STEVEN MAYER: 66-year-old photo brings back flood of memories
| Tuesday, Oct 27 2009 06:58 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Oct 27 2009 07:02 PM
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Michael Fagans / The Californian A series of photographs by Helen Lamb King of Ray Permenter, left, and Edward Lawrence "Larry" Sughrue, right, from the 1940s.
Michael Fagans / The Californian Larry Sughrue, the now identified sailor in the photograph with Ray Permenter, in the backyard of his home in Bakersfield on Tuesday afternoon.
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Sometimes a story in The Californian can light up the phone lines.
And that's not always a bad thing.
Retired football coach Ned Permenter said he's been getting calls and e-mails since Saturday when a story about his efforts to shine a spotlight on his cousin ran on the newspaper's front page.
Ned's cousin Ray Permenter was a 19-year-old bomber crewman who was killed during World War II when his plane was shot down over Austria in 1944.
Permenter Field at East Bakersfield High School was later named in honor of the war hero, but for years, many have assumed the football field was named for Ned, a Bob Elias Hall of Fame honoree and a legend in local football lore.
The confusion has bothered Ned for years, so he has been working to set the record straight.
To our delight, readers from that "greatest generation" have contacted The Californian to help identify the young sailor shown standing next to Ray in a 1940s-era photo that ran with Saturday's article.
"I enjoyed the story you did about Ray Permenter," Mary K. Shell wrote soon after the story hit the streets.
"I was at East Bakersfield High School with Ray," she said. "The other young man in the photo with him was Larry Sughrue."
In Saturday's photo caption, we referred to the young man standing next to Ray simply as an "unknown sailor." The photo had come from Ned, and he didn't know the name of the young man standing next to his cousin.
Now, suddenly, the "unknown sailor" had a name.
Then a call came in from the person who actually captured that black-and-white image.
Helen Lamb King, now 82, was probably 16 or 17 when she took some snapshots of the two friends who were both on leave before being shipped out to dangers and destinations unknown.
It was the last time his friends would see Ray Permenter.
"I took that photo in front of our home at 1220 Oregon St.," King recalled, choking back tears at the bittersweet memory. "It was a shock to me when I opened the paper on Saturday and saw those young men. We were all such good friends."
And Larry Sughrue, the rail-thin sailor looking so serious and handsome in those aging photos? Could he still be living in Bakersfield 66 years after a teenage girl captured a moment in time -- a moment when childhood ended for an entire generation of Bakersfield teens?
After so much time has passed, finding Sughrue seemed like a real longshot. Yet there he was, on the other end of the telephone line with Ned Permenter this week, offering to help build the memorial to his friend Ray.
Reached Tuesday, the 84-year-old said Saturday's story brought back a rush of memories.
"I enjoyed reading it," he said. "Then I turned the page and saw that photo -- and it hit me kind of funny."
Not the kind of funny that makes you laugh, but the kind that makes you remember, the kind that brings back the flush of youth, the old friendships, and the faces of those who never had the chance to return home to marriage, family and the sweetness of growing old with the one you love.
"That was the last time any of us saw Ray," Sughrue said.
But if you listen closely to those who knew him, a sweeter truth comes sharply into focus:
Despite the years that have passed, Ray Permenter has never been forgotten.
