Mrs. Zabresky

Karen Leonardi called last night to let me know that Mrs. Zabresky passed away on Saturday. Many of us had Mrs. Zabresky for French class. She also taught typing, a skill I learned from her that I use nearly every single day.

Karen is related to Mrs. Zabresky and had seen her recently at a wedding. She said she was doing well at age 90 except for a little trouble getting around and needed some help. In reading her obituary, which I'll include below, she worked right up into her 80's as a substitute teacher.

At the time I took typing in high school, it wasn't obvious that it would be used for anything other than interacting with a typewriter so that I could type my own term papers. Little did I realize that it would be the method we all would use to interact with desktop computers, which weren't even available back then. Whenever I see an adult hunting and pecking at a keyboard, plodding along at a few words per minute, I silently thank Mrs. Zabresky for teaching me touch typing in high school.

Dolores Zabresky

Dolores Zabresky, of Harveys Lake, passed away peacefully at the Meadows Nursing Home on Saturday, October 13, 2007.

She was born October 26, 1916, and was a daughter of the late Howard and Mary Quinn Eckenrode. A graduate of Kingston High School and College Misericordia, she received a bachelor of arts degree in French and business subjects. Mrs. Zabresky taught at the former Bishop O’Reilly High School until her retirement.

After her retirement, she continued to work in the field of education as a substitute teacher for the Wyoming Valley West and Lake-Lehman school districts until 2001. She previously resided in Kingston and Forty Fort.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Thomas Zabresky, who passed away in 1986; infant son Francis; sisters Sister M. Marcian Eckenrode, RSM; and Kathleen Cahalan; brothers Thomas, Howard and Eugene Eckenrode.

She is survived by her children Ann Tripp and her daughter. Katie, Harveys Lake; Thomas Zabresky and his wife, Mary, Forty Fort, and their children, Jon and Rachel Zabresky and Coray Mitchell Jr.; Kathleen Daskalakes and her husband, Dennis, Loyalville; Michael Zabresky and his wife, Sharon, Shavertown, and their children, Michael Jr. and Laurie Zabresky; four great-grandchildren; nieces and nephews.
The funeral will be held Wednesday at 9:15 a.m. from Maher-Collins Funeral Home, 360 N. Maple Avenue, Kingston, with a funeral Mass at 10 a.m. in Our Lady of Victory Church, Harveys Lake.

A private interment will be held at St. Ignatius Cemetery, Pringle. Friends may call Tuesday from 4 to 7 p.m. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Misericordia University, 301 Lake Street, Dallas, PA 18612; or to the American Heart Association, 71 N. Franklin Street, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701.Condolences by e-mail can be made at www.maher-collins.com .

Published in the Times Leader on 10/15/2007.

Rich Hometchko's Mom

I got this information from Arlene today. Rich's mom passed away on Monday. The viewing is tonight and the funeral is tomorrow. If you wish to send a card, Rich Hometchko's address is:

Richard Hometchko
13943 104th Avenue
Largo, FL 33774


Helen J. Hometchko, 82, of Swoyersville, passed away peacefully, Monday, October 8, 2007, at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, after a sudden illness.
Her husband is Joseph Hometchko. Together, Joseph and Helen celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on February 3, 2007.

Born February 23, 1925, in Swoyersville, she was a daughter of the late George and Mary (Onacilla) Kender.

Helen was raised in Swoyersville and resided there all her life. She and her beloved husband, Joseph, were both 1942 graduates of the former Swoyersville High School.

Though for most of her life, Mrs. Hometchko dedicated herself to being a homemaker for her loving family, she was employed as a seamstress for the former United Pants Factory, Swoyersville. Also, during World War II, Helen was employed as a telegraph operator for Western Union.

Helen was a member of Holy Trinity Church, Swoyersville, and its Confraternity of Christian Women, as well as a member of the Holy Trinity Quilters. She was active with the Swoyersville Senior Citizens and was a member of the Swoyersville Senior Citizens Bowling League. Helen was very active in helping with Holy Trinity Church’s Annual Bazaar and especially enjoyed helping cook goulash for the bazaar.

Helen greatly enjoyed cooking, baking and sewing. She was an avid traveler and took great pleasure in her travels. Helen was a loving wife, mother, grandmother and friend and she will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved her. Helen was preceded in death by four brothers and four sisters.

In addition to her loving husband of 60 years, Joseph, Helen is survived by her sons, David and his wife, Bonnie Hometchko, of Charlotte, N.C., Joseph and his wife, Ann Hometchko, of Largo, Fla. and Richard and his wife, Susan Hometchko, of Largo, Fla.; grandchildren Michael, Vickie, Kendra, Rileigh and Ashley; numerous nieces, nephews and friends.

Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend the funeral, which will be held at 9 a.m. Thursday from the Wroblewski Funeral Home Inc., 1442 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial to be celebrated at 9:30 a.m. in Holy Trinity Church, 116 Hughes St., Swoyersville, with the Rev. Joseph Adonizio officiating. Interment with Rite of Committal will follow in Holy Trinity Cemetery, Swoyersville. Family and friends may call today from 4 to 7 p.m. at the funeral home. The Confraternity of Christian Women of Holy Trinity Church will recite the Rosary at 6:30 p.m. at the funeral home.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in Helen’s memory to the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition c/o Doneckers Complex, 287 Duke St., Ephrata, PA 17522.
Published in the Times Leader on 10/10/2007.

Reunion

Well, I finally got around to posting to the blog! I want to personally thank Michael and the entire committee for a wonderful reunion! I am sorry I missed Friday night's icebreaker (mostly because some of you knew people's name and I did not!) Kidding aside, it was a great night all the way through, and I am glad I attended. People have heard me say that I have always enjoyed our reunions, that's right folks, I am one of the 19 who attended all three! I remember the hard work involved in 1988, so my kudos to Michael and the gang! Great job, but the problem with that is we will expect you to keep doing it!!!!!!!!!

Everyone I see I tell them you have to go to the reunion and I am glad there were some new faces this year! I can't wait for the next one, but not that 50th birthday thing, not celebrating, nope can't make me!

PS hey John N. your picture looks like a mugshot!!!!!!!

Reunion stats

I wanted to echo the sentiments that Jay and Michael have posted here on the blog about the reunion. It was a great reunion, and special thanks to Michael for stepping up to chair it. Also, I want to thank the committee members who worked so hard to pull the reunion together. And last but not least, I'd like to thank those of you who were able to attend and make it into the success it turned out to be.

Terri and I had a wonderful time and it was great to see everyone there, including some of you who I hadn't seen in over 30 years. It's amazing how a reunion atmosphere can bridge that time gap and, in just a few seconds, it's like we've always been best friends forever. I think that some people may feel that they've completely lost touch with their high school friends and yet all it really takes to reconnect is a few hours at a reunion to reestablish these friendships. To me, that certainly seems like time well spent.

I was playing around with the spreadsheet I use to keep track of everyone and found that we had a higher attendance at this reunion than at the last one. We also had the greatest number of people returning from far away places. It seemed as if the number of spouses/guests declined a little with about 25% of us opting to bring along a guest this time. Perhaps it's an indication of how busy you know that you'll be talking with other classmates.

Here are some statistical observations about our graduating class, which had 176 members:

104 have made it to at least one reunion

And of those 104:

61 have made it to one reunion
24 have made it to two reunions
19 have made it to all three reunions

Number of Classmates attending reunions:

66 in 1988
49 in 2002
51 in 2007

It's not unusual for reunion attendance to drop off with time, so this increase in the attendance is something to celebrate. I'm not implying that attendance numbers are the only indicator of a reunion's success. I've just noticed that it's easy to talk oneself out of attending or procrastinate until it's too late. It usually only takes a little encouragement to move someone off the fence who's having mixed feelings about attending. Whenever I've done this, the person ended up thanking me afterwards.

I have the reunion pictures posted here. It requires the username/password which I generally send out in our emails. If you don't have it, please email me for it. In looking through them I realized that, although not everyone was there in person, many were there in spirit because we had the senior pictures cycling on a projector in the background so even if you were not there, you may still see yourself in a photo or two so please check them out.

If anyone who has any digital photos that they did not give to Bruce Cottle to copy at the reunion, please send them to me and I'll post more photos as I get them. Also, for those of you who are in the area, you can pick up a CD with these reunion photos at Mark Hession's White House Diner.

Reunion Recap from Michael Kinney

Here's a message from Michael:

OK, the reunion has been over for three days. I just felt like I should share my feelings about the entire process from beginning to end. First, I was able to make some new friendships with the members of our Committee. Second, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I must say I was honored that so many of you took the time out of your lives to attend. To see friends from Germany, California, Colorado, Rhode Island, Dallas, Harrisburg, Kingston, Virginia and everywhere else, made the weekend extremely special. You all attended this past weekend with 3 1/2 months notice! Thank you.

Seeing so many of my Classmates, some I haven't seen in 30 years, smiling and enjoying the company of our other Classmates, made every minute of planning, doubting, and tracking down fellow Classmates worth it. My only regret was, and still is, not finding the final four on my "Lost Souls" list.

I had many moments of doubt that we would have a reunion. Could we pull it off? Were we rushing too fast? Jay Tobias planted a seed in my head when he emailed me saying, "If only 10 people show up , they're the 10 I want to be with. They are the 10 that want to be there." Jay, 39 of our Classmates attended the Icebreaker hosted by Mark Hession. Fifty-one of our Classmates attended the Reunion. They all wanted to be there and were!

My hat's off to Mark Hession for all of his hard work and effort in hosting us. I still don't understand the magnitude of his undertaking, but Mark , you showed us you're an excellent cook and host! Thank you.

I heard someone remark after the Icebreaker that we didn't need a reunion on Saturday night because of the wonderful time they had. I had to comment that some of you couldn't make it into town for the Icebreaker and should be given the opportunity to share in the fun on Saturday.

I remember two phone calls on Friday. The first was early at Mark's for breakfast, Dave Serhan called and said he was in the airport at San Diego ready to board his plane, in less than 12 hours, he was with us at Mark's. The other phone call was to Chuck from Pat Balester in Missouri telling him he was at the airport ready to board and he was arriving at Midnight! Those two calls made Jay's words sprout in my head.

I apologize for running so long, but that's what I do.

I am assuming by the laughter and smiles I heard and saw both nights, that everyone had fun.

My second regret was not spending more time with everyone of you. Those I did spend the extra time with, thank you, you made my weekend.

I will admit I called three of you by the wrong name, but I'll just use the age card and leave it at that.

Again, thank you for attending, taking the time, and leaving me with great memories!

To our Committee, thank you again, a thousand thank yous would not, and could not, be enough.

Michael Kinney

A Few Thoughts...

What can I say??? How absolutely FANTASTIC was this weekend??? Let me give a few suggestions as to why...

1) I saw my dear friends Joe Ziller, Dave Serhan, and Bob Wanat.
2) I saw my pee wee football buddies, Sandy Scalzo, John Simonitis, Rick Leandri, Rick Atcavage,
3) Paul, Joey, Mary, and Kim. Can I really find the words???
4) Sue (The Shark) Klecha, my pool partner as long as she does me the honor...
5) The comittee... Mike, Paul, Chuck, Karen, Bev, Maryellen, Arlene, et al...
6) Lee... You are absolutely the MAN!!!

I consider myself the luckiest person to have been associated with all of you folks in our class. We WERE and ARE truly special!! I have never felt such a closeness with anyone as I have (and dare say, always will) with all of you. I wish that I could list everyone, because I remember something about every one of you. Ask anyone who sat at my table. They will vouch for me. I hope to see you all at the next reunion, if not at our birthday bash.

My next project is to go down the class list and publish a memory of each of you. (Robin already knows ours!)

Until then, I will try to keep bloggong and letting you know I'm out there.

I guess that my closing thought would be:

1) If you came, I loved seeing you and hope to see you again. And God watch over you all until we're together again.
2) If you couldn't make and wanted to, we truly missed you and hope to see you again soon.
3) If you decided not to come, we TRULY missed you and hope that you will give us another chance to make you feel welcome. Please let us know how we can possibly right any wrong that you fell may have been done.

I remember a time when the halls of O'Reilly rang with joyful sounds and the spirit of fellowship. Our time together here is way too short... Let's make the most of it..

I remain your friend, as always...

Jay

Ice Breaker

The Ice Breaker at the White House Diner was a big success last night and it was great to see everyone there. Everyone was having lots of fun. Bruce Cottle downloaded pictures from several of the digital cameras and burned some CDs for us. I looked over the 150+ photos briefly and uploaded them here.

For those of you that couldn't make it, I hope these photos will give you a virtual sense of what it was like at the ice breaker.

Mark Hession and the reunion committee did an excellent job at making everyone feel welcome and provided more than enough food and drinks to feed an army. Thanks to all who pitched in to help out in the preparation and clean up activities!

I look forward to seeing all of you again tonight at the reunion.

[update 10/03/2007] I've since uploaded the reunion photos there too. They are password protected so please email me if you've forgotten the password.

Bee's mom

As some of you may know, Bee Harris Darrow's mom has been fighting cancer for some time. She passed away on Monday.

Thanks to Maryellen for providing this information:

I spoke to Bee this afternoon, she called me when she returned from the funeral home to give me the arrangements that have been made.

The wake and funeral will be held at:

Kopecki Funeral Home
263 Zerby Ave.
Kingston, PA 18704
570-718-1327
570-287-3398

Wake service will be Wednesday from 6:00pm - 9:00pm. Funeral Service from the funeral home on Thursday at 9:00 am with a Mass of Christian Burial from St. Ignatius Church, Kingston, PA on Thursday at 9:30 am.

The funeral announcement will be in the local papers.
Links to the local papers are:
http://www.legacy.com/CitizensVoice/Obituaries.asp
http://www.legacy.com/timesleader/Obituaries.asp

Bee and her family are staying at her mothers home:

388 Schuyler Ave.
Kingston, PA 18704


At the request of the family, donations may be made to

Hospice Care of the VNA Inc.
Inpatient Unit
Heritage House
80 E. Northampton Street
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701


This is the hospice unit that Mary Anne Harris was at when she passed away.

Thanks again,
Maryellen

Another found soul

Karen Leonardi should be a private investigator. When I first started working with Karen on the 2002 reunion, I was amazed that she had a complete list of graduates along with addresses and phone numbers for most of us. I figured she must have gotten them from Bishop O’Reilly. I know the nice people at O’Reilly always were able to find me, especially around fund raising time, so I figured they had some special way of keeping track of us. However, when we attempted to put together a list for this reunion, I found that Karen’s list, which was 5 years old, was actually much more complete than the one that I got from Bishop O’Reilly which was missing about half of the current addresses. It was then that I realized the extent of Karen’s talent in tracking people down.

In a period of 5 years, people tend to move around, and many of you have done just that. In addition, people change email addresses like they change their clothing these days so the Internet hasn’t always been the asset one might assume in keeping track of all of you. So a lot of work goes into tracking down individuals. And this very much follows a sort of 95/5 rule where we spend 95% of our time trying to find the last 5% of our class members.

One of the people we were not successful in finding for the 25th reunion, and that was still on our missing persons list for this reunion, was Ann Marie Yatsko. That was true until Friday. Karen managed to track her down here in Colorado. She lives about 50 miles from me. I’ve exchanged some email with her and found that she was living for 6 years in Utah and then moved to Colorado about a year ago. Her husband, Al Manzi, is the President and Publisher of the Boulder Camera newspaper. The Boulder Camera main office is on Pearl Street which is within walking distance of Kati Wood Gardner’s house in Boulder (less than 2 miles). Ann Marie’s husband Al was also Rick Leandri’s college roommate in Bloomsburg. So there were a lot of small world moments experienced on Friday.

Unfortunately, Ann Marie won’t be able to make it to the reunion since she’s having company visiting from PA, but now that we’ve found her again, we hope that she’ll be able to make it to the next one.

Getting to the reunion

View Larger Map

Here are some directions that Michael has provided:

The easiest directions to R & D Memories on Saturday night are: Drive to the Crossroads in Hanover. Take the Sans Souci Highway towards Pizza Hut and McDonald's, at the first light past them, turn right on Fellows Avenue. R & D Memories is located less than a half mile away on the left. The address is 566 Fellows Avenue.

The directions to the Crossroads in Hanover are as follows: about a mile from the Carey Ave. Bridge from Plymouth, or from Carey Ave in South Wilkes-Barre or turn left on Oxford St. from South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre (about a mile from the intersection of South Main St. and Blackman St). Finally, from Nanticoke, turn left onto Fellows Ave. heading towards the Crossroads.

Lee's additions:

After looking over the map it appears that the most important thing you need to remember is that Fellowes Ave is just off the San Souci Parkway. Hanover Crossroads is really just an intersection of two roads, but the names of both roads change at the intersection. The road that crosses the Carey Ave bridge from Plymouth is called West End Road, but it changes to Oxford Street east of the Hanover Crossroads. Similarly Carey Avenue turns into the San Souci Parkway as it heads south from the Hanover Crossroads.

If you get lost, the phone number for R&D Memories is (570) 970-5683.

No meeting Thursday night

In the latest Newsgram (#6) I sent out yesterday, Michael mentioned that there would be a reunion planning meeting this Thursday at the Bakehouse near Kingston Corners and anyone who wanted to could stop by. However, he found out later that no one on the committee could make it, so there will not be a meeting. He asked me to put it in the Blob (sic). :-)

I think he meant to write Blog. But with Michael, I can't tell if it was a typo or if it was a his sense of humor....

Hotels in and around Wilkes-Barre

For those of you traveling in from out of town who need a hotel, Michael Kinney has put together this list for us:

Downtown Wilkes-Barre

Ramada Inn
20 Public Square
Wilkes Barre, PA 18701
570-824-7100

Best Western Genetti Hotel & Conference Center
77 East Market Street
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701
570-825-6477 or 800-833-6152

Near the Wyoming Valley Mall

Holiday Inn Wilkes-Barre (Arena)
880 Kidder Street
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702
570-824-8901

Hosts Inn
860 Kidder Street
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702
570-270-4678 or 866-733-4678

Days Inn Wilkes Barre
I-81 Exit 170B
760 Kidder Street
Wilkes Barre, PA, 18702
570-826-011

Above the Wyoming Valley Mall
These are all within two miles of the Mohegan Sun Casino at Pocono Downs, if you’re interested in gambling.

Red Roof Inn Wilkes-Barre
I-81 at SR 309 Business, exit #170-B
1035 Highway 315
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702
570-829-6422

The Woodlands Inn & Resort
1073 Highway 315
Wilkes Barre, PA 18702
570-824-9831 or 800-762-2222

Best Western East Mountain Inn & Suites
2400 East End Boulevard - Route 115
(Exit 170A off I-81)
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702
570-822-1011


Hilton Garden Inn Wilkes-Barre
242 Highland Park Boulevard
Wilkes Barre, PA 18702
570-820-8595

There are two located off exit 165 of I-81, on Route 309 and Blackman Street

Comfort Inn & Suites
1067 Wilkes-Barre Twp Blvd
Wilkes Barre, PA 18702
570-823-0500

Econo Lodge Arena
1075 Wilkes-Barre Twp. Blvd. SR 309
Wilkes Barre, PA 18702
570-823-0600

The Hlavacs

Laura Canfield and I were exchanging some emails and wondering about some other classmates and Nancy Hlavac's name came up. I didn't think our address for her was correct, because we grew up on the same street and it seemed like we had her parents' address. Laura reminded me that she had a sister, MaryBeth, a year behind us at BOR so I started a Google search for her and found what appeared to be a recent email address. So I emailed her on the hope that we could have her help track down Nancy.

During the search, I found a recent article from the Times Leader (which has subsequently aged off the website) but thanks to Google's cache, here it is:

In honor of the love that their parents share, the children and grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. William Hlavac of Swoyersville recently honored the couple on their golden wedding anniversary. Fifty years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Hlavac exchanged vows on June 22, 1957, in Endicott, N.Y.

Mrs. Hlavac is the former Betty J. Klym, and daughter of the late John Klym and Julia Piston Klym of Johnson City, N.Y. Mr. Hlavac is the son of the late George and Ann Hlavac.


Together they have raised five daughters: Cheryl Zuczek, Nancy Donahue, Marybeth Hlavac, Tina Mayerski and Julie Anne Bruno. They have five grandchildren: Jeff Zuczek, Jeremy and Joshua Mayerski, and Billy and Sabrina Bruno.

Mr. Hlavac is a Navy veteran of World War II, a graduate of King’s College and a retired accountant from RCA in Mountain Top. Mrs. Hlavac, a graduate of Johnson City High School, is a former employee of Anesco and Nabisco corporations.

They celebrated the occasion with a blessing given by the Rev. Richard Cirba at Holy Trinity Church in Swoyersville, and a surprise party organized by their daughters and sons-in-law at the Apple Tree Terrace, Newberry Estate. Family, friends, and members of their original wedding party were in attendance. They also celebrated with family members on a cruise to Alaska.

Need a BOR 1977 Yearbook

I realized when I was on the phone with Michael this evening that I'm missing a few pages of the year book that included the teachers, namely, pages 12 and 17. If anyone has a scanner, please scan in those pages and email me the scans.

I'm not sure how it happened but I lost my high school yearbooks. I left them at my mom's house and perhaps during a move they got tossed out.

I'd like to get a copy of a Queen 1977. If any of you have an extra copy, possibly because you have a sibling who would have no use for that year, please let me know. I recall getting one each year, but the only one I really miss is the one from 1977.

Invite a teacher!

Here's a chance to invite a teacher you would like to see at the reunion.
As you know, at the 25th reunion we had Mr. Lynch, Mr. Slusser, and Mrs.
Obuhosky and they all had a great time. This time we have invited:

Mr. James Lynch
Mrs. Anita Sirak
Mr. Ron Slusser
Sister Donna Marie (formerly known as Sister Ines)
Mrs. Sharon Obuhosky
Mrs. Linda Rakauskas

It's unlikely that all of them will be able to make it, but hopefully a few
of them will be there.

If you'd like to invite a teacher who is not on this list, please send an email to me before next Tuesday and we'll invite the teacher who gets the most votes. If you're having trouble remembering them, you can find some pictures here to jog your memory.

Dress code

Beverly (Yakus) Cottle and I were exchanging some email about the reunion dress code the other day. The committee would like to have an atmosphere where people are comfortable and don't feel like they need to run out buy a new outfit just for the reunion (unless you *wanted* to use the reunion as an excuse to do that, of course :).

Michael said he plans to wear a jacket and tie, and, depending on the mood at the reunion, possibly take them them off at some point. I'll probably do the same. As for the women, wear whatever makes you feel comfortable, whether it be slacks or a dress.

The reunion isn't a prom or a fashion show, just a time to be yourself and enjoy catching up with friends.

The first item you can do with this Tuit is to send in your reunion RSVP to Michael. In case you lost the invitation, please make check out to Bishop O'Reilly Class of 1977 and send it to:

Michael Kinney
150 Andover Street
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702

The cost is $50/person.

Don't forget to specify whether you will also be attending the ice breaker.

This lovely young girl, Kathleen, is a 2007 graduate of Bishop O'Reilly. She is attending Immaculata University in the Philadelphia area. She is playing field hockey and majoring in Nutrition/Dietics. She's planning on getting her Masters in Nutrition and becoming a Registered Dietician.


Her mom graduated with us. Can anyone guess who she is?

Backyard Things...

I sent out an email to my fellow classmates from St. Johns the other day, hoping to drum up some more awareness and interest in the reunion, and maybe even get a response from someone I've not heard from yet. Of the 20 St. Johns classmates that went on to Bishop O'Reilly, I have emails for 11 of you, half of which I'm sure are good. So far, there are 5 of us from St. John's planning to attend and I was hoping to increase that number.

Today I wanted to talk about a book that I used to love to read that was in St. Johns library. It was entitled 'Backyard Things that are Fun to Build'. I would pore over that book for hours, imagining how much fun it would be build the cool structures they had in the book. There was a covered wagon which I did build when I was a kid from a wooden wagon that someone had discarded. It was similar to the one on the cover of the book as shown above. I wonder if the message shown on the cover, 'Out West or Bust' influenced my decision to move here to Greeley, the town named after the guy who popularized the phrase, "Go West Young Man." :-)

But the other items were just pure fantasies. There was a ship, an old west town, a submarine, a helicopter, a plane... and many other things that would bring joy to the heart of a child. I recently bought a copy of the book that I found on the Internet. It brings back a lot of fond memories. I remember that other 'builders' in the class, like Blaise Koval and John Parulski, were also fond of that book. If either of them decide to come to the reunion, I'll bring it along for them to look over.



As you can see from this picture, there was a plane too, and now that I'm building a plane, I can't help wonder if this book planted the seed to do that too.

It's funny to think back to the things that influenced us as kids and wonder what affect they have on our lives now. I still love building and fixing things and get a lot of satisfaction out of something as simple as hanging a blind, not just because is scores me points with Terri, but because every time I look at it, I realize that in some small way, I had a part in it.

Can anybody hook me up with a contact to see if I can purchase about 3 old wrestling singlets from either O'Reilly or Central Catholic.

Reunion Menu

I sent out a short Newsgram yesterday with the menu for the reunion dinner. If you're not getting the newsgrams, then please email me since I must be missing your email address.

The RSVPs are starting to come in and Michael Kinney has been sharing the results with us. So far he's gotten about 20 responses with about a 50% 'yes' rate, and if that continues, it will be a very big turn out. There are nearly 150 yet to be returned and if you're one of them, please send your RSVP in at your earliest convenience.

I also keep a separate running total of those who responded by email and I've got 43 'yes' and 21 who are still interested. But I've only got valid email address for about half of our class so there are still many we've yet to hear from.

Some of you are curious whether or not it's OK to come without a date. So far, 7 out of the 10 who sent in 'yes' RSVPs will be coming alone, so if your spouse or significant other isn't interested in attending, you will still be in good company.


We are down to 4 missing class members at last count. If you know their whereabouts, please email me at lee810@yahoo.com or Michael at fishfishr@juno.com

They are:

Dorothy Baran
John Roach
Karen Krishunis Shemanski
Ann Marie Yatsko

Here is the menu:

Cheese and fruit trays to begin

Soup

Mixed green salad with choice of dressing

Choice of Entree: Turkey and gravy with stuffing on the side, Top round of roast beef, or Lasagna.

Green beans almandine

Red potato with parsley

Cake with ice cream.

Can you name them all?

Here is something to mesmerize you, all 176 headshots of our classmates arranged in alphabetical order so that it doesn't unfairly tax our senior memories. You have 5 seconds to identify each one. After you finish that, then here is something to entertain you, various photos that have appeared over the years somewhere on the website or in the blog.

Pierogies!

The other day Michael and I were exchanging email about the ethnic foods available in Wyoming Valley. He had just eaten some potato pancakes at a church bazaar that had been cooked up by none other than Sister Ines (now known as Sister Donna Marie) and I mentioned how much I liked pirogies.

The only thing available out this way are Mrs. T's which are made in Shenandoah, PA. They turn out over 11 million pierogies a week. Michael tells me his mom's recipe is the best. My favorite pierogies were the ones they served for lunch at St. John's on Fridays in Lent. The recipe above is in my father's handwriting, and I think he got it from his mother, who was Lithuanian. We tried them a few weeks ago, except we used a potato/cheese filling. Now I'm not sure we can go back to Mrs. T's. because these were so good, although they do take a little work to prepare.

We were scratching our heads about the 'glass of sour cream' and then I remembered that back then, when you bought sour cream, it came in a sort of drinking glass, which was a nice little bonus. It would translate to 8 oz. of sour cream.  The glasses are now considered collectibles since the practice of packaging sour cream and cottage cheese dates back to the 1920s, but was discontinued in the 1990s.  Here is an example of the kind of glass I'm talking about:

How about you? Got any good Wyoming Valley recipes to share? Send them to me and I'll post them here.

Super Sam

I got this video clip from Jay Tobias. This is his son-in-law’s latest venture on Comedy Central, where they won first prize in their short video contest. It’s a scream...

It's getting closer (instead of better) all the time....

I can't believe that we're only like a MONTH away! I enjoyed our 25th soooo much that I can't wait for #30! It is so great to see you all whenever this kind of thing happens. I've seen Mark Hession, Paul Reinert, Joe Lynch, Vince Dennis, Mike Kayrish, and Margie Semanek from time to time. But to see all of you who come from lands far away (farther than I'VE ever been) is really special. You REMEMBER us, and the good times that we had. That's so very important as we grow older. We had something SPECIAL, as so many of our teachers and peers noted. I wish you ALL well, whether you attend or not, and know that you are always never far away in my heart and in my prayers.

Gosh it seems like it's been so long since I saw everyone last. Speaking of concerts, I saw the Moody Blues and Steve Miller within the past few weeks. Got me thinking about high school again and all of the great music that our generation grew up with.
Looking forward to the ice breaker and reunion. I hope we get a nice turn-out, but it'll be fun for everyone who gets there.

Rush Snakes and Arrows Tour

Bob Wanat is responsible for my addiction. Dave Serhan had to endure it at Penn State. Joe Petrasek shares it.

I'm talking about the legendary rock group Rush. It's a curious addiction because when I first heard them, I didn't really think too much of their music, but as is often the case with spaced repetition, it grew on me and has been my favorite rock group for the past 31 years. Last night Terri and I saw them perform (from ROW 8!) at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver. It was an outstanding show with lots of enthusiastic fans. I sometimes worry that I'll be the oldest person at a rock concert, the consummate geezer, but was gratified to see grandparents bringing their grandchildren to share in a timeless form of music that effortlessly spans generations.

A few years ago I was at my nephew's graduation party and one of his friends was doing the honors of acting as a DJ. He found my brother-in-law's Rush CD, Moving Pictures, and began playing it. I went up and complimented him on his excellent taste in music and he looked at me with astonishment and asked, 'Would you adopt me?!'. Obviously a kindred spirit, he was a committed Rush fan and was playing a CD that was released before he was even born, and he was as enthused about it 22 years later as I had been when I had first heard it when I was around his age.

This Canadian trio has been selling out all their concerts across the U.S. and Europe and they do it with virtually no radio airplay. They've only had two modest 'hits', if you can call them that, which you can hear on classic rock FM stations on occasion. The little snippet video above is a South Park intro to 'Tom Sawyer', their most recognizable song (and my cell phone's ringtone).

Sometimes people erroneously lump Rush into head-banging hedonistic heavy metal, but that's a gross mischaracterization.

Yes, I know I post too much about Rush, I just can't help myself...

Sheee's baaaack!

With her irascible wit, Sister Heloise makes her reappearance. The intervening years haven't mellowed her one iota, but why should they? Five years is but a drop in the bucket for a timeless entity like Sister Heloise. Go ahead, make her day by asking her a reunion-related question.

Who will be attending the reunion???

Michael has been getting lots of requests to figure out who is going to be attending the reunion and we've gotten about 65 informal responses which you can see here:

30th Reunion Attendees

That's now linked to the top of the main web page. The formal invitations haven't gone out yet, but will go out very soon. If you want to contact someone, we've got a fairly extensive database which you can see here:

Class Database

You will need a username/password to access that list, and if you've been getting email from me, you should already have it. If you don't have it, please email me for it.

At the last reunion, we had 49 class members attend and so with guests it was close to 100 people and I expect that this reunion will be as large, especially if we get some help from you. If you see someone on the list that you'd like to come to the reunion who hasn't responded, give them a call or send them an email. We have about 22 people who are 'on the fence', i.e., interested but not enough to commit to going yet or trying to juggle other committments. They could use some encouragement too.