preparing the food. Go figure. Anyway, we finally got to Harry's old navy buddy's house; I believe his name was Lou Vogler. Lou's son came into the room where we were sitting and asked his dad to borrow the car or drive him somewhere and Lou told him to use diesel. Then Lou pointed to his feet and said, "diesel take you where you want to go." Later that night Harry and I went to a show. On the way to the show I was feeling hungry so I bought a couple of pounds of apples in a brown paper sack to take to the show. Of course shows aren't big on letting you bring food in, so I kind of hung my jacket over the bag as we walked in. Now Norfolk, Virginia, is a navy town, and I pretty much fit the profile of a sailor, right age and right haircut. If a sailor is trying to sneak in a brown paper sack, it's usually an easy guess what's in it. The manager of the theatre spotted my bag and asked what was in it. I said apples. If you look up disbelief in the dictionary, it has a picture of that manager's face. When I opened the bag and showed him the apples he got another look on his face which you can find in the dictionary under the definition of astounded! It was right after that that I became known as "Apple Ed."
• When Seaweed Sully remarked how the swimming world was full of colorful characters, no doubt Jimmy Ottinger was one of those he had in mind. When I close my eyes, I can see Jimmy and clearly hear his voice as if I had just seen him five minutes ago. Although Jimmy was a diving coach and swimmers and divers didn't have much in common except they both needed a pool, it just wouldn't have been the same without him. The classic image of Jimmy Ottinger is a person with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth, storming around the pool deck upset about something or another, veins sticking out of his head, and looking ready for a stroke. However, one day I saw Jimmy getting off of a bus in front of Brennan and I began to realize that he has another life when he's away from the pool. I remember thinking, "Who is this person when he's not at the pool? Is he a lonely old bachelor living in a tiny little apartment and this is the ray of sunshine in his life: coming to the pool to coach kids on diving?" Hard as I try, I can't imagine Jimmy Ottinger in any other way than being the dynamic, colorful diving coach that he was.
• Sully looking like a witch doctor as he walked around the deck at Brennan Pools in his Speedo with his face covered with zinc oxide, wearing a necklace of genuine imitation shark teeth made from plastic shower curtain rings which he gave to swimmers when they did their best time, and eating a thermos of hot dogs and chili to combat hypoglycemia.
• Thinking after one of Harry's workouts-- "Anything I ever do in life will be easier than this." Thirty-five years later I can now look back and see how true those word were!
• Dennis Manrique, Ray Ferguson, and I went up to the Au Sable river for an overnight canoe trip. Not too far into the trip we dumped the whole canoe and everything got wet, including our sleeping bags. As an added bonus, it started to rain! It would have been one of the most miserable nights of my life except for the fact that Ray kept us entertained with an endless series of stories that started out with a long, groaning sigh and the words, "when I was in the navy."
• The day Harry had mercy on us--It was one of those awful late summer mornings at Brennan. The air temperature was about 55 degrees, the water was the usual 65 degrees, and it was raining. Surely, no one would expect swimmers to workout in these kinds of conditions. Harry decided that it would indeed call for some modification of our normal routine. He felt we would get too cold getting in and out of the pool, sitting around shivering in the cold rain waiting between heats; so he thought he'd give us a break. The break consisted of a four mile individual medley (backwards, of course). That way we could just stay in the pool for a straight two hours without having to get out and sit in the rain shivering. We could just stay in the pool and shiver.
• The day I took my Western High School yearbook for Harry to sign, I was filled with anxiety and apprehension. After all, the person I idolized was about to sum up what he thought of me in a few words. What would he say? Would he write, "To the biggest phony I've ever known. Get lost!-The Hawk." Or, would he clue me in on some secret about life? I held my breath and handed him the yearbook. The words he wrote are timeless and I never forgot them: "To Ed, I saw a franus glib one night, because the quiztrit was too tight. -The Hawk."
• The team was going to a swimming meet in Cleveland and John Powser's dad was taking his family and a few other swimmers in their 42-foot cabin cruiser. It was early in the boating season and I believe it was the first time Mr. Powser had taken the boat out that year. We had just cleared the mouth of the Detroit River and gone a little way into Lake Erie when both engines conked out. There was a good breeze blowing that day and the waves were running at about 4 feet. After the engines quit, the boat immediately went broadside to the waves and started to rock back and forth, back and forth. Dennis Manrique and I found ourselves hanging over the side looking at each other wishing we would just die. Harry, being an old navy man, was completely unaffected. I remember him walking by waving a sloppy joe in each hand inviting us to go below and get some chow.
• Being one of Harry's swimmers didn't always mean suffering. Harry took the team camping up on the shores of Lake Huron at Oscoda. We played a game with flashlights that night, running around in the sand dunes. That was the most fun I ever had in my life. After the game it was time to get into our sleeping bags. I had never been camping before and my mother had packed some nicely ironed PJs for me to wear. It was right after that I became known as Yammie Pajammie.
• Why were Brennan Pools so cold? You'd probably answer, "duh...because it wasn't heated." You would only be half right! I found out later from a reliable source (Mike Fischer) that the pools had so many cracks in them that the runoff was on its way to forming another Grand Canyon in the park. It's a wonder we and the pools didn't all disappear one day in a giant sinkhole. But think about it, even when we had a week of 90-degree weather, the pools never got that much warmer; and that's because they were continually adding new cold water to make up for all that was running out. Aren't you glad you didn't know the whole story back then? At least we had hope when the thermometer went up.
• The "Rat Races," the swimming in 46-degree polluted river water, the 20-mile death- march from Patton Pool to Harry's house, they were all like pieces of a puzzle; and the picture they were starting to form wasn't a pretty one. I was beginning to have suspicions that Harry had secretly taken out large life insurance policies on his swimmers and named himself the beneficiary! However, every attempt to get rid of us failed. In fact, like the famed mad Russian monk Rasputin, we only became stronger after each attempt to do us in. If Harry was to accomplish the purpose I suspected, he was going to have to reach way down to the bottom of his sinister bag of tricks and come up with something truly dreadful...and indeed he did. He came up with a plan that seemed beyond failure. Harry scheduled a water polo game against the team at Brewster Recreation Center! Now Brewster Recreation Center is located in the heart of the Brewster Housing Projects. Even if you never heard of it before, you probably saw it on TV in one of those "history of rock and roll" documentaries. It usually appears in the segment devoted to the Supremes and their humble beginnings in the slums of Detroit. The Brewster Housing Projects were probably the toughest neighborhood in Detroit or any city for that matter. In fact, before the days of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, assisted suicides were often accomplished by going there and walking around for ten minutes or even less. Anyway, even though I knew I would probably die, it was preferable to being called a "phony," so I went. My hands were sweating profusely as I drove into the projects and parked my car about 50 yards from the recreation center. Nervously, I left the car and walked the 50 yards to the door which seemed more like 50 miles. I put my hand on the door handle, opened the door, and was about ready to breathe a sigh of relief when I looked up and felt as if I had been hit by a punch. There, staring me in the eye was the famous boxer Joe Louis in a menacing fighting pose (a life-size picture of him anyway). If that wasn't enough to drop me to my knees, I looked around at the glass showcases in the lobby and they were packed full of boxing trophies. It was about then I started to wonder if I had thanked my parents for raising me and told them I loved them before I left the house that morning. I pulled myself together, went into the locker room and suited up for the water polo match. When I walked into the pool, standing at one end was the Brewster team. There they were, fifteen guys all built like refrigerators. It was clear to me that water polo was only something for them to do while they waited their turn at the punching bag. Deep down inside I was hoping we would lose the game and maybe we would make it out of there alive. Unfortunately, guys built like refrigerators often swim like refrigerators and it proved to be true in their case. We couldn't have lost if we tried. As it turned out, they were really nice guys who lost gracefully and appreciated us coming over to play with them. We all made it home safely only to wonder what diabolical scheme Harry would hatch next.
• When Rick Skarbo was a lifeguard at Brennan Pools, he used to put on an act that was worthy of an Oscar for best male dramatic performance. He would wait until an exceptionally hot afternoon when the pools were maxed out to capacity, probably 1500 people, and he would climb the stairs to the ten-meter diving platform. The ten-meter platform was off-limits to the swimmers, so just the sight of a person up there would make people stop what they were doing and take a look. Rick would walk out towards the edge of the platform giving the best impression of someone that had never seen a pool or ever been more than two feet off of the ground. He would hesitatingly make his way to about three feet from the edge like he was scared to death and then lean out very carefully and look over. Then he would walk back and do it again a couple of times until all 3000 eyeballs were intently fixed upon him. Now that he had the crowd in the palm of his hands, he would go to the edge of the platform and do a handstand. Anyone that is acquainted with Rick knows that he can walk and stand on his hands better than most folks can on their feet. Anyway, there he is standing on his hands like he is doing it for the very first time and wobbling like a real beginner. All of a sudden he apparently starts to lose his balance and all 1500 people let out a gasp in unison thinking they're about to see someone plunge to certain death. Rick would then fall off the platform, seemingly totally out of control. Somehow he would always miraculously at the last second get himself in a perfect vertical position to hit the water with barely a splash.
• Do you remember Sunday morning workouts? Sunday was handicapped swimming day at Patton, so they would raise the water temperature to about 95 degrees to make the handicapped folks more comfortable. There must be some rule in the Pool Technicians Handbook that says for each degree you raise the pool temperature, the chlorine level is to be doubled. Sunday mornings in the pool felt like we were swimming in pure Clorox. It would have been bad enough to just workout for an hour, but Sundays meant we had the privilege of working out for three hours and then playing water polo for another hour. By the time you got out, you were ready to sit in a dark room for about five hours until you could stand the light. My neighbor saw me walking home after one of those sessions. My skin was a blotchy red, my eyes were watering like crazy, and I was sniffing. He asked me if I got beat up! I sure looked and felt like it.
• One of the things I enjoyed most was when Harry would take us canoeing on Belle Isle. The whole team would pile into about 15 canoes for a day of races and battles. As I recall the boys used to like to ram the girls and send them spilling into the canals (not a very nice thing to do if you remember how filthy and stagnant the water was). But we were all having too much fun to catch a disease. One time we were going to race around an island in the lagoon and the canoe I was in was starting to fall behind. We figured the only way to win was to cheat and little did I know at the time that divine justice would follow swiftly on my heels. The plan was to take our canoe out of the water and take a short cut across a heavily wooded island to get to the other side before the rest did. It was a hot day and we were sweating and only wearing our Speedos. About two days later, I realized an important lesson about life. If you are going to run through the woods in a Speedo carrying a canoe, be sure that you know what poison ivy looks like!

Sometimes things, even small things, happen in the course of our lives and at the time seem insignificant but later prove otherwise. Such was the case when Al Zawacki a swimming instructor at Patton Pool called me over to the side while I swimming during a recreational teen-swim and said, "you've got a good breaststroke kick, why don't you come out for the swimming team?" I didn't even know at that point what the breastsroke was. I had seen some pirates in a movie using that stroke and I thought it looked cool. However, that single event set off a chain reaction that every major factor in my life 37 years later can somehow be traced to. The friends I have, my job, place I live, my wife, religion, health, and the books I like all can be linked to that one event. What would my life have been like if it didn't happen? Would it have been better? I doubt it. (3/97)