Update 3-25-08

Hi,

First, best to Ellen Epstein Silver, her husband Alan, and their family.  Their daughter Lisa is recovering from a stroke.
   
    Next, some notes about and some corrections to last week's class contact list.
   
    From Mary Ferranti Khan:  It's hard to believe that after over 40 years, you are still in touch with over 150 of us.
   
    [Rich -- As I wrote Mary, a lot of that has to do with Paul DeMartino -- who seems to have found 150 of our former classmates all by himself.]
   
    From Amy Miller:  I am green with envy -- appropriate, I guess, on St. Patrick's Day -- that you have located so many people from your class.  I keep trying but haven't had much luck with the class of 1963.  I have only found around 50-or-so of 238.  Back in 1988, when I organized the class of 1963's 25th reunion, I went to the Nassau County phone book and found the addresses of enough parents that I was able to find about 100 classmates.  Finding people through classmates.com isn't as easy as I had hoped because, as I suspect you know, when you e-mail people, it goes via the classmates.com web site, and people don't update their e-mail addresses.  I've gotten only a handful of people this way.  Do you have any other advice for me for finding people?
   
    [Rich -- I also wrote Amy, praising Paul DeMartino's work and recommending that she contact him for advice.  Then I sent Paul Mary and Amy's notes.]
   
    Paul wrote back:  Thanks for the nice words about my detective skills.  Of course, I'll gladly offer advice to all those searching for names from the past.
   
    From Roz Minsky Bobrow:  What a trip down memory lane reading the class names.  I would like very much to update my bio on the class web site.  Is there a way to do that?
   
    [Rich -- As I mentioned last week, I'm planning to delete all the old bios on the class web site and replace them with the updated e-mail addresses.  It's amazing how quickly out-of-date our only seven-year-old bios have gotten.  Also, almost no one is interested in updating them.]
   
    From Peter Rosen:  First, if you are familiar with LinkedIn, we can set up a South High group.  The site has a profile form.  I'm already listed on the site and have been contacted by a lot of old friends.
        Also, do you remember Marty Marcus, who ran the Little League in Green Acres?  Marty and Sylvia are the parents of Melanie Marcus '69.  Well, one weekend my older daughter and her husband came visiting us with their good friend Marisa Glassman.  She happens to be Melanie's daughter and Marty's granddaughter.  We ended up calling Melanie and spent a lot of time catching up.
        Finally, I'll be in the Los Angeles -- specifically Huntington Beach -- at a conference from Friday, April 11th to Wednesday, April 16th.  Any chance of a small get-together?
   
    [Rich -- Peter said the best night for an informal gathering would be on Saturday, April 12th, so that's what we're aiming for.  At very least, he and I will have dinner.  But it would be great for anyone in the area to join us -- and you don't have to be from the class of '65.  If it makes things easier, we could move this closer to LA, though Huntington Beach seems accessible.  We don't have a lot of time to plan this, so anyone interested in getting together for dinner, either write Peter directly or me at this address.  Thanks.]
   
    From Ronnie Eichinger:  I would like to remain on the class reunion list as I've gotten used to reading the adventures and misadventures of Bob's classmates.  It's a real pleasure to hear from such a diverse group.
   
    And the corrections:
   
    From Judy Zinger:  My brother Barnett and I do not have the same e-mail address.  The listed e-mail address is mine.  Barnett's is:  barnhel405@comcast.net
   
    [Rich -- I knew that, but I couldn't get Barnett's address to work for the last few months.  So I figured it was better to list his sister's than none at all.  Turns out that I was using the wrong address for Barnett.  Sorry.]
   
    From Stu Kandel:  Please change my e-mail address to sgkandel@aol.com   Thanks.
   
    From Evelyn Roedel Read:  It was probably a typing error, but my listing should be:  '59 Roedel (Not Roddel).  Thanks.
   
    [Rich -- Yep, idiot fingers.]
   
    From Joanne Shapiro Polner:  Fredda Schiff -- class of '60 -- and Alan Harris -- class of '59 -- are married, so you actually have two contacts.  But you need to correct Fredda's class year.
   
    [Rich -- Finally, the beginning of a report:
        As I mentioned, I was heading to New York last week, to help celebrate my mom's 80th birthday.  And, no, she wasn't a child bride.  My dad married again after my mother died, but that was over fifty years ago, so my sister, my brothers, and I don't make a distinction.
        I usually fly from Burbank to Philadelphia, partly to avoid LAX and the New York airports, and partly to see some cousins who live in southern New Jersey.  This trip, I also had lunch with Marc Jonas and Rich Sternhell.
        Marc and I had seen each other at the 37th reunion and had kept occasional e-mail contact.  Rich and I hadn't seen each other since he graduated in '64, but we became reacquainted quashing e-mail rumors that he was dead.  Although Marc and Rich have both lived in Philadelphia for some time, they hadn't seen each other since high school.
        We met at the William Penn Tavern, in a quiet upstairs room, and talked for three hours.  Some of it was about high school, but more was about politics, of many kinds.  When I mentioned that I wasn't going to write about any of this for the newsletter, they said, "Why not?"  I explained that I keep my life separate from my writing for the class, and this is a shared newsletter, not a personal blog.  They said some things could probably overlap.  So that's why I'm writing about who I saw and spoke with over the four days.
        Some of the things Marc, Rich, and I spoke about should also interest the joined classes, and when I passed these ideas on to other people, they added their ideas.  But I'll write about that eventually.  First, I want to mention the people.
        After Tuesday lunch with Marc and Rich, I drove to New York.  Wednesday morning, I was at South at 7:30, to help with Career Day.  The bridge is still locked off, and it was too rainy to walk the long way -- which is all of a mile -- so I drove.  Inside, the school was warm, dry, institutional green, but also disconcertingly red.  Our old lockers have long since broken down and have been replaced by larger ones, but these are enameled deep scarlet.  It makes the hallways look like constant Christmas.
        We met in the new library.  When the Alumni Association minutes mention that the new library is in the former courtyard, but that the courtyard is also being beautified, I haven't been able to figure out those locations.  It turns out the new library isn't new construction filling the courtyard.  It's a renovation of building that was done when we were in school.  The new library actually fills most of the space that walled in the overhang of the second floor and sealed off the courtyard.  Wednesday morning, snacking on Irish soda bread and corn muffins, I figured I was standing at just about the place my desk sat when Mr. Hartman -- I never bothered to learn his first name -- repeatedly told me that I had the spelling ability of, perhaps, a fourth-grader.
        More, next week.]