It has been a long time. When you have a high school junior parked in front of your computer it can be like being back in the 60's. No computer access. I really enjoyed the pics of the multi class reunion. If I had been able to attend I'm sure I would have been popular because I would have made everybody look younger.Ever since you made the alumni site available I find Cromwell in my thoughts and dream life more than before. When you drive all day for a living like I do you have plenty of time for memories. I'd like to share some random thoughts.

If you were young in the 1950's do you remember going to restaurants and diners in Middletown and about 20% of the selections on the juke box would be songs in Italian?

If you were watching a Yankee game on t.v.( in black and white ) do you remember how Mel Allen would do a Ballentines beer commercial between innings where he would pour a bottle of beer into a long beer glass and than pick it up and than set it down half empty and say " man, that's living." Boy did I want to grow up fast so I could have a Ballentine. I've had a few.

If you got your hair cut by Fred Marrozi do you remember the green gook that he would rub into your hair. That stuff had to be an earlier version of super glue but I can smell it now like I am back in his chair.

If you were catholic and attended St. Johns Church do you remember the pre airconditioning days when there would be one large fan set up facing the parishoners and some brutal humid sundays you would stand and kneel suffering just waiting for one whisp of a breeze as the fan slowly pivoted. As the priest was about to give his sermon the fan would be turned off and than I would try to guess how many revolutions the ever slowing blades would make before they came to a complete stop.Sermon. What sermon?

Did you work tobacco? Do kids still work tobacco? I could talk about tobacco for an hour but suffice it to say when ever a job is tough I can always stop and think its not tobacco. Not one of those rocky fields when you were moving on your knees and the air felt like a wet sponge. But my friends were in rows on either side of me and we talked like all teens do, like we knew something. We knew everything. Wouldn't it be nice to hear that ignorant bliss for just an hour.

I am sorry I haven't responded to a few friends like Mike Groper who I remember was a quiet guy who became a great athelete over night. And Nancy Dagle and Rich Dagle, hello cousins, what a thrill. I mean it. I'll never forget meeting Rich at McDonalds the day before he shipped out to Nam. That was one of the times I felt my heart break.

That seems to be enough. If you visit S.F. try and say hello.

~Roger.


From Dick Nixon

I have a followup to my SEEKING query on Charles Probst (Feb 17, 2007).   --I have tracked down the whereabouts of Chuck Probst who was in my class, '60, and left town after the 7th grade.   He went to Radnor (PA) High School '60, Williams College '64, medical school, Army Green Beret, married a nurse from Hawaii, and spent about 30 years in medical practice in Hawaii where he still lives.  He recently retired and he and his wife spend a lot of time traveling the world as serious bird watchers and photographers.  (I caught him leaving for Kenya.) (Susan may put his email address in the EMAIL section.-- This has been done)  

From Charlie to me----I asked him he wanted me to post anything on his life.  

Good to hear back from you. By all means put my info at the Cromwell site. Did quite a bit of family geneology a few years ago. Need to get back to it and fill in some blanks. Chuck