Update 5-6-08

Hi,

First, from Booker Gibson:  I remember Peter (Pete) Payne as a very good clarinetist.  The idea of the music department then was to hire the best instrumentalists, so they could teach those particular music students district-wide and have them play in the Valley Stream summer band.  The band rehearsed every Monday night during the school year, these teachers were called "specialists," and they seldom had to handle a class of thirty-or-more kids.  I actually felt sorry for them.  Years later, I was taking my family on a tour of the aircraft carrier Intrepid, and walking through the decks, I bumped into Pete Payne.  He was a Navy man.  I was Air Force.
        Another thing is I should remember Carol Fasel.  She was a charming young lady with a beautiful smile.  She was probably one of Pete Payne's students.
        Thanks again to all of you who made these scholarships possible. I wish Vinnie Tampio were here.  Do you think he would laugh?
   
    [Rich – Actually, I think Vince would throw something.  Though I hope he’d secretly be pleased.
        Also, I remembered Peter Payne’s first name last week.  But I didn’t want to believe my memory, as I couldn’t believe, in 7th grade, that any parents would do that to a kid.]
   
    Next, a correction from Robin Feit Baker:  I would like to make a clarification with regard to what was written in the newsletter last week.  I did mention that I was considering collecting clean, gently used jeans and other clothing as a means of helping veterans.  Sadly, many are homeless and in dire need of the most basic things.  But I hadn't spoken to Pat Yngstrom yet.  It was something I was thinking about.  So you did nothing wrong by delaying.
        Pat's in charge of Veteran's Affairs and is passionate about the situation some Vietnam veterans are in. Unfortunately, many are our age and are living in woods off the Meadowbrook and Wantagh Parkways.  I want to do something to help.
        More happily, it was a South alumni week, which included seeing Steve and Linda Cohen and having breakfast with Dennis and Arlene Ainbinder Lynn to celebrate our sixtieth birthdays.  Arlene then hosted a birthday party Sunday at a local pizzeria.  It included several women from her class and Emily and me.
   
    [Rich -- A further correction:  last week I said Art Yngstrom.  Clearly, his brother Pat works with the Vietnam veterans.]
   
    From Barnet Kellman:  So here’s a heads up.  Those patient enough to wait through the end of the entire credit sequence of Iron Man -- this weekend’s blockbuster comic book adventure starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwynneth Paltrow -- will receive two rewards:
        1.  A short scene inserted for geeks and fans who want a hint at what the sequel might offer.
        2.  A glimpse of the Head Make-Up Artist credit, which goes to Jamie Kelman, son of our classmates Rob Kelman and Linda Cohen Greenseid.  They should be very proud, as Jamie's work is terrific and may even be recognized at Oscar time.
        Since the average age of our class is sixty, we may not be the target demographic for this movie, but it is a wonderfully made, tongue in cheek, beautifully acted example of the genre.  So if you can still take loud noises, take your youngest kid or grandkid and go.
   
    Also related to the film industry, from Peter Rosen:  This is from my cousin who created The Lords of Flatbush when I first started out working for the Screen Actors’ Guild.  Please pass it on to whoever may be interested.
        You are invited to my book signing and photo exhibit.  Tell everyone you ever knew to come and support the arts.
        Stephen Verona
        Author - Producer Co-Writer Director
        Personal Appearance & Book Signing
        The Making of "The Lords of Flatbush"
        (1974 -- Sylvester Stallone, Henry Winkler, and Perry King)
        The Celebrity Vault, 345 North Canon, Beverly Hills, May 15, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
   
    [Rich -- Also, Ellen Epstein Silver, her husband Alan, and their youngest daughter Wendy were in Los Angeles this past weekend to visit their middle daughter Jessica and her husband Jeff and to celebrate Jess and Jeff's son Alex's baby naming and first birthday.  Paul Zegler and I were also there.  As Ellen and Alan had mentioned before, their older daughter Lisa is slowly recovering from her stroke and is generally doing well.  But it's going to be a long process.]
   
    Quasi-nostalgia, from Barbara Blitfield Pech:  I happened to be meandering through a local Pier 1 today -- not shopping, just looking -- when I made an unexpected find and ultimate purchase.  How could I pass up a $3.00 must have?  This was in a display of glassware alongside the cash registers, so you may all want to look out:  Eight-ounce water tumblers with a blue-green mountain and a painted water glass panel marked Valley Stream Sparkling Water.  Who knew we had such wonderful water?  While it's been over thirty years since I moved from Valley Stream, if I recall, we had good old flat tap water and were just fine with it.  Can someone update me -- are there any other changes that I missed?  Also, if you can't find these glasses in your local Pier 1 and must have one, let me know.  Shopping is never "out of my way."
   
    Finally from Betsy Fels Pottruck:  I’m  writing to say that my daughter's wedding made the "Vows" column of The New York Times this past Sunday.  It was a great wedding, and she married a terrific guy.  I'm not that techno savvy, so the only way I knew how to send this was with a forward.  I'd love to pass it on in the newsletter because I know many of the folks who read this column knew me.  If they want to contact me, my e-mail address is:  Betselap@aol.com.  Thanks a lot.
   
    And the Times article by Devan Sipher, published April 27, 2008:
        On Valentine’s Day 2004, Stephanie Pottruck discovered she had a problem of the heart.  “I found myself attracted to my best friend,” said Ms. Pottruck, 31, referring to Aaron Goldman, 30.  “I was surprised and grossed out at the same time.”
        They had been each other’s closest confidants for eight years.  They talked on the phone every day, often three times a day, but there was no romantic interest.  Though Ms. Pottruck is a statuesque redhead with a wide and ready Julia Roberts smile, Mr. Goldman considered her just “one of the guys.”  “Being good friends for so long, you become immune to what someone looks like,” said Mr. Goldman, a senior associate in New York at General Atlantic, an investment firm.
        Pottruck and Goldman met in 1996 during their freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, where Mr. Goldman, who had long hair and strong opinions, nurtured a boisterous reputation.  “He was a no-holds-barred kind of person,” Ms. Pottruck said. and she was immediately drawn to his caffeinated personality.  And he to hers.  “She was a spitfire,” said Lauren Epstein, who has known Ms. Pottruck since they were bunkmates at summer camp in 1985.  “She always said what she thought.”  She was loud.  He was louder.  Or vice versa.  "The two of them together are incendiary,” said Scott Fudemberg, who went to Penn with them.  In 1999, they were almost arrested for sneaking into the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.  As college seniors, they had decided to crash Bruce Springsteen’s induction ceremony in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  So they climbed up a fire escape and crawled through a kitchen window, Mr. Goldman in a tuxedo and Ms. Pottruck in cocktail dress and heels.  They dashed through a set of doors and “There we were in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, and Billy Joel was playing the piano," Mr. Goldman said.  They were quickly caught by security guards and taken out, but they retraced their steps and crept back in.  This time, police officers threatened them with a night in jail, so they headed back to Philadelphia, where her boyfriend and his girlfriend awaited.
        “Stephanie always had boyfriends, and Aaron always had girlfriends,” said David Pottruck, Ms. Pottruck’s father, who is the owner of an investment company in San Francisco and a former chief executive of Charles Schwab & Company.  “My wife and I would question Stephanie, ‘Why aren’t you dating Aaron?’ ”
        They were not the only ones to ask, especially after the couple graduated from Penn, he magna cum laude.  Though Ms. Pottruck was living in Los Angeles, pursuing an acting career, she frequently visited him in San Francisco, where he was working for a venture capital company.  When they weren’t bickering about her boyfriends -- “I referred to them as derelicts,” Mr. Goldman said -- they would be playing poker or barhopping.  But the couple was adamant that their relationship was strictly platonic.  “No one gets it,” Ms. Pottruck remembered saying.  “People don’t believe that men and women can be friends.”
        But that was before the Valentine’s Day that changed everything.  She was newly single after a recent breakup, and he was dating a lawyer in New York who was busy studying for the bar exam.  So Pottruck and Goldman took off for a ski weekend at her father’s vacation home in Colorado.  While watching television together, “This thought came that I wanted to kiss him, and it freaked me out,” Ms. Pottruck said.  “I wouldn’t even write about it in my private journal.  It was so shocking to me.”  She tried to hide her feelings and focused her attention on changing careers -- she is now an intern at the counseling center at Baruch College, while finishing a Master’s degree in psychology.  But Mr. Goldman knew in the weeks that followed that something was out of sync.
        “I had always been able to talk to Stephanie about the girls I was dating,” Mr. Goldman said, “ and all the sudden, I couldn’t.”  Then it occurred to him that maybe he shouldn’t want to.  He had attended a friend’s wedding and ”the way they were describing the relationship between the bride and the groom reminded me of the way I thought about Stephanie."  Over the course of a few months, he went from denying any attraction to her, to considering an attraction, and then to persuading himself to act on that attraction.  But he feared his feelings might be unrequited.
        It was after midnight and several drinks that he broached the notion of romance during a ninety-minute phone call in July 2004.  He said, “I was afraid of saying anything too plainly and jeopardizing our friendship.” The same was true for her.  “We spent enough time refusing to say what we were talking about, that it became clear that we were talking about the same thing."  With trepidation, they scheduled a dinner date in San Francisco for August.  “What do you wear on your first date with your best friend?” she recalled fretting. “I never tried to look pretty for Aaron before.”
        A night on the town was never a problem for them, though.  “It was all very comfortable,” Mr. Goldman said, “until the making-out part.”  Then, they were uncharacteristically hesitant.  “The first couple times we kissed each other, we asked, ‘On a scale of awkwardness of 1 to 10, how are you doing?’ ” Ms. Pottruck remembered, adding with a laugh, “We got lower and lower on the scale.”  On April 12, they returned to the Waldorf, where Rabbi Barry Eckstein led them in their vows under a canopy surrounded by a thicket of cherry blossoms.  Then their 393 guests headed for the three-story gilded Grand Ballroom, where this time, Ms. Pottruck and Mr. Goldman entered legally to the music of Bruce Springsteen.  A 14-piece band played “Badlands” as the best pals once again showed their playful instincts by rocking out with their fists pumping in the air.  And then, with no awkwardness at all, they shared a long kiss.