Update 5-27-08

Hi,

A slew of letters in the order they arrived and a couple of possibly interesting articles.

From Barbara Blitfield Pech:  Uh-oh.  Just to advise, I, too, got an invitation to join Steve Cahns' hi5.  Who is he?
   
    [Rich:  As I wrote Barbara, "Steve is the devoted webmaster for South's class of '70 site."]
   
    From Emily Kleinman Schreiber:  I'm glad you mentioned the hi5.com e-mails.  I've also been receiving bunches of them.  I actually started to join, but when I was asked for my AOL password, I hightailed it out of there.
        Check out "hi5 (website) -- Wikipedia."  I went to Snopes, but it's not listed there.  All the names on the e-mail invitations I've been sent are from South, so maybe classmates.com is in cahoots with them.  If you learn any more about it, please let me know.
   
    From Robert Fiveson:  Rich, I read with interest your alluding to, but not revealing fully, your problem with palm trees growing through old drain pipes.  I understand, so I will keep it delicate:  You need more roughage in your diet.

    From Lynn Nudelman Villagran:  It 's great to hear how active and creative Hiram Rosov is.  I am now working on a team of geriatric specialists at the Memory Clinic at the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center in California  The team includes two geriatricians, a psychiatrist, a neuropsychologist, and a geriatric nurse specialist.  I am the social worker on the team, working with dementia patients and their families/caregivers.  I also co-lead a caregiver support group and a spouse's support group for those caring for loved ones with various forms of dementia.  It can be challenging, but it's also touching and inspiring to see how devoted family members are to keeping their loved ones at home for as long as possible.  I have learned a lot from the patients and families, and it feels good at age sixty to look forward to going to work every day.
   
    From Linda Tobin Kettering:  A belated thank you for running the article about my daughter, Skylar.  She was thrilled, and a bit embarrassed, when I showed it to her.  She is now signed up to take a two-week culinary course this summer, and she is also trying to get an apprenticeship at a local bakery.  If anyone has contacts at the Food Network, please let me know, as Skylar would be happy to do anything there, even the proverbial "sweeping the floors."  I also want to send a "hello" to Hiram Rosov, who I remember with great fondness.
   
    From Claire Brush Reinhardt:  I'm not sure why you could not open the article from Real Simple.  No one else seemed to have trouble with it.  In fact, I just clicked on the link and it worked.  As I mentioned before, you didn't need to put the article in the newsletter -- I was just being the proud mama and mama-in-law.  But in case you're still interested, try to open this one.
   
    [Rich -- And as I wrote Claire:  I could open the article and read it easily from the attachment you sent.  And it's a nice article, as I've mentioned; that's why I wanted to pass it on.  But the attachment is really a photograph of a printed page, which doesn't give me access to the text itself.  I could get that if the article were available online,  Then, I could copy and paste the text.  Or I could provide the link to the class.  I could presently add the attachment you just sent to the newsletter.  But I don't add photos or attachments because they often trigger spam filters.  That's why I've also started to remove hyperlinks.  So there was no easy way for me to pass the information on to the class even though you said it wasn't necessary.  Ah, the joys of technology.]

    From Judy Hartstone:  I went to the website to look up some old updates, but I guess the recent ones, from the past year, aren't there.  Still, I looked at the old photos and realized you don't have this one -- the best kindergarten class EVER!  My mother even wrote all the names on the back.
        Starting with the front row, left to right:
        1.  Barnet Zinger, Michael Flomp (now Michael Floyd), Andy Dolich, Barnet Kellman
        2.  Zelda Genin, Barbara Newman, Jane Ruzow, Marsha Churnin, Charlyn (something)
        3.  Nathaniel Gurin, Judy Shapiro, Judy Schulman, Harriet Buxbaum, Judy Hartstone, Peter Hendelman
        4.  Jeffrey Bauer, Ted Rosenbaum, Marc Jonas, Jay Sengstacke
        5.  Terry Shields, John Hupala, Jeffrey Edelson, Jay Berliner, Raymond Ruzek
        The teacher was Mrs. Humeston.  We were at Clearstream Avenue School because Forest Road School was under construction.  My biggest memory of kindergarten was having to stay after school one day as punishment for playing with the paper cutter after I'd been told NOT to play with the paper cutter.  The shame!  Lives with me still!  Mrs. Humeston was a very good teacher and a nice woman who lived on Ash Lane, next door to the Fellers.  Their kids were older and younger than our class.  I thought you might want to post the photo.
   
    [Rich -- The photo will be posted.  Soon.  Honest.  The back newsletters probably will not.  I stopped posting them weekly on the home page a couple of years ago for two reasons:  we were running out of space, and almost no one was reading them there.  People prefer getting them by e-mail.  But the newsletters are searchable on the home page, which is a convenience and one reason I should consider posting them -- after I delete a bunch of duplicate photos.  The problem is that even thinking about all that mouse clicking makes my fingers hurt.]

    From Zelda White Nichols:  If you’ve received an e-mail telling you that your cell phone is about to be assaulted by telemarketing calls as a result of a new cell phone number database, rest assured that this is not the case.  Telemarketing to cell phone numbers has always been illegal in most cases and will continue to be so.  In response to recent e-mail campaigns urging consumers to place their cell phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission issue this advisory to give consumers the facts.

    Also from Barbara Blitfield Pech:  While perusing my main page in Hotmail, I noticed a new signature offer and clicked to see that MSN, and I am sure your page's host, too, has established a program with charitable organizations to allow the use of their logos at the end of each note I send.  A donation will be made to them for the use of my advertising space.  Needless to say, I have chosen to sponsor the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.  Please check your home page under options/signatures to see if you can add your favorite charity's logo to your outgoing mail.

    Also from Emily Kleinman Schreiber:  As many of you know, I walked for the National Association on Mental Illness on May 18th.  Even though the NAMI Walk is past, NAMI still needs to reach its goal of $200,000, so they've asked me to continue to fundraise.  So far, I've raised $1755, and if some of you could please take a few minutes out of your busy lives to make a donation, that would be great.  Either use this link:  www.nami.org/namiwalks08/LIQ/Cre8em or send me a check made payable to NAMI Walks.  Emily Schreiber, 2950 Bellmore Avenue, Bellmore, New York 11710.  Thanks.
   
    Finally, that unrequired-if-possibly-interesting reading, stolen in my ongoing Abbie Hoffman style, from The New York Times:
   
    First, part of an obituary for Dick Martin, written by Neil Genzlinger and cribbed from yesterday's Times:  Dick Martin, a veteran nightclub comic who, with his partner Dan Rowan, turned a midseason replacement slot at NBC in 1968 into a hit that redefined what could be done on television, died Saturday in Santa Monica, California.  He was 86.
        “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” the hyperactive, joke-packed show that Mr. Martin and Mr. Rowan rode to fame, made conventional television variety programs seem instantly passé and the sitcom brand of humor seem too meek for the times. The show was a collage of one-liners, non sequiturs, sight gags and double-entendres the likes of which prime time had rarely seen, and it proved that viewers were eager for more than sleepily paced plots and polite song-and-dance.  “Laugh-In” quickly vaulted to the top of the television ratings, and it spawned an array of catchphrases: “Sock it to me,” “Here come da judge” and Mr. Martin’s signature line, “You bet your sweet bippy.”
        “People are basically irreverent,” Mr. Martin said in 1968, explaining the appeal of the show. “They want to see sacred cows kicked over. You can’t have Harry Belafonte on your show and not have him sing a song, but we did; we had him climbing out of a bathtub.  If a show hires Robert Goulet, pays him $7,500 or $10,000, they’re going to want three songs out of him.  We hire Robert Goulet, pay him $210, and drop him through a trap door.”
        Though Mr. Martin had a respectable career in nightclubs before “Laugh-In” and enjoyed success as a television director after the show went off the air, his five years on “Laugh-In” elevated him to a different level of fame. The show won the Emmy Award for outstanding variety series in both 1968 and 1969, and the special guests included Jack Benny, Bing Crosby, Cher, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Johnny Carson and, memorably with “Sock it to me?,” Richard M. Nixon.  Mr. Martin and Mr. Rowan, who died in 1987, became international stars.
        Thomas Richard Martin was born Jan. 30, 1922, in Battle Creek, Michigan. His father, William, was a salesman and his mother, Ethel, a homemaker.  At 20, Mr. Martin and his older brother Bob headed for Los Angeles with hopes of breaking into show business.  He worked fitfully as an actor, a comic, and as a writer for radio shows like “Duffy’s Tavern,” but he was plying another trade, bartending, one day in 1952 when the comic Tommy Noonan brought in Dan Rowan, a former car salesman with showbiz aspirations of his own. Mr. Noonan introduced the two, and they quickly found their shtick — Rowan the sophisticate, Martin the laid-back lunk. They took their act on the road, inching up the club-circuit pecking order.
        “It had no real highs or lows.  It was just straight-ahead work,” Mr. Martin recalled of those early nightclub years.  “I don’t think we ever failed, we didn’t zoom to stardom, but we always worked.”  Some of that work was on the small-time television programs that had sprung up in local markets, and the duo achieved a comfort level in the medium that proved useful once they became nightclub headliners.  National television shows came calling, including Ed Sullivan’s, and Mr. Martin had a recurring role on “The Lucy Show.”  But it was his work with Mr. Rowan that held the big payoff:  in 1966 they were asked to be the hosts of “The Dean Martin Summer Show.” 
        “These 12 episodes were so high-rated that NBC said, ‘We want you to do a show for us,’ ” Mr. Martin recalled, and that led to a pilot for “Laugh-In.”  The show was well regarded, and when “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” began to falter in midseason, Rowan & Martin got their shot at a series.  “Laugh-In” made its debut on January 22, 1968.
        The show pushed the envelope of topical humor, something “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” had begun doing the year before.  “Laugh-In,” though, was more interested in creating a frenetic pace than in creating controversy.  To do so it relied on a young, largely unknown cast of comics like Judy Carne, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi, Goldie Hawn, and Lily Tomlin.  “Laugh-In” stayed Number 1 through its first two seasons, garnering 11 Emmy nominations in 1969 for Season 2.  The novelty, though, began to wear off, and by 1973 it was no longer on the air.
        Mr. Martin’s friend Bob Newhart helped him transition to the director’s chair, and he directed a number of episodes of the long-running “Bob Newhart Show,” as well as shows like “Archie Bunker’s Place,” “Family Ties” and Mr. Newhart’s later series.  Mr. Martin also continued to act, playing roles on shows like “The Love Boat” and “Diagnosis Murder.”   Despite the fame and wealth that “Laugh-In” brought, Mr. Martin always retained a fondness for the earlier part of his career.  “My life has been divided into three parts: nightclubs, television, and then I was a director for 30 years.  But I think the most fun I ever had was nightclubs.  I loved nightclubs.”
   
    Next, an excerpt from a consideration of Memorial Day, written by James McPherson, a Princeton history professor, and originally published in the Times on May 25, 1996:
        Tomorrow is the legislated Memorial Day, and the thoughts of most Americans turn to the price of gasoline or the sales at the local stores.   School will soon be out and the summer driving season will begin.   In hundreds of towns, Memorial Day parades may wind up at the local cemetery to pay tribute to the community's war dead, but most spectators will not follow along.
        It hasn't always been this way.  Memorial Day began after the Civil War as Decoration Day, a ceremony to place flowers on the graves of the dead.  Obscurity shrouds the origins of this custom.  One version credits Southern women who began decorating soldiers’ graves in 1865.  What soon became known as Memorial Day spread to villages in both North and South.  Several towns claimed to have celebrated the first Memorial Day, but Congress awarded that distinction to Waterloo, New York.
        In the South, women formed ladies memorial associations to disinter soldiers from distant battlefields and rebury them locally.  In 1866, Congress enacted legislation creating national military cemeteries, foremost among them Arlington, on the former estate of Robert E. Lee's family.  In 1868, 103 Grand Army of the Republic posts held Memorial Day services, a number that grew to 336 in 1869 and continued to increase.  In 1873, New York made May 30 a legal holiday, and by 1891, every Northern state had done the same.
        In the early years, Memorial Day was a reverential occasion.  Death was a pervasive and profound presence.  Some 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died in the war, and observances at Arlington established a model.  In 1868, 5,000 people gathered. Small American flags decorated each of the 15,000 soldiers' graves.  After patriotic speeches, the band played a dirge while a procession formed, headed by orphans from the Soldier's and Sailor's Orphan Home.  At the tomb of the unknown soldiers, the column stood for prayers and hymns.  Then, to the booming of cannons, the orphans strewed flowers over all the graves.
        Wartime rancor remained alive in those years.  During the Arlington commemoration in 1869, guards were placed around the handful of Confederate graves to prevent them from being decorated.  Most Southern states considered May 30 a Yankee holiday and kept separate Confederate memorial days.  These disputes were partly responsible for the Senate defeat in 1876 of a bill to make May 30 a national holiday, but by the 1880's, passions were cooling..
        Other changes occurred: Parades replaced processions.  Commemoration gave way to celebration. Instead of doleful songs like "Strew Blossoms on Their Graves," veterans and their families sang spirited tunes like "Rally 'Round the Flag," "Dixie," and "Marching Through Georgia."  In 1889, Charles E. Jones, a Confederate veteran's son, penned "Lines on Memorial Day," which included:  Yes, soon with the tolling Of Funeral Knells, Will mingle the rolling Of Famed "Rebel Yells."  The most famous of all speeches stayed closer to the original purpose of the occasion, but nevertheless strayed toward a romanticization of the war that began to appear in the 1880's.  "The generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience," declared the thrice-wounded Union veteran Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., in 1884.  "Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire.  It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing ... We have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the golden fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us."
        Not all veterans approved of the festive parades and picnics.  Even worse were the baseball games and horse races.  In 1888, crusty old General William T. Sherman said Americans should spend the day at the cemetery honoring the dead.  When President Grover Cleveland, who had "bought a substitute" to escape the draft during the war, allegedly went fishing on Memorial Day in 1888, he ignited a firestorm of criticism that played a part in his defeat for re-election that year.  By 1915, most of the Civil War veterans were dead, and Memorial Day seemed to be in danger of fading away.  But the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars revived it after World Wars I and II.
        As a high school student in a small Minnesota town during the Korean War, I participated in Memorial Day services that were dignified and purposeful.  Our high school band gathered at the cemetery; we didn't parade there.  We played "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Rock of Ages."  I played taps after a clergyman intoned a prayer, and then we all stood at attention as an honor guard fired a salute over the graves of veterans.  Today, high school bands march behind majorettes instead of playing "Rock of Ages."  The 1968 law establishing Memorial Day as one of five Monday holidays surely hastened its trivialization, but in 1983, I was startled by a rare survival of the old Memorial Day.  I had returned to my hometown to deliver the commencement speech at my alma mater.  I arranged to meet an old friend the next day, Memorial Day, and on my way, I passed a rural cemetery.  Visible from the road were a high school band, an honor guard, and people dressed in their Sunday best, all with bowed heads.  I was tempted to join them, but I drove on for I was late to my appointment -- to go fishing.