01/21/06 - NNHS Newsletter -
Stonewall Jackson’s 182nd Birthday

"You may be whatever you resolve to be."

- Thomas Jonathan Jackson
(21 Jan 1824 - 10 May 1863)

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/NNHS-Newsletters-2006.html

     http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/01-21-06-NNHS-Estelle-Forbes.html

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/NNHS-Newsletters.html - The second one I added here, in keeping with my revisionist history policy....

     http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/12-28-05-NNHS-Gary-Hancock.html

   You may have noticed that the delay was indeed so long, that today is no longer even the 21st.  Try suspended reality; use your imagination.  I simply was too exhausted to finish this before midnight, even though it was largely completed.

   I think because my emotions were so close to the surface already, the news of Gary's passing just about overwhelmed me.  I kept remembering Gary as that cute little boy I knew in Stuart Gardens.  I took out my 1965 Anchor to scan his freshman image, and I suddenly could "see" him, crystal clearly, cutting across the court in Stuart Gardens, walking in his inimitable way, fidgeting with something in his hands, and he looked up and flashed that smile at me - and I lost it.  I'll get back to making that scan later.....

   Therefore, I'm once again saving all the super-duper visual surprises for later - say, Monday.  Nevertheless, there are some written surprises - delightful and otherwise - awaiting you.

   WOWZERS!  Looky-Looky at all the birthdays!

21 - Carol Collier Sparrow ('63) of VA - 1945
22 - Carolyn Clark Wilt ('57)
22 - Sandra Sherman Filippo ('57)
22 - Rochelle Spooner ('63) of NY - 1945

   We have Carol Lee today, and Carolyn, Sandra, and Rochelle tomorrow!  Of course, today is now really yesterday, and tomorrow is today, and - oh well - Happy Birthday, Ladies!

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/Happy-Birthday.html

Is everything alright? All of a sudden my letters are intermittent or not at all. Is there any thing I can do?

You've become a part of me now, an important part.

Thank you,

Linda May

   WOWZERS, Linda May!  Thank you!  That's very flattering!  Let's see what we can do.

   If it was an email notification problem, we're working on trying to streamline that, and have some things in place which may be fully functional by Monday.  We shall see.

   If it was a computer problem, such as we experienced last May when we were BROKEN for three months - well, I don't want to think about that.......

   If as in the case of Saturday (is that today or yesterday?  I'm lost...), I was waiting to send out notification of all three Newsletters at once, and as this one wasn't finished, no notifications were sent at all.

   If it's a production problem, well, now that is a problem, because I don't know how I can fix that.  There is only so much time per day, and it's difficult to believe how many hours each Newsletter actually requires.  If I work on the site, the Newsletters suffer.  If I concentrate on the Newsletters (as I did in December), the site itself simply stagnates and information is lost.

   I have a solution - of sorts.

   No matter what your email inbox is telling you (or not telling you) go take a look at the front page of the site:

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/

   It will tell you in two different places when the latest Newsletter was posted.  If nothing new is available, check out all the links on the left side of the page.  There are literally hundreds of pages within the site.  I think it would now require 12 to 14 hours to read them all.

   If you just need the fix of a Newsletter and nothing else will do, go back and read the old ones.  It's rather fascinating to watch the evolution of the Newsletter format, and while the very earliest editions are not available online, there's enough reading material there to last you a good long while - and by then, I'll no doubt have finally finished the next Newsletter! 

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/NNHS-Newsletters-2004.html

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/NNHS-Newsletters.html (2005)

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/NNHS-Newsletters-2006.html

   Oh, say - while you're doing that, and you come across one of my infamous "I'll do that soon" remarks, and further checking shows you that "soon" never came, why don't you drop me a reminder (including the date and name of the Newsletter)?  There are whole sections which have gone begging for years.....

   Thanks again, Linda May!

   She had a delicious habit of teasing people unmercifully, and in the process, making up rhymes about them to the delight of the class.  Barry was a very conscientious student and worried a great deal.  Mrs. Leyland was always trying to get him to lighten up, so after she'd talk to him for a bit, she'd close with:

   "I knew a boy named Barry Rew,
   And he was forever in a stew!"

   And David Stone and Chris Ellis ('64) would roar, and the class would laugh, and Mrs. Leyland would smile, and Barry would shake his head.

Mrs. Eunice Leyland's
Sixth Grade Class, January 1959

TOP ROW: Mrs. Eunice Leyland, Randy Smith, Lynn Wilkins, Jimmy Skates, Joyce Curry, Bobby Sears, Carol Buckley, Mike Hirshman, Janice McCain.

SECOND ROW: Todd Givens, Sandra Boatright, Bobby Walker, Ilene Wasserman, David Sage, Ilene Levinson, Chippy Clark, Debby Fink,
Barry Rew.

THIRD ROW: Betty Marie Millner, Sammy Keffer, Nancy Lewis, Bobby Marston, Barbara Shepherd, Richard Harmon, Judy Wiggins, Charles Winter, Marc Snyder.

   Oh, my, yes, Sandi.  I knew both the Hancock brothers.  They were my neighbors in Stuart Gardens - all of us in Stuart Gardens were neighbors.  I remember Gary as a darling little boy, and watched him as he grew up and started high school with us.  I am so sorry to learn of his passing.  Thank you so much for telling me this, Sandi.

   With a very heavy heart, I made this Memorial Newsletter, as I mentioned:

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/NNHS-Newsletters.html

     http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/12-28-05-NNHS-Gary-Hancock.html

   Thank you, Sandi!  I wonder if anyone can really realize how very much such words mean to me? 

Mr. Chomsky had just come off of a very successful made for TV movie, Attica, which was a
TV-movie re-creation of the tragic events which followed the Attica Correctional Facility rebellion of September 9, 1971. Anyway, I was one of the few lucky ones that was selected to work our backside off as background actors, and was chosen as a stand-in for Mr. Harold Gould.

I, as well as a lot of the people that came to the Call, thought that it was to be a horror movie about a huge crab, Duh!! About a week later I got a call from Mrs. Sarrett, who was in charge of getting all of the extras and keeping us in line, no small job. I later found out that she was married to Doctor Kemper Sarrett (not sure of the spelling), a well-known
OBGYN at Hampton General (AKA, Dixie). Dr, Sarrett actually delivered my daughter (Channing Leigh Dawes).

The shooting started in early March in downtown Hampton at various locations: Amory’s Seafood dock and building; another seafood buyer and distributor located where the parking garage is, in front of the Radisson. I remember huge piles of oyster shells stacked there, just by Darling's Boat Works. Other locations were: Paul Burton’s (city attorney) office in the city hall building, Fuller's in Phoebus, Hampton General Hospital, and the Florida scenes were taken at the Catholic School in Phoebus.

During this time of year some of the extras just couldn’t make it, so Mrs. Sarrett asked me to help get some other men to work as background actors. I convinced a good friend of mine, Don Eways (Hampton HS ~ '63 or '64), into helping. No small task for Don to give up his printing business for about a month to work for twenty five bucks a day plus food. (But they did feed us well).

The weather during the entire shooting was a challenge. From very mild to very cold. Don would sometimes drive us to the locations. One day Don drove to City Hall for the shots at Paul Burton’s office. For some reason we could not get the side door closed to Don’s Van all the way. This was the third week in March and we had a unusual snow storm which dumped eleven inches of snow on us. We had to shut down the shoots due to accumulation and when Don and myself got back to his Van the wind had just about filled up the back of his Van with snow. We laugh about it now, but it wasn’t funny at the time.

One day we needed rain for a scene but it was a clear crisp day. So Marvin Chomsky had some guy flown in with all types of rain and wind equipment to make it look like a storm. That was way cool to see how it was done. The movie had a ten million dollar budget so what was a few thousand to him. I had to stand in this rain holding a umbrella for forty-five minutes to setup a shot. There were about four or five regular male extras and about three female extras at all times. I met one young lady extra that was the daughter of Ann Kilgore, past Hampton Mayor. I’ve forgotten her name.

The difference between extras, background actors and stand-ins: background actors are used just that way, walking, standing, doing whatever no lines, a extra could be called on to do just about anything from closeup shots, interaction with the majors, background and sometimes with lines. When you see a scene, say in the city with lots of action and
confusion, well it’s not, each person in the shot has a job and place and time to do it. The scale is different for on camera with lines or with out. A stand in is a person selected to be used to set up the scene in place of the talent. This way the major actor would not get tired doing stuff that was beneath them.. Sometimes it would take a hour or two to setup one
shot. Lights and camera angle had to be just right. The "talent" would be in the trailers while we set up the scene. I was the stand-in for Mr. Gould.

Of course we all thought that we would be discovered through this movie.

None were.

I still see some of the actors from this film on TV and in the movies - of course, Mr. Gould. He has been in over eighty different movies and one hundred fifty TV shows and serials.
Harold Gould was the best. When a scene is shot it is done at least five or six times from different angles and camera distances. One scene can take most of a day, depending of the complexity and actors' ability. Well, there was a scene where Harold Gould was to have a heart attack. Not only did Mr. Gould do a great job of mimicking a heart attack but he did it exactly the same, time and time again with each camera change.

Jeffrey DeMunn was a very serious actor. He had only done a couple of things before this movie. Jeffrey was always on top, never missed a line or messed up a scene. He never hung around the other actors or cast. He was always business. I thought at the time that he would be one of the actors who would hone his craft into a good career. He now has a long list of credits to his name - over seventy films and twenty five TV appearances.

Gail Strickland was a hoot, always saying or doing something funny to break up the cast. There was a scene that needed some police, so a couple of Hampton’s finest were acquired to stand around. One of them wanted a picture taken with Gai, and she readily agreed to pose with him. When he put his arm around her she took his pistol out of its holster and pointed it at his crotch. Now this was a live revolver with no safety. The expression of that cop's
face was just great. Gail also has many acting credits with fifty films and over seventy TV
shows.

Most all of the actors were very nice people.

Barry Newman was a piece of work. He had just finished off a TV series called Petrocelli.
He started out being very nice, but became pretty much a jerk by the end. He did stir up the locals at the bars on the weekends and dated one of the local Hampton girls while here (ex-wife of a friend of mine). When we did the scenes in the hospital he would walk around with his shirt off and we would see him flexing and posing in front of mirrors from time to time.

One day they decided to put me in a scene where I would be patient lying in a bed. Lots of light and closeups, but it didn’t make the movie. So goes my stardom.

Ok, Ok, I’ll stop.

Richard Dawes

   Well, don't stop on my account, Honey!  I'm totally fascinated!  WOWZERONI-ROONI!!!

   Thanks so much for telling us all, this, Dicky!   

Sorry to inform    Gloria Woolard Price, of HHS ('65 - of FL) , about Sam's, but it's also gone! Isabel took most of it, putting it out of business, and just recently a fire finished it!! Apparently, some vagrants (I hate to use homeless, because it makes me sick to think that we would allow our own to live in such a way) were living in the shell and somehow set it ablaze. Again, Sam's is gone; sorry!

My thanks to   Chandler (Nelms - Hampton HS - '63 - of MD); I do believe that Dr. Robert did take over his dad's practice.

   COOL!  I'll add that information - "soon"!  WILD GIGGLES!!!

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/our-physicians-and-dentists.html

   Thanks, Wayne Honey! 

   It's okay, Sandi.  I caught it in the morning.  This is one of those time period when I can read and copy from the NNHS65@nc.rr.com and cluckmeat@nc.rr.com accounts; I just cannot reply or forward from them.  We hope to have them totally repaired this week.

   Oh, Da-vid....  If you're so inclined, please, Captain??  "Nobody does it better."

   Thanks, Sandi!

   As you can see in the images of the apartment where    Eleanor (Buckley Nowitzky - '59 - of NC) and I lived with our parents, we lived at 1309-A 16th Street.

   So your number could not have been 1306.  I don't know what is was, but I know what it wasn't.

   Or some brave soul could venture over there and take a look. 

   NAAAAAHHH.....

   Thanks again!  By the way, I just noticed that your name was not on our so-called Alumni page, so I added it:

http://www.nnhs65.00freehost.com/alumni-list.html