Can anybody hook me up with a contact to see if I can purchase about 3 old wrestling singlets from either O'Reilly or Central Catholic.

Reunion Menu

I sent out a short Newsgram yesterday with the menu for the reunion dinner. If you're not getting the newsgrams, then please email me since I must be missing your email address.

The RSVPs are starting to come in and Michael Kinney has been sharing the results with us. So far he's gotten about 20 responses with about a 50% 'yes' rate, and if that continues, it will be a very big turn out. There are nearly 150 yet to be returned and if you're one of them, please send your RSVP in at your earliest convenience.

I also keep a separate running total of those who responded by email and I've got 43 'yes' and 21 who are still interested. But I've only got valid email address for about half of our class so there are still many we've yet to hear from.

Some of you are curious whether or not it's OK to come without a date. So far, 7 out of the 10 who sent in 'yes' RSVPs will be coming alone, so if your spouse or significant other isn't interested in attending, you will still be in good company.


We are down to 4 missing class members at last count. If you know their whereabouts, please email me at lee810@yahoo.com or Michael at fishfishr@juno.com

They are:

Dorothy Baran
John Roach
Karen Krishunis Shemanski
Ann Marie Yatsko

Here is the menu:

Cheese and fruit trays to begin

Soup

Mixed green salad with choice of dressing

Choice of Entree: Turkey and gravy with stuffing on the side, Top round of roast beef, or Lasagna.

Green beans almandine

Red potato with parsley

Cake with ice cream.

Can you name them all?

Here is something to mesmerize you, all 176 headshots of our classmates arranged in alphabetical order so that it doesn't unfairly tax our senior memories. You have 5 seconds to identify each one. After you finish that, then here is something to entertain you, various photos that have appeared over the years somewhere on the website or in the blog.

Pierogies!

The other day Michael and I were exchanging email about the ethnic foods available in Wyoming Valley. He had just eaten some potato pancakes at a church bazaar that had been cooked up by none other than Sister Ines (now known as Sister Donna Marie) and I mentioned how much I liked pirogies.

The only thing available out this way are Mrs. T's which are made in Shenandoah, PA. They turn out over 11 million pierogies a week. Michael tells me his mom's recipe is the best. My favorite pierogies were the ones they served for lunch at St. John's on Fridays in Lent. The recipe above is in my father's handwriting, and I think he got it from his mother, who was Lithuanian. We tried them a few weeks ago, except we used a potato/cheese filling. Now I'm not sure we can go back to Mrs. T's. because these were so good, although they do take a little work to prepare.

We were scratching our heads about the 'glass of sour cream' and then I remembered that back then, when you bought sour cream, it came in a sort of drinking glass, which was a nice little bonus. I think it would translate to 8 oz. of sour cream.

How about you? Got any good Wyoming Valley recipes to share? Send them to me and I'll post them here.

Super Sam

I got this video clip from Jay Tobias. This is his son-in-law’s latest venture on Comedy Central, where they won first prize in their short video contest. It’s a scream...

It's getting closer (instead of better) all the time....

I can't believe that we're only like a MONTH away! I enjoyed our 25th soooo much that I can't wait for #30! It is so great to see you all whenever this kind of thing happens. I've seen Mark Hession, Paul Reinert, Joe Lynch, Vince Dennis, Mike Kayrish, and Margie Semanek from time to time. But to see all of you who come from lands far away (farther than I'VE ever been) is really special. You REMEMBER us, and the good times that we had. That's so very important as we grow older. We had something SPECIAL, as so many of our teachers and peers noted. I wish you ALL well, whether you attend or not, and know that you are always never far away in my heart and in my prayers.

Gosh it seems like it's been so long since I saw everyone last. Speaking of concerts, I saw the Moody Blues and Steve Miller within the past few weeks. Got me thinking about high school again and all of the great music that our generation grew up with.
Looking forward to the ice breaker and reunion. I hope we get a nice turn-out, but it'll be fun for everyone who gets there.

Rush Snakes and Arrows Tour

Bob Wanat is responsible for my addiction. Dave Serhan had to endure it at Penn State. Joe Petrasek shares it.

I'm talking about the legendary rock group Rush. It's a curious addiction because when I first heard them, I didn't really think too much of their music, but as is often the case with spaced repetition, it grew on me and has been my favorite rock group for the past 31 years. Last night Terri and I saw them perform (from ROW 8!) at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver. It was an outstanding show with lots of enthusiastic fans. I sometimes worry that I'll be the oldest person at a rock concert, the consummate geezer, but was gratified to see grandparents bringing their grandchildren to share in a timeless form of music that effortlessly spans generations.

A few years ago I was at my nephew's graduation party and one of his friends was doing the honors of acting as a DJ. He found my brother-in-law's Rush CD, Moving Pictures, and began playing it. I went up and complimented him on his excellent taste in music and he looked at me with astonishment and asked, 'Would you adopt me?!'. Obviously a kindred spirit, he was a committed Rush fan and was playing a CD that was released before he was even born, and he was as enthused about it 22 years later as I had been when I had first heard it when I was around his age.

This Canadian trio has been selling out all their concerts across the U.S. and Europe and they do it with virtually no radio airplay. They've only had two modest 'hits', if you can call them that, which you can hear on classic rock FM stations on occasion. The little snippet video above is a South Park intro to 'Tom Sawyer', their most recognizable song (and my cell phone's ringtone).

Sometimes people erroneously lump Rush into head-banging hedonistic heavy metal, but that's a gross mischaracterization.

Yes, I know I post too much about Rush, I just can't help myself...

Sheee's baaaack!

With her irascible wit, Sister Heloise makes her reappearance. The intervening years haven't mellowed her one iota, but why should they? Five years is but a drop in the bucket for a timeless entity like Sister Heloise. Go ahead, make her day by asking her a reunion-related question.

Who will be attending the reunion???

Michael has been getting lots of requests to figure out who is going to be attending the reunion and we've gotten about 65 informal responses which you can see here:

30th Reunion Attendees

That's now linked to the top of the main web page. The formal invitations haven't gone out yet, but will go out very soon. If you want to contact someone, we've got a fairly extensive database which you can see here:

Class Database

You will need a username/password to access that list, and if you've been getting email from me, you should already have it. If you don't have it, please email me for it.

At the last reunion, we had 49 class members attend and so with guests it was close to 100 people and I expect that this reunion will be as large, especially if we get some help from you. If you see someone on the list that you'd like to come to the reunion who hasn't responded, give them a call or send them an email. We have about 22 people who are 'on the fence', i.e., interested but not enough to commit to going yet or trying to juggle other committments. They could use some encouragement too.