I've warned many younger friends that on their Internet Social sites and discussion groups they are leaving a permanent digital trail and history that could haunt them many years from now.  Many of the hot opinions, bawdy videos, and angry diatribes that people post today will be available to employers, future spouses, and voters tomorrow. 

We left our youthful trail on perishable paper and film, most of it long gone.  A surprising amount has reappeared.  I've been reading through three large boxes of letters from the 50s and 60s.  I know several of you have your own archives.  Most notably Betty Gelling supplied a variety of photos, letters, journals and other documents for our reunion in 2008.

I have just begun to read.  I will exercise some care in what I post, but I don't want to falsify or revise the past.  Below are some excerpts from letters we wrote.  They range from class gossip to a member of our parents' generation, "The Greatest Generation," saying they had not done enough and it was now up to us.

If you have letters, please read through them and consider sending, however belatedly, the news from 40 and 50 years ago.

Here is my latest batch:

July 9, 1955.  Letter from my mother, Emma Kaufman, to me in South Dakota includes this news:

“From what we hear Richie and Duffy received a suspended sentence.  The cops are dispersing the boys on the corner again.  It sure is a shame as they don’t know where to spend these hot evenings.”

“Goldick [Howard, ‘56] is at the pavilion again, and Twink [Duncan Leckie, ‘56] is going to summer school, Edith, Pete Lawlor [‘56]and Jack Whearty are working in the new Cosy, Jimmie Whearty [‘56] is working at Rogers.”

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Sept 21, 1957.  From a letter sent by Don Rockwell (’56).  Don had been dating Jane Allen.  He started college in Cornell and for his sophomore year he transferred to MIT in Boston while Jane had chosen a junior college there.  (See her bio.)

“I went down to say hello to Jane last night, but she had a date.  So here I was in a girl’s dorm all alone.  Jane said that the people were so friendly that they would come up and introduce themselves.  I was there for an hour and a half.  But I finally convinced the girl who was signing people out to go to the movies with me.  Her name is Joan and we had a great time.  We saw Band of Angels and Silk Stockings.”

“By the way, why isn’t life just a game?”

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Several class members were watching Don's romance with Jane.  In mid-November I received the following:

The account of the split, that I got from Jane; was none too coherent due largely to the effects of a generous quantity of gin, but I did get this general impression:

a) She's having a ball at school  b) when Nik came to see her, he wanted to be alone with her all the time and she found that things were not as they had been  c)communication between them has died out  d) she will continue to have a ball.  The Donny situation seems to have the feeling mostly on his side; he called her up for dates two weeks in a row.  She didn't seem particularly overheated by his attentions.  However, one never knows when the old spark will burst into a holocaust once more.  Well, enough of such trivialities.

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October, 1957.  Allan Schwartz is settling into Columbia University.  Before he graduates he will become captain of the fencing team. In his freshman year he writes, “My sports career, as mentioned, is still in a state of suspended animation.  Though I’ve never fenced before, I still have hopes of having latent talent.”

“It’s really amazing, New York is proably the best place in the world for nighttime entertainment and I haven’t been out of the University yet.  I’m inclined to think I’ll get the picture on the other side when I write Diane [Djivre] and Ro [Greenfield] [Both Ro and Diane were at Syracuse.]”

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November 3, 1957.  Ian Ronald (’55) answered a note I had sent with a book.  He had belatedly enrolled in Albany State Teachers College.  “I got myself snowed into coming to Albany State,” he wrote, but he liked his courses and professors.  He noted, “I have yet to find a girl to compare with Sussannnnnne who incidentally is now going with of all people—Ken Cox.  How does that grab you?  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I heard it.”

(I had started Duke where Ed Gauld, Ian’s classmate, was playing varsity soccer. )  “I wish I could see him play.  Say hello to him for me the next time you see him and ask him if he’s getting much.  How many goals has he scored so far?  North Shore soccer team is, I believe, still undefeated.  The football team is 3-2, the last loss to Manhasset by one point.  I was home last weekend and saw them beat Roslyn.  Miles is impressive.”

“I saw Nick about three weeks ago.  He looked pretty good but missed dear old Jane.  Lucas, I understand, is having troubles.  Nickor NIK won a couple of meets.  Moose leaves tomorrow for six months of Marine life.  How do you suppose our friend Marjorie is making out—literally and figuratively.” 

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Another classmate wrote about recent news as we began new lives at work and in college and university:

So Bobby Clark has taken up with a nurse, eh.  How did that interesting situation come about?  Somehow I never thought of Bob as the type to go for older women.  Cou1d this mean that he and Allyson are completely pfffft?  Also, I couldn't possibly have heard you right when you said Lukie was majoring in philosophy.  My lord that is the switch of the ages.  I keep seeing him in sort of a Socratic getup and bare feet wandering around the Agora.  Perhaps Betty may have a touch of Xanthippe in her makeup, but the move still seems a little drastic.  Good,old gum-chewing, one-of-the-boys Lukie.  

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February 19, 1958.  Ed Bolitho, Sr. led Boy Scout Troop 43 which many boys in our class had been members of.  He worked for Amperex Electronic Corp., and devoted much of his spare time to Scouts, his wife Madeline devoting her time to Girl Scouts.  Here are some of his observations about our years.

“The ages between 10 and 20 are the most important.  If during these years you have started on the right track, the later years will take care of themselves.  The trouble is we don’t have enough men,women and teachers who are interested or qualified to help teenagers.  Perhaps this Sputnick mess will wake them up.  Yes, I’m still in Boy Scouts.  We have about forty boys in the troop . . . However there will never be another troop as far as I am concerned as good as the old gang.  Someday we must have a re-union.”

“I met D. Leckie (’56) the other day.  He flunked English and ran out of money at the same time.  He has to make the English up and expects to go back this fall.”

(At Christmas 1961 “Mr. B” sent me a card with a note.)  “Wally give some consideration to journalism—we need young people to stand up and express their thoughts on world conditions and to find ways and means of living peacefully gogether.  Our generation hasn’t done too well and it’s up to you and the other young people to straighten things out—or there won’t be a world to worry about.”