Gale Smith

Hi Jennifer; I want to wish you a very Happy Birthday!!! From Steve and I, Like you said none of us know how long we have here. I was diagnosed  with cancer about three years and so far has not come back from an  early diagnosis.

Jennifer Runyon

Oh Gale.  Thank you for the birthday wishes.  My heart sank when I read about your diagnosis.  I had no idea.  I will be praying for your continued clean bill of health and am so pleased to hear that your condition has not returned.  Gale, you will always have a very special place in my heart.  I know some, not all, of the trials you  have faced in your life's journey.  Life passes us by so quickly and if we never share our heart and feelings, who will benefit?  Pass on my love to Steve and tell him to take good care of you.  I know you all are going through another hot spell in Arizona, but you are probably used to that by now.  Stay in touch.

Jen

Jon Bittinger

The recent All-Class Reunion (as opposed to an All-Class Runyon, sorry, just struck me as funny)...was great time...maybe DJ a Brown can post a few photos from the event.? She and Peggy Major gave the deal a great start...for me and Burley...

Dwight Davis, Tom Bateman & Dick Close were surprises to me...

Happy Birthday to All...certainly a wish for good health to All...may continued reconnections occur...

Delores Brown (Gardner )

LOTS of fun!!!   I didn't know what to expect, for I had heard several differing opinions about the All Class Reunion, but we had such a blast!!!  We started out at 5:30'ish and kept making rounds and seeing more and more people we knew from not only our class, but all the ones around us..  Scott and Mike, it was fun hanging with you guys for awhile!   Even with the rain showers, it was just FUN!  Rumor has it we may be having a 45th next year for our class only - something on the casual side, so stay tuned....  :-)

Photos posted on site...

Juliana Savino

45th! Maybe it better be held at the Nat History museum! Jon, luvved "all class Runyon", touché.

Jon Bittinger

DJ...overall...great time...but would've been nice to see a few more '71'ers...then again, next year, eh..?!

Julie, thanks for the acknowledgement...I've always appreciated humor to bridge certain gaps...especially tough or painful times. I've heard it said that mostif not all humor is rooted in truth...and so, exposes the differences (& similarities, too)...of our mutual/shared existences. I gravitate to the basics...as I could never "tell a joke" (it's pitiful to hear me try, my Dad was even less endowed so it's an inherited thing)...I more play on words or situations (ask my dear friend & longtime neighbor, Linda Rowan)...and, as you've been most kind to note...I can dish out more CORN than Del Monte... Like many traits...a blessing and a curse...

See you all next year..? I hope, pray and encourage...

Scott (aka, Jon)

Delores Brown (Gardner )

Agreed, more classmates would have been more fun, but it was satisfying that night anyway..   I had a full fill-your-heart weekend of All Class, then a cousins'' reunion, then reuniting with some friends I hadn't seen in 30 years, so I was happy.

And, um...  I heard the story from Linda..... :-)    You're bad.......  haha

Take care, happy rest of the summer!

dj

Juliana Savino

Jon, I will make it a point not to be in Paris. Re: humor, I come from a family who lives to crack one another up.

Juliana Savino

DJ, what great photos of familiar faces.  You have the exact smile I remember. Put me down for the 45th.

Jennifer Runyon

Happy belated birthday Art.  Hope you had a great birthday surrounded by family and friends, with lots of laughter and joy.  As you get older (notice, I said YOU), family and friends become more precious and can be a real help.  Hope your birthday cake didn't collapse from all those candles (lol).  Have a wonderful day.

Jen

Steven Rowsey

Juliana,

I enjoyed your posting on Cleveland.com in regard to the shiny "C"  artwork on the North lawn at the Cleveland Museum of Art. I touch the "rocks" every change I get, at least the whale, which is my favorite. Can't wait to see the "C".

The tent from Iran is displayed in the most wonderful way--you can walk under it and be inside--what a sensation.  As close to touching as you can get!

Steve

Juliana Savino

Hi, Steve, thank you for your kind remark. I forgot about the tent, I'd better go check that out.
How are you doing?


 

Arthur Rohlik

Jen,

Thank you for the birthday wishes. Our birthdays were celebrated well. By "we" I mean Marcia and I. Our birthdays are 7 days apart and we mark them with friends and music and laughs and food on whatever weekend works out the best. It was a good day. Doc 

Jennifer Runyon

Hi Kathy Paukert.  I just wanted to wish you a very happy birthday today.  I hope you have a wonderful day, surrounded by family and friends, filled with love, joy and peace.  Eat lots of cake (ok, maybe just a little) nad have fun.  God bless,

Jen Runyon

Jennifer Runyon

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ALL OCTOBER CLASSMATES!

John Nobu Naylor (Akagi)

Aloha everyone. Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hauoli Makahiki Hou! (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!)  I'm enjoying my winter break from teaching (actually counseling now), and am looking forward to retirement in the worst way. I know I was not a model student, but these kids today are a different breed compared to our days at Berea. I was telling my class about how I was paddled by a teacher for chewing gum (Tabelak), and took notice of the outraged reaction by the class. "Did you just take that? I'd be kicking that muthah fu******* ass. (or) I'd own that guy's house." They don't understand that such defiance against authority never crossed our minds in those days. Lamenting the "good old days" now that the shoe is on the other foot. (Ya brah, we get dressed up to teach here. My son on the left visiting)

Juliana Savino

I hear you, Nobu. I had a student tell me her mom would sue me for not giving her a good report on behavior (she was throwing sunflower seed husks across the room).  Their defiance is abetted, alas.

Arthur Rohlik

Another page of the calendar has turned. What have I learned?

1) Paper calendars are becoming less used. The usual barrage of corporate wall decor has dwindled and this last month I was asked a couple of times if I wanted a calendar instead of just recieving them. 2) As far as staying up until midnight to greet the New Year, no can do. The changing of a minute from 2015 to 2016 is a whole lot like the change from eight pm, to eight oh one. A smooch at eight can have just as much gravitas as a smooch at midnight. 3) A lot of celebratory customs have lost their meanings for me. Like the birthday spanking, a swat for each year of survival and a swat for the year to come. I learned that it is a ritual reenactment of the Moment Of Birth spanking. As a newborn our first gift from society is a Wake Up And Face Life! physical afront from which our parents do not resist or defend against. ( How's THAT for a cranky, curmudgeon comment! ) Anyway, I no longer participate in that as celebrant or as the assailant. 4) I had a computer failure towards the end of last year and along with the expected dismay, I felt a wave of relief. One less glowing display to take time away from books, friends and music needing to be played or music to be heard. And so here I am, machine restored to life as a Phoenix from the ashes and one of the first things I do is visit my classmates here and those who have chosen to not sign up at this site. I re-loaded the calendar from the back-up. I wonder if I should have accepted at least one of the paper variety calendar... I also plugged in the recording software and played songs into the headphones. The Lesson: It Is Just A Thing. 

I am pretty sure that I have learned some more life-lessons recently and if I were to think of them I would share them. But right now another cup of coffee is in my future. HAPPY NEW YEAR, my internet friends. Every day being able to be vertical is a Good Day.   Doc

Juliana Savino

Good morning, Doc!

For me, this isn't just another year, it's an election year. We're the class that got to vote in 1972, and that has something that was never lost on me. I've gotten in the habit of asking my 12th grade students if they are registered to vote, and discouraged by the apathetic responses. Lefty that I am, I nonetheless believe that if we are to go to war, there ought to be a draft. In our current state of affairs,  "somebody else" is taking the risk, privatization corrupts national defense, and we become passive complainers—or cheerleaders. I once read where only seven states provide over half the enlistees in the military. This is worrying. #endrant

Arthur Rohlik

And good afternoon to you, Juliana. [hashtag thingy] commence rant

The existance of warriors conscripted or voluntary still chills me to my core. Why does anyone choose the wariors' path? Aggressor or defendant, why choose to be a warrior? I fantasize a United States government taking an unprecedented step into humility and saying saying to all anti-war protestors "You were right. Vietnam was an error. You who fled or were imprisoned, or served under protest, and who killed or who were maimed or who perished deserve not just amnesty but apology. You were right."  A simple fantasy, but a fantasy all the same. I would have a bit of a national pride well up were my fantasy to come true. Yet, the incredible horror of war continues. When you invoked the dreaded concept of conscripts, it jolted me back in time to the V'Nam Era. I am a pop musician. I am in full remembrance of the occaision of being able to vote the first time. What, Doc, are you getting to? There is a pop song in the national archives exhibit regarding eighteen year old voting: EVE OF DESTRUCTION by P.F. Sloan and recorded by Barry McGuire. "violence flarin', bullets loadin', you're old enough to kill but not for votin', you don't believe in war, what's that gun you're totin'" .  I would not have written so well as that, but I would have contrived a lyric to include the flip side of "killin' " which is of course diein'. Old enough to be cannon fodder, what a vile concept. Ahem. [hashtag thingy] end rant

Juliana Savino

Hi, Arthur,

I must have been less than clear. I was thinking of a universal draft as a discouragement to war, as it is my belief that the end of student deferments had something to due with the tide turning against the Vietnam war. If every young man—and woman—were at risk to serve in combat, and, while I'm at it, if every single zip code had to be represented amongst war fighters, I think few causes would be seen worthy, as few causes should be. I'm neither a pacifist nor any sort of idealist, so I can only wish for less war.

Juliana Savino

Hi, everyone,

I had the pleasure this spring of hearing Mr Bergantino rehearse and later conduct the [Cleveland] Heights High Symphony in Barber's Adagio for Strings. It was a reminder to me of how good we had it; Mr B never talks down nor makes things simple for students, he rehearses with passion and a confidence that sweating the details is utterly worth it.  I was reminded that I was lucky not just in that he started me on the double bass, but that I was in his general music class where I got exposed to his keen and opinionated take on music. By the end of tht class, I kne who Samuel Barber was, and Howard Hanson, and Leonard Bernstein, to name but a few. And he still wears thos white turtlnecks in whatever fabric was the successor to Banlon. I got to chat with him; he is his ageless cheerful self.

Arthur Rohlik

Wow.

Mr B.

We did indeed have it good in high school. Even though I quit the band after one year at BHS and I began to participate in the Great Folk Music Scare of the 1960's, music was still -for me- THE ONE TRUE THING. Mr B & Mr D permitted me to occupy a practice closet if there were no legitimate musicians wishing to use it. Juliana, do you play many styles of bass? Jam in a jazz trio perhaps, or swing with a Hot Potatoes Dance Orchestra, or accompany a cocktails and piano chanteuse? Guitar players are ubiquitous and I do not have the grips (formerly known as chops) or the discipline to be widely welcomed onto someone's stage. I know a buncha songs and got invited to pick-up gigs and jam sessions for that. When I got orthodontic braces I feared for my abiity to go sing and play, so, like any other desperate folkie I bought an electric bass. Loved it from the first time I discovered that I could play and still sing COUNTIN' FLOWERS ON THE WALL. I get invited out more often for bass sit-ins than guitar sit-ins and I don't mind it hardly at all. Good amps are smaller and lighter weight than when I started and that makes a big difference. 

Becky Bowman

Well I just have to chime in here!  I am so glad to hear your story about Mr. B, Julie!  I wish I could have been there.  He remains one of my favorite teachers for all time.  I remember you playing the piano in the band room, one particular piece that may or may not have been Season of the Witch. Memories overlap each other, or is that just me?  At any rate, I remember wishing I could play the piano as well as you, but being to hyper to sit down and practice long enough!  It took me years to figure out my problem. So now I make mix tapes of OTHER people's music!  Of course, tape has fallen by the wayside but I still call them mix tapes.  Mix CD or Mix Jump Drive just doesn't sound right.....

And Art, you are now the Doc of Folk Music,  so it just goes to show you how a little knowledge can lead us all in different yet wonderful directions!

I love this site and reading what everyone has to say. Keep up the good work! :) 

Juliana Savino

Hi, Arthur,
I am, alas, an ex-bassist. I was pretty much an orchestral player, with some jazz wannabe moments. Hand issues in recent years, and finally, a chance to pass my beloved Gemünder on to a talented young player. s'OK, I have a Steinway L to keep me company.