11/30/05 - NNHS Newsletter - I Love You
So Much It Hurts Me

"There is no pain equal to that which two lovers inflict on one another....
The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom."

- Cyril Connolly
(1903-1974)

    Happy Birthday today to two of my classmates,    Rip Collins ('65) of TN and   Sandi Bateman Chestnut ('65) of VA!!  Y'all have a great one!

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/Happy-Birthday.html

   And there it began!  What a sweet memory!  Thanks for sharing that with us, Cheryl!  I posted it:

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/old-stomping.html

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/OOSG-C-G.html

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/dog-house.html

I don't think the blonde kid sitting on the curb during the parade on Washington Avenue was me, but thanks for trying to match me up. Wish I still had that much hair. It seems a little thinner than when I was that young. 

   Hi, Forrest!  It's so good to hear from you!  Well, I suppose that's he's not you, but as you see, it was an honest mistake!  It stands to reason that there could have been two adorable little blond-haired boys in Newport News back then!
 

I had a surprise phone call from    Nancy Dodd.  She moved away from NNHS to Maryland 
when    we were in the ninth grade.  She and I dated for awhile back in the good old days.  She is still living there and sounds like she is doing great.  Those Briarfield girls were lookers.  I was 14 and my dad, who ran the Walter Reed Market next to the school on Wickham Avenue and 25th Street, delivered groceries to Nancy's grandmother on Hilton ? Boulevard, so I got to know Nancy and I guess her grandmother checked me out through my dad.

   What a nice surprise for you!  It's always fun to hear from old friends, and all the more so when they were early loves.

   Thanks so much, Forrest!

Dear Carol,

I know exactly what you mean about “losing it,” remembering past times and looking at old pictures. It happens to me, too.

There is a certain wistfulness, a certain longing, made all the more poignant, I think, by the fact that so many of the places that were such a part of our growth and development, just simply are no more. We can not go back and be in those places and swap stories and laugh and cry at our memories because those places are gone, torn down.

Not only places, but even more wistful and poignant, is the departure of friends and classmates and teachers who now belong to the ages. I look at the pictures of those who are gone from us and sorrow. For me anyway, they have never aged. They remain in my mind’s eye forever young, just as they were in the yearbooks or in the halls of NNHS. Even when I see familiar names in the newsletter, it is not their present ages that I see.

   Oh, I do the same thing!  And I've found through attending reunions, that even though from across the room I might no longer be able to recognize someone, as I talk with them face to face, the years seem to drop mysteriously from them, as if they are being processed through some weird morphing mechanism.  And I suppose they are.

Carol, it seems to me that what we are doing in the newsletters is creating an invaluable record, a history of a certain time and places and people that can no longer fall to the wrecking ball or succumb to the ravages of disease or war or be preyed upon by aging or failed  memory. In these pages we reclaim our lost places, our lost times, our lost friends, classmates, and teachers. We create a record for all time of our history and serve notice to posterity that we of NNHS passed this way. We preserve that spirit that was and still is NNHS that will pulse in our veins until our last breath and then in these pages bequeath its image to generations.   

You, Carol, have facilitated this tribute, this memorial to our history. Without you and your tireless efforts, these newsletters would not continue to renew the bonds and the spirit that we forged at NNHS.  

   WOWZERS.  Quite frequently people ask me why it is that I do what I do.  Why would I spend countless hours and emotionally investing myself so deeply into something which no longer exists - especially when I was neither commissioned to do so, nor am salaried for the process?  To me it is so self-evident, that I hardly understand the question, let alone how to address it.  I usually try to stammer out a lame answer or just give them a deer-in-the-headlights look and say nothing.

   THAT is why I do what I do.  Thank you for expressing it so beautifully for me, Aretie. 

Sometimes I have thought that one of these days I’d like to go back through the newsletters and create an index of names with dates of newsletters in which they appear. It would be quite an endeavor, I am sure; nevertheless it is one that interests me. I guess the history teacher still lurks in me.

   How often I have longed to know the technology which would enable this!  How marvelous it would be to push one button and have it bring up all the articles and comments on a related subject.

Oh, yes, Carol, those Newport News parades were memorable. As you said, it was an unforgettable sight to see the Typhoon Marching Band approach and pass by. And Christmas shopping in the malls does not compare with the festive, bustling to and fro of the crowds that filled the downtown streets of Washington Avenue under the Christmas lights overhead. 

You know, bit by bit, through the newsletters experiences long faded beyond memory come inching back into my consciousness…. Like the store Broadway. When I wrote to you last and named stores where we shopped, I had forgotten all about Broadway. Then just musing over my memories, I remembered the Broadway Department Store, located on Washington Avenue. And then I remembered Lerner’s! How could I have forgotten Lerner’s. That’s where my first pair of stockings came from, “nylons” as they were often called in those days. The hosiery counter was right inside the door on the left.

   That's where I bought all of my nylons - right at that front counter!  I remember Easter of 1961.  Glamour magazine had convinced me that strawberry pink was the color to wear that year, from head to toe.  My size 7 strawberry pink suit-dress sheath, my flower-encrusted pillbox hat, and my strawberry pink nylons all came from Lerner's.  The outfit was beautiful, but it was those shimmering rosie-pink nylons which made all the difference in my mind.  With white gloves, white bag, and white 3" pumps, I felt far older than my 13 years, and those nylons seemed to make me feel like the woman I really wasn't.

   (C'mon, Jimmy-Jimmy, you knew I'd remember my Easter outfit!)

I am sending two pictures from the Class of 1959 commencement ceremonies. The one of the faculty procession is somewhat blurry, but I treasure it anyway.  Shown in the faculty procession are    Mrs. Garland Conn, your sister,    Eleanor’s (Buckley Nowitzky of NC) and my eighth grade general science teacher and    Mrs. Jean Woolwine Clift, who taught typing and was Junior Class Co-Sponsor in 1959. Behind Mrs. Clift is   Mrs. Phoebe Hoyle, who was my French teacher.  The other picture shows a few of the seniors in the line of march. Shown are    Whit Hancock,    me,    Nancy Oldfield and    Harry Conn (of VA). You can readily see that Whit and I are looking down at our feet. I’ve never been agile on my feet nor had a good sense of rhythm, and I was so worried about getting out of step, especially since   Miss Crane was out in the hall, sweeping her arm to the rhythm of the march, and calling out LEFT, right, LEFT, right.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Take care, and God Bless.

Aretie
 

   These are already posted on Odds and Ends, but chances are excellent they will show up elsewhere as well in the near future!

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/oddsends.html

   Thank you so very much, Aretie!   

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/Happy-Birthday.html
 

EBAY AD COPY READS: Up for auction is an original sign from the 1950s or 1960s...Purchased w/ several others out of a persons garage years ago...This sign is for 2 trains leaving at 8:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. to BUCKROE BEACH....SAT. AUG. 19TH...I am not sure if there was an amusement part at the beach or just rides to the beach...GO WITH SAMIS GROTTO TO BUCKROE BEACH.....ETC......Heavy cardboard sign mailed between 2 pieces of cardboard for minimal shipping....Sign measures approx. 4 1/2 x 36"....AS FOUND CONDITION....some tears at edges where nailed up.....

BTW, there was a second similar sign up for auction:
 

EBAY AD COPY READS: Up for auction is an vintage sign advertising SAMIS GROTTO TWILIGHT TO BUCKROE BEACH SAT., AUG 16...LARGEST TWILIGHT OF THE SEASON ===TWO SECTIONS.....Sign purchased out of person's garage years ago w/ others listed...was nailed up....Signs are from the 1950s / 1960s....Heavy cardboard, as found, some tears to edges, corners where nailed.......foxed from age.....Will mail between two heavy pieces of cardboard for minimal shipping...Vintage beach sign measures 5 x 35....

    In trying to determine the dates, I checked with one of my favorite sites, http://www.timeanddate.com and learned that Saturday , August 19th fell on a Saturday in 1950, 1961, and 1967.  Saturday, August 16th occurred in 1952 and 1958.  Because of the closeness of the years, I selected 1961 and 1958 as the probable dates of the signs, but there's really no way I can be sure of that at this time with the information available.

   But Dave found some additional background:
 

Source:  http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_
DRMGArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031784097320

Also, look here:  http://www.cinematreasures.org/theater/11619/

   I haven't posted these elsewhere yet because my obsessive brain is trying to decide whether to place them on Buckroe Beach or Buckroe Amusement Park.  Sad, isn't it??

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/old-stomping.html

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/OOSG-A-B.html

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/buckroe-beach.html

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/buckroe-amusement.html

I am looking for some information on    Joe Thweatt, NNHS Class of 1961. We were on the stage crew together and were good friends in high school. He was stage manager for two years before I was. He went to the shipyard from high school (Apprentice School I believe) but has since moved on. I have heard he is in Washington State but not sure. I believe he was best looking on the Class of 1961.

   That is correct - along with the very lovely    Judi Hawley ('61): 

I remember his brother,    Ross ('60), was killed in a car accident while Joe was still in school.

   I've had this clipping of  Ross' obituary all these years, and for unknown reasons, had never scanned or posted it until today.  It may seem surprising that I had kept that clipping when I never knew either Ross or his family, but the reality is that I clipped everything.  Unfortunately, 95% of those clippings fell victim to some precious but naughty little boys I knew back in the late 70's who started playing with Mommy's memorabilia and destroyed them, bless their little hearts.

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/memoriam-all.html

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/memoriam60.html

   By the way, I don't want this to be misinterpreted, but I find it difficult to believe that the Classes of 1960 and 1961 have lost as few people as are shown here, when the Class of 1965 has already lost more than one-tenth of its whole.  Has the Angel of Death really been that merciful to those War Babies while carting the Baby Boomers off in droves??  If any of y'all have knowledge of more passings, please let us know.  For instance, I believe that someone told me that one of the Helmer twins from '61 had passed away.  As sad as it is, we need to record these things.  Thanks.

I know he dated    LaVernia Hudson ('62 - of VA) for awhile.

ALSO,    Jimmy Cutler, Class of 68. One heck of a track man. We worked together briefly in the early 1970's. We have occasionally crossed paths over the years but have lost his where-abouts. I know he is a avid sports fisherman. And still flying (a pilot) I believe.

Thanks to anyone who can supply me info on these two old Typhoons.

Ed Nichols, Class of 1962

   Thanks, Eddie! I thought I had some information or at least leads on the Cutler family, but I looked for it for several hours to no avail, so I suppose I imagined that whole thing.  Perhaps someone else can help.

   "Anyone?  Anyone?"

   I trust you understand what a professional photographer of Chip's caliber could charge you for each one of those images, doncha???

   Thanks so much, Chippy Darlin'.  You are a sweetie!  I'm certainly looking forward to that disc!