Philip Spiess

David M.:  In L.A., they may be "high" or gettin' "higher,"  but at WHHS, we rise to the "highest" ("Sursum ad Summum")!  Bill Katz:  And was Mama Cass Elliot ever fat! -- but, god, what a singing voice!

I agree with Nelson that we need some new threads, probably current, but I'll attempt to introduce a new "old" one:  During the summer after we graduated (1964), did anyone visit the New York World's Fair in Queens?  If so, what are your memories?  (Obviously, I did, or I wouldn't be introducing this thread, but World's Fairs are part of the broader history of museums worldwide, which, you may recall, is one of the specialties for which I am known internationally.)

Ann:  My mother, too, had cataract surgery some years ago, and it went just fine; I think it was actually "out-patient."  My wife is due to have cataract surgery, too, but she keeps putting off scheduling it.  We will probably have it done this summer.  (And, yes, "unashamedly" is a word in good standing in the English language:  you can use it unashamedly.)

Larry Klein

I would say that Ann has used "unashamedly" quite unabashedly, as well.

Ann - Dr. D's protege, Dr. L, performed cataract surgery on both my Mom's eyes at the ripe young age of 89 (Mom, that is).  They were about three months apart, took about 20 minutes each, and she was walking around the next day.  No sweat!

Phil - sorry.  I missed ALL the fairs.  I went to Brown County's fair once about 55 years ago.  I haven't even been to a Hamilton County fair, and the fairgrounds are 1.5 miles from my house!  Maybe someday I'll get to Vanity Fair??

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

I was in New York the summer of '64. My mom took me with her just about every summer to visit her two sisters ( one lived on Manhattan the other in NJ). I have no idea why we didn't go to the World's Fair. I do recall buying a couple of outfits for college. 

Ira Goldberg

Ann - I did go to that fair...if it was the one on Long Island (Flushing, NY). Saw the Pieta! Most amazing. Guess you have to visit The Vatican to see what you missed!

Philip Spiess

Ira:  Thanks, I had forgotten the Pieta, but, yes, I saw it -- from those three moving walkways ("It was a very moving experience!").  Later that summer I was in the Vatican -- and saw it again!  (Only I think it was a copy, while the original was in New York.)  I was astounded that in St. Peter's it was mounted up so high (it was a little hard to see) -- but even this did not prevent a vandal from attacking it with a chisel a few years later!

Doug Gordon

Ann, I had cataract surgery on one of my eyes when I was in my 40s. It had always been my weak eye, but after the surgery the lens implant took it from about 20/400 to 20/30 uncorrected. Today, lens technology has improved to where the eye can actually be focusable as opposed to my fixed-focus lens.

It still does annoy me, however, that the surgeon at the time told me that I "might as well" get the other eye done at the same time since it was bound to go the same way. I of course told him to forget it, and here I am 20+ years later with no sign off a cataract in that eye! It does not run in my family so I assume that the first one was simply a fluke.

The only thing unusual about the procedure itself is that the eye was anesthetized but for some reason I had to be awake during it. I didn't feel a thing but the light they used was like staring at the sun for an hour or so! Maybe it's different now.

Chuck Cole

My wife had surgery in both eyes and they were both very easy--she walked into the outpatient surgical center, and 30 minutes later walked out.  I think her eye might have had a  patch on it for 24hrs.  You have the option of having each eye do better for reading or distance and you can have one of each, but your brain takes a little while to master the differences. She chose distance for both, sees far better than she had for years, and uses reading glasses as needed.  

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Ira and Phil: This talk about the Pieta is bringing back something. I still don't remember going to the World's Fair but I remember a moving walkway and I definitely brought home a little replica statuette. We kept it on a curio shelf in the living room. It was destroyed in a house fire in 1986. 

I've never been to Rome. I guess I'll have to put that on my "bucket list". 

Doug and Chuck: It's pretty reassuring about the eye surgery. I already have experience the "staring at the sun" experience when I had that iridotomy years ago. That procedure involved shining that light through a lens that looked like a shot glass. 

Im having both eyes done since I have high pressure in both eyes. The left eye was so high that my regular eye doctor didn't want to dilate the pupil. That's why she sent me to a glaucoma specialist.

I don't normally wear glasses unless I'm looking at fine print in low light. I told my doctor that I don't want to have to put on glasses to read text on my phone. 

Dexter Roger Dixon

Ann:  I'm having an SLT procedure done on each eye for glaucoma starting on Wednesday.  I had this done a few years ago and was quite nervous about having a laser procedure done to my eyes, but I found it was a breeze.  My doc does say I have the beginnings of a cataract, but he wants to get the pressure more under control in my eyes before he deals with that.

I remember saying to a friend years ago that slowly but surely a larger and larger percentage of our address books will be taken up with our personal doctors' info.  I remember when my address book was full of fellow partiers and clubbers, as well as places where we could go to move and shake.  "Ou sont les neiges d'antan?"

Henry Cohen

How does one post a picture on this site for viewing? I though I was following the prompts on the What's New page but it did not seem to work.

Nancy Messer

When posting a picture here on Message Forum hit Post Response, Then type in what you want to say, then hit the little box next to Source (a photo) and it gives another window for you to browse for the scanned picture you want to add.  After selecting the picture hit Upload.  Ann Shepard Rueve explained this to me on the phone when I had no idea what to do!  I hope I explained this OK.  I had to edit it 4 times!

David Buchholz

Speaking of Photos...

If I had your camera…

A well-known photographer was honored to attend a dinner at the home of a socialite, a woman who loved and collected his photographs.  She asked him, “What kind of camera do you use?”  He answered politely.  After dinner he complimented the hostess on the meal.  “What kind of oven did you cook it in?” he asked. 

Today everyone is a photographer.  Pros may actually know the names of the cameras we use, but we don’t really care much.  I’ve published a shot in the New York Times taken with an early iPhone.  Good photographs are difficult to come by, much more complicated, as everyone knows, than eye surgery, which anyone can do after a twelve-week correspondence course from the Ponds Institute or if you can get in, the Vidal Sassoon Academy.

I am publishing some early photographs here, and you can get some idea about what we do as photographers in our spare time.

Henry Cohen

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Henry Cohen

Picture above is Emerald Lake in Lake Louise Canada, one of the most spectacular places I have visited. Also went to Glacier National Park which is nice but really does not compare in the jaw dropping beauty category.

Nancy Messer

The photo is gorgeous - much better to put it on the Message Forum than on your page.  Everyone sees it here for sure!

David Buchholz

Sonoma County Chapter of the Hells Angels. Imagine interrupting the Hells Angels at dinner and telling them that the light was failing, and they need to get up from the table and take the photo now. The guy in front brought his drumstick and Bud with him. The refrigerator had nothing in it but Bud. Pete, the guy in the front on the left, was dying of cancer, and at his funeral they placed a print of this photo in his casket. Charlie, right behind Pete, cold-cocked a guy the next week and is serving life for murder. I photographed Mitch's wedding to Toots. (Mitch has his left arm around Rusty.) They invited me to a huge party. I was the only person who wasn't a Hells Angel. The FBI was interested in my work with the Hells Angels, which lasted about a year and a half, and I met Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead and a number of other people who hung out with them. I had my own Hells Angels bodyguard. We've lost touch.

Nancy, thank you for the suggestion about posting here.  The size does justice to the photos.

Ira Goldberg

Great photo, below, Henry...but must be incomparable to actually seeing it, Henry. Here is, literally, a greeting from the Pacific shore!

Philip Spiess

Son of a beach, Ira; "Hi" back.  Hank, I was at Lake Louise in 1962, and it is truly beautiful (your photo does it justice -- that unusual luminescent blue-green color!).  Dave, I tried photography once or twice, but I had forgotten my trousers and friends couldn't decide whether I was "underdeveloped" or just "overexposed."  As to beer in the fridge:

"There was a young girl named Ann Heuser,

Who thought that no man could surprise her.

But Pabst took a chance,

Found the Schlitz in her pants,

And now she is sadder Budweiser!"

Doug Gordon

Guess I've gotta compete with a photo from my neck of the woods. This is a stretch of sand dunes on the Lake Superior shoreline near Grand Marais in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I took it a couple weeks ago while on a bicycle tour of the U.P. The water is beautiful but C-O-L-D!

Nelson Abanto

My campsite on South Colony Lake.  From here I climbed Crestone Peak and Needle.

David Buchholz

Thanks to all of you who are posting photographs.  I use my camera to express what I think and feel.and only hope that nothing is lost in the translation.  (I promise I won't post more than one image a day, maybe less if no one else joins in.)  Nelson, love the tent and mountain shot.  Our tents in the Serengheti were a little more comfortable.  This photograph is everything I know about high school football, taken in the late seventies.

Richard Murdock

Laguna Beach - Main Beach complete with seagull.   One of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. 

Henry Cohen

The photo of the cold water reminds me of an old joke. Two inebrited frat boys ( pardon the redundancy there as there are no other kind) were standing on a very small hill overlooking a body of water. They both were responding to the call of nature when the first one remarked as he was bragging about his member:" wow that water is cold, the other replied " deep too".

Henry Cohen

Henry Cohen

The picture above was Marjorie Glacier in Alaska which is spectacularly calving!