My email

My email to the class asking for news generated responses from the following people but with nothing to share :(

Pamela Revercomb
Dan Sheedy
Terry Euston
Vivian Bender Munson

Debby

My mother's memory is down to nano seconds now. She seems happy and content in the Dolan Residential Care home. There are 9 residents in this house -- 7 singles and 1 couple. Each person has their own room. All other facilities have you share a room. Each person has some form of dementia. It's quite a world to enter.
You have to use a code to get in the door. My mother has no desire to go out at all. There's a fenced in backyard with a lovely porch. We sit out there most days and enjoy the air, when it isn't too humid. Sometimes I bring one of my dogs.
The desire to read and even watch TV is not there. A year ago my mother was glued to the TV for all the election coverage. Now she only watches golf matches.
I've seen a remarkable improvement since she has gotten individual care and attention. She no longer uses a wheelchair, but a walker. In April when I moved here she was not communicating much. Now she talks and laughs and even helps take care of some of the other residents.
It's been an interesting transition.

Kirsten Mackey Fleisher

I leave for Guatemala in a few days. As soon as I get back I'll send some pictures and text!

I taught a summer session until last Friday, and am now enjoying a few days off until I leave. Then shortly after I return, I crank it up for another school year

Smiling Dalmatian

This is so funny. Dalmatians do actually smile like this. My dog Savana does -- but really hard to get a picture.

Debby

The Birkenstock store had a sale. 65 % off. Hard to pass up. Bought a few. Not just brown, black and beige either:

Terry Euston

Received an email from Terry Euston. No news

August Issue FINALLY Magazine

Finally Magazine
the online magazine
for BabyBoomers
http://www.finallymagazine.net/click on this link and check out the magazine

Class 1964 Chris Nolan request

Jane Nolan is our '66 classmate. Chris is her older sister from class of 1964.

Chris lost her 1964 FM Yearbook as did Joanie Nimmo -- so she is looking for 2 yearbooks.

Chris wrote:
"Hey, Debbie---can you put something on your blogs about someone wanting a "64 FM yearbook. I have lost mine & I'd dearly love another. I also know that Joanie Nimmo was one as well. She was in my class but moved away before graduation. If you happened to uncover 2, we'd be delighted. I tried e-bay w/o success.I LOVE your blogs. Thanks, Chris"

Arkie Albanese

Arkie Albanese, mayor of Manlius for 25 years, passed away July 14th. His daughter, Margo, was a classmate. Arkie was pretty much an institution in the Village of Manlius. He was involved in both the Skaneatleles and LaFayette country clubs. He also owned Gruens Restaurant and managed Stonecrest and Cavalry clubs. submitted by Anita Cottrell

Syracuse Newspapers Obituaary
Angelo A. Albanese
July 15, 2009 Angelo "Arkie" Albanese, 85, of Manlius, passed away on Wednesday. He was the owner of Gruens Restaurant in Syracuse and Manlius and co-owned Tobin's Restaurant in Fairmount. Arkie managed Stonecrest Country Club and Cavalry Club, as well as the Skaneateles and LaFayette Country Clubs. He was a communicant of St. Ann's Church in Manlius. Arkie was the former Commander of the American Legion Post 141 in Manlius, the former Deputy District Governor of the Lions Club and a charter member of the Manlius Lions Club. He was the former Mayor of Manlius having served for 25 years, prior to that he served as a village trustee for 12 years. Arkie served with the US Navy during WWII. He was predeceased by his wife, Margie Albanese in 1990, and by several brothers and sisters. Survivors: his wife, Doris; two daughters, Margo (James) Harnsberry of Laurel, MD and Lisa (Dana) Cunningham of Manlius, NY; two sons, A. David "Arkie" Albanese of New Hartford and Michael Albanese of Cortland; four stepsons, Scott Dethloff, Steven Dethloff, Kevin Collins and Richard Collins Jr.; two sisters, Julia Albanese of Manlius and Eva Hammon of Manlius; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Funeral Services: 9:15 a.m. Saturday from Newell-Fay Funeral Home and 10 a.m. at St. Ann's Church, Manlius. Burial: Manlius Village Cemetery. Calling hours will be on Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the funeral home, 8171 Cazenovia Rd. (Rt. 92), Manlius. For directions, local florists, or a guestbook, please visit www.SCHEPPFAMILY.com Contributions: The Manlius Library, 1 Elmbrook Dr., Manlius, NY 13104. NEWELL-FAY Manlius 682-5300

Jim Myers and Dyke Chapman

Dyke Chapman was out in Phoenix for a few days of business meetings from July 14-17 last week, so Marsha and I invited him to stay at our home. He was pretty busy, as his company will now be supplying the fuel for all of the US Air ground vehicles at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (a big deal for him), but we managed lunch a couple of days, some late-night swimming in our pool, a couple of hours at the Heard Museum of Native American Art, and, of course, a few libations! It was great to see him, and we’ve all promised that this will be just the first of many visits.

Dave Costello

Have connected with Dave Costello on Facebook. He left us in high school to join the Marines so he did not graduate with us. He remembers Rick Cook, Amy Jaquith, Kyle and Randy Saltern to name a few.
Dave currently lives in the St. Louis area and worked for Anheusher Busch until they were bought out by Inbev. He's in the process of moving to New Bern, NC.
He is interested in the 45th reunion and reconnecting with classmates.

Dyke Chapman

I saw both Harriet and Jim. I stayed with Jim and Marsha while I was in Phoenix on business. We had a great time revisiting the past hanging out. I went to Harriet and Bruce's for dinner one night. We went through yearbooks and spent the evening reminiscing...great time! I look forward to going out again and catching up some more.

Vivivan Bender Munson, Esq.

News From Alaska

How the U.S. Postal Service saves money in these difficult times.

After work rush at the Anchorage Airport Post Office--open 24 hours.

Postal employees available to meet the rush.

Meanwhile, at the cabin in Willow--perfect peace.

Your Ancestors.

"You will find informational, and sometimes fun, posts from the folks behind the scenes here at Ancestry. We hope you’ll notice just how passionate we are about family history and about the products we're building to help connect families over distance and time. "

Check out:
Ancestry.com

July Issue Finally Magazine

Finally Magazine

the online magazine

for BabyBoomers

http://www.finallymagazine.net/
click on this link and check out the magazine

Jim and Wayne,

Thanks for the tour of your adventures in Utah. I have ventured to many beautiful places east of the Mississippi River, but have yet to experience many wonders west of the Mississippi. Your pictures and storyline were very interesting and hopefully inspires others, including myself, to get out and explore more of our beautiful country.

Happy Fourth of July

The End

Hope you’ve enjoyed taking this trip with us. We highly recommend our country’s National Parks as a great place to breathe deeply, decompress, move your arms and legs, and get back in touch with the great outdoors. As a nation we owe a great debt to men of vision like John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, who played such key roles in preserving our public lands for the benefit of future generations.

If any of you ‘66-ers need a “jumping off” place for a trip to the desert Southwest, please feel free to give me a call. As they say around here,
“Mi casa es tu casa…” for a night or two, anyway!

Finally, an accounting of our week in Utah wouldn’t be complete without a couple of shots of Monument Valley, made famous in all those western movies from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. We detoured through the town of Mexican Hat and crossed the San Juan River to catch a look at it on our way back home. Monument Valley is now a park owned and operated by the Navajo Nation. The rugged dirt road through it is only passable in a 4-wheel drive vehicle with good clearances, so we decided not to attempt it in my aging Cadillac. Nonetheless, we got a couple of good photos before driving on.

Our next stop was the park visitor center, where we were two of only about six people browsing through the exhibits at 9:30 in the morning.
The rangers were excellent, and gave us a hiking itinerary that was both challenging and scenic, charting a route for us through the heart of the park’s most beautiful area. We packed up some food and a lot of water, and headed out for an 11-mile loop through “Chesler Park.” The trail included a fair amount of rise and fall, some of it through “slot” canyons that were so narrow we actually had to turn sideways to get through some of the tighter spots. The geologic character of the Needles is radically different from anything we had seen earlier that week, featuring colorful arrays of spires and thousands of mushroom-like sandstone formations called “Hoo-doos,” formed by eons of blowing, scouring sands. The landscape is literally breath-taking. These photos can’t hope to convey the vastness and tremendous numbers of these formations

On the way in to the Needles we stopped to see a very well-known collection of native American petroglyphs at a place called “Newspaper Rock.” While petroglyphs are fairly common throughout the Southwest, these particular ones are so numerous and so clear that they have attracted anthropologists and symbologists from all over the world to study them. Here’s a sample:

Day #4 Final Installment for Jim and Wayne's Trip

After spending a little more time with the local rangers in the Moab Visitor Center, we decided that “The Maze” section of Canyonlands National Park was simply too far away to drive and return to our hotel for another night (2 hours each way just to the gate). But “The Needles,” which appeared equally scenic and challenging to hike through, was much more accessible, about an hour to the south. Since we would be driving back to Phoenix the following day, we checked out of our hotel early on Tuesday and headed down there, planning to stay somewhere that night in the nearby town of Monticello, UT, figuring that move would cut about 100 miles off our trip home on Wednesday.

Day #3 Jim and Wayne

Day #3

After two strenuous days of hiking and climbing, Wayne and I decided to give our aging shanks a rest for a day and take a raft trip down the Colorado. We had driven about 15 miles north along the river the night before to have dinner at Red Cliffs Lodge, a famous ranch in the area with a beautiful outdoor dining deck overlooking the river and the red mesas beyond, and thought it would be fun to see more of the river close up and hit some of those rapids, too. If we had had an extra day (and an extra $500 apiece) we might have done a two-day trip on a fast power boat through Canyonlands, featuring a stretch called “Cataract Canyon” that’s billed in all the brochures as the “wildest whitewater” in the country. But we saved that idea for another trip and opted for a one-day oared trip with a guide. He drove us about 30 miles upstream from Moab where we launched the raft at a spot called Fisher Tower, named for a 1000-foot rock tower nearby that is a popular climbing spot. From there we floated some twenty miles downriver, sometimes at a leisurely pace and sometimes getting soaking wet in fun stretches of rapids. If you’re a whitewater veteran, the trip was fairly tame, with several rapids rated Class 3, enough to make you yell “Yahoo!” and have to bail the boat after running them, but nothing life threatening. After a pleasant and scenic day on the water, the company van hauled us out a few miles above Moab and deposited us back at our car around 3:30 in the afternoon. Here are a few photos from the day. By the way, there are also some good action shots of us going through rapids that were taken by a commercial photo outfit. We didn’t buy any, but you can view them all online at this link: http://www.moabactionshots.com/search.php?gid_search=70&match_type=all&search=06-01-2009

Day 2 Comment

Obviously, a few photos can’t do this amazing place justice. Suffice it to say that our second day in Utah was equally spectacular to the first, and we were now developing a lot of enthusiasm to see the other two sections of Canyonlands, called “The Needles” and “The Maze.”

Explanation on Layout

FYI. You need to scroll down to start at the beginning of Jim and Wayne's trip. There is no easy way on this set up to cut and past and move around. Since I'm getting the trip in different emails, I'm posting them as I get them so the most recent is in the beginning. dld