Hello Peter,

I don’t know if you will remember me or not but Jimmy (Ziggy) Durante and I were tight during our years at Linton. We played a lot of Basketball together and were the Homeroom Champs for 2yrs. For some reason I awoke this morning and the thought that next year will be our 50 th Reunion jumped into my mind and I decided to look for our website. I found it and came across the letter you wrote back in Sept of 2006 regarding your visit back to Schenectady Needless to say, memories began to flood through my mind as Names like Pete Pandori, Bucky Koslowski, Jimmy Petrokus, Joe Tanata, Bob Samford and a host of others came to life before my eyes. I grew up in the Stockade area and came to Linton from Washington Irving Jr. High, where most of the Class went to the “evil Empire” of Mt. Pleasant . I did make the 25 th Reunion but had to miss the 40 th so, God willing, I plan to be at the 50 th.

I was back in Schenectady a couple of years ago for a Reunion of a bunch of the Guys I grew up with in the Stockade neighborhood. It started out to be for just the Guys but turned into an entire neighborhood Reunion with over 65 Guys, Gals and even a Parent or two. Getting to see friends that I had not seen, in some cases, in over 30yrs was a real treat.

Hope to see you next year but I just had to let you know how much I enjoyed reading, albeit almost 3yrs later, your open letter. What made it even more enjoyable was that I had a “Do Wop” CD in the player and many of the songs took me back to those High School days…it was very nostalgic.

Take care,
Bob St. John

I remember Alison from Mrs. Eaton's 7th grade homeroom at Central Park and have thought of her often throughout the years, wondering about her life and  now I know. Sadly, her death was premature. I mourn for her as she had quite an impact on me.  

 I am not surprised Alison's life was dedicated to human rights. I remember that on that St. Patrick's day in 1954 she proudly wore orange while the rest of us wore green. I was struck by her firm, unapologetic statement that she wore orange  in support of the people of  Northern Ireland. Although I knew nothing of the Northern Irish, or any Irish for that matter, that day she planted in me the seed of the concept of human rights.

I will also never forget that during that same year she danced with precision and grace an intricate Scottish jig for an assembly in the auditorium. She was her own person. She was someone I admired. I hold her memory dear to my heart.

Margie (Minard) Borchers

Recollections of Ted Zalondeck 

This morning I went to the funeral of Ted Zalondek.  We lost contact since high school, only meeting and talking a few time in between then and now.  However, Ted was really my first friend.  We played together before we ever even attended Kindergarten. I spent as much time in his Kindergarten classroom as in my own.  I guess the teachers felt sorry for me and allowed me to be with my friend.  We were often in the same classes through junior high and then he went to the regent tract, be a much better student, and, I being lazy at the time, went to the non regents tract in high school.   

One summer during the early high school years, Ted was involved in a terrible automobile accident when a tree fell on the family car.  He was in a coma for several weeks, I wasn't sure he would make it, and while he came out of the coma, I don't thing he was entirely the same person. Whatever the explanation, he was more outgoing,funnier and a more caring person. 

I can recall several memories involving Ted.  An argument over who controlled the Atomic bomb, probably sometime around the presidential elections of 1948. He said, Dewy the presidential candidate, then Governor of NYS, and I said Truman, the serving President.  We had several real fights during our earlier years, probably because I was a pugnacious and disagreeable guy at times. 

I also remember being scared out of our wits by what turned out to be a mop hanging from Parrillo's clothes line one night.  It looked like the face of the devil. We had been walking back from a Scout meeting at St. Anthony's.  Once we saw that "Devil face," we ran like hell all the way home. Ted peeled off at his house, it came first about four houses ahead of mine. I continued to run until I was inside the back hall at home, safe.  

Another recollection, we were playing softball out in the street on Avenue A just beyond the Zalondek house away from ours. Someone fit the ball. The ball hit a power pole, then bounced off a near by tree. The ball then bounced off at almost 90 degrees, it hit one of the porch posts on Ted's house and passed through the window as it traveled almost parallel to the original path, but in the opposite direction.  Hard to believe but true.  And some people say there is no such think as fate? 

The last memory from the early years was when Ted went out for cross country and I went out for football as 10 th graders.  He was lighter and fast but I was in really good shape having worked out all spring and summer and having gone to football camp at Central Park.  We raced from home on Avenue A up to and around the Quarry (Second Ward Park) and then back home. I won!  That was a great triumph, a football player beating a cross country runner in a distance ran. I don't ever remember having beat him in a race before. 

During college, Ted fixed me up with a blind date to go western dancing somewhere near Moriahville.  It was a complete disaster. Somehow, I managed to slam the poor girl's foot in the car door. We weren't able to get past that experience, so the date was a failure. Ted gave up on me as far as getting me dates.  Who could blame him?  

So much for recollections.  

I have been going to entirely too many funerals of late and losing too many great friends. We have to cherish those that remain. 

Take care. 

Gary Dilallo