Comments:
It is not original for me to begin by stating, “I can’t believe that 50 years have passed,” but I just looked through the messages that many of you have sent to the website and it seemed like yesterday that we were in that beautiful building on Knickerbocker Road.
I’ve passed it often because my parents lived in the same house on Marlboro Road until my mother’s death six years ago and my daughter lives in Tenafly. It is still beautiful.
After graduation, I attended Douglass College for two years. I met my husband, Alan Siegel on a blind date in February of our senior year. They probably don’t remember it, but Vicki Canter, Patti’s older sister, fixed us up during fraternity rushing weekend at Rutgers (Judy Osoff and Gerri Kahn were also there). Alan and I did not particularly like each other, but when I attended Douglass in the fall, we resumed our friendship and were married in August 1962; He has been the love of my life for the past 46 years.
Alan and I lived in Short Hills, NJ for 28 years and raised our family there. We moved to a townhouse in Florham Park, NJ 3 years ago. We have two wonderful children and 5 beautiful grandchildren... Shari is now 43 and lives in Tenafly. She and her husband Jeffrey Goldman are both practicing radiologists. Shari specializes in mammography and is a partner in Mid Rockland Imaging in Nyack. Jeff’s specialties are cardiac CT and body imaging, and he is a partner in a practice in Chelsea. They have 3 children; Nicky, 10, Lucas, 7, and Kelsey, almost 3. Our son Howard is 40 and is married to Alexis Grant. They have 2 little red heads, Ryan, 7 and Zachary, 4. They live in Sands Point, NY. Both are non-practicing attorneys involved in business and real estate. By the way, Shari and Jerry Geisenheimer’s daughter, Lisa, are the best of friends. It’s a small world.
Alan is a CPA, who practiced as a public accountant for many years before becoming the CFO for several companies and then leaving to do bankruptcy work. In 1984 he bought National Flag & Display Company, Inc. (which made our beautiful reunion banner) and North Jersey Express, a trucking company in Union, NJ. He has just retired and is now learning to play more and work less.
I taught elementary school for several years until Shari was born. When Howard went to kindergarten, I went back to teaching and to graduate school. I became certified as a Special Ed teacher, an LDT-C, a supervisor and a principal, and did all of those things in the course of a 27 year career. I retired as the principal of Frelinghuysen Middle School in Morristown ten years ago. Since then, we spend two to three days a week in an apartment in Manhattan. For us, it’s a perfect arrangement.
Despite many of the ups and downs which are part of living and growing older, Alan and I feel very fortunate. We look forward to seeing you all at the Reunion. Congratulations to Jon and Barbara and Alan the many other committee members who worked so hard to make this reunion a reality. You have done a wonderful job!
