Al Bolton
Jim Bullard
Bruce Burianek
Paul Chouinard
Sandra Gilbert
Tom Gorman
Bob Gray (maybe)
Phyllis Grimm
Dale Hahne
Sandra Little (maybe)
Barbara Ritzler
Vicki Strother
Jeannine Wheeler
Post your answers here. Good luck.
To those of us now over 80 years old, well done! Keep it up!
Sorry it's taken so long to answer, and one has to have the '63 Aries in hand to figure it out. If you don't have the actual book you can access it at Classmates.com. I'll wait a couple more days for the answer.
I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer wherever you are.
Thanks to Don and Bill for making guesses in answer to my really-not-that-important question.
But here's the answer: All of those people--actually a small subset of our entire senior class--were different from the rest of us because they were looking straight into the camera for their senior pictures. The rest of us looked left or right or just into the haze somewhere.
Something to make your heart swell with happiness this weekend or any other: I can report that Otto's Tavern at Crescent and Finley is still around and doing well. Had lunch pizza and beer with my bother, Tom, as we detoured on our way to a family reunion a couple of weeks ago. The current owner, a Glenbard West grad, has had it for 27 years and is still in touch with the Tezinsky (sp?) son, Tom, after all these years.
Did anyone else see the remarkable juxtaposition of the Moon and Jupiter this morning? In case you didn't, here's a pic:
So how did I know it was Jupiter? Terry Witt probably can tell which planet is which just by looking at them (even I can ID Mars) but a free app called Star Walk can open up the heavens for you if you're interested. Constellations, planets, stars and even the International Space Station are identified readily.
And you can beam yourself up to anywhere you'd like to go.
There is an iPhone app named Planets that allows you to point your camera at any celestial object and it will show the object and all surrounding planet and stars.
The app is particularly useful during an eclipse.
Many of us went to Hammerschmidt School. The Hammerschmidt family lived on the other side of our block. My younger brother and sister were friends with Pete and Janet. I believe their grandpa's phone number was Lombard 2. Our party line phone number was 496W. The W numbers became the Mayfair 7 exchange. Maybe somebody was listening in to your conversation back then, but nobody was getting hacked.
As a small bit of history, Hammerschmidt Lumber was preceeded by Lombard Brick and Tile (L B & T). I am married to Cathy Hammerschmidt, GE Class of '65. We also have the same tape measure as Mark and an inordinate amount of Hammerschmidt memorabilia. I am working on posting a couple of pics of things that you may find interesting. We have a porcelain sign from L B and T which shows their telephone number as 5 and a sewer cover from Lombard emblazoned with L B and T. The only thing that remains of the lumberyard is a cornerstone from the lumberyard in the park and ride lot on St. Charles Road near Charlotte Street We still have the old time clock from the lumberyard which works perfectly My folks telephone number was 329J and does anyone else remember that when we were transitioning over to dial the Illinois Bell folks came to our schools with a big dial that they used to show us how to use it. I still have a working dial phone on my desk at home.
The first phone number I can recall was our 1950 party line: 1717R. Later, Mayfair 7-8513 (I think).
So if someone that year (1950) were to approach you and say, "75 years from now, you'll hold in your hand--anywhere you want to go in the entire world--an object the size of a pack of cigarettes that will call anyone you know, show you them talking to you, tell you the weather, give you a chance to spread your political views the world over, order dinner from something called Pizza Hut, and have delivered to your door just about any item you could possibly want," would you have called the cops?
So what will 2100--75 years from now--be like? Thoughts? John Prine's "Living in the Future" says "We are living in the future / I'll tell you how I know / I read it in the paper / Fifteen years ago / We're all driving rocket ships / And talking with our minds...."
I was at O'Hare yesterday and walked by the model of a quantum computer I'd read about in the Tribune the day before. Here's their picture:
By Dominic DiPalermo, Chicago Tribune
The model looks like a gold-plated, fat stalactite hanging from the top of its cage. I downloaded the explanation of how it works and how it's a huge advancement over today's computers that are based on x's and o's. Has something to do with Schrödinger's cat, which somehow is considered to be both dead and alive at the same time, or a flipped coin that could be both heads and tails while it's in mid-air. Someone please explain. I'm pretty good with the x and o computer I'm typing this on, but I also got an email from Microsoft about how I can personalize my task bar in so many ways my head spins. A salient question: how many apps do you have on your phone? I have 279. I had a reason, over the years, for downloading each one, but now I can't remember the reason for at least half of them. Time for some, as the Scandinavians say, "death cleaning."
I hope everyone reading this is doing well and looking forward to fall color or more moderate temperatures if you live where it's hot.
How do you guys remember your home phone numbers from 75+ years ago? I remember operator assisited phone calls and we had a party line. I remember the Mayfair 7 exchange but not our number. I called from it but, rarely, to it. That probably explains why I don't remember it.
Those were the good old days ... right?.
I barely remember my number now. All cell numbers, we have four now. I don't even have to remember the numbers I call often. They're in my contact list by name. I just need to press one button to connect.
I just finished reading Coming Up Short, by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. I ran across a passage that struck home, about his old friend, Chris Edley Jr., who "played the long game in pursuit of racial justice and better schools for poor kids."
For Reich, the long game was a consistent commitment to trying to make the world a better place no matter how long it takes.
Reich writes, "I was in the middle of writing this memoir when I got word that Chris had died. As I write about him now, what comes to mind are not his extraordinary accomplishments but our friendship. When an old friend passes, you can't replace them with another old friend. You have only a limited number of people who have shared your history, moved through life with you, talked and laughed and pondered their lives with you. It's these cumulative understandings, the sweetness and depth of long familiarity, that give meaning to old friendships. Chris died while still playing the long game, a part of which is to inspire people along the way. He will continue to inspire me."
As I look back at some of the members of our class that were my closest friends and are no longer with us, I know that some of you reading this have felt the same loss and know you can't just summon a new old friend or loved one. We are in our 80s and the people we grew up with are aging. Even our children are aging! But we can be thankful for people who played the long game and gave us much more than we gave them.
I hope you are well and looking forward to more good days ahead.
Don Comfort and I went to visit Bill Smith at the Illinois Veterans Home
(full address if you want to send him a note)
William Smith
Illinois Veterans Home, 5th Floor
4250 N. Oak Park Ave
Chicago, IL 60634
and we drove past old Glenbard East and.....
big doings!
If you no longer live in Lombard, you'll be interested that Don took some pictures of the construction project and sent them to me to be posted. They are modernizing the plain old architecture we grew up in, and adding a new entrance canopy. The old concrete walkway, featured in our yearbook"s first page, with numerous GEers standing or sitting, while Carol Phetzing (Walksler) and I strolled streetwards. (Truth be told: I was selected to be front and center not becauses the photographer knew I was yearbook editor, but, rather, because I had a bright red shirt on and was plucked out of study hall. Carol was probably picked because she had a yellow dress and was pretty.)
ANYWAY:
The old school is being remodeled, to put a much more attractive face on it than the wing that juts out toward Main and Wilson. Thanks to Don, here are the photos:
Mark and I had a very nice visit with Bill, whom I have not seen since high school graduation. We all look older and a little heavier, but Bill was still Bill.
Since G.E. is in our backyard, (our fence separates the football, soccer, baseball and softball fields), I took for granted all of the work being done at the school. The red trim around the classrooms and library windows on the Main Street side, really sets off the appearance along the face of the building. The new front entrance will be a nice addition for students and guests as they come into the school, and on the south side (which is rarely seen), is an addition to the cafeteria. This was a huge referendum passed last year.
When you are in the area, give these new features a look/see and stop by our house on Central Ave, and say hello. We will serve coffee and...
We moved into Lexington Square in Lombard In June of 2024 and go by GE frequently. It's interesting to watch the progress on the renovations The school has sure changed since we graduated back in '63! The one thing I noticed is that the sign that was our class gift to the school has been replaced,
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