| 02/03/09 11:21 PM |
#10
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David Schacht
Gina,
Wow, great to get your email. I haven’t been back to Mahopac in many years but the last time I was there I did see that it had grown immensely. Does the lake still freeze in the winter? I hope so, but I suspect not.
I live in Sharon, MA which also has a lake. It is smaller than Lake Mahopac, but it is pretty. Also there are two town beaches and some boating. When I was a kid living at Wendolin Apartments (near the library) I really disliked the marina and had dreams of blowing it up. I was afraid it was causing too much pollution to the lake.
It’s interesting that you and Joanne Clarkin were neighbors! She and I were neighbors too! She lived at the Wendolin Apartments also for at least a couple of years. I liked her and her brother, though he was really a nerd. As I recall he sort of defined the term.
I am married to Phyllis, who I met in college. We have 3 kids. Hannah is 22 and is graduating from SUNY Binghamton and two boys, Yosef and Aaron who are seniors in high school. We live in a little house a couple of blocks from the lake and have lived in this house for 18 years. I am kinda proud of that. Growing up, I felt that my family moved around a lot. Prior to 8th grade I lived in: Shrub Oak, Yorktown, Evanston-Illinois, and Mohegan – in that order. I am happy that I didn’t move from 8-12th grades and I didn’t want my kids to experience that.
Professionally, I’ve moved around a lot. I was a social worker for a while and got a master’s degree in Counseling. (I majored in Spanish in college, bad idea, by the way.) Then I became a bureaucrat and worked at 3 different state agencies here in Massachusetts. Then, I got a job at Fidelity Investments as a Project Manager and Business Analyst. I’ve been doing that for the past 14 years. It’s been a pretty good ride there, but with this latest paroxysm of economic distress, I’ve actually been ‘down-sized’. Ouch – that hurts on a lot of different levels. I think for a Spanish major I’ve done well, but I’ve got to get myself back up ‘in the saddle’ and get me either a job I like a lot or job that can pay me something close to what I was making.
“Yo’ve got a son named what?” Oh, yeah, that. Well, I have travelled a bit in the physical and non-physical senses. Physically, I did a year abroad as a sophomore in college and spent that year in Spain. That was a ton of fun and I became a lot more independent during that year. So much so that I dropped out of college after that year and went to Israel instead of coming back to the US of A. I spent about a year in Israel and did come back to finish college (or my parents would have killed me.) While I was in Israel I became “born again” (NOT!!!) Seriously, I did become an orthodox Jew. Kind of a strange thing for me to do, even in retrospect. I’m definitely not the spiritual or mystical kind of person. I’m still sort of a cynic and my ‘faith’ is probably the weakest I’ve ever seen in a religious person. Nevertheless, I like it. It’s been a great way to raise my kids and the community, here in Sharon and around the world, is fantastic. My kids haven’t rebelled outlandishly yet and I know that the last chapter there won’t be written for a while, but, all in all, I’d have to say that it is probably the smartest thing I did in my life.
Let’s absolutely keep in touch. I really want to go the next reunion. I’ve been out of touch and haven’t gone to any reunions yet. I really did enjoy high school. I enjoyed Ms. Potter’s Spanish class and I recall vividly a couple of silly skits I did there with Susie Gusz. That was fun. (Hey, she’s not on the class list and she definitely should be. I wonder where she’s at.)
Tennis team was a blast. I was probably the worst tennis player to ever earn a letter in that sport. I just wanted to put that on my college applications! I tell my kids (and its true) that I was a senior when I earned my JV letter.
I did also enjoy the angst that accompanied my junior and senior years. I don’t know if everyone goes through that, but it seems to be a rite of passage where we begin to exercise those new elements of our being. Gosh I won’t rehash it here but I look back upon it sentimentally as a really good Francois Truffaut movie. I would like to also get in touch with Joanne Moyer. She helped me get through a lot of it.
As I’m reading this, now that I’ve written it, I think I’m going to post it on the website. Thank you, Gina, for being the catalyst for getting me to put this down on paper.
Ciao for now,
- David
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