Update 12-20-11

Hi,

Yeah, well, the first night of Chanukah is December 8th when you've glanced at the 2012 calendar lying on the kitchen counter.  But, this year, it's December 20th.  So Happy Chanukah again.  And Merry Christmas.  And Happy Kwanzaa.

And speaking of parties, Arlene Ainbinder Lynn reports that:  A good time was had by all at our Alumni Association holiday dinner last night at Paul Anthony's restaurant.  In fact, we are such a likeable crowd, they suggested we come back next year.  Happy Holidays, everyone!

Marc Jonas wrote:  Wishing you all a happy holiday season and prosperous New Year!

Joan Kass Lipson and Barbara Blitfield Pech both wrote saying:  Please make the correction that Marilyn Weiner Kugler graduated from South in 1966.
    Joan also added that:  Marilyn and I were classmates from 7th to 12th grade.  I believe we met in homeroom on the first day of 7th grade.  Her obituary ran in the Boca Raton, Florida, Sun Sentinel this past week.  Marilyn and her husband, Steve, attended the class of 66's mini-reunions in Boca Raton.  The last time we were all together was in 2009.

[Rich -- Marilyn's obituary was uninformatively brief -- Kugler, Marilyn, 63, of Boynton Beach, FL, passed away on December 5, 2011.  Beth Israel Memorial Chapel, Boynton Beach -- and Barbara mentioned that Marilyn has been fighting cancer for the past three years.  I asked Joan if Steven and Michael Weiner -- friends of my younger brothers -- were possibly Marilyn's younger brother or cousins.]

Joan wrote back:  Regarding the two male Weiners you are familiar with -- Marilyn did have a brother, but I do not remember his name.  I do know he was younger than she was.  Also, I have a feeling he passed away, but I am not definitely sure about this.  Both her parents are deceased.  Her mom passed away two years ago, I think.

[Rich -- So if anyone else knows anything more about Marilyn's family, that would be helpful.  Thanks.]

Meanwhile, Rich Sternhell wrote:  Thanks so much for the mention of my sister Susan in the newsletter.  Susie passed away over twenty years ago now, and we still miss her greatly.  I forwarded the note to both her son and my sister Amy.  It was much appreciated all around.
    In answer to Joanne Shapiro Polner's question:  Susie did not pursue acting after high school, but her love of theater never left.  She married, divorced, and remarried and was the proud mother to a wonderful son.  Most of her life was spent in academia, although she did have a brief career in finance before her untimely death.  I vividly remember going to the South High theater with my family to watch all her productions, and I remember the joy she took in all her acting endeavors.  It was her inspiration that led me to try theater in high school and then college.  It is nice to know that she is remembered.

[Rich -- When I wrote Rich to make sure the note he wrote could be shared, I mentioned that 1957 Southern Bell Andy Dolich sent in has let us learn quite a bit more about several interesting people, including Ira Kinder and Susan Sternhell.  And we've mainly been on the first page.]

Connected to South and theater, from Ryki Zuckerman:  Here's a question -- I was assistant to Vinnie Tampio for a play in high school.  I think it was Annie Get Your Gun.  There was a young woman who was a year-or-two ahead of me who played they lead, Linda ??.  I recall she had a strong singing voice.  I would appreciate help on her name -- I think it was mentioned in a long-ago newsletter -- and an update on her.  Did she ever do professional theater after South?
    I remember staying at school to work on the show, sometimes as late as till midnight on many a school day.  My grades plummeted that marking period, after which my mother put her foot down on me having any involvement with future plays.

[Rich -- As I wrote Ryki -- The woman's name was Linda Sheldon.  She also played the lead in Once Upon A Mattress and the second lead in The Boyfriend.
    And, from what we understand, Linda married her high school boyfriend, Lennie Fox -- I think -- and they lived happily ever after.  But she never performed professionally.
    And, yeah, the amazing thing is not only were we allowed to work till midnight on a school night, but after he was finished, Vince drove back to the Upper West Side, somehow managed to squeeze in some sleep, and then got safely back to South by 8:00 the next morning.  And he had to teach.  Some of us could happily sleep through classes.]

Bernie Scheidt wrote:  Partially answering Eric Hilton's question, I was able to find these two articles listing Fred Lorey's crashes.
    The first one is the one that Marc Fishman remembered.  The second is the one in which he died.  Really stretching my memory, I sort of remember the crash that killed him was a freak accident.  He had successfully landed, and a gust of wind flipped his plane, killing him.  I also seem to remember that Jim Holecek's dad was there when it happened.
    I was unable to get into The New York Times archives and get the actual articles, but maybe our friend at the Times, Alan Finder, can get them.  These are the listings:
    4/23/54 -- A Goodyear FG-1D Corsair (Buno 92487 of VF-842) crashed into oil storage depot near Idlewild APT, NY.  Pilot survived with injuries.  NAVY PLANE HITS OIL STORAGE TANK;  Reserve Pilot Escapes With Cuts and Bruises in Crash Landing at Cedarhurst.  A Navy Reserve flier trying to land a plane with a dead engine hit an oil storage tank and crashed here today, but he escaped with only cuts and bruises. (NY Times)
    3/24/55 -- VETERAN FLIER KILLED; Pilot Dies in Bennett Field Crash, 2d Mishap in Year. (NY Times)

[Rich -- I wrote Alan, asking if he could possibly help, considering his busy schedule.]

From Alan:  Here is one of the clips.  I'm having trouble locating the second one.  Will continue to work on this.

[Rich-- And I wrote Alan:  Thanks.  That really is part of an old clip file.  Did interns scan them all into digital form? 
    And it's interesting that Fred Lorey had two accidents within a year, and that Marc Fishman's memory combined them.  But we were only seven or eight at the time.]

And Alan wrote:  I'll try again tonight to see if I can find that second clip.  I searched for it every which way, and got nothing.  Odd.  The photocopies of old articles are from a service that we can access at the paper.  It's probably one of those deals in which the Times got paid by a company to copy the old papers and then gets a discount to access the service.  It's pretty amazing, and it goes all the way back to the beginning of publication in 1851.

Here's what the article said:
    March 25, 1955
    VETERAN FLIER KILLED
    Pilot Dies in Bennett Field Crash, 2nd Mishap in Year
    Lieut. (j.g.) Frederick Lorey, a Naval Reserve pilot, was killed yesterday in his second plane crash within a year.
    The 33-year-old veteran had begun a two-week tour of duty on Monday.  He was returning at 11 A.M. to Floyd Bennett Naval Air Station, Brooklyn, after a ninety-minute training flight.  His F4U single-engine plane turned over on the runway.  Lieutenant Lorey died a half hour later.
    On April 23, 1954, he was flying the same type of plane when his engine failed over Cedarhurst, L. I.  He guided the craft past several houses and was injured when the plane crashed after striking an oil storage tank.

[Rich -- On top of what selective memory creates, it's interesting that Fred Lorey was only 33-years-old when he died.  He must have been a kid if he fought in WWII.
    And does anyone know if an F4U is the same kind of plane as a FG-1D, or does the story mean they were both single-engine planes?]

Finally, there won't be a newsletter next Tuesday because I'm going away till just before New Year's Eve, and I'm mainly leaving computers and mailing lists behind.  I've got some Christmas cards to hand address to some non-Internet users, but that's going to be the limit of my mass communication.  Mostly, I'm going to try to teach the younger of our two dogs the meaning of the word "drop."  "Drop the rabbit, Rocky.  He's not doing you any harm."

The South '65 e-mail addresses: reunionclass65 . blogspot . com

The South '65 photo site: picasaweb . google . com / SouthHS65

As usual, please delete the spaces.


Rich