The Internet offers so much available data that we never would have thought of accessing even thirty years ago. With genealogic research available, I accessed familial information for my son to use in his application for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution. For travel information, reservations, and phone numbers, it is all there. That latter, phone numbers, is especially useful since the residential phone directory has disappeared and the eight-pound yellow page book has dwindled to about one or two pounds. I have not consulted the yellow pages for several years.

With Google or Bing or whatever the Mac offers, you can find most anything. (Trivia interruption: Bing is the Microsoft answer to Google. Do you know what Bing is the acronym for? Because It’s Not Google). So it occurred to me to just enter names of lost classmates rather than try to use various directories. I did this on a recent rainy afternoon. Sadly, I found five obituaries, which I will publish in the next several blogs. There are probably more. Most on our lost list are female for whom we have no married names.

Also, Tommy Turner passed away last Saturday. I will publish that obituary after it is published.

On a bright note, it is always a pleasure to hear from Jay Weidenfeld. Jay wrote after I asked for alternate contact info and I had sent him contact information for Homer Shanks’ widow. Jay wrote:

As for the request for an alternate contact address – well, Jack – you drive a hard bargain ( and they stopped producing those about the same time as Hudson Hornets). Unless the black helicopters have caught up with me and I’ve had to go into witless protection, my alternate contact would be Barbara, spouse of 55 years and companion of almost 60, whose mobile phone is 510 882-1639 and who’ll probably know my whereabouts and keep our PO box whether I’ve been permanently retired or just slipped my leash and wandered off.

No kids, as it happens. Rumor is that we had one, once, and left it on the bus. But that’s malicious gossip. You know how people will talk.

The last, remediated web posting looks fine. My salute to you for hanging in with Microsoft and getting the formatting miseries straight.

I may have mentioned it before, but I appreciate your posting the obits along with other, more cheerful info. Our demographic seems to have the mortality stats of a light infantry unit, so that’s what’s happening. In the meantime, don’t waste a minute!

The other day driving along and listening to the radio, rather than texting or talking, the recording was Party Doll. It made me think that when we were at Jeff, the hit singers and groups were people like Patti Page, Jo Stafford, Perry Como, Vic Damone, Dean Martin, the Four Aces, the Crewcuts, the Ames Brothers, etc. Who can recall others?

When I went to UT in September 1954, it seemed like another whole world of pop music was there—i.e. rock and roll. Party Doll
was big. So were songs like Good Golly, Miss Molly
and a host of others. Hearing Party Doll made me wonder if our entire class was behind the times or was it just me? Probably just me. I remember that Blackboard Jungle hit the theaters during final exams, and instead of cramming for the final, most of the people I knew took a few hours out to see the movie, which offered the hit song, Rock Around the Clock.
Any thought from any of you? Was our class behind the wave or just me?

I regret publishing something that should have a black border around it. So here is a little musing to close out this session.