How It All Started
This nostalgic journey of mine began in mid-October 2001 when I discovered Classmates.com on the internet. I saw that Jim Cavallo
had registered there as an alumnus of P.S. 12 and Bryant H.S. and, by eMailing him through Classmates, we eventually got to talk on the phone. By a stroke of good luck, Jim told me that a few days later there was going to be a “Woodside Teenagers
of the 1950s” reunion at a firehouse in Levittown, L.I.
There was a big turnout graciously hosted by James and Elsie Aspenleiter. The only ones there from our P.S. 12 graduating class were Catherine
Savino, Jim and I, and the rest of the group was a great group of gals and guys from the Woodside, including Rosemary Prinz who had gone to P.S. 12 (now also called James B. Colgate Public School) for a few years.
The potential joy of the evening was severely dampened by the news that the fireman son of Vincent and Dorothy Crispino Giammono perished at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Since the Woodside reunion
was to be an annual event, and the next year was to be the 50th anniversary of our graduation, I started looking for all our classmates, and thanks to the internet I found quite a few. Also, thanks to unusual maiden names like Komarek, Pesek and
Fendrych whose relatives I was able to find, to Irene Henshaw Metzler for joining Classmates, and to some people keeping in touch with others, by October 2002, I had located 21 people and 9 were able to attend.
The quote of the day was from Janice Komarek Metzger: “I smiled so much, my face hurt”. The biggest laugh of the day was the arrival of a latecomer who nobody recognized. She was shorter than everyone else there, which really
threw us off as she had been taller than everyone when we graduated. We all laughed as we realized what had happened after she announced herself as Connie Vecchio.
The Woodside reunions
continued until 2004 and a few more classmates came. There was a class reunion in a restaurant on Long Island (I think it was in 2003) when Connie learned that Roxy would be in town. Photos from all these reunions can be found on other pages
on this site.
I was able to find a few more classmates while trying to orgnaize a 60th reunion for November 2012. Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy forced it to be canceled, but I will try to reschedule
a reunion for the Spring or early Summer of 2013.