It turned out to be not only a fun time but sentimental as quite a few people attended that I grew up with, from elementary school through high school. Some are in my 6th grade picture and some signed my 6th grade autograph book. We talked about the old neighborhood in South Bellmore where we all grew up, invoking names of the past and where they grew up, from the dead end street emanating from Merrick Road where they used to sell Airstream Trailers on the corner, to Len Drive and Judith Drive, no doubt husband and wife, trailblazing streets of suburban houses well before South Bellmore had grown to the limits of its peninsula surrounded by boat canals. When my parents moved to Bellmore in 1958, our house was the last house in Bellmore. A ballfield resided where our St. Marks Avenue School (whatever it is called now as a special ed. school) is. Swamps and mosquitos beyond that. The talk of old school-mates reminds me of two pairs of girls that were always bound at the hip from elementary through high school. Cathy Althenn and Deborah Pettersen (Patterson?). I remember Deborah being in my 10th grade biology class but I think she moved thereafter and did not graduate from JFK. The other two were Danielle McKennell and Ginny Tunison, both lived on or near So. St. Marks Ave. but closer to Merrick Road. It also made me think as the high school virgin not being yet in touch with my sexual side, of my unrequited love of high school, Marcia Kalin, as well as a girl who I later learned had a crush on me, Tammi Cohen. Whether true or not I'll never know. Neither were at the reunion and I trust you are both doing fine! It was too bad I couldn't talk to everyone I wished to talk to but the people I did talk to, Jeff Luckman, Tom DeVito, Lois Rienzo, and Ross Garnick, my musician friend, were enlightening and heartening even if I never hung out with these people in high school. The people I hung out with did not attend the reunion. It is unfortunate that only about 75 people attended but some were ambitious, traveling from Virginia, North Carolina and even California. It is also unfortunate that whatever m.o Classmates.com has, only 200 and change has signed up while over 600 graduated. I applaud many of you who have families, got married shortly after high school, had stable careers and stuck with it having long marriages and almost adult children, as well as those that took different roads, and might be single or divorced (and enjoying it) like myself. Finally, I enjoyed meeting some new people that I never knew the existence of in high school because we had such a large class, and I enjoyed just saying hello to the men and women I exchanged hello's with! We are a beautiful bunch, still sexy, having aged well. Rock on, class of 1972! Anyone interested in a 35? or 40?
Summer 2002 - On July 13, 2002 I attended my 30th High School Reunion of JFK High School, Bellmore, New York on Long Island. Just like old times, I slept over at my parents' house -- the same house in Bellmore -- and borrowed their car(!) to get to the Uniondale Marriott where the reunion was being held.
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