Update 7-24-07

Hi,

All Pottered out here.  Saw the latest movie.  Read the latest book.  Now it's back to Orson Wells in The Third Man.  But, first, some notes:
   
    From Barbara Blitfield Pech:  Just thought I’d share a recent dance moment -- I have been business traveling these past weeks and was at an after party with company accounts.  One of my favorite field reps asked me if I wanted to attempt a first time dance -- he promised to be gentle under my still-painful foot circumstances.  Needless to suggest, my feet were moving before I was, and since the dance floor was crowded, it was easy to move all my jiggly parts without stressing my foot.  My dance partner was 60’s suave, and in later conversation, he very casually shared that he was from South Philly and an original dancer on Bandstand in 1962 (Jim Mc Elrain).  I reminded him that I was an “IFIC” girl, and we all had a good visit down memory lane.  Unfortunately, after parties do not play a bunch of anything that anyone can dance to or has a good beat, so it was a very short but sweet tripping of the light fantastic.
   
    From Allen Moss:  Hey, folks... Moss in Maine here with a continuation of a tribute to a most inspiring teacher and wonderful individual -- Irv Saffrin.  What an incredible treat for me and others to chat with him at the Friday night soiree during the 40th reunion in 2005.  He looked absolutely great and had lost none of his gentleness and humor.  He and I had a good laugh over my recollections about his "erasers of death" that all of us feared (and also probably loved) when taking his classes.  Just when it seemed like he had his nose face down in his notes or his body turned toward the  blackboard... WHOOSH!... through the air came the dreaded chalky missile aimed at someone not paying attention.  We marveled at his precision; it was as if he had eyes on the sides and back of his head.  I would say his success rate was well over ninety percent and when he missed, he laughed along with all of us.  Even when he hit his target, he would look up, and there would be just a bare hint of a smile on that solemn face -- and we loved that expression.  His love of science and his commitment to teaching us about its wonders certainly contributed to my initial major of pre-veterinary medicine in college and to my lifelong appreciation of all things in nature.  One other recollection of that great Friday night party:  I was at a table talking with Peggy Galinger Menaker and Judy Peters and happened to glance over and see Irv Saffrin and Theresa Margolin sharing a hearty laugh.  I remember being disoriented for a second, sort of not believing that I was seeing two of my favorite high school teachers there in the room.
        Another, unrelated recollection:  thanks to Stu Borman and Barnet Kellman for their remembrances of AZA.  But did either of them mention the style of the sweaters we wore?  They were the classic, Ward Cleaver/Ozzie Nelson/Jim Anderson cardigans.  Very cool.  And one last note:  if anyone gets the L.L. Bean Fall Home Supplement catalog in the next few weeks, there will be a very stylish-looking beagle on the back cover modeling their dog coat.  That's my boy Argos.  What a hoot!  I know some folks at Bean who approached me to see if I would be interested in giving Argos his "fifteen minutes of fame" -- the classic quote from Andy Warhol.  Hmmmm, could I retire early and live off my companion animal's residuals?  Uh... I don't think so.
        Hope everyone is having a great summer.
   
    From Booker Gibson:  I was so glad to see some names of the great faculty members from South High in Hy Rosov's letter last week.  I mentioned these other teachers immediately when the scholarship in my name was offered.  All through my years at South, I was almost in awe of the teachers there.  We met many times over coffee, and just talking with them or observing them teach, I knew the South students were getting the best professional teaching around.
   
    An exchange today between two writers on an online, Broadway-based, theater bulletin board:
        Writer 1:  I've had a question ever since I saw the production of Julius Caesar two years ago.  After Caesar was assisated his body was displayed on stage in an open coffin for what seemed like a long time.  Was it the actor who played Caesar in that coffin -- or was it some kind of prop made up to look like the actor?
        Writer 2:  Can't answer your question, but it must be horrible to watch a human body on stage after it has been assisated.  (Sorry, couldn't resist the joke.  Though I know it's senseless to object to inconsequential typos.
        Writer 1:  What was the typo?
   
    Some familiar announcements:
   
    The 40th reunion of the class of '67 will be held on this Saturday, July 28, 2007, at the Huntington Hilton Hotel in Melville, New York.  Everyone is welcome.  For further information, please quickly contact Andrea Schwartz Neenan at:  aneenan@tampabay.rr.com
   
    The Evening with Booker Gibson at the Irish Coffee Pub in East Islip, New York, will be on Wednesday, August 1, 2007.  It will start around 6:15 though Booker does not begin to play until 7:00.  To make a reservation, please contact Claire Brush Reinhardt at:  reino@optonline.net
   
    Finally, and almost totally unrelated to South, except that it's summer vacation and people tend to travel in the summer, some honeymoon reporting from public radio correspondent Adam Ragusea and his new wife Lauren.  They the son and daughter-in-law of old friends of mine.
        Tomorrow, we leave for Edinburgh, to spend the remainder of our trip, but it's safe to say that we will never forget Glasgow.  To understand our time in this crazy city, a little background is useful:  a couple years ago, when Lauren’s pilot-dad flew into Glasgow, he stumbled across a small pub called the Potstill.  There he struck up a conversation with a high-powered stockbroker, or possibly a dolphin trainer, named Derrick Brown.  Lauren’s dad, despite his most vigorous efforts, has never been able to pay for a drink at the Potstill in his visits since.
        When Lauren’s dad heard that we were going to Scotland, he wrote Derrick, letting him know we’d be coming.  Derrick, in turn, sent us an e-mail insisting we meet him at the Potstill.  Well, we meet Derrick at the bar Monday afternoon and, within minutes, I’m drinking fine, forty-year-old scotch for free and being regaled with various stories designed to heavily prejudice me against the English.  Hours later, Derrick writes out detailed instructions outlining the sites we are to see in the city, and we stumble home severely inebriated, not having paid for a thing.
        We spend Tuesday buying warmer clothes and then touring the city along the lines Derrick had recommended.  The city is a booming international metropolis, much of it very beautiful and old, other parts modern and run down.  Glasgow became very wealthy building ships, re-exporting tobacco, and refining cotton, and since all three of those industries have collapsed, the city has struggled to redefine itself.  The population burgeoned suddenly in the 1930s, and the urban center apparently became quite squalid.  Urban renewal projects started in the 1980s have finally brought the area back as an uber-hip shopping, restaurant, and business center, with culture everywhere. The first thing you notice is how well dressed everyone is, particularly the men.  They wear trim-cut suits with very bright shirts and ties, the latter with big, fat, full or double Windsor knots.  Very smart.
        I had my first haggis, and it was insanely good.  And I don’t mean it was good in that it was adequately palatable for a minced mash of a sheep’s lung, heart, and liver, boiled in its stomach with oats and spices.  I mean it was really good, period.  It was meaty, spicy, hearty and comforting in the cold and rain.  Tuesday night, we attend the Potstill and find Derrick in his usual corner.  He quickly introduces us to various other charming financial-sector Scotsmen, who amuse us with their twinkle-eyed musings on marriage and their sincere hatred of the English.  I try to impress them with the knowledge I’ve gained from cramming Fitzroy MacLean’s Concise History of Scotland over the past forty-eight hours, but it’s clear I know more about the specifics than they do or care to.  They just know they hate, HATE, the English, although there is an Englishman named Clive in attendance, and they seem to like him just fine.  Once again, Lauren and I stumble home severely inebriated, not having paid for a thing.
        Wednesday, Derrick meets us on the street at 9:20 in the morning so he can introduce a banker named Ed McPhee, who we’ve been told is “a total psychopath.”  Still, Ed and his wife lived in New York for a few years in the 1980s, and Americans were so nice that Ed has been waiting ever since to return their favors.  To do this, he has taken the day off from the bank to drive us around central Scotland and the southern Highlands.
        We pile into Ed’s very nice, very new, BMW, and we’re off.  Ed is indeed a psychopath, but a very charming one.  We talk about his hatred of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and the English in general as we drive to Glencoe, a valley that was the site of a horrific clan massacre a couple centuries ago.  The scenery is unbelievable, utterly alien from any landscape I’ve ever scene on earth.  Ed drives us past various lochs, castles, and kirks.  We walk around in the charming port city of Oban.  We eat an amazing lunch at one of the seemingly ten thousand Bed and Breakfasts though, once again, my best efforts to pay for anything are thwarted.  We, at least, feel we've returned some of Ed favors by listening to his horrible mix CDs.  When we get back to Glasgow around six in the evening, having been taken on an eight-hour, unbelievable driving tour, free, by a total stranger, we thank Ed profusely and promise to send him a few bottles of a particular Kraft salad dressing his wife apparently misses greatly.  Incidentally, all Scotsmen apparently love to pretend that they can’t remember their wives’ names.
        Wednesday evening, we meet Derrick and his wife Edith at the Potstill, and they introduce us to David and his wife Gene who buy us several rounds of whisky.  Joined by Clive, the tolerated Englishman, we all dine across the street a Pulcinella’s, a lovely Italian restaurant.  We have several courses of food, many bottles of wine, and conclude with lemon liqueur.  When it is revealed that I’ve never had a Gaelic coffee --coffee with frothed cream and whisky -- one is rushed to me at the table.  We discuss marriage, geopolitics, the joys of Scotland, the crimes of the English, and are generally made to feel like members of the family.  Once again, we stumble home severely inebriated, not having paid for a thing, despite my best efforts to do so.
        Thursday morning, Lauren and I take the train to Stirling, a lovely city which is basically a mini-Edinburgh though it was strategically more significant in recent centuries.  We walk up the hill into the
    walled-off, medieval city center and tour the castle.  It’s the first touristy thing we’ve done all week, but the castle is gorgeous and fascinating.  We take lots of pictures, which is good because we’ve generally been too distracted to do so during the last few days.  Afterwards, we take the train back and meet Derrick and Edith, who take us to their golf club for a whisky tasting.  We sit at a large table with an assortment of charming Scottish professionals, including an anesthesiologist, an undertaker, and a retired whisky maker. A very green, young whisky company “ambassador” with spiky hair assumes the front of the room and gives a generally pathetic presentation about his company’s various products, which are judged by our companions to be mediocre.  We’re later told that it was the young fellow’s first time doing this, but the heckling from our table is unrestrained.  We all talk politics, food, and culture, and swap stories and dirty jokes very late into the night, drinking whisky throughout.  Somebody stuffs the remaining bottles into my arms at the end of the night, and once again, Lauren and I stumble home severely inebriated, not having paid for a thing.
        We very sadly said good-bye to Derrick and Edith tonight, but they insist we come back next year so we can all go mountain climbing in the Highlands.  Derrick even says he’ll take the week off from work, and Lauren and I try to express the gratitude we feel, but it’s impossible.  Some people visit cities and see the sights and have a lovely time, but we’ve seen this city through hours and hours of whisky-drowned conversation with some of the most kind and good-humored people you could ever imagine, and it’s just been priceless.  Tomorrow, we take the train to Edinburgh, where we have two nights booked in the old city at the foot of the castle.  We’ll concentrate on sightseeing, as we’ve been informed by Ed McPhee that while the city is beautiful, “the people are crap.”
        A quick follow-up:  we got into Edinburgh last night and hopped on a bus tour.  This city is very different from Glasgow.  It's insanely beautiful, and people call it "the Athens of the north."  It shows its age much more because it's layers of old city built on layers of even older city.  The downtown population is also much more youthful and hip, wearing few business suits.