The First

(and perhaps last)

LVS Blog

by Stephen Greene '56

Paul Petek '53 writers to say he had a crush on Beverly Dobbs '53. Well, Paul, get in line because many of us did.

It's amazing Paul can remember anything from Lake View days considering all he has done since. He writes, “I spent 23 years USAF retired Major flying worldwide in C-124 Globemasters, C-141 Starlifters and F-4 Phantons, 14 years in NJ State Police and DMV as a database His hobbies include computers, internet, SCUBA, flying, long distance running, ballroom dancing, motorcycling, cruising, bicycling, performing on stage, kayaking, bowling, aerobic physical fitness. His goals for the future include "finding my next significant other and go traveling."

Susan Ward Merk ‘55 keeps digging up names out of the past. She wonders if this guy is the Doug Morrow ‘56: an MD who lives in Tarzana, Ca His online profile says he went to SUNY Syracuse and started practicing in 1969. That does seem to fit.

She also thinks she may have located Clyde Milspaugh '56. Does the guy on this page look like Clyde? In her spare time Susan has put together some swell pages about Lake View. Check them out. She's also put us on the internet map with an entry in Wikipedia.

Sue also located Joe Klimschot for me to interview. I claim the finder's fees for Miss Malican. Actually, anybody can find anybody nowadays, thanks to the internet.

Nostalgic for the good old days? Not Charles Barenthaler, a Buffalonian, but not from Lake View. He says about our former home city: “No one mentions high property taxes and a sales tax nearly 9 percent, no jobs to speak of, all the old department stores gone, the old East Side a disaster area."

“Who would want to go back to that," he asks. “Those people are living in a dream world. The folks who want them to come back all live in the suburbs. My niece and her husband who live in Lake View pay $6,000 in property taxes to Erie County that pay for the welfare cases in the City of Buffalo. Gasoline is over $3 a gallon."

"Bethlehem Steel is closed. Ford is gone. There are no jobs to speak of and the kids with college degrees run off to Washington DC and other parts of the country for jobs.”

Jim Greene ’53 did go to college and did run off to Washington DC. He just retired from a career as an attorney. He says he had it good at Lake View. “It was kind of cool to be handed my eighth grade diploma by my dad, Robert F. Greene, a school trustee. Then at lunch time, my mother Jane was involved, often with Mary Lou Henrich and a lot of other mothers in the relatively new cafeteria. Terrific home cooking. Then there was the war surplus food, some tasty and some not!! I remember the bake sales.”

Have you read Winfred Stadler's '33 history of Lake View School. It is a real gem. Did you you know her 1st grade teacher was Miss Rosenburger in 1927 who later became many of ours 1940s and 1950s kindergarten teacher, Leona Rosenburger Eckert? Does that make her the longest serving teacher ever at Lake View?

How many of you responded to my letter asking for input about your Lake View School experience? Well, one LVS alumni told me not to expect too many answers because “many people won't respond because everyone’s memories just aren't as good as yours and mine, they don't know how to express themselves and they just don't care."

She might have been right. To date, two people have mailed in their reminiscences.

Paul Petek ‘53 was one. He remembers when Ray Milland invented some goo that repels baseballs and became a major league pitcher. That, of course, was the movie "It Happens Every Spring."

He says he saw it at Lake View School in the "south side large rear room." I don't remember that. Maybe it was just the 7th and 8th grades. They got all the privileges. Too bad the Pinehurst move didn't allow me ever to become one of those elite few. Maybe that's why I'm so bitter against the Frontier Central School System.

I probably saw the movie with a bunch of kids who ventured into Buffalo crammed into my family's Ford Country Squire wagon for my birthday celebration. I don't remember which downtown movie palace. Too bad, all but the Shea's Buffalo are now gone, most of them turned into parking lots with no cars to fill them. The Center Theater was the last to be levelled in 1983. It had been preceded by Shea’s Century (1979), Paramount (1976), Lafayette Square (1962), Shea’s Teck, and the Erlanger (1956). At one time, Buffalo had over 100 theaters.

Jim Greene (the other respondent to my letter) thinks you can only appreciate Lake View School after you grow to adulthood. Then you can look back and realize how special it was. He writes: “As to the quality of our education, I went off to ninth grade at Nichols and did not feel inadequately prepared compared to the Nichols eighth grade grads or those from other schools in Buffalo and suburbs.”

Craig Sikes ‘59 who moved to Eden after the third grade says you wouldn’t think such a short distance move would make a difference. But, yes, his Lake View experience seemed to end very quickly. By the way, sister Nancy Sikes Bianchi '53 still lives in Eden.

Bill Walker ‘53 has saved a few of those mimeographed Lake View News they used to send home with us. What a hoot and what a pack rat!

Jim Greene chastises me for not mentioning his highlight of the year: the Christmas pageants. “Who can forget the year we did “A Christmas Carol?” Those from the early ‘50s will remember your role. I was the Ghost of Christmas Present.” Yes, I had forgotten my role probably because no kid wants to play plump ol' St. Nick. I had no choice because my mother, the director, was very persuasive.

Jim also fondly remembers the Halloween extravaganzas at the school when the older kids got to scare the younger ones. Too bad they booted us up to Pinehurst before I could do any of the scaring. Today, it's no longer politically correct to pick on the young kids.

Paul Petek remembers quite a lot from his Lake View days. His best buddies were: Billy Walker, Jim Greene, Leon Eckert, Jim Fitzsimmons and Lester "Butch" Smith. Betsy and Tommy Henrich lived next door to him.

He also remembers Roberta Ruddy and her older sister Deanna, Judy Heltz, Donny & Joanie Walker, George "GG" O'Brien, Bobby Almendinger, Paul Dix, Perry Pettingill (killed walking on Route 5), Billy Gomez, Don "Hot Rod" Heater; Gwen who walked with him on Schoellkopf Road to the school bus stop.

That was where he egged on "Old Moldy Joe," the bus driver, into speeding and they got pulled over by the police returning from Frontier Central High School. Hey, I bet good ol' Charlie Spittler wouldn't have fallen for that trick.

That's all he can think of without spending a week accessing long term memory. His hard drive is full of useless trivia, he says.

Well, mine is empty too. See you when someone else has something to say.

Win that trip to Hawaii Miss Malican mentions by telling me something interesting about at least one of these kids.