Newsletter for the Alumni and Friends of
Hicksville High School Hicksville, New York

The Editors:
Buffalo Bob Casale '61	Linda (Piccerelli) Hayden '60
Pat (Koziuk) Driscoll '56	Bob (Gleason) Wesley '61

Contributing Editors: Bob Gillette & Walter Schmidt

Webmaster: Roger Whitaker

To contact the editors, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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HICKSVILLE VIETNAM WAR ERA MEMORIAL - PROJECT UPDATE

This month's report is only through mid-July, since I will be away on vacation. We gained one new donor in July, so donations continue, but at a very slow pace. $50 was received through mid-July for a new total of $18,952. After tax expenses last year, we have a total of $18,077 available to us, sufficient to build the Memorial, but not enough to maintain it after construction. Repeat donors have been very helpful, but we sure would like to see new donors help in reaching our $25,000 total goal. Details on where to mail your donation check, continue to be shown in this month's Project Update, which appears in the Honoring Our Veterans tab of the newsletter.

In addition to donations, a number of good things continue to happen to move the Project towards completion. Please see the Project Update for details.

Recently, the 42nd Anniversary of the Vietnam War passed very quietly, a war that directly changed the lives of many HHS graduates from the late 1950's through the early 1970's. As an unpopular conflict, many returning soldiers did not receive public respect for their service. The war did help our country define post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and from the war Americans learned to take their displeasure out on our political decision makers and not on our returning troops. As a result, today's soldiers are treated with the respect they deserve, just as those who returned from earlier wars before that time.

Hence, a number of us who served during the Vietnam War Era remain committed to working hard to honor our Veterans from that period by building this Memorial in Hicksville. Please continue to help us accomplish our final goal to unveil the Memorial at the Jerusalem Avenue School Memorial Gardens on Veteran's Day, 2018!

As always, should you have any new information to report for either the Confirmed or Unconfirmed Lists of Names, particularly to fill in missing data on the Confirmed List, please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

On behalf of the Project Team,
Joe Carfora, HHS 1962

You are cordially invited to the Hicksville High School Class of 1977 40 year Reunion
Saturday August 12th, 2017
Venue changed to Gemelli's at Bergen Point Country Club
69 Bergen Ave.
West Babylon, NY 11704

See 77.hixreunion.com for details

Hicksville High School class of '67 Reunion is being planned. But this is the Big One: 50th Reunion. It will be at the Joseph Barry Knights of Columbus, Hicksville. We are starting early to give people time to make plans.

Click here to see the attached flyer for a description of what's in the offing for the weekend and the registration form.

We are asking people to register early and spread the word, Comets '67 to reunite again.

The Newsletter

Photo Gallery

 Changing Faces

Kelly Preston and John Travolta

Lisa Hoffman and Dustin Hoffman

Sandra Knight and Jack Nicholson

Annette Bening and Warren Beatty (shown also is Shirley Maclaine, Warren's sister)

Michele Roquebrune and Sean Connery (also showing is when Sean was a body builder)

Shakira Caine and Michael Caine

Sean Penn and Madonna married in 1985 - Divorced but still friends- Madonna looks better now than back in the day!!!

Calista Flockhart and Harrison Ford

Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan

Jeff Bridges and Susan Geston (What a handsome couple, then and now) 

Birthdays & Anniversaries

Memory Lane

2000 Mega Reunion

It's August 2000 and Holly Horton is one person eagerly awaiting the Mega Reunion that will be held on September 22^nd at the Huntington Town House. The logistics for this affair, designed for former Hicksville High School students, is being coordinated by Rich Delia and Anton Mure. Preliminary data published by Holly in a sequence of emails to former students leaked information that two bands would be performing simultaneously on two separate floors. The projected total of alumnus planning to attend is approaching almost 2,000 attendees.

A good time would be had by all and answers to some of her emails that went out prior to the reunion are shown below...

Newsletter Archive
August 2000
(Before the MEGA Reunion)

Hi...Here are two of our HHS grads remembering the Hicksville of their youth. Not too many of you will be able to top their memories. Thanks to Ray Muller, Class of 1955 and Pat Koziuk, Class of 1956...Thanks...Holly

• Ray Muller started the ball rolling with this email.

Here are some brain burners:
1. Do you know where Hutners Dept store was located.
2. There were two bakeries on Broadway
3. The LIRR was not elevated
4. Broadway was only a two lane road no divider in the middle
5. Where was the Hudson Car Dealer located
6. Where were the two previous locations of Goldman Bros.
7. Where was the Sweet shop located before its present location
8. There were two or three hardware stores in Hicksville , name them .
9. Schiners Drug store, where was it located .
10. Where did Northern State Parkway end .
11. Kraft Jewelers do you remember .
12. What was located where Robert Chevrolet is now .
13. Where was A & P grocery located .
14. Where was Bohack grocery store located and when they moved what moved into their location...Ray Muller

• Pat Koziuk quickly responded to Ray Muller's List.

Holly...I know the answers to these questions. They sure brought back many memories. Schiners Drug store made a great lime fizz that hit the spot on a hot evening after the Jr. High Friday night dances. Hutners Dept. Store was on the corner of Broadway and Marie Street and had the most beautiful staircase right inside the main entrance.

The A&P was a tiny store on Broadway just down the block from Braun's Meat Market. The Bohack store was on Marie St. and I think Grand Union took them over. The Hudson car dealer was on the corner of Broadway and Old Country Rd. and I think they also carried the Nash Ramblers.

Thanks for the memories.

Pat

• At this point, I got another email from Pat that really floored me. She really has a flair for putting her wonderful memories down on paper. She agreed to share them with everyone. I hope you enjoy going back in time to the old and golden years of our youth.

Hi Holly,

After reading the 'brain burners' from Ray Muller, I remembered what Hicksville was like BL (before Levittown ). It really was a small town with many farms. I remember at harvest time the local farmers would hire women to help in the fields. My grandmother would put on her sunbonnet and pick potatoes, beans and other veggies along with the neighbors. It seemed more like a gossip party than work. I can't remember any migrant workers. Us kids would 'work' on Saturdays along with our Moms, aunts and grandmothers. We usually picked just enough to pay for a trip to the movie.

Then Mom and Grandma would prepare food for the winter. They would can, pickle and make jelly. We had a room sized pantry in the basement and a root cellar under the shed in the back yard. My Dad was the only one brave enough to go into the root cellar, where apples, beets, potatoes and other eatables were stored. It's amazing how long they lasted stored that way!

As I said before, the A&P was a tiny store, so on Saturday morning, we would all pile into our Hudson Hornet and drive to Hempstead for a day of shopping. Dad loved a black and white cake that he found in the BIG A&P in Hempstead and I think we brought one home just about every Saturday. Dad always treated us to lunch and one of our favorite places was a hot dog stand in the bus stop. We knew the waitress by her first name. Hot dogs and orange soda, what a treat ! I also remember a small stream in a small park that we would visit with Dad while Mom shopped.

Since my Dad worked for Sperry for 27 years on the night shift, we didn't see him much during the week. He tried to spend time with us on weekends. Those were the days of free admission to the Bronx Zoo, the Metropolitan Museum and other attractions. Gas was 25 cents a gallon so we were taken to NYC on a regular basis.

Sometime we would go to places like the Statue of Liberty and other tourist attractions. I do remember going to Radio City Music Hall several times. One time in particular, we went to see "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and I couldn't believe that he paid $2.75 for admission! I think the movie house in Hicksville was 40 cents at the time.

On Friday nights, Mom, Aunt Jennie and a bunch of us kids would go to the farmers market. It was the forerunner of the big one on the Hicksville/Bethpage line. The thing I still remember about those trips was that they always bought celery and it smelled up the car. Then we would go home and watch "I Remember Momma" on our little black and white TV.

There was always lots of family around and a holiday was always a family reunion. We grew up with many cousins, aunts and uncles. You didn't dare get into mischief because you were sure to be seen by a relative, no matter where you were.

Although we had Hutners and Goldman's in town, we usually drove into Jamaica for our winter coats. Some of the NYC dept. stores had branches there. We did go into NYC at least a couple of times a year to shop. My aunt Helen was a millinery buyer at Bergdorf's on 5th Ave. She was know as Miss Aneila and worked there for years. I think I drove everybody "nuts" because I rode every escalator in every dept. store in the city!

My Dad never was called to serve in W.W.II and it wasn't until after the war that we learned why. It seems he was considered more valuable to his country at his bench at Sperry's than overseas with a gun. He had something to do with the bomb sight for the atomic bombs.

Well, that's how it was when I was a Hick!

Pat

Casale's Corner

A story of fiction that could have been...

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston.  and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard & probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.

"We'd like to see the president," the man said softly. 

"He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped. 

"We'll wait," the lady replied. 

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted.

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave," she said to him! 

He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple. 

The lady told him, "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus." 

The president wasn't touched. He was shocked. "Madam," he said, gruffly, "We can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died If we did, this place would look like a cemetery." 

"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly. "We don't want to erect a statue We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard." 

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?"

Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. 

It was August of 1885 and their son Leland Stanford Jr. died the previous year at the age of 15 from Typhoid Fever. Mr. Leland Stanford and Mrs. Jane Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears the name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.

A true story by Malcolm Forbes 
Help someone smile today.