RR rocks a Bob Dylan Tale

Now we didn’t have Tom Hanks attending PS duPont, however, we did have Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) who was born three weeks before me on 24 May 1941 coming down to Wilmington, DE and I met him at the Matson Run Newstand across from the old Diamond State Telephone Building at 39th and Washington Streets. Now the question is, Did Bob Dylan marry the girl he was coming to Wilmington to see? Barry S. probably knows the answer to that one….Ciao, Ray…

Yearbook Online

Courtesy of Ray Richardson

Florida Classmate Challenge

Click on Florida Classmate Challenge

Three Classmates Pass Away to start off 2011

Share your memories of James E. Rebman, Judith M. Kendall (Andrews), and Richard S. “Dick” Hahn, Sr.

With gratitude,
We can say we knew them.
They were a part of our lives.
With hope,
We wish their memories live on.

Obituaries

Happy New Year

Joy Health Peace

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

Dear Friends and Classmates,

Happy Thanksgiving for all of you and your families. Enjoy the great festivity! Edeltraud and I send you cordial greetings. We do hope that you are in good health, and particular good wishes for those who are not well at the moment. We imagine that you’ll have great family reunions. May it be a great day with fairly decent weather.

As to us: We had a year of changing health. Edeltraud is complaining about her ankle joint fracture; even after one and a half year she still is having therapy. Walking for a long time is not possible, but she is trying to improve this.

We had to stays at Carinthia, Austria, this summer; however, both times weather changed at half-time. We had rain and cold. On August 30th snow had fallen down to 5,400 ft. The temperature sank down to 40° F.

This year’s highlight was my 70th birthday. Edeltraud gave me a surprise party with 40 of my friends. I hadn’t had any idea that that would happen, because I had mentioned before not to celebrate this date at all. My friends gave me money for a special trip of our choice. So we learned of a readers’ trip organized by our local newspaper: 4 days former Breslau ( Polish: Wroclaw ) in Silesia (which had been a German province until the end of WW II; it had been the wheat producer of the German Reich). Edeltraud was born there, so was her mother. In 1974 – in times of the Cold War – we had had a chance to visit the former capital of Lower Silesia with my parents-in-law to find out whether there were any remains of their Breslau flat. They had to realize that their former house had been destroyed during the siege of Breslau by the Red Army in the beginning of 1945. A week ago we didn’t even find the rest of German houses across the street we had noticed in 1974. The only remaining building we found was Edeltraud’s mother’s school building. The positive experience: Wroclaw has been re-erected with remarkable churches and buildings. There are 120,000 students among a population of appr. 640,000.

Our two days’ stay was topped by a wonderful performance of Verdi’s opera ‘La Traviata’. We had a Polish guide who had studied German. He gave us a lot of useful information about the developement of Silesia after WW II and led us to the most important sights. An excusion to former Schweidnitz (Swidnica) gave us an impression of the beauty of the country with its mountain chains.
Edeltraud was reminded of many fairy-tales and stories her grandmother had told her after the war. Finally, it was a trip into our past, and we are encouraged to learn more about the history of Silesia. By the way, several of my former colleagues have their origine in Silesia,too.
To summarize our experience: It was a great trip with nice people on the bus, and we might go to Silesia on our own one day. The distance was 440 miles. We made them in about 10 hours ( breaks included).

We wish you a wonderful Season anmd the very best for 2011. We’ll be thinking of all of you on Thanksgiving Day.

Cordial greetings

Edeltraud and Juergen Thewes

Reflections on Haitian Earthquake

A friend’s message elsewhere prompts me to append my thoughts to his on the various Haiti Fund Raising efforts:

I considered both the text message and credit card routes of donating only to find the credit card companies were initially getting their cut and the cell phone monies would not get to the beneficiary for at least a couple of months until all 3rd parties got paid and any text messaging fees cleared, etc., etc., and etc.

I rejected donating to the Red Cross due to their political reticence in some Mideast situations and their extremely high admin costs.

Finally, I decided on Americares, Inc. out of Conneticut, a much smaller charity that claims to have 99% of its proceeds go directly to a charity and to multiply your contribution several fold by matching contributors.

I called Americares and asked if the credit card companies were getting their take. The person who took my call wasn’t sure but made the simple suggestion of SENDING A CHECK, which I did. Although the postage was only slightly lower than what would have been the credit card company’s take, I felt better about it. Later I read of similar concerns on the Huffington Post and I think now the credit card companies have waived their fees.

We all must deal with this incomprehensible tragedy in our own way. I just didn’t want to see credit card companies benefiting.

Fred Kagel

Website reaches 10,000 visit milestone

PSduPont59.com
The 10,000th hit was recorded on class website. Amazing! What’s even more amazing is that about half of the visits were made since last October. Over 1900 pages have been read on the Blog and almost 1500 views of our Class Reunion movies were seen on YouTube. The most amazing thing of all is that we had just over 100 classmates out of now-down-to 275 from 320 attend the reunion.

Now is the time — before memories fade — to send in your own pictures and and class mementos. Contact fkagel@psdpont59.com

Special DVD Presentation “Remembering” now online

For those classmates who were unable to attend the Reunion and would like to see 50 years of memories in 15 minutes, check out the low resolution previews [DVD]. Due to copyright restrictions of the audio on YouTube, for public viewing, I had to replace the audio track of one of the videos with music from the Barber of Seville — buy hey, our lives these past 50 years have been one gigantic opera.

For a copy of the high resolution DVD, contact fkagel@psdupont59.com.

How to Use Our Blog

P.S. duPont Class of ’59 Blog

What is a blog?

Our blog is a collective diary of our memories of Old Wilmington, the 1950s, our days at P.S. duPont High School, our lives the past 50 years, tributes to deceased classmates, and an opportunity to express our thoughts and memories of our 50th Reunion.

Anyone can write comments. Simply click on the word ‘comment(s)’ below. Scroll to the bottom and add your comment. Then click on ‘Submit.’

Your comment will not post immediately. It will appear within 24 hrs after ‘approval.’ This is to keep down on possible spam (unwanted) messages. All comments submitted by classmates will be approved but are subject to editing

Please do not post anything personal or contact me if you wish to correct or purge any comment already posted. If you wish to post pictures, videos, or music, also contact me: fkagel@psdupont59.com.

Enjoy!

WHAT A MEMORABLE REUNION!

What a great Reunion! What an amazing turn out! It was just a good feeling to see so many familiar faces and I enjoyed chatting with everyone, albeit brief snippets here and there. Of course, Clarence Henry’s button rang true: Hi, I don’t remember your name either. Then, there was Bob Vair’s sweatshirt that had his name printed on it.

If I did not spend enough time with you, or you with me, that is understandable and forgivable.

I could not believe the number of classmates that went on the school tour. Mr. Lincoln Hohler, the current principal, made it so enjoyable with his anecdotal stories. My favorite was about retaining the original ‘grease’ streaks on the auditorium walls from Bryl Cream days of the 50s and Afro Sheen of the 70s.

So, ‘Dynamiters’ is not PC, eh?

Ceci Shames taught Mr. Hohler a history lesson with a spontaneous Boboski.

Caught Bill Mat and Scott Woods reminiscing about cars and RayRock and Joe Cloud conjuring up ‘Killer Knob’ steering wheels.

Visited Ms. Levy’s HR, which will forever haunt me, as I was thrown out of it. Fortunately, here was a debate over whether it was HR 217 vs. HR 213, which is just as well to be forgotten since the rooms have been renumbered anyway.

What an impressive room in the current school devoted solely for historical memorabilia of P.S. duPont school.

No ropes in the gym, but caught Marlene Taub, Ellen Levy, Joan Hertzfeld and Lois Resnick, reminiscing, giggling and play acting outside about their days as the hockey girls and gymnasts.
Ellen’s husband Mario and I talked about real sports — baseball, in the Dominican Republic.

For just one memorable weekend in our current lives, we felt the return of that youthful spirit that made us young again.

Be well, everyone.

Our Moment in Time

Lots of smiling faces! Let’s keep it that way for a long, long time!

Please help identify fellow classmates and guests marked as DK or misidentified. Send identities to Fred Kagel.

Remember and enjoy.

Written permission and full attribution required for web reposting. Go to: P.S. duPont High School Class of ’59.

Saturday Night and All Dressed Up

More smiling faces … and all dressed up.

Please help identify fellow classmates and guests on slides marked with DKs or misidentified. Send correct identities to Fred Kagel.

Remember and enjoy!

Written permission and full attribution required for web reposting. Go to: P.S. duPont High School Class of ’59.

P.S. duPont 50th Reunion — Bobbi Silver Cohn

After two months, still wonderful memories of a great weekend!
Photos by Bobbi Silver Cohn, additional captions by Marlene Taub Reinschmidt
Edited and produced by Fred Kagel

One of the captions reads “Vent?” Read the comment below from Paul Simpson who explains that the vent is/was not a vent. Besides, the real vents were on the floor underneath the seats of the auditorium — just one more piece of the memories puzzle solved.

The other comment is from Harold Meyers, who enjoyed Bobbi’s photo show so much that he submitted some of his on pictures towards the reunion photo collection.

Go here to just view the still photos.

Remember and enjoy!

Written permission and full attribution required to repost on the web: fkagel@psdupont59.com
www.psdupont59.com

Juergen Thewes Annual Thanksgiving Wishes

Dear Friends and Schoolmates, Bremen, November 22nd, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving! Edeltraud and I wish you a wonderful family reunion and a great happening with your dear family members. Enjoy the day in grateful remembrance of the first settlers reaching their new home in America and the history of your family and your ancestors that came to the States one day.

We do hope that you all are in the best of health and that you will be able to celebrate Thanksgiving the way you are used to. Our thoughts and good wishes will accompany you.

This year was a special one for us, because we experienced some highlights, but also fateful days. I do hope to be able to inform you later. We had a gorgeous October and enjoyed a flight to Florence, Tuscany, Italy. From Montecatini Terme we were taken on sightseeing trips to pre-renaissance towns like Luccas, Siena, Pisa, San Gimignano, and Volterra. It was a great experience.

I might be able to write more about our trips at a later date.

Again Happy Thanksgiving and the very best to all of you.

Yours,

Edeltraud and Juergen