The message forum is an ongoing dialogue between classmates. There are no items, topics, subtopics, etc.

Forums work when people participate - so don't be bashful! Click the "Post Message" button to add your entry to the forum.

Michael McLeod

Mark: arrr! cleave me to me brisket! 

And you are spot on re:the knee test for the wenches.

David Mitchell

I guess you all know why Pirates are so mean?

Cause they just RRRRRRRRR!

Deborah Alexander (Rogers)

Janie, you are correct about us having to kneel to have our uniform skirt length inspected.  We had to line up in the gym and kneel on the wood floor while one of the nuns made sure our skirt touched the floor.  I remember some of us would unbutton and unzip the waist to make the skirt longer, and we covered up the trick with our long uniform sweaters.  The rules we had to live with!  Like not being allowed to wear any jewelry!  I'm sure they thought that was the road to perdition!  I got in trouble for that one many times by simply wearing a birthstone ring my parents gave me.  

Michael McLeod

Well I for one appreciate the fact that we boys were spared the sight of all those alluring adolescent knees. Otherwise we would have had impure thoughts. Thank goodness none of us did. 

David Mitchell

Yes, but have you seen a recent photo of the male students in recent years?

The boys are all in dark slacks and white or blue dress shirts with ties. Actually, it looks quite good. 

James Hamilton, M. D.

I always have liked reasonable dress codes in grade schools and high schools. It boils down to discipline and respect as well as fostering a positive learning environment.

Do any of you ICer's remember that sometime around 7th or 8th grade the nuns (or maybe it was the pastor) instituted the policy of boys to wear ties? Those clip on ties were popular but, woe be it to the boy who forgot his tie, as one of the nuns (can't remember her name) kept a scratchy wool "tie" tie in her desk for such an occasion. 👔

And, during my two years at Notre Dame, when it was an all-male school, we had to wear sport coats to dinner at the dining halls. Most of us had our "dinner coats" which were seldom cleaned and had remnants of several dinners stained on them. If I recall there was one protest where some students wore their dinner jackets and nothing else but their underwear 🩲, thus technically, in accordance with the dress code.

Jim

Daniel Cody

Janie: you are right about Fr. Byrne's obsession and hatred of shorts on females.  Two stories I remember about his obsession.  My now deceased older sister Kathleen was playing CYO softball for St Mike in the late 50's.  Can't remember the Catholic school opponent, but she and the softball team were aghast that another Catholic school team were wearing SHORTS as part of their uniform.  I remember she and the rest of the St. Mike's team were livid that they had to wear pedal pusher pants and these other Catholic girls were wearing----Shorts!  Oh the injustice!  Surely they were heading to the firey nether regions! The second memory of Fr. Byrne and the forbidden shorts occured during Sunday Mass. The st Mikes crowd will remember the GI quonset hut that was the original church and school. It was a warm day and all the windows were open due to the ungodly heat.  Fr Byrne was in a rage from the pulpit about women in shorts.  He looked to the east and saw a woman walking up Selby Blvd and stopped his rant and exclaimed "look at that woman in shorts walking up the street on Selby.  How sinful and on Sunday of all days!  It was the first time I saw a crowd turn to look out the windows simultaneously. 
As Janie will recall the end of the school year mass he warned that the "swimming pool was the sinning pool!" And remember "you are taking a vacation from school but not a vacation from God! " What a summer sendoff!

Michael McLeod

Dan: That's a fabulous story, or two as the case may be.

When you look at the world of our childhood and the world as it is right now, yikes. Future shock.

Michael McLeod

Oh my goodness:

we saw hamilton last night, second time around, and this touring company is much, much better than the one that we saw before. It's an absolute giant in the history of the american musical. I'd call it a rap opera, actually.

I've never seen the show in nyc. My life is not that ritzy.  Just the two touring productions. But I wrote a detailed story about Hamilton the first time it played down here. Here's a link to it. It's long, and you'd probably really have to be interested in show biz or American history or both to enjoy it. 

https://www.orlandomagazine.com/spotlight-hamilton-on-the-bill/

David Mitchell

I guess I lit a fire over the wearing of shorts. But I just re-read my post and realized I failed to explain that Johnny Schauefele was that third boy wearing shorts - and he remembers the same story - ha!

Janie Albright (Blank)

Danny, I knew you'd remember! That and many other things as well, I'm sure!

Debbie, as I recall my uniform skirt was long enough but except for inspections I kept it rolled up at the waist covered by the long sweater. Covered many sins. ;)
 

James Hamilton, M. D.

Folks,

There's a definite chill in the air here the last few days and we even had a dusting of snow yesterday. Although most of it evaporated overnight, the temperature this morning was 27 degrees as I went out to get the newspaper. 

When I passed our "Wildlife Observation Window" (looks out to the backyard from our entryway) I spotted a couple of young bucks starting to practice for the rut.

I scurried (do old guys really scurry?) to grab a camera and fortunately my Sony with my best telezoom lens was handy. So I started shooting the action. As they maneuvered each other around the yard the battle for dominance continued behind a bush and so I moved to a kitchen window but the rails on the deck obscured good photo ops. Eventually they approached a railroad tie over which the loser tripped onto his knees and the fight ended. 

These two are young but the "big guys" will soon be fighting for mating rights as the rut gets more serious.

Jim

Michael McLeod

Jim:

how cool is THAT?  Figuratively and literally. 

Janie: tut tut. Been a long time since I had the chance to give somebody a tut tut. 

Jane Koob (Kunkler)

Just looked at the "shorts" conversation and the degrading recollections of skirt measurements.  But surely there was nothing as atrocious as the red uniforms that we girls were forced to wear when we had gym class.  The only physical activity we were allowed to show off in was the intramural basketball tournament, and even at that we were made to wear those awful, stupid, pantalooned things. Remember the 1, 2, 3 steps - pass! Just awful andin clownish attire!

David Mitchell

I remember my older sisters classes at St. Mary's of the Springs playing that older version of "girls basketball" and thinking - "how weird is this?"

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Let's Go Bucks!!  Pre-game rehearsal from Penn State:

https://fb.watch/gsY6MoC9bi/

Michael McLeod

Dave:

Not sure if you knew this but I got my undergrad degree at St. Mary of the Springs (it was Ohio Dominican College by the time I got there).

My mother was a graduate.

I wanted to go to OSU but was overruled - didn't get there until I got out of the army and went there for grad school.

Sylvia DiSabato (DiCello)

Michael, I saw Hamilton in San Francisco many years ago with my adult daughter and her friends. The cast was magnificent and I suggested we go meet them at the stage door. Surprisingly, none of them knew about going to the stage door but that's not my point. We went and waited and these fresh- faced, ridiculously young boys, all but one in their early 20's,  eagerly talked and answered our questions, then dropped their skateboards and rode off in their shorts.

Janie Albright (Blank)

Mike, I am thrilled to have done something worthy of a "tut, tut" not much of that at this point in my life! 
 

Sylvia, can only say good thing Fr. Byrne didn't live to even hear about Hamilton! He'd have gone berserk on so many levels!!  
 

Jane! Great to see you are on the forum. Those were the most hideous gym outfits ever worn by anyone, anywhere! I remember my neighbor went to Worthington and they wore shorts and tee shirts. What the heck?!   This from our 45th!  Modeled by Bonnie Jonas. I think Toni Borean also put one on. They kept them no doubt bc they knew no one would ever believe we weren't making it up!! Yes this pic says it has Borean embroidered on it! 

David Mitchell

Speaking of St. Mary's of the Springs,,,,both my sisters - and so many or our firends - went there.  John Jackson's sisters (OLP), Kelly Welch (OLP), Dr. Donnaly's daughter (OLP) (name escapes me), Margie Bergman (IC and my first wife's cousin), some of the Winkel girls (whose dad owned the bowling alley on Lane Ave.) and others.

And my sisters and their friends all dated guys from St. Charles.That same crowd was often at our house before or after a dance or a game, and I was the pain-in-the-rear little 12 year old brother who was always hanging around.

I am curious to know if anyone in our class would know some of them - George Hughes (one of my frrst wife's cousins) twins Phil and Paul Baer (?spelling), Roger Knot, and a few others who's names escape me, but especialy a guy named Dave Nardone.  

Would anyone here know Dave? I have a fun small world srory about him and would love to know if anyone might know if he is still with us? He would be about 5 years older than us. He went on to Notre Dame and then Georgtown Medical School.

Class?   Anyone?

Mark Schweickart

Mike – That was a very nice artcle you wrote (and linked us to) about Hamilton from 2019. Well done! (Except you had one misquote in the piece where you have Aaron Burr saying, "And I'm the damn genius that shot him." The line is "And I'm the damn fool that shot him." I know, picky, picky. Sorry about that.)

I am so glad that this latest touring company did a much better job than the one you saw in 2019.  I had a similar experience with seeing the touring show when in came to L.A. back then. I found it rather disappointing, not that I had seen any other prioduction, but someohow it did not resonate in the theater for me the way it did when I was just listening to it at home and letting my imagination fill in the visuals. Then more recently the original Broadway cast version was released on Disney+, and I have to say – this version is truly spectacular! So if you don't get Disney+, just sign up for it with your cable company and check it out, and then cancel after the first month. It will be the price a movie ticket (and certainly not the price of a Broadway ticket).

Since from your article, it is clear you had to do a bit of research to get some of the backstory about the genesis of the show, you might be  interested in a book by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter called Hamilton: The Revolution. It recounts in detail all the steps of how this show came to be. I listened to it as an audio book, and came to appreciate the show even more than I already did (if that's possible).

Michael McLeod

that's a great story, sylvia.

and Mark, thanks for the tips about the hamilton book - I don't think it was out yet when I wrote the story -  and the online Disney plus screenings.

My girlfriend is as ga-ga about the show as I am so we'll likely spend an evening watching it now that I know about it. 

I'd call it a genre bending creation: part history book, part musical, part opera, part rap manifesto, part homage to both nyc and the immigrant experience.

James Hamilton, M. D.

   AND NOW, A REAL GHOST TOWN !

​​​​​       What's inside seen through that window?! 

Breakneck Pass, Sepia Tone, September, 2005

   HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Jim

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Apparently I am not the only one who dislikes excessive celebrations on the football field! LOL

https://fb.watch/gvY7pQxAC2/

Michael McLeod

ha that's hilarious mm