David 0. Hughes (Hughes)

Well, I think all of this started with Jay's passing and the notice of that. It brought a few people out from the way past....hi Dan, Ellen, Bob, Peggy,  Paul.  Good to hear from you. Doug, not meaning to leave you out, but I see you on Facebook often. 

Andy, I cannot outdo you, and am appreciative of the perspective that you have brought.  It has made me think. The responses have also done that. So many ways of looking at the same thing.  It seems that people have made their way since without having had that particular time get in the way.  Same here.

I liked the time spent at PCS.  I was lucky enough to have gone from K through 12 there.  All of what Andy has said I noticed.  Some of it I saw then, some in retrospect. There were things about high school I liked, and things I did not. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, or wishing I had done this or that differently (although there is a long list of things I wish I had done differently). I can say that Pittsford gave me a great springboard for life. I came away with knowledge that helped me.  I could write well, was interested in reading, understood the passage of time and perspective (history), did not understand chemistry....oh well. I had been given an education, or the beginning of one. Higher education for me happened in three episodes, and I do not have much of a memory of any of those three time periods.  Not sure why that is, but my memories of Pittsford are stronger for some reason. My family remained there, so I came back often, and still do.  it is not the same place I left, but it is recognizable.  I have enjoyed the reunions and look forward to the next one, but that is not living in the past....just touching it from time to time. I make it a point to live here now, and am happy with my now. Well, maybe a little less so after the last election, but this, too, will pass.

I was particularly interested in the discussion about the change in the nature of Pittsford and the insights from both Andy and Peggy. I never noticed,, or thought about that in quite that way, and should have, maybe.  In kindergarden I rode the peanut bus (the only short one I remember) which went way out to the edge of the district to pick up the kids in the "country".  Today, it is not "the country" at all.  I also rremember all of the various working farms in town, and the barn/horse arena on Palmyra at Marsh Road.  Pittsford was not really rural, but it had those aspects.  Thanks to you both for bringing those thoughts back into focus.  Pretty perceptive.

That is it for now.  Good conversation.

Doug P. Allen

Hey, Andy... you should have joined the debate team.... ;-).... We might have won at least one of those tournaments against all the Rochester area Catholic high schools that really "waxed us".... Of course, they prepared all summer and were ready.  We prepared most often the week before those debate tournaments.    It was a great experience, even though it wasn't the popular choice of activities.

As for the rest... Yep, we were a lilly white high school..... I won't feel guilt about that, however.  Housing discrimination was very real at the time (still is to some degree).  Our parents (assumption here).... lived in the Pittsford Central School District to afford us the very best high school education possible.  My parents even fought for the inclusion of Allen Creek School in the Pittsford Central District (v. Brighton).   Despite being lilly white, I learned a tremendous amount from ONE teacher...Sally Covington.  She was awesome!

It bothered me that I was among those who were "vertically challenged" in high school... but hey, that's heredity.  It hasn't been an impediment to my life nor to my happiness.  

I'm thankful for the experience whether it was 100% positive, or a bit of a mix.  I still have some great friends as a result, and do appreciate them!  

Dan...what you said really hit the mark....

Dan Goodenow

Guys, Just back to Gloucester from an early RI site visit for a vet hospital project and drove through the bad roads only to get to my Boston parking garage and found it filled with cars for the Patriot's Rolling Rally!  Our office is about 1.5 blocks from the parade route.  No parking for my monthy pass vehicle so I headed home.  Early day started at 5 am so I won't write much right now.

Dave, great to hear from you.  I remember you playing the left DB with Tobin as safety and me as right DB.  I can still remember certain plays; good and bad.  As I said, I don't have any bad memories of PCS except maybe losing to DiVincenzo 4 years in a row, in the school wrestling comp.  We would both make it to the final in our weight class and then he'd pin me on the same move, 4 years in a row.  Mueller would just laugh at me in a "you'll never learn" kind of way.  I'd love to know what Rick's move was.

My favorite memories were with the band.  A shout out to you Paul in that he forgot to mention Diek and Barker as bandmates.  Kropp played the keyboard and on a couple of songs, doubled up with John Barker on the trumpets.  John would also help with the sound and lights.  Paul, I also remember you hanging with us in our practice space at Boston's house.  Bob also said you gave him a recording I think you made.  He made copies of it and distributed it to all of us.  It actually wasn't too bad for an old reel-to-reel and my kids all got a kick out of hearing me play and sing, in I believe, 9th grade.  Very heart warming and funny at the same time.  We all thank you so much....

Doug, yes I remember that horse farm at the corner on Marsh Road.  The town did have a bit of a "farm town" feel to it.  I actually worked a summer at Sweeney's Corn Farm.  Tough job in the early morning when the corn was wet!  65 ears to a bag I remember.  I wonder it the farm is still there.

When I go back to the handfull of towns I've lived in over my years, I think they have all changed quite a bit.  I guess it's the nature of progress.  Changing for good or for bad, just like us...

Keep writing,

Dan

David 0. Hughes (Hughes)

Dan;

I think Sweeneys might still be there.  I know that Powers is there and going strong.  The Pittsford Dairy has grown, is really busy, and has the best ice cream. The town looks the same, but is not the same. Hicks is there, but nothing like it was. Burdetts is gone and I have no idea what is there now. Main St. and State St. are almost always jammed with cars, so knowing how to "go around" in Pittsford helps now. Schoen Place is always busy, and the canal has become a major attraction.

I gather that you are in Mass.?  My grandparents lived for a while in Rockport.  Cape Ann is pretty.  Have you seen Manchester by the Sea?

Robert E. (Bob) Koster

Dave and Dan, Sweeny's farm is still there, but some time (maybe late 70's, early 80's) they sold it to the town.  This was part of a movement by the town to preserve "green space".  I believe the farm is now operated by Jim? Layman.  I think he may also have bought the Sweeney house.  Knickerbockers' farm is also o still there and still operated by Larry and David (again, some of these details are questionable).  I never worked the farm, but I knew Bob Sweeney and he let a bunch of people snowmobile there in the late 60s.  I still live in the village.  Dave, my brother Frank built a house for your dad.

David 0. Hughes (Hughes)

Bob;

You brother built a great house and did several remodels over the years.  My Dad just passed away in October and they had to finally sell the house last summer after 57 years.  It is hard to think of someone else living in it, but all things change.

David 0. Hughes (Hughes)

Not sure about smoking dope at Powdermill, but Shady Grove was the place.  I went there a few months ago....it no longer is a place.  The road is a service road and mostly gone.  You can walk back to it, which I did. I remember filling that area up with cars.  I also don't recall Turk Hill.  I was not as in synch as I thought.

I only remember your house on Marsh....have driven by it a thousand times over the years. Did not remember that you moved into the village.  Your house there actually sounds kind of interesting.  Had a paper route too for five years or so.  80 papers on Sunday after two feet of snow was always fun.

Did you ever walk under the canal in Irondequoit Creek?

Dan Goodenow

Dave, I got a phone call and didn't get back to your questions about Massachusetts.  In a nutshell, after college at Penn State, I spent about 10 years in Philly.  First two years I was stationed as a Vista Volunteer providing architectural services in various parts of the, as they say now, "hood".  From there I did end up in MA for the remainder of my life. For the past 32 years or so, I've lived in Gloucester which is next to the town of Rockport that you wrote about.  I actually had an office in Rockport for as short time and served on their historic district commission.  It's a beautiful town and will most likely stay that way because of the strong, but older, preservation mindset.  It's become a retirement destination for folks who can afford a small place there and one down south for the winters.  I don't plan to go anywhere south because I like the winters.

As for the movie, "Manchester By The Sea", I haven't seen it.  Ellie did see it and wasn't that fond of it.  Her being a former deckhand and cook on fishing boats thought all the fishing related storyline was bogus.  She also felt the movie didn't conclude in a complete way.  I'm not big on movies in that I think I don't even see one per year.  I tell folks I'll read books and watch movies when I get old!  :)  She did feel the Perfect Storm book and movie was pretty much spot-on.  She knew most of the real people of that movie in that it was based on events back when she was on the water.  And for all you ladies out there, she got to hang with George Clooney at the cast party.  I had no problem with it because we had just started dating about the time the movie came out.  Can we declare that I rangled her away for George?  :)

As for smokes and pot, (my boys always laugh at me when I call it "pot"), I didn't do anything in high school except beer and ripple wine.  I didn't even know pot was around PCS.  I always figured it was a college thing.  That sure was true in 1970.  It's funny how our band sang songs about drugs but none of us did them in HS.  I don't think any of the guys did.  Oh wait, that's right, Bob Legge was a junkie!  :)

As for the parking spots, I'll hang on to my memories and secrets.  I do remember Ellen and me running into Phil Schreyer and Cindy Bol at Arby's a couple of times, late at night, on a Friday evening, out breaking the pregame football curfew for a Saturday game.  In our surprise to run into each other, we didn't speak much but instead mostly exchanged little bad boy smiles.  How freaking innocent it seems now...

Bad to the Bone...

PS.  Good to read some of the farms are still around.  I'll have to look for Sweeney's the next time I visit the area.  Oh yea, paper routes.  I had a small one, 30 or so houses, back in PA in the 5th grade until we moved.  Good business training for all of us I suppose.

Dan Goodenow

Andy,

Yes the drinking age was 18.  I actually registered for the draft a day early so I could have my "drinking I.D."  We were actualy buying well before our 18th with Greg Wolf's fake I.D.  We thought he seemed the most mature out of our crew.

Regarding fast food, Kropp, Legge, Barker and I worked at Carol's Hamburgers all through high school unless it was sports season. Students we knew also got special perks with the food.  Bad boy stories,about the place, I'll let the other guys tell.  Cheeseburger was 25 cents.

Dan
 

David 0. Hughes (Hughes)

Well, this is kind of fun.  No pot in high school either, although it did not take long in college.  Do you remember Hotel Stephanie?  On State St. near the train station. Big front steps up to the bar, and if you could walk up those steps, you could buy beer.  Of course the driver's licenses were paper and riduculously easy to alter.  I think I was 18 at least two years early.

Doug P. Allen

Funny to read some of this... My first job was at Arby's, Andy... With no training at all and a manager who was not a fan of mine, I lasted a full 3 days during the summer between my Junior and Senior year.  Senior year summer was Carrolls - didn't pull too many closings (Dan, I think that was where you, Barker and others developed those stories)....I do remember something about dead flies hidden under pickles, and some vague memory of milk shake fights.... I think that the Arby's "experience" spooked me to the point where I've made sure not to ever have a day without full employment since college graduation...

As for the drinking age of 18, that well... was just don't get caught until you're 18.  I kept my pre-legal alcohol consumption pretty well out of sight and infrequent.  After 2/22/68, however.... I think, if I remember, I did have some fun....but sadly I drank the cheap stuff, stuff I wouldn't touch today.  Does anyone remember the mid-week party at Pat Flynn's house senior year?....right before most of us skipped classes, rode bicycles through the hallways, etc?

College summers were mostly about summer jobs at the Monroe County Water Authority (interesting experience I got into thanks to Lanny Traber's and his mom) and working in the Kodak Apparatus Division offices out in Gates, counting parts in the warehouse, and spending Friday lunches at the old Elmgrove Inn (I think), chugging a full pitcher of Genny Cream Ale before wasting the afternoon once back at work..... .

Nancy Topham (Mueller)

Chris Lupinetti (Huntoon)

I agree with Nancy. Anyone working in any job be it full time or part time, fast food or anything else is not a "loser". 

Brian Terho

Pretty self pretentious

Doug P. Allen

Andy, how could you remember my glorious full 3 days at Arbys?  lol... The firing from the manager (not the sleeping assistant) gave me one thing that actually served me well in life.... fear of unemployment.  Good news was that there was little cost to me as a teenager at that time to use that as motivation later in life.

As for "life's losers".... Hey, that all depends on our perspective.  There is honor in ALL work in my mind.   There are many different aspects of life that one might value....work is not always at the top of the list.  That's ok...Eventually, none of us will get out of this life alive...so achievement in work life or career won't be the most critical factor of all.  I think the most critical factor will be how we treated others and how we dealt with those less fortunate...... 

Robert E. (Bob) Koster

Andy, it looks like you've got it nailed, all figured out.  You must be some intellect to synthesize all the socioeconomic data and get such a clear, definitive, and insightful picture of American life.  Personally, that loser thing worries me.  It's not something you can catch, is it?  Cause I used to hang out with a lot of people who are losers according to you, and I never got inoculated against the loser disease.  Now that I think about it, I still hang out with people who are losers based on your criteria.  They always seemed like decent, hardworking, people who raised families and did their best to ensure their children had values that would serve them well in life.  They even helped me in my life.  Now I'm really worried.  I bet that once you have this loser disease, you don't even know it.  Then you're really lost, cause you don't even know enough to avoid them. If only I had gone to one of your lectures, I might have been saved.  Now I know have the disease, because I feel sick.  Pardon me while I puke.

I know.  I probably missed your point, and the anger I felt after reading your comments is totally misplaced and out of line.  In my ignorance, I just misunderstood you.  I hope so.

Dan Goodenow

Andy,

I have to agree with Brian, Chris and Nancy.  For example, I currently work 2 part time jobs.  I'm certainly not a loser because of that!  I could be a loser in other aspects of life or thought of as a loser by some, but it would have nothing to do with my employment.

You have to admitb that people of all backgrounds and in all types of situations work part-time.  You are absolutely incorrectly generalizing on this.

Additionally, I'd like to suggest that your postings be more positive; especially about fellow classmates.  Also, nobody needs to hear your griping.  What purpose does it serve?  We understand your PCS experience wasn't all that you wished it had been and that in spite of it, in your eyes, you've attained much success and fulfillment in later years.  No need to keep drumming that in to us.  We get it...

I think what we, or at least I like to read is more of the positive or funny rememberances from classmates.  There is no reason to tear people down, (ie: Dennison), particularily when you offer scant substantiation.

Let's try to keep it positve, fun and emotionally healthy.

Dan

Ps:  My first fulltime job after college was for $55.00 a week.  I was happy with that and supported myself 100%. Over the years, I've had many part time jobs.  Additionally, 2 of my kids graduated from community college and went on to get their 4 year degree while working more or less full time.  They now have full time jobs in their respective fields.  I hope you encourage all of your students to do similar and don't stereotype or pigeonhole certain ones into a "loser" bracket.  I do agree with you that, what I call the "try" factor, is an important trait in one's life.  Gotta try....

Chris Lupinetti (Huntoon)

Norma J. Dexter (Dexter)

I have to weigh in on this one too. Andy seems to place value on people based only on their level of education and their financial status. This is a typical attitude from a PCS kid. I did not finish college either but I have had some great careers and like Chris have had a wonderful fulfilled life. I  currently work as a tax coordinator for a 5 billion dollar corporation and I don't judge people or call anyone a loser. I'm very active in my church and in my off time I  founded and run a food pantry for those who are not able to feed themselves or their families. I don't see them as losers. Some of them are veterans who cannot take care of themselves with their megar incomes but they work and many of them for minimum wage. Andy, I feel sad for you. You seem to have a lot of negative baggage in your life. People were not very kind to me in high school either but they have not shaped who I am or caused me to be judgemental. If anything it has made me a very compassionate and accepting person

Norma Dexter.

Nancy Topham (Mueller)

Nancy Topham (Mueller)

Dan Goodenow

Hey, just to change the topic, does anyone have a funny story about that apple vending machine outside the cafeteria.  My 3 boys always thought it was so funny with me having an apple machine in my high school. To add to the fun, I used to say that I would run to get one when they filled it up because there was so much demand and they would run out of apples.  I would also say I saved my lunch allowance to sometimes buy an extra to put on one of my teacher's desk. They would laugh and think dad was so uncool. Of course that was back when they were in junior high and consuming as much junk food as possible. 

Now, in their mid twenties, they are all into kale, spinach and so on. How things change...

Dan

Doug P. Allen

I happen to agree with Dan here.  Andy...choose to accept this or not, but your initial use of the term "loser" was quite clear, or at least not explained in greater detail by you.

I think most of us are happy with our high school experiences - even those that weren't positive, because they taught us a great deal.  I've heard from others who aren't posting that you seem a bit "bitter".  Hopefully that's not the case, but hey... why would anyone hang on to the terrible slights visited on us 50 years ago?  

What I'm most interested in is not who has the most money, who has the best job, best salary, most stock, the most impressive position...but on how we have evolved as people.  After all, nothing that we have, nothing that we've accumulated really matters.  What does matter is what kind of people we have become.

Doug Allen

John Hitchcock

Andy and the rest of you goody two shoes,

My experience in high school was not the best, but I did not let it shape my life or deter me from striving to do my best in life. I graduated from high school and entered the military and served my country (like many others of you probably should've done). I worked my way up from an apprenticeship to become the executive director of an organization with over 500 people. I also was divorced but remarried and was able to retire at age 57 with a very comfortable retirement. No college but a lot of hard work.

I have attended many of the class reunions and have enjoyed talking with many of the old classmates. You have to be comfortable with yourself and in your own skin and it's very obvious you are not.

I like many others on this forum would like to hear positive postings not the garbage I have been reading.

Pat Stagnitto (Perez)

Well, Andy, since you've given us a "choice", I'd say you're an "asshole" with some of your remarks, and an arrogant one, at that. And the more you try to elaborate, the worse it gets. STOP!