Grayboy/Graygirl All-Stars [reunion videos]

By Barbara Groark

There was a game in the 1990s called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. [Look it up on Wikipedia.] The 2008 Columbus Day Weekend HCHS Class of 1968 Reunion attendees can now play that game, with a competitive Bacon number of 2. Apparently the actor was staying at the Flanders Hotel over the Columbus Day Weekend. Kris Mosteller Hackney chatted with him in the elevator, and I’m sure she invited him to our party, but he was going to play in his brother’s band at the Music Pier that night and would not be able to attend. I’m sure the Music Pier was a nice time too.

What he missed can be found in the links at the bottom of this blog. I had 25 minutes of video, and YouTube only takes 10-minute segments at most, so we divided it in four. (I had the help of another niece.)

Bob Law also sent a few additional photos you may want to see at Picasa (Saturday Night album - check out the view from the top of the stairs in that group picture), and I added a few more too of what I had. (Click on My Photoes to see the other albums.) I was trying to show at least one photo of everybody who attended, but some people were camera-shy. Bob came through with Kathy Kostek Himchak and her husband, and Marilyn Dugan McMenamin can be seen in the background of one picture, but she is visible more clearly in the large group picture at the railing (the earlier version from Dan Turygan). We only get a good look at some of the husbands and wives in the Sunday breakfast album. I added Mrs. Turygan to the Friday Saturday album – there was no other picture of her!

The only thing I can say to introduce the videos – after I apologize for the nonprofessional lighting and disappointing color - is that THESE PEOPLE ARE 58 YEARS OLD! And as the Sunday morning pictures prove, we were afterward NONE THE WORSE FOR WEAR! (just a little tired)

Once you see the page, click on the "watch in high quality" link to the right under the video viewer.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Here's our whole YouTube channel. If I ever add to it, or if anyone sends more photos for Picasa, I'll let you know.

And the beat goes on.

Gray and Maroon [reunion photos]

By Barbara Groark


By strange coincidence, the only flowers left in my garden that the rabbits haven’t bitten down and that aren’t just done this time of year are the dusty miller (gray) and the red coleus plants (maroon). Interesting. Weird.


One piece of sad news from the reunion is that Mary Callahan of Moorestown has died. I have added her name to the “Moment of Silence” article.


I’m trying Picasa for the pictures. When you hit the link, you may be asked to sign in and make up a password, but there is no cost (more Google free stuff) and you may just get an email once in a while. You also may be asked to download the Picasa photo reader so your computer can read the pictures. So say “yes” to that, or “download now,” however you find it on your machine.


I’m sorry I did not get a photo or two at the Amendolas Sunday afternoon. Our numbers were few, and we were all too amazed at our house tour to be analytical enough to take pictures – is that the explanation? In any case, this was an area of neglect on my part. Carol and Tom were gracious hosts, and Tom has amazing collections of antique cars, radio and television sets, and other 20th century technology memorabilia on display – and is working on a really large train set, or system, in his spare time. Carol has a work area/sewing room in her basement where even more products of her fertile imagination eventually make their way upstairs. Everything is new, beautiful, and welcoming, even where it is unfinished. And Carol is blonde now, in case you run into her around town.


Here are three links to the still pics; many thanks to Dan Turygan, Marlene Altamuro Handschuh, and Mary Pippitt Cervantes for passing their photos over to round out my own:


Once at the album page, click once on the first picture, then use the Forward and Back arrow buttons, or you might click the Slideshow button on the album page (ESC button to return).


Friday and Saturday

Saturday Evening

Sunday Morning

The video did come out, though a bit dark. I’ll be getting them posted very shortly.

A Little Slice of Heaven

By Barbara Groark

This early evening I was driving home on Route 38 from the Amendolas’ beautiful home and I noticed three hot-air balloons floating above the shorn cornfields. There was also a full moon showing before sundown. This seemed an apt close to the famous Holy Cross High School Class of 1968 40th Reunion Weekend in Ocean City, New Jersey, based at the Flanders Hotel, during which there was a feeling of floating slightly above the earth as we all enjoyed each other’s company, met some brave spouses, heard some new stories and went to the beach in weather almost unbelievably beautiful. There’s a joke about hot air in there somewhere, but I can’t find it.

Dan Turygan has already sent some photos. I need to process them a little, so I won’t be including any at the moment. I think reviewing the weekend will take several blog articles. I also need some processing time on the photos and digital video – assuming the video did not show up black due to poor lighting. Hey, I’m just a home movie kind of guy. I’m good at wedding showers and family parties.

A fine time was had by all. I may be shooting questions by email to some of you to verify story facts and to remind me of your spouses’ names (brave spouses). I danced with people I never danced with in high school. I also noticed many people who just looked a lot happier than they did in high school. This is a good thing, no?

We had a surprise Saturday afternoon visit from one former teacher, Mr. John Murray – pictures later – who taught Algebra at Holy Cross for one year only, our junior year, but who really wanted to see Joanne Nowakowski and Michael LaRocco particularly – and who happened to see our blog. He had an amazing story concerning Joanne and her opinion of his alleged ‘sexy elbows’ and their scandalous correspondence for several years. I came up on the last half of this conversation, so would Nancy Mahony please fill me in on the beginning? Unfortunately, Joanne had to cancel attending because of a sudden illness – hope you are OK by now, Joanne – hey, maybe you should fill us in on the true facts of this case.

The reason I missed the beginning of that conversation is that I was recording the full immersion in the Atlantic Ocean of Mike LaRocco. He was the only one participating in the full reunion triathlon, but he was determined to do it. He reported that the water was not really very cold, but that the brisk breeze was colder. Pictures later.

A Special Invitation

What do you need, a special invitation? Well, here it is. Weekend reunion attendees going home from Ocean City, as well as classmates unable to join us there (such as Carol herself), are invited to unwind post-party as follows:

You're Invited!

Sunday, October 12, 2008

1:00 p.m. til. . . 

Wrap up the 40th Class Reunion on your way home - Compare Notes! Make Sure You Didn't Miss Anything!

Tom & Carol (Carswell) Amendola's

511 N. Main Street

Southampton, NJ 08088

609-744-9076

Beverages, Appetizers & Desserts - Hope to see you there!

Between Self and Soul: A Voyage

By Barbara Groark (a poem from some time in the 1980s)

The Dream:

Through the pipe in his teeth, jaw thrust forward
Stubbs says, "We're going after Moby Dick."

I cling flat with both hands to the surfaced submarine,
black and adamantine,
through rough night seas. Waves break over,
but I stay. Behind me an old man in a white
suit and string tie with a little girl by the hand
walks on sea legs toward me through the wind.
I worry for their safety. The wind whips them over-
board. I say, "That doesn't happen."

I awake.

The Waking:
Several years later: Thar she blows. It's Moby Dick,
destroyer of men and boys.
All those boys at the bottom of the sea.
Thar she blows.

The captain's log,

But I am only the lookout.

Ahab is destroyed I hope. Who needs a mad captain?

Should women be in the navy and sail the seven seas?

Some may need to do hard things
their mothers didn't do for lack of knowledge
or courage or wherewithal or need.

Not every man would sail the seas.
Not every woman either. On the water, rocking
steady, boards creaking, the harpooneers watch the
water, the rowers wait, sometimes an hour. Sometimes
he gets away. All those boys at the bottom of the sea.
The captain now is Christ.

No danger of suicide
if we follow our leader.

No danger of suicide.
Moby Dick hates girls and grandfathers.
The girl is six or eight, the grandfather like Santa,
old enough to wobble, moves slowly enough
for a child’s pace. They are safe now behind a rail.
But the rest of us are with the boats and have the whale.
He's slippery and he is cruel.

A diabolic nature,

not human. His animal eyes look at you dully.

I'd been riding him, the whale, for several years.
Ahab beckoned from his back, a dead man beckoning.
I've been dead for several years now at the bottom of the sea.
I'm strange-looking, like those fish that never see the light.
There's no negotiating with him.

Safe, if you follow the leader.

There's no negotiating,
no reason in him.

Yet he has innocent prisoners.

Will they wash up whole on the shore, shaken but alive?
Will they scar like Ahab, marred, bitter, dangerous?
Will they be destroyed before we reach them?

Maybe we can only ease their deaths.
Our father will heal them. They will die to this world
and be with us in the next.

For some the next is now.

Unreason to combat unreason.
Unreason greater than their unreason.
Patience greater than their patience.
Strength greater than their seeming strength.

Patient as hell. Love with no room for fear.

That is what they most fear,
as you've noticed. It puzzles them, your confidence.

Fight for Your Right to Party

By Barbara Groark

I found an old newspaper clipping of my mother’s: a letter to the editor written by her and published June 27, 1968, in the local Little Paper. The headline reads “Anti-Music Adults Scored by Resident,” about the graduation party my parents allowed me to have. Here’s the letter:

“I have just discovered what’s wrong with today’s teenagers—adults!

“After just having chaperoned a party for a group of about 80 kids, I find that it’s not wild, rowdy, 17- and 18-year-olds who cause problems, but nosey busy-bodies who have nothing better to do than call police five times in a period of one hour and 15 minutes. What was the complaint? Not beer-drinking, not fist-fights, not profanity, not horn-blowing, but music!
“How many adults (let alone children) go to bed at 9 p.m. on a summer night? By the time the fifth visit from the reluctant Cinnaminson policemen came, it was 10:15 p.m., and the band had to stop playing music completely or face the consequences.

“Small wonder today’s kids sometimes get into serious trouble for want of amusement. They’re damned if they do, and they’re damned if they don’t.

“These complaints didn’t come from neighbors in the immediate area, but at a distance down the hill in front of the house. In fact, neighborhood children helped set up chairs and outside lights, and looked forward with anticipation to listening to music of a real band. We could have sold peanuts to the gallery in the back yard.

“Some people spend their time do-gooding and starting petitions for this cause or that cause, all over the neighborhood, when they should stay at home and sweep around their own doors. Maybe the big gripe was not being invited to the party.

“If the boys and girls at this party are an example of ‘kids today,’ I’d like to have a party for them every week, if my food bill could stand it.

“Maybe we should reverse things and let the kids chaperone some adult parties. I’ll bet there would be a lot of red faces on January 1!”

We did find some beer cans in the flower beds the next day. If I recall correctly, someone’s brother (Eileen Urban’s?) had a band that we hired. Our house was not the party house of the neighborhood, except for family parties where there might be softball or badminton – or later volleyball and bocce – on the side or back lawn – and lots of food and drink. But the music was always the recorded kind, though we would put the stereo speakers at the window so people outside could hear. We also did that when washing our cars. Yet we never had the police called.

I remember being somewhat proud of that fact – police came to a party I gave. Another proud moment happened several years later, when my sister Kate and I gave a wedding shower for a cousin, and the police came to that too because of the noise – of a bunch of women chattering and kidding around! Apparently this is not to be endured for any length of time by some people. This was during a moment of apartment living, and the downstairs neighbor had complained.

There are 70 or 80 people coming to the Flanders on Columbus Day weekend. Maybe it is some of the same 80 people who came to that graduation party. We can probably manage to avoid the police this time, but you never know.

The Reunion Committee invites you, after checking in to wherever you are lodging on the Friday evening of that weekend, to come to the 8th floor of the Flanders Hotel after 6:00 for a progressive cocktail and hors d’oeuvres party – actually it will be wine and beer with some snacks and music – among several committee members’ rooms in an L-shaped part of the floor. Listen for music and look for open doorways, and visit the rooms along the hall.
As for activities the rest of the weekend, we will have details distributed that Friday night on the scheduled items, such as directions to Carol Carswell’s beautiful designer house on Sunday afternoon. Otherwise, your time is free on Saturday till the 6:30 dinner. There is still bike-ride interest for Saturday; the plan is now to take a consensus of what people want to do and design the route on Friday night. Here is some bike rental information: http://www.bikeocnj.org/

There is also an Athletic Center in OC, complete with a gym, and a 25-meter pool. Pre-registration is required to use the facilities, but the first visit is free.

That Saturday also the town of Ocean City has a Fall Block Party happening on Asbury Avenue between 5th and 14th Streets from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with “crafts, food, music, and more.” Boardwalk. Beach. Golf. Gambling. It’s all nearby. If you want to drive for 40 minutes, you can check out some of Cape May’s Victorian Week, which starts that Saturday. You also might like the Lima Bean Festival in West Cape May. Something for everybody.

Don’t forget Sunday morning breakfast at the Flanders, even if you are not staying at the Flanders.

And what happens in Ocean City stays in Ocean City. I don’t think we will need our kids to chaperone us, but you never know. We won’t have to sneak beer. I guess we’ll be the grownups now, and we might make it past a 9:00 bedtime, but maybe not past midnight.

Lipstick Jungle

By Barbara Groark

When I was a waitress in a bar at the Shore the summer after college, my cranky old boss prophesied to me one day “You’ll be a Republican by the time you are 55!” I thought that was unlikely, and it did take till I was 57, but I have to say that it was all an accident.

In the spring of 2008, I decided to re-register as an independent so at least I could vote for McCain, whom I like. As a Democrat, I could not decide between Obama and Clinton on the Democratic ticket, though I was leaning toward Obama after having read his two books. But how could I not vote for the first possible woman for the presidential ticket?

However, when I got to the voting booth on New Jersey’s primary day I was told by the ladies of the League of Women Voters that I had to declare a party to vote in a primary. I was annoyed, but after some discussion and clarification of the rules, I signed up as a Republican – I never thought I’d see the day. My grandfather would turn over in his grave. That’s what I get for being indecisive.

And I’m feeling rather strange. I recently visited the township clerk’s office to get a new voter registration form to re-register as an independent again, but I was told that this time I could vote in any direction as I was, that is, Republican, and if I re-registered I’d have to declare a party anyway to vote. I could do nothing and still vote for any party. I haven’t sent the form in yet and may not, but I’m feeling strange.

I actually like listening to speeches for the way the words are put together for a purpose. So I was paying attention to both political conventions in August, and they did not disappoint. Obama and Biden were very pleased with themselves by the end of their week, that is, until the announcement of Sarah Palin as running mate for McCain. And after her big home-run speech the next week, the Democrats were oddly but appropriately quiet.

However, some of their constituents recovered themselves by the next day. My mother, for instance, said, “Why would a woman want to be a pit bull?” And my cousin Bette Ann pointed out, “We’ve already had a rootin’, tootin’, shootin’ guy in there for eight years, and look where it got us. Do we want another one of them?” Neither of them seemed impressed by the sole fact of Palin’s being a woman. I liked Palin’s speech as great entertainment and part of the ‘game’ aspect of politics. Will I voter for her ticket? We’ll see what the weeks bring.

This will at least be a very entertaining as well as historic election season.

And I hope they come up with a few other metaphors besides animals wearing or not wearing lipstick. Pit bulls without? Pigs with? What happened to elephants and donkeys? I believe all four candidates are trying hard to keep straight faces through all this. It’s their constituents and the pundits who are over-serious.

I don’t think we’ll be in trouble as a country with either one of the current candidates. But that’s what I said last time. Decision time is November, and not a moment sooner.

Fashions of the Cross

By Barbara Groark

I’ve been getting ready a slide show of ourselves to rotate automatically in the background for some time and someplace over reunion weekend. As I looked at each person in the yearbook, I wondered about the stories they could tell by now, whether comic, tragic, or in between. How many births, deaths, joys and complications have there been in our lives up to this point? Many, I think.

Over Labor Day weekend, a friend died in a car crash, 59 years old, driving in Maryland, probably listening to his GPS system, which may not have pointed out a stop sign. He was a priest, and our relationship was in the professional vein rather than personal, but I am feeling it like a family loss, and am unable to sustain work of any kind but the minor physical kind for very long. The whole community locally is feeling a big gap, like a hole in the atmosphere.

Father Teclezghi Ucbaghiorghis was from Africa, Eritrea to be exact, where legend has it that the Queen of Sheba settled with her son after her visit to King Solomon, as described in the Bible and the Koran. He grew up in the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia but then joined the Cistercian order of monks - apparently Mussolini’s army were not the only Italians to move into Ethiopia in the period before World War II - and thereby joined up with the Roman Catholics. He grew up in a sometimes war-torn society that included Muslims, Communists, and animists. He was sent to the United States to do missionary work, I suppose. Or maybe to disturb our American complacency.

He occasionally spoke in his talks about his childhood, much different from ours – playing soccer barefoot with his friends in rural fields, working for his father as a shepherd, where the possibility of lions going for lunch was a real possibility. His mother was illiterate but with an excellent memory, but he himself as a boy read psalms to his father as his father worked. His elder sister had a cross tattooed on her forehead because his parents had dedicated her to God. He became a multilinguist and was on a team of people translating the Bible into his native language before coming to the U.S. He had a lot of humor, and it was fun to hear him use American slang and correctly (or incorrectly) use English-language puns in talking.

For a year my downstairs neighbor has had an American flag stuck in the garden plot by her entrance. There also used to be a newspaper picture, covered with plastic against the rain, of her relative, a young man in his twenties who died as a U.S. soldier in Iraq. That plastic-covered photo finally wore out and has been gone for six months, but the flag remains. A fourth-grade class in a local school had ‘adopted’ the soldier to write to and keep in touch with, and their story was in the local paper when it was announced he had died. He was my neighbor’s husband’s cousin, and though the family’s grief was real – they all took the long drive to the burial in the National Cemetery near Washington, D.C – and though my neighbor implied she herself had anti-war sentiments, she also said, “He was where he wanted to be,” and doing what he wanted to do. He died being true to himself and what he believed.

Whenever I study grief, my own or others’, Emily Dickinson’s poem 561 comes to my mind. I hope you don’t mind if I finish by just copying it here (the unusual punctuation and capital letters are Emily’s):

561

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes –
I wonder if It weighs like Mine –
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long –
Or did it just begin –
I could not tell the Date of Mine –
It feels so old a pain –

I wonder if it hurts to live –
And if They have to try –
And whether – could They choose between –
It would not be – to die –

I note that Some – gone patient long –
At length, renew their smile –
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil –

I wonder if when Years have piled –
Some Thousands – on the Harm –
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve –
Enlightened to a larger Pain –
In Contrast with the Love –

The Grieved – are many – I am told –
There is the various Cause –
Death – is but one – and comes but once –
And only nails the eyes –

There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –
A sort they call "Despair" –
There's Banishment from native Eyes –
In Sight of Native Air –

And though I may not guess the kind –
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –

To note the fashions – of the Cross –
And how they're mostly worn –
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like My Own –

More Reunion Administration

By Barbara Groark

The reunion weekend is now less than two months away, and that time will go by very quickly. Now is the time to get your money into Dennis ($100 total for one, $200 for couples) and your hotel reservations made. A lot of people have given deposits, so it’s time to get your full payments in. People who are still ‘thinking’ should begin to take action.

A couple of people have commented that they are looking forward to the Saturday morning exercise program, or parts thereof. But now, about Sunday morning. What is planned is breakfast in the Flanders Hotel with Bloody Mary’s and Mimosas – or just coffee and tea for those who prefer.

And believe it or not, Carol Carswell, who is unable to join us in Ocean City, is still maintaining her invitation for everyone to come to her house on Sunday early afternoon, about an hour’s drive west from Ocean City. Her address and directions will be given out on the weekend.

As you can tell from the “Who’s Coming” list on the blog sidebar, we will have a pretty good crowd, but late decision-makers are still welcome. I’m just wondering where the rest of my old lunch table crowd is – Jane Fynan? Donna Fitzgerald? Peggy Wood? Annette Zehler? I see Sue Bronesky, Sharon Stewart, John Bjerre, and Dan O’Connell will be there, but how about the rest of the Homecoming Queen ‘court’? What about all those Future Business Leaders, Future Teachers, Future Homemakers, and Future Brainiacs, I mean National Honor Society members (groups not mutually exclusive)? And definitely the Future and Current Retirees of America, whose numbers are beginning to grow.

Saturday Morning Bike Ride

By Barbara Groark

Speaking of the Saturday morning of the reunion weekend, Mike LaRocco has suggested a bike ride on the boardwalk and around the town of Ocean City – no big surprise there – only he also wants to make it a triathlon of sorts, with some beach jogging and a dip in the ocean, total immersion. In October. Same temperature as June, he says.

Would there be any interest on the part of weekenders in any part of that? If so, put your bikes on your bike racks and pack helmets, and contact him through any of the committee members or his name on the blog email list. I think we have some old road racers of old, don’t we? Janet Sanford? Also, we will be investigating bike rental places for those who are flying in and want to join.

Me, I have an old single-speed boardwalk ‘cruiser’ with an extra-wide seat and a basket on the handle-bars, definitely for leisurely rides on boardwalks and other flat, South Jersey surfaces. I will probably wave the more ambitious goodbye at the end of the boardwalk and head back to the hotel and save my energy for dancing later. A nice nap might be good. Or a book by a sunny window.

I was trying to work in a reason for including the following two links in this blog, but there is no reason for their inclusion here other than that these Netherlanders look like two high school kids who should be doing their homework, or the dishes, but instead are lip-synching for the YouTube audience. How much more time could we ourselves have wasted back in high school, if we only had these things then. Just some kids kidding around. As kids should do. By the way, I’m still looking for karaoke interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhANxqH5QJQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF6MopBsM60

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL (AND MORE) ‘65-‘68

By Barbara Groark

OK, it's about time we embarrassed some people. With the help of a niece, I have serenely got my scanner to work after a day of swearing on my own. I am also in possession of yearbooks from the four years we spent in high school. Heh, heh, heh.

Song, dance, and other theatrical entertainment constitute the theme for today, and there's really not much for me to say. I do apologize for the somewhat awkward picture placement. This is about the sixteenth way I've been trying to get them to appear.

Since your memory may not be 100% on these matters, here is a reminder: starting senior year we had "The Music Man" and "The Madwoman of Chaillot"; junior year we had "My Fair Lady" and "Androcles and the Lion"; sophomore year "Carousel," and the play was "Yellow Jacket," but none of our class was in pictures for that (that I recognized); and freshman year "Oklahoma" and "Amahl and the Night Visitors," for which we see Cassie Riger and Janet Stojak appearing precociously (not all shown). 

And then Cassie Riger and Mike Amoroso keep showing up every year and everywhere like a couple of Forrest Gumps. Bob Law and Linda Schwartzkopf also make frequent appearances.

And we need to mention all the stage hands and backstage support people, as well as the orchestra people, who do not show up in the photos but whose team effort made everything turn out so well. Anybody remember who the photographer was?

The Big World

By Barbara Groark

In a reinforcement to Dennis’s article urging classmates to put aside the everyday and unending chores for the Reunion Weekend and join us, I remember something from the time of the weeks after the 9/11/2001 events. I was working in a computer sciences firm, and we all had wound to a halt that day and were staring astounded at TVs and news sites on our computer screens. In the next few weeks an interesting phenomenon happened: we all started making more lunch dates with each other, instead of working through our lunch hours, or having working lunches. The unspoken thought was that maybe we ought to get to know our colleagues on a more personal level – we might die together someday. Why had we all become too busy? The lunches may have been needed reminders that we ourselves are not computers, or at least we are not strictly computers (computers being an imitation of some parts of the human brain).

We all eventually dropped back – almost – into our older habits, but now with more willingness to break routine occasionally. This thinking could be applied to the Reunion Weekend. Your joining us could be considered a patriotic duty.

Have you read The 9/11 Commission Report? Have you read The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright? Have you read Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali?

I’m in the middle of The Looming Tower now and have read the other two in the past couple of years. Definitely not escapist reading, but escapism is not recommended in these times. We are constantly reminded to be in a state of alertness in airports, reminded to be aware of our cell phones in theatres and churches, told to get off the phone while driving in New Jersey or face a traffic ticket.

But the more some of us are warned to be alert, the more we wish to escape. Maybe it’s the teenager in all of us. We’ve just heard it all a million times and begin to stage little rebellions even if we agree with the general rule. Some part of us resists having to conform, and we may get overly involved in work or play or distraction.

I understand this. I know people who avoid watching the news on TV because they “can’t do anything about” the bad things that are happening; these are people who, when they see a problem, want to solve it or alleviate it as quickly as possible – you know, people our age. [“Let’s fix that thing.”] In a case like the suffering in Darfur, the problem seems too overwhelming to contemplate. So we prefer not to contemplate it. And there is a degree of health in sweeping around your own door and sticking to your knitting. We can always pray for Darfur. Couldn’t hurt. Heck, the bad guys are praying against us.

My complaint is with the “nothing ever changes anyway so why even vote” frame of mind. I’ve overheard a well-educated person I used to work with say, actually out loud: “All the stupid people vote. Why should I participate?” This seems to be a common view in technical fields. He didn’t want to get his hands dirty as a member of the elite. Voting is for people who need that sort of thing. I was too puzzled to respond as I worked out in my mind his line of thinking. It’s hard to even think that way. Doesn’t everyone breathe in and out? Doesn’t he?

But I’ve heard not so smart people saying the same things, but in their case it just seemed too much trouble to participate as a citizen of their country. The elections are a distraction from their own little worlds.

On the other hand (let’s see that’s three or four hands by now), after reading 20 or so years ago about the Haitians who got gunned down by Tonton Macoutes while waiting in line to vote in an election, I’ve been trying to maintain a policy of voting in every tiny general or school election that comes along – though I’ve missed a few lately. This makes me feel as if I’m avenging those Haitians somehow. I know this doesn’t make sense.

The big world is impinging rather more than it used to here in South Jersey. We’ve always had a little Mafia representation in Cherry Hill and Delran and Atlantic City. Now we have the Fort Dix Six, local radical Muslim immigrants who used pizza delivery to infiltrate Fort Dix and try to cause some death and destruction. They were not successful in their plans. Their trial is coming up. They are young guys whose families live in Cherry Hill. [Correction 8/4: the number of men on trial now is five, but another man was tried separately and sentenced to 20 months in March 2008.]

One of the things The Looming Tower discusses is how what we could call ‘mainstream’ Muslims are generally appalled by the thinking let alone the actions of the radical elements. Most mainstream Muslims, especially those who have a good relationship with modernity, want peace, prosperity, and the ability to educate their families. According to recent newspaper reports, they find ridiculous the old tribesmen who try to maintain the tradition of multiple wives. Closer to home, as a substitute teacher in Cherry Hill, I would see the few girls wearing a black hajib over their heads (over their long-sleeved t-shirts and jeans), covering as much of their faces as the pre-Vatican II nuns used to do, and think how nice it was that the idea of modesty was being upheld somewhere. They were quiet-mannered, not angry, just a little self-conscious and proud at the same time. You know, like a teenager.

Here’s another story. I’m selling audiobooks for a living now, and I occasionally attend trade fairs. One was in Manhattan at the end of 2006 at the General Society Building on West 44th Street. You walk in and notice as you walk up the winding marble steps of the lobby a sculpture of a man’s arm holding a big mallet sticking out of the wall, just like on the Arm & Hammer baking soda packages. I thought to myself, “Where am I? In a 1930s meeting hall of some old Communists?” It was a surprisingly grand old building, too ornate and graceful for Communists as we usually think of them (not a lot of art and architecture appreciation). I expected to find something socialist or at least Roosevelt Democrat in its history; however, the dedication stone displayed on their website shows the year 1802 “in the twenty-seventh year of American Independence.” The society aims to advance “the cultural, educational, and social services to families of skilled craftsmen.” The place is still going on. There is a library and old classrooms where the exhibitors displayed wares and seminars were held for that weekend.

On the first morning the early crowd was light and I decided to say hello my neighbor, since she was also alone. She wore a black hajib and the rest of her clothing was black and all encompassing (more all-encompassing than the high school kids I’d seen) except for her hands and face. She was about twenty and looked nervous. We chatted about this and that for a few minutes. Her accent was American. Her exhibit was displaying about ten differently packaged Korans in English plus some children’s books. My thought was that knowledge is better than ignorance.

Back during the first Gulf War in the 1990s I had done some reading on Saudi Arabia and had read much of the Koran out of curiosity, since in that conflict some of the Muslims were enemies, while some were allies. I now know what a Wahhabi is. I know what taquiya is. I know Shia from Sunni. I found the Koran interesting as poetry, a little unfamiliar-feeling as far as organization. Some sections, such as The Ants, were humorous; some verses, such as the one that says “I made the different kinds so you could get to know each other,” are very cosmopolitan-sounding. The bitterer verses seem no worse in their context than some Biblical verses.

So I was feeling pretty cosmopolitan as I talked to this lady. We however got around to the general news of the day.

She suddenly said with great force, “Well, the main mistake they made in this country was separation of church and state. Look at the law they passed in Massachusetts. They let gays marry. This never would have happened if you didn’t have separation of church and state.”
I was once again too stunned to respond while I figured out her line of thinking. Just then the rest of her family came in – father, sister and her children - and I went back to my area. The next day we just nodded good morning.

I did finally find what I wanted to say: that this country is actually founded on separation of church and state, an idea from the Pennsylvania Quakers that was finally put into the U. S. Constitution and which stemmed from the bloody religious conflicts of Europe of the centuries preceding the founding of the United States. In fact, the West has already made all the mistakes about religion that Islamists are making now. Islam needs to go through its own Era of Enlightenment (as Hirsi Ali also recommends in Infidel) where Reason is allowed into the argument.

In fact, we could go further back to the Gospels where it is recommended to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Separation of church and state has always been a good idea for the health of religion and government. Nobody thought to try to practice it until William Penn established his colony.

So if you get some laws you don’t like, that’s just the gamble of democracy. Bad ideas may turn up in the marketplace but will eventually fade away. Good ideas will remain, or will return again.

But I didn’t say any of that. I only thought it much later.

[Could some members of the old HCHS Debate Club possibly help me with my problem? I see Bob Hohwald and Cassie Riger are coming to the reunion, but how about Pat Dranchak and Lew Hassell? Who else knows how to debate? Are there lawyers in the house? Maybe I can make an appointment for a free consultation over the Reunion Weekend.]

On the other side of my table at the book fair, however, was another family of exhibitors. The woman was petite with light hair and glasses and a friendly manner. We talked about the scarf I was wearing. We joked about this and that. She was in front of a very attractive and professional-looking display promoting books and newsletters, and giving away bookmarks, about the true facts of the visitation on earth over the past forty years of a number of space aliens, who had specific names, which I forget by now. This was presented as non-fiction. I also forget whether these aliens were for or against the human race, or were they neutral and just trying to give us some needed information? When I checked out the website of the publisher a week later I thought it very well done, informative, graphically attractive, and multi-layered. It seems the founder, this same woman of about our age, was traumatized about the death of President Kennedy in 1963 and has not been the same since, but none of that came up in our conversation.

I was stunned into silence on this one too, being too polite to laugh at the great seriousness and kind-heartedness of this woman as well as her husband and son. I couldn’t even think of a response later on.

There were some very nice people at this fair, though most of the contrarian/ libertarian/ progressive/ old hippie strain, which I had long ago moved beyond, with some outright anti-religion, though I met a nice African-American woman and her son from Camden selling Christian meditation books. The Writers Guild of America was represented. I met a female Episcopal minister who had written a soft porn novel about Mary Magdalene, whom she had re-imagined as a Celtic slave (really a queen of her people) captured in Ireland and brought to Jerusalem (or was it Rome?). The first chapter of the book, which the author was distributing, and which I read, was pretty racy what with the slave market and all. Talk about a marketplace of ideas.

That Saturday evening, instead of immediately walking over to the Port Authority parking lot to drive home, I walked east and north a few blocks for Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. The air was cold but windless. People were out walking, especially around Rockefeller Center where the giant Christmas tree was lit. I couldn’t get close to the skating rink because of the crowds, so I returned to Fifth Avenue. Amazing, moving light displays adorned the outsides of the big old expensive department stores, such as Saks, and the more modern electronics and jewelry stores and banks. You had to stand and watch the lights for a while from across the street to get the full effects over entire buildings. The street-level window displays were also astonishing for the holidays, with slowly moving and ornately dressed mannequins. The cathedral was a quiet zone on the street, with only the reflected light of Rockefeller Center lighting the entrance, as if to spotlight it. A steady stream of people of all kinds slowly climbed the stairs.

That’s really the end of the story. I was thankful to be early enough to find a seat, as the church was quickly packed with people. It was an Advent week. Decorations were not as fancy as for Christmas itself, but the glow was bright and golden. The priest in his sermon suggested we see the film “The Nativity Story” for the season. He was pretty easy-going. Music and singing was good. I only took a few seconds to figure out the unfamiliar route to and from communion. I got the idea some in the congregation were attending as a “must-see” part of their tourist agenda. On the way out I found two local ladies, tall, African-American, looking like relatives in dark long coats and gloves, to direct me to an ATM machine. It was a good end to an interesting day, a little oasis in the turmoil of our times, familiar yet with the feel of a special occasion. I would be back in our world soon enough.

Savor or Seize the Moment, Whichever You Prefer

By Dennis Murawski

Well, friends, last month was 40 years since we walked down the Holy Cross auditorium aisles to receive our diplomas. Life has been filled with all that we filled it with, or let slip by. I find it hard to believe that I am approaching a new decade, and particularly one that begins with a six.

We are at the crossroads of life now, maybe a little past the intersection, a point in time, where we can look back and dimly see the beginning of the journey or look forward with clearer sight and see the end, be it our own, or perhaps our parent’s if we are lucky enough to still have them. Maybe, we are blessed and see the beginning when we hold a new grandchild, which I will do today.

My 88-year-old mother keeps telling me to “seize the moment.” As I look back, she has not always been right, but I think she hit the nail on its head with this one. Occasionally, I will sit back and think about my life, what I have done, what I have failed to do. Both unwritten columns have numerous entries. I also keep an index card in my pocket, to jot down things I need to do. My wife, Pam, says I make too many lists.

Looking back, there is a lot of time that is filled with the stuff you need to do just to live. Work – that thing that is interfering with more and more of my life. Housework – paying bills, shopping, cutting the grass, etc. Then there is the really good stuff that makes it all worthwhile – years ago playing with your kids, family trips, watching your kids play sports, or dance in a recital. Maybe there was volunteer work, like being involved in a church youth program for nine years, or doing evenings for engaged couples. Maybe it was coaching youth soccer, then high school soccer or adult/college soccer for the summer. We all have a list of things we’ve done.

I bring this up because, for me, the most enjoyable times I’ve had on this journey are those I spend with people. Maybe it is a primordial thing, or a team player thing. Maybe I enjoy finding out about people, where they’ve been, what they have done. I enjoy the frivolity and jokes of the moment, and the deep conversations about life, what we are doing here, politics, whatever. For me, sharing moments in our lives with friends is what it’s all about.

I am so looking forward to seeing all of you. It’s been 10 years since we were together and there is so much to talk about and share. There have been so many of you I didn’t get a chance to spend time with at the previous reunions, so this will be like a smorgasbord for me. And then there are those coming for the first time. Wow – there are 40 years of life to talk about!

I know that there are still a lot of you thinking about coming. As I’ve told my soccer teams when we are losing, time is not our friend now. We have the opportunity to stop the clock for 48 hours and revel in each other, our common four years at HC, sharing our life stories and expressing our hopes for the future. Then there’s the dancing. Five or ten years from now, the dancing will be slower than right now.

So you have a choice. You can seize and savor this moment in time, or you can put it in the column of ‘things I should have done.’ Either way, Monday October 13th will arrive. You can be basking in the afterglow of a wonderful weekend, or waking up and going back to work after a weekend of yard work, shopping, cooking, or whatever most of our lives are filled with. Sure hope I see you there. The work can wait!!!

Blogger’s Note: If anyone is hesitating to join us because they would be coming alone, please notify me or any committee member to set up any ‘singles’ sharing of rooms. The Flanders offers suites only, so two, three, or four people could be comfortable sharing. - BG

Some Committee News

By Barbara Groark

We were going to wait till closer to party time to mention this, but at a June 19 Reunion Committee meeting at the spacious Rancocas Creek-front home of Wynne Pippitt Pfeffer, the Reunion Weekend Friday evening plans were firmed up somewhat. These notes are pretty much from her meeting minutes.

Based on the number of rooms now reserved at the Flanders Hotel for our October weekend, we expect about 60 people for Friday festivities and plan to have a sort of progressive wine/beer/non-alcoholic beverage/hors d’oeuvres/chips/oldies music and chat party on one floor out of the 7 or 8 rooms of the Committee members from 6:00 or 7:00 or 8:00 till who knows when, though I suspect not all night. Your contributions already cover the cost.

Check-in time at the Flanders is 3:00 p.m. Some local people may be working till 5:00 and driving. Some people may want dinner earlier and join us later, or use the party as a Happy Hour and go to dinner later, or walk on the beach or boardwalk, and then return.

If you want to make and bring an appetizer, dip, etc., please feel free, although our point is less work for Mom/Dad, and we intend to have plenty of snacks and drinks already available. We discussed having a "dip throwdown" a la cable TV’s Bobby Flay. Denny Bender Stevens, who has tested her cream cheese and salsa dip on teenage boys, is the one to beat. If you can compete, please bring something.

Someone also mentioned having people optionally wear 1968 clothing fashions, but no one else seemed enthusiastic. Remember, it was the “Hairspray” era. Miniskirts? Bell-bottoms? Jack and Jackie Kennedy style? Laugh-in and Shindig boots-made-for-walkin’? Hair in a flip or Beatles moptop? If anyone is inclined and has courage, feel free, if you can dig anything up. We will be close to Halloween after all. Most people probably will be happier wearing items from their current casual wardrobe.

That’s the current committee news. Please offer any suggestions you might have for party enhancement. In one sad note, we found out that Richard Noval died in the last few years in addition to the list of deceased we published earlier.

Muzak, Monks, and Food Shopping

By Barbara Groark

However, if you do want to hear the pop music of our own grade school and high school years, sung by the original performers, you need go no further than the your local food store. At least that’s what’s been happening in my neighborhood starting a few months ago. The company that puts out Muzak is no longer using the much-disparaged easy-listening versions of older popular songs – in recent years it’s been Laura Nyro, Billy Joel, The Who, and Jefferson Airplane given the Muzak treatment if I remember correctly, however vaguely. The company now serves up original recordings for shoppers and elevator riders, and the era of current choice is the late fifties and first half of the sixties. I don’t know if the stores are making a mistake.

The other day I was minding my own business picking out some bread or cereal or lettuce or milk, and I almost started doing the Slop as “Carol” by Chuck Berry came on (not “Oh Carol” by Neil Sedaka). I controlled myself, but it was a bit distracting. Then it was the Beatles “I Wanna Be Your Man,” which is not a great sing-along for me, and is kind of noisy if you’re trying to read Nutrition Facts. But then “Just One Look” came on with that opening piano, and I almost (almost) compulsively got into girl-group stance to start singing along. This song is really good for singing along. I tried to remember who the artist was – it kind of sounds like Tina Turner, or at least the Ikettes, but I really couldn’t remember. I wrote down the song name on my shopping list.

Well, thank heavens for YouTube. It turns out that I never knew the woman’s name in the first place, only every word to the song. She was an obscure one-hit wonder of a singer named Doris Troy, and here she is, or was. (Warning: Don’t play this link until you are in a place of relative privacy, with enough dance room for a cha-cha.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvpLeRa4phk


Before YouTube, what did we do to find out important historical information such as this? Well, we had arguments in bars and at family reunions, and when nothing came of that went to the people who are the archivists and historians of our age, such as Jerry Blavat (who currently has a one-hour educational oldies radio show on WXPN-FM in Philly on Saturday evenings at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time if you’re interested [ http://xpn.org/xpn-programs/geator and I think you can listen on the Internet if you are from way out of town.]).

Or go to Dave Marsh’s book The Heart of Rock and Soul: 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made (New York: DaCapo Press, 1999). I resorted to this valuable book at one point after hearing a band in a bar playing a pretty nice version of “Some Kind of Wonderful” (not the Drifters song), and my cousin-in-law reminisced about the song as recorded by Grand Funk Railroad. Not blaming him a bit for being a few years younger than I, I pointed out that I thought the original was by another group, a black R&B group whose name wouldn’t come to me. We put the issue aside (no money involved). But I got to the reference section of a bookstore later on and found the above-mentioned song-critique encyclopedia and looked up the title in the index (“Kind of”, not “Kinda”).

Item 594, the Soul Brothers Six. Atlantic, 1967. As it says on page 390, “As for the Soul Brothers Six, who knows what became of them? They seem to have been from Philadelphia; judging from what I can hear, they may have been that town’s answer to Dyke and the Blazers.” [“Bugaloo Down Broadway”]

I was glad to be vindicated, and I sent my cousin-in-law a memo (no email at the time). And I went back to the store and actually bought the book, which has proved valuable since then. And who knew that Dyke and the Blazers even needed an answer?

If you’d like to refresh your memory, here is a version by neither GFR nor SB6, and I think it sounds better than both of them, being by a men’s a cappella group:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHRLrYWPVwo&feature=related


Have you been to any grade school or high school choir concerts lately? It seems that the music teachers and choir directors have been digging into the girl and boy doo-wop and R&B repertoire for the past few years and getting the kids to learn some of our era songs, like those guys in that video. Since one of my nieces is a singer, I’ve heard concert versions of “My Girl” by Mary Wells, “The Lollipop Song” (I forget by whom), as well as “Over the Rainbow,” which by the way has been again recorded by one of today’s singers, and the kids like it all over again. Sounds like they are trying to have fun with the older music, and please some of the parents and grandparents in the audience (and possibly annoy others).

It seem like adult choirs and barbershop quartets are also making a comeback among the really rebellious, and the barbershop guys are incorporating doo-wop and R&B sounds among their older standards. I can vouch for this, since I saw a barbershop singing competition a few years ago, rebelliously, at the Wildwood Convention Center (Wildwood, now advertised as the Doo-Wop Capital of the World). That was fun to hear.

And if we recall our history even more, class, we can see why, for example, communism never really took hold in this country. We already had a voice of the people on the radio every day. While other people had Hitler or Mussolini haranguing them, the Allies had Bing Crosby and Duke Ellington. While other people had Khruschev, we had Elvis. Are music and dancing the opiate of the masses? Or did they help us win wars? Or are they just excellent anger management tools? (All of the above?)

Anyway, there was a time in the 1970s, following the political assassinations, when that old American music was disparaged and apparently voluntarily suppressed. Even the blacks stopped dancing. Something was obviously wrong. Only the gays, like the monks of medieval Europe, seemed to be keeping the knowledge alive till the Renaissance came. Are we seeing that time now?

Here’s another obscure hit that’s made a return; two versions. I give them both because I don’t think Alicia gets the better of Brenda, though she does a good job. And the sound, not great, on the Brenda version is unrestored to digital. [Ibid., page 599, Item 946, Tamla 1964: “…more reminiscent of the pop-soul set pieces Burt Bacharach and Hal David were constructing for Dionne Warwick in those years. Which also marks Holloway as the first really adult Motown artist….”] Again, I would be in a non-public area before opening the links:

Here’s Brenda Holloway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SzeReQR-kw

Here’s Alicia Keys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfycwdZoseM&feature=related

In other news, from some time in the nineties, one of my sisters and her husband, whose son was touring with the Philadelphia Boys Choir, traveled to South Africa in the period after apartheid ended. Her report when she got back included the kinds of music the South Africans were playing on the radio: old Elvis music and other old American rock and roll and R&B. Who would have guessed this would be their choice? They apparently found the songs to be appropriate accompaniment to the big social upheavals that were, and still are, happening in that country.

OK I have work to do. I can’t be browsing around YouTube all day and night!

But another interesting thing that is happening with this music is that it is really big, and I mean really really big all over again in England nowadays, as confirmed by my hairdresser, whose husband is British and goes back home a few time a year. There are some radio guys there who call themselves Northern Soul who are promoting the old R&B music and creating dances that look like a combination line dance, break dance, and just a mushy shuffle, but anyhow it’s not mosh pit metal. These are the guys dancing in back of Duffy on this song, which has a sound a little like “Sally Go Round the Roses” and a little like “Nowhere to Run Nowhere to Hide.” I give it about a 95. It has a good beat that makes you want to dance, or at least join the background girls in the “yeah, yeahs.” See if you agree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE2orthS3TQ

And finally, something completely ridiculous. This is the Northern Soul guys again, from England, apparently YouTube-savvy, combining an old Motown song with an unrelated dance clip by the Nicholas Brothers, the old vaudeville-type dance team whose heyday was the 1930s and -40s.

I sense a great disturbance in the Force.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_UudmXWuMg&feature=related

And I still haven’t finished my food shopping.

And Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and grandfathers out there.

A Defense of June Cleaver

By Barbara Groark

Our early childhoods and grade school years were spent during the 1950s, a time much maligned as white-bread, vanilla, flavorless, and naïve, a time personified by the Leave It to Beaver television show, featuring the Cleaver family (Ward, June, Wally, and Theodore [the Beaver] – why do we remember these things?). The later feminists and student protesters had a field day excoriating the lies, yes all lies, promoted in family shows like Donna Reed, Father Knows Best, My Three Sons, I Love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet.

OK, maybe they could have shown some variety in family life. There seemed to be only one race of people. There was a sameness to the ‘problems’ to be solved by the end of the show. These were the some of the shows that babysat us while our mothers were making dinner or doing laundry. The shows and their themes were considered safe for children.

The ‘bland’ reputation of the fifties has been passed on by people our age to the next generation of high school and college kids. I suppose if you do not delve too deeply you could stay with that opinion. But if we look back as adults at the political and cultural events, let alone TV shows, of that time, the fifties look pretty noisy and lively. Come on - they had Tennessee Williams on Broadway (A Streetcar Named Desire and others), Brown vs. the Board of Education in Arkansas and Rosa Parks in Alabama, the struggles of the McCarthy House Un-American Activities Committee and the Cold War, Nazi-hunters, crazy artists like Jackson Pollock, movies like Picnic, and rock-and-roll and Elvis. What kind of blandness is that? But when you are seven or eight, you don’t know these things.

Baby boomers of course had to grow up and distance themselves from their own childhoods, as is normal for everyone. I guess there were so many of us and we were so noisy that we were like bulldozers over everything we didn’t like at the same time. Childhood was just not cool, and it was so damned sheltered. Annoying.

However, now we have Nickelodeon and TV Land cable channels, and they give us the opportunity, boys and girls, to reexamine some old opinions. Some time in the last 10 years or so I came across an old Leave it to Beaver show, and I watched the whole thing instead of continuing to ‘surf.’ I came away with an astonishing discovery, now that I had studied literary criticism and read a lot of books of lots of different kinds.

Leave It to Beaver was one of the most sophisticated, subtle portrayals of childhood ever. It was all done from the point of view of the seven-year-old in the family, and when you are seven years old, your Mom is beautiful and wise (most often seen in a shirtwaist dress with pearls and high heels, hair perfect – if she’s doing some work around the house, she is wearing a ruffled apron), your Dad is kind and wise (changing when he gets home from his suit jacket to his cardigan sweater and fixing his pipe) and someone you can talk to anytime and anyplace, and your older brother is just amazing in general. Some of the subtlest interaction is wordless among the adults or older kids, which we can interpret better now that we are adults instead of the same age as the character Beaver.

In one scene of the episode I saw, the Beav was walking to school with one of the boys from his block past the white picket fences (the same environment as our first and second grade readers). From their conversation, it was clear that this boy’s family was not as happy as the Cleavers. From what was said and not said, and from the childlike interpretation by the kids, you could tell that there was maybe alcoholism and maybe beating of wife and kids going on, or at least a lot of yelling. But the sunny disposition and logic of the kids kept all that in the background of the story. Only an adult viewer would guess what may have been really going on. The writing is worthy of Mark Twain possibly.

So I’d like to defend the much-maligned June Cleaver and her family. They are probably not really the dimwitted, small-town ‘fifties’ nonentities as remembered by embarrassed former fans in later decades. They are the idealized products of a sunny seven-year-old’s mind, not complete maybe, but not completely unrealistic as they are.

If you think you need a refresher, here is an article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Cleaver