Update 5-1-07

Hi,

Memories of bands, clothes, food, sex, and Vince Tampio.

From Irene Saunders Goldstein:  I wonder if any other marching band geeks remember that we were commissioned to help celebrate the opening of the Green Acres movie theater.  It was a blast, and we each got a gift certificate for one free movie admission.
   
    [Rich -- But did you ever use it?  I think everyone in the first night audience got one of those certificates, and mine sat in my desk for years.  I didn't go to that theater a lot.  I don't know why.]
   
    From Peter Rosen:  For guys who didn't venture into the Five Towns to go clothes shopping at the Cricket Shop, there was always Tress in the Green Acres Shopping Center.
        Judy Fingerhut was one of my first girlfriends, and to this day, I still can't believe I was lucky enough to be her boyfriend for a while.  I guess the only reason I mention this is because of all the talk about making out in last week's letter.
        Also, I am so enjoying all the memories of the different restaurants, foods, and bakeries that are being submitted, and Jerry Bittman was spot on about us going to Cooky's.  We used to go after basketball games on Friday nights, and I used to order the triple deli sampler sandwiches, with corned beef, pastrami and I forget what the third meat was.  Also, at lunch, once we could drive, Artie Halpern, Stu Glasser, and others used to go over to Shore's and just make it back in the nick of time for our next class.
   
    From Jean Cohen Oklan:  I asked my husband, who grew up in Oceanside, if he ever went to make-out parties.  Stupid question.  His eyes lit up like a little kid's, and yadda, yadda, yadda -- what we remember! 
        I recall an incident that happened at Brooklyn Avenue, in Mrs. Newman's third grade classroom, and it always brings a smile to my face.  We came in from recess and were hanging up our coats in the cloak room -- yup, you heard me.  It only had one sixty-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling, making it a bit dark.  This is when I received my very first kiss -- and it was from Paul Zegler!  Within a few seconds, into the cloakroom ran Eric Hilton, and he planted my second kiss!  Now, I was really liking this, so I sent my girlfriend posse out into the classroom to bring in Thomas Romano.  Thomas Romano sent my posse back saying he was not coming into the cloakroom to kiss me!  So there you have it.  I have a feeling you three guys do not remember this, and that's okay.  I feel so much better now.  Whew.
        Happy Spring!
   
    From Ira Mitzner:  Stu Borman's recollection of make-out parties brought back memories, but not very good ones.  I remember finally getting up the courage to ask Alison Altman to an AZA party, with the hope that it would end up in a make-out session.  When I got to the party, Stu Kandel came up to me and said that he and Alison were dating, and how about if we traded dates.  I reluctantly agreed and cannot remember who I got in the trade, but I didn't like it.  I was never good at attracting the opposite sex until I became a wrestler.  At seventeen, I did make out with Robin Seader briefly -- we had to get on the floor because she was a head taller than I was.  But my first full make-out session was with Rachael Robinson, now Rachael Mitzner.
        Also, Bob Fiveson, Jay Tuerk, and I were in a band, "The Fabulars."  We needed an extra microphone, and one day Jay showed up with a nice one.  When I asked where he got it, he told me he had been to a hotel in the Catskills that weekend with his parents.  I didn't ask.
   
    Back to the present, from Emily Klleinman Schreiber:  At our last Alumni Association meeting, we decided to change the May meeting date to May 31st.  There was a conflict with the South Parent Teachers Student Association dinner, which those present felt I should attend.  I hope this change doesn't cause a problem for any of you.
   
    This week's information on the Tampio/Gibson scholarships:  They're now three-fifths funded for this year.  We have $315 for the one honoring Vince, and $323 for the one honoring Booker.  I have to send the money to South in two weeks, so keep that in mind.  And please make the checks out to:  Rich Eisbrouch, and send them to me at:  23030 Dolorosa Street, Woodland Hills, California  91367.  In the bottom left corner of the check, indicate which award you're supporting, or if you want your contribution split between the awards.  Thanks.
   
Finally, some memories of Vince from an old friend of his, Tom Chestnutwood.  These came in a series of e-mails:
    Nice to see how Vince's students have remembered him.  Especially, the "Tampio Temper."  He'd like that.  He was a great influence on everyone he met.
    The only thing your class's obituary of Vince got wrong was that he wasn't from Ohio.  He was born and raised in Fredonia, New York, west of Buffalo.  Then he went to college in Ohio -- Bowling Green State University.  His parents had a restaurant in Fredonia until his father died while we at B.G. in the fifties.
    His boyhood friend John Joy still lives in Fredonia.  John had lived in New York City until the 1970s, when he had a rather bad motorcycle accident and returned home.  Vince had relatives who lived in Ohio, his aunts Sarah and Rose.  Sarah lived in Ashtabula, and after her husband was killed in a freighter sinking on Lake Erie, Vince's mother Ida moved to Ashtabula to be with Sarah.  We all use to spend a lot of time dining together because all three of them were excellent chefs.  And we went to the theater together in New York when Sarah and Ida would come to stay with Vince for several months each autumn.  I never knew Vince's dad Charlie, but I was quite close to his mother and Aunt Sarah.
    I would often ride out to Valley Stream with Vince to attend rehearsals and see various productions he was directing.  Then Vince and I both left New York in 1969.  I left in February, and Vince went in October.  I was living two floors above him in New York, in an identical apartment at 160 West 77th Street.  When I moved to Los Angeles, Vince wound up living just one street below my house in the Hollywood Hills.  We could still walk to each other's homes.
    I'm so glad I didn't go to Vince's funeral.  It was Bob and Marion's idea of what they wanted, not what Vince would have approved.  He would have been pissed, but he would still have enjoyed a good laugh.  I preferred to say good-bye in my own way.
    I always thought Bob -- who I do not know -- was from Fredonia, too.  If not, Vince must have met him while visiting one of his aunts in Ohio.
    I can only assume that Vince went to B.G. because it was ranked just behind Northwestern for its theater department in the early 1950s.  For many people, Northwestern was financially out of the question.  Also, he may have used the address of one of his relatives in Ohio to get past paying out-of-state tuition.
    The man who spoke with Vince every day was Frank Giordano.  He and Vince met somewhere in the late 1960s, while we were all working with the Prince Street Players.  That was a group in the Village which performed plays for children in the New York City area.  After Frank moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s, he and Vince started keeping in touch by phone every day.  It was Frank who called the police to check on Vince when he didn't hear from him and couldn't get in touch.
    I have been in the scenic department at CBS for over thirty years, the standby artist on The Bold & Beautiful for the past twenty.  Vince and I had worked at KCET back in the middle 1970s, and when he went to CBS as the lead man on the night crew, I went with him.  He actually got me into the business because he knew of my theater background, especially at B.G., building and painting sets.
    Vince had a couple of years on me.  I'll be seventy-three this year.  He always hated it when I'd tell people my age because he said that those who knew we'd been friends for so long would know how old he was.  I met him my second day on campus in the fall of 1952.  He was there to help in orientation and was also in rehearsals for a play.  A girl I had just met in one of my first classes said she had this guy she wanted me to meet, that I'd really like him because he was so charming and funny.  It was Vince.  That woman and I are still in touch, and Vince was the godfather of her son.  I have a photograph of a production of The Madwoman of Chaillot that we were all in that year, which I used to keep in my study in New York.  One day, Vince asked me to please put it away.  He had weighed quite a bit back in college and didn't want people to see him like that.  He was always very sensitive about his weight.