Searching the out-of-the-way corners of this ol' house that we are leaving behind after thirty-five years, I discovered a mutilated copy of The Log, an eight-page mimeographed pamphlet produced by students of P.S. 217 in June of 1952. The entries seem to have been written not by the students but by the teachers and were designed to inculcate a moral. For example: "Class 8-1 has made many things in cooking, shop, sewing and arts and crafts. The girls under the supervision of Miss Willig have baked many good cookies and cakes while the boys, under the supervision of Mr. Kaminsky have made expertly constructed pieces of furniture. In grammar we have learned to diagram long sentences and are beginning to excel at it. On Graduation Day, when the girls wear their beautiful organdy dresses which they themselves made, they will be very grateful for the instructions they received from Mrs. Ennis." The bottom line: "you may have run wildly amok, you horrid little creatures, and created ruckus after ruckus, but some day you'll appreciate us, we hope hope hope."
Also In The Log, and far more interesting and useful than the forced feeding of pre-nostalgia, is a list of the 1952 graduates of our fabled elementary school.
A month or so ago, I posted on this blague a formal picture of the assembled graduates, and, with the help of a committee of distinguished volunteer mnemosynists, was able to identify about half of the members of the class. With the discovery The Log, I am now able to to list the remaining students who graduated from P. S. 217 that last Truman June. Here's hoping that my enthusiastic comrades will now be able to assign faces to the following seventy-seven most musical names: Carol Berse, Diane Goldberg, Norma Harris, Rosalind Symons, Sheila Slovis, Dorothy Steinfeld, Sara Steinman, Harriet Young, Robert Derwin, Harold Schienkoff, Myron Sklar, Maryann Abrahams, Sheila Carp, Ria DeCastri, Anita Friedman, Ricki Gottlieb, Marcia Katz, Sheila Katz, Sandra Kopelton, Rochelle Miller, Diane Spatz, Janet Solomon, Eleanor Troy, Appolonia Yacovelli, Carole Zietlin, Thomas Bellavita, Donald Carbone, Joseph Cassano, Robert Cohen, John McKay, Arne Neilson, Toby Anker, Renee Dickson, Sylvia Gordon, Francine Herskowitz, Marguerite McGinty, Florence Rosenthal, Yvette Rosenthal, Doris Sippel, Hope Steuer, Michael Gerber, Alan Lipis, Stuart Stillman, Stanley Weinberg, Michael Welch, Carol Coniglio, Carol Gerber, Marline Gold, Leah Goodman, Evelyn and Norma Greenberg, Laurie and Roberta Katcher, Selma Schnier, Edith Snyder, Robert Goldstein, Leslie Shernoff, Barbara Bider, Ann Cacioppa, Sheryl Jerome, Patricia McCabe, Marilyn Snow, Barbara Williams, Ruth Wintheil.
Identifications as well as news of our friends and companions are solicited. Who are these people? What paths in life, glorious life, did they tread? Did they embark on careers of baking, or furniture making, or sewing long dresses? Did they ever truly excel at diagramming long sentences? Your contributions are most welcome.
Leave a Reply