Memory Book

Memory Book

Time Was

― Buddy Holly, 1958

― The Four Lads, 1955

This page presents 85 accounts by class members of some of their favorite personal memories from the time we were together as kids in Oceanside. Memories that "light the corners of our minds ― misty, water-colored memories of the way we were."

The brains of older people are slow because they know so much. People do not decline mentally with age. Scientists believe it just takes them longer to recall facts because they have more information in their brains. Much like a computer struggles as the hard drive gets full, human beings take longer to access information when their brains are full.

Researchers say this slowing down process is not the same as cognitive decline. The human brain works slower in old age, said Dr. Michael Ramscar, but only because we have stored more information over time. The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more.

Sometimes when older people go to another room to get something, they wonder what they came for when they get there. It is NOT a memory problem. It is nature's way of making older people get more exercise.

So now when I reach for a word or a name, I won't excuse myself by saying "I'm having a senior moment." Instead I'll say, "My disk is full!"

I have more friends I should send this to, but right now I can't remember their names. So please forward this to your friends. They may be my friends, too.

Many of or memories from high schookl are fuzzy and fragmented after almost 60 years. Others are complete and crystal clear. Most are sweet. Some are not.

Many of the following reminiscences of our classmates were posted on an online message board during 1999 or 2000. If you send in yours by e-mail, this page should continue to grow over time. So keep coming back for more ― and share the joy and the laughter.

The recording you are hearing was made in 1958 but never released. Can you guess who made it? Click here for the answer.

[Missing photos can be found by clicking the links to the pages of "Yearbook Online."]

Ginny Beedenbender: We were awful to Mr. Korn, but he seemed to invite the pranks and fun poked at — the "torture" that was brought upon him. He really was nice in a strange kind of way. He used to wear those rumpled suits and stained ties!! I actually looked forward to English class — it was kind of fun, sort of a fun-break in my day!

Kathy Cullen: Mr. Korn always had that blank look. He was really a nice, kind man, and we took such advantage of him. We were so bad.

We skated at Loft's Lake. That was really good. A little scary. We use to sneak up to the house and peek in. Those poor people!! What about drag racing in "OIL CITY"????????? That was almost like the movie "Grease."

I took violin lessons in jr. high. We had to put a hanky under the violin so as not to irritate our delicate clavicles. Such ladies! I don't think I ever saw the teacher laugh. It could have been my playing.

Nancy Keegan: I, like Kathy [Cullen], took violin. Kathy [Nancy's now late sister] took clarinet. We were all so musical. Our careers ended when my sister, Kathy, hit me with her clarinet, so I broke my violin over her head. All Over!!

Response to above by big sister, Carol Keegan ('57): It was just tons of fun living in that house with Nancy and Kathy practicing and fighting with their clarinet and violin. They would actually duel, Nancy using her violin bow.

I remember Jahn's — the "Kitchen Sink." It was enough for ten people, and if you finished it you got one free. Only one person had to eat the whole thing to get one free!! I didn't, but my father was leader of an explorer troop, and he would take the troop there after the parade every Memorial Day. He would send in Bill Seaman (I think Bill graduated O'side in '61 or '62), and Bill would eat the whole thing. Then the rest of the troop would go in and get a free one. However, poor Bill would end up at my house throwing up.

Who remembers "Shors" on Sunrise highway in RVC?? We'd go there after the pep rallies, after the games, or on Sunday mornings. Kathy Cullen and Michelle Calderio would show up at my house Sunday mornings in their "going to meetin' clothes," with their "collection money," and we would all go to Shors and eat!! We called my house "St. Keegans." After a pep rally, we were on our way there, and I got pulled over in my sister’s Renault with 6 or 7 people in the car (it was meant for 4). No ticket — he got a kick out of us. The one with the broken leg on the floor in the Renault was Carol Barry. One time, I drove home in reverse because our '57 or '58 Mercury was a pushbutton shift, and it got stuck in reverse. And it was snowing — scared me to death!!

I remember "Oil City" burning several times. We'd all pile in the car and go watch.

I had Artie Heyman in my typing class. Our teacher (Miss Pancoast) would always yell at Artie because his knees were always sticking out in the aisle on either side of his desk. She'd yell "ARTHURRRRRR, get your knees under the desk;" so he would. Naturally the whole desk, typewriter and all would lift off the floor, as his legs were SO long. She'd tell him to stop playing — so he'd put them back in the aisle — and so forth; back and forth they'd go. Silly story.

Do you remember when we were in sixth grade we were taken to the jr./sr. high school for a tour so that we wouldn't feel uncomfortable in the fall?? I remember so vividly the girls in the halls with their hair in rollers with scarves over their heads, and they were wearing "short shorts." That fall, when we entered jr. high, there was the first dress code in place ― no shorts, no rollers!!

The fall football games, dancing in the cafeteria, Senior Day, “The Whole Experience”

Kathy Keegan (now deceased): My article for Chat magazine in 9th grade was censored by the faculty after being printed. It described the personalities of different teachers ― a bad memory but a vivid one.

A good memory: Sportnight.

Bill Badalucca: How can any of "Rapp's mathematical delinquents" ever forget that lady. She was one super teacher. I aced the final for math 10, plane geometry, but I was in a hurry and did the graph work in pencil when she wanted it in ink. So she made me do the graph problems over and in my haste to get out of there, I goofed on 7 + and - signs. She took off one point for each goof and I wound up getting a 93. She told me the following week. Boy was I pissed! But it taught me a lesson I still carry today.

(Now deceased)

Marty Fuchs: Miss Rapp was inspirational. The fact that I went on to get a Master's Degree in Mathematics is due in no small part to her Geometry class and her teaching manner.

I can't for the life of me remember why or how I wound up taking typing. I still hear Miss Pancoast's "'F, type, type, type'; 'D, type, type, type'" when my fingers go into home position. Amazing that this class developed the only skill that would prove so essential in my later life as I spend 8 hours a day for the last 34 years with my fingers on the PC keyboard! While other teachers may have inspired me more, Miss Pancoast did what she was paid to do — she taught me a skill! God bless her.

And Bells Are Ringing.

Audrey Schneiderman: I remember the school plays — Paint Your Wagon, King and I, Bells Are Ringing, Teahouse of the August Moon. I also remember being in SportNite, singing in chorus and loving school.

Doreen Silverstein: I have very good memories of Sport Nite. I remember teaching 100 girls how to dance like penguins, waddling out onto the gym floor. It was so much fun, many great friendships were formed, and the best part is that we won that year.

Rick von Brook: Angelo Plaia ― Phys. Ed. Tried to bottom out on the trampoline. I remember a few times when he came within inches of making it hit the floor. How about Mr. Fetherston and that other biology teacher (Mr. Safer — he drove a Studebaker with an aoogah horn) when they used to come out of the prep room between the labs fencing with pointers. Mr. Waldron was a great guy.

I'll never forget the music teacher in School #5, Miss Deitrich. She taught me to play the drums. A skill I didn't use again until my first year at college.

In the dead of winter, all bundled up, we would get on the buses to go to Long Beach to swim. I don't remember who was with me, but we found an open doorway to the beach one night and went down and waded in the surf in February. I still remember how surprised I was that the ocean was so warm.

Teahouse of the August Moon was one of my most memorable experiences. I finally got up the nerve to try out for it, and had a fantastic experience. I made a lot of new friends doing the play. They were people I had gone to school with for years, but never got to really know until then.

"Pee Wee" Weitzman: First thing that comes to mind is wonderful friends ― many have remained my friends thru the years. I also have flashbacks of wearing skirts with hunting socks. I think this was Jr. High. I remember the adorable English teacher, Mr. Smith. I remember the excitement of Sport Nite. I remember learning to smoke, learning to drive, learning to dance. I suppose I could go on but I will stop here for now.

Howie Levy: My favorite memory is not a specific event, events, a teacher or another person. It is the general feeling of being always surrounded by so many wonderful friends, great guys and gals who filled every day with the pleasure of being around them ― a feeling that has never quite been duplicated in my 40+ years of life since OHS.

And the parties ― I loved the parties, especially when we were seniors and could drive at night. We went from one party to another until there were no more.

(Now deceased)

Lois Rindner: Artie Heyman [’59] was in my French class with me and he used to call the teacher "Babes," right to her face. He'd jump up on window ledges, mimicking an ape and threaten to jump out the window. He drove that poor woman crazy. Regardless, I always disliked having to learn French.

We all anticipated and loved Sports Night. I remember we had bowling pin-shaped wooden things that were painted with glow-in-the-dark white paint. They shut off the lights, and the routine was spectacular. The music they played for that was "A Summer Place."

I remember our sorority sweaters that were gray and green, but I can't remember the name of the sorority. I do remember all of my sorority sisters. Also, what a great bunch of guys in that school. I loved wearing wool, plaid skirts with crew neck sweaters, white bucks with wrinkled-down wool socks. I remember our navy blue pea coats with the zippered hoods. Then at some point, for no apparent reason, we switched to camel’s hair coats. We were so cool, and it was easy living! I loved high school. It was so easy and so much fun (except for Algebra, of course).

I remember School #4. I loved to climb and sit in the trees in the front yard. Alan Lupi moved in across the street from the school on Oceanside Road. He was such a great guy. I also remember Judy Pilgrim who lived across the street from the school yard. Whenever I walked into her house it always smelled like clean fresh ironing. And her mother would give us spice cake, which I had never had before and was so delicious.

(Now deceased)

Ed Chilton: The Saturday the damn gargoyle was delivered for the Latin Club.

This 1-ton chunk of marble with a hideous face carved thereon was rescued from some building being demolished in NYC. It was lowered by crane onto a flatbed truck and then driven out to OHS. The only
place a truck could drop off the huge stone was at the back of the school, thus it was lowered to the ground immediately behind the OHS Band Room. Thud.

On that day, the OHS band was marching, probably for a home football game. We band members were wearing our blue and white, wool uniforms.

For reasons I can't recall, I had also borrowed a gray sweater from my father. The delivery truck was accompanied by a car bearing a reporter and a photographer from Newsday. They wanted a picture with kids next to the gargoyle so they could go home. Any damn kids.

"Hey, you," they called out to me and explained what they wanted. I told the journalists I was not a member of the Latin Club. "We do not give a ... we do not care," they said. "Where's a girl?" they asked me.

At that moment Hazel Lotz, class of '61, walked out of the band room dressed in her uniform, including hat with plume. "Get that hat off," they told her. The photographer arranged me squatting and Hazel bent at the waist looking blankly at the gargoyle, but something was not right in the viewfinder. Finally the photographer told me to take my father's sweater off and told Hazel Lotz to put it on. Whatever, anything to get this over with, click.

And so the OHS historical record must accept that no Latin Club members were around to receive "Peregrinator" ― which is what they decided to call the thing ― just two members of the Band.

"E pluribus propter hoc delecti."

Click here

Bob Smutny: I have a memory to share with my fellow classmates of a little known practical joke that was played by a small group of us from the class of 1960, the results of which far exceeded our wildest fantasies.

APRIL FOOL 1960: One March day in 1960, one of our classmates, who was also a member of the Audio-Visual Squad (I would tell you his name if I remembered it) happened upon a blank teacher evaluation form. That chance discovery gave some of us who also happened to be students of a certain physics teacher an idea. From that idea we hatched a plan to play an April Fools joke on Mr. Pearsall. The evaluation form was filled out giving Mr. Pearsall extremely low ratings. Then the guys handed it over to me to forge the signature of the deceased clerk of the School Board whose name was at the bottom of the form. I balked for a minute, then said to myself "what the hell" and signed it. We put the evaluation into an envelope and wrote Mr. Pearsall's name on it. The real trick was how to get this envelope into his mailbox in the school office. Fortunately, one of us, Gerry Gutman had unquestioned access to the school office as he operated the school's PA system. On the morning of April 1^st, 1960, Gerry put the envelope in Mr. Pearsall's mailbox.

Then we (Mike Blumenthal, Al Carlson, Larry Goldberg, Gerry Gutman and myself) who had classes with Mr. Pearsall that day waited with baited breath. I am not sure what we really expected. Not one word was said, there was no sign of anything unusual. We were baffled.

I don't remember how many days passed before we found out what took place when Mr. Pearsall opened the envelope. Appropriately, it was Gerry who found out first. One of the secretaries in the office told him the story. A few days later I received the same story from Roseann Meybohm who I had confided in. Her parents had one of the teachers boarding at their home. He told the story to the family.

When Mr. Pearsall, read the evaluation was very upset. He immediately went to our principal, Mr. Mosback, who upon reading the evaluation called Superintendent Egdorf. The joke was discovered as Mr. Mosback, was reading the evaluation to Mr. Egdorf. Both sources told us that Mr. Pearsall and Mr. Mosback, were sure the perpetrator of the joke was a teacher. They appear never to have suspected students. We, of course, told no one.