Update 3-13-07

Hi,

Let's start with the slightly offensive and not very serious.  From Robert Fiveson:  A little known Hollywood fact about the Our Gang comedies history -- the actor playing "Buckwheat" later became a devout Muslim and changed his name to "Kareem of Wheat."
        Thank you very much.  I'll be here all week.  (And try the veal.)
   
    More seriously, from Grace Dibble Kincade:  Thanks for the birthday wishes.  I am very grateful to have reached the sixty-year mark and hope I still have a few more good years left.  Who knows what wondrous drugs they might come up with?
        I have actually been celebrating since the 23rd.  My husband had a surprise party for me at a local restaurant, with seven other couples.  Then about eleven o'clock that night, our daughter arrived from New York.  She had to go back on Sunday, but she was here!  Last weekend, we spent at Morro Bay on the California coast with friends from Oregon.  If you're ever in the area, try the Sow's Ear in Cambria -- everything is fabulous!  Happy celebrating to all the other sixty-year olds.
   
    From Zelda White Nichols, for Betsy Fels Pottruck '67 -- I remember "Sky King."  My favorite shows back then were "Sky King," "Fury," and "Lassie," along with all the westerns that my dad and I watched, like "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Rawhide," "Maverick," "Roy Rogers," "The Lone Ranger," and "The Rifleman."
        And for Marc Jonas -- I remember that Joey Heatherton had a singing career for a while.  Her songs were on the radio, and I also remember what she looked like.  If I am correct, she was very pixie-like, with short platinum blond hair.
   
    From Peggy Cooper Schwartz:  Joey Heatherton also played Liesel in The Sound of Music on Broadway, although I don't believe she was the original actress playing that part.  She sang "Sixteen Going on Seventeen."


From Amy Lieberman:   I loved Penny in "Sky King" on Saturday mornings -- every Saturday morning!  And I loved Wall's Bakery.  My dad would always take me with him to pick up a rye, and then he'd walk me into the back area and one of the baker's -- actually I think it was Mr. Wall himself  (what was his name?) -- would hand me a cookie right out of the oven.  Always.  It was a ritual with us for many years.

From Marc Jonas:  I'm reluctant to mention this to Betsy Fels Pottruck, but "Sky King" was available on VHS, and maybe it's now on DVD.  And his nephew's name was Clipper, I believe.

Marc also sent an old picture of Joey Heatherton performing with Bob Hope, probably on a USO tour of Vietnam.  She looked hot.  He looked well-preserved -- and he was probably only 60.

Barbara Blitfield Pech sent a recent picture of the actors who played Eddie Haskell, Beaver, and Wally, all looking very old.  Very old.
    Plus,
Barbara added:  Greetings.  With all the possible responses to this week's update, of course my first allegiance is to my hips.  While visiting Robin Feit Baker a year-or-so ago, one of the vital road trips was to Wall's Bakery.  Needless to say, I stammered and just about fell apart, but persevered.  We parked and entered from the rear of the store.  If you recall, there was a long hallway that ran the length of the shop to the actual bakery.  No sooner was the door opened, when the warm, buttery, cinnamon-chocolate-bread-cake-cookie-pastry scent filled my nose, heart, and soul, and I lost it.  I was so overwhelmed by nostalgia and emotion that I cried out $30.00's worth of traveling pasty and bread.  Yes, they are very much still open -- and worth the three weeks on the Stairmaster that it took me to repent

From Arlene Ainbinder, in response to Ray Staley's questions about Wall's Bakery in Hewlett on Broadway:  Yes, it's still there and still excellent.  In fact, when we had our 40th reunion, two of my classmates had to stop there to get a soft rye and ruggalah to bring back to Boston and Montreal.

From Steve Cahn:  I think the Brooklyn bakery you are talking about is Ebinger's.  It had two branches, I think, and used to deliver to the Green Acres community in a truck -- like Charles Chips.  Do you remember that one?  Pretzels and chips in those big metal canisters?
    I also remember getting the milk delivered by men in white uniforms, with white military officer-style hats.  They left milk, cheese, cream, and butter and eggs in a metal milkbox outside my back door.  Fruit and vegetables were also delivered from a produce truck complete with scales.  And bread was delivered, but I don't remember the brand.  Soda and seltzer were delivered on a truck which carried all the national brands, plus the regional brand, Cott.  and, of course, there were ice cream trucks -- Good Humor, Dairy Crest, Bungalow Bar, and Mr. Softee with that horrific tune playing over and over and over and over.  There was also Chow Chow Cup -- Chinese food from a truck.  Anyone else remember that?  Also, I remember trucks coming around in the summertime with carnival type rides.  The whip.  The half-moon rocker.  Spinning teacups.  That was the great thing about being baby-boomers.  There were so many of us that everything came right to our doors.
    Also, does anyone have any info on Gene Barkin?  Lois and Sherry Gordon?  Valerie Temple?  Carol Anne Rosiepe?  Gary Sherwood?

From Judy Hartstone:  Ah, now you've hit a note!  Shlucker's was next to Royal Farms, in a little two-store outlying area of the shopping center, sort of near the movie theater, I think.  Wonderful memories!  Every Sunday, or nearly so, I would either go in the car with my father or ride my bike to Royal Farms, for bagels, fresh cream cheese, a small container of chive cheese for me, (belly) lox, Nova, a nice white fish, a few slices of sturgeon, and maybe a little sable fish.  Then, I'd got next door to Shlucker's for a box of assorted box donuts and Danish.  These would all go on the breakfast table, along with the Sunday newspaper, and breakfast would ensue.  My father had a particularly charming practice of cutting donuts and Danish into quarters, so you could have a little this, a little that -- a practice I have continued whenever faced with a plate of Danish or muffins.  The flavors of those Sunday mornings have never been duplicated, and the memories get richer with each passing year.

From Ryki Zuckerman:  Shlucker's blackout layer cake!  Chocolate to die for!  I think my mom got one for my brother's stateside wedding party, and I'm pretty sure that was in the 70's, but I could be wrong.
    I also remember sitting in my parents' basement as a child, drawing with the special crayon on the plastic screen I'd sent away for, on a very old early TV -- my dad was an electronics engineer, so it was really early -- during "Winky Dink."  My mother never paid much attention to TV or kid culture of the day, and when she came upon me drawing on the TV, she had a conniption fit.  This was probably a scenario mirrored in many other households, and perhaps it's already been written about by some South 65'ers.  There is a "Winky Dink" site on the web, but I'm sure that's also been written about here.

Quickly:  Jerry Bittman and Allen Moss sent longer notes, which you'll see next week.

A reminder:  There's an Alumni Association meeting at South this Thursday night, March 15th, at 7:15 in the school library.

Finally, again from Ryki Zuckerman:  This came up at the Yahoo help site when I was trying to find out why Yahoo was bouncing all AOL e-mail for a few days.  Other people had posed my question, but there didn't appear to be any answers.  While scrolling through the other questions, I found this and realized probably no one at Yahoo was reading the questions for a good reason.  I think it's a hoot, and, no, I didn't write it.
    Question:  How do I keep a NASA astronaut from stalking me?  I keep getting threatening e-mails from some nasa.gov e-mail address saying I am being watched .  And I get pictures of my house from space, including infrared photos showing me.  I thought I was watching a meteor shower, but it seems to be localized to where I am at.  I went out of town for a few days and found a used, adult-sized diaper sitting on my doorstep when I came home.  My satellite dish only gets some weird webcam on all channels of someone floating in no gravity.  I keep getting gift baskets of Tang and toothpaste-style food.  Someone decorated a flower garden in my yard using real moon rocks.  I opened my garage and found a stolen moon rover parked in it.  It was supposed to be sunny skies, but there is some kind of space shuttle-shaped shadow continuously over my house.  I received a bouquet of flowers not indigenous to earth.