Update 6-10-08

Hi,

A snappy series of notes, starting with a conversation between Eric Hilton and Jerry Bittman:

    From Eric Hilton:  My wife Gilda and I just returned from a funeral in New York.  Her ninety-three-year-old mother had passed away in her sleep.  It was a sad time, but we did get to eat one of the best cheese cakes from Junior’s, which we found on my brother-in-law’s step in Yorktown Heights.  Could this perhaps have been something that Jerry Bittman’s tornado might have thrown to New York?  If so, tell him it went to a good cause.  We will try to return the empty box and crumbs to him when we can.

    From Jerry to Eric:  First, I am sorry to hear about your wife's mother.  Next, in regards to the cheesecake, I must admit it wasn't mine.  The only cheesecake that I will eat has to be made by Paul Zegler.  Believe me, if I had one of his cheesecakes here, I guarantee you it would have been devoured before the tornado touched down.

    From Eric:  Thanks for your thoughts about my mother-in-law.  And I had no idea that Paul was a cheesecake aficionado.  I loved cheesecake from the old Tulsa Diner -- where was that again? -- or the Concord Diner, and later from Whistle Stop Cheese Cake on Lawson Boulevard in Island Park.
        Hope you are all right in terms of tornados, and send my regards to Paul.  In sixth grade, as I have written before, Paul and I both had a huge crush on Jean Cohen.  But she became my girlfriend at my bar mitzvah.  Go me!
        So, Jerry, when might you be visiting Florida?  Please let me know if you will be in our fair state as Sarasota is the culture capital of Florida.  A couple of months ago, we had the film festival where movie stars visited us and previewed their new movies.  And a few weeks ago, we had Sarasota Pridefest, where I have been the official photographer for about five years.  What a great time we have and what super talent.  Be well.
   
    End of that conversation and the start of another, this time between Jerry and Joanne Shapiro Polner.  From Jerry:  Mike Seelig did pass away about one-and-a-half years ago.  Ken's mother still lives in Green Acres, and Ken's sister Patty lives in New York City.  I was best man at Kenny and Joyce's wedding on October 6, 1973.  Until several years ago, Joyce worked as a social worker in a hospital on the north shore of Long Island.  Then she was offered a similar job in Phoenix.  When she asked for my opinion, I suggested that she take the job partly because I moved to Las Vegas in 1976, and I believe that the western part of the United States is a lot nicer than the east.  Lisa -- Ken and Joyce's youngest daughter -- had just graduated from college when Joyce moved to Phoenix, so Lisa moved west with Joyce, though she is now living in Santa Monica.  Ken and Joyce's older daughter Annie is happily married, lives in New York City, and is an attorney.  I speak with Joyce every week, so if you want me to relay a message to her please let me know.  Meanwhile, I hope this information is helpful.  P.S.  Joyce loves living in Phoenix.  She bought a home there that includes a swimming pool and a hot tub though I haven't figured out why they have hot tubs in Phoenix.  Everything in Phoenix is hot.
   
    From Joanne:  First, thank you for sending me Jerry Bittman's note.  Look how fast people respond!  I sent Jerry a thank you.  Second, thanks for putting the Ken Seelig praises into the newsletter.  It is still good to read nice things about people one once knew.  Third, I received a note back today from Linda Tobin Kettering.  She said, "I got your e-mail and can only say that by the time I heard about Michael Seelig's passing, I thought it had happened recently, not as long ago as January 7."  So you were right, Rich, when you wrote me that "a year seems like a recent amount of time."  Linda also wrote, "Mrs. Seelig still lives at 84 Sunnyfield Lane.  I went to school with her daughter Patty, and, in fact, I saw both Mrs. Seelig and Patty a few weeks ago when I was walking my dog.  I live around the corner on Forest Road.  Hope this helps."  It does, of course.  And I wish I could pull my class together like the class of '65.
   
    A somewhat related thought, from Linda Cohen Greenseid:  I haven't been on the computer in a while, so these are some comments about past newsletters.
        First, to Joanne Shapiro Polner:  My ex-husband Rob --then Bob -- Kelman lived at 88 Sunnyfield Lane, which I believe was next door to the Seeligs. I think Rob lost track of the family, but several of our classmates have some information if I recall.   When Rob and I were in our early twenties, we were friendly with your brother-in-law Larry and his first wife Martha.  They lived in an apartment in Hempstead down the road from Hofstra.  They got divorced, and we got divorced, and we lost touch with him.  Where does Larry live now, and what is he doing?
        Next, to Barnet Kellman:  Thank you for the kind words about my son, Jamie Kelman.  We are proud of him, but even more than that, I am so happy that he has had success at the only profession that he has ever wanted to do.  At about eleven-years-old, he decided to be a special effects makeup man, and that is what he became.
        My husband Michael and I live in Lido Beach, and as we passed the Long Beach movie marquee this week, I noticed that three of the four movies there were films Jamie had worked on.  You already mentioned Ironman, and Jamie also worked on You Don't Mess With The Zohan and Indiana Jones.   The last was a total thrill for him.  He got to watch Spielberg direct, Harrison Ford act, and be on the kind of film sets that he watched in the movie theaters when he was about eight years old.  He only worked on the film for about three weeks, so he didn't get a credit, but it was an experience he will always remember.  Again, thanks for mentioning his work and for being so complimentary.
        Finally, to Rich Eisbrouch:  I read about your trip back east and all the people you met with, but I did not read about the five hours you spent in my bedroom.  An oversight?
   
    [Rich -- Er, I'll get to that in a minute.]
   
    First, unrelated from Barnet Kellman:  It was great to see Ziggy on you.tube.
   
    And a public service announcement from Zelda White Nichols:  The Best Gas Prices in Your Area!  This is pretty nifty.  It even works in Hawaii.  Just enter your zip code at the site below, and it tells you which gas stations have the cheapest and highest prices on gas in your zip code area.  It's updated every evening.  http://autos.msn.com/everyday/gasstations.aspx?zip=&src=Netx
   
    Rich -- Now about Linda's bedroom...  Well, let me back up to where I left off on my trip.  After the 9th Grade Career Day presentations finished, around eleven in the morning, Claire Reinhardt, Betty Hansen, Emily Schreiber, and I went off to Mitchell's on Rockaway Avenue.  This is the new Mitchell's, I was told, not the old one, across the street.  But the new one has been in place for twenty years, and I don't remember being in the old one anyhow.  Cooky's was closer.
        While we were sitting there, eating ice cream and more substantial stuff, Claire, Betty, Emily, and I talked about people and careers, partly because one of the questions asked when we were doing the presentations was, "Did you know what you wanted to do for a living when you were in 9th grade?"  I had to admit that, in ninth grade, I didn't.  But a year later, I discovered scene design.
        I didn't eat much at Mitchell's because I had plans to meet Ken Ulric for lunch.  His wife Laura Waxman Ulric couldn't join us because she was at work, but I saw Laura later at Ken and Laura's house.  First, Ken and I ate salads at a steak house, which made no sense at all, but what the hell.  Ken and I have never lost contact since high school, partly because we went to college together, and more because we never seem to run out of things to say.  Our conversation swung forward and back in time, and included my recent lunch with Rich Sternhell -- who Ken still sees -- and my sleeping on the roof of the Tappan Zee Playhouse, somewhere in Nyack in the mid-60s, when Ken and I were doing summer stock.
        When I did see Laura, she mentioned that her brother Jerry unfortunately wasn't doing well.  His doctors first thought he was suffering from Parkinson's Disease, but it's actually something more severe and more immanently fatal.  When I told Laura how sorry I was to hear that, she also mentioned that Cliff Harris had died.  Cliff was Roy Harris' younger brother, and one of their sisters, Broni, was Jerry Waxman's first wife.  Broni, also unfortunately, died young, maybe twenty years ago.
        After leaving Ken and Laura, I finally got to have dinner with Paul DeMartino, Dennis Shapiro, and Robin Feit Baker.  Dennis's wife was also there.  We got to the restaurant -- Monaghan's in Rockville Centre -- around seven, and finally left around eleven, mostly because the four of them had to work the next morning.  I was finally going to sleep late, the first time in four days.
        Paul, Dennis, and I had been trying to have dinner  -- or lunch -- or a drink -- for about seven years, since the 37th reunion.  I hadn't really known either of them in high school, but we'd become friends as Paul reassembled the class, and Dennis collected its money for the first party.  So sitting around our comfortable table in our curtained, private booth in Monaghan's, we weren't all repeating old stories, so much as learning about the past from different viewpoints.  We also learned about the present from the same perspectives.  It's really interesting to see how much we had, and still have, in common.
        Thursday was my mother's 80th birthday -- the real reason I was east -- though her party was Friday evening.  My sister Marilyn and I took her out for lunch, her choice over dinner, and when we got home, my mother had friends waiting.  So I called Linda Cohen Greenseid, to see if she was free for a couple of hours.  That stretched from just before six to somewhat after eleven, interrupted by conversations with Linda's husband Michael, who was keeping busy working at his computer, and phone calls from Linda's brothers Steve and Bram.
        Steve and I had gone to college with Ken, and we'd never really been out of touch, either, but I hadn't seen Bram since the late 60s.  We talked happily for a while, as Steve and I did.  When I first knew I'd be coming east, I tried to arrange lunch with Steve and Ken, but, at that point, Steve thought he'd either be in Louisiana or Texas.
        After forty years, Bram still sounded just like Bram, but at first, he said he couldn't imagine what we'd have to talk about.  He wasn't sentimental about the past when he was in it, and he certainly isn't now.  I told him I didn't need to or want to talk about the past.  I just wanted to say "hello," and congratulate him for making it successfully into what forty years ago had been the distant future.
        Linda and I had also stayed in touch, and we also never seem to run out of things to say.  That's why I was in her bedroom for five hours.  Why her bedroom?  Well, you see, Linda hurt her back some months ago, had surgery, and was pretty much confined to bed and a brace.  So it was just convenient for me to hang around her bed.  Honest.  By the way, she's doing well.
        The last South-related person I saw -- other than my brothers Mike and Dave, my sister, and one of Dave's grade-and-high-school friends -- was Linda Tobin Kettering.  Linda and I knew each other through the Vince Tampio / Booker Gibson scholarships, but we've never met.  Since she lives just a bit further down Forest Road than my mother, Linda invited me to stop by, and we chatted for a while in her neatly remodeled, split level house.  That was the Green Acres model I was least familiar with, and since Linda is also a realtor, she filled me in on the various models and sizes of Green Acres houses.  I'm always amazed at the things I think I know but don't.
        Overall, I found Green Acres and South to be intact and fairly recognizable.  Most of the week, the weather was rainy, and it being only late March, the trees were still bare.  So nothing exactly sparkled.  But it all was comfortably familiar, even the chained-off bridge to South, and my glimpse of the asphalt path leading toward the creek from Forest Road.  I also had to run a quick errand to the mall for my mother, so I walked a bit of the old section of the shopping center.  Gimbel's, of course, is now Macy's, but I walked in what had been its south door, then cut through the store, bypassing the temptation to run up the down escalator.  In the mall, I walked towards what had been Love's or Lane's or Klein's, noticing that every store and business had changed.  Then, I was surprised by J.C. Penney's, appearing where it always had been.