Update 11-20-12

 

Hi,

 

A summary of a phone conversation, a bit of history, some late-arriving news, and a new contact.

 

First, the phone conversation with Linda Cohen Greenseid, who lives with her husband, Michael, in Long Beach:

    The last thing I wrote Linda, just before the storm, was "Are you evacuating to Lynbrook?"  That's where Linda -- and Steve and Bram -- all lived while growing up, and where Linda and Rob Kelman's daughter, Jennifer, now lives.  I never heard back from Linda, and I've been hesitant to call her son, Jamie, who lives about ten miles from me in Los Angeles to see how Linda and Michael were.  But I finally called Linda's cell phone a couple of days ago, and the first thing she said was, "How did you know I was here?"

    She'd been at Jamie's for several days, and she hadn't had a chance to call me because first, it was his wife's birthday, and then it was their son's.  And Linda hadn't even opened her e-mail messages because when she finally got on a computer again at Jamie's, there were over 850 messages waiting, probably all asking, "Are you OK?"

    She's OK, though Michael, who usually travels with her, stayed home in Long Beach.  The good news is they still have a home.  That was a concern because they live two blocks from the ocean and two blocks from the bay.  She said the ocean the bay joined, just about where she lives, and her street had waves four-feet high.  She said it was really amazing to watch, if you could get any emotional distance from it.  She and Michael could, just a little, because the water only came up to their front steps but not into the house -- at least in the front.  The back was a different story.

    Linda and Michael have a split level, with the downstairs sliding doors opening at backyard level at their pool.  "That overflowed," she said, "and, of course, the electricity wasn't working, so the pool pump was no use."  Their cell phone also wasn't working.  Not only could they not charge it in the car, because they were conserving gas, but AT&T's service didn't resume till way past Verizon's.  And they did still have a car -- one, out of two.  The water came up and flooded Michael's car past engine level and past salvage, but Linda's car only got water on the floorboards, and the engine started right up.  "Largely, we lost metal," she explained.  "Michael's car and the washer and the drier in the basement."

    I asked her if they'd evacuated and then came back, and she said they never considered it.  "For one thing, if we hadn't been here, everything in the basement would have been ruined.  We carried things upstairs as the water approached, and saved our books and furniture."

    I wouldn't have thought of that.  I would have been out of there in seconds, back to home ground in Lynbrook.  Of course, Linda's childhood home -- now Jennifer's -- is technically also in the mandatory evacuation zone.  But the northern line of that is almost arbitrarily Sunrise Highway, and Jennifer's home isn't all that far from that, so she and her family stayed.  Still, than didn't rescue them from losing electricity.

    I asked Linda if she'd heard from anyone else, and she said, "Robin Feit Baker."  It appears Robin was lucky and only lost power for a couple of days.

    Linda also said that the TV coverage of Long Beach -- and probably of other places that were hit by the storm -- doesn't begin to show the damage.  "It's so sad.  Everything people owned is sitting on the sidewalks, waiting to be picked up.  Things are either water damaged or moldy, but they're beyond saving.  Also, houses on almost every street are tagged, waiting to be torn down."

    Linda stayed with Michael for over a week but had made a plane reservation to Los Angeles long before the storm, so she finally flew here.  She stopped for a few days in Dallas, to see Ellen Epstein Silver and her husband, Alan.  She's never seen their house.  It's for sale, but not because of water damage, and Linda said, "It's beautiful."  So if you want to buy a house slightly north of Dallas, just call Ellen.  Let her move closer to her grand kids.

 

Next, the history report, from Steve Zuckerman.  This letter starts in Los Angeles, is interrupted by my comment, and then finishes in the South Pacific.  

    Steve writes:  I was interested in knowing more about the time when you were a neighbor of Alice Coltrane during the period that you lived in Manhattan.  Did she speak much about her famous jazz saxophonist husband and her introduction into the jazz world as an incredibly accomplished jazz pianist?  I believe her son is a very good saxophonist as well and is currently performing on the jazz circuit.  I think she is still performing, too, but I don't know if she records all that much.

 

[Rich -- Actually, it was only this summer than I learned that Alice Coltrane had lived around the corner and down the block from me, but in Los Angeles, not Manhattan, and, unfortunately, she died several years ago.  But her son and daughter still live here.

    From Wikipedia:  The 1990s saw renewed interest in alice Coltrane's work, which led to the release of the compilation Astral Meditations, and in 2004, she released her comeback album Translinear Light.  Following a 25-year break from major public performances, she returned to the stage for three U.S. appearances in the fall of 2006, culminating on November 4th with a concert for the San Francisco Jazz Festival with her son Ravi, drummer Roy Haynes, and bassist Charlie Haden.  In 1994, she appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD,Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool.  The album, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in African-American society, was named "Album of the Year" by Time Magazine.  In 2007, Alice Coltrane died of respiratory failure in suburban Los Angeles, aged 69.  She is buried alongside her late husband, John Coltrane, in Pinelawn Memorial Park, Farmingdale, New York.]

 

Steve continues:  As for recognizing the sacrifices of our men and woman in uniform during this observance of Veterans Day -- which really should be held for a week instead of just one Monday in November -- all Americans should do more to honor the veterans of all the military involvements that the United States has engaged in.  This marks the 70th year since American Marines stormed ashore at Guadalcanal and held on against the overwhelmingly entrenched Japanese forces.  The Marines fought a bloody jungle struggle with a ruthless enemy until they could be partially relieved in late October or November.  The Marines landed in June of 1942, and early that April, Colonel James Doolittle led the first successful air raid over mainland  Japan.  It was more psychological then a great blow to the enemy, a sign America could fight back so soon after Pearl Harbor, but Doolittle did manage to knock out significant industrial targets.  Sadly, some civilians, including school children, were killed.  Still, both of these maneuvers began to help turn the tide in our favor in the Pacific theater.

 

Something that arrived as I was editing, from Robert Fiveson:  I am proud to share that I have today been offered and have accepted a temporary assignment as a Visiting Documentary Film Professor in Residence at an Arts University outside Pittsburgh.  The position is for fifteen weeks starting mid-January and finishing mid-April.
    The assignment  is exciting and confers upon me the opportunity to develop a personal documentary project while in residence.  My thanks to those of you who may have been called upon as references.  Looks like I will have a winter after all.
 

Finally, Barbara Blitfield Pech made contact with a group called Vssouth ParentsClub on Facebook, and they've just made contact with us, so we may occasionally be hearing from them.  Meanwhile, if you're on Facebook, look at their page.  There are seemingly endless photos of the kids at South today and some pictures of the school.  Click on the link to the 2012-2013 photo album.

 

Oh, yeah:  Happy Thanksgiving.
 

 

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

 

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

 

 

Rich