When I saw the photo of Boomer the Cannon in the fall issue ("125 Things We Love About UNT"), it brought back memories of the first cannon I know of to be fired on campus.

In the 1960s, for one of my industrial arts classes, I built a small four-wheeled naval gun with a wooden chassis. We fired that gun for the first time when they lit the Homecoming bonfire -- I don't remember if it was 1963, '64 or '65. It was loud and lit up the sky. My two gunners and I warned everyone we were going to light it, and yelled "Fire in the hole!" but I still remember it scared one of the cheerleaders in mid-jump and she threw her megaphone 40 feet in the air.

I have a lot of good memories from my time at North Texas. I was a member of GIX (the ex-serviceman's fraternity) and lived on $110 a month. I remember Dyche's and Voertman's along with Perryman-Williams Drugstore and its club sandwiches, Mom's Café, the Catacombs, the Tower, the 300-pound eagle at the Sig Ep house, the phantom of Oak Street Hall. Everything north of the old hospital on the hill was a cow pasture.

We had some good times.

Baxter "Pete" Ireland
('61, '65 M.Ed.)
Sherman