JWG

At the reunion event itself after getting my badge and meeting up with some of the people I'd seen in the morning to chat we went into the Auditorium. It appeared to be much smaller than I'd remembered. There were various speeches honoring a couple of retiring teachers, the election of alumni representatives, presentation of class gifts, etc.

They showed an interesting video about the School Song that was made a couple of years ago with teachers and little kids articulating what it meant to them - it was well done and professionally made.
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We sang it at the end along with the alumni chorus. I actually remember the words to the first two verses, (I hope I'm not supposed to remember the Fieldston song tonight.)

While there I recognized a name from the class of 1966. A bit of arithmetic made me realize these were the 7th graders I taught science to for one year, During the dinner part with my class I went upstairs to their reunion room to say hello. Oh, Mr Gintell, they said - and one told me that I'd spoiled his hopes when I taught them that there couldn't be a perpetual motion machine. I got invited to their lunch picnic (indoors because of the rain) and I will stop by there for a bit before I go up to Fieldston.

At our dinner I talked to various classmates, None of my closest friends (boys) were there - I'll try to get in touch with a couple of them whose email addresses I have. Some of these people have stayed in touch which isn't true for me. None of our teachers showed up - some are still alive - I do know that my geography teacher is alive and well at the age of 95.

At noon today, I went to the party put on by one of my seventh grade students. She lives in an apartment building on 5th avenue that has an elevator on each side of the building and on each floor there is just one apartment. I only saw a few rooms; I'm sure it has many and is a gorgeous place overlooking Central Park.

It was fun. I spent quite some time talking to one of my best students. He is a cardiologist who works part time into mostly holistic cardiology (diet, exercise) instead of just procedures and medications trying to teach his patients that there is a lot they can do to improve their lives and life expectancy. He is also a volunteer math tutor of kids, and does other such broad spectrum things. It was quite interesting talking to some of these now grownups that I knew only vaguely. As someone who lives in Michigan he was interested to hear about my experiences as a gay man and getting married etc, saying that he has essentially no exposure to that out there.

The real super science/math whiz wasn't there today although I talked to him the previous night. He also is a medical doctor of some form.

The hostess told a great story about how she met her husband. She had been recently divorced from a bad marriage and organized a trip to Switzerland with 3 of her old classmates. On the plane one of them asked her if she was ready to date and she said oh I think so. Then she was asked - how about that cute guy over there. Later on they all started talking to him; he helped them with some baggage and they went touring together (he was staying in the next town) and met up again the next day.....

Then it was time to go to the next reunion. I went off by bus to the 8th avenue subway; taking the C and then the A train to 207th street and the Bx7 bus to a couple of blocks from Fieldston just like I used to 50 years ago (actually in my last year I mostly drove by 1940 chevy to school).