Gail Weintraub (Stern)

Paul, you are kind to me. Thank you. And, yes, I prefer staying behind the scenes.

Chuck Cole

Jerry and others,

how can we be at all surprised about our government's deception.  What I wonder about is how the wool was pulled over Obama's eyes.  On a recent plane flight, I watched the movie Top Secret, which is based on the deception of Bush, Colin Powell and Tony Blair, leading up to the Iraq War--excellent movie, particularly in light of what we are learning about deception and Afghanistan.

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

This post is from RICHARD WINTER and myself, our class website administrators:

When our website was created, its purpose was to create a class directory and a way for classmates to stay in touch with one another while also keeping contact information current. The purpose of the Message Forum was not to share hot topics such as religion and politics. As our country becomes increasingly divided, recent Message Forum posts have also become politically divisive and have offended a number of classmates.

The Message Forum belongs to the entire class. Political discussions, while important, should take place off the website. We are aware that there are other offline classmate discussions that involve politics. This is the appropriate place to have these conversations.

In the past, we have asked that classmates stay away from politics. We hope that our renewed request will be honored.

Jerry Ochs

Am I the only member of the class of '64 who snuck off school grounds during lunch period to seek food and pleasure elsewhere?  I used to smoke a cigarette or two and shoot some pool at a nearby bar whose name I have forgotten.  It may well have been called The No Questions Asked Bar. 

Anybody else have a sordid confession?

Philip Spiess

Yes.  If you took the staircase at the back of the Library (which came out by Mr. Brokamp's office and the front door), you could squeeze by the window (the upper one visible in the picture on this Website) and get into the crawl space under said staircase.  Dale Gieringer and I did it one afternoon in (I believe) our Senior year.

There were many cigarette butts in that space, suggesting that we were not the first students to have been there, and further suggesting why our predecessors had gone into that space and what they had done while there.  But that was not our purpose -- no, we had gone there to wait out the appointed time (4:00 p.m.) until the Library had closed.  Waiting at least 15 more minutes to be on the safe side, Dale and I then returned upstairs to the Library and indiscriminately moved drawers of catalogue cards around, thereby revising the alphabet.  No, we were not malicious enough to disarrange the cards within the drawers; we just reshelved the drawers themselves.

Despite my vast memory, I cannot now, at this point in time, explain what we thought we were doing, or why we did it, other than that we intended to puzzle the librarians as to what had happened and how it was done, leaving them as befogged as before, and because it was possible to do!  I do remember that we then walked out by the lower exit door (which must have formed, with the stairs, a sort of fire escape route from the Library), the main doors to the Library (on the 2nd floor hall) by that time being locked.  In exiting thus, we immediately passed Mr. Brokamp's office.  He was still at his desk, so we greeted him as we passed, and he acknowledged our greeting without ever once inquiring where we were coming from or why we were exiting the (closed) Library at that hour.

Dale?

Larry Klein

Jerry et al,

Mike Colangelo and I took frequent lunch trips up Montgomery to the Red Barn in my green '51 Chevy for burgers, fries, and shakes. We were usually sprinting from the parking lot to get back to class on time.

And Phil - 50 years later I discovered that back staircase when one of my asst golf coaches' office was in Mr. Brokamp's old office. I never could have found it in HS since I only was in the library twice in 6 yrs, and of course NEVER in the principal's office. You did get around in those days.

Richard Winter (Winter)

I don't remember leaving the school at lunchtime but it seems to me there was plenty of mischief to be had within the building.  I think I remember a tradition of trying to get forks to stick in the ceiling tiles.  Am I imagining that?

Chuck Cole

Richard, You are not imaginging that but I don't think it was an everyday occurrence.

I also remember Orange Day, which I think was May 1.  We used to go to the drugstore and buy insulin syringes and then inject vodka into oranges, which we brought to school.  Someone also bored a half-dollar (they used to be common) sized hole in a watermelon, inverted a fifth of vodka, and let the vodka drain slowly into the watermelon.

I also remember some sort of tradition where seniors threw water balloons at younger students, using a second-floor classroom that overlooked the circle in the back of the school.  At some point I think that was Mrs. Dobbins' classroom.

Paul Simons

Richard I don’t fully trust my memories any more but if I did I’d say you’re right about the forks in the lunchroom ceiling. Along the same lines I can’t be sure if Ashley Brown actually lit up a cigar in the auditorium study hall or not. They say that the more condemnatory an allegation is, the more convincing the corroborative evidence must be, and in this case there is no evidence. Of course that was then, and this is now. 

Jerry Ochs

Among my fading quickly memories of the fork-meets-ceiling affair is an attempt to boycott the school lunch program after plastic forks were introduced by a clearly flummoxed administation to end the matter.  Those plastic forks created a new problem that punished the non-fork-throwers as well as the guilty parties: the weak plastic forks broke off in the food (I use the term loosely).  As the resident historian Phil may be able to fill in the blanks.  History is an attempt to organize our ignorance of the past.

Gene Stern

I faked a weeklydoctor’s appointments so I could go to lunch off campus during Frau Kitzman’s German class!

Steven Levinson

During senior year, I was happy as a clam just to brown bag with Lynn, on the great front (Sislar Street, Google maps tells me) "Victory Pkwy" steps.  That was guilty pleasure enough.

Steven Levinson

And Larry, where is Mike Colangelo now?  Does anybody know?

Philip Spiess

Somewhere on this Forum, at a much earlier date, there was a lengthy report on the "forks-in-the-lunchroom-ceiling" event.  I'm looking for it now, and I'l report back if I find it.

Paul Simons

Phil I know I mentioned it some time ago, before the current deliberations, but not in any detail. Now I wonder about the forks that didn't hit the acoustic tile ceiling at the right angle and came back down. I don't remember forks raining on throwers and non-throwers alike. I wonder why there was no cease-and-desist order from the school's administration because it was obviously a dangerous practice. It was a high ceiling. If a fork that had been stuck up there loosened and fell it could do a lot of damage to a person. What the hell was going on in that place amyway?

Jerry Ochs

Click on the magnifying glass icon next to Prior Page and search for "fork" without " marks.

Paul Simons

Jerry's got it - before seeing that entry Riochard Winter also clued me in to the "magnifying glass" symbol at the top of "Message Forum" pages. Like Jerry says licking on it opens a search box, and if you put "ceiling forks" into it the function will return many pages that contain references to the phenomenon. As an aside it's amazing to see how much has been entered over the years.

Paul Simons

Also I noticed that most of the entries in the dataset the search function returned were by Phil Spiess. So to test it I used the search terms "ham sandwich" and "banana cream pie". Again, most of the entries returned were by Phil Spiess - and they did NOT contain anything about a ham sandwich or a slice of banana cream pie which would be good right about now. So I have to wonder if Phil has some kind of arrangement with one of the entities - no names will be mentioned - that is known to be proficient at hacking, at tilting the pinball machine so to speak. What's up, Tovarich Phil? Note - this is humor. And - pinball machines? Carling Black Label? Pretty much gone.

Larry Klein

Response to Steve - I've not been able to track down Mike Colangelo since I last saw him circa 1980.  Even the Mt. Washington gang can't find him.  There have been rumors, but no Mike.  He was a very good friend in HS.

Paul Simons

Larry - Dana Cohen appears to be "off the grid" for some time as well. I never communicated with him much after he had taken George Makrauer's place on drums in the little band we had, but then some time after that it appeared he was in Florida. Some folks just seem to disappear. Shades of "American Graffiti" and "Easy Rider".

Larry Klein

Along with some folks from the "65 class, I've searched several times for Steve Klotz (star of the '62-'63 cross country team with Nelson and me).  Another who just doesn't want to be found.

I did a search on "golf" and got a very thorough result, so I doubt Phil has a monopoly on the function. As a side, it was really nostalgic to breeze through all the postings.  So, if you have a favorite topic to look up for old memories, feel free to use the "spyglass" at the top of this page.  It works!!

Steven Levinson

Mike Colangelo's unknown whereabouts reminds me, assuming he's still around, that he hasn't vanished; we just don't know where he is.  It has occurred to me that my life has been literally nomadic.  I float where fate takes me, and my circle of friends and associates morphs accordingly.  So much is nomadic, yeah?

Philip Spiess

Okay, you people are just sassin' me:  I tried the "Spyglass," not knowing anything about it before, and no matter what search rubric (yeah, that's a word we teachers like to use) I put in, it would always start with Dick Winter at Post # 1, Page 1 -- and run on from there.  Are you people funnin' with me?

Jerry Ochs

Phil,

Click on the magnifying glass, type just one word in the window, click on Search.  Forget rubrics.  Don't use quotation marks.

Philip Spiess

Okay!  Voila!  So, my full report on the "forks in the ceiling" episode (as I recall it) is at Post #1730 (page 70; 07/01/15).  You can all read it there, because I'm disinclined (just like the city's "Seven Hills" -- dis-Inclined -- get it?) to tell the story all over again.

Also, Paul, I don't know about the "sandwich" part, but we all know why the word "ham" turns up "Phil Spiess," don't we?