May 11, 2011
Dear Honeyhill Friends –
This writing brings me way back to yesteryear to my old hometown and neighborhood on Midrocks Drive, the names, Tony Murphy, Fred Ehrlinger, Jack Richter, Sue Barish, Judy Sugarman, Fulton Li, John Elger, Johnny Saddler, Eric Warner, Joe Demaine, Andy Hatkoff, Michael Toobin, Betty Dell, Deidre Smith, Cheryl Wragg, Barbara Fife and others that may come to mind as I am writing.
My memories don’t seem to be in any order, some pop up sooner than others, not sure why, but they do.
I have vague recollections of playing around in the foundations of the school as it was being built, or course we weren’t supposed to be there, but it seemed like fun! I also can still smell and feel the window putty we used to
gouge out with our fingers after the school was finished - for some reason?
I think we all can still hear Principal Mr. (Phillip) James, click his pen or pencil on his wedding ring as he walked down the hall – we could always tell when he was coming – like the crocodile in Peter Pan.
And if I’m correct, the 5th and 6th grade watched Alan Sheperd go up on the first 15 minute Mercury space flight in the Spring of 1961 on two fairly large black and white TV’s in the gym/auditorium I think we also performed a version of My Fair Lady on that stage at some point – and I remember my pre-puberty brain not getting any of the adolescent jokes the girls were making about the lyrics of some of the songs!!
And, those wonderful ballroom dance lessons in that same gym, where the boys sat on one side and the girls sat on the other and they “forced” us to mingle and chose partners to dance, I still can’t do anything but a simple 2-step. Square dancing too I think.
And Ed Farris, are you reading this??? After a loud classroom session where everyone was talking out of control, you made us sit down the next day and listen to the song “You Talk Too Much”!! We got the message. Or the time that a “stink bomb” went off in your classroom and no one would fess up to the deed – so we ALL had to stay after school. Does anyone know to this day who the culprit was? It probably was an accident of some kind…
Way back around 3rd grade – Miss (Anna) Zanazzo was my teacher - We voted and chose the Green and Gold Colors for our school – I remember we were all really proud, I still love those colors. Did we have a school song?
Now Mr. Silva (Joseph) was one of my favorite teachers – it was in his class, (remember we had 4 rotating classrooms between Mr. Farris, Mrs. Olmstead Sawyer, Mr. Silva and another teacher) – in his class was where we had our first Atomic Bomb drills !!! “Just hide under the desk, close the blinds and we’ll be safe!” sure…everything would be fine and we would be safe!!!! Did anyone ever question that?? Hello!!
We had some great field trips – memorable was the trip to the United Nations in New York – I think I sent Judy a few photos and I have a few more to send also – I’m going to try and upload them to an album on my facebook page…
One of my favorite friends was neighbor Freddie Ehrlinger, he was a fabulous baseball player, even at a young age, I think we saw Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris play at Yankee Stadium in the early 1960’s with the Recreation program out in the back of the school in the summertime. We also used to have boxing matches in our back yard with real boxing glove s, no one ever got hurt but we got in some good jabs…Later, in Jr. High, he started to fade out of social events and sports and for a long time no one told us why. Turns out he had Hodgkin’s Disease and was undergoing intense radiation therapy – After high school I came back to Norwalk for Christmas break and visited Freddie in the Hospital, he was quite ill but we had a really nice visit. He had earned his driver’s license and was taking courses at Norwalk Community College, but only lived a month or more into the new year. His mother Vilma, brother Skippy and sister Jeanie were still around when I was back home to visit on several occasions. I seem to recall that Vilma was a very jovial person and had a “crush” on Tom Jones in his platform shoes because he was so short – really…
And Miss Olmstead (at the time) our 5th grade teacher, assigned us to write a report on what happens to a ham sandwich when we digest it…
Back to 2nd grade, can’t remember the teacher – it was Miss Beladeau (I just found my old report cards in a keepsake box which my Mom had saved for me over many years – thanks Mom) Miss Beladeau made me stand out in the hall because I talked too much, humiliation itself. Now I earn my living talking!! Also in 2nd grade we had a reading group out on the lawn in the fall or spring and I got stung by a bee on my lip – ouch. My Mom always put ammonia on bee stings – not sure why but it seemed the thing to do…
And something very meaningful happened to me in Mr. Silva’s class one day, the class was making various jokes and comments about something without giving it much thought, and I said something innocently about someone being a “guinea pig” and was quite taken aback when Mr. Silva called me out with him into the hall for a talk. He informed me that the use of that term is sometimes offensive because the word “Guinea” sometimes referred negatively to Italian immigrants.. I apologized because I did feel bad but I also learned the importance of learning what words may mean before using them, and about the context of the words as well.
Now how many remember Winnepauk School, down the hill on Route 7. We used to walk down Linden Street and cut in over a stone wall down a grassy slope to the playground and the back door of the school. Where my Kindergarten class was, complete with sandbox. I remember the teacher wrote in my report card that I ought to “swallow” more (drool less). She was Miss Tomaselli and our first grade teacher there was Miss Della Russo.
We stayed at Winnepauk until after the Christmas vacation and then our whole class with Miss Della Russo moved up to be the first first grade at Honeyhill and we were the first “graduating class” five and a half years later who went all the way through Honeyhill.
Well it’s time to come back to the present and get some other work done, but this has been a pleasure and I hope it brings back memories and stories for everyone else…
I’m scanning some photos now, hope they come out nicely….
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