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

Blogger set up

Guys, I'm relatively new to blogging. However, I will mention one thing that is important. Don't write anything that you don't want to memorialize on the web. There are search engines that capture everything on the internet including blog entries. I advise my students to not submit items to Facebook or MySpace that they wouldn't want their family or employer to see and I suggest the same for any of you. That said, I won't edit your submittals unless they're in extremely poor taste.

If you would like to set up your own blog, feel free to do so, let me know and I can put a link to it on this blog. Google owns blogger.com where I've set this up and they give away the software and disk storage for the right to include the content in their searches (probably page 432,798 of someone's search, but it could be surfaced).

Lastly, if you note at the very bottom, you can subscribe to the posts, meaning that you can set it up so that you are emailed whenever a post is added. That way, you don't have to come to this site every day unless I/we add something.

Wally

8th grade (1967-1968)

Eighth grade - THE BIG year for the military in the middle school. I wound up as staff sergeant on Major Doug Ross' staff. Scott Spier was the Captain Adjutant. The great thing about that position was that I didn't have to do any specific drills which anyone assigned to a company or the band had to do.

8th grade teachers - Bart Harrison, English; Fritz Maisel, Science; Chip Giardina, Algebra I

Notable events: The snack bar (Brass Eagle) opened.

New boarders in 8th grade: Melvin "Joe" Hoffman; Frank Zanti; Jim "Shorty" Long; Hugh Wilde; Jerry Landsman

Working on the Week

I didn't write for the Middle School paper. Most of the regular writers for the Middle School paper (who remembers the name of the Middle School paper?) had been students at McDonogh for years (I think Roger Weinberg may have been the editor of the Middle School newspaper). When I entered the Upper School, Ted Miller '71 asked me if I would like to write for The Week. I'm not sure who the Editors were in 1968-1969, but McDonogh would know since there are archived editions of every year. I think I started as a frosh-soph football reporter and typist, became Index Editor (one job, tracking all the names mentioned in every Week all year long for the end of the year bound index of Weeks; if you did it week by week, it was an easy job.), moved up to Associate Editor or Features Editor, and was Co-Editor-in-Chief my senior year with Steve Tucker. By then, writing for the week was more than just an activity. It was much of my lifestyle. In order to publish a newspaper each week, there were regular assignments each night. Sunday night was a late night, receiving articles from various people, typing them, and sometimes writing additional articles if someone missed an assignment or submitted a poorly written article. The typed articles would be inserted in an envelope and left in a tray for one of the school's drivers to drop off at the printer in Parkville. By Monday afternoon, the galleys would be back and Monday night was spent laying out the issue, figuring out which articles went where and the captions and size and typefont. Tuesday night would be another review night for any final changes. Wednesday morning we would review the galleys with our advisor, Mr. Tom Harper, make any final changes if necessary, send them back to the printer and then the press run would begin. Friday mornings, the work detail would fold The Week's in the Upper School study hall. All parents and alums received copies in those days. Later on, during the tumultuous last days of the military, the alumni subscriptions were cancelled or substantially reduced. Sunday night, the cycle would start up again.

Crazy Things That We Did

Trooper Walsh was an 8th grader in 1966-67 who, it was rumored, had an uncle who was the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. Trooper and Terry Victor and a few others would spend time in the woods near the duck pond searching for salamanders and the occasional snake; blacksnake, hognose, garter snake, etc. Sometime during the winter of 1967, I switched rooms from room 21 to room 20 and left Paul Ellis' reign as room officer to Gibby Gahan's. The bell that rang at 9:30 for Middle School lights out was a long bell and you weren't in trouble unless you weren't in bed with the lights out by the time that the bell stopped ringing. I had a habit of dashing from across the hall to my top bunk where I jumped into bed and turned off the light switch at the same time. I lost that habit when one night as I jumped into bed, something coiled around my leg and I quickly knew it was a snake, one that either Terry or Trooper had caught in the woods. Somehow, no one got in trouble, but I've hated snakes ever since.

Favorite teachers

I enjoyed many of my McDonogh teachers. So, I'm going to try to write a blurb about the ones that I enjoyed, starting with 7th grade. For those of you who are classmates, please understand that the first few you may read about are not the only ones I thought to be great teachers, but are simply the ones I started writing about.

Mrs. Barbara Smoot - 7th grade math
I don't remember exactly what they called the version of math that Mrs. Smoot taught us in 7th grade. What I do remember, is that it was vastly different than the 'rithmatic that I had learned back on the Eastern Shore. Mrs. Smoot was very patient and willing to answer every one of my questions, no matter how dumb the question. If she hadn't been willing to do that, I don't think I would have been able to handle the material the following year.

Mr. Salvatore "Chip" Giardina - 8th grade math
Chip Giardina was young, cool, and a McDonogh grad when he arrived on the scene to teach us 8th grade algebra. At the height of the Middle School hormone ooze, this guy took our best shots and dished them back in very creative ways. Chip could teach, but he could also crack up the class of guys with his jokes. I still remember his joke about the 'golden toilet seat". I also remember the time that he sent Nollie Wood out for a lap around the track that he timed with his stopwatch. Class rumor was that no one ever beat Nollie's record.

Mr. Guenther Sonntag - German I, II, III (9th, 10th, and 11th grades)
Guenther Sonntag was a great language instructor. The class of 1972 was the first class where freshmen were allowed to take German I. We shared the class with members of the class of 1971. German was reputed to be the harder language to master and the middle school had not allowed 8th graders to sign up for it. Guenther promised us that we'd have to work hard for three years but our fourth year would be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, he left after year three and our new teacher didn't get the note that German IV was to be easy. Guenther had emigrated from Germany after World War II and was not too fond of "the little corporal" as he referred to Hitler.

7th grade (1966-1967)

As a brand-new, wet-behind-the-ears McDonogh cadet, the memories of this year are burnished into my brain. Where do I start? Day 1 - Arrive on the hill with all the other new kids, dressed in a uniform that I had never worn before. Find out that I'm in Room 21, the little wing of Alan Building. Paul Ellis was my room officer. Chris Illardi was a fellow newbie, but he seemed to have it more together than I did. I was from the Eastern Shore (Princess Anne) and had a typical Eastern Shore accent. My classmates thought I was from North Carolina or someplace so deep in the woods that electricity hadn't yet been installed. In 1966, the drill was that boarders did not go home for the first two weekends. The purpose of keeping us at McDonogh was to let the homesick boys adjust. It also allowed us to spend our time polishing our belt buckles, brass on our dress cap, and spit-shining our shoes (for those of us not fortunate enough to be able to afford Corfam shoes). Reveille was at 6:45 am (and remained at 6:45 for all six years). A cannon was fired on the quad and was usually pointed at Room 21. A bugler was assigned to blow the Reveille call while the flag was being raised. If the weather was sketchy, you looked out your window to see if the red flag was up instead of the American flag. We formed in our platoons and companies on the bus parking lot behind Lyle building. Company C was the Middle School boarders. Company A was the Upper School Boarders. The Cavalry and The Band were separate groups at breakfast and were the only organizations that consisted of boarders and dayhops. Formation was called at 7:00am and we marched to Lamborn Hall, the dining facility, just 200 feet away.

The military had its unique terms: Blitz cloth, caddy cloth, spit-shine, spiffy, four-in-hand, Windsor, campus jacket, overcoat, dress jacket, etc. Our meals were served family style and that meant that there were two biddies at every table. The first biddy had the responsibility of waiting in line by the double doors at parade rest until after the officer-of-the day said a prayer. If you were good, you were in line first and that meant your table received its food first. The second biddy had the job of clearing the dishes and getting seconds once the food ran out. If you had the misfortune of drawing a table of seniors for your first biddy assignment as a Middle Schooler (as I did), you had to get used to remaining at the table forever and cleaning up everything and anything. I still remember my breakfast table head, Mike Weiland. A lot of the guys at his table were in the Cavalry.

After breakfast was morning work detail. In the seventh grade, I drew the worst work detail of all. I had policing duty around Finney Building. Near the playground area, there were usually popsicle sticks to pick up. Near the back corner where Mr. White's classroom was, there were usually cigarette butts to pick up. Middle Schoolers didn't seem to observe Major Levy's rules of picking up trash whenever you walked past it.

If you were unfortunate enough to draw a tough morning work assignment, you couldn't work after the bell rang at 8:15. From that point until 8:35, you had to change clothes and prepare your room for morning inspection. Usually, the Teacher in Charge (TIC) came by and inspected your room. Unless they happened to be McDonogh graduates, they were usually fairly lenient. Sometimes the officer of the day (OID) would come by. They weren't as lenient.

Classes began at 9:00am and ended around 2:35. Activities period was after class and most Middle Schoolers were required to sign up for a couple of activities. I signed up for the fishing club with Mr. Diehl (Lee "Pop" Diehl). I also signed up for the Drama Club with Mrs. Coblentz.

I think this post is about long enough for now. If you care to comment or add to it, feel free.