Update 9-16-14

Hi,

First, sorry about the font shift partway through last week's newsletter.  I usually catch those.

Next, a little more class of '65 sleuthing on behalf of the class of 64:

 

From Irene Saunders Goldstein:  Helene Levy '64 is the sister of Ira Levy '65.

From Andrea Neenan:  I called Tom McPartland and left a message, which I hope he received.  Unfortunately, Natalie Cahane passed away about 2 years ago.

From Donald Faber:  Some information about Kevin Hopkins.  I don't know the details, but I knew and had worked with Kevin and his brothers and his parents and learned through a mutual friend a while ago that Kevin had died.  Following is his mother's obituary from 2011, mentioning that she was "predecased by her son Kevin."

     "...Olga Motley Hopkins, 90, of Garden City, formerly of Valley Stream and Westhampton, died on May 3, 2011.  Beloved wife of the late Joseph.  Loving mother of Michael (Kathy), Garrett (Liana), and Olga Mary Hopkins Murray (Mark).  Adored grandmother of 9, and great-grandmother of 2.  Predeceased by her son Kevin (Carol) and brother Thomas..."

From Tom McPartland:  Thanks for all the above.  I did get the message from Andrea.  Also, for everyone's information, we got word that the following additional people are coming to the reunion.  With their guests, this puts us 6 people nearer our goal -- and still counting.  Just over 3 more weeks.
    Dorothea Peeler Breslow
    Dennis Dougherty
    Rich Wyeroski
    Stefan Omansky

A question from Valerie Nelson Gillen:  Does anybody from the class of '64 know what ever happened to Bob Boden?

A quick and sad answer from Tom McPartland:  Bob Boden passed away about 2 years after our 40th reunion in 2004.  Setting up and searching for alumni for our 40th, I tracked him down in Salinas, Kansas.  Bob made that reunion and loved the fact that we'd found him
    While planning the 45th, I sent Bob an invitation.  His wife called me, very upset, and we talked about Bob and his passing.  Bob had developed colon cancer.  His wife told me that the 40th reunion was very special to him, and he'd talked about coming to future reunions.  He'd lost track of all his former classmates after moving to Kansas, and the reunion gave him the opportunity to reconnect.  The conversation was very sad and touching.

 

[Rich -- I'd written Valerie ahead of time, so she didn't get the news in the newsletter.  She wrote back that she was sorry to hear Bob had passed.

    Related, a friend of mine from college recently mentioned that out of his high school class of almost 300 people, just about 40 were known to have died by the time of the class'  50th reunion.  So, with all his hard work, the fact Tom McPartland has only found 18 people who've died from South's class of '64 makes his classmates seem very healthy.]

A second, more cheerful note from Donald Faber, for Eddie Albrecht and Eric Hilton:
    Your memories about Key West triggered memories of my own about that small, magical island.  I first visited Key West in the late 60s, during Easter break, and returned to spend several winters there during the 1970s.  Many changes to the place you remember after serious gentrification and redevelopment started around 1976.  As prices for everything began to steadily rise, the genuine hipness of those earlier years turned increasingly commercial and contrived.  Cruise ships, as you probably know, now regularly dock where the Naval base once was, so tourists can now conveniently enjoy "the Key West experience."
    A wonderful book that captures the spirit of Key West during its more raucous years is Mile Marker Zero: The Moveable Feast of Key West by William McKeen.  It's now on remainder at Amazon.  When the novelist Jim Harrison -- who, like Tom McGuane, Jimmy Buffett, and Hunter Thompson, was a winter fixture in Key West during the 70s -- was asked if he planned to return to Key West, he replied that he could never return now.  Key West as he'd known and loved it was now gone.   But the book wonderfully describes the place that Eddie Albrecht remembered.

 

[Rich -- Yeah, I spent a week several summers ago visiting friends who'd moved to Key West though not yet to retire.  While they worked, I spent my days wandering around the place, trying to avoid the crowds from the huge cruise ships.  There isn't a lot that been left unchanged, but you can still get a little sense of how small and isolated the area was even 50 years ago.  And you can read about how even more remote it was 50 years before that.  I don't want to live in the past, but I still do like to live quietly.  Of course, I doubt Harrison, McGuane, Buffet, and Thompson were very quiet.  Nor were Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway.]

Finally, 3 notes from Zelda White Nichols:

    To Jeanie DeGenarro Utter:  Thank you for reminding me about Molly's.  Now that you mention the name, I remember it well.

    To Barbara Blitfield Pech:  Thanks for the bialy recipe.  My husband and I can find bagels in the frozen food section of our markets, but they aren't like the bagels of our younger days.  And bialys are as rare a dinosaurs in these parts. 

    To the newsletter in general:  This update, arriving faithfully every Tuesday for so many years, has brought and kept so many of us together.  I thought this would be a good time to say that because of the mention of Tina and Janice Williams.

    Janice was my best friend in elementary school and early high school days.  We lost track of each other in our later teens and possibly never would have found each other again if it wasn’t for ReunionClass65.  I remember writing in and asking for Janice's e-mail address when my husband and I still lived in California.  That had to be at least 12 years ago, well before Facebook.  After I wrote, Janis and I spent many, many hours on the phone getting reacquainted, and we've been in touch with each other ever since.  Reading this week’s edition brought chills down my spine as it reminded me of Janice telling me about her brother, Ken.  I know how much she loved and missed him and what a tragic loss his death was for both Janice and Tina.  So thanks for bringing us back together, and thanks to everyone who writes in every week.

The repeated upcoming reunion information:

The class of '64 reunion:  Friday, October 10, 2014, 6 to 11 PM. $70 per person, cash bar.  Hyatt Regency, Hauppauge, 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  (please remove the spaces)

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

 

Rich