Richard Murdock

Hey folks - look what I found tucked away in a box hidden in my garage.   A little the worse for wear (see small holes courtesy of some bug no doubt), but nontheless still in working order.   Amazing.

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

Doug, the reunion event on June 10th at 8 PM EDT is a 64 minute video. You will be receiving information shortly about how to access the World Premier of the "64 Minutes with the Class of '64" video. Stay tuned. And by the way, once the video goes live, it can be accessed anywhere in the world at any time.

Philip Spiess

Why Dick, a weenie beanie!

Philip Spiess

Nelson, I was annoyed at your dialect, too, and I don't speak Spanish!  It kept me awake in homeroom.  (Actually I speak Spanish like a native -- like a native Russian!)

Rick Steiner

barron Wilson was indeed  a most outstanding teacher,and  the best I had at Walnut Hills . My recollection is that he was fluent in 14 or so languages .His emphasis on speaking the language has helped me to this day. I too remember the first days when we took Latin in the seventh grade .nothing but the spoken word. He did the same thing when I took Spanish from him. He really shined in the language lab, honing  our  speaking ability .As a result because he was so fanatical about pronunciation, to this day the Spanish I speak  and haven't studied ,for 47 years is still understandable.he called it our enlase.

only slight problem is I have absolutely no  vocabulary remaining. I am reduced to asking just one question. Donde  esta el bano. .It does still get me where and when I need to go.

I took history of drama from Wayne Gregory. I was the only junior in a class of all seniors, and we started the year studying Greek drama and went all the way up to present day.  We read plays in class every day for the entire year .He hooked me  early when we read Lysistrata. The class-size was 14 students and it was by far the most enjoyable course I had taken. Probably my first realization that learning could be fun.

my third most memorable teacher was Leonard Arcilisi. He taught economics when we were seniors. We actually pooled money  and invested in the market. My burgeoning interest in the stock market was greatly heightened by his class, and I went on to major in economics as an undergrad., and get a brokerage license in the 1970s. It continues to be a major interest and  focus of a lot of my attention.

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Lord love a duck, I am starting to wonder if Alzheimer's can become entrenched at age 16. I have absolutely zero recollection of being offered the courses that Rick Steiner mentioned.... But please don't tell my kids. They will send me away for sure. 

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Dick, thanks for the picture. What level hoarder are you? I myself was probably between 2-3, but never thought to invest in a DSM to find out for sure. My late husband was worse than I, so between us..... hmmmm, can you do math like averaging in psychiatry?

Chuck Cole

I believe it was in 8th grade math (J. Stanley Leeds) that our class learned about investing in the stock market. We ended up each bringing in betweeen $1 and $2 to buy a class share of Eagle Pitcher stock.  We sold it at the end of the year and might have each walked away with 20 cents profit or so.  I was so interested in space that when Comsat became available to buy, I bought 1 share.  It eventually turned in to 4 shares of Lockheed. My mother covered the commission, which was probably almost as much as the stock.  I think the Dow Jones Industrial average was somewhere around 250 at the time.

Dale Gieringer

Concerning Barron Wilson,  I never took a formal class from him, but much enjoyed taking  extracurricular Russian lessons from him after school.   He was a dedicated  teacher of many languages, devoted to his students, and could even speak Latin.  He also sang in the Zoo opera chorus.  After we graduated he became the victim of a scurrilous sex frame-up at the Greyhound Bus Station, which forced him to quit the public schools.  He was eventually rehabilitated and returned to teaching, where he belonged.   That was one my first lessons in the nastiness of homophobia.

Dale Gieringer

 Actually it was in Miss Parker's 7th grade math class that we invested in Eagle Pitcher stock.  I volunteered to draft a wall chart to follow the price, but unfortunately botched the task by leaving sloppy, crooked lines in unerasable India ink.  Miss Parker posted it in the room anyway next to the neatly drawn charts from other classes, who invested in other Cincinnati stocks like P&G.  Miss Parker was a nice teacher.   I believe she left WHHS not long after our 7th grade.

Margery Erhardt (Schrader)

I had the three teachers Rick mentioned. Barron Wilson, I have to admit was not my favorite teacher. He would send me back to the closet to try to teach myself to “roll” the r’s and l’s. To this day I can’t do this. I decided that if I grew up in speaking Spanish I would have been in speech therapy. My sister took French from him and spent 3 or 4 months in Switzerland with a professor and his family. When she resumed her French he wondered where she had gained her accent and here it was French spoken as the Swiss do. Loved Wayne Gregory’s classes and was in the class Rick mentioned and I believe every other class he taught. I went on to major in Speech and Drama in college (one of my majors.) Leonard Arcilisi was another favorite and I had him for Econ as a Junior I believe. Unfortunately, after we graduated he too (like B Wilson) had a bit of a run in with the law and I believe had to leave teaching at least according to the newspaper articles at the time.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Dale, I remember that scandal with Mr. Wilson. I saw him shortly afterward near my office downtown. He recognized me after all the years since high school. I embraced him, gave him a hug and told him what a fine teacher he had been. He seemed appreciative. I told him that it was because of him that I had confidence to persue a major in French.

To change the subject, happened to be looking through the 1964 Remembrancer for the childhood address of a classmate after learning that she has moved back home to care for her mother. I had used that Remembrancer while serving on the planning committee for our FIRST reunion.  I found this letter:

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

That letter was from Ruth Ann Redd, the committee secretary. She loved working on those reunions. 

Henry Cohen

Phil, yes my cavus feet saved me and there is a story about that I heard a couple of years later that  I am not sure is true. It did however come from a very reliable source. Supposedly one of our classmate's fathers impersonated a general on the phone calling the draft board complaining that he was tired of people with bad feet making it through the physical and he wanted that to stop. He used enough expletives to make himself believable. His son had hammer toes and he flunked and so did I. 

Philip Spiess

Hank:  Thanks for responding; I always wondered what happened to you after the physical.  I had reported over a month late to my draft physical because, as it turned out, the date they had originally set for me -- I was attending a reception at the White House (convention of the American Association for State and Local History).  I sent the draft board a telegram explaining why I wouldn't be reporting, and somewhere I have in my files an official notice ("Reason for Postponing Draft Physical -- Death in the Family" and so on -- end note "Other:  Attending a reception at the White House").  [N.B.:  One of my graduate school associates spilled spiked punch on Lady Bird Johnson in the receiving line and was taken away by the Secret Service.]

Dale is quite right; Miss Parker in 7th Grade Math had us invest in Eagle Picher (I think is the spelling), and we made a profit.

Philip Spiess

Rick and Margery:  Look for my comment (somewhere on these notes) on running into Wayne Gregory in Philadelphia during my graduate days in Delaware; he was running a curio shop.  I remember in one of his classes he had us read out loud (with dramatic effect) a poem of our own selection.  I did so -- and asked the class -- who do you think wrote this poem?  The class (including Mr. Gregory) decided it was by Edgar Allen Poe -- but it was by me, trying to imitate Poe's work.

Rick:  As to Lysistrata -- whoa! we read it in college, at the height of the Vietnam War, for obvious reasons.  Have you ever seen Aubrey Beardsley's famous (and notorious) illustrations for Lysistrata?  When Beardsley died (a genius) at the age of twenty-five, he begged his publisher, Leonard Smithers, to burn the Lysistrata drawings -- but he didn't!  Most phallic drawings I've ever seen (and that includes the Romans at Pompeii and Herculaneum!).

Philip Spiess

Ann:  As to Ruth Redd -- I'm sorry, Arnold, that I have to repeat this, because I love and respect you, but -- as I reported at our 20th Reunion, Ruth wrote (to my thinking) the funniest line in our "Last Will and Prophecy":

"To Arnold Bortz, we bequeath a last name that sounds like a fart in a bathtub!"  Arnold, this was in no way to disrespect you, but when you say it out loud, it is so appropos!

Philip Spiess

And one last note on Wayne Gregory:  Among the many rumors that circulated (see those on Joseph Knapp's "back brace"), there was one that -- in days gone by -- Wayne Gregory and Wilma Hutchison (I think she spelled it without an "n" after the "i") had been an "item," had "had an affair," or were at one time "engaged to be married" -- all of which I, as a cultural historian, suspect is "high school student folk myth."

My own suspicion, and my mother's and sister's, all of whom had the two teachers about to be mentioned, is that Miss Hutchison had a different connection.  My 1st Grade teacher at Clifton School, Miss Scarborough, a most lovely lady who taught me (and my mother and sister) how to read, was the long-time roommate of Miss Hutchison, going back probably to the 1930s at least.  With our modern day perceptions we are apt to say, "Aha!  a same-sex alliance?"  (My mother, 93 this month, thinks so.)  I'm not so sure, knowing as I do about Victorian and late-Victorian same-sex platonic parnerships.  I can tell you this:  when I was in college, one time when I was home, I looked out the window across the street to Durban's Florists (prominent Cincinnati florists, whose greenhouses were across from our house), and saw Miss Hutchison and Miss Scarborough, both of whom I dearly loved as teachers, getting into their car (having been shopping at Durban's) and smoking cigarettes like fiends!  Somehow, in my heart of hearts, I had known they'd both smoked, but to see them actually doing so shocked the hell out of me!

Larry Klein

Phil, as I read the previous message, the movies "Porkys" 1 and 2 came to mind.  Not sure why?

Philip Spiess

No. 3 had Ballbricker (or whatever her name was), dancing over the sands to join her true love, but that's the only connection I can immediately fathom here.  (And I can't think why I made that connection, either -- it's really a non sequitur, or bon bouche, or sine qua non, or je ne sais quoi, or one of those things!  See, Nelson, I can speak Spanish!)

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Many thanks to Gail, Richard, Ira and anyone else involved in restoring email notification to me of postings. Whoever commented on this being addicting was 1000% right, and I meant to add that extra zero. 

Phi, please take note that the flute sound today started in the early afternoon - in other words, not after dark, so maybe I should go back to the supernatural option instead of the owl vs bat one. sigh.

Looking forward to the 10th!!!

My best to all,

Judy Holtzer (Knopf)

Michael Weiner

Rick's comments about Wayne Gregory touched off keen memories. I can hear in my head his melifluous deep, and sometimes slightly hoarse voice, enforcing enunciation, encouraging dramatic feeling.He was a great source of nourishment for my already greatly developrd enthusiasm for theater.

Arsenic and old Lace , was the first production in which i was cast - in a small part ('there are no small parts, only small actors"), and it was a blast. Rick and I  were cast as policemen, with realistic uniforms, and were offered free ice cream and dinner at a restaurant where we stopped in on the way to rehearsal - in character.

In college I was immersed in theater, and even considered pursuing a career as an actor . I still love live theater and have availed myself of many opportunities to see some of the best. I guess you could say that Mr. Gregory's influence had an important role in positively affecting the quality in my life.

Mike W.

Margery Erhardt (Schrader)

Phil and Mike…Thanks for your postings about Mr. Gregory. He is such a wonderful memory of mine. Ah… about running a curio shop. Ummmm. Sure it wasn’t some wonderful old fabulous antiquarian book store? He always was seemed proper and indeed turned me on to the classics. Anything BBC (of course living in England helped!) and PBS are the BEST!

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

I am another one who has to put Mr. Wilson at the top my best teacher list. Maybe in a tie with Mr. Lounds, who I had for Human Physiology.

I only spent one year (French I) in Wilson's class but it was a seminal year for my undertsanding and appreciation of language. Like others, I was shocked when he shut the door on day one, turned on the class and proceeded to blast us with nothing but French for the next 45 minutes. You could see people pulling out their class schedules and double-checking the room number.

Finally, he stopped and said something to the effect of, "Okay, since it's the first day we will stop early and you can ask questions, in English, about anything you didn't understand. After today, only the last five minutes of the period will be in English."

The first question (and I wish I could remember who asked it) was, "Is this first year French?"

I remember him telling us that "even the people who fail this class will be able to speak SOME French so that it can be understood by Frenchman." As Margery said, he sent people back to practice their pronunciation in front of the mirror inside the door of his coat closet. 

I was forced to move to Atlanta before our senior year. After one day in the French II class at Briarcliff High, I went to the office to see about getting bumped up to French III. As soon as I got moved to that class, and heard the teacher talk, my first thought was, "Mr. Wilson would have this guy back in front of the mirror."

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Wow Phil, I will from this day forward ALWAYS associate Ruth Ann Redd and Arnold Bortz in a way that I had never dreamed possible. Thanks Phil, you're a pal.