Update 8-5-08

Hi,

An assortment of notes, but first a reminder.

From Claire Brush Reinhardt:  Just to tell all of you local Falcons and those of you not-so-local folks who may be somewhere near the Irish Coffee Pub in East Islip this Wednesday evening, August 6th, that Booker Gibson will start to play around 7:00.  But he will be there earlier to visit with former students and colleagues, so if you get there from 6:00 to 6:45, you'll be able to chat.  Booker also takes a break later in the evening, so you can visit with him then.  Last year, more than 100 people attended this party, and we had a wonderful time.  Hope to see as many of you as possible.  If you need to make a dinner reservation the phone number is:  631-277-0007.   
    Next, from Zelda White Nichols:  Chinese food was a way of life back in the 60s.  Just down the road from the Howard Johnson on Sunrise Highway was Tim Chan’s, which my folks always took me to.  I loved their fried rice, egg rolls, spare ribs, and Moo Goo Gai Pan.  We would then go to the Carvel down the road for dessert.  I also recall Ed’s Tropical Aquarium and Wetson’s 15-cent hamburgers.  What I can’t remember is whether they were in Valley Stream or Lynbrook.
   
    From Barbara Blitfield Pech:  While I was never one to believe that size matters, apparently it does for e-mailing the newsletter.  So I wanted to reassure you that this week's update was in my in-box bright and early this morning.  Oh, yeah, sorry for any double entendre or suggestive puns.  No, actually, who are we kidding?  You know I meant every word of it.
   
    From Robert Fiveson:  Reading about the Hamburger Express almost knocked me out of my seat.  Two days ago, Jay Tuerk and I were lolling around down here at his place in Panama, and I asked him if he remembered the restaurant that delivered food on a train.  He said it was one of his favorite places.  Now I am here drinking tea and trying to wake up as I look at the city and read the mornings e-mail, and there it is again -- Hamburger Express!  What does this mean?  Why is the universe toying with my fragile mind?  Or is it?
   
    From Paula Ignatow Cohen:  Thanks so much for adding me to your class's mailing list.  Nice to hear about people I haven't heard about in years.
   
    From Wes Eddy:  Hi, All.  We're in the process of switching from Verizon to Vonage so had to change our home telephone number to:  1-440-848-0122.   I expect to have both numbers for a few weeks but would hope you would start using the new one as soon as possible.  Thanks.
   
    More from Claire Brush Reinhardt -- The Homecoming 2008 Committee Report:  On July 11th, Roberta Brill Birnel, Terry Gunderson Kaiser, and I met with South's principal Maureen Henry to make plans for South's Homecoming on October 18, 2008.  Maureen Henry is very excited about making South's alumni and alumni faculty important parts of the celebration.
        Some of the tentative plans made to honor our days at South include:
        A welcome brunch for all alumni and alumni faculty
        Tours of the school
        A special ceremony to honor South's first graduates, the class of '58, and all alumni and former faculty.  This will occur at the start of the football game
        Alumni will also participate in judging the banner competition, which has replaced the float parade
        If there are any former Homecoming kings or queens present, Maureen Henry would like them to consider presenting this year's king and queen
        A hospitality room will be open to all alumni during the football game to allow for more mixing, mingling, and reconnecting
        Remember, the success of this day depends on alumni attendance and participation.  We know this will take a great deal of effort and preparation, and it can be more easily done if we know how many of you intend to come.  For now, enjoy the rest of these lazy, crazy days of summer but think about autumn in New York  -- and on Long Island -- and of Homecoming at South.
        Please let us know if you will attend.  Also, if you would be interested in attending an evening celebration, please mention that in your response, along with your year of graduation.  You may e-mail any one of us:
        Claire Brush Reinhardt       reino@optonline.net
        Roberta Brill Birnel            robbie2@optonline.net
        Terry Gunderson Kaiser     TerKaiser@optonline.net
        We really cannot move forward until we hear from you, and we should also have more to report after the first Alumni Association meeting this fall.  That will be on September 4th.  As always, everyone is welcome.
   
    [Rich -- And something from me:  The phrase "Owah-Tagu-Siam" came into my head today and, for reasons known only to my brain, seems to refuse to leave.  Forced to think about where I first heard those words, I -- possibly wrongly -- come to seventh grade, lunch, Jay Gladky, Bob Grimm, Mike Raphan, and Bob Grandt.
        Seventh grade was kind of an unmoored year for me, especially the first half.  I didn't yet have my paper route for financing, I was still struggling unsuccessfully with my first foreign language, Hebrew, and I wasn't yet Ralph Foster's faithful assistant on the JV soccer and track teams.  But I did have a mess of unfamiliar metal in my mouth, which is how I met Jay Gladky.
        The powers that controlled Speech at South, namely Maggie McNamara, had decided my braces had given me a lisp that needed to be corrected, and none of my seemingly logical reasoning that the lisp would go away when the braces did prevented me from missing study hall and instead being forced to practice phrases like "Essau Wood sawed wood.  Essau Wood would saw wood.  Essau Wood would saw wood with his wood saw."  Now Jay Gladky, despite seemingly perfect teeth, had managed to develop a sibilant S of his own, so we were stuck with Maggie McNamara together.  That wasn't completely bad.  Maggie was no Janet Porter, but Janet Porter wasn't going to appear for another two years, and Maggie McNamara always seemed more accessible than Janet Porter anyhow.  Still, I didn't care much for Essau Wood, or Grandpa and his Banana Oil ! -- which, in retrospect, has no S's to practice on -- or the lyrics to Gilbert and Sullivan's "Tit Willow."  And let me tell you, when I got to the part, "And I said to him, 'Dickie Bird, why do you sit...' " Jay Gladky was all over the floor.  But meeting Jay at least gave me someone new to have lunch with, as it seemed my grade school friends had been assigned to other lunch periods.  And Jay introduced me to his friends, Bob, and Mike, and Bob.
        I think they all knew each other from their grade school, whichever one that might have been, so I was the new kid in the group.  And for forty-five minutes each day, between Twinkies and Devil Dogs, they got to practice their tricks and jokes on me.  They told me I was looking at my nails the wrong way, I was looking behind me the wrong way, I was crossing my legs the wrong way, and probably a half-dozen other things I now forget.  But, most of all, they delighted in having me repeat the magical words, "Owah-Tagu-Siam."  Also, "Owah-Tanas-Siam," though I always liked the first one better.  In the same way, I later preferred the chorus of "Witch Doctor" to the equally catchy refrain of "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini."  I don't know why I liked saying "Owah-Tagu-Siam."  I clearly knew what it meant.  Maybe I did it because it sounded so dumb that it made everyone laugh.
        In any case, my friendship with Jay, Bob, Mike, and Bob didn't much go anywhere.  Mike and Bob Grimm played soccer, I think, so I may have seen them afternoons for the next couple of years in the locker room.  And Bob Grandt and I tried to learn chess, which we kind of massacred because I had no head for strategy.  And when my braces went away with the Hebrew, they took my lisp with them.  In college, in Ohio, the powers that controlled Speech in the Education Department were more troubled by the depth of my voice and wanted me to do exercises to raise my pitch, but I was having none of it.  Still, all these years later, I'm stuck with "Owah-Tagu-Siam" and Essau Wood.  Who "one day sought a saw like no other wood saw Wood saw would saw wood."]