Sunday, August 31, 2014

A Really Busy Summer

It's been a really busy summer. Between travel (Glacier National Park) and a short trip to Arkansas (a delightful surprise), normal honey-do's (or don'ts), my niece's wedding in DC and my step daughters new house (this event means providing a lot of help), there haven't been too many moments to catch my breath.

But I've been able to lurk on FB and see that everyone seems to be in the same boat. Travel and family. That's what retirement is supposed to be about, eh?

Speaking of grand summertime adventures, (sorry Schuyler Colfax kids), those of you lucky enough to have had Dorothy Tunis and Al Piaget (now the Piagets) for 7th or 8th grade block should now that they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary yesterday. A few weeks ago, I got a call from Darth explaining that since none of us could make the event, would I care to write some words to be read at the celebration on behalf of 7-3/8-4. Never short on words, I agreed immediately, and want to share it with you hoping that you all feel the same way:



In 1961, a Chinese American 7th grade student walked into Anthony Wayne Junior High School with what he smugly believed was a solid academic foundation. He believed that his world view was complete and that he understood the world that he would have to face. He was so wrong. Over the next two years he learned he had been deliberately blindered and was not at all prepared for our tumultuous future.

51 years later, that same student now understands that the world is full of wonder waiting to be discovered; full of joys and sorrows to be experienced, without limits. I probably would have come to this conclusion eventually, but it would have taken infinitely longer for that smug 7th grader had he not experienced the educational epiphany that is Darth Tunis and Al Piaget. And I say the same student because I also learned from them that life is an ongoing continuous educational experience.

I am only one of thousands of lucky ones who had the good fortune to cross paths with the Piagets as part of their schooling. I know 25 or so who thought so much of Darth and Doc that they came together after 47 years from every corner of the country to celebrate with their favorite teachers. The Piagets were OUR teachers, because they care about us and we care about them. I have always known that they cared about each other and that has always made me happiest of all. I couldn’t be more pleased to help celebrate their grand anniversary in this humble fashion. I could go on and on but it would only serve to further embarrass these two wonderful people since they never thought it was all about them; to the Piagets, it was always about us.

To my mentors and friends, may the way always be clear for the journeys to come…….


If you share my sentiments, please feel free to go to the Piagets FB pages to send felicitations. That's Alfred Piaget or Dorothy Piaget on FB.

On far sadder matters, I note the passing of Tom Smith, Tim Henneman and Ed Sorock.






Thursday, June 5, 2014

I Found It with Google

In a time of so many online activities that are a total waste of time, there are certain investments I've made in time and effort that continue to pay dividends.

The Wayne Valley High School Directory website has proven that time and again. Over and over, in conjunction with the magic that is Google, the website has been found again and again by our classmates who Linda and I have been too dull-witted to find. I know it's not as though any of us took any great pains to hide from each other (with the exception of a few of us who ended up in law enforcement for personal security reasons). For those of us who have lived in the same place for a long long time, it is hard to imagine not being totally transparent and reachable in this information age where privacy is the exception rather than the rule.

This was especially true for those who still live in Wayne. I can't count how many of you expressed total surprise at not having been located before the Class Directory website. Today, the exact opposite happened. By posting and updating the Class Directory website, we've been found by Bill Segal (in Embers, right above Doug Senchak). Bill called me today, explaining who he was and I have to honestly admit that I didn't know who he was until I looked in the yearbook.

I then realized something else and Bill concurred. In my entire time in Wayne Valley, he and I never exchanged a single word. It's not as though we were hostile or avoiding each other; we were just a little self absorbed and between that and lack of opportunity, we just never crossed paths. In such a large class, I think of how many of us were separated from each other like that. After talking to so many of you, and a little uncomfortably realizing that, I long ago came to the conclusion that there was no fault about which to feel guilty and it's never to start new friendships. I've made many since making my investment in time and effort and I have been spiritually rewarded many times over.

After a few minutes of conversation, once again, it hit me over the head that here was another person who would have ended up a good friend over the years had our paths crossed just a little closer all those years ago. By coincidence, Bill has a ranch in Montana although he lives in Maryland, and we're leaving for Montana's Glacier National Park in less than a week. So, if you knew Bill in high school, don't be surprised if you open your inbox and find an email from him. Conversely, feel free to shoot him an email to renew an old acquaintance or friendship - it's a two way street, after all.

So as we RV across the country to enjoy the vistas in the West, I will let the Class Directory Website silently do its work, waiting to be discovered by a casual Google search, waiting for another one of our "not located yet" classmates. To those of you waiting to be rediscovered, we will wait patiently for you so we can catch up on old times.



Monday, April 14, 2014

Finally......

With the arrival of Spring (finally) in Southwestern Indiana, also comes the time for Senior Prom, which my granddaughter attended without a date but with girlfriends, which is now something common. Of course, these kinds of events immediately trigger my own prom experience of having to change a tire in my white dinner jacket and my date who had a horrible sunburn from too much time under an old style incandescent sun lamp (no sun tan beds back then). But despite setbacks, I also remember the empowerment of the event, feeling like the king of the world, master of our (albeit small) domain. We were seniors, our plans for the future set, our horizons unlimited. How little we knew then. I know that some of us became actually became the doctors lawyers and Indian Chiefs that was predicted for us. I suspect however, that most of us encountered something called real life and met a few zigs and zags along the way. At least it seems that way based on the conversations I've had with you all. We've all had those "Whoa, didn't see that one coming" moments.

I'm not the only nostalgic one during this season. I was delighted to receive an email from California from Kathy Friend (Rulon), who googled WVHS and found the website. I have asked her for a recent photo, asked if she was on Facebook and updated the website with contact information for those of you who were friends. I encourage you to reconnect if you want. Again, not knowing her married name made the search more than difficult. Apparently, there are Friends all over the country (pun intended) and who knew her new name or to what part of the country she migrated (she indicated that with no family living in Wayne any longer, she had never returned).

Here's a quick bio Kathy was kind enough to compose:

 I guess I'll begin the story of my life post WVHS with the fall of 1967, when I became a freshman at Ohio Wesleyan University, which had generously provided me with a scholarship for the next four years. I majored in science, and did well enough to go on to graduate school but not medical school, which I didn't have the money, interest, or gpa for. ( I got a C in organic chemistry. It was really, really hard.)

I decided on Northwestern University in Chicago, where I spent a the next four years getting a PH.D in microbiology. The good part of this was that the US government paid all expenses and provided a stipend for penniless grad students majoring in the life sciences. The not so good part was that I soon realized I didn't have a real passion for the solitary life of a laboratory scientist, and wasn't  going to excel at research.  (That C in organic chemistry should have been a red flag.) But, I was already committed, and I got my degree in 1975.

At Northwestern I met my future husband, Jon Rulon, who was in medical school until he also graduated in 1975. He went on to do a residency in psychiatry in Denver, Colorado, and I went off to Seattle for a year to do postdoctoral research.  (It rained there for twelve months straight, and I've never been back since.)  We got married in 1976 in Evanston, Illinois, where Jon's family lived and my parents had relocated so that my father could teach police science at Northwestern's Traffic Institute.

We spent the next three years in Denver so that Jon could finish his residency, and I did still more postdoctoral research, for want of a better idea.  When he finished his program, we went on a four month road trip around the US in a camper pickup truck, then set out for San Diego, CA, with high hopes that he would easily get a job (He did.), and I would find a position in something that was not research. We lasted a year there, then had to leave for the San Francisco Bay Area because I couldn't find another position in San Diego after the company I had been working for as the marketing services manager went out of business. We were to spend the next 31 years in the Bay Area.

In the fall of 1980, Jon took a job with Kaiser Permanente in Martinez, CA, as a staff psychiatrist, and I went to work as a self employed writer/consultant for pharmaceutical companies and small bio techs. I enjoyed that. A few years later, when we were in our mid thirties, we decided that maybe we should have some children, so we did. To my surprise, they didn't turn out to be much like me, personality-wise, and raising them was much more of a challenge than I expected. 

Last year, Jon retired from Kaiser,  and we decided to downsize and buy a little house in Lincoln, CA, which is 30 miles north of Sacramento. We like to drive down the coast to Monterey every so often to visit our son, or to LA to see our daughter. We're both in pretty good health, at the moment, if you don't count the broken leg my husband got last month at softball practice, or my current aches and pains from over zealous exercise, so we hope to travel more in the future. We went to Alaska a year and a half ago, the Mediterranean last fall, and think we might like to see the Panama Canal in the next year or two.

Looking back, I'd have to say it's been a pretty good life, though we've certainly had our share of tough times. Going forward, I hope the future will be brimming with the peace and contentment that has eluded some of us from the class of 1967 in the past.

I think with a few notable exceptions we've encountered, most of us think back. It is part of that process of establishing self, looking back as a guide to what should or might come in the future. We all do it; some of us do it consciously, others just do it. However it happens, we all look back. I have more photos to post and also the Packanack school 5th grade yearbook to post (a gift from Nancy Sliker Gillingham).  I'm glad that there is still activity in our little corner of the high school world. Keep it coming folks.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

I Got the News Today.........

The impact of death is measured by its distance from your doorstep. As we age, gracefully or otherwise, death is on the march, hopefully using as circuitous a path as possible; but come it will. How we rationalize its approach, how we prepare ourselves for it is as varied as there are individuals. Some avoid the subject, hoping that the ostrich approach will somehow save us, or at least lengthen the time before we must embrace it. Others try to fill their lives with activity and bustle to distract themselves from death's inevitability.

Having lost a wife fifteen years ago, I have long realized that aside from assiduously avoiding activities that held high probability of personal injury, like skydiving or motorcycle riding (thank you again, Ned Soleau), there is not much you can do but put one foot in front of the other. I have done nothing in the dodgeball game of life to avoid getting hit by death either. But in that game, death hits closer and closer and the ranks thin out little by little. Maybe that is why some of us have chosen to isolate ourselves from the class.

Why dwell on death? I got a call today from Doug Senchak. I last spoke to Doug almost a year before the 45th Reunion as part of my quest to find all of us. I was looking for Doug, but I was also looking for Peter Isaza, and I had heard from Andy Savulich that Doug was helping to look after Peter, who had had more than his share of troubles in his adult life.

When I finally successfully contacted Doug, he was in the middle of a move and it wasn't the greatest moment what with phone changes and the indignities of moving. We spoke at length nonetheless and yet once again, I regretted not having spent more time with Doug than I had when we were in school. We shared many sensibilities.

So I was surprised when I got a call from him sort of out of the blue. Yes, the move was complete, and yes he was completely retired; and yes, Peter Isaza passed away last Saturday. Doug knew that I would want to know. Peter and I had spent a fair amount of time together during my Wayne Valley days. We shared a lot of classes. We did stuff together outside of school. I remember the first time I went to his house. He had a tennis court. I never knew anyone with a tennis court before. To Peter, it was a matter of fact, like running water and inside plumbing. To me it was extravagance. That not withstanding, (and yes, I did get over it) I enjoyed Peter's off beat sense of humor - something that Peter and Paul Wagner and Chris VanDenburgh and I all appreciated and we just cracked each other up. It's probably a good thing that we didn't always have the opportunity to spend time together. We would have gotten in a lot more trouble if that had been so. We never realized that there was an edge to that humor that spoke of madness in the future.

On graduation, we all went our separate ways. News of each other became anecdotal, a word here or there, and then became infrequent and finally nothing until Linda's success with her own graduating class inspired me to do the same with our "little" group of 600 plus. Would more contact have changed things over the years? Probably not, but it is hard to think that it might not have made a positive difference to all of us.

It's one thing to hear that death has visited someone halfway around the world. Maybe a little worse to hear that it visited across the country. It's another when it invades your circle of friends. And it's so much sadder. Goodbye Peter, may you find the peace you were unable to find in this life.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

In from the Cold

Well, we're back from an RV shakedown cruise and I am frustrated at the quality of Internet connections at many campgrounds (boy, am I spoiled or what? only because we're paying for it) but be that as it may, this blog was delayed 2 days until today, the morning after the first night in my own bed and the first day of Daylight Savings Time:

Even though we're sitting in the new Improved smaller and diesel RV, the day ended wet and chilly. Yes I know that's become a relative term nowadays. A perfect time to think about what has transpired the last few days. 

We took this trip as a shakedown cruise for the vehicle and to introduce the new pup to the RV life, it is true. But i also had an ulterior motive. I've been extolling the virtue of meeting with classmates as you travel to different parts of the country. It's been a while since I practiced what I preach.

So we had dinner with Bob Wanek and suddenly we were backstage at WVHS again and joking and reminiscing as though 45 years had not inserted themselves between us and we also affirmed that it would never do so again. And the seafood and key lime pie was great as icing on the cake to mix a few metaphors. 

Then we had lunch with Nancy Sliker Gillingham and caught up with each other again. She loaned me the Packanack school 1957 yearbook with authentic autographs!  We agreed that the small effort to meet is rewarded in far greater proportion in fond memories and class gossip and the cookies Nancy sent us off with. I left Palm Harbor/Dunedin resolved to find the rest of us not yet located. 

Enough. To essentially text this entry is burdensome beyond measure but the events of the past few days have been inspirational. Don't miss the Packanack preview on the class directory FB page. 

BTW so far the AC is on the fritz and the hot water bypass switch was installed backwards. The dealer is standing behind the vehicle by reimbursing us for the repairs which will be performed locally.

Diesel is cool too now that i know it doesn't necessarily mean twin stacks blowing blackness into the air. 


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Back to the present. There are piles of snow in store parking lots. There's a reminder of ice and snow on my walkway. Even with the 40 degree temperature differential, everything has been packed up from the RV and clothes have been laundered and all the sundries sundered. Time for a nap.

Just read on FB that Scott Shepard lost his dad in the last few days. Our thoughts are with him.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Waiting for that Time of Renewal

It's been a long and tiresome winter, and seasonal affective disorder (SAD, acronymed appropriately enough) and cabin fever are urging us to hit the road for warmer climes. If Spring won't come to us, we'll just have to go to it. Come March, we're going south to the Tampa area. With any luck we'll get to break bread with Nancy Sliker Gillingham and Bob Wanek of IBSLAT fame in days of yore.

It is also high time that glad tidings are the order of the day. As we did our research, and especially because of the generation gap, it was easier to suppose that more of our teachers were deceased than alive. You come upon a death notice and are more inclined to believe it than not. Without a whole lot of corroborative evidence, it's easy to err on the side of age and faulty logic.

I recently got a note from Lisa LaPlante Birkmaier of the Class of 78:

I saw your site waynevalley67.net and I have a correction.  You list Edward Galbierczyk as deceased in 2007.  However, in April of the following year, my sister and brother bumped into him in the parking lot of the Wayne Municipal building (it was the day our mother passed away), he was alive and well.  Some time after that I contacted his nephew via Facebook and he told me that Mr. Galbierczyk does not use a computer but that he is alive and well and remembered me!  It seems he still lives at Edward Galbierczyk. 329 Cross St Lakewood, NJ (732) 901-3982.

then I received a follow up just a day later:

I also think Miss Sorsby is still alive.  I know she relocated to Wyoming in the 1970’s.  There is a Wilma Sorsby living at 6905 Hwy 22, Wilson, WY 83014, (307) 734-0046.  There are several Wilma Sorsby’s in the USA but I think that is her.

If you want some info on Barbara Albanese (Abernethy), I can probably do that, I try to keep in touch with her though I don’t think she is interested…. L  

Needless to say, I've got a few phone calls to make. That's the kind of news I can easily welcome more of. My sincere thanks to Lisa and a welcome to the WVHS Directory group on Facebook. Looks like I have some website work to do!

For you Anthony Wayne Folks, (sorry S-C people), we recently observed the second anniversary of the passing of our 7-6 classmate, Dave Spae. Dave's wife Ruth held a commemoration for Dave and I was truly moved on discovering that Dorothy (Tunis) and Al Piaget spoke on that occasion. I don't know why but it still strikes me odd that teachers could remember us with as much affection as we regard them. I suppose that we tended to objectify them as we dealt with adolescent concerns of the day. Now in my near dotage, I think back on the teachers whom I held in high regard and the influence they had on me and I can only chuckle. Now that I've been sub teaching again in an effort to get out of the house and get the stink and dust blown off me (and as a relief for Linda) I find myself remembering them even more fondly. Mr. Tucker's "Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!" as he bid us farewell for the day and all the mannerisms and expressions of Robert Ruffing, Maggie Erdman, Joann Falco Ranaletti and the legion of other dedicated educators we were lucky enough to have encountered during those years who each left their indelible mark on us