Monday, November 12, 2007

Strange Things Are Happening 2: From 4/7/07

Next Sunday I'm getting together with a bunch of old pals and little league teammates from Knickerbocker Village. Some of these guys I haven't seen in 40 years.There has been a lot of riotous email that has gone on between the bunch of us over the last few months in anticipation of the event. There has also been a great deal of sadness as we have found through our sharing that there are many of our generation who have passed away. For example, from our 4th grade class, Marcia Hieger, who was the smartest, is gone. What's even sadder is that both she and her younger brother pre-deceased their parents. One discussion thread was about our old teachers at PS 177 on the Lower East Side. A favorite for my age group was our sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Jonas. When she left to have a baby I went to visit her with Marcia and our mothers, probably sometime in 1959. Her house was in Brooklyn. I took a crack at finding her with some internet tricks and I struck gold. She remembered me immediately and talked of that visit to her house (the same one she is still living in). She sounded just as sharp and formidable as she did almost 50 years before and I instinctively shifted into little boy mode. I'm bringing her along to the reunion. It will be like Mrs. Holland's Opus! Mrs. Jonas was a treasure of information about life on the "other side of the desk" in our old school. One gem that she revealed was that my 3rd grade teacher, Ms. Klara Apat is now Mrs. Klara Silverstein.
Now that's a hot one or is they say in the hood, "That's Tuff!"
Postscript: I would later learn that my class had Klara's younger (and prettier) sister Bernice. Klara would teach 5th grade to many in PS 177's class of 1960

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