We found Donald Brands in Bayport NY, where he is a tug boat captain plying the waters of the East Coast inner channel. Donna, Don's wife, said that they really hadn't been to any reunions,even hers, but I encouraged her nonetheless to make our 45th their first.
The next chapter. The summer of '72 found 3 friends packed in a '67 Mustang with a cat litter in the back seat and a mirror on the roof sandwiched between two mattresses. Don't ask me why I decided to take a mirror. I just don't remember the reasoning for something so goofy. Headed west to Lincoln Nebraska to the HiWay Tavern 300 West P street, bound to bring left wing ideas to the working class of Nebraska. Actually, it turns out that the HiWay is a really great bar. Sitting along the banks of Salt Creek, it is squarely on the wrong side of town. Railroaders, meatpackers, truck drivers and working people through and through. Schlitz and PBR on tap. A quarter would get you an 11 oz draft; 40 cents, a long neck. Don't ask for some fancy umbrella drink. Ball and beer. Whiskey sours were house blend and Squirt, a grape fruity citrus soda. Hi balls were all you could expect. Anything fancier, we'd tell 'em to take it to the Cornhusker Hotel. Lunch was a real busy time. A 30 minute lunch didn't allow much time to share 3 pitchers with 4 buddies and throw back some burgers, and travel to and from the plant. We'd get em served in 20. And lots of straight honest talk about work, about family, about politics, about the things that really mattered to them. The decor was straight roadhouse. Slab concrete foor, easy for hosing down, nicotine colored walls. Tube chrome bar stools. If you fell off, you were shut off for the night. In the afternoon, the regular crowd, and then the families would start piling in for food and good company. Move this setting to another part of the country and there will be a tavern similar to this. It was an interesting time. It was where I met my first wife, my companion to-be for the next 24 years. That's a good teaser to end for now.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
No Single Snowflake......The story continues
As the expression goes, no single snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche. That's the way these things develop.Someone tells someone that Milton is looking for all the lost classmates on the class website and they tell someone else who looks at the website and says, Hey, I know where that person is. And so it goes.
Debbie Forrest comments to one of these blog entries and all of a sudden, we know where Lynette Foisy Gonzalez is. Right in Wayne as it is. Deb says "you won't remember me" and I tell her "Don't be so sure about that." I don't know you, but I remember that you were there with me in school. It was a big school and a big class. I understand it's even bigger now. Linda's class here in Evansville was only 360 or so and she didn't know everyone there. I don't know how small a school has to be for everyone to know everyone. But like I said before, it doesn't matter. Your information is just as helpful and your desire to help is just as appreciated.
By the way, the Roberta MacDonald I was speaking about is Roberta Vreeland MacDonald. That might cause a flash of recognition for some.
Flashes of recognition don't come easy now, and they didn't come easy back in 1971 either. I was lost. My dad's company still owed me a trip to Taiwan, where my parents had been moved since '68. I headed for Taiwan thinking that total immersion in my Chinese heritage would give me the grounding I really needed back then. I got a job teaching English as a second language. I also came to realize something about that Chinese heritage. The one thing that Yale did have was probably the best Chinese language instruction in the country at the time. The US military sent their interpreters in training there. I didn't take advantage of it quite frankly because I was embarrassed to be a Chinese learning the language I was supposed to already know by heritage along with a bunch of whities. Therein lies the paradox of being Chinese American. A banana. Yellow on the outside; white on the inside. I determined that I would fix that when I got to Taiwan. I studied when I wasn't teaching. Got to where I could find the bathroom and order food. Still wrote like a 5 year old. And even as I gained vocabulary, I was still thinking in English and translating and then speaking. That's not fluency. There was an even more profound problem. I finally came to realize that I was Chinese by genetics. I was American through and through in every other respect. I felt like a white guy wearing a mask the whole time I was there. I would not find my answers in Taiwan. I went back to New Haven, to my reality, to my friends, and back to the process of becoming a person.
What to do, what to do. My friends and I are in idle conversation (there was a lot of that back then) and one of them says, we could go to Nebraska and run my Dad's tavern? Sure, why not? And that's the start of another story. There is a Chinese classic called The Journey to the West. It's actually about the priest that brought Buddhism to China from India and describes his travels to and from with a small group of companions, but the situation is similar. The subject matter is definitely not.
Until that story is told, keep a weather eye out for other classmates. There are still at least 120 or so out there. Most probably above the dirt. I'll be looking. Roberta will be looking. I'm hoping others will start too. Just let me know if you hear anything. Like I said, even unfounded rumors sometimes have the grain of truth hidden within that will reveal a location to that missing classmate. Maybe even a neighbor! (That happened to Linda)
And hey, if any of this is of any interest to you, click the follow button on the right. Then the Blogspot will send you a notification that Milton is clicking away at the keyboard again. And feel free to comment, either on the Blog itself or on my FB page. The more people reading, the more people thinking about classmates, the more we will find. Trust me on this. It works.
Debbie Forrest comments to one of these blog entries and all of a sudden, we know where Lynette Foisy Gonzalez is. Right in Wayne as it is. Deb says "you won't remember me" and I tell her "Don't be so sure about that." I don't know you, but I remember that you were there with me in school. It was a big school and a big class. I understand it's even bigger now. Linda's class here in Evansville was only 360 or so and she didn't know everyone there. I don't know how small a school has to be for everyone to know everyone. But like I said before, it doesn't matter. Your information is just as helpful and your desire to help is just as appreciated.
By the way, the Roberta MacDonald I was speaking about is Roberta Vreeland MacDonald. That might cause a flash of recognition for some.
Flashes of recognition don't come easy now, and they didn't come easy back in 1971 either. I was lost. My dad's company still owed me a trip to Taiwan, where my parents had been moved since '68. I headed for Taiwan thinking that total immersion in my Chinese heritage would give me the grounding I really needed back then. I got a job teaching English as a second language. I also came to realize something about that Chinese heritage. The one thing that Yale did have was probably the best Chinese language instruction in the country at the time. The US military sent their interpreters in training there. I didn't take advantage of it quite frankly because I was embarrassed to be a Chinese learning the language I was supposed to already know by heritage along with a bunch of whities. Therein lies the paradox of being Chinese American. A banana. Yellow on the outside; white on the inside. I determined that I would fix that when I got to Taiwan. I studied when I wasn't teaching. Got to where I could find the bathroom and order food. Still wrote like a 5 year old. And even as I gained vocabulary, I was still thinking in English and translating and then speaking. That's not fluency. There was an even more profound problem. I finally came to realize that I was Chinese by genetics. I was American through and through in every other respect. I felt like a white guy wearing a mask the whole time I was there. I would not find my answers in Taiwan. I went back to New Haven, to my reality, to my friends, and back to the process of becoming a person.
What to do, what to do. My friends and I are in idle conversation (there was a lot of that back then) and one of them says, we could go to Nebraska and run my Dad's tavern? Sure, why not? And that's the start of another story. There is a Chinese classic called The Journey to the West. It's actually about the priest that brought Buddhism to China from India and describes his travels to and from with a small group of companions, but the situation is similar. The subject matter is definitely not.
Until that story is told, keep a weather eye out for other classmates. There are still at least 120 or so out there. Most probably above the dirt. I'll be looking. Roberta will be looking. I'm hoping others will start too. Just let me know if you hear anything. Like I said, even unfounded rumors sometimes have the grain of truth hidden within that will reveal a location to that missing classmate. Maybe even a neighbor! (That happened to Linda)
And hey, if any of this is of any interest to you, click the follow button on the right. Then the Blogspot will send you a notification that Milton is clicking away at the keyboard again. And feel free to comment, either on the Blog itself or on my FB page. The more people reading, the more people thinking about classmates, the more we will find. Trust me on this. It works.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Some Search Help and the Long Version Finally Told
Got an email yesterday from Roberta MacDonald, from North Carolina. Seems that she's looking for lost classmates too, using the classmates page as a reference. We're now communicating, soon to be coordinating our searches to be more efficient and to avoid duplication of effort. Wonderful. We use some of the same resources, but some different too so we can cast a wider net to find the "NOT LOCATED".
Also been talking to Nancy Gaestel Jasinski about the database. Nancy is going to work on getting the existing one up to date and have it become the authoritative go-to database from which everyone can work. I think together we can make sure that everyone is contacted about the 45th and we can grow the event. Selfishly, there are people I want to see again. Distance may prevent seeing them in person, but the Internet is everywhere and Skype is a reality, not just a pipedream like it was a decade ago.
So this is the longer more complete version of the short form. I'll save the true autobiography for the NYT Best sellers list. If I'm going to write that one, I might as well get some return on it.
Milton graduates from Wayne Valley HS with over 600 comrades in arms. He spends most of the summer working. He worked for a hematologist in a lab in Newark General Hospital catheterizing lab rats so they could be injected with elemental mercury to study the clotting process in search of a better coagulant/anticoagulant agent by better understanding the clotting process. Prepared liver sections for electron microscopy too. This was during that time when everyone was convinced, friend and family alike that Milton was destined to be a doctor or lawyer, or at least an Indian Chief. Well the work was okay but what really blew me away was the day that I left work and the Newark Riots had just erupted over the arrest and beating of a taxicab driver a couple of days before. They started wheeling bodies into Newark General including a headless woman who made the mistake of sticking her head out the window to see what was going on. Multiple National Guard rounds just took it off. As I left work and got on the northbound Garden State Parkway, the southbound ramp that I used to get to work was now occupied by a NJ National Guard machine gun emplacement. So ended my summer employment. Little did I know that events would follow me to New Haven.
Milton hit the halls of Ivy that Fall, and quickly discovered college life and semi-independent living, the academic requirements of Yale and came to some, astonishing conclusions. It was all quite picturesque and old but that doesn't change the fact that Yale sucks. It is equally divided between charter members of the lucky sperm club (alumni sons of the rich and famous) or professional cut-throat overachievers looking to become members of the club they don't have the genetics for (see above). It seems however that the year of my admission, they made the almost fatal error of altering their admissions policies to bring in people who were both academically qualified but also activist in school. When they made this decision, they had no idea of the upheavals that would soon engulf the campus in political activity and tear gas.
I spent my first year trying to become what Yale said I ought to be. I was never that person. I will never be that person because I would have held myself in contempt. By sophomore year, I was drifting, doing the work but without interest or particular diligence. I gradually realized that being an English major meant that they would tell me what dead authors intended based on their authority alone, without evidence. They were looking for me to validate their opinion as a better one than anyone else's, for a grade. I couldn't do that. The point of reading is to come to your own conclusions based on how the words affect you in your life. The greatness comes when the books affect so many people in much the same way as to attain a level of universality.
The rest of my college campus life was upheaval and turmoil. The University employees went on strike. A group of students occupied the campus post office in support. A curious Milton was there, got swept up in the events and stayed long enough to come under disciplinary review by the University. I got "rusticated" for a couple of days. Yeah, kicked off campus for expressing a non-violent opinion about University labor policy. Well. that certainly set the stage.
To make a long story shorter, let me list some of the events of the next couple of years that I was in the thick of. Psychedelia, long hair and rock and roll, Black Panther trials, Vietnam War protests and tear gassing of students, academic review of the traditional grading system and adoption of a pass/fail system, Kent State, May Day, Washington DC Days of Protest, Yippies, Hippies, boycotting of graduation. The only good thing that happened was that Yale went co-ed. By the time junior year was upon us, I was living off campus in East Haven with a bunch of common minded friends. By the time Senior year and graduation arrived, all this was like riding water in a toilet down the drain swirling down to who knew where. I was working construction for a contractor specializing in slum landlord renovations in the New Haven ghetto up Whitney and Dixwell Avenues. Sorta like Forrest Gump except I didn't get shot in the buttocks.
This isn't easy to remember. It s hard to separate what actually happened with a lot of details which I remember happening but may be the result of what I wanted to believe was happening. You know how if you tell yourself it happened that way often enough, it can become your memory of that event? I don't think it happened to me too often, but I know it happens. That's another good reason to keep up friendships, to cross check your coloration of history, especially your own.
I'll save my personal edition of Roots and The Journey to the West for another time. The point of this exposition is not necessarily to air my dirty laundry. It is more for you to realize that each of us has a story to tell. We all want people to know that we walked this earth, that somehow we left our mark. So tell us your story. I'm telling you mine.
Although I've said it on Facebook and elsewhere, it bears repeating here. Tim Henneman and Chris Lurie have been happily married for 44 years now in Zebulon NC. Now that's a wonderful thing. Neither is "not located" any longer.
Also been talking to Nancy Gaestel Jasinski about the database. Nancy is going to work on getting the existing one up to date and have it become the authoritative go-to database from which everyone can work. I think together we can make sure that everyone is contacted about the 45th and we can grow the event. Selfishly, there are people I want to see again. Distance may prevent seeing them in person, but the Internet is everywhere and Skype is a reality, not just a pipedream like it was a decade ago.
So this is the longer more complete version of the short form. I'll save the true autobiography for the NYT Best sellers list. If I'm going to write that one, I might as well get some return on it.
Milton graduates from Wayne Valley HS with over 600 comrades in arms. He spends most of the summer working. He worked for a hematologist in a lab in Newark General Hospital catheterizing lab rats so they could be injected with elemental mercury to study the clotting process in search of a better coagulant/anticoagulant agent by better understanding the clotting process. Prepared liver sections for electron microscopy too. This was during that time when everyone was convinced, friend and family alike that Milton was destined to be a doctor or lawyer, or at least an Indian Chief. Well the work was okay but what really blew me away was the day that I left work and the Newark Riots had just erupted over the arrest and beating of a taxicab driver a couple of days before. They started wheeling bodies into Newark General including a headless woman who made the mistake of sticking her head out the window to see what was going on. Multiple National Guard rounds just took it off. As I left work and got on the northbound Garden State Parkway, the southbound ramp that I used to get to work was now occupied by a NJ National Guard machine gun emplacement. So ended my summer employment. Little did I know that events would follow me to New Haven.
Milton hit the halls of Ivy that Fall, and quickly discovered college life and semi-independent living, the academic requirements of Yale and came to some, astonishing conclusions. It was all quite picturesque and old but that doesn't change the fact that Yale sucks. It is equally divided between charter members of the lucky sperm club (alumni sons of the rich and famous) or professional cut-throat overachievers looking to become members of the club they don't have the genetics for (see above). It seems however that the year of my admission, they made the almost fatal error of altering their admissions policies to bring in people who were both academically qualified but also activist in school. When they made this decision, they had no idea of the upheavals that would soon engulf the campus in political activity and tear gas.
I spent my first year trying to become what Yale said I ought to be. I was never that person. I will never be that person because I would have held myself in contempt. By sophomore year, I was drifting, doing the work but without interest or particular diligence. I gradually realized that being an English major meant that they would tell me what dead authors intended based on their authority alone, without evidence. They were looking for me to validate their opinion as a better one than anyone else's, for a grade. I couldn't do that. The point of reading is to come to your own conclusions based on how the words affect you in your life. The greatness comes when the books affect so many people in much the same way as to attain a level of universality.
The rest of my college campus life was upheaval and turmoil. The University employees went on strike. A group of students occupied the campus post office in support. A curious Milton was there, got swept up in the events and stayed long enough to come under disciplinary review by the University. I got "rusticated" for a couple of days. Yeah, kicked off campus for expressing a non-violent opinion about University labor policy. Well. that certainly set the stage.
To make a long story shorter, let me list some of the events of the next couple of years that I was in the thick of. Psychedelia, long hair and rock and roll, Black Panther trials, Vietnam War protests and tear gassing of students, academic review of the traditional grading system and adoption of a pass/fail system, Kent State, May Day, Washington DC Days of Protest, Yippies, Hippies, boycotting of graduation. The only good thing that happened was that Yale went co-ed. By the time junior year was upon us, I was living off campus in East Haven with a bunch of common minded friends. By the time Senior year and graduation arrived, all this was like riding water in a toilet down the drain swirling down to who knew where. I was working construction for a contractor specializing in slum landlord renovations in the New Haven ghetto up Whitney and Dixwell Avenues. Sorta like Forrest Gump except I didn't get shot in the buttocks.
This isn't easy to remember. It s hard to separate what actually happened with a lot of details which I remember happening but may be the result of what I wanted to believe was happening. You know how if you tell yourself it happened that way often enough, it can become your memory of that event? I don't think it happened to me too often, but I know it happens. That's another good reason to keep up friendships, to cross check your coloration of history, especially your own.
I'll save my personal edition of Roots and The Journey to the West for another time. The point of this exposition is not necessarily to air my dirty laundry. It is more for you to realize that each of us has a story to tell. We all want people to know that we walked this earth, that somehow we left our mark. So tell us your story. I'm telling you mine.
Although I've said it on Facebook and elsewhere, it bears repeating here. Tim Henneman and Chris Lurie have been happily married for 44 years now in Zebulon NC. Now that's a wonderful thing. Neither is "not located" any longer.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Another Idea
I just spent a half hour talking to Bill Shepperd on the phone. Just like Amazing Grace, he was lost but now is found. In, of all places, Wayne, where he has been all along except for his military hitch.
After telling each other our life stories, it got me to thinking that we need a place to share those stories. I want to know them, and I think others do to. Not everyone is real happy with the way things turned out 100%. I know I'm not, but I still want to hear anyway, warts and all. Some of us probably turned out to be princes. Others of us probably stayed frogs. But there is a place in this world for frogs and princes, and at our age, who's really going to notice the difference anyway. Besides, it's probably too late to do anything about it. I know I've got nothing to prove any more. I'm there for my family when they need me, my work pays the bills and my interests have swung toward history and classmates. I'll save the long version of my life for another entry sometime.
I would have bored Bill with this story but I was too interested in his, so here goes. Now Carol Angiono Jones thought I was talking about she and Nancy and Pete and Reggie when I told this story to her, but I was telling it to contrast it to the job they have done so well for so long. I'm just sorry I never got to tell Don how much I appreciated all the work he put into the class.
Anyway, here goes. The end of my life story puts me in Evansville, Indiana. My 2nd wife, Linda is Evansville born and bred. We live on the Westside of town. For those of you who don't know Evansville, it is really two towns put together across a creek running between them. The Westside, formerly known as Lamasco, is where she has lived all her life. The Eastside, has always been Evansville. We're all Evansville administratively, but culturally, we're Westsiders. Well THE high school for the Westside is F.J. Reitz High school and my wife graduated from here in 1967, same as us, except with a graduating class of only 360 or so. They had a few pregos and they weren't allowed to graduate - they had to drop out. That's the "or so" part and part of the story.
When we had the house fire (documented in the previous post) she thought she lost her yearbook too. She was easily as distraught as I was when I lost my copy of Embers (it was truly Embers and the house gave off Smoke Signals too). She turned to her classmates to get a copy to scan so she'd have one, at least in pages if not in bound form. Well, she did and started reading through it and started to think about school mates and reunions. We missed her 30th (We were only recently married for that one.) We went to her 40th and it was pretty lackluster - like some satire about reunions in the nursing home or something. Woo Woo. Let's have a party snore snore........ There were only about 40 classmates there, with maybe 80 people in total. Then we found out that many weren't located, and most weren't even notified that it was happening. The reunion committee just kept track of the people that attended, so as attendance kept going down, they kept track of fewer and fewer people.
It was then that Linda decided to find all her classmates. It took 9 months using every search technique in the book including word of mouth, but she did it. I built the class a website - modeled it after Pete Milano's. Stole his presentation of the class. But we added alphabetical pages with before and after pictures and contact information (if allowed to do so by the graduate) "Would you want to share your email address on the class website". "If we do a class directory, would you want your contact info in it" (There hadn't been one in over 20 years) The website, www.reitz67.com generated so many hits as to be unbelievable. People were calling in suggestions and we added a memorial page with burial locations. We added the digitized yearbook, grade school graudation photos, copies of the student newspaper (Not as good as Smoke Signals, if I don't say so myself). So we had generated a tremendous amount of buzz and conversation. We told people that we were all about inclusion, including the pregos and other people that went to school with them but either moved out of town or to another high school. They were still part of the school community. Emails were flying left and right. People were reconnecting and everything was good. How would we harness it into action? A reunion? I wanted to call it a Preunion. Definitely not. Many were irritated and angry at the committee. So we decided to have an informal get together, an Antireunion a catered cookout at a local park enclosed shelter house that held about 100 or so people. 12 bucks a head. A self liquidating event just to have one without all the bells and whistles. A tea party reunion, sorta. Well the attendance reached 80 and we started to get worried. It got to 100 and we said well, some people are going to be outside anyway. It got to 120, and we told folks that if you don't get your reservation paid, you'll be like the folks in Green Bay - we'll rent a big screen and you can be outside in a rent-a-tent. It got to 150 and we said, "maybe we need a bigger place". We ended up with 180 paid reservations and a different venue.
The old reunion committee turned over the funds and withdrew from the arena quite voluntarily and unexpectedly. Suddenly my wife and the small group of people working with her became the new reunion committee. We sold printed directories to raise funds at the event. We sold CD's of the directory. I borrowed the student picture on the name tag thing that we did at our 20th. People went wild. Even without booze, they had to chase us out of the place. We made money, showed what could be done and everyone had a renewed sense of community. It was truly a feel good moment. The reunion committee guy that was going to emcee got sick and I ended up having to do it. That was weird. Then again, I've done eulogies for people I've never met. That's another story too. They made me an honorary class member! Dual citizenship as it were.
Needless to say, our 45th in Evansville is going to be bigger and better than ever. We're raffling off a week in a Gulf Shore condo donated by one of the classmates to raise money. We have a series of fundraisers planned going into next May and we've booked a place for nearly 300 people.
Back to Wayne. Completely different situation. Here we have a dedicated committee working hard to keep the website current and get things ready. They've been doing this for years now. Is there anything more that can be done? There always is. The trick is finding people to do it. My chosen task is finding the lost. I want to get people reconnected to one another, to really talk up the 45 and build the numbers. Pete says he can get the facility if we outgrow the club house. I don't want to scare Carol, but wouldn't that be something? There are so many people I want to see again.
But first we start with stories. If anyone wants to share theirs, drop me a line at milton.yuan@gmail.com and I'll set it up as a posting here. I'll forward it to Pete as well so he can add it to the website with your picture. I'm really looking forward to hearing it!
After telling each other our life stories, it got me to thinking that we need a place to share those stories. I want to know them, and I think others do to. Not everyone is real happy with the way things turned out 100%. I know I'm not, but I still want to hear anyway, warts and all. Some of us probably turned out to be princes. Others of us probably stayed frogs. But there is a place in this world for frogs and princes, and at our age, who's really going to notice the difference anyway. Besides, it's probably too late to do anything about it. I know I've got nothing to prove any more. I'm there for my family when they need me, my work pays the bills and my interests have swung toward history and classmates. I'll save the long version of my life for another entry sometime.
I would have bored Bill with this story but I was too interested in his, so here goes. Now Carol Angiono Jones thought I was talking about she and Nancy and Pete and Reggie when I told this story to her, but I was telling it to contrast it to the job they have done so well for so long. I'm just sorry I never got to tell Don how much I appreciated all the work he put into the class.
Anyway, here goes. The end of my life story puts me in Evansville, Indiana. My 2nd wife, Linda is Evansville born and bred. We live on the Westside of town. For those of you who don't know Evansville, it is really two towns put together across a creek running between them. The Westside, formerly known as Lamasco, is where she has lived all her life. The Eastside, has always been Evansville. We're all Evansville administratively, but culturally, we're Westsiders. Well THE high school for the Westside is F.J. Reitz High school and my wife graduated from here in 1967, same as us, except with a graduating class of only 360 or so. They had a few pregos and they weren't allowed to graduate - they had to drop out. That's the "or so" part and part of the story.
When we had the house fire (documented in the previous post) she thought she lost her yearbook too. She was easily as distraught as I was when I lost my copy of Embers (it was truly Embers and the house gave off Smoke Signals too). She turned to her classmates to get a copy to scan so she'd have one, at least in pages if not in bound form. Well, she did and started reading through it and started to think about school mates and reunions. We missed her 30th (We were only recently married for that one.) We went to her 40th and it was pretty lackluster - like some satire about reunions in the nursing home or something. Woo Woo. Let's have a party snore snore........ There were only about 40 classmates there, with maybe 80 people in total. Then we found out that many weren't located, and most weren't even notified that it was happening. The reunion committee just kept track of the people that attended, so as attendance kept going down, they kept track of fewer and fewer people.It was then that Linda decided to find all her classmates. It took 9 months using every search technique in the book including word of mouth, but she did it. I built the class a website - modeled it after Pete Milano's. Stole his presentation of the class. But we added alphabetical pages with before and after pictures and contact information (if allowed to do so by the graduate) "Would you want to share your email address on the class website". "If we do a class directory, would you want your contact info in it" (There hadn't been one in over 20 years) The website, www.reitz67.com generated so many hits as to be unbelievable. People were calling in suggestions and we added a memorial page with burial locations. We added the digitized yearbook, grade school graudation photos, copies of the student newspaper (Not as good as Smoke Signals, if I don't say so myself). So we had generated a tremendous amount of buzz and conversation. We told people that we were all about inclusion, including the pregos and other people that went to school with them but either moved out of town or to another high school. They were still part of the school community. Emails were flying left and right. People were reconnecting and everything was good. How would we harness it into action? A reunion? I wanted to call it a Preunion. Definitely not. Many were irritated and angry at the committee. So we decided to have an informal get together, an Antireunion a catered cookout at a local park enclosed shelter house that held about 100 or so people. 12 bucks a head. A self liquidating event just to have one without all the bells and whistles. A tea party reunion, sorta. Well the attendance reached 80 and we started to get worried. It got to 100 and we said well, some people are going to be outside anyway. It got to 120, and we told folks that if you don't get your reservation paid, you'll be like the folks in Green Bay - we'll rent a big screen and you can be outside in a rent-a-tent. It got to 150 and we said, "maybe we need a bigger place". We ended up with 180 paid reservations and a different venue.
The old reunion committee turned over the funds and withdrew from the arena quite voluntarily and unexpectedly. Suddenly my wife and the small group of people working with her became the new reunion committee. We sold printed directories to raise funds at the event. We sold CD's of the directory. I borrowed the student picture on the name tag thing that we did at our 20th. People went wild. Even without booze, they had to chase us out of the place. We made money, showed what could be done and everyone had a renewed sense of community. It was truly a feel good moment. The reunion committee guy that was going to emcee got sick and I ended up having to do it. That was weird. Then again, I've done eulogies for people I've never met. That's another story too. They made me an honorary class member! Dual citizenship as it were.
Needless to say, our 45th in Evansville is going to be bigger and better than ever. We're raffling off a week in a Gulf Shore condo donated by one of the classmates to raise money. We have a series of fundraisers planned going into next May and we've booked a place for nearly 300 people.
Back to Wayne. Completely different situation. Here we have a dedicated committee working hard to keep the website current and get things ready. They've been doing this for years now. Is there anything more that can be done? There always is. The trick is finding people to do it. My chosen task is finding the lost. I want to get people reconnected to one another, to really talk up the 45 and build the numbers. Pete says he can get the facility if we outgrow the club house. I don't want to scare Carol, but wouldn't that be something? There are so many people I want to see again.
But first we start with stories. If anyone wants to share theirs, drop me a line at milton.yuan@gmail.com and I'll set it up as a posting here. I'll forward it to Pete as well so he can add it to the website with your picture. I'm really looking forward to hearing it!
Another Lost and Found Story
Back in February of 2010, Linda and I suffered a devastating house fire. Seems that the Romex wiring that they used in the late 50's was insulated with brown paper. As the paper aged, it dry rotted. We suspect a squirrel or some other critter got in the attic and gnawed on the outer cloth wire covering and shorted something out. In any case, I hope he got his just desserts.At 2am, we were in our bedroom at the end of the house. I heard a crash in the family room in the center of the house and got up to investigate. Our two watchdogs were fast asleep. I looked down the hall and saw lights where there should have been none. A few flecks of flame were emerging from a built in cabinet. Fire, I thought. Ran and got a kitchen extinguisher. Sprayed it for 20 seconds till it ran out. Hmmm. I quickly ran to wake Linda and get her moving. We ran past the fire in our nightclothes.Fortunately, we live in our house and winter overcoats were draped on the kitchen chairs. Grabbed the dogs and out the door we went. Called the local fire volunteer fire department. Waited forever and called them again. We then moved the cars away from the house and watched the house burn. The fire department arrives after what seemed to be an interminably long wait. (Turns out after the initial call, I called 2 minutes later, and they responded in 4 minutes. For a volunteer force, that is amazingly quick response). I knew some of the guys who responded.
Later that morning, around 5am, we were still in the truck with the dogs and the firemen were knocking down the hot spots. A knock at the window. An unknown neighbor had gone to the local bakery and come back with coffee and donuts and dog food and water in a little waterbowl. How's that for neighbors? People offered us clothing, shelter; it was very moving. The $5000 from AAA put us up in a nearby hotel for the weekend while we figured out what to do next.
Once we got in the house to survey the damage, it was mind boggling. What had taken 8 years to create (I had redone every single room in that place myself) was gone in 10 minutes. Snow fell into our family room from the gaping hole in the roof. I just about lost it. Cried like a baby. Everything in the center of the house was just structurally gone from the floor up. Turns out that little bitty flame I initially saw was just the burn through. The fire had run the attic. We had a lot less time than we thought we did. If we had been a little slower to wake or to respond to the fire...........
What wasn't burned outright got heat flashed so badly that the plastic face plates of computers turned into dripping goo. Everything from ceiling to about 2 feet from the floor got heat flashed. Everything, even that which was undamaged was smoked. That smell is a terrible pervasive thing that still lives in some of our restored stuff. In most cases replacement was the correct approach. A built in bookcase, containing my copy of Embers 1967 burned merrily that cold February morning along with most of my reference books and some of my favorite fiction.
Fortunately books can be replaced (annotations are lost forever) and my wonderful wife saw fit to buy me a Kindle for my birthday later that year, bless her heart. My firearms and the fireproof safe were intact. The computers, although melted, still had recoverable hard drives so we saved most of the data! Friends and neighbors helped us pull out everything that might be restored (a lot of which wasn't restorable on reflection)
But my carefully preserved Embers, now that was a problem. It had been in the same condition that I got it in 1967. Except a later girl friend had cut out my high school girl friend's photo (the beginning of the end of that relationship, I might add). And the problem gnawed at me, but only in the back of my consciousness since I had much bigger problems to confront. Getting a house rebuilt, moving into a rent property we just acquired (never thinking we would be living there), replacing everything (there is so much stuff you don't even think about any more but it's there), you know those kinds of little problems. (By the way, if you're ever in the market for homeowners insurance, think about AAA Motorclub insurance. Yes they do homes too. Underwritten by Cincinnati Insurance. Wonderful folks. We're 3 hours from St Louis. We called them 8am the morning after the fire. They were there in 3.5 hours with a recovery check for $5000 to hold us over.)
But back to Embers.......Always one to tackle a problem head on, I called Wayne Valley after we had moved back into a brand new house of our own design and specifications, and explained to them what had happened. The school secretary said that she would see what she could do.
I waited. A few days later, Lisa Courter emailed me "I have a box marked 1967 in the storage area under the school. Let me check for a copy of the yearbook."
I waited. A few days later, Lisa called me to say that after brushing the spiders and cobwebs off that box, she found two copies of Embers. One was severely damaged, missing sections; the other was complete, but the binding was a little beat up. I said I'll take it, trying to remember where that storage area might be? Wasn't the school built on a slab?
I waited. A week later, a package arrived in the mail, delivered to the door by our mail carrier. I once again have a copy of Embers. Complete. It had belonged to some one. There was a photo missing. I couldn't tell who was the offending party since the photos lined up on front and back of the page, but whose ever book it used to be, they didn't like that person; the only writing on it was a wise crack from John Gross. Other than that, perfect; and yeah the binding was beat up more than a little but it holds together and is an invaluable reference in my quest to find everyone.
When you lose most everything, what will you value most? When a big hunk of your past is destroyed, what will you try to replace? I think that's why I'm doing this. It's also why I am compelled to go to the 45th. Will I see you there?
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Lost and Now Found
It's been a few weeks now since I began the insane ambition of finding all my "lost" classmates.
Here's a little progress report:
Nanette Amatulli Armenta lives in Clifton
Yvette Carlson lives in Pompton Plains and is now reunited with Nanette. Happiness!
John Botbyl (Jack) lives in Littleton CO
Brian Thomman lives in Tempe AZ. Now they are hooked up together.
Timmy Henneman is in Zebulon NC. Has a few health issues but says "I'm still kickin'"
Brent Watson is in Clifton, NJ
Kathy Walmach Manhardt is in Tucson, AZ as is Howie Wilke (I haven't talked to either of them yet)
Ray Smallwood is in Mesquite TX
Toni Saveriano Lindahl is in McLeansville NC
Bobby Greenblatt is in East Haven CT (Karen Carpenter's home town)
Art Grahn is in Jackson NJ
Sue Edwards Gutkin is in Baltimore MD and recently hooked up with her old friend Evelyn Mains
Klaus Baesler is in Bethlehem PA
We have sad news too. The Social Security Administration Death Index shows the following friends:
Bernice Alexander 4/7/1997
Bruce Apter 11/12/1998
James L. Avery 9/15/1998
Albert Butler Dec. 1983
Michael Calderone 6/3/2008
Edward J. Cross 5/27/2009
Catherine Nowack 8/16/1995
Mary Lou Rudin 9/24/2003
We're working on about 30 more but are waiting for acknowledgments from a lot of people to confirm identities.
But know that we're working on it. If you have any clues on any of the folks located on the class website, let us know. Our email is either milton.yuan@gmail.com or linday7632@gmail.com or give us a call at 812-457-7772 for Milton or 812-425-3255 for Linda. (She's working on getting honorary status at Wayne Valley '67 like I have with Reitz HS '67)
This search is turning into a reward unto itself. Talking with these folks has been the most fun I've had in years and it has taught me much (if nothing else, that I put my pants on the same way everyone else does and that the glory days don't help people remember me, the only Chinese kid in the class!) More on this later......
Here's a little progress report:
Nanette Amatulli Armenta lives in Clifton
Yvette Carlson lives in Pompton Plains and is now reunited with Nanette. Happiness!
John Botbyl (Jack) lives in Littleton CO
Brian Thomman lives in Tempe AZ. Now they are hooked up together.
Timmy Henneman is in Zebulon NC. Has a few health issues but says "I'm still kickin'"
Brent Watson is in Clifton, NJ
Kathy Walmach Manhardt is in Tucson, AZ as is Howie Wilke (I haven't talked to either of them yet)
Ray Smallwood is in Mesquite TX
Toni Saveriano Lindahl is in McLeansville NC
Bobby Greenblatt is in East Haven CT (Karen Carpenter's home town)
Art Grahn is in Jackson NJ
Sue Edwards Gutkin is in Baltimore MD and recently hooked up with her old friend Evelyn Mains
Klaus Baesler is in Bethlehem PA
We have sad news too. The Social Security Administration Death Index shows the following friends:
Bernice Alexander 4/7/1997
Bruce Apter 11/12/1998
James L. Avery 9/15/1998
Albert Butler Dec. 1983
Michael Calderone 6/3/2008
Edward J. Cross 5/27/2009
Catherine Nowack 8/16/1995
Mary Lou Rudin 9/24/2003
We're working on about 30 more but are waiting for acknowledgments from a lot of people to confirm identities.
But know that we're working on it. If you have any clues on any of the folks located on the class website, let us know. Our email is either milton.yuan@gmail.com or linday7632@gmail.com or give us a call at 812-457-7772 for Milton or 812-425-3255 for Linda. (She's working on getting honorary status at Wayne Valley '67 like I have with Reitz HS '67)
This search is turning into a reward unto itself. Talking with these folks has been the most fun I've had in years and it has taught me much (if nothing else, that I put my pants on the same way everyone else does and that the glory days don't help people remember me, the only Chinese kid in the class!) More on this later......
The Launch of the Wayne Valley Class of 67 Blog
Realizing that many of our classmates are on Facebook, I thought we needed a place for longer reflections than will fit in 400 characters. We all have stories to share about people and places and events that we remember that won't fit in a snippet designed for people with short attention spans. I wanted to have a place where folks could remember our common experiences and share their recollections at greater length.
Selfishly, I also realize from my experience with my wife's class of 1967, that there are a lot of folks (150 in our class alone) who are still not located. These are people that have managed to stay under the Internet radar and search engines and who have become hidden in plain sight. To locate these people, my new ambition, sometimes you have to rely on a random story or recollection or even unfounded rumor that just may provide that single clue that will lead to another classmate.
And we all have stories. Stories that deserve to be told again and again to anyone that will listen because they helped define who we were, and that is the foundation for who we have become, as a generation, a class, as individuals who have built fulfilling and busy lives.
For example. How we spent the money from the last magazine subscription drive in 1966. As I recall, the Christmas Dance was the Student Council's last Hurrah event that ate all that money. I remember painting stars on the walls of the gym above the bleachers. The paint matched the color of the walls until they were hit with UV lamps. Then they glowed like stars in the night. I remember a bandstand constructed using a basketball goal as a foundation, and fog machines that sprayed mineral oil and made everything a greasy mess later. But during the dance, it was a fog that concealed the gym floor markings and made the place look positively angelic. Between the round nightclub style tables, fog and the UV lights that lined the bleachers and illuminated the walls to reveal those stars, it was quite the sight. I often wondered how many years those stars remained unseen before they were painted over in some routine maintenance painting of the gym. That single black and white photo in Embers somehow didn't quite capture the event quite as well as I remember it.
My copy of Embers is another story.
Now I have to figure out the best way to publicize this thing.
If anybody has stories of their own, please feel free to add them to this venue. I think it could be fun and a great build up to he 45th reunion.
Selfishly, I also realize from my experience with my wife's class of 1967, that there are a lot of folks (150 in our class alone) who are still not located. These are people that have managed to stay under the Internet radar and search engines and who have become hidden in plain sight. To locate these people, my new ambition, sometimes you have to rely on a random story or recollection or even unfounded rumor that just may provide that single clue that will lead to another classmate.
And we all have stories. Stories that deserve to be told again and again to anyone that will listen because they helped define who we were, and that is the foundation for who we have become, as a generation, a class, as individuals who have built fulfilling and busy lives.
For example. How we spent the money from the last magazine subscription drive in 1966. As I recall, the Christmas Dance was the Student Council's last Hurrah event that ate all that money. I remember painting stars on the walls of the gym above the bleachers. The paint matched the color of the walls until they were hit with UV lamps. Then they glowed like stars in the night. I remember a bandstand constructed using a basketball goal as a foundation, and fog machines that sprayed mineral oil and made everything a greasy mess later. But during the dance, it was a fog that concealed the gym floor markings and made the place look positively angelic. Between the round nightclub style tables, fog and the UV lights that lined the bleachers and illuminated the walls to reveal those stars, it was quite the sight. I often wondered how many years those stars remained unseen before they were painted over in some routine maintenance painting of the gym. That single black and white photo in Embers somehow didn't quite capture the event quite as well as I remember it.
My copy of Embers is another story.
Now I have to figure out the best way to publicize this thing.
If anybody has stories of their own, please feel free to add them to this venue. I think it could be fun and a great build up to he 45th reunion.
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