A Wish For All

Another One From Bill

Everyone,

 

I have heard from some of you but very few.  Please if you are going to attend send me an email so I know how many people to plan for.  Those of you that have already responded sorry for the second email.  For those of you out of town you are missing our sub-zero temps!

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

 

Bill Gade 

3 More Shopping Days

I do it every year … I begin my shopping on the 21^st.  This year, however, I will begin my Xmas shopping a day late on Monday afternoon.  I have a short list, which makes the ordeal much less stressful for me just 2-3 days before Christmas.  I have it all planned out, though … a walk through Costco for the I-can-only-buy-this-at-this price-here items; a visit to Sephora, my favorite cosmetic store (men and women alike … get a sample of LiftFUSION for a stocking stuffer or better yet, for yourself!  It really does suck the skin in and take years off the face.); and finally, I will hit either Ross, Marshall’s, and/or TJ Max for at least 2 of those wonderful Kathy handbags which sell for $100+ at major department chains, and can be had for no more than $49 at these stores. 

The good news is that my oven is still unrepaired, so I will not be concerned with baking!

I procrastinate; then push myself up to the last minute; and have a most exciting time doing so every year.  What about you … plan and prepare well ahead of time or wait until the last minute to pull it all together for yet another glorious holiday?  

A Message From Bill Gade

Everyone,

 

While the year of our 40th high school is almost over,  I thought we could do a casual reunion in the Chicago Area.  I have reserved the "back room" at the Loon Cafe on December 26 (Friday night) from 7:00 PM to ?. You can just show up and visit with 1968 Alumni.  Food and Drinks are available on your own and off the menu.  They are located on 2826 Thatcher in River Grove; I thought this would be a central location for you in the suburbs on the city. Please RSVP by 12/21 so I can give them an idea how many people will be there.  Pam (AHS Class of 1970) and I will be there so I hope many of you can make it.

 

If you received this email in error please delete. If you did not receive this email in error and know of people I missed please forward it to them. Dress is casual but I am going to try to get into my Letterman sweater if I can.  I hope those of you that may be in town for the Holidays can make it.  I will try and post this on classmates but I am not sure I have the right membership to do that.  I look forward to seeing everyone.

 

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year

 

Bill and Pam Gade

Dumped For A Boyfriend

What about those friends who exchange their friendships with us for the love of a significant other?  What’s with THAT?  It kind of reminds me of HS days!  I had a friend who did that to me just this past summer.  Here’s how the story played out:  I had PainterGirl over for dinner almost every Friday night (for at least a year) because we both enjoyed each other’s company and had no desire to be out in bars looking for guys at that time.  In retrospect, I observe that she never reciprocated by inviting me over to her place to share a meal, and only once or twice contributed to our dinners at my house.  So the friendship was lopsided in that the hospitality and invitations were extended on a one-way street, so to speak.  One day she met TheBachelorMan, and she fell for him hook, line, and sinker!  Without notice, she no longer answered or returned my phone calls or text messages.  PainterGirl was too busy with TheBachelorMan to pay me any notice.

One evening she did indeed phone me; disappointingly not to actually visit with me, rather to seek my advice about a gesture TheBachelorMan practiced that she did not like and a conflict she was engaged in with her 16-year-old daughter.  Interestingly, the boyfriend maintains friendships with women, and her daughter feels neglected because of him.  Hmmmm.  Soon thereafter, PainterGirl forwarded me an email another one of her friends wrote to her in which the friend wrote that she was feeling abandoned by PainterGirl since TheBachelorMan came into her life.  Do you see the pattern here? 

Why do some friends (?) do this?  Are they really using us as the obvious appears? Or is there truth to the thinking that quite simply, some friends are not forever?  Regardless of the possibilities, losing a friend hurts the heart, and that’s all there is to it.  What if PainterGirl reads this post?  I will hope she recognizes that I miss her.

 

AHS Update

AHS has a web site at http://amundsenhs.org and when I saw the photo of the school from the back field, I thought WOW … AHS is huge!  The memories filtered in my mind so much so I just have to write this post.  I posted a memoir about our 40^th reunion on the site even though I noticed that not many have signed in as alumni.  I also found an AHS Alumni site at http://amundsen.projectalumni.org and while this one has a free registration, a fee of $10 allows you to actually use the site.  I didn’t pay. 

I googled Mr. Wolfe and couldn’t find a thing on him.  On US Search (a people search engine) there exists a William Wolfe in Lake Forest/Lake Bluff who is 84 years old and one in Roodhouse, IL who is 94.  I wonder …!  I had heard he was on a TV show called Unsolved Mysteries abut how brilliantly smart he is.  Does anyone know anything about this?  He’s of interest to me because of my personal fascination with human behavior and my passion for trying to guess the correct DSM (basically mental) diagnosis. 

Dr. Ann Gale (our Principal) is 102 years old and lives in Chicago.  I would LUV to see her!  Can you just imagine the stories she has to share if she has a memory?  Maybe she would know about William Wolfe. 

 

Is Weight Important?

My alarm sounds off at 5:45 a.m. which allows me to stir around, LUV up the dogs and cat, and organize myself for the morning news broadcast at 6:00.  This morning’s top news story? … Oprah in O Magazine!  "I'm embarrassed," she writes. "I can't believe that after all these years, all the things I know how to do, I'm still talking about my weight. I look at my thinner self and think, ‘How did I let this happen again?’”  HA!

Well, here’s a news flash … show me a woman in her age bracket that doesn’t worry about and/or watch her weight and I will show you either a middle-aged woman with an eating disorder or a woman with genes I would covet!  Personally, I started the battle-of-the-bulge when I turned 40.  My Mother (may God rest her soul) used to say “Yiota, you are not 20 any more!”  “I know, Ma, I know!”  I’ve gone up and down on the scale over and over again … a queen of yo-yo dieting at the very least.  These days I am content with a designated size range vs. being anal about one particular size.  What a relief for my stress levels! 

On my 16^th birthday party, I remember all the women in the family standing in that long hallway of our house on Washtenaw Ave. just outside my bedroom door.  Yeah … except for me and my Mom, the big fat Greek women … LOL … and my Theia Sophia said to me, “You’ll see … some day you’re going to be just like me!”  Happy Birthday, huh?  The prophecy has only come true on the top half, and let me tell you … it’s all good!  Besides, haven’t we learned (especially by now) that beauty comes from within?  HA HA!  No, I don’t buy that one either … I think I look OK for my age though, and when I look around and see all the obviously overweight girls with boyfriends and I don’t have one … I think what’s with THAT?

Regardless, I haven’t let my weight stop me from having fun; socializing, and/or attending reunions of any sort … have YOU?

 

Christmas Cards

I remember when I used to shop and shop for the most perfect cards with the most perfect message.  Now Xmas cards have lost their significance, haven't they?   A dear new friend from the AHS old friends list contacted me last week because she wanted my address so she can send me a Xmas card.  (By the way, did you know that those who say spelling Christmas as Xmas takes the Christ out of Christmas are wrong?  Uh-huh.  X is the Greek symbol for Christ.)  OK ... that's the trivia for the day and now back to cards.  My friend Jay's card has always been the first I have received every year.  I notice how the number of cards received dwindles annually, and even if one is sent with just a name attached (v.s. a personal antidote), it's fun to open it and find a prominent place in the living room to display it for all to see.   Now I have stopped sending cards simply because writing them out by hand feels like a such a task v.s. the fun of searching for online cards in the comfort of this soft leather chair I am sitting in at this very moment.  So, if I have your email address, you can be sure you will get an electronic greeting and wish from me.  I ponder the idea that for some it's a chore to keep in touch with friends these days, and does it reflect what I think I see even in our alumni, let alone in society as a whole?  We seem to be so busy that the priority of relationships just isn't there any more. Remember how when we were kids we lived for friends and partying with friends?  I know, I know ... now we have families to occupy us, and new adult friends.  Maybe there isn't time and room in our lives for the old, and yet for those of us who choose to maintain the old along with the new ... AH! ... Hence the title of this blog! What about YOU ... handwritten or electronic Xmas cards? (Nope ... no predictions on this one!)

Newspapers

I finally got around to working through the awful task of opening mail yesterday.  Does anybody else out there dislike doing that as much as I do?  Hint: I let it go for weeks on end.  By the time I force myself to do it, the power and water have been disconnected because I didn't see the late notice.  UGH  ANYway ... I got a new bill for the newspaper delivery which I have subscribed to simply for the benefit of my sister and for only 4 days/week.  I was about to pay it today BUT I heard on the morning news that the RGJ http://www.rgj.com/  will be laying off 60 people and canceling several of the weekly publications by the end of this month.  What's with THAT?  I don't think I will renew my subscription, and since I usually need coffee creamer ... I will be better off to go to the corner (need the exercise anyway) and just buy the paper on weekends since I have a tendency to read the news online.    What about you ... newspapers or online?  My prediction?  Most of you in Illinois read newspapers, and those of you out-of-state are onliners. 

Blogging and Texting

Yep ... LUV 'em both! As a matter of fact, now when I meet someone new, instead of asking the MAJOR screening question "Do you text?" ... I ask "Do you BLOG?" If not ... hit the curb baby! HA HA HA HA HA Seriously, try it ... you might like it! I realize I might not have hit the right topics yet, and unless I get some feedback on that ... you are at my mercy! The really KOOL thing about blogging is that it's a great space for exploration. It's easy to get on a roll .... just try it ... it's a you-might-like-it-kinda-thing.

Anyway, I did go out and have some fun tonight with a NEW friend. New friends are great for testing interviewing skills, aren't they? You know ... you gotta find out all the basic stuff to see if you have anything in common. Sometimes I hit it off with someone right away. Is that mental chemistry? Other times I struggle just to get a complete sentence out of the person, and I wonder: what's with THAT? For those of you who did not attend either of our last 2 reunions ... trust me when I say I think you would be surprised to know just how easy it is to talk with all of our alumni classmates at this stage of our lives. I am still in amazement about that aspect of our last weekend in particular. Maybe it is because we already know so much about what we all have in common that we didn't have to go through those interview questions so to speak. The familiarity aspect over-rode the time and distance aspects of our old friendships.

OH! Since I'm on the reunion again ... a BIG GIANT THANK YOU to Reece and Nadene for hosting our edibles at the cocktail party on Friday night at Stack. That's the night we went to SushiSamba for dinner. We were all so overwhelmed with the menu that the food server offered to put a menu together for us, and so we all agreed on that option. WOW! It was a terrific blend of Asian, Peruvian, and Brazilian food! My favorite was the sushi and edamame ... ummm good ... right, Jerry? LOL

How about the readers ... meat and potatoes or sushi and edamame?

Making New Friends

I wonder how many of us are divorced these days and of those who are, how many experienced the disappointment of losing long-time friends at the same time as losing that spouse like I did because I didn't live up to the image of that perfect-Christian woman I portrayed on the outside. What's with THAT?  I remember feeling so abandoned by my friends that it took me years to recover enough to wake up one day and actually recognize that "I need to make new friends!" Now, with the exception of Randi, JoJo, and Di, the faces in my everyday life are new ones ... faces who love me for who I am at this point in my life.  What is interesting and most humbling is that my friends in Florida of 35 years have stuck with me through thick and thin no matter what direction my life has taken.  Maria, Colleen, Phyllis, and Jay are on the forever-friends list for certain!  What about YOU?  Has this happened and what did you do about it? 

Decorations

This weekend I watched my neighbors across the street put up the outdoor Christmas decorations ... YES ... I said CHRISTMAS! LOL Remember when we had CHRISTMAS Vacation? And EASTER Vacation? Yes ... Thanksgiving VACATION? Uh-huh! Now the day after Thanksgiving is called Family Day. OK OK ... I can live with that. ANYway ... back to the neighbors and kids who were talking about whether the lights look better all the same color or multi-colored. Remember the HUGE multi-colored bulbs we had? Still have them? No, of course not because they can't be replaced if they burn out (kinda like the TV's that won't work one of these days SOON). And what about all the holiday music ... dare I call it as we did ... CHRISTMAS music playing on the radio BEFORE the Thanksgiving and Family Day weekend ... I mean ... what's with THAT? Personally, I prefer to wait until the first weekend in December before starting all this Christmas hoopla and do you know why? (No "I don't care" comments please ... ha ha) Because IT'S THE WAY MY FAMILY DID IT! My point, you ask? The older I get, the more I treasure old family traditions. What about you? Stick to the old? Ever switched and made your own? Ever want to go back to the originals? Pondering ... hmmmmm!

Awesome job on the blog, friend!

M.I.A.

OK ... who stole my profile?  UGH

Not TheHappyBlogger right now! 

Add A New Post

OK, so I think I figured this blogging thing out a bit more (although I haven't yet figured out why the photos sometimes disappear) ... I have sent an invite-to-post to all of the AHS alumni I have an email address for at this time.  This means that if you follow the directions, you should be able to create a NEW post of your own on this BLOG.  If you just want to write a comment in response to another POST, simply click on the COMMENTS link located directly under the post itself.  This is easy, actually ... it just takes a while to figure it all out. If you do not receive an invite and would like to be included just tell me so in a comment below this post, and I will make it happen!  OH ... And BTW ... I see no reason to limit this BLOG strictly to the class of 1968, so feel welcome to share it with other classes as well since we all know people who either were before or came after us!  

You might like to know that I am wanting to create other BLOGS as well, and the one I have chosen to start next is about me and my sister. You can find the link to it in my profile (way down at the end/bottom of that page) on this BLOG if you are interested.  

I remain TheGreekDiva now a.k.a TheHappyBlogger ... HA HA HA HA HA!

Skinny Guys

Very kool site, Terry!  And I must confess ... well, I don't "must" but WILL confess (since I started this BLOG):  IMHO Mick Jagger has always been one of the hottest bods on the planet!  HA!  Yeah ... that was when I was into skinny guys with bulging Adam's Apples ... remember my AHS boyfriends?  (Lynne, are you laughing hysterically?  And WHERE ARE YOU, Girl?)  ANYway ... these days I prefer muscles! HA HA HA HA HA  What about the other gals:  Has your taste in men changed over the years and if so, HOW?

ILLINOIS

Hi ALL!

I'm sitting in my easy chair watching HGTV.  The fireplace is on and my 2 dogs are at my feet. Tonight we are looking at houses in Roataon (an island off Honduras and yes, I had to look up the spelling), and I am fantasizing BIG time!  What about YOU? While a good number of us have left Illinois, I wonder what has kept most of us there?  Jobs?  Family?  LUV it in general?  And where would we live if money were no object and retirement were to happen like we planned it would had our current economy not killed all of our dreams?  And Bob ... thanks for joining the Followers list.  I hope more people visit and participate.  This could be fun!

FROM BILL GADE

Phil, Great email and it is good to hear from you!  Sports!  My sports are riding Harleys and hunting with the bow!     Since I have everyone's attention  I have been thinking about a reunion in the Chicago area around Christmas.  I was think of a place where we could all meet for beer and pizza and talk about old times.  I still have all my yearbooks, and photos from Trumbull and Phil you are in many of the Trumbull class photos.   What does everyone think of 12/26?  It is a Friday night and it will be after Christmas.  I have the name of a place in River Forest that I need to check out.  If anyone has another suggestion shoot out an email.  I know Dennis is in Dallas but maybe he will come back to Chicago for Christmas.  I wish everyone the best and have fun in Vegas.  I am still trying to get my "new" business started, so right now it not a good time to go to Vegas.  If you have not already done so check out my web site at: www.tourontwo.com <http://www.tourontwo.com>     I look forward to hearing from everyone soon.   Bill Gade

FROM PHILIP SIEWERTH

And to all of you, Just reading the address list has triggered more fond memories that I knew I had from Amundsen... some of you going back as far as Trumbull. We live in a time of virtual social networks. Could Yiota be the founder of another social network? a blog? After 40 years we are still somehow in touch with each other. It will be fun to see how we continue to evolve. Speaking of evolving, I believe that most people retain their core traits and values most of their life. For example, I continue to find music important, though not a career. I still play guitar, traded in my 12 string, but still pay and sing for those who will tollerate me. I remember Bill Gade played sports with his heart as well as his ability. Are you still playing sports Bill? Linda Sabo Peck are you still into aviation? For the benefit of those who will participate in spirit tell us what you did then that you still do in some form today. Thanks for listening, Phill

WELCOME!

Hello to all my friends!

I hope this blog finds you all well and somewhat interested in what evolves here at the very least!

I must thank Phil for getting me going on this ... I have been wanting to do a blog of SOME kind for awhile, and it has been fun learning how to do this. I will go ahead and post his recent email to me to help you all get going with the connection - thing which is the intent of this blog. Don't hesitate to share it with anyone since it is a public site anyway ... I know I will invite ALL my friends. We just never know who we will meet! I realize I could have done this on Facebook or My Space, but this is much more private and fun (for me, at least)!

For those of you who were unable to attend, or did not know ... we had our Amundsen High School 40th year reunion in Las Vegas just last weekend, and I'm still on Cloud 9! We were a small band of 12 AHS groupies who embraced the Vegas scene with vigor and sore feet as we reconnected with FORMER friends, made NEW friends, and left when the weekend was over with a passion to do SOME-thing together again SOON.

We were, IMHO, a purrfect group!

Initially, approximately 40 alumni had told me they were planning on attending this reunion, and as time passed with the economy taking its plunge, I was disappointed beyond measure to receive those cancellation notifications ... so much so that I promised myself I would never do this again. HOWEVER ... when the question about when we will meet in the future was raised at our good-bye breakfast on Sunday morning, we all concurred it must be sooner and not later. I think it was John who came up with a 60th birthday party idea (typical of a class president, wouldn't you agree?) and we all applauded the idea with zeal. And so ...

The AHS Class of 1968 will celebrate our 60th birthdays sometime during JULY - early AUGUST 2010 at beautiful Lake Tahoe! Mark it on your calendars, iPhones, Palms, or Blackberry's NOW! Do your homework ... Google Lake Tahoe and get a preview of what to expect. I PROMISE it will be a remarkably memorable time for us all!

I continue to PLEAD for email addresses from those of you who are hoarding all your friends' info. I mean, great gee-hossefat ... what if you die unexpectedly and wouldn't be able to forward any info you receive from me as the clock approaches 2010? I will most likely use email and this blog to send information as the plan develops.

OK, this is it from me for now ... my next task is to create the slideshow from our 40th!

Mock Elections next ... maybe?

Best regards to all of you!

Yiota (formerly Bertha) and ALWAYS a Matsukas!