Update 5-29-12

Hi,

It's Memorial Day, of course.  At least, it's somewhere between the day we currently celebrate and the day we used to celebrate.  According to AOL News, Memorial Day grew out of Decoration Day, which began after the Civil War as a way to encourage healing between people in the North and South.  Eventually, it worked.

Next, the Subject Line from a clearly spam-generated e-mail sent from one of Art Halprin's former accounts:  It's Urgent Please Am Sad .. Reply Soon !?

Third, if you're a friend of Jerry Bittman, you can see a picture of him on Facebook with his new granddaughter.  Very cute.  The kid is, too.

Fourth, some social notes.  There are two small gatherings being planned, both focused around people in the former class of '65.  One party is probably in Rockville Centre, and the other's in Bethesda, Maryland.

On Friday, June 22nd, a group of us is gathering at a restaurant, bar, or pizza place probably in Rockville Centre, probably starting around 7 PM.  Anyone from any class is welcome, and if you're interested in joining us, please contact Dennis Shapiro, our coordinator.  His e-mail address is:  dshapiro @ optonline . net  (Take out those spaces, of course.)  It's pay-as-we-go, stay-as-long-as-we-want.  Dennis just needs to know how much space we may initially occupy.

And on Sunday, July 1st, another group of us is gathering at Stu Borman's house in Bethesda, Maryland.  To make things easier, I'd again suggested a restaurant, bar, or pizza place, but Stu generously felt his house and backyard would be more comfortable.  Stu's grilling.  We get to supply the side dishes.  We're looking at an early afternoon start, and if you want to join us, please contact Stu.  His e-mail address is:  sborman @ gmail . com  (Again, please remove those spaces.)

Why do I keep asking you to remove the spaces?  That brings me to my next social note.  On Sunday, I sent you all an e-mail which went directly to many people's spam folders.  Why?  Simply because it had an attachment.  That's even worse than an embedded Internet address.  Also, I didn't send the note from this address because it wasn't class business, and I realized afterwards that a lot of people don't know my last name, so they wouldn't know to fish an e-mail from an alien address out of their spam folders.
    The attachment was part of my ongoing birthday celebration.  Instead of having one big party, I sent you all a present.  The Subject Line reads:  Collected Internet Jokes, and the address is:  reisbrouch @ gmail . com (without the spaces.)  My last name is Eisbrouch, pronounced ice-brook, like "frozen river."  The attachment is harmless, unless you have a low threshold for vintage Internet jokes.

Next, another interesting Arthur Miller-South connection, this time from Barbara Dorin Hayden:  Just thought I'd share this as a side note -- as I've mentioned before, my husband, James Hayden, starred on Broadway in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge and also in David Mamet's American Buffalo.  That was the production with Al Pacino.  I met both Miller and Mamet a bunch of times, and Pacino was a friend back then.
    The View production previewed at New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre the winter Natalie Wood died.  Her sister Lana was dating Alan Feinstein, who was in the cast and was with us when the news arrived.  Then three weeks later, my husband's best friend, who lived with us, passed away.  Earlier the same night, Dustin Hoffman and John Voight were in the audience.  Jim told no one about Michael's death until afterward.  Good thing A View from the Bridge isn't a comedy.

Finally, a couple of medical stories.  And if any military commemoration reminds me of the lesson about respect Jimmy Lorey taught me, any medical story reminds me of the warning Andy Dolich once sent:  "You're not going to turn this into a Medicare bulletin now?"  Still, Barbara Blitfield Pech sent the first useful article, which I'll excerpt, and the second excerpt is part of a story in the May 28th issue of New York magazine.

From Barbara, an article in Jewish World Review by Kimberly Lankford:   In most cases, you cannot switch plans midyear.  To choose a Medicare Advantage plan for next year, you must wait until open-enrollment season, which runs from October 15 to December 7.  There's a special enrollment period -- January 1 to February 14 -- that lets you switch out of a Medicare Advantage plan into traditional Medicare (and sign up for a stand-alone Part D prescription-drug policy), but you can't use that window to move from one Medicare Advantage plan to another.
    A new option, however, allows those who have access to a five-star Medicare Advantage plan to switch plans once during the year outside of open enrollment.
    The link to the rest of the short article:  jewishworldreview . com / 0512 / medicare_midyear.php3

From New York, an article by Michael Wolff:  In 1990, there were slightly more than 3 million Americans over the age of 85.  Now there are almost 6 million.  By 2050 there will be 19 million -- approaching 5 percent of the population.  There are various ways to look at this.  If you are responsible for governmental budgets, it’s a knotty policy issue.  If you are in marketing, it suggests new opportunities (and not just Depends).  If you are my age, it seems amazingly optimistic.  Age is one of the great modern adventures, a technological marvel  -- we’re given several more youthful-ish decades if we take care of ourselves.  Almost nobody, at least openly, sees this for its ultimate, dismaying, unintended consequence:  By promoting longevity and technologically inhibiting death, we have created a new biological status held by an ever-growing part of the nation, a no-exit state that persists longer and longer, one that is nearly as remote from life as death, but which, unlike death, requires vast service, indentured servitude really, and resources.
    The link to the rest of the long article:  nymag . com / news / features/parent-health-care-2012-5/
  
The South '65 e-mail addresses: reunionclass65 . blogspot . com

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


Rich