Update 6-3-14

Hi,

 

A handful of notes, but first, this is kind of important:  Because of what I wrote last week, I've been asked if we wanted to post each week's newsletter online and post all the earlier updates in a searchable archive.

    A little perspective:  for the first several years, in addition to being sent by e-mail, the updates were also posted online on an AOL homepage.  When AOL stopped supporting homepages, and I began having trouble with spam folders, a month-or-so of the updates were posted on Facebook.  But when I solved the spam problems by not including live links, I stopped posting on Facebook.

    The thing is:  I don't own these updates.  The collected contributors do.  So I need some sense of how you feel about the archives being publicly accessible.  Thanks.

 

Next, from Peter Rosen:  My hotel reservations are made for the reunion, and I am in.  Also, I don’t know exactly how I got this rate, but because I have a Hyatt Gold Passport, I got 2 nights in a room with a king-size bed -- the room that's going for $143 plus taxes and fees online -- for $55/night plus only 4000 points.  I will double check this because it seems too good to be true.

 

[Rich -- I asked Peter what it takes to accumulate 4000 points?  Is that the equivalent of $4000 charged?]

 

Peter replied:  I'm not sure.  The rate still seems too good to be true.  I'll verify.

 

From Mary Sipp-Green:  That was very nice of Robert Fiveson to say that, and I'll write him telling him so.  The work on the monograph is almost finished.  Yeah!  I'll be in touch.

 

From Joanne Shapiro Polner:  Your class is so very dynamic and caring.  People are willing to proffer their ideas and then benefit from doing so because they are treated with respect by other readers.  Such good people.

 

From Zelda Nichols White:  If anyone knows of anyone who might be looking for a much more relaxed life style, my husband and I have a 2-story, 4,000 square foot house on High Rock Lake, North Carolina for sale.

    It's has 5 bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms on 5 acres and, except for 2 guest rooms, has been completely remodeled within the last 5 years.  It has great flow for entertaining inside and out, with a huge pool and a new dock.  There are too many upgrades to mention here, but the house would be great for those who love fishing -- it's on one of the best known bass lakes in the country -- and wildlife.

    As I've written here before, we are on a migratory path for many water and song birds and have seen everything from eagles, osprey, white pelicans, egrets, owls, hawks, duck and geese of many varieties, as well as every song bird you can think of.  It’s warm enough for robins to live here year round, but winters are cool enough for people to need light jackets.

    The grounds are mostly wooded, so we have deer, 2 varieties of fox, raccoons, and many other animals, but we also have an English herb garden with enormous rosemary bushes, and the grounds around the house are well manicured.  In the spring, it looks like a park with many flowering trees, azalea bushes,  flowers, and ground covers.

    If anyone is interested, please contact me at: Zelda.nichols @ high-rock-lake . com  (please remove the spaces). Pictures can be provided upon request, as well as additional information.  Cost of living is much lower here than in many other parts of the country, and living is very easy and casual, with great neighbors to ensure a fun time on the lake.
    We hate to give up the house, because this is the best place we have ever lived, with very little worry about from Mother Nature.  But we both have developed some health issues and can no longer fully maintain the house ourselves.

 

Finally, a bit of history from Larry Kincade, husband of the late Grace Dibble Kincade:  When baseball greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig went on tour in baseball-crazy Japan in 1934, some fans wondered why a third-string catcher named Moe Berg was included.  The answer was simple: Berg was a US spy.

    Speaking 15 languages including Japanese, Moe Berg had two loves:  baseball and spying.  In Tokyo, garbed in a kimono, Berg took flowers to the daughter of an American diplomat being treated in St. Luke's Hospital, the tallest building in the Japanese capital.  He never delivered the flowers.  The ball-player ascended to the hospital roof and filmed key features:  the harbor, military installations, and railway yards.  Eight years later, General Jimmy Doolittle studied Berg's films in planning his spectacular raid on Tokyo.

    During World War II, Berg was parachuted into Yugoslavia to assess the value to the war effort of the two groups of partisans there.  He reported back that Marshall Tito's forces were widely supported by the people, and Winston Churchill ordered all-out support for the Yugoslav underground fighter, rather than Mihajlovic's Serbians.  The parachute jump at age 41 undoubtedly was a challenge, but there was more to come in that same year.  Berg penetrated German-held Norway, met with members of the underground, and located a secret heavy water plant, part of the Nazis' effort to build an atomic bomb.  His information guided the Royal Air Force in a bombing raid to destroy the plant.

    [More of this article is online, and it's been posted repeatedly.  Copy and paste the first sentence into a search engine.  Or read Berg's Wikipedia entry.]

 

The class of '64 reunion:  Friday, October 10, 2014, 6 to 11 PM.  $70 per person, cash bar.  Hyatt Regency, Hauppague, New York.  Committee phone numbers:  Tom McPartland  570-223-2577.  Ken Silver: 631-463-2217.  Bette Silver: 631-463-2216.

 

The class of '65  50th Reunion:  April 24 through April 26, 2015, Hyatt Regency, Hauppauge. 

 

The South '65 e-mail addresses: reunionclass65 . blogspot . com  (remove the spaces)

 

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

 

 

Rich