LOUISE ORNDORFF'S TRIBUTE TO PATSY KINDSETH

From the Pioneer Press Bulletin board of Sunday, August 31. The sub story of interest is "LIFE (AND DEATH) AS WE KNOW IT" byline by Weezi: "My Siamese twin died on July 21." The story is copied here and tells of the Siamese twins Louise "Weezi" Orndorff and Patsy Kindseth outfitted in Tiny Enghelman's overalls for Hobo Day at Farmington Public School. http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/living/people/6642765.htm

LIFE (AND DEATH) AS WE KNOW IT

Writes Weezi: "My Siamese twin died on July 21.

"We existed for only a day. That one day was bright and crisp, in October 1951: Hobo Day, when the two of us dressed in one pair of overalls and went through all our classes as if we were joined at the hip. Patsy and I were in the seventh grade. We borrowed overalls from a man named 'Tiny.' We thought of doing this for Hobo Day, decided to ask Tiny, asked him, he said yes, we each jumped in a leg of his overalls and took off for school that day. It was simple.

"Hobo Day was a part of our school's homecoming celebration. For this occasion, we were encouraged and permitted to dress down/up for school that day. (The way Patsy and I were dressed caught the interest of a local newspaper reporter, and we were mentioned in a story.)

"Other festivities were the annual snake dance and bonfire. Schoolmates grabbed hands, forming what seemed a mile-long line, and ran, whooping and hollering, winding our way through the town's streets after dark in the snake dance — ending up at the bonfire. We arrived full of that wonderful feeling of belonging, both contributing to and included in the occasion. It was a huge fire, fueled by cast-off lumber, tree limbs and occasionally an outhouse, all having been on some school employee's mental inventory for months and finally located, gathered and trucked to a ball field near the school and stockpiled a couple days before the event. There was pep-band music, school songs, rah rah rah. Led by cheerleaders, we belittled in rhyme the team and school opposing ours at the following night's homecoming football game. Similarly, we cheered the wonders and power of our team and school. We were the best. No one would forget, of all schools, ours was the best, and of all the classmates, ours were the brightest and dearest. After the bonfire died down, we sat around and talked about which of the kids who graduated before us were coming home from college or job for homecoming. If we had ideas on where we might be in a couple of years, we talked on into the night. We tried our darnedest to be noticed by the boys. We went home with the scent of smoke in our hair and clothes and knowing life was good.

"Our 44-year class reunion, in the summer of 2001, brought Patsy and me together (one from the Gulf Shore of Mississippi, and one from the Twin Cities metro area). We had seen each other but several times in the past 44 years. I wasn't sure what her last name was, and she did not know mine — but when you have been friends, as most of our class had been, through all those growing-up years of grade school, junior high and senior high, we picked right up where we left off. We yakked about what had been going on in our lives, and thanks to the reunion committee, we went home with current last names, phone numbers, street and e-mail addresses of classmates. Patsy called me one night in late October of that year. That was our last conversation. I think she was moved to make the call because she received from a dear classmate, a copy of a clipping from a recent edition of the hometown newspaper recalling our Siamese-twin story. Another dear classmate had a copy hand-delivered to my door. The article was in the '50 Years Ago' column.

"Fifty years … it's a blink of the eye."