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June 2003
Volume 3 Number 9

DISTRIBUTION 454
Bob Casale has archived all the old newsletters. If you wish copies, please contact him at: bufbob@juno.com

In Memory
News and Notes and Memories
Did Your Parents Go To HHS?
Reunions
Feature (continued from last month)
Trivia

In Memory

GUSTAFSON-Nancy S., of Patchogue, N.Y., on May 3, 2003. Beloved wife of Karl Gustafson. Loving mother of Scott, Cheryl and Jon. Dear sister of Virginia Andrews, Jean Provencher, and Robert Walsh. Devoted grandmother of Scott, Ryan, Taylor, Corey, Nicole, Jon, and Michael. Arrangements entrusted to the Ruland Funeral Home, Inc., 500 N. Ocean Ave. (south of LIE at Exit 63), Patchogue, N.Y. Family to receive friends Monday and Tuesday, 2-4 and 7-9 PM. Religious Services will be held on Wednesday, 10:30 AM, at the Congregational Church of Patchogue. Private cremation to follow.

(From Newsday)

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News, Notes and Memories

• MID-LIFE CRISIS will rock the rafters on Saturday, June 14th at CALLAHAN’S, East Meadow. It is located on Hempstead Turnpike next to MODELL’S. The show starts at 9:30.

• Hello from Lorraine (Kalen) Lowen '66

  Thanks for a great newsletter. I am living in Rio Ranch, NM, The Land of Enchantment. I am a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and a full time nursing faculty member at TVI Community College in Albuquerque. My husband Bill is a Professor Emeritus of Biology.

  I find it interesting to read about the lives of our classmates. If anyone out there is from the class of '66, I would like to hear from you or anyone else who remembers me. My address is: Pfragi@aol.com
  
  Thanks for all the great news. Lorraine

• Love reading the newsletter and have forwarded it to some coworkers who were unaware of it's existence. Also proud to say that Tony Toscano and myself, Eileen Walter Toscano will celebrate our 41st anniversary and our first granddaughter's 16th birthday on May 5th. Not bad for two "childhood Sweethearts.” I often think of myself riding my bike alone mind you to the West Village Green to swim and "hang out", with no fear of being kidnapped or molested at age ten. How many of us would feel safe allowing their children or grandchildren to do they? Keep up the good work.

  Eileen Toscano"59

• Hi: Love reading the newsletter. Very informative. I knew about Bob Rausch because I was best friends with his sister, Gina. We were the class of '60. I lost touch with her a few years after we graduated. I had talked with her on the phone and she told me he was MIA. I've thought about him over the years and wondered about his status. He went to school with my sister Claire Williamson (still in Hicksville) and her husband Bob Wintersaler. While in school they all hung around together. He was very nice and I sure wish I could get in touch with Gina somehow. I think her married name is Christopherson. Do you know if the class of '60 will ever have a reunion? We never did because I called HHS and they said we were the only class that didn't have one. Sure love reading the stories. I have a lot of great memories too. Thanks to all of you who put this together.

  Doris Williamson Tully
  Class of 1960

• Bill Alonge - 1972
  walonge@att.net

  Now living in Farmingdale. Played ice hockey in high school and began coaching the team immediately after graduating. Still coaching. Just completed season #31!
  

• Hicksville is now Long Island's Oldest High School Hockey Club! It actually started in 1961.

  We have reunion games every year. Over 70 active alumni. Many fly in from all over the country each year. It's so big; we have to have two games to accommodate everyone.

  Hope you are all well and enjoying "middle age". (Never thought I'd be saying that back then.)

  Bill Alonge

• For all of the Hicksville Grads that attended the Orlando Reunion and The 45th Reunion last October and met Jennifer and me, I am pleased to announce that we were married on 19 April 2003. The second piece of news is that I have retired from Grumman after 41-1/2 years of service in a career that started in Bethpage, L.I. and ended in St. Augustine, Florida.

  Pete Foster (1957)

• Hi all........you are doing a great job with this newsletter.
  It's so nice to be reminded of people and things of the past. Vic and I have been back to Hicksville a few times this year......it is still a quiet town but not as quaint as in the 50's....that was the best time.

  Just to let you know, our 1st Anniversary is coming up already........July 5th.......do you believe it? We're still on a cloud nine, doing some traveling and enjoying life. Surprisingly, Vic is beginning to enjoy retirement, after 39 years of Federal Gov. service. Hi to everyone.

  Arlene (Andrade) & Victor Sahadachny (1957)
  

• Anton Mure, 1968 wrote to inform us the following:

  ONE OF OUR VERY OLD AND DEAR FRIENDS, ANNE BACHMANN, HAS TAKEN A FALL, AND AT THE MOMENT, IS PARALYZED FROM THE WAIST DOWN. SHE IS CURRENTLY AWAITING SURGERY. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO KNOW ANNE, SHE IS A BRIGHT AND ENERGETIC PERSON WITH A POSITIVE ATTITUDE. PLEASE SAY A PRAYER FOR HER TO RECOVER. IF YOU WOULD LIKE SEND GET WELL WISHES, PLEASE DO SO AT:

  1504 ASHFORD AVE//#6C

  SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO, 00911

• I went to see my brother yesterday who has lived in Hicksville for the last 2 years, had a little time, and drove thru town, very different from the old Hicksville. Movie theater is gone, just a gaping hole in the building, the old A&P in town where most of us worked after school is now small playhouse, & strangely a Reptile museum in the town, also drove by my old house, no kids
  playing in the street like we use to do, playing ball or something. Must be video games, Oh well that’s all for now.

  Bob Uhlich, 1957
  

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Did Your Parents Go To HHS?

• Dear Alumni
  
  Did your Mom / Dad go to Hicksville High School??? It's great how many Father / Son / Mother / Daughter alumni there are, but we don't know about it.
  
  Please take a moment from your busy schedule and note your graduating class and that of your mom or dad.
  
  My dad went to Manual Training High School in the city...my mom went to work for the telephone company and never graduated and I imagine that would be the consensus for most of the earlier classes at Hicksville. As the community grew and people settled in, there were more combinations. I can think of several pairings that go back to the Second World War and there might be some beyond that period of time. Take a look at the below link and you'll get the idea.
  
  http://group.classmates.com/user/photoalbum/album.tf?album_id=131180
  
  Thanks.
  The Editors of the Hicksville High School Newsletter

• My mother was born in Hicksville in my grandparents’ house on 10th Street. Her maiden name was Florence Strozak. Grandma and Grandpa built a new house on the corner of 9th and Jerusalem in 1925. It still stands today behind overgrown bushes! My mother would have graduated in the early 1930’s but I am not sure if she graduated. She did go to NYC to a secretarial school, which was the custom of the time. After she retired to Florida from Nassau County Medical Center, she went on to work part time for a pediatrician in Inverness.

  I was born in the front bedroom of that house, which now has the address of 298 Jerusalem Ave.

  Pat Koziuk Driscoll, 1956
  
  My mother is Lucille (Keller) Kochersberger and graduated in the class of 1944. She was recently at a Grumman retiree function and another person gave us this email address to contact.

  I would like to have the Hicksville HS news be sent to my Mother. Do you send out a USPS newsletter? Or is it an email newsletter? If you send out USPS, I will give you my mother's address. If it is an email newsletter, could you send it to me?

  I appreciate your assistance. My mother would love to hear any news about Hicksville H.S. acquaintances and friends.

  Sincerely,

  Linda Kochersberger (Bethpage HS, 1971) for Lucille (Keller) Kochersberger class of 1944
  

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Reunions

Bill Canham, HHS Class of 19619 (whcanham@msn.com) has graciously agreed to compile the mailing list for the Class of 1961 Reunion... Please forward your name, address, Phone number(s) email address, to Bill and he will begin recording the information...

The list will include those from the class of 1960 and the class of 1962...there is a lot of interest from adjoining classes....Will have more definite information to pass along the beginning of June.... checking around for room accommodations...and for the best deal for our banquet...looking toward a buffet rather than a sit down dinner...

Any comments will be graciously considered....

Send to the reunion committee...

William Canham 1961 whcanham@msn.com
Bob Casale 1961 bufbob@juno.com
Lillian Manzo (Ramirez) 1961 lillianramirez@realtyexecutivesphx.com
Mary O'Shaughnessey (Cleary) 1961 mcleary876@aol.com

...there were several other people who said they would help...send your name to any of us and we will add your name to the list of the reunion committee...

Warm Regards

Bob Casale and the Reunion Committee

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Feature, by Bob Casale
(continued from last month)

I think that was the reason for Hicksville…. a place for nice people to congregate…

The first several years we lived in Hicksville, I made the West Village Green my stomping ground. We would congregate near the deli that was on the corner of Barter Lane and Newbridge Road. I remember Bob's Esso gas station on the corner, too, because Bob was my dad's main mechanic.

Directly behind the deli was where the local police department had set up a phone to call the main desk. It was common for several police cars to be there at the same time. We would talk with the policemen all the time and some of us were known on a first name basis. Didn't know at the time if that was a good or bad thing.

Across Newbridge Road was one of the Hicksville water towers. I can remember looking up there one morning to see fresh writing. Someone had climbed to the top and wrote their name...surreptitious, of course.

Next to the deli was the barbershop and Joe, my friend, would always cut my hair. There were actually three buildings that made up the West Green. The center was a King Kullen store and it was there I had my first job. It was a strange job, too, because I spent most of my time in the basement sorting glass bottles that were returned. I would have to separate them into wooden boxes by vendor (i.e. Canada Dry, Cott, Hoffman, etc.). It was not recycling as we know it today, but it was recycling nonetheless, and that was 1958.

During the summer months, when I wasn't working in the "dungeon," I would spend my afternoons basking in the sunshine at the West Village Green Pool. It was so crowded there sometimes it was wall-to-wall people in the water. We would sometimes get on our bikes and pedal to the pool on Levittown Parkway hoping for less people. There were a lot of students from school that we recognized at both places.

We never socialized with them for various reasons...time...commitments...age difference.... gender difference.... but now we could. Many mini romances were started too...you know, puppy love.

My wife of 37 years, Joyce, was lucky. She had an aunt who used to drive them to the beach in Bayville. They would spend the hot summer days in the breezy sound of Long Island. There were others who wound up at Jones Beach or in Zachs Bay. That must have been nice.

At night, during the summer, we would go to Fork Lane School and just sit around talking. There were always several birthday parties that were scheduled for either a Friday or Saturday night and that would occupy our time.

As fall approached and school was beginning, life took on a different perspective. The casualness of summer, where few kids had a schedule, ended, and now everything was a commitment to time. We thought we had it tough. Becoming a parent later on sure changed my outlook on what is tough.

The Labor Day Fire Tournament signaled the end to our summer. It was a last big get together and so many of us gathered to watch our volunteer fire departments compete in various skills. It was a lot of fun, then, and many still enjoy the thrill years later.

Walking down the hallway the first couple of days was exciting. Many of us had fond memories of summer that we eagerly shared with friends we had not seen for months. The girls would talk about the special boy they met....the guys would talk about baseball and the upcoming football season. Priorities never change...

More to follow

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Trivia

• To keep bugs out of flour, it is recommended to place a couple of bay leaves in the container.

• The stegosaurus was a dinosaur with a head so small that the nerve knot in the middle of the back was larger than its brain.

• Elvis Presley's first Cadillac was blue before he bought it in 1955 and painted it pink.

• Many seabirds that swallow fishes too large for immediate digestion go about with the esophagus filled. Apparently without discomfort, the tail of the fish sticks out of the bird's mouth.
  

Pat Koziuk Driscoll, 1956, FL
Linda Piccerelli Hayden, 1960, NJ
Bob Casale, 1961, HX and PA

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