Heeeee’s back! No, not The Terminator.  Arnold is otherwise occupied. It is I, as Winston Churchill was wont to say.   I have been out of pocket for the past couple of weeks. Getting back to a routine is not so easy. Eventually I will wind up the reunion aftermath, which I will get back to working diligently, but not at breakneck speed.

For something different:Just so you do not conclude that I don’t have a life outside the reunion, I will eschew the fixation on our recent great reunion and offer a few thoughts to ponder.

Confessions of a smart phone non-junkie. I readily admit that I have a smart phone. I also readily admit that it usually sits on my desk, turned off. I think my bill usually shows about 35 minutes a month actually calling someone. My phone has about five apps, mostly banking related. I don’t play games on the phone. I rarely text, read emails on the computer, and don’t talk to the mysterious voice of Siri on the iPhone. Still, I pay some exorbitant amount in case I want to. One reason I don’t text is because I have fat fingers, and it takes a terribly long time to type in a text. A second reason is that each one costs 20 cents. Of course, if you send more than 50, you can pay $10 a month and have unlimited texts. Thirdly, with the iPhone, Apple has commandeered my PC, and I hate it. Now all that may change because I discovered I can dictate the text message and the voice recognition is pretty decent.

Not a social media person either. I don’t tweet, leaving that for the birds. I have a Facebook account I never use. Actually I have two Facebook accounts, which is against the terms of use conditions, but they won’t let me combine them into one. There is some other procedure to follow that appeared to be more trouble than it is worth.

While I am not into the social networking, I do have concern that technology is passing me by. Main frame computers have been around for 65 years, and the desktop has been here for thirty-five or more. Social media is what is making us not users dinosaurs . So today, I spent some time trying to educate myself on some of the stuff that is out there. Here are some of the hot social media packages today. I won’t describe them, but I will show my ignorance since some have been around for several years. Pinterest and Instagram are probably the two most widely used, but then there is Google+, Tumblr, Rdio, Vine, Whatapp, Obvoo, etc. and so it goes. Hulu and Pandora are pretty commonplace by now.

Turning philosophical and pondering old age, whenever it gets here. I was reading a book and came across this statement, which struck a chord. “And it’s a life with no shortage of moments to recommend it, a life that picks up speed like a boulder rolling down a hill, easy and natural and comfortable, and yet beyond control somehow; it all happens so fast, you wake up a young man and at lunch are middle-aged and by dinner you can imagine your death.” I probably would not have given that much thought forty years ago, but now I do.  How about you?

Signing off today. I do have some more photos, a few left from the kid’s party and others, so watch for them.

School Days—or is it School Daze? As I was working on the reunion package of photos, directory, and history the other day, I thought about various class members who are content to stay in the background or have requested to opt out from receiving any information from the class.  How does it happen that some friendships were formed sixty years ago that will last a lifetime, even without seeing someone for long periods. At our reunion, there was evidence aplenty that such friendships exist.

Then there is what I might identify as a low profile group, who send along updated information for the data base but little more. Some will obviously be restricted by distance, while others maintain a cadre of friends but do not participate in reunions, even though in reasonable proximity.

The comment I hear most frequently is that “I was just at Jeff for a year or so before graduation and no one remembers me.” How wrong they are! Any number of them made their mark at Jeff, some in sports, some in music, some in theater. The others who keep a low profile do communicate, send in address changes, etc. but just don’t attend activities. For the eleven who have requested no further contact, it brings to mind a common problem we see today in schools: bullying. I wonder if bullying existed back in our time? I suppose I am just naïve enough to have missed it entirely if it did exist.

If I were a Ralph Waldo Emerson type, I could write a bang-up essay “On the Nature of Friendship.” Sadly, I am no Ralph Waldo.

Recent photos: Still have a few old photos to post, but will offer a more recent look today with photos from the reunion.

Janet Walker Mathes and Patricia Trimble Bryant

The three blondes: Marcia Pittman, Texas Nowotny Myers, and Sarah Belcia Yates

Dick Brusenhan and Jack Davis

Does anyone remember the old Palace Theater? You had to go through a tunnel to get to the theater. There were two entrances to the tunnel: one from Alamo Plaza across from the Alamo, and one a  block west off Loyosa. After some took the tour of the Majestic, Empire, and Aztec theaters at the reunion, there was conversation about other theaters back in the day.

Below is something from the Express-News archives, from February 20, 2011 about the Palace.  Please note the website circled near the end of the article www.satheatres.com . (If you  type it into  your browser notice the spelling of theatres), it will take you to a website that offers more on the old theaters. I checked it out and discovered that the old State Theater on Main near the Frost Bank was originally the Majestic and lost its name when the current Majestic opened. I saw a bit about the old Uptown, the Laurel, and of course, the Aztec and the Empire. If you go to the website, after enter, click on the Table of Contents to find info about those old theaters, vaudeville houses, drive-ins and neighborhoods, even adult movie theaters.  Does anyone remember the Joy Theater on Houston or Commerce?  There was a sign out front with a chorus girl type dancing on a rotating ball. 

I am putting this article last because I can’t seem to work out formatting issues with it and have copied as a photo.

Be back soon.

San Antonio Express-News Sunday, February 20, 2011
  

Lot of stuff going on right now for the reunion follow up. The first effort on the directory of active classmates should be ready for distribution later today. This will give all you all a chance to review your information and perhaps rcognize some lost names.

In addition, with an enormous amount of help from Lavonne Kennedy, the project to create a class history is taking shape. Lavonne has scanned each yearbook photo individually and is not inserting the photo into the class list. It took her about 60 hours just to scan the photos. To that effort, I will be adding the recent photos photos and histories since graduation, along with scanning in some obituaries that were collected by classmates over the years. Since we have only about 20-25 percent of histories from our active classmates, some help is needed to twist and cajole others to respond. When this is done, it will be provided to all of you and presented to the TJHS Historical Preservation Society.

I have not even started working with the several hundred photos that were taken and forwarded to me.

So there is a lot to be done over the next several months.

Here is a photo from Senior Play publicity. It is from the newspaper and yellowed with age. Sadly, Dick Blount and Bobby Rios are no longer with us. Dave Mills is alive and well on the faculty at University of Pittsburg.

Does anyone know the whereabouts of Nancy Oferle, Bernie Nelson, or Claudia Neuerberg? All of our reunion letters were returned. Nancy used to live on the same street as Cleve Stover and Sam Kersh.  Bernie was in Del Rio several years ago, and Cluadia was in a retirement community a few years back. She has moved and if the retirement center has a forwarding address, they will not give it out under the guise of protecting her privacy.

Still another party picture:

Some faces are easily identified, some not so. Front row is Kay Matteson ( I think), Kay Haller, Joy Robertson, Beverly North (??), Carolyn Taylor, Dorothy Crawford, someone and someone, and Peggy Page. Nest row, tall, is Carolyn Edgerton, ??, Fay Lawrence .   Enough. You all can guess the rest.

Final thought for the day: As we age, we are finding more and more of our classmates who have become caregivers, are receiving care, or widowed.  I think some of our classmates are going to heroic efforts to keep their life partners comfortable and well looked after. My hat is off to each of you.

Our reunion is now a sweet memory. Having been involved in last eight of the ten reunions our class has enjoyed, I can say unequivocally that it was the best. Since it was our last, it is correct to go out on top. The sentiment was to continue, but realistically, there are enough classmates with health and other issues, that we would see the numbers dwindle.

Do you have special memories to share with those who follow this blog? Just click on “Leave a reply” and type it in. That is what will make this effort worthwhile continuing. In the coming days, I will include some of my observations and conversations, as well as some photos of this reunion and some photos from 1954.

Today, I heard from David Mills with some information that will appear in the booklet that we put together.

Here are a couple of teaser photos of what is to come:

Patsy Patterson, Louise Rawlings, Janet Mathes

Dick Brusenhan, Sam Bell, Jack Davis

That is it for today. Please add your comments, tall tales, and other reminisces. More after returning to town.