Update 4-17-12

Hi,

Couple of bike stories, a map mention, some thoughts about an old friend, another memory of Rose Agree, a newspaper story, and a dog tale.

First, from Zelda White Nichols:  I lived on my bike, a one-speed and definitely not a Schwinn, but maybe a Raleigh of now unremembered color.  Ira Levy and Allen Moss were bike pals, and I remember riding the streets of our neighborhood with them as well as with a few others.  I have always remembered being chased one day in a game of bike tag and crashing my bike.  Both my knees and my elbows were skinned, but I got right back on my bike and took off again.
    Flash forward to 1993, where I still loved cycling but now had a 21-speed and was training for a Century Ride -- 100 miles -- with my husband.  Once again, I crashed, this time rounding a curve at the bottom of a hill doing 35 miles per hour.  But it ended my cycling days.  Amazing, how resilient we were as kids that we just dusted ourselves off after some really bad injuries.  Compare that to now being sidelined by age.  One shattered leg and damage that couldn’t be repaired presently have me sitting in a bass boat on a North Carolina lake all day instead of riding a bike.  My neurologist loves me because I sit in his office a lot, too, paying his mortgage.

Next, from Amy Miller:  Bikes -- very, very significant to me.  In January, I bought an outdoor recumbent tricycle, which is comfy and brings back all the memories of the bikes of my childhood.  My dad was an accountant for a Raleigh and Rudge dealership in Brooklyn, so our garage slowly filled with a variety of three- speed bikes.
    Two bike memories:  There was a wonderful bike path in Green Acres, coming into a playground, which was mainly hard cement with a metal jungle gym.  The path was parallel to Flower Road.  If you were entering the community at the front entrance going towards Forest Road, the bike path would be on your right, but tucked away in between those dead end, older streets.  Riding to the Old Section gave a great sense of freedom.  I still have the Scrabble set brought to me by Jeffrey Vogel -- who lived on Crestwood Lane -- after an accident I had riding on the back of his bike.  We were on our way, I think, to a Halloween Party at Nancy King's house, and my foot got caught in the spokes.  Nancy's father, I think, was a piano teacher, and they lived on Brook Road.
    And on Great Old Maps:  as I've mentioned before there is a wonderful map of the area that became and was surrounded Peninsula Boulevard in a lovely book, The Lord's Woods, by Robert Arbib.  The map includes Mill Road, Rosedale Road and all the wonderful geographical features of the woods  many of which disappeared as the land was filled in and many of us moved into the beginning of what became developed suburbia.

From Ryki Zuckerman:  Although she was a year ahead of me, I was good friends with Gerri Kaplan.  I think she was only in her early thirties when she was, if i recall correctly -- i have a bad memory -- killed by a drunk driver in California.  There is a candid photo of Gerri, or someone who looks like her, in a book about west coast craftspeople/artisans, circa the 1960s -'70s.  The book includes Laura Birch, but it's probably out of print. I came across a copy of it in the '70's, and its title might be Native Funk and Flash.
    As of several years ago, Gerri's mom, a retired teacher, still lived in their Green Acres home.  Her mom and mine had been pretty good friends in Valley Stream, and they reconnected again a few years ago, before my mother passed away.
    I also have fond memories of Rose Agree.  Like Judy Hartstone, I volunteered and helped in the Forest Road School library.  I remember that Mrs. Agree took some of us -- maybe Gail Gordon and two or three others -- on her own time, perhaps a Saturday, to Manhattan, to the 42nd Street Library.  It was quite a thrill.  By the way, I was very glad to find out that she was not the porn star who shared her name.

[Rich -- I was one of the people who contacted Gerri Kaplan's mother in the summer of 2001.  When I heard Gerri had possibly died, I was kind of stunned that I'd never see her again because I'd been looking forward to that.  And someone in the class, possibly Paul DeMartino, had called Gerri's mother and been put off because talking about Gerri was extremely painful for her.  But we still only had a rumor that Gerri had died, and since I was an old friend of hers, I thought her mother might remember me.  When I called, I got the unfortunate confirmation Gerri had died, but nothing else.  It was a short, uncomfortable conversation, and Mrs. Kaplan didn't remember me at all.  So I don't know how accurate the information is about Gerri dying in a car crash, killed by a drunk drive in California.  And the other piece is she was coming home typically late after a music gig in a bar.]

In happier news, Alan Finder is off the Times foreign desk as an editor and back to writing for the paper.  His latest piece can be read at:  nytimes . com/2012/04/12/technology/personaltech/e-books-are-easier-to-borrow-just-be-prepared-to-wait . html?scp=2&sq=alan%20finder&st=cse  (remove the spaces, of course)
    Here's the opening:
    E-Book Borrowing, Preceded by E-book Waiting
    By Alan Finder, The New York Times, April 11, 2012
    As a technical matter, it’s remarkably easy to borrow an e-book from your local library. But not if you want to take out the best-selling biography of Steven P. Jobs, the hero of the Internet age who helped lure tens of millions of people to personal computers, tablets and other digital devices.
    The publisher of the Jobs biography, Simon & Schuster, does not sell digital books to libraries. Five of the six major publishers of trade books either refuse to make new e-books available to libraries or have pulled back significantly over the last year on how easily or how often those books can be circulated. And complaints are rampant about lengthy waiting lists for best sellers and other popular e-books from the publishers that are willing to sell to libraries.
    Want to borrow “The Help,” the novel by Kathryn Stockett? On New Jersey’s state e-book consortium, 375 people were waiting for a copy recently. At the New York Public Library’s Web site, 193 members had put a hold on a digital edition of Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, which begins with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”
    How about the immensely popular novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E. L. James? Thirty-three people were waiting for the e-book on the Seattle Public Library’s site.
    “We hear a lot of frustration,” said Christopher Platt, the director of collections and circulation operations at the New York Public Library. “It’s rational. We don’t expect our readers to understand the complexities of the publishing industry.”

Finally, absolutely frivolous news:  our younger dog Rocky, who's two-years-old, has fallen in love with the new, eleven-week-old dog next door.  We keep telling Rocky that the new dog is underage, not neutered, that he is neutered, and that she hasn't had her shots, but it's no use.  Yesterday, he lay out in the rain, in the mud, with his nose poking through the chain link fence, just trying for a chance to see her.  Last night, he slept in the living room, so he could be closer to the back yard and his dog door, just in case she barked.  The day before, he effected an animal alert, when she tried to crawl under the gate and got caught by her neck.  I had to go our and slide her free.  Today, I talked with our neighbor, to find out if he's keeping the dog and if he's named her.  He's probably keeping her and her name's Misty.  It's going to be a long summer.

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

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

Yep, take out the spaces.


Rich