Grade School Sweethearts Take a Stroll Down Memory Lane

Last week when Banning resident Dr. Bob Percy and his grade-school sweetheart Jerrie Lee McClusky (née Vitalie) of West Covina decided to take a tour of their hometown of Colton, they made a stop at Washington High School, where the two attended elementary school in the late 1930s and early 1940s. They wanted to check out the building and reminisce about the school where they both learned and grew, but they were also curious to see if the tree where Percy once carved their initials still stood on campus grounds. Indeed, at the north end of the campus, the tree still stands. While attending first grade at Washington, then known as Washington Elementary School, in 1939, Percy said that he was struck with admiration so strong, he wanted to immortalize it. One day with a pocket knife, he carved his initials next to Jerrie Lee’s into the bark of the tree. “Jerrie was my first puppy love,” Dr. Bob Percy said. “So I carved our initials into that tree.” He carved “WP + JLV.” In those days, Percy went by his middle name, Wayne. The JLV represented his first love, Jerrie Lee Vitalie. McClusky had not been privy to the initials Percy carved into the tree all those years ago, she said. Rather, she found out about them just a few months ago, after Percy divulged to her that he’d left the initials in grade school. The two met at Washington Elementary and would go on through junior high and high school together. They dated off and on throughout the years. Their senior year, Percy, then captain of the football team, asked Jerrie Lee, Homecoming Queen, to prom. After high school, the two parted ways , met and married their respective spouses and began families—Percy practiced for 32 years as a dental surgeon in San Bernardino; he and his wife, Janet, had four children together (three boys and one girl). McClusky and her husband Gerald also had four children (two girls and two boys). McClusky raised her children as a stay-at-home mom and at the age of 40, began taking stenography lessons—she then went to work for the Southern Pacific Railroad as a case reporter. Both Percy and McClusky would meet intermittently after high school, seeing each other at high school reunions and from time to time in the community. When Percy’s wife Janet passed away in February of this year, he turned to his friend McClusky for friendship. McClusky could empathize, as six years prior, she had laid her husband, Gerald, to rest. “We both went through a sort of social loneliness,” said Percy. “She showed up at my wife’s memorial service and we talked through the tough time,” he said. “We grew closer.” Monica Aguilar, who works in the attendance office at Washington High School and who has been working with the Colton Joint Unified School District (CJUSD) for 21 years, shared her excitement at seeing the couple reunite at Washington. “They looked so good, and they reminisced about so many things,” Aguilar said. Washington High School Principal Pete Tasaka said, “I believe Washington represents a lot of good and a lot of help. This [school] brought back a lot of good memories for [Percy and McClusky], even 73 years later.” The trip to their hometown of Colton allowed both Percy and McClusky to walk together down Memory Lane, and they started where their admiration began all those years ago in elementary school. “We were really overwhelmed by the welcome the school gave us,” McClusky shared. “By the time we got out to the tree, the teachers had come out to meet us.” “At first I inspected the tree and I didn’t find anything on it,” said Percy of last week’s visit. “But then one of the security guards suggested, ‘Hey, Bob. You were probably a little guy when you carved that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I was.’ So he said, ‘Maybe it’s up there.’” The couple was joined last week by Washington High School staff members who were interested in the story. One spotted some carving high up on the tree. “They could see it better than Jerrie or I,” said Percy, “but they said they could make out a J and a V.” McClusky said, “We were thrilled to death our tree was still there.” Percy finished, “Though we couldn’t definitively see the initials, we decided that, whether they’re ours or not, we prefer to think that they are.”