Update 10-22-13

 

Hi,

 

We got another 3 votes for the class of '65  50th reunion date, all either for April or October.  We have a very deferential class.  The totals now stand at:

 

April 25, 2015 -- 17 votes

 

October 24, 2015 -- 9 votes

 

Either -- 19 votes

 

That's a total of 45 votes, again almost a third of the located class, which is great.  And we could get a couple of more votes, but we've been voting for 3 weeks, so I'm going with the majority and calling the reunion for April 24 through April 26, 2015.

 

Now all we need is a place.  On that -- though we have plenty of time to decide -- several people have sent good thoughts:

 

From Les Glasser:  Many years ago, I went to a party at a restaurant called Sal Anthony's SPQ in Little Italy.  It had an upstairs hall, which maybe held 150 people.  It was a very personable place, with delicious food, and a reasonable price for the city.  I also noticed a lot of similar places in the area had facilities for parties.  It seemed to be a very competitive area.  Just a thought.

    Also, my son did business with Allegria Hotel in Long Beach.  It's run by developers, and they don't pay their bills.  My son ultimately got paid, but I think at one point, the hotel declared bankruptcy.  So I wouldn't trust them.

 

From Allen Moss:  Moss in Maine here.  Since folks seem to like the Hauppauge hotel, maybe there's a similar hotel in that chain, closer to either of the airports.  I don't remember if it was part of a small chain of hotels or a stand-alone.  That new location might also be closer to South and/or Manhattan, if some classmates wanted to do individual day-trips.  I definitely still would go for a central location for 3 days and let us all just come and go as we please.

    Also, a side note.  I had a fun visit from Neil and Barbara Guberman as they passed through Brunswick on their way to Acadia National Park, along our beautiful coastline in Downeast Maine.  We all enjoyed a typical "lobstah and crabmeat" luncheon at one of my local in-town eating spots.

 

From Peggy Cooper Schwartz:  I've heard the Garden City Hotel is a lovely venue.  I was just reading about it on the web site.  I've never seen it or stayed there, but I know it's had a fine reputation through the years.  It's 8 miles from JFK and LaGuardia and is a large facility, so it's used to accommodating large events.  Has one of our classmates been there?

    I also think that holding the reunion in New York City would be wonderful, except for the hotel prices (ouch!)  If we're serious about the City, we could check out the Penn Club, too.  I've heard it's the newest of the big university clubs.

 

From Steve Gootzeit:  This comment from last week's newsletter has my strong endorsement:  "Pick a hotel where we just sit around for 3 days, talk with friends, eat, drink, and not have to worry about cars."

 

Unrelated to reunions, a curious note from Robert Fiveson:  They're shooting a film here about the career of Roberto Duran, and I'm cast as the priest at the funeral of Omar Torrijos, the former President of Panama!  Robert De Niro and Usher star in the movie.  Crazy.  I shoot in two weeks. 

 

[Rich -- With Robert's note came a photo of him in formal priest attire.  I've asked his permission to have Stu Borman post it on the class of '65 photo site, but we'll just have to wait.]

 

Meanwhile, some further reunion news and photos from the recent class of '63 party, from Amy Miller Cohen:

    Dear Classmates of 1963.  Thanks to all of you who have stayed in touch, came to New York for the reunion, and contributed your new yearbook entries.  A special thanks to those whose creative endeavors made the reunion a most delightful event.  And to those of you who couldn't get to New York City but kept in  touch by e-mail up to the very day of the party, your good wishes were very much appreciated.

    I'm hoping that those who took photos will send me your most-in-focus ones, as I'll gladly post them online for everyone to see.  We were so engaged at the reunion, we forgot to take a group photo.  I guess we'll have to wait for the 75th

    There are  111 photos from the reunion on Snapfish.  The link:  snapfish.com / snapfish/share/ p=850211382393197563/l=8975451002/g=19895674/cobrandOid=1000/otsc=SYE/otsi=SAER  (please remove the 3 spaces -- the 3rd one's before p=)

    The albums for our 50th reunion have been consolidated, and all photos have captions.  I worked on this for those of you who wrote me saying that you didn't recognize people.  Thanks to Bruce and Gail, Bill Figlozzi, and Karen Hart Lowenstein, who've already sent me their photos.  There are also 2 dozen pictures from our 25th reunion.  For both these albums, first click on "View these albums as a guest."

    The photos can be seen in two ways:  either as a slide show or in a contact sheet-like album.  If you want the slide show, you can turn on the caption feature by looking at the lower right bar of the slideshow window. There's an icon that looks somewhat like a comic book text bubble.  Cick on it, and you'll have a slide show with captions.  If you're in Album View, the captions are already there.  Also, Bill Zuckerman's two wonderful videos can be seen on YouTube.  The links for these are:  youtu . be/crr89GPjcl4   and

youtube . com/watch?v=ntPprbcfej0&feature=youtube_gdata_player  (again, please remove the spaces)

    People have been thanking me, and that's lovely, but the most meaningful thanks would be for you to help maintain what I'm calling "vehicles of connection."  These include not only staying in touch with each other but also the continued maintenance of our class list.  You can also contribute by joining in any of the following: 

    1. Searching for the 150+ classmates who are still missing:

    2. Helping me to keep the list current with up to date phone numbers, e-mail and home addresses, and sending me any changes in your contact information. 

    3. Sending out news.  The class of '65 has a weekly newsletter with wonderful stuff about Valley Stream history and news of classmates.  I don't expect we'll ever have a weekly newsletter, but surely a yearly one 

can't be too hard to imagine.

    4. Planning for our 75th reunion... well, maybe a reunion a bit sooner than that.  On the way to reaching our 93rd birthdays, here are some other things that were suggested at the party and that people from other classes have done:  reunions every 5 or 10 years, all-male or all-female get-togethers in interesting locations, or celebrations of birthday years, such as turning 70 or 75.

    5. Emily Kleinman Schreiber, president of our Valley Stream South Alumni Association, encourages South alumni to join, and a few of us from '63 have.  The membership application is available online or just e-mail me or Emily -- cre8em @ aol.com -- for more information.  There's a Facebook page for the Alumni Association and for several South classes, too, ours included.

    6. Contributing to scholarship funds set up by the Alumni Association in honor or in memory of faculty or fellow alumni or to the Booker Gibson and Vince Tampio scholarships, which we've already raised money for.

    Again, thanks to everyone for helping.

 

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

 

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

 

 

Rich