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Update December,
2010 |
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John S. Naimo 1936-2010 |
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An obituary and guest book
may still be available at www.cuffemcginn.com
If the original obituary is no longer
available, you may be able to find it in another newspaper using the
Legacy.Com website. For help using that site, click
here. |
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Special Thanks to Jim Leonard for letting us know of Johnny
Naimo's passing and to Wanda (Bartlett) Cummings for emailing us on the
death of Joan (Cornwell) Brooks husband, James Brooks. Mr. Brooks
passed away on November 7, 2010. Obituary information is available
by clicking on www.legacy.com and
filling in the search form with his name and the state of Texas and
choosing "Past Six Months" and "All Obituaries" from the other selection
boxes followed by clicking on "Search". Joan (Cornwell) Brooks has current information on our class
database. If you would like to contact Joan, write to us at
salem197a@gmail.com.
John Naimo's contact information had not been verified for some time.
However, the class database does have current phone book information
with a telephone number and address for John and for his wife Yvonne
(Vose) Naimo. |
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Christmas Reflection |
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"I brought you a present," I
explained, extending the bags at arm's length. "It's kinda dumb,"
I stammered. "It's something to eat for later."
She
eagerly took the package and peered into the brown bag holding the
ravioli dish. Her eyes lit up brightly. "Ravioli!" she
exclaimed. "Oh, I love ravioli. Thank you. It's not a
dumb gift at all. It's a real treasure, more precious than
jewels."
More
precious than jewels? I thought. Yes...Of course...I
finally and truly understood The Story of the Other Wise Man.
Mama's ravioli took on a very special meaning.
From
Leo Buscaglia's Seven Stories of Christmas Love |
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Classy Writing: A poem by Jim Wood has been added to our
art and writing page. Click
here to skip
to that page. |
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Thought For Today: "The denunciation of the youth is a
necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in
the circulation of their blood." Logan Pearsall Smith from
Little Books of Quotations, A Special Grandfather, by History and
Heraldry Ltd. |
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Down Memory Lanes |
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Found on the back page of the December 2, 2010 issue of the Boston Globe
daily magazine "g" (for gee whiz, I guess). The Web Manger
was never a good candlepin bowler and got trounced regularly by Bill
Croteau and Mike Ciarletta. For that reason, he became interested
in tenpin bowling when All Star Lanes opened on the Lynnway.
One of
the highlights of his tenpin days at All Star was to go head to head for
a season with one of the great candlepin bowlers, Joe Cawlina of Lynn. We tied for high average at 197 but Joe had the
higher total pinfall and there went the cash and the trophy.
Another highlight was to meet Hall of Fame tenpin bowler Dick Weber when Dick came to Lynn for a head-to-head match with Joe, first at Lucky
Strike and then at All Star. Joe won the candlepin match and was
leading in the tenpin match eventually won by Weber.
Graceful and affable, Joe Cawlina was one of the classiest bowlers
the Manager ever competed against. He joined the professional
ranks of tenpin bowlers. Was a member of one of the famous
Budweiser professional touring teams and competed on national television.
A back injury, in his backyard of all places, brought his tenpin bowling
career to a premature end.
Years later we met in line at the Dunkin Donuts on the Lynnway across
from Champion Lamp and Joe's enthusiasm for his nephew and his tenpin
bowling skills got the Manager to return to tenpin bowling where he now
battles every Monday night by email with Bill Croteau in Wisconsin.
While Bill has been successful in both candles and tens, he doesn't get
a choice in Wisconsin. We both have had some good years,
but both of us got off to a slow start this season. It's nature's
way of saying "What the hell do you expect, you're 75 now!"
History Note: Joe is a member of the Candlepin Hall of Fame and
in his heyday was an ambassador for the candlepin industry when it tried
to establish the game in California. The industry jazzed up the
candle pin scoring to make it more competitive with ten pins but had no
way to compete against the number of strikes available with a ten pin ball.
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recently I learned that Janet (Rowen) LeBrassuer's late husband Ron
Crowley was Joe Cawlina's most famous doubles partner. Both were inducted into the Candlepin Hall of Fame
at the same time. If you have not seen our piece on candlepin
bowling, your can jump there by clicking
here. |
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Merry Christmas plus any other
holidays you want to celebrate to all the classmates
still around to drive their families crazy. |
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Update October, 2010 |
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Barbara (Nelson) Paulette 1935 - 2010 |
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An obituary and guest book may be available at www.cuffemcginn.com.
If the original obituary is no longer
available, you may be able to find it in another newspaper using the
Legacy.Com website. For help using that site, click
here.
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From Inbox contributor Lee DAgnese, pictures of one of
the most colorful rivers in the world, the Cano Cristales in Colombia,
SA. When the water level is just right between seasons, varieties of algae and moss bloom in a dazzling array.
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Older Than Dirt |
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While some classmates may feel that way,
congratulations are in order to all who have, are or will be turning 75. |
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Congratulations are also in order to reunion committee
member Pat (Donnelly) Fabucci and her husband Vinnie on the occasion of
their 50th wedding anniversary. |
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Congratulations also ought to
be in order for the the couple celebrating the longest consecutive
string of anniversaries. Since our database doesn't carry marriage
dates, the web manager is claiming it's Elaine (McGrath) and Dwight (Dewey)
Brothers who tied the knot on December 11, 1954. |
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Speaking of older than dirt, the website manager had a very pleasant
time recently at the new home of Stuie Ralph, class of '52 and his child
bride Janet (Armstrong) Ralph. They are currently at a ground
floor condo in Lynnfield to accommodate Ralph's wheelchair. The
good news is that while Ralph's portability has diminished, it hasn't
affected his brain or his quick wit. Janet has given us her LEHS
memorabilia to use and a good chunk of it will appear below.
An added
benefit to the Ralphs' new condo is that several of Ralph's classmates
are in the same complex. A few members of the class of '52 have
expressed an interest in joining us at our 60th reunion and are on our
current mailing list. If you know anyone else with the same
interest, please send their name and address to
salem197a@gmail.com
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Stuie gets smacked by Tootie (Pettigrew) Anderson at our 25th reunion
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National Grandparents Day |
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The more time the web manager spends at his local senior center, the
more amazed he is at some of the sacrifices that grandparents have made
for their families. In tribute, he thought classmates might enjoy
Memere's Eulogy written by his niece for her grandmother who was
also his mother-in-law. Click here at
Memere's Eulogy to jump to
that section. |
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Down Memory Lane
pictures including Janet (Armstrong) Ralph's high school memorabilia and
the Washington DC class trip have been moved to a separate
Down Memory Lane page. Click
here for the
Washington trip. For some of Janet's
memorabilia, click here.
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Signs of Fall |
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From the second floor bay window of our Salem website office, Fall
brings the sight of stopped lines of traffic in the morning and
afternoon. While the web manager can't speak from the women's
point of view, male drivers (in warmer weather) can pass the time
admiring the latest college fashions female students are almost wearing.
An apology (sort of): In the March update
story on Salem State, I thanked Sylvania for their parting gift of a
toxic dump where the Salem State baseball field is now located. It
turns out that Sylvania was just the last in a long line. That
area, originally known as the Old Creek Salt Marsh, was bought in 1926
by Standard Oil and developed for commercial use. The first
company to be built on the site in 1936 may sound familiar. It was
the Hygrade Incandescent Lamp Company, the first of a series of lamp
companies that ended with Sylvania.
Sylvania was eventually required to cap the dump, In talking
about this with my two sons, it wasn't a big thrill to learn that my
kids used to sneak under the dump fence and play tag in the big piles of
broken incandescent lamps. |
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Recent Changes at Salem State |
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Several families of egrets, noticeably absent this summer probably
because of the dormitory construction next to the salt marsh lands,
returned in time to celebrate the opening of the dormitory shown in the
March update. The parents must have gone on a second honeymoon
since the number of their children had more than doubled.
The
egrets own the marsh lands and the cormorant in the picture is the site
manager. Short term visitors such as ducks pay the egrets by
finding sources of food and then fleeing for their lives when the egrets
come over to finish the feeding. Swans from flax pond occasionally
visit rent free...nobody messes with the swans. |
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The new dormitory has been named Marsh Hall, after the salt marsh and not
after Dick Marsh from our class. Dick by the way is alive and
well, living in Maine and claims that he is staying out of trouble.
Salem State University: It's official. On July 28,
2010 the ceremony took place at the MA State House. While older
Salem residents grumble about the loss of tax revenue, the University
has become a major resource for residents in the area. State
tuition is currently under $8,000 with bachelor and master's programs expanding.
Students can currently get a doctoral degree at Salem in cooperation
with the University of Massachusetts and eventually should be able to do
it all at Salem. |
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Not reproduced with permission, but the site manager just wanted to put
in a plug for one of his favorite Boston Globe comic strips. His
comic preferences may have been slightly skewed by his spending the last
35 working years in Lynn high schools. |
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Update May, 2010 |
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Dorothy (McCollin) Fuller 1936 - 2010 |
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Dorothy (McCollin) Fuller passed away on April 4, 2010 in Brentwood, NH
and William Sims, husband of Ruth (Sims) Hunt passed away on May 4, 2010
in West Dennis, MA. Ruth and Bill are pictured on the right at our
25th reunion. While local obituaries may no longer be available,
you can try using the Legacy.Com website. For help using that site, click
here. An email
address is available for Ruth. Write to
salem197a@gmail.com
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Update March, 2010 |
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Spring |
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With good weather and April just around our corner, what could be more
appropriate than offerings from our Poet Laureate, James F. Wood.
Two more poems have been added from his collection: 7 Poems for
a Pretty Lady. Click here
to view them. |
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Super Bowl 2011 |
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For classmates who like to plan ahead and think they might be attending
the 2011 Super Bowl, Joan (Cornwell) Brooks would like to hear from you.
She wrote recently to say "If anyone chooses to come to Texas in 2011
for the Super bowl game, please get in touch with me. I am twenty
minutes from the new Cowboy stadium."
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YouTube, Lynn, MA |
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Claire (McEntee) Hamilton sent the site manager some YouTube videos made
in Lynn. There are a couple of car trips and a couple of overhead
videos shot from a remote-piloted drone. Go to the YouTube site
and search under our city and state. |
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Happy Anniversary |
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Dunkin Donuts started
celebrating their 60th in February, 2010. This was their
first store in Quincy, MA where you could buy premium coffee for a dime
a cup. Today it claims the title of largest chain of coffee/baked
goods restaurants in the world with some 6,500 shops in the U.S. and
2,600 internationally. Sales for the past year reached $5.6
billion.
Our website's resident expert on antique cars, Ed
Cummiskey, has identified the vehicles (left to right) as a '50-'51 Buick, a
'49 Chevy Fleetline, a '47 Plymouth 4DR Sedan and a '49 Plymouth 2DR
Sedan.
The Dunkins in the North Shore area are the site
manager's choice among fast food restaurants for his one daily cup of coffee...not
that he knows anything about "real" coffee but he likes the taste and
managed to survive to age 77 before having his first cup of Starbucks
coffee courtesy of Shirley Carpenter and her sister Susi Paresi at our
60th reunion. |
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Happy Holy Days |
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Reunion Committee Bequests: While
religious, educational and charitable organizations are encouraging you to consider bequeathing their institutions, the Reunion Committee
has chosen a different approach. Since the statute of privacy limitations
will expire on your office record card in 2013, the Reunion Committee,
for a modest bequest, will work diligently on your behalf to make sure
that your high school grades never appear on the pages of this website.
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Turnabout Is Fair Play: Thanks to a
benevolent weather pattern this winter, North Shore residents listened
to raindrops in February while the site manager's grandnieces enjoyed an
unplanned 3-day vacation in Maryland. Their dad had a different
view on the subject while their mom, a survivor of our '78
blizzard, enjoyed cross-country skiing on city streets. |
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Where Were You In March, 1953: Probably arriving at Lynn
English wetter than usual. For the past 57 years, that month was
the wettest March in weather recorded history for the Boston area at 11"
of rainfall. The record was clobbered this month by a rainfall
total of 14" which made it the second wettest month in Boston's weather
history. The worst month ever...August, 1955. In addition to
severe flooding, several bouts with violent winds this month has
also contributed to major power outages. Perhaps snow isn't such a bad
idea after all. At least it's not global warming. We know
because Fox News told us so. |
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Springtime blossoms at the
entrance to Salem State College's oldest structure. It was also
the site for some of the initiation hazing of incoming members from our
class. See below for some fuzzy but perhaps familiar faces. |
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The Little School That Could: Salem State College, since
its inception in 1854 as Salem Normal School, has been an affordable and
accessible source of education for North Shore residents. (No jokes
please, those of us who attended have heard them all.) It was
Salem Teachers College when members our class arrived and became Salem State
College a few years after we left and for which our STC class of 1957
takes full credit. Currently the largest state college in MA, a factor
often greeted with mixed emotions by Salem residents, its bid to become
Salem State University was voted on favorably by the state's Joint
Committee on Higher Education.
The State College University Status bill is now in the works at the
State House.
Go to
www.salemstate.edu for current
information on programs and departments. For more general information, Wikipedia has a very comprehensive entry on their
site at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_State_College.
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Details on the facade of the
college's oldest building |
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There were at least 12 members of our class that started their college
careers at Salem Teachers College (STC) in the early years after high
school. If you know anyone else who should be on this list, drop
us a note at salem197a@gmail.com
The STC 1957 yearbook lists 30 graduates with Lynn addresses. For the
entire school that year, Lynn residents made up about 20% of the student body.
We
know at least two of these classmates went on to receive doctoral
degrees and become school superintendents...Dick Dussault and Jim
(Dutch) Leonard. Who would have thought that these two wise guys
actually were. Probably came as a big surprise to their teachers,
guidance counselors and parole officers. While Dr. Dussault went
on to run a regional school system, Dr. Leonard had the ultimate "what
goes around, comes around" by returning to become Lynn's superintendent
of schools. |
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College Bound |
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Claire Ajootian - Bob Barrasso - Keith
Burke - Rick Donovan - Sandy Drake - Dick
Dussault |
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Dick
Flynn - Tosca Forte - Al Grant - Jim
Leonard - Claire Maloney - Tom McEnaney |
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Unlike some of today's STC students who seem skilled at avoiding classes
on Thursdays and Fridays, our days were filled with morning and
afternoon classes for the entire week. Commuting was the norm for
area students while local Salem homeowners supplemented their income by
renting under the table to non-commuters. There weren't a lot chances
to overdo the social life as many worked to pay
for tuition or to help out at home. At least 30 Korean and WW II veterans
were in our
class under the G. I. bill. Most were married and a number
of them had started families. This led to an enlightening second
education for male freshman. Brown bag lunches were the norm and
often eaten in cars owned by the vets, especially in the winter.
Those fresh out of high school would carry on about true love and
finding the right girls
until a vet would puncture their balloon with something along the lines
of "At my age, the best experience is a good bowel movement."
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College Life |
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STC Sophomores were responsible for hazing freshmen who could be
recognized on sight by their beanie caps and the fact that they
looked like high school kids. During the first four days of
initiation week, most of the hazing took place at lunch time. It
seemed subdued however, probably because the veterans made it very clear
that their hazing days had long since passed. The Sophomores did
make up for lost time on the last day of that week. |
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Dick Dussault, Keith Burke, Sandy Drake, Rick Donovan and Dick Flynn
pose badly before starting the last day with dancing on the front lawn
(same sex dancing only). The lawn is at the junction of 1A and 114
in Salem. As far as we know, we didn't cause any accidents but we
probably gave a lot of drivers something to talk about. |
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Dick Flynn and Keith Burke; Jim Leonard from the 1957
baseball team picture |
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There were a few serious dress-up times. This
may be the Junior Prom with Sandy Drake and Ed Moran of Swampscott
scoring points with faculty members. |
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Our Junior Class Treasurer, Dick Dussault and our
Junior Class Vice-President, Chet Lee who also did past duty as Rick
Donovan's babysitter. |
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Get away from your parents and it's instant party
time. Claire Ajootian gets a little winter sun while Tom McEnaney
stands tall with Kappa Delta Phi members. |
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There may have been a few arguments about which guy
looked best in a dress but Dick Dussault won feet down as best in a
bathing suit. Al Grant, our class brain trust, carried the banner
for best dressed bow tie person. |
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Claire Maloney front and
center with other members of the Senior
Business Education Council |
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Tosca Forte front and center with the Deans' Aides |
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Better dressed versions of Dick Dussault, Keith Burke, Claire Adjootian,
Rick Donovan and Sandy Drake. The older "gentlemen" are part of
the veterans' group that provided our second education about the
realities of life. |
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Click To Enlarge |
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This is the only picture in our college yearbook of the initiation
week's Friday night banquet. Amazingly enough, most of us
are in it. Amazingly enough as well, the
psychology works. The following Monday we all felt that our high
school days were behind us, that we belonged and had become an
integral part of the college student body. |
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Salem State Construction |
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The college has taken over the former Sylvania Lighting plant on Loring
Avenue and made it their central campus. It currently houses the
Bertolon School of Business and is increasing on-campus living space with
its fifth set of dorms. Click on the images below for a larger
view. |
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There are some advantages to a city campus. The building on the
far left is a liquor store and to its right is the Salem Diner which
comes highly recommended by Art Caldwell, Bob Rhodes and Rick Donovan.
To the diner's right is the former Atwood and Morrilll property.
Thanks to loan from a well-to-do graduate, the college owns the property
and it will be torn down to become a temporary parking lot for the
growing body of dormitory students. |
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To the right is a 525-bed residence and dining facility under
construction. Current residences house 1,500 undergraduates.
On top of that are 6,200 undergrad commuters. In all, the college
has five campuses over 112 acres. Important fact: if you have a
male relative interested in attending, women outnumber men 62% to
38%. |
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The view from behind the dorms pictured above. How many dormitory
students can claim their residence is 20 yards from the Atlantic Ocean?
Unfortunately, or fortunately maybe, this only happens at flood tides. Global warming
anyone? |
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The tidal waters entering the central campus above also continue on to the
college's southern campus, the former St. Chritienne Academy site.
While the three main campuses are in walking distance of each other, a
transportation system is in place that connects all five campuses and
the Salem rail station. Not like the old days when us
old-timers had to walk lots of miles in all sorts of weather and uphill
both ways. |
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A more typical look of the tidal land behind the central campus.
The mound on the right side of the picture above is part of a
going away present from Sylvania, a toxic dump of broken florescent
lights. The college has resealed the dump and turned it into an
attractive artificial turf baseball field. Depending on the tides
however, foul balls may have a short life span. |
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Virtual Vietnam Memorial Wall |
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Ed Cummiskey sent us a link to a remarkable internet site. It is a
collection of thousands of Vietnam veterans' pictures, tributes and war
records. It can be found at
http://www.virtualwall.org/iStates.htm and can be searched by name,
by state and by home of record within each state.
(Photo courtesy of the Soldiers Support Project) |
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Snippets from the Inbox: (Normally stolen from Art
Caldwell, Jerry Colpitts, Bill Croteau, Ed Cummiskey, Lee D'Agnese
and Carl Goodwin) |
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This is a detail from the world's largest model
railroad. Search the internet on "Miniatur Wonderlund" for more
information. |
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Update January, 2010 |
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Janice (Hall) Wyman 1936 -
2010 |
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You may be able to find Janis' obituary using the Legacy.Com website. For help using that site, click
here. |
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Our reunion committee is sorry to report that in addition to Janice, two classmates, Mona (Gard) Tedesco and Gerry Ishkanian, lost their
spouses on the same weekend. Bad news comes in bunches: Ed
Cummiskey's daughter, Lisa Stobel of Buford, GA, has passed away at age
45 after a 30-year battle with Crohns's disease.
Addresses for the surviving classmates can
be obtained by writing to our website email at
salem197a@gmail.com |
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Pros And Cons Of Our Recent State Senate Election: The
letters below are from the letters to the editor section of the January
26th 2010 edition of the Boston Globe. |
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Anarchy in the Bay State: "The election of Scott Brown
suggest one thing: An unknown quantity of malcontents called
independents are slowly taking over the voting booths. These
voters have no loyalty, and many are constantly enraged. They
switch parties like underwear and are always in a state of flux.
They're usually uninformed and find any kind of governance menacing.
They use the voting booth like a weapon for self-indulgence and with
little consideration for the good of the whole. They like their
role as spoilers and care little about the repercussions. These
are America's insurgents who care nothing about democracy. They're
determined to make the United States ungovernable. Welcome to the
new age of anarchy." Anthony J. Franscino |
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Massachusetts a swing state for change: "I know how Martha
Coakley's supporters must feel: disappointed, frustrated, angry
and sad. Losing an election is painful and I've been there many
times. Scott Brown's upset victory was good news for us all. When
politicians feel secure, they listen to each other and not to their
constituents. And when one party has complete control, its leaders
can even ignore the voices of their own rank and file. This is the
problem in Washington that Brown's election was meant to solve.
As a
swing state, Massachusetts will gain influence in national elections.
Presidential candidates won't just stop here to raise money, or because
they can't get a direct flight to New Hampshire. And if we can
make our local and state elections more competitive, we can all enjoy
the benefits of representative democracy." David K. Stone
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Summary of New Credit Cards Rules |
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Update December, 2009 |
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Margaret (De Les Dernier) Ventura 1935 -
2009 |
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You may be able to find Margaret's Oklahoma
obituary using the Legacy.Com website. For help using that site, click
here. |
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Christmas Thoughts: From Leo Buscaglia's Seven Stories
of Christmas Love: The Christmas That Almost Wasn't which
talks about his hospital experience at Christmas time after his first
heart attack.
"I am more aware now than ever of my mortality. At some time,
still unknown, I might not be as fortunate as I was in 1982. But
it is useless to dwell on that. Rather, I will accept the
challenge it suggests to make the rest of my life a Christmas
celebration. I still have years ahead of me for giving, sharing,
caring, accepting, loving. I want to live this allotted time in a
holiday spirit. What better way to live? For I feel
instinctively that it is only this which can give life meaning and offer
us our only touch with immortality.". |
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Some of the 5,000 wreaths donated to Arlington National
Cemetery every year since 1992 by the Worcester Wreath Company of
Harrington, Maine. Owner Merrill Worcester provides the wreaths
and covers the trucking expenses. Most years, groups of Maine
school kids take an educational trip to D.C. to help with this event. |
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Reunion Committee at Play: Members and mates enjoying the
hospitality of Jack and Lona Abare.
Click on Committee Pictures. |
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Our High School Class Picture: The website manager has been
honing his ability to stitch parts of a big picture together. You
can check out his handiwork by clicking on
LEHS 1953 Class Picture.
Left click on the picture to enlarge it one or more times. |
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More 1953 55th Reunion Pictures: Our thanks to Wanda
(Bartlett) Cummings for her donations to our collection. Click on
55th Reunion pictures for
viewing. |
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Class of 1954 55th Reunion: The class held it's
reunion not far from the website's back yard at the Salem Waterfront
Hotel. Many of their reunion pictures have been posted to our site
and can be seen by clicking on
Class
of 1954. |
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Gazebo Man: The Saga Continues |
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When the going gets tough, Gary Getchell calls in a
fellow "construction hound", his cousin from Rockport, MA. He says
"we make the best two-person 135-year-old construction team they've
ever seen." |
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Gary will be staining
cedar shingles during the winter to use on the roof next spring. Lights
have been added for the holidays with more Christmas decorations to
follow. To see earlier pictures of his gazebo, click
here.With the first snowstorm not that far away, it's
time for another Getchell tradition: the conversion of an innocent
pickup truck into the snow plow from hell. He says "...next week's
projects (include) reattaching the plow to the front of my truck and the
sand/salt spreader to the rear bumper...adding 'sand tubes' over the
truck's back axles (which) causes them to skid less in the snow.
My truck's plow weighs 800 pounds and the sand, when loaded, goes about
500! So I add another 500 to 600 pounds in the truck's bed to
balance it off. The things that make my truck a bit tighter in the
cab are the units on the seat that control the plow and the sander.
However, unless my butt expands exponentially in the next few years, I
can comfortably squeeze in around them." |
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Recent Death: The death of an important person went
almost unnoticed recently. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote " The
Hokey Pokey", died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part
for his family was getting him into the coffin. |
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Snippets from the Inbox: (Normally stolen from Art
Caldwell, Jerry Colpitts, Bill Croteau, Ed Cummiskey, Lee D'Agnese
and Carl Goodwin) |
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Reflections for the Day: "How fragile is
our hold on silence." (Chet Raymo) "Everyone's health may
depend more on the health of society and the healing of nations than on
the conquest of disease." (Norman Cousins) (From Reflection For The Day, Boston Globe, (c) 2009 and
reproduced with the kind permission of Tom Fitzpatrick) |
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Quotes: "It has been demonstrated in every epoch of history
that if you want profits you must rule and to rule, you must blunt the
edge of the citizenry" Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV from
Dune:
House Corrino by B. Herbert and K. Anderson " I have kleptomania,
but when it gets bad, I take something for it... I may be
schizophrenic, but at least I have each other... I was just thinking
that women should put pictures of missing husbands on beer cans....
When people see a cat's litter box, they always say, 'Oh, you have a
cat.' Just once I want to say, 'No, it's for company!'... Why do
they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we
supposed to do...write to these men? Why don't the just put their
pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen could look for them while
they deliver the mail? Or better yet, arrest them when they are
taking the pictures." (borrowed from a Bill Croteau email) |
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Recent Research: From Harper's Magazine, January,
2010: "It was found that the last European ice age descended on
the continent in a matter of months and that the snows of Kilimanjaro
were disappearing. Scientists who set out in a submarine searching
for the Loch Ness monster found instead hundreds of thousands of golf
balls. White American women are four times likelier than
African-American women to have restless legs. Doctors found that
some American children are prevented from playing outside because their
parents dress them too fancily. Newborns cry in their mother
tongue. Female U.S. veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom were found
less likely than male veterans to report experiencing pain. It was
determined that head injuries make torture survivors more depressed,
that torture hobbles the memory rather than jogs it, and that the more
the tortured suffer, the more guilty they are perceived to be.
Citrus-scented Windex encourages ethical behavior." |
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Never To Forget |
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Update August, 2009 |
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More 2009 Florida Pictures: Click on
Additional 2009 Pictures to jump to the additions. Click on
Off-Year Reunions to see all
Florida pictures. |
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Memories of Lynn: Tootie (Pettigrew) Anderson sent us a
copy of an article printed in the Lynn Item and written by Tech student
Peter Bollen. You can find it by clicking on
Lynn History. It's listed
at the top of that page. |
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Our Class Equivalent of the
Energizer Bunny |
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Not one to let a few good summer days in Maine go
unused, Gary Getchell is building his own gazebo by making all 700 parts
in his machine shop. |
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A closer look at some of the many wooden parts. |
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Reason number 17 for having grandchildren.
Grandson Danny makes the mistake of volunteering to help. |
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Danny gets to try his hand with a serious hammer drill
but accidentally embeds it in the brand new cement deck. |
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Danny avoids "hammer thumb";
Gary gets a applauded for being on the level. |
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Am I Having A Good Day Or What? On Wednesday, July 29th,
the site manager was amazed to learn that FedEx was holding a bank draft
for him worth $800,000 from a friend in Nigeria, and that I had
also won 1,000,000 pounds from UK Chevron, and 750,000 pounds from BMW.
Can't wait to collect the loot and buy my winter home in St. Bart's.
In the meantime though, I'll keep playing my weekly lottery. You
never can tell, this could be a real hot streak. In other news, the MA
department of Consumer Affairs has warned of an increase in the rate of
scams occurring in the state. In Lowell recently, a couple posing
as members of the President's Medicare Fraudulent Team were able to get
a senior couples' social security numbers and drivers' license numbers.
Another scam is a phone call, email or text message from a bank employee
asking for personal information. As with the scams from the IRS,
these organizations do not collect information in this manner.
A relatively new scam (no pun intended) is the distress call from a
grandchild who is in trouble, needs money but doesn't want the parents
to know about it. Other red flags for situations like this are calls from outside the
country, callers with unfamiliar voices, being vague, getting personal
details wrong or not giving their name. As with all possible
scams, authorities recommend never giving account numbers over the
phone. In the grandchild case they suggest asking for verification of the
identity of the caller or calling a trusted family member to verify the
grandchild's phone number. A recent email to our site claimed to be
from the Verizon Customer site telling us that our account was inactive
and would be deleted unless we sent them our user name, password and
date of birth. A check of the user forums on the Verizon customer
support site indicated that Verizon is experiencing an increase in
phishing scams: scams in which evil people fish for customer
information by pretending to be the actual company. Verizon stated
that it never asks for customer information by email. |
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From the InBox: |
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Contributed by Ed Cummiskey: it's sunset at the
North Pole on May 11, 2009 with the moon at its closest point. |
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Contributed by Bill Croteau: "The Wisdom
of the Retiree: I've often been asked, what do you old folks do
now that you're retired? Well...I'm fortunate to have a few
friends who have chemical engineering backgrounds, and one of the things
we enjoy most is turning beer, wine, bourbon and martinis into urine.
And we're pretty damn good at it!"
OLD IS WHEN: Your sweetie says, let's go
upstairs and make love and you answer, pick one; I can't do both.
OLD IS WHEN: a sexy neighbor catches your fancy and your pacemaker
open the garage door. OLD IS WHEN: you don't care where your
spouse goes, just as long as you don't have to go along. OLD IS
WHEN: getting lucky means you find your car in the parking lot.
OLD IS WHEN: you are not sure these are jokes. |
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Decided to stay in your present home or condo? Looking for some remodeling ideas for your master bath
and bedroom? Here are some suggestions from Ed Cummiskey.
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Weather Update: After a long stretch of rain,
the North Shore area was attacked by a bout of
beautiful weather recently. This led to a large number of
pedestrian accidents in Salem, MA, the home of our website.
Tourists and natives alike kept colliding with each other as they gawked
at the sky or fell over curbstones, pets and small children.
Apparently the jet stream finally realized it was over New England and
not old England and moved back to its traditional summer path.
Either that or it was feeling sorry for our tourist industry.
The site
manager's overheated relatives in southern CA took matters into their own hands and
headed off towards the northern part of the state to find a fog bank
they could sit in for a week or two. |
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Update May, 2009 |
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2009 Winter Reunion: The first batch of pictures from Jim
Starratt with some additions from Gary Getchell are up and available at
a new page: Off-Year Reunions.
Fran Page's Florida 2007 pictures have been moved here as well, and we
are on the lookout for any pictures from our other Florida reunions.
Pictures can be sent to the site at
salem197a@gmail.com |
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New Writing: Click on
A Letter From The
Crucible for a moving letter
written by Jim Wood on dealing with his wife's passing. |
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Letters to the Editor: Several classmates have asked the
site to reprint two letters written to the Lynn Item. The first is
Dr. Terry Downey's open letter to the Class of 2003 on the occasion of
our 50th reunion and the second is "Memories of Lynn" by Peter Bollen.
You can read both articles by clicking on
Lynn History. The
locations of the two articles can be found at the top of that webpage. |
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From the InBox: "Blessed are those who can give without
remembering and take without forgetting" from Bill Croteau
"The
happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just
make the best of everything they have" from Carl Goodwin |
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Update February, 2009 |
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Joyce (Caldwell) Cully 1936 - 2009 |
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Ann (Thorner) Holmes 1935 - 2008 |
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Lynn Item obituaries are no longer available, but you
may be able to find one for Joyce and Ann in another newspaper using the Legacy.Com website. For help using that site, click
here.
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Sandra (LaCrosse) Gentile: Sally Burke from the class of
'57 and a cousin of Sandy, spotted her name on our memorial page and
wrote to tell us that Sandy is living in California and enjoying the
company of eight grandchildren although not necessarily all at the same
time.
The site manager called Sandy to offer his apology and had a great
chat with her. Despite the recent loss of her husband and an
on-going battle with several parts of her body, she is fortunate that
most of her children and grandchildren are living not far from her.
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55th Reunion Group Picture: Thanks to Fran Page and Senior
Researcher Emeritus Art Caldwell, we have two large pictures available.
The first is the official photo and the second has been meticulously
annotated by Art who may be sending us a bill for new glasses.
Click on Our 55th Reunion
to see both pictures.
Thanks to Ed Cummiskey we have added a large group picture of our 35th
reunion.
Still missing are group pictures for 1963 to 1978, the 10th through the
25th reunion. |
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Classy Writing: Three poems have been added, all by
Californians. Two by our Class Poet Laureate Jim Wood and in a
brash display of nepotism, one by Starr Piwowarski, the site manager's
grandniece. Click on
Classy Writing. Speaking of nepotism, Dottie (Hansen) Doucette's
nephew has greatly expanded her website. Friends can check it out
at Dottie's Art Gallery |
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Manager's Mix: (Note: This
webpage was updated in April, 2015 and some of the material mentioned in
this section may be changed or no longer available.)
The Manager's page has information on a
little-used state tax credit for low and moderate income seniors who pay
property taxes or rent. There is also a reminder on new federal
housing tax credits for homeowners who do not itemize deductions and for
first-time homeowners.
For MA residents having trouble obtaining
health insurance there is information on the state's Health Safety Net.
This program may also be of help to residents in any income group having trouble paying their medical bills.
For residents who do not qualify for the Health Safety Net but have
trouble obtaining the state-required health insurance, this same site
has other insurance sources that may be of help.
There are also links to a February, 2009 Boston Globe article on
negotiating your health bills and to Project Access which has helps
residents during the past two years with a medical debt resolution
program.
The MA online consumer sites are reporting a
large increase in tax refund, health insurance and stimulus grant scams.
You should think long and hard about answering any email request
for sensitive data such as social security numbers, checking accounts
and debit or credit card numbers. The IRS, for instance, does not
initiate any email communications with taxpayers. The Manager's
Mix page will lead you to MA Consumer Sites and these sites can provide you with information
and contact persons to help determine if you are getting scammed.
Just a couple of weeks ago, all the contacts in one of our classmate's
address book were contacted by the "classmate" with a passionate plea to
help in a difficult financial situation. There are ways to fight
this and to protect your friends. . |
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Darwin Awards: You may have been fortunate to receive an
email listing in the past of the annual winners of the Darwin Award.
The awards are given to those people who improve the human gene pool by
removing themselves from it. It has its own web site located at
www.darwinawards.com and the
site creator, Wendy Northcutt, has published five books to date
reporting and trying to verify these incredible stories.
Recently, the
site manager's son gave him the latest collection: "The Darwin Awards
Next Revolution (Chlorinating the Gene Pool). Now whenever his
senior moments start to come depressingly close together, the reading of
a few of these stories provides instant relief. |
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Credit Due: The Site Manager has lost
another marble and misplaced a list of the names of classmates and
friends who have sent him pictures and emails that appear on our web
site. If you see something of yours on the site and your name is
not credited, please write him at
salem197a@gmail.com |
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You Know You Are From Massachusetts if..."you know how to pronounce
Gloucester..." Submitted by Ed
Cummiskey. Click on
From
Mass. to read
the rest. |
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Our Economy in a Picture and a Word |
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Photo submitted by Ed Cummiskey who rebuilds planes in
his spare time. He assures us he wasn't responsible for anything
to do with this plane. |
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"Rules do not take the place of character." (Alan
Greenspan) This from the man who refused to implement
regulations to enforce a law passed by Congress to prohibit subprime
mortgage lending. |
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"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending
institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself included, are in a
state of shocked disbelief." (Alan Greenspan) Maybe he
should have said "shocked, shocked." |
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"Moist (Von Lipwig) grinned as the discussion wobbled back and forth.
Whole new theories of money were growing here, like mushrooms, in the
dark and based on bullshit." From "Making Money" by Terry
Pratchett |
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In Honor of Valentine's Day |
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A tough New England winter but we could be living in
Ontario |
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or you could be in Alaska at the Fairbanks Ice Festival. (Sent
by Carl Goodwin) |
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Artist Paul Smith: Ed Cummiskey acquainted the site manager
with this amazing person in a 2008 email. Born with severe
cerebral palsy and never formally educated, Paul Smith created some beautiful
pictures over the years with his typewriter. He passed away in
June of 2007, but you can read about his life and view his works by
clicking on this site:
http://cerebralpalsy.org/inspiration/artists/paul-smith/ or by
watching this inspiring YouTube
video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiHyQhf9qAY |
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Our Holiday Inn Reunion: All of the Holiday Inns in our
area are going though major overhauls and Peabody should be a good place
to stay in the next few years. Prices are reasonable, a good
buffet breakfast and Carrabba's Italian restaurant is only a few steps
away for a good evening meal, a neat pool and exercise room and the class
took over the lobby for informal gatherings when the hospitality suite
was closed. Management and all of the staff went out of their way to
respond to our needs and requests. It was a little hectic while we
were there with one floor being shut down for refurbishing and a
completed floor opening up at the same time, but it didn't seem to stop
any of us from enjoying our stay.
The quality of the food was a lot better than our 50th but there were
delays in getting meals to the tables which affected the quality and
disappointed some classmates. We did dodge one bullet: not
long after our reunion, asbestos floor tiles were found while
refurbishing a bathroom and the hotel had to be evacuated for several
days to check for other tiles and test air quality. |
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25 Most Misspelled Words: From Bill Croteau, this is an
opportunity to test yourself and gain a new appreciation for Spell
Checker. To take the test, click on this site:
http://www.businesswriting.com:80/tests/commonmisspelled.html
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You Tube Soldiers' Tribute: Jerry Colpitts sent us this
video tribute by 15-year old Lizzie Palmer which is rapidly growing in
popularity. Click on
Soldiers'
Tribute |
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Update 11/27/08 |
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Happy Thanksgiving: The last of the 55th pictures received
has been posted to our site and can be seen on our
55th
Reunion Page. Hope your Thanksgiving (leftovers, hangovers and all)
was
better than expected. Many, many thanks to our crack crew of
photographers Art Caldwell, Shirley Carpenter, Jim Starratt, Mary Lou
Sullivan and Ellie Vegnani for their generous support. |
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Update 11/16/08 |
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Class Gift 1953: A check for $6,500 was presented to
Principal Andy Fila recently. One teacher from each eligible
department will be responsible for purchases made and the disbursements
will be monitored by the school accountant. The eligible
departments for this year's gift are Art, Band, Music, Drama and the Jr.
ROTC.
Delly (Levesque) Starratt has also provided the school accountant
with a list of those donations earmarked for specific equipment or
departments. To see a list of all who contributed, click on
Class Gift Donors. To see how your money
was spent, click here. |
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Updated 10/16/08 |
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More Pictures: Pictures have been added
to the Class of 1954's page covering the class visit to Carleton Varney's
home in Stanfordville, NY. Click
here to jump to the 1954
reunion page. Art Caldwell's pictures from
the 55th reunion have been added. Click
here to jump to the 55th
Reunion Pictures page. |
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Updated 10/1/08 |
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Gary Getchell's Gift to the 55th reunion was a
DVD of his video of our 50th reunion. The DVDs were prepared on a
commercial-grade Sony DVD writer and are designed to run on home DVD
players. They may not work on your PC. For a possible solution to getting DVDs to run on your PC, click on this link,
PC DVD Problems. |
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Art Prize Winners: There were seven
winners in all: Alice O'Brien chose Carl Goodwin's watercolor,
June (Scotty) DeRoin picked Dottie (Hansen) Doucette's oil painting and
Lena (Phillips) Ahern received Clayton Curtis' woodcut print.
Alice O'Brien won again when she heard that Carl's acrylic mural version
of her watercolor scene recently sold for $4,000.
The site
manager received Carl's preliminary sketch of the watercolor. Ray Saulnier was actually drawn as the second name. When called in
Maine for his prize choice, he said he had been unable to attend because
of family health problems and asked that his prize be drawn again
(he sounds like a winner to us).
The biggest
winner of all is our school and the teachers and students in the class
gift programs. To see how your money was spent, click
here. |
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Hurricane Ike: Len Fishman's report
sounded like a description of some recent political conventions.
Len said "Thanks for inquiring. Just a lot wind, no damage."
A notable improvement over he and his wife Wilma's experience with
Katrina. (See our Comments page.)
Elaine (Adrien) Foglietta reported by way of Art Prentiss: "Thank
you for your concern. We finally have electricity (9/21), although
many still do not have it. We were lucky not to have had fallen
trees on our property as many of our neighbors did. It was a scary
storm as are most hurricanes and we have experienced several." |
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Our Thanks To All Who Have Contributed To Our
Class Gift |
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James Abare
Elaine (Adrien) Foglietta
Lena (Ahern) Phillips
Jeanne (Anderson) Derrah
Janet (Armstrong) Ralph
Jacqueline (Baklini) Casey
Muriel (Baltimore) Rudzinsky
Paul Belliveau
Patrick Brady
Dwight Brothers
Arlene Wallace
Lawrence Buchanan
Arthur Caldwell
Shirley (Carpenter) Isenhart
Shirley (Collins) Starion
Gerald Colpits
Mary (Cook) Pigott
Joan (Cornwell) Brooks
William Croteau
Edward Cummiskey
Clayton Curtis
Patricia (Donnelly) Fabucci
Charles Donnelly
Rickard Donovan
Nancy (Douglas) Cox
Paul English
Lenard Fishman
Emmanuel Frangos
Richard Gannon
Gary Getchell
Carl Goodwin
Joan (Hanscom) Durkee
Dorothy (Hansen) Doucette
Donald Hudson
Gerald Ishkanian
Edithann (Kelley) Sutton
Barbara (Killam) DeFlumeri
James Leonard
Delores (Levesque) Starratt
Jacob Liberles
Louis Mangifesti
Karl Mascott
Elaine (McGrath) Brothers
Joan (McSweeney) DeMarco
Carole (Murphy) Lueders
Ronald Natalie
Ronald Newburg
Alice O'Brien
William O'Day
Francis Page
Joanne (Pettigrew) Anderson
Carol (Pitcher) Faill
Walter Pohle
May Porter
Arthur Prentiss
Eileen (Reed) Morris
Arnold Salvucci
Raymond Saulnier
June (Scotty) DeRoin
Geraldine (Sherber) Lockard
Clayton Simons
Herbert Slate
Huntley Smith
Nancy (Stickel) Kramer
Mary (Sullivan) Bolduc
Vincent Sweetland
Janet (Thompson) Van Amburg
Ann (Thorner) Holmes
Vivian (Varney) Guyler
Eleanor (Vegnani) Cornell
Margaret (Ventura) De Les Dernier
Joseph Wescott
Joanne (White) Gaudet
Janice (Wyman) Hall |
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Updated 8/30/08 |
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Classmates attending the 55th reunion include: |
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Jack Abare
Janet Armstrong
Jackie Baklini
Wanda Bartlett
Paul Belliveau
Pat Brady
Larry Buchanan
Art Caldwell
Shirley Carptenter
Mike Ciarletta
Shirley Collins
Mary Cook
Bill Croteau
Ed Cummiskey
Clayton Curtis
Charles Donnelly
Pat Donnelly
Rick Donovan
Paul English
Dick Gannon
Gary Getchell
Carl Goodwin
Dotty Hansen
Donald Hudson
Ginny Hurd
Jerry Ishkanian
Edie Kelley
Carol Kenneally |
Delly Levesque
Angie Kuchulis
Jacob Liberles
Louis Mangifesti
Karl Mascott
Joan McRobbie
Joan McSweeney
Pat Mellyn
Carole Murphy
Ron Natalie
Alice O'Brien
William O'Day
Fran Page
Tootie Pettigrew
May Porter
Art Prentiss
Eileen Reed
Bob Rhodes
June Scotty
Herb Slate
Mary Lou Sullivan
Vin Sweetland
Huntley Smith
Janet Thompson
Ann Thorner
Eleanor Vegnani
Margaret Ventura
Joe Wescott
Bob Whitney |
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From the Dali Lama: "Live a good,
honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be
able to enjoy it a second time." |
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Updated 7/25/08 |
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Point of View: "The hometowns we carry
around in our heads bear little resemblance to the official Chamber of
Commerce versions. Instead they're built up from regrets and
memories, frozen childhood snapshots and fervid adolescent longings.
Sometimes all it takes is sunlight on a street corner, or a smell of the
wind, and we're on the express train back."
(From the opening paragraph of
Boston Globe movie critic Ty Burr's recent review of the movie
Winnipeg.) |
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Classy Writing: Jim Wood gave us
permission to reproduce his poem from our 50th Memory Booklet and also
sent a few more along as well. We have added a writing section to
the Classy Art page and hope that some of you will be encouraged by
Jim's efforts to contribute as well.
Editor's Note: Writers now have their own
Classy Writing page which can be found by clicking
here. While it has poetry and
free verse, it is always open to a good story or an interesting memory.
If preferred, the author's name does not have to appear with the
published contribution. |
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First Look:
Carl Goodwin's water-color has arrived safely at our web site office.
You can read more about the details of the picture
and the history of the Warren Gold Rush by clicking on
Prize Details.
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Warren, Idaho - Gold Discovered -
1860 |
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New and Old Birthday Quizzes: The site
manager miswrote, mistyped, miss-selected (pick one) when he created our
first birthday quiz and selected Jim Wood as the oldest living member of
our class. He has offered his abject apologies to Jim and now
offers his profound apologies to the older six classmates who were
originally overlooked for the worthy title of "First Among Equals."
By way of further apology, a new quiz was created for them and you can
see the results of both quizzes by clicking on this link to
birthday
quizzes.
Bookmarks: To make it easier (in theory)
for you to skip around the site, we have started adding bookmarks at the
top of the individual web pages. Clicking on a highlighted
bookmark should (in theory) pop you down to that section of the page.
New and Improved: The site has added
additional storage space allowing us to unsquish the smaller pictures in
the 25th reunion group pictures thus
restoring them to their original size and pristine beauty.
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Updated 5/15/08
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Carol (Greenlaw) Thibodeau
1934 - 2008 |
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An obituary may be available at
the Legacy.Com website. For help using that site, click
here. |
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Sports Nirvana: Spring...a young man's fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of love and a free cup of iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts when
the Red Sox win a home game. How sweet that coffee must have been
for Red Sox fans after Jon Lester's recent no-hitter at Fenway.
But the sweetest cup of all is for New England sports fans our age who
have heard and seen the highs and lows of the past 7 decades and are on
the edge of seeing four different New England professional sports
teams in a row in their championship finals.
Lynn Web
Sites: If you have not seen them yet, the City and the School
Department have classy new web sites for you to peruse (thank you, Miss
Comer). In
addition, there is a new web site for the fine arts department where you
may even see a relative listed among the teachers' names. The sites are:
City of Lynn -
http://www.ci.lynn.ma.us
Lynn School Department -
http://www.lynnschools.org/
Memorial Day: Ed Cummiskey sent the
class the web site of the
Managed Care Blues Band who have put together a very moving tribute
to veterans. Click on the highlighted name of the band to get to
the site. At the site in the left-hand column are two versions of
their tribute song: one for WW 2 and Korean veterans an one for
Vietnam vets.
The English High Jr. ROTC will be performing at
dozens of events during the Memorial Day weekend. These students
have earned considerable credit for themselves and a lot of goodwill for
the school with their support of veterans at the local and state level.
They were the winners of the 2006 National
Drill Team Championships and you can find a brief history of the
program by clicking on LEHS Jr. ROTC History.
Speaking of veterans, we almost lost one of our own.
Bob (Dusty) Rhodes got an unexpected look at Walter Reed Hospital from
the inside out thanks to a "mild" heart attack. A career officer
in the Army and one of the founding fathers of our reunion database, Bob
is at home developing a strategic plan to get to his upcoming 50th
reunion at West Point without giving himself another heart attack.
If you would like his contact information, drop us a line at
salem197a@gmail.com
Your Boston Dialect: Years ago, IBM
regularly sponsored two yearly national conferences on educational and
governmental systems. By the time Lynn decided to send me as the
school system computer manager along with the city programmer, they missed the New
York conference and had to send us to Monterey, CA. What a shame!
We turned out to be the only Easterners in a crowd of
about 500 participants so there was a lot of good-natured give and take
about our "Boston" accents. They were right about some of my
words, for instance pronouncing idea as "ideer". We were
able to kid them about their vaunted weather as in was cool and
rainy while we were there.
The site
manager's niece, a transplanted Lynner now in CA has sent us a test to
let you sample your speech patterns (it's not a joke). Try your
hand at the
Dialect Quiz
Food For Thought: Excerpted from the
Findings page of the April, 2008 issue of Harper's Magazine:
"An Italian urologist found that wearing high heels may improve a
women's sex life" (as well man's outlook on life); "Italian doctors
found high testosterone levels in lovestruck women and low testosterone
levels in lovestruck men" (Marriage, anyone?); "Scientists hope to
vibrate viruses to death" (Logically this means that people who ride the
"T" must be the healthiest in the world.) Note: the Editor
has taken the high road here and refuses to speculate on how scientists
could make such small vibrators.
"Two studies concluded that biofuels are worse for
global warming than conventional petroleum fuels; one of the
studies calculated that harvesting grass for fuel creates 93 times more carbon emissions than are saved by the production of cleaner fuel" (The
good
news: corn farmers average income is up 86%
over last year according to a recent TV news broadcast);
"Some scientists feared that the sun may have entered a Maunder Minimum,
which could lead to a period of global cooling lasting as long as a
century" (Maybe global warming isn't such a bad idea after all);
"Researchers established that 4 percent of the earth's oceans remain
undamaged by human activity" (That much?...let's not tell the cruise
industry).
"German researchers found that mice developed a more
a human metabolism when fed a diet of burgers and fries from
McDonald's" (Finally, I can justify my bacon, egg and cheese biscuit at
Mickey D's); "A survey determined that children universally dislike
clown wallpaper and find it 'frightening' and 'unknowable'" (Oh
well, it may
not be too late to save your great-grandchildren); "Engineers were said to
be at greater risk of becoming terrorists" (Volunteers will be needed at
the reunion banquet to strip-search these classmates); "The world's dirt
was disappearing faster than ever before" (Not at my house since my wife
passed away).
Sayings:
"I despise making the most of one's time.
Half the pleasure of life consist of the opportunities one has
neglected." Oliver Wendell Holmes
(From Reflection For The Day, Boston Globe, (c) 2008 and
reproduced with the kind permission of Tom Fitzpatrick)
"The ideal spouse is one who continues to see you
as you think you are." (Author Unknown) |
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Recently Reported Deceased Members: |
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Faye (Jamieson) Dunlop
Sandra (Knower) Roy
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"Now she is gone
Like a flight of wild birds
And the things that were words before
Are more than words."
Dorothy Aldis |
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It may be possible to find an obituary using the Legacy.Com website. For help using that site, click
here. |
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Updated:
3/17/08 |
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Happy St. Patrick's Day...The red and gray was in the local
political news lately. A vote was taken in Peabody on the choice
of corned beef for their St. Patrick's Day luncheon. The grays won
and of course the opposition was red-faced about it. The Site
Manager's wife always took the diplomatic route by cooking a Daisy ham
with the corned beef. |
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Sayings:
"Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened."
From the book "Moving Pictures" by Terry Prachett
You know your old when "your tax bill this year is higher that your
year's pay for your first good job." Stolen from Jim Leonard
"Every day you beat your own record of consecutive days you've stayed
alive." Recent email |
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Updated:
12/8/07
"Beautiful
memories recalled have a way of re-creating the original glow and warmth
surrounding them. I feel them still, writing these thoughts, even after
fifty years. I can
settle back and yield to the feeling of love we radiated during that
holiday, a love that will never die as long as there is one of us to
remember.
'Happy Hanukkah, cari amici.'
'Merry Christmas, neighbor. Mazel tov!'"
From the short
story Two Festivals of Light by Leo Buscaglia
in his collection of Seven Stories of Christmas Love.
Bragging Rights: Ed Cummiskey sent us a
copy of a recent Lynn Item news article on a study just published in
U.S. News and World Report. In it English, Classical and
Manchester Junior Senior High School were the only schools in Essex
County to be cited in a national ranking of 18,000 public high schools
in 40 states. In total, 1,591 schools shared gold, silver and
bronze medal honors. Massachusetts was named as the best
overall state for a high school education. For more details on the
study, go to:
http://www.itemlive.com/articles/2007/12/04/news/news05.txt
Updated: 11/23/07 |
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Thanksgiving: Bad News: Classical
48 English 7. Good News with apologies to Patrick McDonnell
and his "Mutts" comic strip:
"No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here."
John Greenleaf Whittier
Hall of Fame: William Bruce Stevens who
passed away in 2006 has been inducted into the LEHS Hall of Fame for
2007.
Let's Say Thanks Update: In the course
of its 5-year history, the Xerox
site Let's Say Thanks sent over 30 million
cards to wounded soldiers. That program has been discontinued and
they are now working with
www.give2thetroops.org. Click on this link to see the new
programs and services offered.
Discontinued Wounded Soldiers Site:
Bob Rhodes wrote to say: "I have received about 15 emails this week
concerning an address that is being passed around the Internet to send a
Christmas card to "Any wounded Soldier." The information is incorrect.
The "Any Soldier" or "Recovering American Soldier" mail program was
discontinued in 2001 due to safety concerns for our soldiers. Unless a
letter has a specific name it will not be delivered."
(Editor's Note: A huge list of ways to support our troops
is connected to the Military.Com website can be found
here.) "A recent ABC news program gave a report card for
various Military and Veteran's Charity Organizations. Many of them got
failing grades. One that got an A+ and that I am personally familiar
with is the Fisher House. The Fisher Foundation has built countless
homes on military posts to provide a "home away from home" for families
of wounded or sick soldiers.
Among other things, their website has a
link to the "Hero Miles" program that takes donated miles and provides
airline tickets for families and friends to visit recovering soldiers.
You don't have to donate an entire ticket worth of miles.
I would
encourage people to donate those miscellaneous miles from airlines you
don't regularly use. I have personally gone to this site and donated
miles and know that it is a working program used by the Fisher
Organization."
For more information, go to
www.fisherhouse.org |
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Recently Reported Deceased Members: |
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 Barbara (Raymond) Dodge John McKillop
"Love gives life meaning
in a look, in a breath
but never so truly
or deeply as death."
Dorothy Aldis |
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| It may be possible to find an
obituary using the Legacy.Com website. For help using that site, click
here. |
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Recent Changes Page |
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