Update 5-23-06

Hi,

Lots of stuff.  Notes from people we know.  Obituaries about people we didn't know but knew about.  And the latest Alumni Association minutes.
   
    First, from Eric Hilton:  Thank you for Joe Caruso’s e-mail address.  I have just written to him.  Joe was one of my favorite teachers, and he kept me from quitting school in eleventh grade.  Instead, I joined the Navy after graduating in 1966.  And congratulations to Rich Sternhell and his daughter on the upcoming wedding.  My daughter Robyn Hilton will also be getting married, on this Friday, May 19th, in the Bahamas.  I get to walk her down the aisle as she and her mother are throwing up during the ceremony (I will make a mental note to steal an airsick bag from the airline).  Never having been in the Bahamas, I asked our old friend Tom Sisco, whose father owned "Ed’s Tropical Aquarium," what kind of shark repellent to use.  Tom, recommended bathing in a bucket of Chum and splashing a lot.  Now I'm no fisherman, even though I worked in East Rockaway for Claudia Walker’s dad at his fishing shop, but I think this might be bad advice.  Besides, I doubt if I can even carry Chum on the plane.  And If anyone knows if Lisa Berg has a website, I would love seeing her photos, being I was the Sperry/Unisys aerospace photographer for almost twenty years.  The most exotic places I got to photograph were the Brooklyn Navy yard and Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I found no lox!  And a last note to Barbara Blitfield Pech:  I hope we can finally get together with Terri when I return from the Bahamas, where I will be partying, dancing, and chumming with the sharks.
   
    [Rich --  Congratulations, Eric and your daughter.  And what's Chum?  Also, see the later note about Lisa Berg.]
   
    From Marion Wachtel:  Please note that my e-mail address has changed to:  emjay47@verizon.net.  Thanks.
   
    From Amy Lieberman, '68:  Would you please let whomever it is who is organizing the class of '66 reunion to include my brother Robert.  I'm sure he'd want to know about it since he's part of that class.  His e-mail address is:  bob@newshield.net
   
    From Betsy Fels Pottruck:  I just wanted to clear up that Mike Fiveson and Joanne Bellucci were in the class of '67, not '66.  Also, I would love to connect with Lisa Berg.  I have not seen her since she left South to attend Woodmere Academy in the tenth grade.  I know that she lived in Washington, DC for a long time, and I think I heard that she recently relocated to New York.  If she has an e-mail address or a website, could someone pass it on?  Thanks.
   
    [Rich -- as I wrote Betsy, all the information you need to see Lisa Berg's work and to contact her can be had if you put her name into Google.]
   
    From Peggy Cooper Schwartz:  Zelda Genin Kasten and I met for lunch around eight years ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It was a fun day.  We'd previously last met when we were around age eighteen.  Zelda has a daughter named Leah, who is around twenty-two now, and Zelda and her husband live in Atlantic Beach.  We've lost touch in the past few years, but my favorite Zelda memory is when I walked into her room when we were in tenth grade, and there was a new record going round 'n' round on her record player.  It was a young folk singer named Joan Baez, singing "Silver Dagger."  It was a pivotal life moment because in 1963, Jeryl Monsees and I went to the Newport Folk Festival, where we heard Joan Baez sing.  Along with:  Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Jose Feliciano, Peter, Paul and Mary, Theodore Bikel, Pete Seeger, Buffy Saint Marie, Johnny Cash and June Carter, Phil Ochs, and many others.  I never made it to Woodstock, but that weekend in Newport was magical.
   
    Next, pieces of three obituaries, largely from the Associated Press:
   
        Lew Anderson, who captivated youngsters as The Howdy Doody Show's final Clarabell the Clown, has died at the age of 84.  The musician and actor died Sunday of complications of cancer.  Long mute as Clarabell, Anderson broke the clown's silence in the show's final episode in 1960.  With trembling lips and a visible tear in his eye, he spoke the show's final words: "Goodbye, kids."  Though Anderson was not the only man to play Clarabell, "Buffalo Bob" Smith said he was the best.  With the Peanut Gallery looking on, Anderson used bicycle horns to give yes and no answers.  For more expressive moments, he wielded a bottle of seltzer.  The show, which launched in 1947 when televisions were still a novelty, was the first network weekday children's show.  Anderson joined "Doodyville," in 1954 and played the clown for six years.  Though his fame as Clarabell followed him throughout his life, Anderson was also a success as a musician and bandleader.  In recent years, his All-American Big Band appeared at New York's Birdland jazz club.  Anderson followed Bobby Nicholson, who later played Doodyville's J. Cornelius Cobb, into the role.  The first to play the mute clown was Bob Keeshan, who later became known as Captain Kangaroo.
     
        Frankie Thomas, a popular stage and screen juvenile actor in the 1930s, who gained widespread fame on TV in the early 1950s as the star of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, has died.  He was 85.  Thomas died Thursday of respiratory failure.  The Manhattan-born son of actors, Thomas established himself on Broadway in the early 1930s.  After appearing in the drama Wednesday's Child, the teenage Thomas came to Hollywood to appear in the 1934 film version at RKO.  Over the next few years, he shuttled back and forth between Hollywood and New York, appearing in plays such as Remember the Day, Seen But Not Heard, and Your Loving Son, and in films such as A Dog of Flanders, Boys Town, and The Major and the Minor.  Thomas also starred in Tim Tyler's Luck, a 1937 adventure serial, and he played Nancy Drew's droll boyfriend, Ted Nickerson, in four of the teenage sleuth films.  In 1950, he was cast in the role of Tom Corbett, a Space Academy cadet in training to become a member of the elite Solar Guard, 400 years in the future.  In landing the role, Thomas beat out a number of actors including Jack Lemmon.  "Frankie looked like the all-American boy," said Jan Merlin, who played the wisecracking cadet Roger Manning ("So what happens now, space heroes?").  The show debuted in October 1950 as a fifteen-minute, three-nights-a-week series on CBS and later expanded to thirty minutes.  It quickly caught on with viewers, who included a surprising number of adults.  "The disc jockeys all picked up our lingo," Thomas recalled in a 2005 interview.  "'Blast your jets,' 'Don't fuse your tubes,' 'Spaceman's luck.'  Eventually, there were 135 different products bearing the name of 'Tom Corbett,' and Kellogg renamed their second-biggest seller, Kellogg's Pep, the 'Solar Cereal.'"  After the TV series ended in 1955, Thomas gave up acting and wrote for television and radio. He then played on the bridge circuit with master players and taught recreational bridge.  At his request, Thomas was buried Tuesday in his Tom Corbett, Space Cadet costume.
   
        Freddie Garrity, the lead singer of the 1960s pop band "Freddie and the Dreamers," died on Friday in Wales.  He was 69.  His agent said Mr. Garrity had suffered from emphysema for several years.  Mr. Garrity, originally from Manchester, formed "Freddie and the Dreamers" in 1959.  They were signed by Columbia Records.  After some success in Britain, the group found work in the United States, and in 1965 hit the top of the American charts with, "I'm Telling You Now."  Mr. Garrity's exuberant stage performance led to a minor dance craze inspired by the hit song "Do the Freddie."
   
    Almost finally, the highlights of May 4th's Alumni Association minutes, as usual respectfully submitted by secretary Roberta Brill Birnel:  There were fourteen people in attendance: Joseph Anfora, Roberta Brill Birnel, Booker Gibson, Karen Grimm, Eileen Howell, Edie Mandel, Barbara Peres Napolitano, Claire Brush Reinhardt, Ray Richford, Emily Kleinman Schreiber, Dennis Shapiro, Eric Spinner, Irene Sundal, and new attendee Terry Gunderson Kaiser.  Emily reviewed the March 11th celebration and thanked everyone who helped make it a success.  A 2006 South High School yearbook insert that commemorates the school’s 50th anniversary was given out to attending members.  Those members who did not attend the celebration, and therefore, did not receive the Memory Book, will be getting them in the mail while the supply lasts.  Dennis Shapiro has inquired about a postal license.  We learned that a display would be set up at the school which will showcase both photos from March 11th and the sign-in boards made by Laura Ulric and signed by those who attended the alumni luncheon.
        Dennis Shapiro presented the treasurer’s report.  We now have $4,378.93 in our treasury and 268 members in the association.  We discussed the need to send e-mails to alumni who have not yet joined the association to urge them to do so.  Eileen Howell suggested trying to enlist new graduates.  Other fundraising ideas were to have association parties, to sell mugs at school functions (for example, the Homecoming game in the fall), and to recruit new members at individual class reunions.
        Emily read a notice for improving the inner courtyard of the school.  The notice was presented to the association by student Terrance Wagner. The members discussed donating a bench or presenting a gift to the school at the Award’s Night on June 7th.  We decided to contribute $200 for a garden bench or a tree and to include a plaque of recognition that will acknowledge the association.
        Member Joseph Anfora generously offered to contribute $500 to be presented to a student in honor of the reactivation of the association.  Criteria for a school scholarship must be set.  Barbara Napolitano suggested that we should not overreach by giving an Alumni Association scholarship this year.  Edie Mandel expressed concern about other schools, particularly at the elementary level, looking to the association for financial contributions.
        New business began with a discussion of Ken Ulric's idea to plan a theater party to the Westbury Music Fair.  Peter, Paul, and Mary will be there on August 5th at 8:00 PM.  We wonder if any alumni will be interested.  And Emily received an e-mail regarding an upcoming reunion that’s being planned by the classes of ’74 through ‘76, though people from other classes are welcome to attend.  It will be held at Mushroom Park in Lido Beach on August 13th from 10:00 AM to sundown.  If you're interested in attending, e-mail Dough Benison at:  DBenison@optonline.net, or Debbie Faithfull at:  DFaithfull@yahoo.com.  Also, the classes of '61 to '63 are planning another 1-2-3 reunion, this one on October 28th.  And the class of '66 is planning a fall reunion.
        Also, please note:  the meeting scheduled for June 1st has been rescheduled.  Our next meeting will be June 15th in South High School's faculty cafeteria at 7:15 PM.  All members are encouraged to attend.
   
    Finally, it seems to be an especially silly season for news.  This week there have been stories in The New York Times both on the popularity of Nevaeh ("heaven spelled backwards") as a girl's name, and the ascending length of men's bathing suits (4" inseams).  Plus, the FBI thinks it's found what's left of Jimmy Hoffa.