35th reunion - party at Jon & Cheryl Aaron's house

Last night was an enjoyable night. While the attendance was not at record levels, I think the folks who showed up enjoyed the conviviality. Of course the tales were hilarious and memorable. For a link to Fred Teeter's photographs, go to http://web.mac.com/fkteeter/iWeb/McD%20Reunion%202007/Hail%20the%20Class%20of%20'72!.html

Russ DeVan gets the award for traveling the furthest from Scottsdale, Arizona. Actually, Russ was in Singapore a week or so earlier, so he was in a travel mode. Many thanks to Karen, his wife, for allowing him to make the trip. Russ brought us a letter from Fernando Prol, our classmate through 7th grade. If Russ sends me that letter, I'll post it here.

Terry Victor and his wife Robin attended as well. Terry informed us that his oldest grandchild (yes, you heard that right!) is three. I told Terry that I was glad that my twin daughters are older than his oldest grandchild.

Dave and Peggy Carr were present at Jon & Cheryl's. Their two youngest children (17 year old twin son and daughter) are headed off for college this Fall, and Peggy is already making plans for their added free time. I think I heard York College for the accounting program and Bucknell, but I could be wrong about that.

I spent some time talking with John Steinberg and Jeff Levin about their activities. John still conducts his medical continuing education business for physicians. Said that he had a seminar in upstate New York that Ken Hertzl-Betz attended. John's passion, however, appears to be fireworks. He talked at length about the shows that his firm has conducted. On May 8th, John will conduct a fireworks display at McDonogh. Jeff Levin was at Booz Allen the last I knew. Last night, he said that he had moved to a smaller firm, Optnet, that provides specialized software for managing sophisticated corporate computer networks. Jeff works on the consulting side of the firm, helping clients maximize their utilization of the software. Jeff's firm is based in Bethesda, Maryland.

Hugh and Janet Sisson provided a little information about their daughter, Caroline, who is a junior at McDonogh. Hugh is the General Partner at Clipper City Brewing and has been actively managing its activities for 10 + years. He also provided the beer for our event. Some of the guys enjoyed the brews and a few others said as long as it's beer, I don't care (Hugh, I won't tell you who that was). Hugh just returned from a wine trip to Italy and offered to share his knowledge of Tuscany and the Super Tuscan wines (that sounds like an idea for another reunion, Hugh!).

Nash Childs arrived with Dan Newell and Sherry. Nash pointed out early that the Cook Kid (or Sherry) was his designated driver (good idea, Nash). Nash is EVP of a Wilmington, Delaware construction firm. He regaled us with stories about his new dog (you won't believe what he named him, I'll urge you to contact Nash personally about his dog's name) as well as stories about his days playing baseball and catching for Frank Favazza and Frank Zanti. Nash and Russ DeVan later performed their famous "16 Tons and whataya get" song for the group remaining.

I apologize to Debbie Trail for not having a conversation. Somehow, I must have missed my opportunity. I did spend some time with Bremen remembering why we avoided demerits (who wanted to spend another two days at McDonogh when you were there for five already?) and who the real derelicts were on the boarder side (what, we had derelict boarders?). Bremen and Dave Carr also contributed to some of Nash's baseball stories.

Roger Weinberg and his wife, Jackie, are regulars at our reunion, but Jackie was a bit under the weather this year, so Roger came solo (as did I, but that's another story). Roger's stories were a scream. My favorite was the story about when he was called into Major Levy's office after lunch early in our ninth grade year. When Roger walked in the door, Maj said "Weinberg, Mr. Thompson has filled me in about you. He said to not let you open your mouth whenever you're talking about what you've done wrong, so I'm telling you that you are getting three demerits. See you." Roger said that he went over to the Middle School after class and asked Q.D. why he had to brief Maj about his behavior. Roger restarted his career after working his way up to Vice President of the Heilig Meyers furniture chain. He's the number one salesman at Nordstrom's in Richmond and says that he enjoys the hours, the lower stress, and couldn't be happier.

Chris Shane attended. Chris and I were rooommates in 7th grade as brand new scholarship students. We had some good laughs about events over the years. Discussing the off-campus trips that Chris and Vic Svec made (when it wasn't allowed), the funniest might have been the time that they rode bicycles into Randallstown, walked into the public library and ran into Ray Oliver. Ray told them that he would see them in the morning, so he at least let them ride the bikes back to campus (Chris says that they found the bikes, they weren't theirs). Chris and a partner operate an environmental testing lab in Baltimore (send me an email Chris and I'll put a link for it here). They specialize in testing for chemicals and not mold. Chris had a conversation about his grad school days at Cornell where Nollie starred on the football team (evidently, there was one year of overlap).

Frank Thomas drove up from Calvert County. Of course, Nash couldn't resist the "Yom" salutation. Frank gets the award for the whitest hair, while Bremen gets the award for the least hair. Frank's still in the banking business, running facilities, ATM's and jack-of-all-trades stuff for a five branch Calvert County bank. During a discussion with Chris Shane about the passing of Kurt Vonnegut, I remembered that Frank's brother-in-law was Tom Clancy (Tom married Frank's sister, since divorced). Frank told us that he was in the wedding (I always learn new stuff), but that he doesn't get a chance for autographed first editions anymore.

Fred and Janice Teeter were the first to arrive at the Aaron's (I was the second outsider, so that's how I know Fred and Janice were first). Fred put in a lot of time and effort for this event including assembling emails for most of you. Fred deserves the kudos as much as anyone. He even picked up orange and black balloons from McDonogh to mark Jon & Cheryl's mailbox and walkway. A link to Fred's photos is posted at the beginning of this post. Fred and Janice live in Uniontown, Maryland which is about five miles from Taneytown, home to the Antrim Restaurant and Bed and Breakfast (I highly recommend the place, but Fred insists it's not much fun going to a high-priced restaurant five minutes from your house). Fred and Janice are partners in a Malleuca business (I hope I spelled that correctly, Fred, if not, email me and I'll change it). Fred's tales about boarding in the Middle School and then switching to day student status were hilarious. I reminded him about how he didn't let me know he was switching, so I ended up with Bosco as my 10th grade roommate. Of course, I managed to switch rooms with Shelby Carter later in the year, so Shelby roomed with Bosco and I roomed with Dale Kern (hey, how are you, Dale?).

I'll finish the rest of this later. Have to get back to the family for a while.

Wally

Music at McDonogh - Part II

In 7th grade, I didn't know anyone with a "stereo". In room 21, Fred Teeter, Ken Betz, Paul Ellis and I had transistor radios. WCAO was the popular station of the day to wake up to. I seem to recall that Johnny Dark may have been the morning disk jockey. If we thought there was a chance of a snow day, we had to tune to WBAL since McDonogh didn't call WCAO on snow days.

In 8th grade, I ended up switching rooms half way through the year with Chris Illardi. We were room officers and flipped rooms. I had Hugh Wilde, Jim Long, Joe Hoffman, and Kyle Swisher in my first room and ended up with Harry Rimmer, Al Bischoff, Lee Rhodes, and Charlie Billingsley. Harry had a stereo, the first one I had seen in a dorm room. He built it from a Heathkit. Harry was a fan of Otis Redding. "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" was the regular wake up music. I think Harry was also a fan of the Temptations.

Music at McDonogh - Part 1

Prior to entering McDonogh, I had been playing the clarinet since 3rd grade. I decided that I didn't want to join the band because I wanted to march with the rest of the guys. In 7th and 8th grade, we had Shelby Creagh teach us music. Because I did so well in his class, Mr. Creagh recommended to Mr. Wilson (Head of Music in the Upper School) that I receive free music lessons ( a deal that the school gave to scholarship students but didn't publicize). When I visited Mr. Wilson, I told him that I already played the clarinet. So, I ended up receiving free saxophone lessons. Part of that deal was that I play in the band and orchestra. I enjoyed the orchestra, but marching in the band wasn't much fun although I did get out of competitive drill which was a particular drag as a ninth and tenth grade private. I can't remember what days of the week we had band practice, but it wasn't bad. When I played clarinet, I usually sat near Richard Hepner, who was about the most serious musician in the band (I think he was Captain of the band at the beginning of 1970-1971, but like half of the officers in the class of '71, I think he did something to lose his bars and Don Walters took over at the end of the year.).

McDonogh buds vs. 'other buds'

When we graduated from high school, I think we thought that we'd never have friends as close as those that we made at McDonogh. When I graduated from Duke, I thought I'd never have friends as close as those in my fraternity, Beta Theta Pi. Grad school at Tulane was a great experience, but we were all preparing for our careers and didn't have the time for socialization that we did as undergrads or even high school.

My wife tells me that it's my fault that my daughter, Grace, considers everyone her friend. I tell her that Grace and I are fortunate. I truly enjoy my time with most of the people who I've associated with for any time period in my life. That includes everyone in our class.

There are some of you who I stumbled across in college; whether it was a visit you made to Duke or a visit I made to your college (I remember seeing Vic Svec and Ross McCausland at Western Maryland during my elongated Christmas break; Rob Lindsey at a W&L lacrosse game at NC State; Jeff Waters at a Maryland lacrosse game...). Some of you I ran into at either the Smoots' apartment or Maj's house during college breaks. I seem to recall seeing at least half of the guys at some point during the four summers that I spent working for Hugh Wilde's dad in Ocean City (Hugh, I could probably create a blog for that experience, but should heed my own advice about what to publish OR NOT on the internet: Fred Schulte worked at the Esso station on 52nd street back then). Since I returned to Baltimore in 1978, I've seen many of you at reunions (I've made all but the 5th), alumni events, parties, malls, Oriole games, Colts/Ravens games, McDonogh/Gilman football games, McDonogh/Gilman lacrosse games, etc. I'm a partner with Hugh Sisson in his Clipper City Brewing adventure (the fringe benefits are good, and there are some other McDonogh grads as partners, just not in our class). I'm also a partner in a real estate development with Chris Ross, McDonogh '69 and Duke '73. Currently, I am President of an online university, American Public University System (www.apus.edu), and my CFO is Harry Wilkins, McDonogh '74. We may be the first McDonogh alums to be CEO and CFO of the same company when it goes public (as we hope to do in the next year or so).

Regardless, I enjoy and appreciate our cameraderie now as much or more as I did back at McDonogh. We don't seem to have the time that we did back then and many of us have family and career obligations that take priority, but I find it worthwhile whenever I get a chance to socialize with anyone from McDonogh.

My education

I give McDonogh a lot of credit for my education. At Duke, my four semesters of Chemistry were pretty easy given two years of Bob Smoot's classes in Chemistry and AP Chemistry. Dave Harley and Marty McKibbin didn't just teach history, but asked you to think about history in a way that didn't just require the memorization of dates. I breezed through college history as a result. The same with English, Math, and German. The only reason I wasn't a German major was that I waived the six required courses and there weren't enough electives to complete the graduation requirements (and I wasn't going to repeat courses I took at McDonogh). My undergraduate days were more of a time for maturing and socializing than gaining additional raw knowledge. Once I entered grad school, I had to regain the pace of soaking up facts, learning to absorb and command vast concepts, once again. It was a good thing that McDonogh prepared me for that. Many of my friends and relatives from the Eastern Shore didn't graduate from college; they weren't prepared as well as I was.

One of my favorite stories, what's yours?

11th grade Chemistry may have been my favorite class. Bob Smoot (now in McDonogh lore as Big Smoot because his son, Rob, came back to teach) was a great teacher and taskmaster. I'm not sure that I ever learned more in one year in a single class. Heck, we had to learn how to use a slide rule (jeez, are we old!) in addition to learning Chemistry. Vic Svec and I shared a lab table with John Holland and John Steinberg. John's knowledge of Chemistry preceded by many years our year in 11th grade. Whenever we finished an experiment, he would sneak up to Mr. Smoot's chemical shelf and look around for something interesting. One day, he came back with a few chemicals and said, "watch this." He mixed concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid in a beaker and then said (as the cloud of gas is wafting my way), "watch, when I add the glycerin, the whole solution will turn yellow and we'll have nitro glycerin." Sure enough, the solution turns yellow, it's still smoking and I ask him what we're going to do with it. John says, "I'll carefully titrate it into the sink with running water and no one will be the wiser." So, as he's pouring the solution into the sink, John Holland (I think this is right), lights his bunsen burner from the other side of the lab table and chucks the match into the sink. Whoosh! Flames shoot toward the ceiling. John H's eyebrows are singed. Mr. Smoot is writing our assignment on the blackboard and without turning around, says "Steinberg, Boston, up to the front!" I guess because we didn't blow up anything, we didn't get in trouble. However, for the rest of that year, John didn't make anything in the classroom that wasn't on the lab assignment.

Our classmates

Just in case you need a list to jog your memory (we are in our 50's now), I thought I would reconstruct a list of guys from our class. The first list is those who graduated. The second list is those who didn't but I count as classmates anyway. I compiled the second list from memory and yearbooks back to 7th grade. For those of you in the Dirty Dozen who have the time to peruse your yearbooks and/or memory, email me and I'll add a name to the list.

Members of our class who graduated with us
Jon Aaron
Wayne Adkins*
Andy Alexander
Marc Anderson
Russell Baker
Charlie Banda
Mark Beck
Joe Berky
Ken Betz (now Herzl-Betz)
Ed Borg **
Wally Boston
Brooke Boyer **
Scott Brenner
Carey Briggs **
Randy Calloway **
Charlie Cantwell
Dave Carr
Shelby Carter
Nash Childs
Tony Chu **
Tak Chuen Chu
Neil Cohen
Joe deBorja
Russ DeVan
Frank Favazza
John Fisher
Ken Fry
Kevin Gerard
Pete Hainsworth
Bill Hall **
Dave Hanley
Hurst Hessey
Joe Hoffman
John Holland **
Andres Hoyos **
Bill Jones
Dale Kern
Jay Kershaw
Harry Kogelschatz
Al Koski
John Laubach
Jeff Levin
John Lewis
Hans Li
Rob Lindsey
Lowell Livesay
Bob Lowman
Ross McCausland
Tad Magee **
Butch Maisel
Steve Mallis
Dan Menchel
Les Mezei
Blake Monson
Carl Moseley
Buddy Moser
Dan Newell
Phil Philbin
Randy Reiner
Harry Rimmer
Marc Rosen
Curt Saal
Doug Sachse
Bruce Scheck
Art Schmidt
Fred Schulte
Howard Schultz
Hugh Sisson
Mark Smith **
Bobby Solomon
Scott Spier
John Steinberg
Fred Stuart
Bob Sullivan
Vic Svec
Fred Teeter
Frank Thomas
Bill Thomas **
Bremen Trail
Steve Tucker **
Terry Turley
Carlos Vergara **
Terry Victor
Jeff Waters
Chip Watson
Roger Weinberg
Bill Wickes
Hugh Wilde
Nollie Wood
Chuck Woodward
Frank Zanti

Members of our class who didn’t graduate with us, but they’re still our classmates
Tommy Atkins
John Battye
Scott Beasley
Jack Birochak
Al Bischoff
Tom Bitzer
Bunky Bolin
Keith Brewer
Dan Carney
Adam Collier
Bob Day
Don Delcher
Curt Dobkin
Bill Eisenrauch
Keith Ericson
Richard Finkelstein
Don Fisher*
Jim Fleck
Mark Goodrum
Bob Jackson
Jesse James
Steve Jarmin*
Chuck Jones
Phil Jones
J. Justis
Tom Lacey
Pete Lamborn
Maury Levin
Ed Looper
Jim Long
Peter Maitland
Tom Mangels
Brian McCurley
Jim McNinch
Mark Miller
Brad Needles
Shawn O’Neill
Dan Perrott
Fernando Prol
Dave Reid
Tom Reid
Jim Rogers
Steve Rosier
Doug Ross
Ronald Schattner
Jay Scoggins
Chris Shane
John Shelly
John Slaughter
Andy Trettin
Buddy Walton
Greg Wardle
Steve Wright

*deceased
** address/contact info unknown; anyone able to provide it, please contact Fred Teeter