Update 9-2-14

 

Hi,

 

First, from Eric Hilton to Steve Zuckerman:  Welcome to Tampa, neighbor.  My family and I have been living in Sarasota for about 14 years, but I do a lot of photography in the St. Petersburg and Tampa areas.  Lots to do there, but St. Pete and Sarasota are still my favorite places in Florida.  Let me know when you are down here in the SRQ area.

    Also, I didn’t know about the sub base or radar sites in Puerto Rico.  After the Navy, I became the corporate photographer for Sperry Gyroscope, the company that developed radar and sonar.  I was sent to sub and Navy bases around the country, photographing their sonar and radar installations, but I never heard talk about the base in Puerto Rico.  I would have loved to tour and photograph our boats there. 

    I don’t know if any of our fellow classmates have been on a Trident boat, but they are quite impressive and bigger than some ships.  If anyone is visiting Connecticut near Mystic, you should visit the sub base in Groton (New London) and tour the sub museum and the USS Nautilus.

 

Next, from Zelda White Nichols:  One of my high school memories is being dropped off at the bus stop near school.  There was a little luncheonette, and I would find myself sitting at the lunch counter.   I think it might have been on Mill Road.  My favorite breakfast there was chocolate cake and a coke or occasionally an egg cream.  For health reasons -- my husband is diabetic -- that is no longer my breakfast at any time, but living now in Bible belt farm country, I really miss egg creams and bialys.  Instead, I live in the land of the biscuit.  Ask for a bagel, and you get a biscuit.  Ask for an English muffin, and you get a biscuit or a choice of white or rye toast.  This is also the part of the country where everything comes fried, and sugar is a vegetable. Listed under vegetables of many menus in family style restaurants one can find mac and cheese and fried apples.  Ask for bacon crispy. and some restaurants throw it in the fryer to crisp it up.  I stay away from most fried foods, but the fried apple pies and blueberry pies are my downfall.  Even so, I still get an occasional craving for a bialy.  Does anyone know of a really good bakery that will ship them, or a good mail order catalog that stocks them?  Okay, so now, I am really wishing for a piece of chocolate cake and a coke.

 

An additional culture note from Paul Zegler in Los Angeles:  The reviews for my new show are great, and tickets are going fast.  Shows are Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00 and Sunday matinees at 2:00.  We're currently scheduled through October 4th, but they're already talking about extending the run.
    Tickets can be purchased at ruskingrouptheatre . com  (please remove the spaces) and if you enter the codeThiscastrocks, you'll get 25% off Friday and Saturday tickets.  Also, if you enter the code Sundayfunday you'll get 40% off Sunday tickets.  What a great deal.  But there are only 35 discount tickets per Sunday, so please reserve early.

 

A sadder note, forwarded by Barbara Blitfield Pech:  Funeral services for Peter Luger, a restaurateur well known in Brooklyn and on Long Island will be held on Friday.  Luger died of a heart attack Wednesday night in the Long Island Railroad Station in Valley Stream.  He would have been 75.

    Mr. Luger owned restaurants on Broadway in Brooklyn and on Sunrise Highway in Valley Stream.  A native of Germany, he came to the United States at 13, opened his Brooklyn restaurant as a young man, and soon became famous for his steaks.  He is survived by three children, Arline Gaucher of Valley Stream and Katharine Woll and Frederick Luger of Brooklyn.

 

Related, only because this play was one of the productions I saw directed by Vince Tampio at South before I started working backstage:

    Sandy Wilson, the British composer and playwright whose hit musical The Boy Friend starred Julie Andrews in her Broadway debut, died on Wednesday in Taunton, England.  He was 90.  Mr. Wilson wrote the book, music and lyrics for The Boy Friend, a romantic parody of 1920s' musicals.  A boy-meets-girl story set at a finishing school on the French Riviera, the show featured flapper dress and self-consciously innocuous songs like "I Could Be Happy With You" and "Won't You Charleston With Me?"  The show began as a Players' Theater production in 1953 but drew such an enthusiastic response that a longer version opened in the West End in 1954, where it ran nearly 2,100 performances.  Later that year, the show opened on Broadway, where it ran 480 performances. 

    The show proved a breakthrough for Ms. Andrews, who was only 19 at the time and whose performance won the hearts of many critics.  "She breathes such lunatic sincerity into the pink lozenge of Boy Friend's plot that you're not sure whether it's your leg or your heartstrings that are being pulled, and you don't much care," Helen Markel wrote in The New York Times.  Andrews' next Broadway role was Eliza Doolittle in the original production of My Fair Lady, followed by the films that made her an international star, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.

 

A quick business note from Tom McPartland:  With the Class of 64's 50th Reunion a little more than 40 days away, we have 51 paid former classmates and still need another 19 to secure the room.  We're hoping some of the 30 other people who said they were interested will send in their checks now that summer is just about over.  We'd like to see as many people as possible.
    Meanwhile, if anyone knows any way to contact the following people, please let me know.  Thanks.  Gail Bershatsky, Carol Bosinius, Sharon Bosten, Karen Brintz, Timothy Bristol, William Brodsky, Natalie Cahane, Theresa Carlton, Robert Curio, Eileen Davies, Diane Fisher, Katherine Gifford. Ann Ginty, Jane Greenstone, Roberta Haister, Peter Harris, Kevin Hopkins, Thomas Huber, Peter Intelgia, Diane Jordan, Nick Karakarlis, Sharon Klein, Helene Levy, Margaret Nelson Ludwig, Marjorie Newman Lynn, Wendy March, Mary McCauliff, Charles Meyer, Judith Miller, Sherry Tarde Moss, Ellen Newman, Kathleen Newman, Alvin Paige, Grace Piccione, Arlene Ruder, Diane Rusinowski, Laura Schieck, Alan Schoenfeld, Linda Sheldon Fox, Irene Taussig, Edgar Taylor, Margaret Warinsky, Kenneth Williams, and Maureen Wurtzburg.

 

Finally, I find my friends and I are talking more frequently about our grandparents.  Not just to remember them fondly, but to remember how long they lived.  Suddenly, that’s become a factor.

 

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  (remove the spaces)

 

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

 

 

Rich