Fred Brostoff

Following is the link to the discussion by our classmate, Jack Rakove, and former ETHS AP History teacher, Arch Bryant of the subject "The Electoral College:  Past, Present and Future".

(You'll need to copy the link and paste it into your internet browser)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?bblinkid=247808736&bbemailid=28408002&bbejrid=1835704956&v=af_T5oyp4EM&feature=youtu.be

Alice Rosengard

Fred Brostoff

Funny you should ask for more, Alice.  Copy the following link to your internet browser to connect to the ETHS Alumni Association and view additional programs that they are offering:

https://www.eths.k12.il.us/Page/520

Susan Spiegel (Pastin)

I just finished watching the discussion on the Electoral College and learned a few more things - and a couple of things I had forgotten, like in the compromise of 1876-77 where Southern blacks were thrown under the bus.  Part of that deal was the North would build a railroad from Texas to the Pacific if the South protected the voting rights of blacks.  Both promises were abandoned.  

Jake Rakove also noted that every President's legitimacy has been challenged since Clinton. 

Good discussion - and I forwarded it on to some of my email pals.

Jack Hayes

I watched and learned, too. Jack has not lost his puckish sense of humor. I loved his remark that we had to cut the guys from the 18th century some slack.   LOL    As we know, they had to make a lot of difficult compromises that should be viewed through a lens of what society norms were at that time. 

Thanks so much for a very informative session, Jack

Jack Rakove

Thanks, Jack. The problem with bringing a puckish sense of humor nurtured by a Chicago upbringing to the West Coast is that everyone out here wants to be nice to each other. I think there's a national gradient on humor which is most intense the closer you are to NYC, flourishes pretty well in Chicagoland, and then declines the further west one goes (though there are parts of LA, no doubt, where it runs quite strong).

Susan Spiegel (Pastin)

I agree Jake is right that we need to cut our 18th Century founders some slack!

Marilyn Golan (Bogan)

Thanks to the Reunion Committee for the decisions you made for using the remaining funds.  Excellent choices!

Thanks to all of you who are keeping the website going.  I love reading the posts!

Jacqueline Clare (Louis)

Thank you reunion committee for all your hard work over the past 57 years. You all deserve our appreciation for your time and dedication. Glad any remaining funds could be put to good use. 
 

Many more healthy and happy years to you all  Jackie Clare Louis  

Sherrie Igoe (Dembrowski)

Jack Hayes

I agree with the previous comments. The committee members have done an outstanding job and the distribution of funds is totally appropriate.

When we had our 50th, I showed up for lunch on Friday and was insulted when the hostess asked if I was looking for the New Trier 60th or the Evanston 50th. LOL.  I was looking forward to our 60th as well. Maybe there will be a grass roots movement in 3 years to have some sort of gathering.

Thanks for keeping the website up!!

Sherwin "Jay" Siegall

Yes Kudos to the Reunion committee for great work all these years. Agree Jack H that maybe there can be some kind of an informal 60th.......and thanks to Fred and this website continuing it will facilitate that possibility as well as possible gatherings in Evanston or at local venues around the country.

 I've had a couple nice gatherings at my home near Naples FL and also with Fred and a group for several years in March in the Phoenix area.

 Thank you Fred and Art for assisting to keep the awsome website going.

 Hopefully in 2021-22 the Pandemic will be just a blurry memory. I hope to put something together at or by my home in Miromar Lakes Florida (just 8 minutes from the Ft Myers airport serving Naples) in late Feb 2022.

So anyone reading this and contemplating being in or near Sw Florida (Naples/Ft Myers) in 2022 contemplate the possibility of a get together in lateFeb 2022  I'll make it work for as many as might be able to make it. Everyone would just pay their own way at a restaurant or at my home make a contribution!. Would be good to know if any interest. Won't be making any committments butwould help to know possible interst level. I Can handle 40-50 for an afternoon event at my home. Or I can make other arrangements!

Stay safe everyone and hope you get your shots! Felt like I won the lottery this week when we got our shots. Had to drive 50 miles but so worth it

WIth LOVE to ALL my WILDKIT classmates,

Jay (Sherwin) Siegall

Susan Spiegel (Pastin)

I agree with all the comments thanking the Reunion Committee and website runners for all there hard work!  $ is going to a good cause.  Well done everyone!

Dale Madson

ME TOO! Hats off to the reunion committie. That takes a GREAT deal of time, patients, and persistance to accomplish and to have done so well for so long is an even greater accomplishment. In short you done good. :)

Robert Lindner

The Reunions have been great! I was hoping for 60yr in 2024.

Or we could even do somthing this year since I will turn 75 and so will many of y'all.

For this year, we'll need to get vaccinated. I have been searching, but have not yet found a place to sign up for the vaccine that is reasonably near Wilmette. Still looking. 

As I recall, at one point there were discussions about joing with other classes like 65.

I had a girlfriend in the class of 65. Randi Sue Ellis.

I hope she is OK.

Is there a website for that class too?

Patrick Furlong

Great question, Robert. I have wondered often whether other classes have someone like Fred to spearhead the creation of such an informative and valuable website as our class's. (Thanks, Fred, and now, Art!) As far as I know, neither my brother Dan's ('66) nor my sister Janon's ('68) classes have such sites. As an aside, like you, they both are struggling a bit finding locations where they can receive their Covid vaccinations. Meanwhile, Emily and I--both of us already having entered our "fourth quarter"--have an embarassment of riches. Last week we received our first shots through our health care provider, and yesterday the Oak Park Health Department contacted us about getting vaccinated through the Village. We're very fortunate! I hope that everyone else in our class is as fortunate as we have been in this regard.

Robert Lindner

Pat: The SARS-2-COV vaccine distribution is a hodge-podge of sites. You are lucky to be in Oak Park where there is a health department. This is true of Evanston and Skokie as well. Unfortunately Wilmette is too small for it's own health department so we are stuck with Cook County which is a major mess. We have been hiding out since March and I was hoping last fall that we would get vaccinated by March or April this year. But the vaccines came out faster than I expected, which now is frustrating since gettinng an appointment in Northern Cook county is a crap shoot at best. There is nothing on the website of pharmacies that are supposed to have vaccine and if you call them, they won't talk to you.

 Oh well, tomorrow is groundhog day. Though considering the stock market, it should be hedgehog day.

Happy February, to all. 

Robert

Nancy Schroeder

Thanks to all the members of the reunion committee. I have enjoyed going to all of the reunions and seeing everyone. Thanks to Jack and now Art for our web site. It's been a blast keeping in touch with everyone. i don't know any other people that have this kind of interactive site. Jay since i live on Longboat Key i would love to visit Feb 2022. Take care to everyone for staying healthy. I haven't gotten my shots but on the long list. We have the most seniors in the country in Florida. I'm very healthy and have a great immune system. I wear a mask, social distance and still travel by plane and just had a 75th BD party with friends and family . All done safely. Take care to everyone.

Arthur Hallstrom

Hello Pat and Class 

We also have been waiting for the shots  Have been getting up at 4:45 am every 3 days to enter the Fla Publix grocery store chain lottery giving out shots  They were the only vaccine source we found in f'la panhandle We are Fla residents   It takes 2 hours to see if you are selected   in the meantime we are staying (hunkering down) at a Seabee Navy Base in Gulfport Ms  Then the gates opened  Vaccines started flowing.  My 100 year old mom and 72 old sis got theirs in Waupaca Wis last Thursday  My 66 year old brother in Richmond Ky got his on Friday  And we got into the Biloxi Kessler Air Force Medical Center yesterday for ours  (ages 74;74). Nationally the process appears to be working  Hope it continues to accelerate so younger folks get protected  All folks that want it and were not adversely influenced by social media treads  Now looking forward to see if we have any progress on the climate change crisis.  Heard yesterday the new Tesla S can go from 0-60 in less than 2 seconds. If that is true - that is world class for any car much less an electric one ,'

Preston Cook

As for me, I am heathy as is my wife.  But no fun living through this pandemic.  I would have preferred if they had put it off another 10 to 15 years. 

The other day, Hannah, a nurse granddaughter stopped by.  I told her what I went through on my driving trip in early November from our summer home on the Mississippi River in the historic Minnesota city of Wabasha (home to the National Eagle Center) to our winter home north of San Francisco.  

The week prior to my drive to California, I had been in contact with my Wabasha handyman in a commercial building I own there.  He works in the back of the building; I take care of my eagle collection in the front. While we were never closer than six feet, he was at the property daily, as I was.  He was diagnosed (lunch with an infected daughter a few days earlier) with Covid19 the day before I was to drive west.  I called Mayo, my health provider, and they said I do not qualify for a test since I was never closer than six feet. I should have lied.

I drove the 2000 miles for the next four days, about 500 miles a day, needing a total of ten hours charge time for the trip in my Tesla X.  I packed my own food in a cooler for the entire trip, not once having a meal in a restaurant (no drive-throughs either).  I did stay in three hotels.  I always wore a mask when inside.  Well, I had the worst allergy attack ever.  Was it Covid19?  I searched the car for a possible offender, finding none. I had no cough and no fever (checking almost hourly), at the time the most telling features of the disease. While I felt tired, I was good enough to drive each day, about 12 hours (remember the charging time of about 2.5 hours per day with some relief if I could get a full charge at the hotel).  Arriving in our California home, I felt a bit under the weather, a bit tired.  I began my exercise routine of exhausting hill work, feeling a bit more out of breath than usual.  By the time I arrived in California, it had been nine days since exposure.  My wife did not have any symptoms.  Maybe it WAS just a bad allergy attack.

I opened a fresh pressurized can of Illy coffee and took a whiff.  The coffee did not smell.  I thought it a bit strange and decided I should return the can as it had gone stale.  My next chore was to head to the back yard for dog clean-up.  We had boarded Nigel, our English bulldog, while in Minnesota.  I picked up his poop to discover it did not smell either. I thought this a bit strange that Nigel’s poop did not smell and wondered what the boarder had fed him to produce such results.  

Lunch time rolled around to find the sardine and onion sandwich also did not have an odor (my wife makes me prepare and eat these outside). I began to think something was amiss.  I had totally lost my sense of smell, apparently, according to my granddaughter, THE telling sign of Covid19.  I must have had a mild case in early November with no lasting issues.  I did not get tested for Covid19 nor antibodies.  Why bother?   I was careful, mask, distance, no indoor activities with others.  Donna received her first vaccine last Thursday, as she has a few years on me.  Not sure when I will get mine.

So, here I thought I was being careful and still got it.  Stay safe.

Sorry for the lengthy posting.

Susan Spiegel (Pastin)

OMG - what a scary experience.  Hope your smell comes back soon!

Susan Spiegel (Pastin)

And I suspect a LOT of people who had Covid never got an opportunity to gettested either.  So proobably the number of cases in this country and worldwide are actually a lot higher.

Arthur Hallstrom

In reading these posts and talking withour campground neighbors I am becoming aware of the short comings of the US Health care system.  Maybe it is my engineering training but to spend days and days to get a shot is ridiculous.  In almost every other industry, today's process to get a COVID shot would drive the organization out of business. Take our case. We spend literally days searching for who gives shots. Then you sign up and enter their lotteries to see if you are selected. Common answer. Nope. Come back later.    So you sign up for more and keep trying. Sooner or later - bingo - you win. Getting the shot is actually fairly fast. THEN, all those places you applied to keep sending you their status emails. Opps. Don't need their shot. So you do your civic duty and try to remove your name. No option. Ok. Unsubscribe. Nope. Can not do that either. (At least on the ones we used.) So you set up a email filter to dump it to your trash. Solves your problem. But all these providers think they have a market for the shots they are uging the US government to send them - based in the (inaccurate) interest level signups. In retrospec, seems like the whole process should have been managed by one private company -  nationwide. (Any of the major tech companies could do it.) Faster, cheaper, in less time and frustration.   

Paula Massey

I also had friends, in the Chicago area, who were very careful about not leaving their home, having groceries delivered etc and still caught the covid. Since I'm extra sensitive I'm going to wait for the Johnson & Johnson version to hopefully be available here in Erie PA. I wish safety, health and well being for everyone

Jack Hayes

I'm wishing the best for you, Preston. My wife bought some ginger snaps back in June and said they tasted like cardboard. I tasted one and it tasted just fine to me. About two days later Sue started to feel just awful and spent a pretty miserable week or so with Covid. Fortunately, she did not have to be hospitalized and does not seem to have any long term effects from her bout with Covid.

So, I'm hoping you never expereince anything more than a loss of taste/smell. If you make it through the next two or three days without further symptoms, you should be in the clear.

Jack