PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

Spivack Runs For Congress

WILMINGTON, DE.– Dennis Spivack, a native Delawarean and Vietnam veteran, has filed as a Democratic candidate to represent the First State in the U.S. Congress.

Spivack, a Wilmington attorney who has been involved in Delaware Democratic politics since 1960, kicked off his campaign in a traditional three-county tour on March 7th.

Spivack and his wife Marcia (Bregman) live in North Wilmington. Marcia (Bregman) Spivack is a 1966 graduate of Mt. Pleasant High School. They have two grown daughters, Lauren and Emily.

Spies Among Us

Phil Jornlin, a 1966 graduate of Mt. Pleasant High School has got our back. Jornlin has spent his life serving his country and protecting us from evildoers. A modest man, and speaking under the cover of secrecy, Jornlin is reluctant to tell his story. However, exhaustive investigative journalism has uncovered his remarkable life.
After graduating from Mt. Pleasant High School in 1966, Jornlin attended VMI for two years before serving not one, but TWO tours in Vietnam. He then joined the State Department after graduating from James Madison with his Masters, The story gets murky at this point.
“I wasn’t a spy; not an agency guy,” claims Jornlin, as his cruel, steel gray eyes dart around the room. “Our actions were always counter- and anti-. Reactive and preventive. Nothing really covert. I served tours as an Embassy Regional Security Officer in China, Philippines, Hungary, Tanzania, Philippines (again), London, Hanoi (as part of the first American delegation back after the war), and Lebanon. I also ran the State Department Physical Security programs for the Middle Ease after the second Beirut Embassy bombing in 1984.” (continued)

Onward Christian Soldiers

Priscilla (Pierce) Richter, a graduate of the Class of 1966 from Mt. Pleasant High School sent her regrets last week. The reunion “comes at a time of year that is impossible for me to get away.”

Richter is finishing up a two-year interim ministry in Plano, Texas and is getting ready to move to Schenectady, NY to take up her own Unitarian ministry this summer.

As we spoke, Jornlin calmly pressed his Rolex Submariner watch and a soft whishing sound escaped. A man with a thick beard and a turban slumped in his chair. Our waitress, Solitaire, a beautiful woman with soft fawn-like eyes, and heaving breasts, approached. The air was thick with sexual tension.
“Vodka martini, shaken…well Solitaire, you know the rest”, Jornlin growled. His Scottish accent muffled the ‘S’ in Solitaire making the nubile waitress swoon for just a second.
Things got hot for Jornlin, and he ‘retired’ as a contractor for the government. “My cover, I mean my job was overseeing security with the new Embassies in Uganda, Tunisia, Angola, and short ‘assignments’ in Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa.” He is currently stationed in Rome.
Jornlin will miss his 40th high school reunion because of his current assignment in Rome.

Carter to Retire

                One of the top highway engineers has decided to call it quits. A. Temple Carter, a 1966 graduate of Mt. Pleasant High School has turned in his papers setting the way for his retirement from the Delaware Department of Transportation after 11 years of dedicated work. Mr. Carter worked with the Department for 25 years, but only 11 of them were dedicated.
                “My proudest accomplishment was the one most overlooked. Stolen, actually,” says Carter. “I invented the Car Pool Lane,” he claims. “Only they took it away. Changed its original intent, actually,” he continued. “Let me explain.”

Green Knight Sings the Blues

                Remember Macy Blackman? Me too. He’s now in San Francisco singing the Blues. No he’s not whining about the crappy, foggy weather or worrying about the impending earthquake-to-end-all earthquakes, he really sings the Blues.
                Here is his web page. Enjoy. Buy his CD. Help a (Blues) brother out.

Katie (Black) Allen Heads To China

                Katie (Black) Allen retired from teaching this past December and took off to China. Katie has gone to Hangzhou, China to teach English for a year. She regrets she will miss the 40th reunion, but promises to attend the next one.

Want to follow Katie's adventure? Click here for her blog and read along. Katie's blog.

Contest Winner Announced
Olson Gets Boyinked

Wilmington, DE          The first contest winner of the 40th Reunion of Mt. Pleasant High School was selected today. After an exhaustive review of the names of people who have registered for the Reunion, Nona Olson Boyink emerged as the clear winner of the Best Name In The Class contest
                  One judge gave us more details. “We were very much impressed with the West Coast finalist, Arlyss Dietz Anderson Rothman, because her name just kept going.” AAR, as she is often referred to, (not to be confused with the sound a pirate makes), made quite a run at the title. Her full name, Arlyss Dietz Anderson Rothman, PhD, MHS, RN-C, FNP, Assistant Professor of Nursing, Senior Analyst, Project Coordinator impressed the judges and is certainly big enough to fill a sandwich board-sized nametag.
                  Another judge commented, “While AAR’s  name is certainly a mouthful, we felt Boyink was just funnier. Our only confusion was whether to categorize it as a noun (like the sound a pebble makes when thrown into a lake), or a verb.”
                  A third judge said he voted for Dick Butkus, but since Butkuss is neither an alumnus of Mt. Pleasant nor registered to attend the reunion, this vote was largely squandered. It is a great name though.

(Cont.) weren’t as successful and time was not as essential. Well, the Highway Department took my idea and changed the CPL to the Car Pool Lane and the HOV to High Occupancy Vehicles. I still don’t understand their logic, but that’s not the point. I didn’t get one ounce of credit. At the very least, they should have called it Carter’s People Lane"
                “In any case, I’m retiring. Maybe I’ll run for City Council or play golf. ”

Mitchell Is One Smart Cookie

                Karen Mitchell, a 1966 graduate of Mt. Pleasant High School has sent her regrets that she can’t make the 40th reunion. Mitchell, it seems, is hard at work learning English.
                During the last ten years, Mitchell retired from teaching elementary school in Alaska and then taught English at the University of Alaska Southeast for 7 years. She then completed her MA in English from Bread Loaf-Middlebury College.
No, Karen did not learn English in a bakery. Bread Loaf is an acclaimed school of English with its main campus at the foot of Bread Loaf Mountain in Vermont. Other campuses are located in Alaska, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oxford (England).
Karen is now at the University of Miami (Ohio) studying for her PhD in Composition and Rhetoric, which should be completed in two more years. I hope she doesn’t plan on grading the composition and structure of this web page.

An Essay For Our Times

by Kevin Henebry

There is a part of me that is stuck back in 1966 in the halls of Mt Pleasant High School. It will always be there, I hope. Although we have all graduated, gone our separate ways, married, or not, divorced, or not, remarried, or not, started families, or not, and moved on. Hell, some of us have probably already retired. There’s a little bit of all of us that remains in the halls of Mt. Pleasant. I would love to go back and listen to our voices that still reverberate through the halls and classrooms. Listen to the laughter, tears, cheers and groans (as we lose by 1 point! 1 stinkin’ point! to Conrad) that remain in the halls.

We are a generation that has experienced tremendous change and history. Tom Brokaw called our parents generation “The Greatest Generation”, and it was. They dropped everything to go fight oppression and tyranny as pressed by Hitler and Tojo. Our world would be entirely different if they hadn’t gone, but they did, and we all ended up at Mount Pleasant High School in June of 1966 wearing cap and gown and ready to graduate. Odd coincidence that we all ended up at the same place, at the same time. I wonder who planned that?

The mere fact that we made it that far was a miracle to some, an expected outcome for others, and totally incomprehensible for a few. There were times when I shouldn’t have survived long enough to make it to that point. I’m sure there are plenty of others who feel the same, but we did. We went about having fun and thrills in our own way.  Some friends and acquaintances were already gone from accidents and illness, but we survived so that we could all gather together in the auditorium and celebrate our good fortune on that June evening in 1966.

While growing up we witnessed such an era of history it would be difficult, if not impossible for past or future generations to duplicate. While we were together, and shortly after while still in our youth, we celebrated the launching of astronauts into space, the shock of the loss of astronauts on the launch pad, and man walking on the moon. We wept and cried at the assassination of our president; we wept and cried, or at least should have, at the assassination of the leader of the civil rights movement; we wept and cried at the assassination of our late president’s brother. We witnessed the Klu Klux Klan come into our backyard, in Bear, to recruit members and stir up unrest. We witnessed race riots right here at home and throughout the nation. We witnessed, nightly, the horror of the war in Vietnam, and watched as classmates were sent off to fight there. We saw the birth of the anti-war generation, the SDS, the Weathermen, sit-ins, the takeover of college administration buildings, and so much more.

Yet, for three years during this turmoil and celebration, we walked the halls together, made floats, painted overpasses, smoked in the parking lot, ate cafeteria grub, and cheered on our sports teams. We studied, took tests, did homework, cut up in class, went on dates, danced in the gymnasium, went to pep rallies, listened to Ferrante and Teischer, and the Serendipity Singers.

We listened to music by Elvis Presley, the Four Freshmen, the Ventures, Peter, Paul and Mary, Brian Hyland, the Beatles, the Stones and Blues Magoos. We couldn’t wait for the next Dylan song to be released, danced to the Beau Brummels and Turtles, sang along with the Zombies, related to the Kinks, and grooved to the Mamas & Papas. Thought about going to San Francisco as Scott McKenzie implored, got Eight Miles High with the Byrds and stayed away from the House of the Rising Sun as the Animals suggested. And, just who was the Wild Thing the Troggs were singing about? Was she in our class? Did I date her? Did I know it?

We ushered in the British Invasion. Hell, we were at the dock  chaperoning them through customs. We danced and sang. We protested, and enlisted. We took out road maps to Canada, and tried to find our way to Woodstock. Arlo Guthrie made us laugh and cry, Pete Seeger made us laugh and cry, Barry Maguire made us angry on the Eve of Destruction (hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace), the Mamas & Papas made us dream of California

We learned about foreign exchange rates by calculating just how much it would cost to buy an XKE, in British Racing Green with tan leather interior, of course.

We had crushes on classmates, upper classmen and even underclassmen; maybe even a teacher or two, but I’ll be damned if I can guess which ones. We suffered the loss of our Principal, and the iron hand of our Vice-Principal. Many of us suffered the experience of that iron hand, but none of us unduly. Well, at least we can say that now, 40 years after the fact.

We can all remember where we were when we heard of the Kennedy assassination. I was in the hall in front of the auditorium, headed for the boy’s locker room. Football practice was called off that day.

We all watched on TV as the assassin was assassinated on live coverage. We watched and wept as the caisson carrying our dead president rolled through the streets of Washington on its way to Arlington, and John-John saluted his father. Our hopes and dreams for Camelot were buried along with JFK that day, but we pressed on.

As a result of the drills before high school, teaching us to hide under our desk in the event of a nuclear attack from the USSR, we can lay claim to a victory for our generation for the collapse of Communism and the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Who would have ever imagined that by showing a coordinated effort to hide under our desks we could bring down Communism?  Maybe we should try that more often, whenever there’s an ominous threat we hide under our desk. Just listen for the bell for the drill. I’ll see you down there.

Every one of us remembers the news reports of the people of Berlin searching for freedom, and being killed at the Berlin Wall. We remember studying about the wall and how the communists didn’t want their people to experience freedom. That wall was built in our lifetime (1961), and was destroyed in our lifetime. During our high school years we lived with what that wall represented. Maybe not daily, and certainly not as seriously as the residents of East Berlin, but it was one of the many reminders of the separations and tensions in our world. That, along with the Cuban missile crisis, Khrushchev slamming his shoe on the desk at the UN and “On the Beach” was enough to keep any of us awake at night. But then, defeating Goldfinger, winning the West, and Melanie’s search for a “brand new key” tended to soothe our nerves

Computers developed and came of age in our youth. Okay, maybe I’m stretching our “youth” a bit but we can remember card punch operators, and seeing those huge machines with the wheels spinning first one direction then the other as the “computer” tried to retrieve data. A fast response was within 24 hours. Now, we curse and pound our keyboards when we don’t have instant gratification. We’re also the generation that brought on Road Rage. Let’s calm down a bit. After all, we also brought on “Peace, Love and Understanding.”  But then, we also brought on “Tune In, Turn On and Drop Out ,”  “Live Hard, Die Young, and Leave a Good Looking Corpse.” And other quaint sayings such as these.

I can’t hope to recall all the history  we experienced in our youth. I’ve tried to cover the high points without omitting any of the obvious. We are a generation that has experienced a lot. Others have one or two points of tremendous importance, but we seem to have many more then our share. I don’t include the events of 9-11 since we were no longer in our youth. In fact, we may well know children and grand-children of ours or our  friends and colleagues who were there that day. Yes, many of our own generation were there as well, and many lost their lives, but this is an event for the youth of a different generation. We witnessed it but we can’t claim it as our own. No more then our parents can claim the Vietnam War and anti-war movement as their own. They witnessed it, and some even participated, but  it belongs to our generation.

I am not trying to denigrate the importance of 9-11. My own daughter was there at Ground Zero and witnessed the horror and terror of the whole event. It belongs to her, and her generation. Fortunately she was not physically hurt, nor were any of her co-workers, but she owns this tragedy in her psyche along with her generation. Our generation has enough baggage to carry along without laying claim to any more, but in addition to that baggage we have many, many  happy times to remember, as well.

I sometimes think back to my days at Mt. Pleasant and remember them as some of the best times of my life. The people I knew, the things I did, the events I experienced are all special to me. Nothing can take them from me, and nothing will ever replace them.

I hope to see each and every one of you at the reunion, and at least say “Hi” even if we didn’t get along that well in high school. Nobody likes everyone, even now, but you were all a part of the experience, you were all part of what made my years at Mount Pleasant special. I see some classmates listed on the “In Memoriam” list and I wish I could see them again. If for no other reason then to say “Good-Bye.”  Some I knew pretty well, some I didn’t know at all, but it’s sad to think that our class is just a little bit smaller, whether we knew them or not.