CLASSMATE UPDATE: DONNA CERBONE

In China in 2010.  You may notice my hair is very RED!  A last minute dye job resulted in a startling color that fascinated the Chinese women, who were all eager to touch it!

In 2010, I was on a cruise through the Locks of the Yangtze River in China.  I saw the people who lived along the water’s edge, people who lived the most minimal life style, yet they were happy and fulfilled.  The culture in China was one of peace, tranquility and simplicity.  I felt like I was exactly where I belonged.   I took a deep breath, and pinched myself.  This trip was a celebration, an affirmation of sorts, that I was successfully fighting the cancer that resulted in a double mastectomy in 2009.  But I have gotten ahead of myself.  Let me start at the beginning.

I moved to Massapequa from Queens Village when I was 11.  My Dad had our house built on the property at the corner of Euclid and Charles in Massapequa Park.  My parents wanted to give me and my sister, Dorothy, a better life in “the country.”  We were eager to embrace our new life, but my Catholic school background pointed out all the ways that I was different.  I turned to music and began taking organ lessons, which would continue until I was 18.  At 16, I was hired by Family Melody Center in the Sunrise Mall to give lessons.  Some of you may remember me playing Christmas songs on the organ in the middle of the mall during the holidays.

For me, High School was not something I looked forward to, but something that I had to do.  At McKenna, I met Wanda Chapman, and she is still my oldest and dearest friend.  At Berner, Evelyn Cappadona, Wanda and I were the Three Musketeers.  We did everything together, including getting jobs at White’s Department Store.  We always hung out together, going to All American, or just hanging out at one of our houses.

After High School, I got a job at Gem Electronics in Farmingdale, keeping the journals for 18 stores throughout NY, NJ, and CT as well as doing the weekly payroll for over 100 employees.    Eventually, I got a job with SW Anderson Sales, and they paid for me to go to SUNY Farmingdale in the evenings to learn the newly emerging technology of computers.

I had been dating a guy for a few years and we eventually got engaged, but it didn’t last long.  After we broke up, my friends Evelyn Cappadona, Wendy Reissman and the Bushman twins took me to Friars Pub on Merrick Road in Amityville to cheer me up.  It was there that I met my husband Doug.  We married a little more than a year later and we have been together now for 38 years.

My husband is an Electrical Contractor with his own business, so soon I quit my job to become his secretary and bookkeeper.  I also continued to teach organ lessons, as it really is a passion of mine.  Through the years, I have taught over 45 students, both children and adults.

In 1978, Doug and I and another couple from Massapequa bought a bar in Blue Point.  It was called Reefers (in the nautical sense, of course!), and for two years it consumed our lives.  We learned a lot while running the bar: ordering liquor, hiring bands to perform, and being part-time bartender, part-time bouncer.  We had some great times at Reefers until New Wave music came on the scene.  We renovated, added a disco ball, plush couches and fancy pillows, and we even changed the name to Rafters.  At that point we started to lose our shirts, and we ended up closing up for good on Halloween night. 

My son was born on July 4, 1981, and my daughter followed on April 3, 1985.   We were supportive parents who were immersed in the kid’s activities, and gave them every chance to excel.  We spent many hours watching dance recitals, Martial Arts matches, and football games.  Today, my daughter manages a dancewear store and my son is a Network Engineer in Manhattan.  Both our children are married, and we look forward to the day when we will welcome grandchildren.

Me, Doug, our daughter Vanessa and son Paul in 2010

My world changed in March of 2009 when I discovered a lump in my breast while showering.  Tests revealed that it was Cancer bordering Stage 4, and I was faced with decisions that I never wanted to make.  I had one week to decide if Doctors would remove one or both of my breasts.  Since I planned on having reconstructive surgery at the same time as the breast removal, it was a lot to think about.  I decided to have them both removed and reconstructed at the same time, a surgery that lasted for 16 hours.  My family was my support and inspiration during my recovery.  Attitude has a lot to do with how you recover, and boy did I have attitude.  I was determined that nothing was getting me down, and I would win that battle.  Here I am 5 years later, and I am finally able to stop taking my medication, as I am now considered Cancer free!

It is funny how life takes you through its trials and tribulations.  During the darkest days of my illness, I met a new group of friends who have become such a big part of my life now.  It was in September of 2009 and I had just had a tough day.  My husband and I decided to get a burger at a local pub.  A band set up and all I could think was that I didn’t need to hear a loud group screaming in my ear.  We asked for the check and while we were waiting, the band started up.  The lead singer was a girl who started with some of my favorite songs by Janis Joplin.  I was immediately hooked and called my daughter to meet us at the pub to hear this band.  We ended up closing the place and becoming friends with The Pamela Betti Band, who have since been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Over the last 5 years we have come to know them not just as musicians, but as friends.  They have helped me through some dark times and become a very big part of our lives.

 

Doug and I in Paris in February, 2014

Since our trip to China, we have traveled to Spain, France, Italy, the Panama Canal, Alaska and Paris.  We have a trip to Greece planned for 2015.  Each of these trips is a reminder to me that my story hasn’t yet reached its end and there is so much ahead of me.

I truly believe that in the grand scheme of things, life has already paved the road that we are meant to take, and we meet people along the way just to help us get to where we need to be in our lives.  After all these years, I still keep in contact with a handful of Berner alumni, and I am so grateful for their friendship and support.  Wanda Chapman, Evelyn Cappadona, Barbara Baron, Bob Russo and Aaron Block have all made a huge difference in my life thus far.  I look forward to the next chapter of my life and I can’t wait to see where the road leads!

 

May 2013, My son Paul, his wife Michele, Doug, me, my daughter Vanessa, her husband Steve, and Wanda Chapman

written by Carolyn Hammer through email interviews with Donna Cerbone Marcley

CLASSMATE UPDATE: JOHN LEWIS

I was born in Jackson Heights, the oldest of 3 boys.  When  I was 6, the excellent reputation of the Massapequa School District lured my parents, and we moved to a house on Smith Street, right across the street from Hawthorne Elementary School.

Smith Street was a great place to be a kid; there were so many kids to play with, we had the playground right across the street, and we all enjoyed walking to town for pizza or a treat from Di Monda’s bakery.  The summers found us biking to the woods (Massapequa Preserve) where we could fish or swim.  My parents put a pool in our yard, and as a result, my house was a popular summer hangout.

I come from a large Italian family, and part of the Italian tradition is Sunday dinner at Grandma’s house.   My Grandma lived out in Hauppauge, and we referred to her as “Grandma in the country” because at that time, Hauppauge really was the country.  She had a large piece of property with a chicken coop and chickens and she was an amazing cook!  There were 28 cousins on that side of the family, and we were all close, so it was so much fun being there.  We used to laugh when a guest was invited for the first time to one of Grandma’s dinners.  They would invariably fill their plates when the pasta, meatballs and sausage was passed around the table, no doubt thinking how great this meal was.  Little did they know that this was only the first course, and that soon a roast, potatoes, vegetables and salad would appear!
 

I enjoyed High School and made some good friends, many of whom I am in touch with today, like Lori Barclay, Ann Marie (Colletti) Noone, and Bob and Leslie (Lemmelbaum) Insalaco.  After graduation, I did not know what I wanted to do, so I enrolled at SUNY Farmingdale to study Liberal Arts.  I also worked part-time at Bohacks in Massapequa Park.
 
While at Farmingdale, I found that I enjoyed Environmental Science, so after achieving my Associates Degree at Farmingdale, I ended up at SUNY Plattsburg as an Environmental Science major, and I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in 1977.

In between Farmingdale and Plattsburg, I took a year off to concentrate on self-improvement.   I had always been a bit heavy set as a child, but while at Farmingdale, my weight grew to 250 pounds.  I made a decision to get my weight under control, joined Weight Watchers and lost 85 pounds, which I have kept off ever since.  During that time, I also developed an interest in physical fitness and found myself teaching aerobics, running 10K races, and even a half marathon.  I am still a fitness enthusiast and working out is an important part of my day.
 

This picture appeared in Aerobics Guru Jackie Sorensen's book

With my freshly awarded BA in hand, I realized that my interest in Environmental Science had waned, and so, I wound up answering a Classified Ad for a position as an Insurance Adjuster.  The ad was particularly alluring because it offered college graduates $700 a month plus a company car.  In 1977, it didn’t get much better than that.  I was hired by Crawford & Company and went to Atlanta for a 5 week training program.  I worked out of the Carle Place office for the next year, while still living at home.  Working as an Independent Insurance Adjuster appealed to me because I wasn’t stuck in an office all day, I had a lot of freedom to make my own schedule, and I met lots of people.

My life changed significantly in 1978, when I ran into our classmate, and my good friend, Brian Sibley.  Brian had moved to California, and was in Massapequa for a visit.  He invited me to visit him in California, and I took him up on his offer.  He lived in Orange County, and I found that I loved it there so much, that during my vacation, I found a new job and went home to give my 2 week notice to Crawford & Company.  My parents were very supportive of the move, and I knew that if things didn’t work out for me on the West Coast, that they would rescue me.  I was off to California!   

In Palm Springs with Brian Sibley

For the next 26 years, I worked for Carl Warren & Company, retiring as a Vice President in 2004.  My early retirement came about as a result of a battle with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that left me unable to work.

I was diagnosed during a visit to Long Island, when I went to the emergency room with severe stomach pain. I flew back home to California for treatment, and over the next six months, I was in and out of the hospital 6 times, had multiple surgeries and chemotherapy, and had more than one night where they thought I might not make it.   It actually took me several years to fully recover, but I beat cancer and I am healthy today.  During my treatments I found out what a truly amazing group of friends, co-workers and neighbors I had.  I never would have expected people to be so generous and so supportive, and I know I am truly blessed.

While I was working, I lived all over the Los Angeles area, but enjoyed visiting Palm Springs on weekends.  After I retired, I moved there full time.  Palm Springs is a beautiful desert resort city and is known for its mid-century modern architecture, great restaurants and lively night life.  It has become a popular retirement destination for gay men of a certain age.   

I met my partner, Craig, in Palm Springs at an informal Men’s Discussion Group.  We have been together for 7 years now, and we have a large circle of friends that we love to entertain.  Craig and I have become known for our large dinner parties (we can seat up to 20 at one table!) and in our way, we are continuing the Italian tradition that was part of my childhood.

Thanksgiving 2013

Christmas 2013

Craig and I have our dinner parties down pat now.  I love to cook and I have managed to pretty much duplicate Grandma’s famous potatoes!   Craig’s background is in Art and Design, and he decorates and sets a lavish table.  Our friends look forward to a holiday dinner with us, and no one has to sit at a kid’s table!  And even though none of my family lives out here near me, when I look down the table as we raise our glasses, I am reminded that families don’t always grow up under the same roof.  

Happy Thanksgiving 2013

Even though I am retired, my days are busy.  I am an active volunteer with the Desert AIDS Project, which has a national reputation for providing the most comprehensive support services for people living with HIV/AIDS.  I have acted in various volunteer capacities like fundraising and serving on committees, but currently, I am one of the volunteer editors of their weekly electronic newsletter with about 1600 subscribers.  Each week we search the web for articles that would be of interest to people living with HIV/AIDS, including treatment news, health news, advocacy opportunities, etc., and summarize those articles for the newsletter. I also serve as Secretary of the Men's Discussion Group.

In addition to working out at the gym, I am an automobile enthusiast and I enjoy going to the movies.   I also love to experiment with new recipes and I am always thinking about the next dinner party.  I travel a bit and I still visit Long Island at least once a year.  My youngest brother bought the house we grew up in and my Mom lives in Snug Harbor in Amityville.  I am always amazed at how green and lush Long Island is during the summer.  I enjoyed attending the Look Who’s Turning 60 Birthday party in June, though I am still dealing with the reality of turning 60!  (I am sure our cruise to Mexico in October will help with that!)  Looking back, I have no real regrets.  All of my experiences both good and bad have made me the person that I am today and have led me here to my life in Palm Springs, and that is exactly where I am meant to be.

CLASSMATE UPDATE: ROBERTA ROSENBERG

In many ways, I am and remain a nice Jewish girl from Massapequa.

My folks bought their first house in Massapequa in 1949. A petite house on a corner lot facing Hicksville Road at the corner of Chicago Avenue. My folks shared stories of meeting other Jewish couples who escaped Brooklyn and the Bronx to set up digs and have babies in the country. My parents were one of the founding families of the Massapequa Jewish Center on Jerusalem Avenue. (It became Temple Judea years later. As a side note, its last Rabbi was the rabbi of my congregation here in Maryland.) Sadly, it’s closed now.

One of the reasons they chose Massapequa was because it didn’t have “restricted” neighborhoods. (Meaning they sold to Jewish families.) Imagine having to even ask that kind of question today.

We lived there until 1959 when we moved within Massapequa to Ontario Avenue, right off of Parkside Boulevard and the Massapequa Woods. This is the house I ultimately considered home. I went to Lockhart (where I skipped second grade), Parkside, and then Berner, as we all did. What I remember most was the freedom we had to roam outside without a lot of interference or fear from our folks. We all walked blocks and blocks to school or rode our bikes. I walked to piano lessons (Dave Goldstein’s mom was my teacher for three years) and to friends’ homes. A simple motherly yell out the door was enough to send us home running.

I remember playing baseball in the street in front of our house. (My mother’s side mirror was third base. She lost at least one mirror every summer for years.) I remember Summer Playground at Lockhart where Alec Baldwin’s dad was the head honcho. We called Alec “Little Alexander.” He was a huge pain in the ass, but he adored his dad, as did we all.

I also remember being the only Jewish family on the block, and except for the O’Connell girls across the street, the only kids who went to public school. There were times of tussle now and again, but it made us aware of the outside world as young kids and how to manage and conduct ourselves.

My mother was a bookkeeper who worked at home while we were very young, then took full-time employment when we got older. My dad worked for the Long Island Press for many years and then opened a Shell service station in Merrick. He owned it until he died in 1975 at 51.

I loved high school...

I didn’t belong to any particular group, but I felt at home with friends and activities. It was a time of social upheaval and I loved feeling a part of it all. It was a time I found my ‘voice’ and my deep feminist outrage. I also discovered I had a comic turn of mind ... more on that later.

I also fell in love - completely and deeply - for the first time. Mark Pass and I escorted each other gingerly and joyfully through the journey of first love. I couldn’t have asked for a better boyfriend for my junior and senior year. (My heart tore more than a little when I learned of his passing three years ago.)

After Berner, I went to Nassau Community College where I ramped up my studies and graduated in 18 months. I went to Syracuse University as a mid-year transfer where on paper I majored in Broadcast Journalism at the Newhouse school, but in actuality majored in interpersonal relationships and tequila sunrises. My dad died of a heart attack in late 1975. I dropped out of school, came home, and worked while I waited for my world to stop spinning.

A year later, I was engaged to a nice Jewish boy from East Meadow. We had met at NCC, dated for a while, and reconnected a few years later. I worked for his brother as an AV tech for BAR/BRI, the bar review course, and then as an Executive Secretary for a dress manufacturer in the Garment Center. He was finishing school at University of Maryland, so we married in 1977, and I moved to Maryland where I’ve lived since.

I worked for a tiny AM radio station during the day (if you remember the show, WKRP in Cincinnati, our station was so small I was forced to be the brainy girl AND sexpot rolled into one.) I finished college at U of MD in the evenings and began grad school in broadcast management. I thought I had it all figured out, until I took a job with a medical publishing company as a junior copywriter. It was there I discovered direct marketing (we used to call it junkmail), and a career I absolutely fell in love with ... and have continued to do so since.

I worked for the publishing company for 5 years working my craft and career up the ranks. I then went to a direct marketing agency for two years where Special Olympics and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts were my accounts. Then, after being denied a promotion because “we just don’t promote people (code for women) too fast.”, I borrowed $3k from my savings, promised my husband if it didn’t work out after two years, I’d go back to a regular job, and opened my own marketing consultancy in 1987.

I remained in business full-time for the next 25 years. I did take a regular job two years ago when my second husband - and the father to my three kids: Hilary, now 22; Spencer, almost 17; and Piper, almost 16) and I divorced.

Wait ... did she write second husband? What happened to the first?

My first spouse and I divorced in 1989. (I decided to go to Vegas for a six-week divorce because Maryland’s laws were and remain woefully antiquated.) It was during this time, I discovered the nascent beginnings of the online world, pre-internet days. I was working as a freelancer for a small ad agency that had a teeny division of General Electric as their account. GE was looking to monetize the downtime on their mainframes with private little online networks.

This was 1985 and I knew I had just tasted the future. It wasn’t word processing or spread sheets. It was communications - and it was amazingly fun. GEnie was the service and chat was a major part of the experience. There were a handful of women online and hundreds of men. Needless to say, I felt like a homecoming queen most evenings - and all from home. :)

My kids call me and their dad online pioneers. I tell them I invented the :D emoticon in 1986 and they believe me. :D

My soon-to-be second husband was one of my admirers. During this time, I won a trip to Paris on the Concorde. It was like taking a honeymoon before the wedding. We had a fabulous time. He moved from Massachusetts to join me in Maryland. We married in 1990. Our first daughter was born two years later.

Life was good, but after too many miscarriages to count, we adopted our son and second daughter as infants from South Korea in 1998 and 1999. (If you’re doing the math, I was a first-time mom at 37, then 42, then again at 44.)

It was during this time, I began a deeper interest in the online world. I developed my first websites to chronicle my first adoption (adoptkorea.com) and then my interest in e-commerce (www.adoptshoppe.com) ... this work, built on the foundation of my original work in direct marketing, has been my vocational passion since.

But life has a way of sneaking up on you ... my second marriage broke under a boatload of strains. For the past four years, life has been hectic, strange, unsettling, but liberating in all the right ways. Being a pragmatic woman, I realized I needed a steady gig. Today, I’m the director of marketing for a trade association in Washington, DC, and still consult, teach, and do a bunch of other stuff. I like the challenge and keeping myself in the thick of things. I still think there are mountains left for me to climb.

I’d rather work than do housework or cook. Feel free to ask my kids about that. My son learned how to cook to keep from having to eat ‘breakfast foods” for dinner because it’s faster. They’ll tell you how awful life is. :) I can’t imagine retiring from work I enjoy, but I wouldn’t mind trading my usual 60-70 hours a week for a basic 40. That would seem like a vacation!

Thinking back on my Berner days, there’s little I would do differently. I had some wonderful teachers - Ken Zanca for 10th grade English who encouraged me to pursue writing (not copywriting, but hey I’m still writing, right?), and Rob Brownstein who taught me biology and tutored me and a few other kids through geometry at my parents’ dining room table every week. I passed that class due to his patience as I walked numbly through theorems that still don’t make sense to me.

Earlier I mentioned discovering a comic turn of mind ...

I loved comedians growing up. The timing, smart word play, all of it. We all listened to Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart, Firesign Theatre, Cheech and Chong, Robert Klein, and George Carlin albums.

I had a huge crush on David Steinberg.

I was stealthy at first. I liked to comment quietly to classmates at Lockhart, Parkside, and Berner - and make them laugh. I was a little rowdy with the other two girls in Hebrew School as we sit in a sea of 40 awkward boys at Congregation Beth-El for our bar and bat mitzvah training.

I didn’t think much of it until Syracuse where I began to do actual 20 minute sets. Folks laughed. It was great. I played some clubs on LI for the next few years. One of my favorite memories was having my dad (and mom and a girlfriend) see me perform at a crappy little club in Lindenhurst. (When I told my dad about performing he said flat out, “What? You’re not funny. Tell me a joke.” I replied that I didn’t tell jokes. I was a monologist. “A monologist? Florence, she’s a monologist.)

Dad didn’t think I was funny because we all were.

But perform I did. He sat at the bar by himself because he didn’t want to be distracted by my mother during my set. I had a good 20 minutes. The bartender laughed and said that the girl was good. Dad puffed up and little and said that girl is his daughter. We all met afterwards at the Massapequa Diner. Dad walked in, sat down, and was silent. Not being able to take it anymore I said, “So, Daddy, what did you think?” Taking his Art Carney doing Ed Norton time of it - straightening his cuff, brushing off invisible lint from his shirt - he looked at me and said, “You weren’t half bad.”

For my dad, that was praise of high order. My mother told me later how utterly surprised and delighted he was. (He also liked that part of the routine was about him.) I ultimately decided not to pursue this as a career in part because I realized I didn’t need the approval of strangers to feel good about myself - and really great comics do, I think. But it might be nice to be a comedy writer ... maybe when I retire and ready for a brand-new adventure!

Massapequa is still my heart’s home. I sometimes dream of browsing the old 5 & 10, walking down streets new yet still familiar, and wandering old homes and finding rooms left unexplored. You can take the girl out of Massapequa, but ...

 

Piper, 16; Roberta, and Hillary, 22

Roberta and son Spencer, 17.

Written by Roberta Rosenberg

OFFICIAL BERNER CLASS OF 1972 FACEBOOK PAGE

The new Official Class of 1972 Facebook page went live on Friday June 6^th and the response has been very enthusiastic!  We have 109 members as of this writing, and we encourage you to spread the word.  A class Facebook page is a great tool to keep classmates connected and a great place to advertise upcoming events and plans.  The page needs to be kept fully public so that it is searchable and discoverable by classmates who come late to Facebook and Social Media.

We intend for the page to represent the best interests of all our fellow classmates and to that end we have six administrators to oversee the membership and development of the page.  We pledge to keep this page public and to maintain its stability by allowing you to help determine its content and membership.  The administrators are the same classmates who formed the committee for the Look Who’s Turning 60 birthday party:  Paul Hart, Donna Capak Pitrelli, Karen Relihan Slizewski, Dennis Flanagan, Garrett King and Carolyn Hammer.

Please post your pictures, connect with your classmates and enjoy your interactions.  We are so glad you joined us!