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01/26/10 12:00 AM #401    

Louise Perelman (Perkins) (1965)

Wow - hearing about all that snow..should make me home sick but sitting here in Arizona..not so much. I do miss the food and the fact the sidewalks don't get folded in by 1:00AM. Guess there's always a trade off.Love reading all the posts about the neighborhood and the stuff we used to do

01/26/10 08:23 AM #402    

Mark Sokoloff (1965)

Gary is correct! There was a Charlie and he worked the Rising Sun place. Also, there was Charlie's brother Vince. He and Vince had a falling out and Vince opened a place on Grant Ave. in the Northeast. It's the same product, and it is still there.

02/08/10 02:34 PM #403    

Ann Chopinsky (Goldberg) (1964)

Hi Ron,

I grew up on the 5100 block of Whitaker Avenue and am one of those people who always believed we lived in Feltonville. I always forget to check this site so I just had a chance to view your photos and wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed them.

02/19/10 11:00 PM #404    

H Lewis Rothstein (1965)

I would be interested in information on the 1965 reunion. my e mail is hlewisr@gmail.com.

Lewis Rothstein

02/27/10 07:04 AM #405    

 

Ron Gusoff (1970)

People get ready there is a reunion a coming. You need a ticket to get on board. June 12, 2010. Register for the reunion on this site or Send Gary Lassin a E mail to share in the fun!!!!!!!!!!

03/18/10 09:18 PM #406    

Stewart Mash (1966)

Ron- Saw your post of 12/20/09

Who knows the history of Charlie’s Pizzeria?

State Representative Bill Rieger's wife was Charlie's daughter. Vince of Vince's Pizzeria on Grant Ave. was a cousin. I think that Rieger's son owns the place now, he is an attorney. The people working there are all related.

04/06/10 12:48 PM #407    

Eileen Somers (Di Nisio) (1972)

i remember going to Charlies on the blvd since kindergarden . the number was and still is 610-PI4- 3249 Amaizing what u remember. when we come in we stillget pizzathere
. great memories going with my friends on friday or sat night

05/25/10 03:13 PM #408    

Gail Brouse (Ellis) (1965)

Hi,

 

I think I have the definitive scoop on Charlies.  As one of the kids who lived "across the boulevard" I walked by the location where Charlies was to open every day.  As you will recall, Casey the Cop always made sure that we made it across safely.

On the afternoon of the day of Charlies grand opening, I was walking by with either Marcia Yonkovitz or Judy Katz, when we stopped to see if the pizzeria was open yet.  Casey the Cop was there too.  The front door was open so we went inside.  Casey introduced us to the people behind the counter.  The man in charge (not sure if it was actually Charlie), said that we were the first official customers, and that we should come back that night for a free pizza.  Needless to say, we were thrilled.

Well we went back that night, and sure enough they gave us a big, beautiful, pepparoni pizza.  Since neither of us had ever had a "real" pizza before, we were not sure what to do.  The waitress told us to put "shaky" cheese on it and also some hot peppers.  We proceeded to shake hot peppers all over the pizza.  Well you can imagine what happened.  Our mouths were on fire - I thought my head was going to blow clean off my shoulders.  We could not drink enough water.  We made multiple trips to the bathroom were we proceeded to use toilet paper to wipe out our mouths.  We totally ruined what would have been the best pizza in the world, sans hot peppers.

Fortunately, I learned how to eat pizza and wish I had a dollar for every wonderful slice of pizza I had from Charlies.  I wish I could join you all for Charlies night before the reunion.  Enjoy - but beware of the jar of hot peppers!!

 

Gail


06/12/10 12:25 PM #409    

Linda Silver (Lee) (1966)

 i'm so excited, we're all going to see each other tonight!!!! can't wait


06/12/10 03:17 PM #410    

 

Ron Gusoff (1970)

Looking forward to seeing every one tonight


06/13/10 07:35 AM #411    

David Fine (1966)

Well for a few hours the world went back to a simplier time. It was like time had stopped and we were back to the sixties. Last night's reunion was one great time had by all. For thoses that did not come, you missed a beautiful few hours remembering all of the great people and happenings from F & Blvd.

Thanks to Gary and the commitee for putting this together

When is the next reunion ?????????

Great seeing everyone and no one looked older than 18

David Fine

Class of 66


06/13/10 12:03 PM #412    

Linda Silver (Lee) (1966)

 that was the best reunion i have ever been to thank you gary!!!


06/14/10 07:50 PM #413    

Eric Weitz (1970)

I've been to a couple of High School and College reunions.  None matched this.  These are the people we grew up with.  It was home


06/14/10 08:07 PM #414    

 

Ron Gusoff (1970)

I am most happy that the reunion was so well received. The most important thing to the committee was that people have a good time.  It looks like we did that.......


06/15/10 08:17 PM #415    

Les Bernstein (1969)

 

What an awsome night! Great job & thanks to Gary & the committee for creating & organizing the reunion. It was hard to catch up so many years, with so many people, however it was wonderful seeing people that I hadn't seen in 45 years or so.

It was fun reminiscing & hearing some of the old stories that I had forgotten about.

Great night.

 

 


12/14/10 06:24 AM #416    

Bobby Campbell (1970)

Just sitting here thinking of our truly unique slice of life.  For a neighborhood of all row houses with no playgounds we sure played a lot of sports.  What we could do with a simple ball!! stickball, halfball, stepball, spongeball, kickball, wireball, wiffleball, handball, boxball and the truly bizarre hoseball.We created our own baseball field behind pennway where legends were born for those who could hit it over the tracks(it was'nt easy).  Where a ball hit in pop Kamen's garden would never come back.  Where baseballs lasted even after the covers came off (good ol' tape).  A truly multipurpose field which converted to tackle football when the leaves changed colors. The whitaker vs. pennway battles where Guy Sepielli would drag a bunch of us down the field holding on for dear life.  We staged epic touch football games on whitaker playing telly to telly curb to curb with cars inbounds(ouch) with marshall, skipper and anyone else good enough to be picked by the older kids.  When it got colder we switched to basketball on our homemade backboards and played all day and into the night until the neighbors complained.  We were strictly a three sport neighborhood(no soccer no tennis) with rigid guidelines on what time of year they were played.  There was no such thing as playdates, we were expected to be out all day unsupervised till it was time for dinner.  I don't recall anyone being molested .  The only thing that freaked us out was "crazy Dave" but he turned out to be harmless. We could roam the woods with no fear, cross the trestle if brave enough.  We sledded anywhere there was an incline, ice skated when the creek froze over.  Occasionally we would venture to the "rec" where we were pretty much hated but that did'nt stop us.  Yeah , those were the Days.


12/25/10 05:20 PM #417    

 

Annie Levy (Flynn) (1970)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A WONDERFUL, HAPPY, AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR.


06/01/11 11:04 PM #418    

Mimi Figlin (1967)

Old lady Whitaker used to ask for a trick on Halloween, of which I remember being scared out of my mind approaching her "mansion" door. The Mill had a very cool downhill sled run where my first collision took place, called Suicide Hill? Oh I remember.


01/06/12 07:08 AM #419    

David Fine (1966)

This was an article that appeared on Jan5th It is Ernie Gross from Ernie's Deli and R&W

 

Holocaust survivor inspires rotary club

Updated: 6:27 am, Thu Jan 5, 2012.

 

Ernest Gross was 15 when he saw his parents and most of his siblings ripped from him forever.

Herded out of a train crammed with men, women and crying children, Ernest came face to face with the S.S. officers of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. As they separated his mother, father and younger siblings into a line that led to an extermination area, a fellow prisoner quietly told the teenager that he should lie about his age.

“An officer came up to me, asked me how old I was. I said I was 17. He asked me again. I said with force that I was 17, and he told me to get in the other line. If he hadn’t believed me, I would have gone with most of my family to my death. They kept me because they thought I was old enough to work,” said Gross.

So began a nightmarish 11 months of near-starvation, back-breaking work and beatings as Gross was shuttled to various concentration camps. He narrowly managed to cheat death on more than one occasion during the Holocaust. Today, he’s an 83-year-old grandfather and a resident of Philadelphia.

Gross’ stories and good humor in the face of tragic memories impressed several dozen members of the Huntingdon Valley-Southampton Rotary Club on Wednesday evening. They invited Gross to speak during a club dinner at Bertucci’s Italian Restaurant on County Line Road.

Born in Romania, Gross and his family were deported to a ghetto in Hungary while he was still a boy in school. Life became progressively more difficult, as more families were squeezed into a small living space and found less and less to eat.

After the ride to Auschwitz in a train that allowed only standing room, he joined hundreds of prisoners, including some of his own relatives, in forced labor at a series of camps, where each man and woman slept constantly out of exhaustion or scrounged for an extra morsel of food when they weren’t working. He learned quickly that there was only one way to survive.

“You had to learn fast to be selfish. You help others, give someone else your piece of bread, you could die,” he said.

It was a bitter truth. One day he asked his cousin, who was sleeping in another barracks, to share only the skin of his potato. His cousin thought about it for a bit, then told him no.

Pulling out a small blue pail, Gross described the prisoners’ daily rations.

“Everyone was given one of these. You had to hold on to them, because it was what they dropped your food in. A little coffee in the morning, a piece of bread or some soup or a potato,” he said.

Gross held up a hard, dark brown loaf of bread, about 10 inches by 4 inches, typical of the bread he was given, to be shared with eight other people.

“One of the reasons I survived was because I learned to get an extra piece of bread,” he said.

Gross and other prisoners were beaten nearly every day.

“But your body got so numb that you didn’t feel it. They gave us work that felt like our bones would break. One day, we had to unload bags of cement and carry them to a truck. All day long,” he recalled.

Finally, Gross reached his breaking point. Reduced to mere skin and bones, and barely able even to walk, he was carted off to Dachau to be exterminated on April 29, 1945.

When he arrived there, he waited with other prisoners in line and saw the ovens. He knew it was the end, but he didn’t have the energy to care anymore.

Suddenly, Gross saw the German guards throwing down their guns. People started screaming that the Americans had come. It was unbelievable, but American soldiers had arrived to liberate Dachau, he said. He was taken to a sanatorium to recover.

In 1947, a social worker placed Gross with a family in New York, where he restarted his life, though he didn’t know a word of English.

“Today, I’m a very happy man. I go to synagogue seven days a week,” he said. He got married, had children, and eventually owned several food stores before retiring. He talked about his two wives, both of whom have died, with affection.

More than 60 years after the liberation, Gross found one of the American soldiers who rescued him. Meeting the man again was amazing, and now they are friends, he said. One of Gross’ older brothers also survived and found him shortly after the liberation. Gross later revisited Dachau, now a museum site, where he showed his second wife exactly where he had been standing on the day he was supposed to die.

Every time Gross talks about his experiences under Nazi rule, he can see the scenes come alive again in his mind. But, despite losing nearly his entire family, he’s learned to let go of anger and despair.

“When I feel the memories start to come into my mind, I cut them off. I also try to use humor to keep me going,” he said.

He’s eager to speak to people about it, so that his experiences aren’t forgotten.

“These young people here, they can tell their children about it,” he said, pointing out the younger people sitting at the tables, listening in rapt attention.

Sarah Goetz of Jamison, 18, said she was especially interested to hear that Gross isn’t holding onto anger.

“I don’t know how I’d feel, if I went through what he did,” she said. She was inspired to learn that Gross has chosen to focus on the good parts of his life while being able to talk candidly about his suffering. The daughter of a rotary club member and the relative of another concentration camp survivor, she attended because she wanted to hear a survivor’s story.

“I visited Dachau last summer,” she said. “I like hearing the personal stories that connect with the general history we learn in school. You hear what it was like from getting up in the morning to going to bed. The cold hard facts.”


10/26/13 07:48 AM #420    

Elliot Miller (1966)

Creighton Class of 1962 will be visiting Creighton on Tuesday, November 12, 2013 at 9:00 am.

We recommend you park in the old Sear lot near the Old Navy as there is limited street parking available.

Please RSVP if you will be attending.

 

Elliot Miller

 

elliot225@gmail.com

 

 


10/28/13 07:03 AM #421    

David Fine (1966)

Hello Elliot

See you in Nov

 

David


03/15/16 05:24 PM #422    

David Fine (1966)

We lost a dear friend today March 15, 2016 , Alan Cissorsky  I have known Z for almost 60 years and his passing on is devastating. He was a true friend and a person with a good heart

He will be missed but not forgotten

 

David Fine


10/23/16 04:45 PM #423    

David Fine (1966)

Attended Olney High Class of 66 reunion in Phila yesterday afternoon (Embassy Suites Airport). Over 180 grads attended, we had a classmate come from Alaska. It was like being in a time warp to see some classmates even going back to my early years at Creighton (50's). Reunion committee did a great job in putting this all together. Even had a large cadboard cut out pic of Marion Stuart

David Fine


12/06/17 04:54 PM #424    

Marcy Lapinson (Silverman) (1969)

Hi All,

I want to encourage everyone who lived and loved and made great friends and great memories to join the

F & The Blvd gang for an awesome reunion.

I am so excited about seeing everyone after 40+ years.  The more the merrier!

"To live a life fulfilled reflects on the things you have with gratitude"

Friends, that started when we were kids!

Good Wishes for a great Holiday,

Marcy Lapinson Silverman

 


01/06/18 02:37 PM #425    

Irv Sankey (1969)

Hello Everyone!

On behalf on the Reunion 2018 Commitee, I am happy to say that we have an exciting weekend set to go at the Event Hotel.

Plans include a possible Happy Hour and a Breakfast buffet (not included in the Event Registration).  So please consider joining us this June.

Your friend,

Irv Sankey


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