Answers for Geoff
What was our locker number at the HVCC swimming pool?
412
Who was the portly kid in your class at PC who once did a weekend sleep-over at someone’s house and beamed the next Monday: “And we had steak for dinner!”
Greg Pavlovitz
What was Mom’s middle name before she married Dad?
Rapphold
What was the length of the 2nd hole at HVCC from the whites?
406 yards
Who drove the 14th creek?
Ralphie Ervin
What did Peter Ervin ask Ralphie to do bring him when he returned from Vietnam?
A head
Until the 70s, the phone system used two-letter abbreviates as part of the prefixes, e.g., TU for Turner. What did the following stand for? IV, OL. OR, VE, VI, WI?
Ivyland, Olfield (yours), Orland, Vernon, Victor, Wilson
What was the name of Dad’s secretary?
Mary Jane Williams
What were Dad’s two office phone lines?
TU4-5620/1.
What’s the town just south of Hartsville?
Warminster
What’s the former (long defunct) stop on the Reading Railroad between Fern Rock and Wayne Junction?
Tabor
Before Mom quite smoking cigarettes, ca. 1965, what was her brand?
Salems
What was the name of the train conductor whom we gave an initial-embroidered handkerchief as a Christmas present?
E. E. Conway
What’s the name of the place on the Delaware River due east of City Hall in Philadelphia?
Penn’s Landing
What’s the address of PC?
3000 W. Schoolhouse La.
In what year was that building constructed?
1925
What was the first year of HVCC?
1897
Who was president that year?
William McKinley
What is the name of the fabulous Christmas dip that Kim makes from (guessing) chutney, cream cheese, and some sort of hot sauce?
Jezebel
Which friend of ours went from stoner/bass fisherman to geology PhD to spokesperson for NASA?
John Grotziner
What was the middle initial of Joe Perrot?
S
Who was the business manager at PC?
Oscar Jannson
What bomber group was Dad in?
487th
I asked Dad if he felt any exhilaration parachuting out of his B-17. What do you think he told me?
Jacy, the only reason I jumped out of that plane was that it was on fire.
Besides Sam Schmidlac, what other fake names did it have for males?
Larry Fudnick, Dominic Stitudi
For females?
Susie Lipshoots
Which friend of our parents made an eagle on the 11th hole, canning a shot from the bunker left of the fairway?
Roland Evans
Which one of Dad’s high school friends ran the Texaco station on Old York Road, just north of his office?
Bill Leeds
The Snack Shop (just south?)
Jim Rosemia
Who was an officer (soon to become chief) of the Abington Police Department?
Captain Jackson
Where was the Abington incinerator?
Arbuta Road, a spur off Susquehanna
At which park did Dad fall of a log, and thought that he had broken his leg?
Lorimar
Where did Dad and his men go when they were captured after having been shot down?
Luft Stalag One
At which altitude his Dad fly?
29,000 feet
How many of his four engines had failed when he knew he couldn’t get back into France?
3 (you can maintain altitude with 2, one on each side, but not with 1).
Dad was offered an incentive to stay in the military when the war was over. What was it?
He could go directly from Second Lieutenant to Captain.
Why, according to Mom, did Baba consider sending to college far into the south?
To break up her romance with Dad
Baba had siblings. What were their names?
Clyde and Phyllis, and perhaps others
How did Beep get his name?
From his incredible sports car of the early 50s, which, though I can remember it well, I can’t find online
How many acres constituted the farm in Hartsville (before some of them were taken by eminent domain)?
7
Why did we have to stop swimming in the pond?
Snapping turtles
When we first to LBI for summer vacation, which town did we choose?
Brant Beach
On LBI, which town lies between Barnegat and Harvey Cedar?
Loveladies
Where had we gone before LBI?
Ocean City
Which bridge did we cross to get there (which terrified me because I thought we have to drive over the superstructure)?
The Tacony Palmyra
Approximately, what was the toll on the PA Turnpike to get from Willow Grove to Ohio?
$3.50
Which one of us was the first to kiss Ann McConnell?
Probably me. I think I was 12.
What were the three roller-coaster rides at Willow Grove Park?
Little Scenic, Alps, and Thunderbolt
Who lived near us on Horace Avenue?
The Wilsons, Slicks, Schreks, Stroups, McKays
Who lived just south of us on Cloverly Lane, famous for their barn?
The Yusems
Who lived just south of them?
The Becks
The kids’ names?
David, Susan, and Bobby
What did we try to catch in the stream in back of that mansion?
Crayfish and salamanders
When they moved, who bought the place?
The Clarkes, with kids Jay and Robin
What were the names of the Ickler kids, whose house fronted on Susquehanna?
Chris and Jackie
What restaurant did we all like on the west side of York Road in Abington?
Lums
Until the Abington Pharmacy came along in the late 60s, what was the only drug store in town?
Powell’s
What was the main difference between Jenkintown and Rydal station?
You could walk across the tracks at Rydal; you needed to walk through a tunnel at Jenkintown.
Which 8th grade U.S. history teacher at PC, earlier in his life, was in the U.S. Park Service, and arguably at the bottom of the barrel at our old school?
Russ Faber
Which 5th grade teacher tossed Alexis Sommaripa out the door of his classroom?
Alan de Gaulle Lamprele
Can you name any of the stuff we sold at the Lower School bazaar?
Brownies, lemon sticks, white elephants
What was the kindergartners’ Color Day event?
The dash (50 yards?)
Long before the June Fete was held where it is today, where was it sited in the early 20th Century?
Dodo’s place on Wheatsheaf La.
Dad grew up there, of course. What was the name of the baseball game he used to play with his friends in the late 1920s?
Movies Up. You hit until you were out, and that’s when you went to right field, aka, “last guts”
When you went through that door and walked to your left, what musical instrument as in that room?
An organ
Have you ever seen a larger dining room? A scarier basement? A more bizarre bedroom than Uncle Art’s, with the low ceilings? A toilet that was flushed by pulling a chain?
No
Whom did Dodo marry after her husband died? Hint: he made Dad’s real estate signs.
Nicolas Park, aka “Grandpop Nick”
What did I find when Dad let me climb up into the attic above Dodo’s garage at age perhaps 10?
A full case of live mortar shells that Uncle John had brought home from the war, each weighing several pounds, each perhaps 18 inches long
What did Dad tell me when I looked down from the attic to where he was standing below and showed him one?
“Using both hands, turn around and put it gently back where you found it.” He later explained that it could have blown up the entire property.
