Update 1-20-09

Hi,

First, I know a number of people who get this newsletter live in the Washington, D.C. area.  Could you tell us how you're spending today?
   
    Next, some notes, a Florida mini-reunion invitation, and some reflections on the 1950's.  I know many of you have probably already gotten the invitation from the class of '66, but I'm including it because some people don't open e-mail from addresses they don't recognize, some people don't download attachments, and not everyone who gets this newsletter is on the class of '65 mailing list.
   
    From Amy Bentley, regarding the Reisings:  I could be wrong, but in high school, I seem to remember a younger Reising, and I graduated in 1971.  So there may be a third cousin you could search for.
   
    From Robert Fiveson:  My son was here for his Christmas break.  We were at the airport but decided not to fly because there were gusting winds between twenty-five and thirty miles per hour.  We were about to go home when we got word that an instructor we had met and chatted with just two hours earlier was reported missing and was seen spiraling into the lake nearby.  This lake is remote and has crocs.  This four-minute video is what happened next.  Wear ear phones or turn the sound up if possible.  Oddly enough, after a career which encompasses almost 900 productions, this is the first time I have ever edited on my own home computer.  I had to learn as I went.  The link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4xoU_2GDMU
   
    A link to another video, from Jerry Bittman, though this one not personally made:  I hope you take the time to watch and listen to this video.  It was conceived by TV producer Norman Lear and songwriter Keith Carradine.  I have a gut feeling that you will want to forward it to your loved ones and friends.  Ask  them to keep it going, and be sure that your volume is on.  Go to:  bornagainamerican.org
   
    The following invitation included a note that one of our teachers, Ruth Bushnell, had died.  I'm not sure if we already knew that, and I can't absolutely remember what she taught.  Possibly English.  In any case, I was sorry to hear of her death.
   
    The class of '66 mini-reunion invitation, from Eileen Gunderson Gelet and Joan Kass Lipson:  Last February, a group of about thirty of us gathered at Duffy's in Boca Raton, Florida, to reminisce and reacquaint ourselves with friends and former classmates.  Thanks to the efforts of Paul Breiter, it was a positively memorable evening.
        Now, we are reaching out to everyone in the graduating classes of '65 and '66, hoping to pique your interest and have you join us this year, again at Duffy's.  We found your class list through your blogspot.
        Following are up-to-the minute details about the reunion, including a list of acceptances and regrets.
    Please don't hesitate to contact us if you're interested in joining the party.  We'd appreciate getting your RSVP by Saturday, January 31.
        Best regards,
        Eileen Gunderson Gelet:   egelet@verizon.net
        Joan Kass Lipson:            jlipson@optonline.net
    When:  Saturday, February 7, 2009, 7:30 PM.  We have a “private” area reserved for the evening 
    Where:  Duffy’s in Boca Raton, 21212 St. Andrew’s Boulevard, Boca Raton, Florida  33433-2420
    Telephone:  561-869-0552    Web site:  www.duffyssportsgrill.com   The restaurant is near the Town Center Mall. 
    Approximate cost per person:  $35+/- for dinner ordered from menu and light appetizers.   Beverages are not included in this price.  Please bring cash or a personal check as we will split the tab evenly, with a separate tab for drinks ordered at the table.
    Tentative list of acceptances, as of 1-17-09:  Arlene (Ainbinder) Lynn, Veronica (Balesis) Genco, Marcia Baskin, Paul Breiter, Peggy Cooper Schwartz ('65), Mark Dickson, Pam Dolber, Mark Gladstone, Eileen (Gunderson) Gelet, Shirley (Hess) Deutsch, Eric Hilton, Susan (Joseph) Tuckerman, Joan (Kass) Lipson, Skipp Kolesnick. Lucille Morris, Craig Purcell, Russell Raye, Hiram Rosov, Bob Rudolph, Lisa (Schade) Deason, Michael Schimmel, Lauren (Shapiro) Klinger, Ted Spiegel, Josh Tolkoff, Marilyn (Weiner) Kugler
    Tentative list of regrets, as of 1-17-09:  Barbara (Blitfeld) Pech, Donna Chirico, Ellen Eiger, Bonnie (Halper) Cunningham, David Klatell, Peggy (Orr) Como, Jeff Schachner, Michael Schimmel, Jane (Selwyn) Colman, Susan (Silverman) Hartblay, Alan Speth.
   
    Finally, some thoughts from one of our star investigators, Joanne Shapiro Polner, initiated, I think, by Barbara Blitfield Pech's answer to "What is a fender skirt?"
        Sometimes at a gas station, I find myself asking for "high test."  Now that I am officially old enough to be driving a Grand Marquis, I can be expected to use old terminology, can't I?  High test, Texaco boys, changing a tire, changing the oil, lying on the back of the back seat up where the window was, no seatbelts, no TVs, nothing to eat for miles and miles getting to vacation.  I am back in elementary school.  Walk with me a bit.
        In elementary school, we wore basketball sneakers -- the only sneakers we were allowed to wear as sneakers were not considered good for children's feet.  They were too hot.  They didn't "breathe" like our leather school shoes.  No one wore man-made material shoes for school.  A basketball sneaker was high up the ankle to protect it.  In the modern era, basketball sneakers were called "high tops" and came in an array of colors.  Girls and boys wore them as fashion.  One time, the fashion was to not tie the laces.  Another time, it was to have no laces at all.  Low-cut sneakers for girls had to be polished with white, liquid shoe polish on the days when there was inspection in gym class.  Our moms wore low cut shoe/sneakers with thick white or tan "crepe" soles.  And there were boat shoes with laces, canvas top, and thick soles.  Sneakers were, first, only for gym.  Then, if you were taking tennis lessons, you had to wear them.  And finally, they were the footwear of choice for all children.
        Do you remember when corduroy was popular?  Cotton.  We wore cotton.  The more expensive slacks -- they weren't pants; they were slacks -- had a velvety and thick nap fabric.  We wore blue jeans or denim pants, and the boys were khakis.  Soon, ladies could buy khakis, too, but girls wore dresses and skirts and blouses to kindergarten and all grades thereafter.  No privacy skorts -- they came along in the 70s, I think.  A girl had to sit "just so," so people couldn't see her underpants.  You could put on fancy unders on top of your cotton ones.  We had nylon underpants with the names of the days of the week on them, one day per panty.  And there was always the boys' joking that if you look at a Catholic girl's shiny patent leather shoes on Sunday, you could see her panties reflected in the tops of the Mary Janes shoes.
        We wore Mary Janes -- wide strap across the instep -- in black patent leather only.  Then, later on, there were white Mary Janes for spring and summer dress-up.  Do you remember when girls wore short bands of artificial flowers in their hair, across the top or wrapped around ponytails?  And at the collars of our puffy-sleeved blouses in the '50s, we wore gold-colored safety pin-shaped pins, horizontally, with a special clasp so you wouldn't lose your bling -- a late-20th century word -- and sometimes, there were pearl drops or little flat hearts dangling from the two-inch bar.  There were also colored glass "stones" decorating any and all aspects of the object portrayed -- like a cat, a cuckoo clock, or a bird.  When we were teens, circle pins came to take on great significance.  Can anyone tell me what the rules were?
        Did you have a charm bracelet?  So much to be remembered on this topic.  I am sure that in my teens, I admired a hundred beautiful bracelets.  Some had lots of items hanging, but to get more charms, a wedding had to happen and babies had to come.  Maybe a trip somewhere out of the country.  I can't imagine all the reasons for a new charm.  We were poor, so I never had a charm bracelet.  What I think is, my mother never envisioned me having enough events in my childhood to merit gold charms, no less a fancy gold bracelet to begin with.  And she would never, ever, make hints to the relatives to buy me a charm, for -- what?  Graduation from high school?  From my aunt, mom's sister-in-law, I did get a graduation cap charm with a tassel and three tiny colored stones -- glass? -- one on each corner.  I wore my one and only charm ever on a thin 14 K gold necklace.
        Birthday parties:  thin candles, paper tablecloths, cake and ice-cream, and candy in small pastel-colored plastic baskets with scalloped top edges and with handles.  You could take one home, or the mother of the birthday girl would empty the candy into a paper bag for the guest, and the birthday girl could keep the baskets for next year's table decorations.  The guest might have gotten a gift at the party.  There were yoyos, set of jacks and a ball in a small bag, paddle boards with a small ball at the end of an elastic, and balsa pieces of a simple airplane, wrapped in a sealed paper slip.  The wood paddle with the ball was dangerous.  Your brother would try to smack you with the paddle or send the ball flying at you -- to hit you!  The elastic usually broke in a few days.  We had a game with movable tiles in a plastic square, and it came in a little, possibly nylon holder with a snap to close the "cover."  Such attention was paid to toys.
        I would like to know how to make those folded paper things that your wrote numerals on and color words on.  You held the paper thing over your thumbs and what other fingers?   Did those things have questions on them, too?  Please, somebody, remember, and tell me how we used those Fortune Tellers.
        Did you have a bank?  A silver animal, or was it shaped like a book?  Was it fragile, perhaps made of ceramic?  Mine was metal.  Did you have a baby cup?  A silver spoon?  A silver rattle?  When you played dress-up for cowboys, did you have chaps?  Cuffs?  A vest?  A hat?  A holster?  Cap guns?  The caps were red and came in rolls.  Your cowboys shirt had pearlized covered snaps.
        I'm fatigued from this memory-searching and recitation.  I'll end with a bedtime item.  Where is your teddy bear?  How does it look these days?  Does it have both eyes?  Is the original ribbon still on it?  Do you remember sleeping with it?  What is your teddy bear's name?  Next time, we'll talk about dolls and trucks.  You can contribute to that.  Write something.  We'll read it.
   
    [Rich -- I had a teddy bear.  I think it's still rotting in my parents' attic in the former Green Acres.  I don't remember sleeping with it.  I don't think it had a name.  I think it's missing an eye and was last seen, maybe twenty years ago, wearing a tux jacket from one of my sister Marilyn's oversized dolls.  The jacket was holding the bear's stuffing in.]
   
    The South '65 blog:  reunionclass65.blogspot.com
   
   
    Rich