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		12/10/10 - NNHS Newsletter Frosty the Snowman “Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance - each beautiful, unique and too soon gone.” - Deborah Whipp

Dear Friends and Schoolmates, 

     We've used this theme for a Newsletter a couple of times over the years:

http://nnhs65.com/12-12-04-NNHS-Snowmen.html  

http://nnhs65.com/12-12-07-NNHS-Frosty-the-Snowman.html

BONUS #1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIIWAu7N6lg - Frosty the Snowman - Gene Autry

BONUS #2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pu-bVrndgY - Frosty the Snowman - Jimmy Durante

BONUS #3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGDi8TqqeX8 - Frosty the Snowman - sing-along version

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frosty_the_Snowman:

"Frosty the Snowman" is a popular song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and first recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950. It was written after the success of Autry's recording of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" the previous year; Rollins and Nelson shipped the new song to Autry, who recorded "Frosty" in search of another seasonal hit. Like "Rudolph", "Frosty" was subsequently adapted to other media including a popular television special. The song was originally titled "Frosty the Snow Man".

The song is about a snowman who comes to life by the placement of a magical hat found by some children, with whom he shares playful adventures before he has to "hurry on his way" (likely a quaint reference to melting, and the ephemeral nature of snowmen). At the end of their adventures together, the children are saddened by Frosty leaving, however, he reassures them by exclaiming, "I'll be back again some day."

Did I mention that I love snowmen?!?

THIS WEEK'S BIRTHDAYS:

     Happy Birthday today to      John Murden ('60) of VA AND   Glen Davenport ('63) of VA!

   Happy Birthday this week to:

12 -   Mary Massey Lyle ('61) of NJ AND      Marcus C. Higgins ('65) of AZ AND       Tom Norris (Hampton HS - '73) AND   My #2 Daughter-in-Law, Bethany Winona Harty (Siuslaw HS, OR - '94) of TX!

13 - Kay Davis Smith ('57);

14 - Elizabeth Mitchell Hedgepeth ('57) AND   Kathie Avant Taylor ('64) of GA;

17 -   Tom Oxner ('65) of AR!

   Many Happy Returns to You All!

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

THIS DAY IN WWII:

December 10, 1941 - Battle of the Philippines – Imperial Japanese forces under the command of General Masaharu Homma invaded the Philippine mainland.

December 10, 1941 - In the Battle of Malaya, the Royal Navy capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers near Malaya.

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From Norris Perry (Warwick HS - '59) of VA - 08/05/10 - "Vote for Grace (REPEATED)":   This is my daughter Laura's dog in a contest to be on the cover of a bag of dog food. Vote every day for Grace. Thanks.    Oh, Laura is your daughter, Norris! Well, that makes it all the more important! http://www.adogslife.net/photo_gallery.php?pg=&limit=40&sort=tnid&type=tnap&field=dog_name&keyword=grace#14296        Grace was named the September 2010 People's Choice!  This is the last month we can vote for Grace - the last 31 days we have to make a difference.    It only takes about two seconds to cast your allotted daily vote)!!!     Doncha wanna go shopping and spot Grace's image on a bag of dog food and know that YOU played a large part in placing her there?!? http://www.adogslife.net/photo_gallery.php?pg=&limit=40&sort=tnid&type=tnap&field=dog_name&keyword=grace#14296     From the President of the Class of 1965, Joe Wingo of NC - 12/09/10 - "Please Send a Christmas Meal to a Severely Wounded Serviceman or Woman": Hi Carol, If anyone would like a good Christmas gift idea I think this is a good one. You give and receive at the same time! The brave men and women who risk their lives in defense of our freedom should not have to endure these kinds of hardship too. I hope Paul is much better now and you are preparing for a big Holiday celebration. Merry Christmas to all. Joe What would you say if I told you your first Christmas gift of the year could also be the one that is appreciated the most? It's true. That's because many U.S. troops who have been severely wounded in Afghanistan or Iraq have empty refrigerators. And their children have empty stomachs. You can come to the rescue by making a tax-deductible Christmas donation to the Merry Christmas Meals Project, sponsored by the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes. Your gift can help provide these financially strapped military families with $60 to buy groceries over the Christmas holidays, or even go out to a restaurant for dinner. I'm Major General John K. Singlaub, U.S. Army (Ret.). I've commanded our brave soldiers in three wars, and today I'm proud to be working with the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes, which provides emergency financial aid to our troops who have been severely wounded in Afghanistan or Iraq. So far the Coalition's patriotic donors have responded with emergency financial aid to 18,548 requests from our severely wounded troops and their families. In the process we have provided our disabled heroes with more than $22 million to avoid utility cutoffs, evictions, home foreclosures and other financial crises, as well as to provide them with food, clothes and other support services. You may be unaware of how hard the ongoing recession has hit our wounded troops. Even before the recession, many of the spouses of our wounded troops had quit their jobs to take care of them. But now, with the unemployment rate around 10 percent, many spouses who were able to work have lost their jobs as well. No wonder these military families are having trouble putting food on the table! A gift of $60 can help provide Christmas dinner with all the trimmings for one severely wounded serviceman or woman and his or her family, $120 can help feed two families, $180 can help provide dinner for three families, and so on. And a gift of $15, $25 or $35 can be combined with other donations to feed a family in need. DONATE NOW: https://www.saluteheroesproject.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=75&custom_1=CHP7NEFY&custom_3=E068P    FABULOUS! Thank you so much, Joe Sweetie!      From Me ('65) of IL - 12/09/10 - "Donate to the USO":    In a similar vein..... This Holiday Season, Sponsor a USO Care Package As we gather with our friends and families to celebrate the holiday season, take a moment to support our brave men and women overseas who continue to put their lives on the line to protect America. Our troops and their families sacrifice so much for this country – and we have the opportunity to help lighten the load for our heroes who are far away from home during this special time of year. https://www.uso.org/DonateHolBrandCPDD2010.aspx?src=WH10MYPT12   From Norris Perry (Warwick HS - '59) of VA - 12/06/10 - "No Left Turns - Really worth the read!":   This is a story of an aging couple told by their son who was President of NBC NEWS. This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Here goes... My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet. "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it." At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: "Oh, bull @#$%!" she said. "He hit a horse." "Well," my father said, "there was that, too." So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together. My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first. But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car. Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once. For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work. Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow." After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored." If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre. "No left turns," he said. "What?" I asked. "No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn." "What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it.. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights." "You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But then she added: "Except when your father loses count." I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again." I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked. "No," he said, "If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week." My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died. One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said.. "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet." An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have." A short time later, he died. I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, or because he quit taking left turns. Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the one's who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it and if it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it. ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!    Thank you so much, Norris Sweetie!     From Jerry ('65) and    Judy Phillips ('66) Allen of VA - 12/09/10 - "Merry Christmas Pet STYLE.. With Humor :0)": Happy Friday to all and to all a wonderful weekend! This is fun! Merry Christmas Pet STYLE   Can you imagine the amount of work putting this together and editing it? FANTASTIC! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-0WVfj76bo    GIGGLES! Thanks so much, Sweetie-Pies! Merry Christmas! ABBREVIATED ALERT:   From Jane Chambers of VA - 07/01/09, 02/07/10, AND 07/31/10 - "CNC BOOK BROCHURE & AD" AND 61-62 DECADERS ADDENDA AND DRAMATIC WORKSHOPS STUDENTS: http://www.nnhs65.com/CNC-CNU/brochure(2).pdf http://www.nnhs65.com/CNC-CNU/CNC-Memories-Book-219390602.pdf http://www.nnhs65.com/CNC-CNU/61-63-DECADERS-ADDENDA.doc http://www.nnhs65.com/CNC-CNU/61-63-DRAMATIC-WORKSHOP-STUDENTS.doc     Contact Dr. Chambers at cncmemories61_71@yahoo.com.    Thanks, Jane!

FINALLY: From http://www.jokedujour.com - LadyHawke's Weekly Jokes - 12/05/10: "Science Fare" (continued) 5th and 6th grade responses to science questions on tests: - A monsoon is a French gentleman. - The word "trousers" is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom. - To keep milk from turning sour, keep it in the cow. - When planets run around and around in circles, we say they are orbiting. When people do it, we say they are crazy. - For asphyxiation, apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead. - Thunder is a rich source of loudness. - One of the main causes of dust is janitors.

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DATES TO REMEMBER:

1. Sunday, December 12, 2010 - Noon to 4:00 PM - Holiday Open House at the Chamberlin Lobby - Go see Brownie! 2. Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 6:00 PM - The NNHS Class of 1958 will hold its Holiday Party at Al Fresco Ristorante, 11710 Jefferson Avenue, Newport News, VA 23606. CONTACT: Joe Drewry (jwdvt@aol.com, 757-244-4443, ext 4) 3. Thursday, January 6, 2011 - The NNHS Class of 1955 holds Lunch Bunch gatherings on the first Thursday of every month at Steve & John's Steak House on Jefferson Avenue just above Denbigh Boulevard in Newport News at 11:00 AM. The luncheon is not limited to just the Class of '55; if you have fiends in that year, go visit with them. 4. Wednesday, February 9, 2010 - The NNHS Class of June 1942 meets at noon on the second Wednesday of every other month for a Dutch treat lunch at the James River Country Club, 1500 Country Club Road. PLEASE JOIN THEM. Give or take a few years makes no difference. Good conversation, food and atmosphere. For details, call Jennings Bryan at 803-7701 for reservations. 5. Wednesday, April 13, 2010 - The NNHS Class of June 1942 meets at noon on the second Wednesday of every other month for a Dutch treat lunch at the James River Country Club, 1500 Country Club Road. PLEASE JOIN THEM. Give or take a few years makes no difference. Good conversation, food and atmosphere. For details, call Jennings Bryan at 803-7701 for reservations. 6. Saturday, April 30, 2011 - The NNHS Class will have a Luncheon. Team Leaders are Mickey Marcella (mcmiceli@verizon.net - 757-249-3800), Betty Hamby Neher (bjneher@cox.net - 757-898-5099), and Dr. Harry Simpson (hdsdds@aol.com - 804-694-0346). - CLASS OF 1954 7. Saturday, July 9, 2011 (6:30 PM to 11:30 PM) - The Class of 1971 will hold its 40-Year Reunion at Newport News Marriott at City Center, 740 Town Center Drive, Newport News. For details, contact Richard Rawls at Richard@Rawls.com - CLASS OF 1971

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PRAYER ROLL : http://www.nnhs65.com/requests-prayers.html - updated 08/22/10

BLOG: http://nnhs.wordpress.com/ - updated 10/21/10

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   Y'all take good care of each other!  TYPHOONS FOREVER!  We'll Always Have Buckroe!

    To donate, click on the Donate Button on the left,  or just mail it directly to my home (address available upon request). Thanks! nnhs65@gmail.com
 

Hampton High School's Crab clip art courtesy of http://www.geocities.com/agent99bm/ -
Replaced courtesy of http://www.hamptonhigh1964.com - 02/17/09

Siuslaw High School Viking Logo clip art courtesy of http://www.siuslaw.k12.or.us/shs/index.php - 05/27/07

Coast Guard Seal clip art courtesy of http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/SealsEmblems/USCG.htm - 10/03/07

Animated Ringing Christmas Bell clip art (designed by Art Holden) courtesy of http://www.animationfactory.com - 12/08/05