Sue Chasin Ross wouldn't have wanted to grow up anywhere else

Sue and her husband Patt. Her family was among Levittown's first 300 arrivals.

By Sue Chasin Ross, 1962
I have just been reading some of the stories on this blog. I am amazed at the memories some of these people have...the detail...I guess most, if not all, of us Levittown pioneers have nothing but wonderful memories of those long ago days.

Life was so carefree....I have often told people...as we reminisced...that the biggest decision we had was....whose house we would have a "garage" or "patio" party at. All you had to do was tell a few kids...and voila...everyone was there....ready to stack the 45's and do nothing more than dance. I hear a song from the late 1950s and I can remember who I was dancing with...and whose house we were at. There was no drinking...let alone, binge drinking...it just wasn't a part of our lives. Dancing....no matter where...was our main source of recreation.

I remember taking a camping trip with my family...across country, for most of the summer of '57....great trip...that I didn't want to go on, as I didn't want to leave my friends. As soon as we arrived home...I literally ran down to the Azalea Road pool...and no one was there. I couldn't believe it. I finally found everyone glued to the TV watching a new show...American Bandstand... Man, did that become a daily ritual for years.

Levittown was always about fun...We had the pools, the Village Greens and the bowling allies. We would stay outside till after dark, playing all those kids' games. We could jump rope for hours, hopscotch...It was a milestone when you were old enough to go to the pool by yourself. Hours of Marco Polo...follow the leader off the boards..innocent and fun. We were all good swimmers...some were very good and some were great divers. I ended up being a swimming instructor and lifeguard...years later.

Our parents were really pioneers. I know I've told you this before Frank, but how many people can say their parents moved into a town the day it opened? I can....My parents moved in on Elm Tree Lane...in October...1947, one of the first 300 families. You couldn't own a Levitt house then...only rent. My mother, still alive and with almost total recall...says the rent was about $60-70/month. My parents bought and moved to Horn Lane in 1950, for $8000. With taxes and interest, the monthly mortgage payment was less than renting, around $55/month.

I actually went to kindergarten and 1/2 of first grade at Division Avenue. Mrs. Rees...Kathy and Ellen's mom, was my first-grade teacher there and I loved her. When we moved to Horn Lane, I finished first grade in a quonset hut at Wisdom Lane. As second grade started, Northside School was open and we walked to school every day. Each year, my mom...and probably other moms...would invite our teachers home to eat lunch with us. The funny thing is...they actually came. We had an hour for lunch and many of us would walk home.

In sixth grade....our grade had to go to East Broadway, as Northside was so overcrowded. This was after a couple of years of split sessions...Levittown was growing by leaps and bounds...I met my life long best friend in 5th grade...Susan Rutkin...We've been friends for 56...(yikes) years...how is that even possible???

I loved Division Avenue. When I started 7th grade...there were only three grades...7th, 8th and 9th. You knew everyone. In our "crowd" there were 5 or 6 Susans...so we were all known by our last names...Weldon, Rutkin, Kilbride, Kalinsky, and Chasin.. When my parents moved us ALL the way over to East Meadow after 9th grade...it could have been across the country..it was so traumatic. I ended up liking East Meadow High School....but not like I loved Division Avenue.

Levittown was a very special place...with very special people...in a particularly special time. The stories in Frank Barning's Levittown blog say it all....great memories from those times. I have a million memories...but the over-riding factor is...that I wouldn't have wanted to grow up anywhere else.

Patten and Monsrud, Levittown's 1963 Poppy Queen rivals reunite after 47 years; the winner says "It was a stupid contest."

Photo at top, Jane Patten (left) and Marilyn Monsrud, 1963 graduates

In 1963, when they were seniors at Division Avenue High School, Jane Patten and Marilyn Monsrud vied with four other Levittown seniors for the title of Poppy Queen. "Charm, scholarship and personality" were the criteria.

This August, Jane returned to Long Island for the class of 1960s 50th reunion. The Poppy Queens rivals spent a lot of time together, even toured the old high school. Marilyn still lives in Levittown. The "girls" had not seen each other in 47 years. Soon after she graduated from Division, Jane moved to Florida and has lived in the Sunshine State ever since.

Marilyn was crowned Poppy Queen way back when and the gracious Jane recalls that her old friend "looked just like a Barbie Doll."

According to Marilyn,"It was a stupid contest! Read the line that says what we were chosen for scholarship, charm and personality! If you need proof, you should see my 11th and 12th grade report cards! They lied and I don't know why they picked me.

"There was no effect on my life, then or now, except that I got a nice prom dress out of it for free. I also got out of being suspended for getting caught with a forged pass while cutting class, only because I was representing the school in this thing at the time. Saved my ass on that one."

About their personal reunion, Marilyn reflected, "We just flew back in time to our Division days and the friendship we had throughout our high school years. It was so great to see her again and catch up. Our lives have really paralleled one another over the last five decades. Amazing."

Driving down memory with the driver ed teacher's son; remembering the mother of all skids on Cornflower Road

Jeff Peyton, son of our esteemed driving teacher Mr. David Peyton

By Jeff Peyton, class of 1961
As you may recall, Cornflower Road passed by the Levittown Community Church to the east, thanks to a fairly long banana curving north and intersecting with Periwinkle. At the south end, near Division Avenue, Cornflower skirted the power lines that ran clear to Newbridge Road.

The Cornflower Road time-space banana curve remains etched in my memory. I was driving to school with my dad. I rarely did. I did not want to ride with him or be seen riding. I was nobody’s child. I walked. It was not cool having your dad teach at the school you went to.

In the winter, walking to school was not always pleasant but it was a choice. What was a backpack? You carried your books to school. But this morning I was late and it had snowed. And so there I was “riding to school” with dad. The roads were slick with ice but clear of snow. As we approached Cornflower Road, the walkers glided by. Ahead, a car had turned onto Cornflower Road. (Actually, it would never really stop turning.) The car was familiar. It was Mrs. Gaskins’, Richard Gaskins’ mom. Unpredictable movement associated with her car was not unusual.

Immediately, dad’s Driving Teacher Instincts kicked in. He slowed, being careful of course not to go into a skid. Mrs. Gaskins, however, was still turning. Time, yup, seemed to be standing still. She had entered “the mother of all skids”—a skid as long and as curved as Cornflower Road itself, a skid as simple as a forward pass ‘line’ drawn on a play diagram. We could see it coming. Even though Mrs. Gaskins was clearly on the other side of the road, her vector was locking on.

My father, pathetically trying to mount a snow bank in a 1960 Comet, could not evade Mrs. Gaskins, now zeroing in, her face quizzically framed in her windshield. The sound of the impact crunched the air. Thus it happened that two cars kissed, steam rising, on Cornflower Road on a frosty morning. The walkers stopped, gathered, and looked. A scene out of a Little Lulu comic book. Wow. An accident. Mr. Peyton, the driver ed. teacher, in an accident And me smiling wistfully at passers by, the crackle of snow under the feet, feeling more sorry for my dad than for myself.

It's a mystery why we were nicknamed the Blue Dragons

Blue Dragons...why do we have this nickname?
Do you have recollection of how Division came up with Blue Dragons as a nickname? To me the name did not seem appropriate. A couple of old school friends suggested that the class of 1960 voted on this during junior high because our class would be the first to graduate. We may have been given choices to vote on, but who created the choices?

The late Ken Kemmer, class of 1960, was the first to wear a Blue Dragons costume at sports events. He was a varsity cheerleader. Was there a nickname you might have preferred?

How some of us picked a foreign language to study
Tim Lavey 1963
I took 5 years of Latin and 2 years of French. There was an 8th grade Latin class which June Johnson reminds me was called "Conversational Latin" whatever that meant. It was taught by Ms. McGuigan, a no-nonsense 5 ft. ball of fire, but she sure was a good teacher. I took Latin because I was told it would help one understand the derivation of many English words. I've found that to be true throughout life. As far as French is concerned, I had a Mr. Creed for French I and Kalinowski for French II.

Larry Bory 1960
I chose Latin because my dad told me it would improve writing English. Then I took German because many science papers were in German. Dumb choices both for learning to speak another language .

Bill Stanley 1960
Picking a foreign language was a no brainer for me as all my friends spoke English.

Susan Weldon 1960
I have absolutely no memory of why I chose to take French, but I'm glad I did. I adored Thad Kal (Thaddeus Kalinowski). He was so expressive. I can still hear him saying "deux points" as he jabbed the air with his pointer and middle fingers while we practiced for the dictation section of the regents exam. I'm still amazed that I can watch a French film and only occasionally glance at the sub titles.
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Interesting Levittown links and one for old Brooklyn

Levittown Historical Society
http://www.levittownhistoricalsociety.org/

Levittown Memorial High School Class of 1961
http://www.lmhs61.org/default.html

Brooklyn Memories
http://www.screanews.us/NewYork/BrooklynOld.htm

Northside School, 1951-52 Mr. Henebry's 4th grade class

First row: Mike Newton, the late Chris Wilkens
Second row: X, Steve Mohr, Karen Judge, Rich Humbert
Among others in photo: Ken Porter, Joan Allibone, Veda Schneider, Ellen Rees, Tom Paturzo (Baker), Richie Ostrowski, the late Steve Zwerling, Lorraine Troiano, Artie Lundquist, Mr. Henebry
Photo courtesy of Steve Mohr, 1960

click on photo to make it larger

Best places to hang out in Levittown and vicinity during the 1950s

Crowd gathers at the Meadowbrook Theater, top photo; Mays shopping center below

Warren Zaretsky. 1960
1. Vice Principal Eugene Aiello's office
2. Wherever Anna Joy Herman was
3. Chris Wilkens' house
4. Anna-Marie DeNardi's kitchen
5. Officer DeMayo's squad car

Susan Weldon, 1960
1. Azalea Road pool
2. West Village Green
3. Chris Wilkens' house
4. Library
5. Bowlder Lounge

Karen Biro Hewson, 1960
1. Meadowbrook Theater
2. Wilfred's Coffee Shop
3. Caruso's
4. Bowlder Lounge/bowling alley
5. Mays shopping center

Michelle Fromm-Lewis, 1963
1. Woodcock Lane (On our street we were "one for all" regardless of age, sex, ethnicity, religion; there was always something going on.)
2. Azalea Road pool - All summer long, THE place to gather during the day
3. Levittown Community Church - Friday night dances during the summer for all neighborhood kids and where my Girl Scout troop met for a while
4. Meadowbrook Theater or the Roller Rink - mostly winter activities for me
5. Levittown Center (Mays Shopping Center) - Mostly in the later 1950s, when buying clothes and records (45's of course) was important

Cliff Fromm, 1960
1. North Village Green Bowling Alley
2. East Village Green
3. Azalea Road Pool
4. Meadowbrook Theater
5. Whelan's Drug Store

John Kinstrey, 1961
1. Baseball or football at Redwing Lane playground with Tommy Toscano, Richie Cianci, the Mitchko brothers, Mike Fitzgibbon, Russ Seymour, Barbu Alim, Dicky Yaw, Leo Grant, Henry Glazer, the Gateley brothers, David Reavis, Russ Cistaire, Butch Rand, David Rosenberg, and Mark Scope (he was wrongfully blamed for burning down the wooden handball court, we think.)
2. Azalea Road pool with same dudes.
3. In the winter time, sledding in the sump behind the Azalea Road pool (Toscano never went; wasn’t into the breaking and entering thing)
4. West Village Green playing stickball waiting for the truck to arrive with our bundles of Newsday.
5. After October 1958, 8 Meadow Lane.
Note: I never had the opportunity to get to Whelan’s on Hempstead Turnpike. By the time detention was over, everyone was usually gone.

Frank Barning, 1960
1. DAHS gym, playing basketball
2. North Village Green, playing baseball with the Natives and harassing girls
3. Azalea Road pool
4. Dances in the old gym at Division, music on 45-RMP records
5. Mal Karman's house

Jon Buller, 1961
1. My room
2. Long walks
3. Azalea Road pool
4. Caroline’s Restaurant (North Village Green)
5. Sid’s Deli (Hempstead Turnpike)

Ann Crescenzo Fazzino, 1961
1. North Village Green - Artie would make us chocolate egg creams and toasted corn muffins after school and the bowling Alley
2. Azalea pool - Every summer all day long we spent at the pool
3. Roller Skating Rink
4. Whelan's Drug store on Division
5. Our home at 203 Kingfisher Road. It actually was sort of a hang out. My brother Jim brought tons of different guys home every day. And I did the same.

Arnie Galeota, 1961
1. North Village Green bowling alley
2. Whalen's drug store on corner of Hempstead Tpke and Division Avenue
3. Caruso's
4. Diplomat Cafeteria on Hempstead Tpke. near St. Bernard's church
5. Jahn's

Pete Weiss, 1963
1. America on Wheels skating rink
2. Jahn's
3. The Meadowbrook Theater, the site of a couple of personal "firsts," which for now will remain undescribed
4. The "sump" next to Wisdom Lane Jr. High, which almost always had a section of chain link conventiently cut for easy (but forbidden) access.
5. Nunley's Happyland/Jolly Roger at Hicksville Road and Hempstead Tpke. (this seems a little weird in retrospect, but my friends and I used to ride our bikes from our neighborhood - Hunt Lane and Gardiners Avenue - down to the Jolly Roger and get plates of sauerkraut - it was free - for a quick lunch, because whatever change we had we spent on the arcade games. Many of these had to do with weapons - machine guns, rifles, bombers, submarines, etc. - which seemed perfectly normal at the time. There was even one called "Slap the Jap," and another that was a submarine that torpedoed ships with Japanese flags on them. These were leftovers from WW II days, but also didn't seem out of place in the mid to late 1950s, especially for guys who watched war movies.)

Young Wally Linder's problems with impulse control and maturity

Wally made a visit to the office of Vice Principal Gene Aiello

By Wally Linder, Class of 1961
Let me preface this story with a DISCLAIMER. This story is that of a junior in high school. Frontal lobes were not fully developed, and there were problems with impulse control and maturity.

Mrs. Allegra wasn’t, technically, a terrible teacher, but she was lacking in personal skills. She was all business, with no discernable personality. Most of the teachers at Division tried to make their classes an enjoyable experience. Mrs. Allegra thought that the Algebra was the fun part.

The Algebra came easy to me, and I soon found myself being bored to death. There was a destructive fad, going around, at that time. Ink pens, also know as fountain pens, were still in fashion, and the distribution of “Beauties” (as in black and blue beauty marks) were all the rage (with a selective few degenerates). The concept was to give people, and property, beauty marks when they were not there to begin with.(If you think this was stupid and destructive ------- PLEASE NOTE- DISCLAIMER)

For some unknown reason, which I still don’t understand today, I decided to give Sadie Allegra beauty marks. It would have been easy to do this anonymously, but I decided to do it in the classroom, while she was teaching. The beauty ink spots covered her back,and some of the black board. (If you think this was a stupid and senseless act---------------PLEASE NOTE- DISCLAIMER)

The next thing I knew I was sitting in vice principal Aiello’s office with my mother and Mrs. Allegra. I figured suspension, and maybe even expulsion. My life changed in that office, on that day.

I discovered that Sadie Allegra did have a forgiving personality, and so did Gene Aiello. Sadie might have not been the best teacher, but she was not a terrible person. After Mrs. Allegra left, Mr. Aiello proceeded to tell my mother how much he enjoyed watching me play soccer. In 1959 Gene Aiello was the team’s only soccer fan.

May 1955: Mr. Ouderkirk's sixth grade class at Northside School

First Row: Wally Linder, Lenny Syden, Jay Miner, Daria Marusevich, Peggy Hessin
Second row: Judy Bowen, Dawn Robie, Karen Hogan, Al Greengold, John Fitzsimmons
Third row: Joan Louison, Clayton Citrano, Billy Rudolph, Jimmy Judson, Kenny Knight,
Forth row: Janice Grubber, Bob Bonacci, Valerie Mascara, Barbara Crenshaw, Arlene Gibson
Fifth row: Laraine Bond, Beth Kramer, Jay ?, Roya Sitkoff, Elizabeth Mitchell
Note: click on the photo to enlarge it

Putting the caption together, after all these years (55), was the result of the brain searching of Daria Marusevich and Wally Linder.

Photo courtesy of Wally Linder, 1961

From Levittown to England and beyond, the story of the class of 1960's Karen Biro Hewson

A 1950s snowy day in front of the Karen's Bluebell Lane home, and the Florida resident with her husband Brian while on a recent trip to Key West. The pictures can be enlarged if you click on them.

By Karen Biro Hewson, class of 1960
My classmate Carol Ackley Rosebery's wonderfully detailed story in a very recent blog reminded me of things long forgotten. It was great growing up in Levittown, they were innocent times and I was soooo naive.

I came to Division Avenue High School in the seventh grade and always felt not really part of the crowd. Everyone seemed to know each other -- it seemed like from kindergarten – I always felt like the “new” kid, which was mostly my fault, as I was kind of quiet and not very outgoing, which made it all the more harder for me to fit in.

I hung out mostly with Loretta Fountain (’61) who was a neighbor and the first person I met when I moved to Levittown. My first recollection of Levittown (I think I lived there only about two days) was going “Trick or Treating” and winding up at Renee Gordon’s house, leaving there and getting lost in the winding streets. Loretta introduced me to most of the girls I hung out with, all of whom were in the Class of ’61, Ginny Castle, Mary Birney, Ann Crescenzo and Rita Cataldo. Two of the girls in our class that I was friendly with moved before graduation – Carol Vasser and Dorothy Whittaker.

American Bandstand was what we watched every afternoon (does anyone remember Pat Molinari on Bandstand?) And, of course, we “just had” to watch Bandstand on Christmas Day to see what the girls were wearing.

I remember going to the Meadowbrook movie matinees and getting in for 25 cents because I looked like I was 12 until about age 16. In the winter, if we could get a ride, we’d go to Jones Beach and roller skate, then get coffee or hot chocolate at the only boardwalk restaurant that was open. I remember how cold and windy it was and enjoying every minute of it. In the spring we’d play Par 3 golf (badly). And of course in the summer we’d go to the beach or the East Village Green pool.

Loretta and I used to shop at Mays a lot, then go to Wilfred’s Coffee Shop and if we had enough money, get a cheeseburger platter -- huge cheeseburger, fries and coleslaw for $1, what a deal! We relied on a lot of people (mostly parents) to get rides, because none of us had cars until we were out of school. It was great fun even without the cars. When we got older we would go to the Bowlder Lounge at the North Village Green to bowl, then go and listen to the piano player in the lounge (no it wasn’t Billy Joel), also, Caruso’s and that infamous bar in Hempstead -- Ryan’s, The Coach House in West Hempstead and the Garden City Bowl.

I never went “steady” with anyone in high school, but dated Scott Cornell, Peter File and Terry Turner in my senior year.

There were a few teachers whose classes I enjoyed, Ms. Eisenhauer, Mr. Keating and (don’t laugh) Mr. Flynn – he scared the s--- out of me, but I never forget to cross my T’s and dot my I’s to this day.

After graduating from DAHS, I moved into New York City and worked for Mobil
Oil. After a particularly bad winter in New York I moved to Miami Springs, Florida. Moved back to New York in 1968 and stayed for 11 years, working at LILCO in Hicksville for 11 years. Moved again to Boca Raton, Florida where I worked for IBM for 10 years, until they decided it was better for their bottom line to manufacture and distribute their PC's from the Raleigh, NC area and closed the Boca site.

At that point, I decided to work temp for a while -- as IBM was very generous when they distributed their pink slips.

That's when I decided to go to England on vacation - a dream I always had was to go by ship. I did just that -- booked passage on the QEII and sailed to England for a month. Did all my sightseeing, went up to Scotland -- and met my future husband, Brian. We were married in Delray Beach, FL in 1991. After that I sold my house and moved to London, England where I lived and worked for three years. In England we had a conversion camper and traveled all over England and Scotland, also did quite a bit of traveling through Europe.

In 1994 we came back to Florida and now live in Stuart with our two dogs and two cats and no children. I'm sure there will be another move in our future as neither one of us is that crazy about Florida after the recent spate of hurricanes. I'm still working as an Executive Secretary at an Executive Suites, so retirement will be sooner or later.

April 1954 Northside School in Levittown, sixth grade

Among those in this 56-year old photo are Sandy Adams, Cliff Fromm, Danny LaPadula, Billie Jean Divone, Barbara Bond, Ann Hoffman, Geoff Eisenbarth, Steve Tuck, Linda Kenley, Pat Moore, Mary Ann McNally, Billy Goldman, Carol Klass, Joe Guidice, Noel Heinisch and Jane Kranzler. Also included but all deceased are Louie Lopez , Steven Lilienthal, Carole Arneson, Ray Wenz, Connie Drakos. The teacher was Mr. Torrance.

Upon seeing this vintage photo of his sixth grade class, Cliff Fromm commented, "Part of it seems like it was only a week or so ago yet in another lifetime. What is disturbing is notation of those who are deceased. Five in the class are no longer with us. I fondly remember these people like it was yesterday. Life is too short.” Actually, it could be more than five because our records are incomplete.

The picture can be enlarged if you click on it. If you are able to identify anyone not listed, send information to fbarning@cox.net.

Photo provided by Sandy Adams

For Carol Ackley, it was fun, fun and more fun being a girl in 1950s Levittown; lots of kids to play with and the memories linger

Carol Ackley (left) and Joan Allibone were reunited at the Class of 1960's 50th reunion

By Carol Ackley, class of 1960
I came to Levittown in February 1950 to 47 Blacksmith Road, the last part
of Levittown, because my back yard was the Hicksville line. I moved there from Pittsburgh where I was born.

The move was full of excitement, because we were coming to live with my father in our new home. I had lived with my grandmother, aunt and two cousins, and my mother during the war and beyond because my father was already in the Army when the war broke out. My father had been living in New York since 1947 and now finally we were all going to be together.

Dad borrowed a car, we didn't have one until 1953, from our next door neighbors to pick us up at LaGuardia and bring us (my mother, grandmother, baby sister and me) to our new home. My father got lost and we drove all over the Island till we finally reached our destination. We were greeted by our neighbors, the Oswalds.

I loved Levittown, they were so many girls (Carol Kosiewska, Beverly Corbin, Karen Balos, Sandy Gay, Penny Irwin, Janet Hellings, Patty Oswald and myself) in our area and we were all good friends and played all different games, from hopscotch to punch ball, kickball, ringaround the world, dolls and so forth. We had a great time!

Patty went to Wisdom Lane School, but I couldn't because it was full so I was bussed to Abbey Lane. First, the bus went to Wisdom Lane then the Little School House on Old Jerusalem Avenue and then to Abbey Lane and the reverse trip home. I went there two years, first with Mrs. Miller (who became principal) then with Mr. Karpman, my first man teacher, in third grade.

Finally, Northside School was finished and I went there through sixth, Mr. Hollowell, what a handsome man he was, Mr. Lynch, I loved his sense of humor and he made learning fun, and finally Mr. Mahloney, who had a band and used to play at quite a bit at our dances that we had at Division Avenue High. Going to Northside was really exciting because we were no longer bussed. We rode our bikes, roller skated or walked in this giant cloud of friends and collected more as we eventually arrived at school, what fun.

We arrived at Division Avenue School (it was not yet a high school) a little nervous. After all, we were the first kids out of Northside, a little cocky, because we were the oldest in that school, and into a school with older kids since there was an eighth grade. It was exciting that we moved to different classes and got to meet new people. I loved
being with different friends, although some moved away including Peggy McNeill, Maryann D'Agostino, and my boyfriend in eighth grade, Howie Haggerty, he really made me laugh. Patty Oswald was now going to Catholic school. A whole gang of us would go to the movies, or to the roller skating rink, What fun.

Does anyone remember going to the roller rink in Mineola? We used to go there before the one in East Meadow near Jahn's was built. We would be real daring and jump over the third rail because the tracks were right next to the skating rink.

In high school, I would much rather have fun than do a lot of learning so I paid for that by spending every summer going to summer school at Levittown Memorial and working. One summer I was working in Woolworth's, and the store was trying to get rid of hoola hoops, so I volunteered to sell them in front of the store. Needless to say, I saw everyone from school that day, and I could not make the hoop spin. Frank Barning and Russ Green thought that was the funniest thing.

I used to hang around with Sandy Adams and Linda Kenley. I remember sitting in science lab between John Koehler and Mal Karman. Mal was always telling off-color jokes, I would poke him in the ribs, and then go tell the jokes to the girls at lunch.

I dated a fellow from my church all through high school. He was from Hicksville. In senior year, I started to hang around with Joan Allibone and we still keep in touch today. It was great seeing her at the 50th reunion this month. She introduced me to my late husband, John, who I married in l961, have two children, Jack an architect on Long Island and Ellen. I have five grandchildren and am a great grandmother.

For 16 years, I was a stay-at-home mom most of the time, worked in the schools for a little while, then stopped. Later after the kids were in college I worked for Weight
Watchers for 15 years and retired and now live in Kings Park.

Photo by Cliff Fromm

Neal Manly, an attorney and 1960 graduate, devoted his professional career to representing poor people

Known to many in Levittown as Corky, Neal Manly was a quiet, studious young man. A member of the class of 1960, he died in 2008 and his obituary, which follows, tells the story of an extraordinarily special person.
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CORNELIUS "NEAL" A. MANLY, 65, died after a seven-year battle with cancer on May 9, 2008, at his home in Irvington, Va. He was formerly of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Mr. Manly was born in New York City on December 26, 1942, and served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1962 to 1966. He was a graduate of American University, and Washington College of Law at American University. He was a member of the Bar in Ohio and North Carolina and practiced for 33 years. He married Stephanie Ames of Toledo on his birthday, the day after Christmas in 1970, giving them three celebrations within two consecutive days for the last 37 years.

Mr. Manly an attorney devoted his professional career to representing poor people. He started his career as a Vista volunteer for the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland in the Hough area in 1972. He was the director of Summit County Legal Aid Society in Akron from 1976 to 1979 and Catawba Valley Legal Services in Morganton, N.C. from 1979 to 1990. He returned to Cleveland to manage offices in the Central neighborhood and Downtown Cleveland for the Legal Aid Society.

As an attorney for Legal Aid's Juvenile Unit in the early l970s, Mr. Manly steadfastly protected the rights of juveniles. In a series of cases, he fought for and obtained the right of low-income people to blood tests at the expense of the state when charged with paternity. This fight incurred the wrath of Juvenile Court judges, one of whom sought to hold him in contempt for his advocacy. After a trial, a visiting judge found Mr. Manly not guilty of contempt of court.

Neal enjoyed music, fishing and golf. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Shaker Heights High School athletic teams, especially the football, soccer and tennis teams of his sons. As a loving husband and father, he was an active member with his family of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights.

Surviving are his wife, Stephanie Ames Manly; two sons, Colin Ames Manly and wife, Kathryn C. of Cincinnati, Ohio and John Smith Manly of Cleveland Heights, Ohio; a seven month old grandson, Jackson Ames Manly; a sister, Patricia M. Peterson; a brother, Robert P. Manly, both of Florida.

A memorial service will be held 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 2747 Fairmount Blvd., Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44106. Memorials may be made to the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, 1223 W. Sixth St., Cleveland, OH 44113 or Hospice of Virginia, P.0. Box 2098, Tappahannock, VA 22560.

Published in The Plain Dealer on 5/13/2008.

There is more to the early Levittown story than just nostalgia

By Frank Barning, class of 1960
When we were in school, color televisions and air conditioners were rare in our homes. Boy, were we low tech. Do you remember those sputtering movie projectors that the audio-visual squad was on alert to fix because often they broke down during classes?

During the past two decades, the internet has be a major influence in our lives. It has been a powerful tool that has allowed me to be in touch with numerous Division Avenue High School alums from the early 1960s classes. Facebook has taken it to another level.

From the stories that I have received from fellow Division Avenue students, a book could be written. Many of our fathers were in WW II and that colored the lives of a multitude of families, the way the Vietnam war did 25 years or so later.

It took the Vietnam war for many of us to understand that is was not improper to defy the powerful. As Bob Dylan sang back then, “The times, they are a changing.” Today, it often appears that very little authority remains in our society. I surely would not want to work in most public schools. Division Avenue High School was mostly a safe little island when we attended it.

What interests me more than nostalgia of the old days is the sociology of growing up in post-war Levittown. Most of us were naïve kids during our high school days, more interested in sock hops and football games than the dynamics that were going on, unbeknownst to us, in our community.

A lot of good students did not go to college right out of high school due to financial reasons. Many of the guys joined the military and eventually the G.I. Bill provided the money to secure a college education. Many of us earned degrees well after high school, plowing through courses at night after long days of work. Moms went to college after their children left the nest. Several of our teachers received their higher education because of the GI Bill.

One DAHS grad told me of getting together with a small group of friends around the time of a reunion in 2000. She said that everyone in that gathering had at least one alcoholic parent. Another classmate believes that many of our fathers died before what might have been projected because of the chemicals in the pesticides they used, much of which are now banned in the United States.

My dad, an avid gardener, was often up to his elbows in pesticides such as DDT and chlordane fighting off the Japanese beetles and other varmints in our yard. Those Levittown potato fields had good soil, although there was an infestation of something called nematodes. He died at age 73. Mom and dad loved their Camel cigarettes and cocktail time.

Few of their generation experienced any therapy or exercised at a gym. It would have been useful for many of the WWII veterans. Most of our mothers did not work and more than a few kept in shape walking to a Village Green for groceries. There were not a lot of two-car families in early Levittown. Before moving to Levittown, many did not own even a single automobile.

I wonder if any of us have both parents who are still living. To the best of my knowledge, my classmate Larry Bory's parents lived the longest from our group. Both were still alive five years ago when his mother passed on at age 89. His dad died last year at age 96. From what I have learned, almost all of the dads are gone.

It's interesting how many of us have moved to the Sunbelt, primarily to Florida. A small colony live in Southern California, mostly in the Los Angeles area. A large number are still in Levittown, which says something very positive about our old hometown.

I have identified only three members of the class of 1960 who have doctorates, Jeff Lincer, Toby Rutner and Ellen Rees. Since we attended a new high school, don’t you wonder if we got a good education? Where did these teachers come from?

Some of the best, including James Chenevey from the math department, left before we graduated. A few years ago, I called Mr. Chenevey to thank him for being the best teacher I ever had. He told me that he left because he couldn’t stand the department chairman. Fifty years later, some of the guys in our classes still lament the coaches who left, especially Floyd Kenyon from wrestling and the first football coach, Al Tarney. Richard Streb was another teacher who was popular, and also gone after a few years.

Two members of the class of 1960 were giants in rock and roll. Do a Google search to find out about Woodstock co-creator Artie Kornfeld, and the late Sterling Morrison, one of the founding members of the rock group The Velvet Underground.

My classmate Rich Humbert told me a few years ago that Sterling was the smartest person in our grade. I remember that while most of us carried around huge stacks of schoolbooks (this was before back packs), Sterling never seemed to have any. He didn’t need them, or maybe didn’t care. He was quite a character and more talented than we knew. Besides playing the guitar, Sterling was adept at making bombs.

According to Humbert,"In our Senior English Regents exam he wrote a perfect essay - no one wrote perfect essays - he deliberately made a stupid punctuation mistake and received a 99 on the test. I remember that whatever drone was teaching - and there were a few drones in a remarkable group of teachers - had his essay reviewed by most of the English department looking for a flaw. None was found."

I suspect that this blog will feature a variety of stories dealing with the sociology of early Levittown. Little has been written, as an internet search will prove. Gee, there I go again talking about the internet. How did we survive without it?

Division Avenue's teachers propelled Lou Kuhlman to an interesting life; several contributed to his awakening

Richard Keating taught English in the early years of the high school

By Lou Kuhlman, Class '60
I do not really remember much from high school, other than, in general, I wanted that period of my life to be over.

My second year of English 11 with Mr. Keating was very memorable and enlightening. During the year, the class had an assignment, to do a composition (though it may have been a literary essay, whatever that is) about how people "escape their hum-drum lives by reading romantic novels". When my composition was returned to me, it was more red than black, and had a note to see him about this. After a short talk I was told to do it over, incorporating his comments, which I did.

This second version was returned just slightly less red than the first. Again, I was instructed to do it over. Less red...do it again. This extra project went on forever. At the end, I had it both polished and memorized. A few months later I took the English 11 Regents test, my last hope for passing English 11 and graduating. Guess what? The composition portion of the test, worth something like 25-30% of the total score, was "How do people escape their hum-drum lives by reading romantic novels."

Jimmy Durante used to end his shows saying goodnight to Mrs. Calabash, a landlady who had helped him before he became a star. I would like to thank Mr. Keating "Where-ever he is" for his faith and help. You will always be remembered.

Another memorable teacher was Miss Eisenhauer. She somehow managed to get me to care enough about my upcoming multi-year Regents history test, to study. End result...I received the highest score in the school and was given a big hug...not a small thing in the "silent 60s". Again, she will always be very fondly remembered. Thank you Miss Eisenhauer for your faith. Up until that test, I had always just winged it on exams, assignments, or other projects. What I picked up by "attending" class is what I brought to any form of evaluation. Miss Eisenhauer showed me what I could achieve with a reasonable amount of effort.

I also remember a substitute teacher, Mrs. Fleckenstein, a stout woman worthy of her strong name. If I remember it right, she had survived 16 years of Catholic schools and was married to a lawyer. Whenever she taught a class, you learned something. I just loved it when someone would challenge her control of the class as often happened with subs.

There is a line from the movie "Pretty Woman", which perfectly describes this situation, "big mistake...huge". More often than not, the challenger would be escorted outside, and after some banging of locker doors and other unpleasant sounding noises, she would bring a different person back into the room, and the class would resume. Thank you Mrs. Fleckenstein, you did show me that right makes might. Society today would consider us unacceptable for not first considering the child's self image. A good self-image is not a birth right, it is earned.

Lastly, Mr. Simes. During my senior year trigonometry class he did his very best to get my attention and have me do what he wanted me to do. What he did not understand was that I was working on a system to make a good living at the race track. Using statistics and probabilities I did come up with a betting system which would return about $10-15,000 per year. Not a bad income for 1960

Mr. Simes' method for getting my attention was to get face-to-face and yell at me. When he did this, I would mentally count up the people I knew who weighed over two hundred pounds. Mental counting results in a real distant look on the counter's face. This distant look just caused him to yell louder...and so it went. Supposedly, a good sign of insanity is when a person continues to do the exact same thing expecting a different result. He continued to yell and I continued to count. I must have been driving him crazy. Sorry about that Mr. Simes.

I can say this about trig, I remember all of the functions and use them often, so your yelling did hit something in my head before exiting out the other ear.

Overall, four years at Division Avenue High School in the late 1950s was a secure place in which those who wanted a good education could get one, and the real tough guys, the "hoods", were actually not that bad. If I had to do it all over again, I would.

After graduation I went to work at my uncle’s construction company, bought a 1957 Chevy convertible (wish I had it now) and started getting myself into various degrees of trouble. In 1962 I had a choice to make, buy a new Corvette and take over the company in few years, or join the new nuclear Navy and possibly do something with my life. I joined the Navy. During the remainder of the 1960s I married, had two beautiful daughters, and spent most of the second half of that decade under the surface of the north Atlantic.

In 1969 we left the Navy and went to Pittsburgh to establish a nuclear plant operators school at the Shippingport Nuclear Plant, the first commercial nuclear plant in the U.S. For the next 21 years I moved around the country, performing final design evaluations, and establishing the initial test program and operation of many nuclear plants. I retired in 1990 after spending the last 10 years at the Palo Verde nuclear station near Phoenix, the largest station in the U.S. From the first to the last, my career spanned the breadth of the first phase of our nuclear program.

After retirement I spent many great mornings poolside doing the paper/coffee routine. Afternoons were spent at the library researching recipes for dinner. Great life? Wrong! Retirement was boring and fattening. Started volunteering with Habitat for Humanity. Spent a year working with them almost full time, building six houses.

During this time, I met a fantastic woman. We spent a few years going out most every night learning/doing country dancing. I had never known a gal like this, a farmer’s daughter from North Dakota, but after two failed marriages, I was very, very skeptical.

At the start of 1995, I sold my Phoenix home and went looking for some property in the Blue Ridge Mountains. For six months, I drove all over those mountains looking at hundreds of towns and parcels of land, all the time thinking about my Phoenix dance partner. In July she came east to see what I had found. She was as excited as I was about it

In September we were married and moved into a 25 ft. travel trailer while we physically built our "perfect home". It took us 3 1/2 years to complete the place, which for us, is the ideal home. During this time the only complaints she ever made was when the trailer roof leaked and stained her good clothes.

Thank you Mr. Fricke for helping to mold my development

Long-time Division Avenue High School art teacher Harold Fricke

By Tom Paturzo Baker 1960
I can walk the halls of Division Avenue High School in my mind. The trips from one class to the other, not simply the floor plan, but also the teachers who taught the courses emerge in my memory. Occasionally, we encounter a teacher who literally sculptures our personality. This was case of my art teacher, a gentleman and scholar.

His class was a form of emotional therapy; he influenced my appreciation for the finer things in life. More importantly, he helped me understand myself. It was in his class that I formed a clay sculpture. Life is similar to sculpturing clay, as one peels off the layers to self and strives to declare a finished product.

At times, I would inflict my frustrations on the clay and later destroy my efforts. My art teacher would ask insightfully, “How are you feeling today.” On the day before wrestling matches, he would take away my project and lock it up securely. He would comment: “Tommy, just sit, otherwise, you’re are going to destroy your art project!”

He knew me better than I knew myself. Walking away to help other students, his words still echo in my mind. His understanding and compassion is the hallmark of a great teacher. I can remember him like it was yesterday, in his tailored suit, never a wrinkle, and a shade of Cary Grant in his walk and demeanor.

His class and that human sculpture helped me find the way that semester. The project was that of a muscular man; each deliberate touch peeled away the layers of my own feelings. I painted the sculpture black and posed him in a posture of shear desperation, head and eyes facing down.

Realizing later how people failed to achieve equality around the world, I understood how the clay sculpture not only reflected my struggle to become a person, but also the struggle of humanity.

Mr. Fricke was delighted with my final clay sculpture. I failed to appreciate the results and the artistic abstraction at the time. The prism of maturity and retrospective refection allows me to fully appreciate the essence of the meaning of the sculpture. Mr. Fricke molded my development and character, as I molded the clay. I am still in the process of creating my sculpture; however, today he would have his head up and eyes to the sky.

How some of us decided what language to take in high school

Mr. Kalinowski, French teacher extraordinaire

By Frank Barning '60
One of my biggest high-school decisions was which language to take: Spanish, French or Latin. I was not the kind of young man who asked others for advice, so as with many other choices in my young life, I had to wing it.

For those of us who thought they were college bound, a big deal in eighth grade was waiting to see if you had been selected to take a foreign language during our freshman year at Division Avenue High School. I expected to get good news, and being a planner, chose a language in advance.

These were my thought (at the time) on the three languages:

Latin…this was for the really smart kids people who would attend elite universities, so that left me out. Or guys headed to the priesthood. That left me out, too.

Spanish…this was the easiest of the three. Therefore it was for the marginal people on a college track. So that removed Espanol from my choices.

French…this was the language for those of us college-bound kids who were, intellectually, somewhere in the middle. So, this was my choice. And it helped that I liked Maurice Chevalier, Brigitte Bardot and French fries.

When ninth grade started, I was in a French class with some really smart kids. The brilliant Ellen Rees comes to mind. She is now Dr. Ellen Rees. Why wasn’t she taking Latin, I wondered?

That first day of freshman year, I was chatting with my friend Ira Selsky after school and asked how he like his classes. In my mind, Ira was as smart as Ellen Rees. Among other things he said, "Oh, Spanish is going to be fun." What the heck was Ira doing taking Spanish? He was probably taking that language because he was so bright. A distinguished attorney, Ira practiced in the Los Angeles area for decades and Spanish was certainly useful in daily life.

It turns out that I was naive for thinking such stupid things about choosing a language. I wonder how many other absolutely moronic conclusions I reached while at Division.

Actually, French was one of my favorite high-school classes. I took three years with a teacher with the least French name one could imagine, the now deceased Thaddeus Kalinowski. He had never been to France, much less Quebec, but the guy was a fine instructor.

Years later, we happened upon each other at Shea Stadium. Mr. K asked if I had taken French in college and he seemed quite please that I had taken two semesters at Hofstra and felt well prepared.

The memories of other DAHS grads follow:

Warren Zaretsky, 1960
I only remember that "someone" said "it's a good thing to take a foreign language." I don't remember who it was or if there was any social, cultural, political, or economic reasons given. It seems it was just a generally accepted idea, like you should eat your vegetables and you don't fart in crowded elevators (well, not out loud anyway).

The choices were Spanish and French and "everyone" said that Spanish was easier. I took Spanish in ninth grade with Mrs. Camiera, a no-nonsense, stern woman with a Castilian lithp. Nevertheless, I fooled around and barely managed a 65. The following year I took French (might as well try the only other option) with Thaddeus Kalinowski -- a bizarrely flamboyant, exuberantly nerdy "piece of work," in natty suits, blue and pink shirts and contrasting bow ties.

I remember him flitting around the room, pounding on students' desks and screaming into our faces, "If I came to your house and woke you up at 3 o'clock in the morning, could you give me the principle parts of the verb vouloire?"

Somehow I passed three years with him, and even a semester's worth in college, Subsequently, when I went to Paris, my 3 1/2 years of French was useless, while my 1-year of failed Spanish stood me in good stead in Spain.

Melissa Shaffer 1962
I chose French, I think because it seemed more intellectual, you know Descartes, etc. and of course for the appeal of French culture in general. Also took Spanish because I loved languages. Took Russian also in high school because it was unique at the time and that appealed to me. Was able to use all those languages - continued Russian in college, finally got to go to Paris, and have used my Spanish since I went into the Peace Corps in 1967. We have a large Latino population in Connecticut, so I get to use at least a little Spanish daily.

Bob Castro, 1960
I have only vague recollections of the foreign language selection process. It seems to me that the guidance counselors had input to this event. I believe that we were told that completion of a foreign language sequence would enhance our chances of college acceptance and that we would have to take a language in college anyway. So, it would be better to start now and make taking a language in college easier.

For me, the choice of a language was easy since my dad spoke fluent Spanish. It was with great regret that Senora Cameira failed the only two students in her Spanish 1 class that had a Spanish heritage; me and Louie Lopez. Summer school at Levittown Memorial was not on my original list of things to do that summer, but due to some "urging" from my parents it became my new priority.

I wound up taking three years of Spanish and did reasonably well, especially in the Regents exams. Maybe that was because I sat next to Renee Gordon.

Since we were the first class in the school, the administration was
probably "hawking" languages since they had to go out and hire language teachers for Spanish, Latin and French and I'm sure that they wanted to know that they could keep them busy.

Dewain Lanfear, 1960
The best I can recall (how's that for a disclaimer from someone not running for office), I was told that many colleges still required Latin as a prerequisite and that many also required a total of five years of language. Furthermore, German was for students who were going to major in math or science, French was for those aiming towards the humanities, and Spanish was for everyone else. Based on that I took three years of Latin and two years of French (doubled up my junior year).

However "bogus" the advice may have been, those choices were excellent ones for me. In 1967 I walked into a language proficiency test for my MA in English and after a two-week refresher in
French, sailed through the exam without a problem. Of course I was aided by the fact that the passage for translation was exactly on my thesis topic, but nevertheless, I believe my DAHS training prepared me
well for that test.

By the way, in college I took two years of Russian and retained nearly nothing. I really believe that nothing we ever learn is wasted.

Little boxes made of ticky-tacky and they all looked just the same

By Lillian Smith Handleman

In 1962, the year I graduated from Division Avenue High School, the cozy enclave of Levittown homes on eastern Long Island was rhapsodized by Malvina Reynolds, who described this post-war community of mass-produced houses in the lyrics of her song, Little Boxes:

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

That song may well describe the outward façade of Levitt homes constructed in the late 1940s with the box-like simplicity of a child’s drawing. There was a tiny Bendix washing machine off in the corner of the little kitchen studded with metal cabinets. Everything was miniature, like living in a snow globe. There was one small bathroom and two bedrooms off the living room with a window that overlooked a treeless view of a thousand other houses--just like the song described.

We didn’t know it then but that remarkable touchstone of modern suburbia was just the embryo of an era that would explode like a canon in so many different ways. And the nostalgic influence of those days would be felt years later, like a heartache.

But our community of little houses was so much more than just the superficial underpinnings of mortar and sheetrock. It was a symbol of our parents' security following the great depression of the 1930s and 1940s, and signified a certain upward mobility for them in an age of new prosperity. Despite the cold war that often had us hunkering under our school desks in preparation for an air raid, mostly we were the benefactors of an age of optimism where the hope and promise of a burgeoning economy took form in ways we couldn’t predict. It’s no wonder we look back in awe at the paradoxical simplicity of an era where the race for nuclear arms and outer space collided comet-like, smack onto the birth of Rock and Roll.

And at the heart of it all were those ticky-tacky houses we came home to every day after school, or at night after catching fireflies in the moonlight. They provided the warm comfort of radiant heat under tile floors on a cold winter’s day, and the feeling of safety despite the ever-present specter of political tension. Somehow, those houses blanketed us in the comfort of home and gave us our sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves.

My parents died a few years apart leaving me orphaned at 18, and my house on 17 Brook Lane was sold a few years later. But the events of those years are embedded like a memory chip, so vivid are they to this day. They say that we tend to romanticize the past, yet there was something patently romantic about that whole era. I yearn to return to it, if only briefly, to taste again the sweetness of a time that remains, somehow, timeless.

Photo of 17 Brook Lane in 2009 by Marilyn Monsrud Frese '63

Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds, YouTube Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_2lGkEU4X

Substitute teachers were at times harassed at Division Avenue; It was often cruel but 50 years later the residue is some wry humor

Frank Barning, 1960
Some of us guys were absolutely cruel to substitute teachers. It was an art form at Division Avenue High. One day, we had this prim and proper woman substituting in one of our classes. She was trying to hold a raucous group together and doing fairly well until Eddie Byrne started this slow, deep, penetrating laugh. He went on and on until the teacher, checking her class roster, politely asked, “Mr. Byrne, what is the problem?”

Without hesitation, Byrne replied, “Lady, you look just like an owl.”

The poor woman gathered her things together, put them in a briefcase, got up from her desk and started to cry. Also without hesitation, she opened the door and left the classroom. None of us ever saw her again at Division.

Byrne, known as Kookie (as in lend me your comb), a few years later went to prison for murdering his father in law in East Meadow. Maybe the owl lady got off easy.

I also remember the time that Bill Stanley raised his hand while a sub was teaching. "She looked at her chart of students and said, "Yes, Mr. Stanley." His reply, "It's 65 degrees in sunny WINS land." He was listening to a transistor radio and just had to share the news.

Tom Urban, 1960
I think most folks remember me as a cut-up/ buster in high school. I remember one very cute lady teacher (Ms. Duffy??) just out of college. She became a regular at DAHS.

I sat next to the windows on the Division Avenue (West) side of the building and they were open on a beautiful spring day. I noticed a pack of dogs chasing one female that was obviously in heat. I think there were three or four other wise guys near the window and we stood up and started clapping in unison and added a chant, Go! Go! Go! Go!

Our cute newbie teacher obviously was interested in all the fuss and walked back to the windows to check out the action ( two dogs locked in amorous embrace). She turned purple with embarrassment and with a slight tremble in her voice, asked us to sit down right now!

The class erupted.

Rich Humbert, 1960
One substitute calling attendance pronounced Raymond Wenz's name as Raymond Wang...you can imagine how that was received.

Also a substitute called Mrs. Kling had similar control problems and lost it when someone wrote on the board "KLING KONG"

One more is Mrs. Fleckenstein who tolerated no foolishness in true Teutonic style. She just needed a helmet with horns. She was armed with a ruler she applied liberally.

We were cruel. I substitute taught high school math for a semester a few years back and in doing so got paybacks for my little cruelties.

Bob Castro, 1960
Since we had developed the reputation as being rather tough on substitutes in general, one time they sent Al Tarney, who was an English teacher by trade, but they knew that nobody would screw with him.

He assessed the situation and immediately gave everyone a study hall, but all those who didn't want one (basically all the guys) were invited to come up to the front of the room and talk football until the end of the period. I also remember going through two substitutes one time before the third finally got control of the situation.

Warren Zaretsky, 1960
There was this particularly nerdy substitute teacher and he was a pain in the ass monitoring us at lunch. At the table were Jim Healy ("the instigator"), Arnie Mark (Jim's co-conspirator), Tom Marshlevski, Pete Cybriwsky, Richie Glaski, Tom Paturzo and me. Jim and Arnie bet me $10 that I wouldn't hit the sub with a container of milk. I timed it perfectly to when he was in the doorway under the clock, tossed the container to hit the wall just above him, and splatt... it rained the milk down upon his head.

The entire table was taken to assistant principal Aiello's office. After much conversation, I thought I would be clever and said: "Well, Mr. Aiello, if what you need is a scapegoat, rather than punish all of us, I'll say that I did it." Whereupon, my thick-headed, slow-witted, save their own ass "friends" all chimed in with various versions of "that's right he did it" ... "glad you admitted it, Warren".

I got suspended for a day, Jim Healy got rich instigating people to invest in the stock market, I heard that Arnie Mark co-owns a bar, they still owe me the $10.

Pete Weiss, 1963
I don't have anything on substitute teachers, but I remember one incident with a student teacher. It was senior year and the class was "Cit. Ed." - American history - and the teacher was Richard Erbacher.

Erbacher was a good teacher, well-respected, but was not the most masculine in his mannerisms and voice. Some may have speculated about his orientation, but I don't remember it ever being discussed.

In one class during which the male student teacher (name not remembered) was present, at some point Erbacher must have brushed against the chalk shelf of the blackboard or dropped an eraser, as there was a large patch of chalk dust on one of the legs of his dark suit pants. One of the students said, "Mr. Erbacher, what's that on your pants?" Before he could reply, I shouted out, "He dropped his powder puff."

The class went nuts, the poor student teacher groaned and buried his face in his hands, while Erbacher came over to me, grabbed me by the shirt collar and marched me out into the hall. He backed me up against the lockers, kept poking his finger into my chest to punctuate his tirade, delivered in a loud stage whisper, about disrupting the class, especially with a student teacher present, etc. but - he was laughing the whole time.

The weird thing is I really liked Erbacher (no, not like THAT) and to this day don't know why I did what I did.

Jon Buller, 1961
Once, when we had gotten advance notice that a substitute teacher would be coming to one of our classes, I made it a point to get to the class as soon as I could. The sub was not yet there, and I drew a small picture on the blackboard of a sinking submarine. I think this served as a silent rallying cry for the class, and we were especially badly behaved.

At one point the sub got so irritated that she said, “Have you ever seen someone livid with rage?” This was met with a big outburst of laughter. Then she slowly turned towards the blackboard and looked at the sinking sub. “Oh, I get it!” she said.

Now I sometimes teach after-school classes in cartooning to kids. When they misbehave I sometimes feel that I am getting paid back for my sins when I was their age.

Cartoon by Jon Buller

Wally Linder's favorite Gladys Eisenhauer stories; she was never the same after a field trip to the Museum of Natural History

I was in the class of 1961 and Miss Gladys Eisenhauer was a very popular citizenship education teacher. She drove a big, new, expensive, gigantic, light-green car (Bonneville, I think). It was the kind of car that folks in Levittown just did not have. The trunk was as big as a queen-size bed. I suffer from CRS, and for the life of me, I don't understand how I can remember that. I think I was in love with her, and her car.

In the summer and fall of 1960, the presidential election race was hot and heavy. JFK debated Nixon on TV, and everyone watched. The difference between the two men seemed like the beginning of a new era. I was interested in politics for the first time in my life. I remember driving "The" 54 Chevy out to the end of the earth, Port Jefferson, to see and hear JFK. We stayed up all night in John Fitzsimmons’ living room to hear the election results.

Before the election, Miss Eisenhauer told us that she could not vote for JFK. She went on to say that she thought that JFK was the best candidate, but she had a big problem with, and fear of, LBJ. She told us that according to the "Historical Time Table," JFK would die in office. She really believed that voting for JFK would make LBJ President, and she was sincerely afraid of LBJ becoming president. Everyone thought she was nuts.

Right after the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK said "do for your country," and I did. I was in the Navy “seeing the world" in Millington Tennessee, when Miss Eisenhauer's prediction came true. I had not thought of what she had said, until that day - Nov. 22, 1963. I've thought about Miss Eisenhauer, every November 22nd since.

We went to the Museum of Natural History with Miss Eisenhauer. I think that was our senior trip. The poor woman, was never the same after that outing. I remember her, red complexioned and angry as hell (she was actually shaking), telling our class that Division Avenue High School had been banned from the Museum for all eternity, because of the behavior of its students. Something about mummies being disturbed. Because there was an outstanding invitation to her Old Westbury home, she still had a graduation party. We went, but things were never the same.

* * * *
It appears that Miss Eisenhauer left DAHS after 1961. Could you really blame the lady? Her photo does not appear in a yearbook after Wally Linder's class graduated.

Windy Levittown and the Hempstead Plains, a history lesson

By Frank Barning, 1960
Walking to school in Levittown in the winter was often an unpleasant experience because of the chilling wind. I often encountered the same phenomenon while attending Hofstra, walking from my car to a classroom building, or between classes.

Much of Levittown and Hofstra are situated on the Hempstead Plains.
According to Wikipedia, "The Hempstead Plains is a region of central Long Island in New York State in what is now Nassau County. It was once an open expanse of native grassland estimated to once extend to about 60,000 acres. It was separated from the North Shore of Long Island by the Harbor Hill Morraine, later approximately the route of Route 25. The modern Hempstead Turnpike approximately traces the separation of the plain from the South Shore of Long Island. The east-west extent was from somewhat west of the modern Queens, New York City border to slightly beyond the Suffolk County border.

"The township of Hempstead, now America's most populous civil township, was first settled by Europeans around 1644. Although the settlers were from the English colony of Connecticut, a patent was issued by Dutch New Amsterdam after the settlers had purchased land from the local Native Americans. The town may have been named for either Hemel Hempstead, England or the city of Heemstede in North Holland.

"In early US history, the Hempstead Plains region was cited as one of the few natural prairies east of the Allegheny Mountains. Long Island historians George Dade and Frank Strand wrote that it was created by an outwash of glacial sediment more than ten thousand years ago. The result was vast, flat open land."

The Barning family moved to the prairie of Nassau County, Levittown, in late 1954 and it was a few years before dad installed an air conditioner. We suffered through many hot, sticky summer nights but that was somewhat alleviated when a "breezeway" was installed between our house and garage.

We had an oversized corner lot, at the intersection of Hyacinth Road and Primrose Lane, not far from Newbridge Road. The breezeway featured Florida window (jalousies) that could be cranked open to allows the zephyrs from the Hempstead Plains to provide nature's air conditioning. Quite often I slept on a couch out there, plus is was a fine place to entertain friends Bob Castro, John Koehler and Mal Karman when we played a baseball board game called APBA.

The attached photo, from 2009, shows the breezeway at 10 Hyacinth Road. The house was sold more than 40 years ago, but is still providing a cool Hempstead Plains zephyr to its owners.

According to Wikipedia, "The last remaining few acres of untouched Hempstead Plains ground are thought to exist near Nassau Community College and in Eisenhower Park. The plains stretched east to the Suffolk County border. There are several acres of plains remaining in Plainview. The existing area was originally slated to be an extension of the Bethpage State Parkway, the proposed extension never came to be and the land was never developed."

Photo by Marilyn Monsrud Frese '63

Bob Castro's driver ed. memories: Look out Mr. Peyton!

My recollection of learning how to drive, and what led up to it, brought a smile to my face recently. As most of us will remember, when we were in school virtually all transportation was by foot, with sporadic parental motorized intervention.

In our senior year some of the class of 1960 were lucky enough to convince their parents to let them use the family car or to buy their own. Or if your father wasn't too keen on the idea of letting you drive the family sedan, one might release the brake of the aforementioned sedan after the rest of the family was asleep, roll it back down the driveway (with the help of similarly auto deprived friends) and push it down the block before starting it.

Then there was the inevitable scrounging for "pocket change" among the passengers so that we could put enough gas in the tank (at about $0.26 per gallon) for the evening's festivities, and still leave enough in the tank so that it wasn't apparent that it had been driven. My classmate, Jim Merry, was a specialist at this, and I often wondered what his dad (who I think was in the Air Force) would have done to him if he were caught borrowing the family car. My dad was rather strict and I figured that just for being a willing participant and passenger, I was flirting with something between being sent to military school and death. And those were the good options. With Jim's dad, who knew what could happen.

So it was with great relief that John Koehler, one of my three closest friends at DAHS, got a '49 Chevy that we could get a lift to school in and bomb around in on weekends. I used this fact as a wedge when I approached my dad about driving. Additionally, my dad was getting tired of driving me around to my part-time jobs, the first of which was as a ride operator at Nunley's Happyland on Hempstead Turnpike.

When I asked him if I could take Driver Ed. (with Mr. Peyton), he agreed without even the smallest bit of resistance. I was one of Mr. Peyton's prize driving students and he often marveled at my ease and familiarity behind the wheel of the Driver Ed. car. He once remarked to the other three occupants of the car (much to my embarrassment) that "he would feel safe sitting on the hood of the car" while I was driving. I didn't have the heart (the guts really) to tell him about the amount of "unauthorized" practice I'd had. I completed Driver Ed. and received my junior license and that valuable "blue card" which allowed you to drive after dark without another licensed driver in the car.

Several months after getting my blue card, I was allowed to use my mother’s car, a 1954 Mercury convertible after school. One of my first solo driving experiences became what could charitably be called "a close encounter". I was rushing (I was always late for something) to see a Blue Dragons baseball game and came into the parking lot near the ball field (behind the metal shop) at a "brisk" pace. I wanted to see John Koehler pitch, especially since he didn't pitch that often and I couldn't hit him at all when we played stickball. The battery that day turned out to be Gary Parker and Artie Dewain Lanfear. But, I digress.

The parking lot was small and crowded, but I spotted an empty space, probably recently vacated by a departing teacher. I pulled the car into the space at about 20 mph, without ever giving the brakes a serious thought. Unfortunately, what I had not seen was another teacher bent over, getting into his car. I "panic braked" the car amid the head turning screeching of tires, but I managed to miss him, his car and every other solid object in the vicinity. Is there anyone out there who has not figured out yet who the teacher was?

The look Mr. Peyton gave me as he exited the car was one that I've not forgotten to this day. Yes, my life as a free teenager flashed before my eyes, and yes, there was an animated lecture and yes, there was the threat of "recalling" my blue card, but worse than that was the realization that I'd almost hit him. And, I took major grief for month's to come from the friends who were at the game. "Nice play Shakespeare" and "cool maneuver, pal" are two of the printable comments that had to be endured.

Speaking of Shakespeare, "all's well that ends well", as no other punitive actions were taken by Mr. Peyton, after much pleading and promising on my part. And, my Mom eventually sold the car to me because I had demonstrated such a serious attitude towards driving. I'm sure that I was not the only "Rebel without a cause" driver out there during our DAHS years.

John Kinstrey's memories of moving from the city to Levittown

John Kinstrey and his son JJ in 1990

By John Kinstrey '61

When I first came out to the island from The Bronx, Tom Baker - then Tommy Paturzo - was hangin' with Louis Lopez, Steve Mohr, Richie Ostrowski, Johnny O'Brien (Louis' cousin) and a kid named Pierre Woog who had a fox of a sister named Nikki. They were all in the 5th grade, Nikki was in the 7th.

Unfortunately, I was in the 4th and at that stage of life the "big, country kids" didn't relish having to drag some "younger city kid" around with them. But, Steve Mohr's folks (Uncle Charlie and Aunt Ethel) and my folks had been friends since before WWII and, I guess, due to parental pressure, he was told to take care of his "cousin". At least until I could swim and find my way back from the West Village Green pool by myself.

These "country" kids knew some neat stuff. We would take sewing thread spools with a rubber band over the end and shoot the old wooden, light-on-anything, stick matches at each other as we ran down the street setting peoples yards on fire with any match you couldn't manage to get into somebody's pocket or at least launch into their hair. We created these medieval carpet guns out of a piece of wood from an old orange crate, a rubber band, a bottle cap and a clothes pin. We could shoot one-inch pieces of linoleum at a thousand feet per second at each other - long before OSHA required safety glasses. Pete Smith, whose dad managed a drive-in movie, had potatoes and tomatoes growing behind his house on the Old Motor Parkway right-of-way. Ate them raw with some salt. Wow, this "country stuff" was cool.

Anyway, within my first week in town, this Ostrowski guy thought he could pick on me and face no retribution whatsoever - he thought. Enter Tommy Paturzo. Whatever Tommy said to him worked. At that stage of our lives, Tommy was the only one who even had biceps, much the less the 18 inchers. In any event, the Big "O" never laid a hand on me again. That was the first time Tommy had saved me. Once I got into the 4th grade crowd, Tommy and I only said “hey” every so often. That was the way it went for the duration of our school years.

Fast forward to 1978. I was, at that time, the Operations Officer for the 5th Training Brigade, Fort Dix, New Jersey. A former special forces captain, on the list for major, I was completely out of my element. The Army had just moved all the mechanics and truck driver training programs to us from Fort Jackson and Fort Knox, and I knew nothing about either of those specialties. In addition, we had to integrate female trainees into a facility which, until then, had been an infantry training environment, hence, all male. My boss tells me, on top of all the other things I had to do, to develop a Sexual Harassment/Rape Crisis Program. Sure. Ouch!

Then, my civilian admin person tells me - the last words an active duty guy wants to hear on a crazy, busy Monday morning - "Sir, you've got a reserve captain coming in next week for two weeks active duty." Great. Just friggin' great. Some frumpleman reservist, probably wearing a wig to cover up his ponytail (which was OK back then). "Send him to the motor pool and let him count truck parts. That should take up at least 14 days."

So a week later into my office comes this Army reserve captain, looking sharp as a tack in his short sleeve summer tan uniform; creases perfect, medals and ribbons aligned and with, what appeared to be, 20-inch biceps. The name tag above his right pocket said BAKER. He stopped three feet in front of my desk - I thought he was going to salute but there was no time... eye contact was made and it was "TOMMY!" ... "JOHNNY!" That's what they called me in the 4th grade.

The folks in the outer office must have thought it was a fist fight. We talked. Closed the years' gap. As it turned out, Captain Tom Baker had been involved in developing the same programs while formerly a police officer in Virginia Beach. But now he's a professor of sociology at the University of Scranton, and says he'd be happy to help me out. No parts counting for Captain Tom. No Sir! Tommy had saved me the second time and I would be forever grateful. As it turned out, the final document became a model for other installations Army-wide as the male/female specialties merged at an increasing rate.

Before Tom left Fort Dix to return to his professorial chores, my wife (Sharon) and I had the opportunity to have dinner with he and his lovely wife Jane at the McGuire AFB Officer's Club. For dessert we had about four inches of rain in 20 minutes. McGuire AFB has a two-mile runway, a gazillion feet wide, and a like number of taxi ways. Concrete everywhere. With no place to go, the rain became rivers. The rivers lakes. As we tried to negotiate this unrelenting deluge, it was apparent we were doomed. A missed turn into a dark warehouse complex turned out to be our only salvation. We drove up onto one of the loading docks and waited out the storm. I know Tom and Jane get a kick out of this memory.

John Kinstrey is retired and lives in North Carolina. He and Sharon have been married 35 years and have a daughter, a son and a pair of grandkids.