Class of 1953 Fall 2018 Class Note

Nancy Schott Plaisted

7 Ledgewater Drive

Kennebunk, ME 04043

(207) 967-1380

nancyplaisted53@gmail.com

 

Our 65th Reunion is set for September. (I will write all about it in my next column in six months.) I’m writing this in advance, and have talked to a few classmates who plan to go; it should be fun, celebrating our college days of years and years, ago. A mini-vacation!

 

Here’s Woody Carville ’54G of Orono, a classmate minus a tooth, with gauze in his mouth, and I just having had gum surgery. We talked just fine, at least on my end. Woody mows his massive lawn, his garden is a little sick, but his flowers are plentiful. (He’ll be 87 August 20.) Then Phyllis Noyes Scantlebury, our classmate, came on the line and said she’s older (who isn’t), doesn’t cook anymore (who does), and they’ll be at Reunion (we better be). An Orono High grad (29 in her class, Woody, York High), she spoke of her college roommate, Fran Willett Foster, and we talked of Faith Taylor Diehl (she’ll be at Reunion) and Jean Dolloff Kreizinger (hope to see you also).

 

Ron Bishop, Lambda Chi, of Cornelius, NC, can’t make it to Reunion as he’s marrying off his youngest granddaughter, Emily, in Vermont at that time. He’s still recuperating from a car (or was it his truck) accident 11 months ago. After months of intensive rehab, he’s now walking 60/70/80 minutes five days a week. (His therapist told him no more sitting in a chair watching the Red Sox.) He’s doing a lot better, but no more driving, “housebound” as he said. However, as one of the youngest classmates, 86 on 9/18/18, he sounds great. Keep it up, Ron!

 

Lloyd Oakes, Alpha Tau, of East Longmeadow, MA, was sitting in the middle of a thunderstorm, with rain and lightning, when I called. He’ll be at Reunion, but said Gloria, his wife, can’t make it due to health problems. (Will miss you, Gloria.) I guess he’ll be driving his “Green Hornet,” as he calls his Subaru Outback. (I never did watch that show, did you?) With four children (three in the area) and no grandchildren, Lloyd has gone from retiring at age 58, then into the consulting business, volunteering for SCORE, back to consulting, and now trying to keep up two houses (a Swiss chalet, a nice drive on the Interstate, two and a half hours away in New London, NH.) He went fishing, emphasizing one good day out of five, and released them. Lloyd, an Old Town High grad, has a “therapy-giving” garden of eggplants, Brussels sprouts, and more. (His birthday? 88 on 9/16/18.)

 

Mistakenly, I called the home of our late classmate Mert Poore of Wells. His wife, Priscilla, who answered, said he died in 2006. I said I was so sorry to have not known that, and apologized, but she was so pleasant and wonderful, we just kept on talking. I couldn’t believe she was 94, her voice sounded she was like in her 30s, no gray hair, and had just stopped driving a year earlier. With three children, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren (another due the end of the year), Priscilla, a 1946 Bates grad, talked of being in the Marines in 1945 for a year and a half.

 

Dick Searles, SAE, of Old Orchard Beach (full time), said he was really looking forward to our 65th Reunion in Orono, not having been on campus for years. He and his wife, Joan, married for 60 years this month, are spending four nights! Good for them! I asked the secret of a long marriage, and he said, “none.” I asked how they met, and here’s the gist of it. It seems Mike Fleming, his roommate in the “melting pot” of NYC, decided they should hold a cocktail party at their apartment. So, along with some other friends named Dick, they would go to the Barbizon Hotel for Women where Katharine Gibbs students stayed and there was Joan, not sure which Dick he was! You can ask him/Joan for the real version. Anyway they’re both healthy and belong to the “Silver Sneakers” at the Saco gym; when they go twice a week. “That’s it for the day,” Dick said. A Bangor High grad, he said most grads from Bangor High automatically went to Orono to college. He and Joan have three children, one in Boston, one in Denver, and one in Walpole, NH.

 

Don LaRochelle, of Wells, had an art exhibit of oils titled “Urban and Coastal Structures by a Retired Engineer,” on display and for sale at the Kennebunk Free Library during the month of August. My sister and I recently visited Don and his wife, Anne, at their condo and both are doing quite well, along with Gary, one of their sons, who does the cooking. (You can find Don and probably Gary at the local Hannaford’s Wednesday mornings around 10.)  But, on a sad note, Don and Anne lost their oldest son, Paul, who died this spring, and Paul’s wife, who died earlier this year. Our thoughts are with you and your family.

 

I called my cousin Lida Maxim Muench, of 500 Spanish Fort Blvd, #91, Spanish Fort, AL 36527, Tel: (251) 626-4491 (who said I could print this). She’s been busy traveling: Hudson, MA, Lewiston, back to Hudson, the beach at Perigo Bay, her son’s in Virginia Beach, to Oklahoma August 15 for three weeks at her two daughters’, one in Oklahoma City, the other in Tulsa, a cruise through the Panama, and who knows where else. She plays bridge, can “move” (water aerobics in an indoor pool where she lives in a “garden” home), has a lot of girlfriends where she lives, and “can be as busy as you want,” loves crab, chocolate, and a vanilla sundae with hot fudge. Her birth date? 10/27/30. She’s content. A great-granddaughter is named Ella Rose after her great-great grandmother Rosella.)

 

And lastly, Trudy Harriman Metzger, a Phi Mu, of Westport Island (summers) and Titusville, FL (winters). She was aboard a Boston Whaler in Five Islands refueling and said, “All of a sudden I’m an old lady, arthritis, limping.” (She’s not the only one.) And if you look at her on Facebook, she’s busy! She spoke of eating lobster, of neighbors and friends visiting, who cut wood and painted, of her oldest granddaughter at the University of Chicago in astrophysics, and her son, retired from NASA, a planetary scientist outside of Orlando, at Florida State Institute. Great!

 

This is it for now. Enjoy everything, please. I’ll be back.

Your classmate, Nancy