Letter from the Editor:
Membership Report
Spring Alumni Weekend
Dear Fellow Old Guards,
Winter is here and the holiday season is over! Hopefully you enjoyed the holiday season and the food and drink that went along with it. Now is the time to start getting the extra roll off your waist and lift those sagging pecs and butts. There is nothing that makes you feel older than added weight. And God knows we’re all old enough! So watch those calories, fats and carbs and get into a regular exercise program which I’m sure we all hate. Let’s get our stud-like bodies back in shape so we can impress those lovely young Ago sisters at our reunion weekends.
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Our membership keeps growing. We now have 32 active members. (See Updated Active Member List for new members at end of newsletter.) Unfortunately there are a significant number of brothers who continue to not respond to our requests for email addresses and other contact information. If you have a little or big brother or an old close friend on the Inactive List, give them a call! A personal phone call from a former close brother is a lot more affective than a letter from the editor whom they may hardly know. (See the Inactive List at the end of this newsletter for phone numbers and addresses.)
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| On the negative side, due to difficulty seeking biographies, notes and other news worthy submissions for the newsletter, we may have to cut back our issues. Apparently some of us feel that we lead such boring lives that there is nothing worth letting our fellow bros know about. They forget that what is boring or dull to one may be adventurous and exciting to others. So let’s get with it and send your Old Guard Notes and Bios or any other related items to Chuck at ccuratal@rochester.rr.com. We’re on a roll and we want to keep it that way. |
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We’re adding a new feature to our newsletter called the Old Guard Joke Box. Got a good joke you’d like to share with your old buddies? If so send it in and perhaps we’ll print it. Remember that wives read our newsletters so let’s be tasteful and not raunchy! See our Joke Box and Jack Sheehan’s contribution toward the end of this newsletter.
Last but not least, it’s time to start planning for the Sig Tau Spring Alumni Weekend which will be held on Saturday, April 30. (Complete schedule following this letter.) This is our most popular event so if you live quite a distance and have to limit your trips, this is the one you should plan on attending. The weather is pleasant and the rooms are easier to book since this is an Inter Greek Council not a college-wide event. Family and friends are welcome! So, if you’ve always wanted to get together with your old buddies and have been putting it off do it now. Remember: We’re getting older every year and some of our bros have already passed away. Who knows how many more opportunities we’ll have to be all together again? So see you there!
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Fraternally yours,
Chuck Curatalo ‘67
ccuratal@rochester.rr.com
Sig Tau Spring Alumni Weekend Schedule
Friday, April 29th
Sig Tau/Clio Party with Alumni at Sig Tau House at 9:00PM
10 Court Street
Saturday, April 30th
Old Guard Drinking Party at the Big Tree 12:00 Noon
(Exploring Possibility Including Treats and Snacks)
Alumni Party at the Vital Spot at 12:00-3:00 PM
3 Bank Street
Ago Breakfast at Ago House at 3:00 PM
26 Wadsworth Street
Old Guard Cocktail Hour at the Big Tree 5:00 PM
Old Guard Dinner at the Big Tree 7:30 PM (Casual Dress)*
Sig Tau/Ago Party at Ago House at 9:00 PM
26 Wadsworth Street
Blue=ETY Events (see ET website for maps)
Red=Old Guard Events
Since Days Inn at Geneseo always sells out, it would be wise to reserve a room NOW if you plan to attend. So make a reservation on the Days Inn website or call directly at 1-585-243-0500. Rates are about $70+ a night and their accommodations are good. The Country Inn and Suites at Mt. Morris is a 12 minute drive away (1-402-501-6199). The rates are about $110 a night for a suite. Reservations can always be cancelled without penalty before 6 PM date of arrival. Other lodgings can be found at http://www.geneseony.com/lodgings.htm.
*Contact Chuck at ccuratal@rochester.rr.com if you plan to attend so he can make dinner reservations. If you plan on coming but not making dinner notify him anyway.
| The Sig Tau website at www.geneseo.edu/~SIGTAU/brothers.html have added several new features to their website. There is a Sig Tau Eternal Page which lists brothers who have passed away. They have added the names of Dahn Walrath, Louie Pettica, Bill Brigham, Larry Allen, Don Fuller, Don Peterson and Duane Rubadeau. There is also an Alumni Database which you can view if you have Excel on your computer. There are also two funds which you can donate to. There is a House Fund which is not tax deductible. There is a Sigma Tau Psi Education Fund through the college’s Geneseo Foundation. This will allow tax deductible donations that will be put directly toward a selected senior’s graduate school tuition. See the website for more details on how to donate to these funds. |
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Old Guard Notes
……..Walt Peek ’65 and his wife Nancy are driving their pickup truck to Oregon, the Nappa Valley, Tuscon, New Mexico and the Ozarks in Oklahoma. They won’t be back home in Penn Yan, New York until April.
……..Dale E. Metz ’70 reports that his exwife was a Homecoming ’68 or ’69 Homecoming Princess (runner up) not a Queen as was mistakenly printed in his autobiography.
……..Tommy Welch ’67 reports that he and his partner Maureen have bought a condo in Shreveport, LA and will be spending their winters there.
……..Pat Pallend ’67 reports that he has had penis reduction surgery. In his own words “lugging that big bastard around was killing his back.”
……..Tom DeBello ’65 reports that two of his three children are engaged to be married. Nick will be married in June 2005 and Gabrielle will be married the following year.
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……..Bruce Jordan ’66 is spending five weeks in West Palm Beach directing “Shear Madness” at the Kravis Center. The show starts previewing there February 4th. He’ll then direct at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia where there may be a Geneseo alumni event. Check the newsletter for details. While in Florida Bruce will be visiting a lot of friends who are snowbirding it down there.
……..Dave Mead ’68 and Bob Veltz ’68 of the former “Spectors” (Remember them?) are currently practicing their guitars and are hoping to get together before the next ETOG get together to work up a song list for a possible musical threat??? Maybe they will be better this time!!!
Bio: Jim Vidoczy “The Long, Lost Founding Brother”
| I left Geneseo in early 1966 to serve in Viet Nam. I had such a good time there; it was lovely coming back to Geneseo after my tour of duty knowing that vets had become outcasts. Particularly self-righteous were the young professors who remained in University on deferments and got their PhD’s. When I came back I switched to a Liberal Arts English major, the teachers |
teaching us to be teachers had beaten that notion out of me. The head of the English Department told me that I would have some young profs that were bright but who hadn't lived life. They know their stuff, he said, but they have no life experience outside of the classroom. His name was Dr. Hans Gottschalk and he lived through the horrors of WWII while a young man in Germany. Two profs, who became good friends, Bob Sinclair (Silver Hart WWII) and Wendell Rhodes (Marines-Korea) understood. Most of the college population was in the full flush of their Liberal attitudes and were happy to vilify anything they refused to understand as well as be completely confident of their righteousness. I’m guessing those attitudes are still prevalent amongst the, so-called, learned since those untested and now calcified attitudes cost them the 2004 presidential election; but I digress, and as a Canadian, my views on American political life are largely unimportant.
Well, I did finally get through my final year and graduated in 1971. I couldn’t leave New York fast enough, and not waiting for the graduation ceremonies, I moved back out to California via a few months in Tucson, Arizona. I lived in San Francisco for a few years and then emigrated to British Columbia amidst the din of Watergate and the Nixon impeachment. On George Washington’s birthday in 1974 I handed my landing papers to an official in Victoria, B.C. and I have lived in Canada ever since, moving to |
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Toronto in 1982 (via a year in Florida). I married Peggy in 1981 while I was the chef/owner of the Stonehouse Inn, something I created from an old landmark house in the Okanagan Valley of B.C.
I work in marketing; I think that’s the place for “creative-English major types” in the business world. I’ve worked for a number of years in the livestock and meat business and I do any number of things such as develop and launch new products, write marketing plans for companies, do market analysis on the supply and demand sides, get involved all the way from the live-stock to the steak on your plate, as it were. The company I work for is (I think) the largest consultancy of its kind in Canada and we are both an engineering company and a marketing group. We can do everything from building the plant, production lines and whatever else you need from the feasibility study to the finished consumer product. I have done this marketing stuff from Japan to Mexico to Russia but mostly I work here in Canada.
My wife Peggy is a registered message therapist, who is incredibly community oriented and who does quite a bit of volunteer work. Simon (19) graduated in Drama from the York School of the Arts and is finishing his academic courses in January. He hopes to go to York University or to the University of Toronto to study film: writing and directing. He is already a very talented actor and writer. Evan (15) plays bass guitar in a local HS rock band. He also plays acoustic and lead electric as well as trombone. He has also written several songs for the band he plays in. His immediate goal is to rock on and get his driver’s license this fall. He is also my hunting buddy and one of our favorite things is going up to our original land grant farm from the 1830’s, a few hours north of Toronto, and shooting skeet with the 12 gauges or target shooting with the 30-calibre |
rifle.
The farm is my refuge, quiet, peaceful and by central NY standards, probably in the middle of nowhere, which suits my need for personal space. It is a beautiful place with a number of beaver ponds, streams and the large granite shoulders, laying about the landscape that are typical of the Canadian Shield. On it is the original settler’s cabin built in 1838, an old barn and a most unusual (for this place and that time) two story brick, Ontario- style farmhouse built in 1899. This is where Peggy and I will retire to permanently in about 3 years time, sooner if possible. Peggy’s family also settled up there in the 1830’s so it’s a lot like home.
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My hobbies are mucking about the farm, cooking and baiting liberals, of which there are a large number in Canada. It has been said that If Canada were the 51st state, John Kerry would now be president (see above), a thought that doesn’t bring me a lot of comfort, my being more Hamiltonian than Jeffersonian. Living is Canada for the past 31 years (as a dual citizen) does give one a unique perspective on North American politics. Obviously, I prefer living here; peaceful and civil works for me.
So Brothers, it is a simple life where success is measured by the quality of my relationships, especially those of my wife and boys. I am pleased to say I have been blessed with a loving and understanding wife and two boys who still think I’m a pretty cool dude. Life is good!
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Get a Replica of the Original Sig Tau Sweatshirt
Bob Veltz ’68 has had exact copies made of the original Sig Tau sweatshirts for Old Guard members. He is offering these Fruit of the Loom brand shirts to members for $25 each (below cost). You can order them in sizes Large and Extra Large. Other sizes could be ordered. You can see what the shirts look like if you go to Dave Mead’s (’67) company website at http://www.lilbytesoftstuff.com/etog.html and go to the pictures link for Fall Alumni Weekend ’04. Contact Bob at for information on how to purchase and receive your sweatshirt at rveltz@rochester.rr.com. (Those planning to come to the Spring Alumni Weekend can purchase their shirts then. Just tell Bob what size you will need.)
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SUNY Geneseo Seeks Info on Missing Old Statue:
The school’s figure of a Greek goddess was last seen in 1951
You lose your keys, you look in the last place you had them. You misplace a life-sized statue of the Greek goddess of wisdom for 50 years, finding it isn’t so easy.
The SUNY Geneseo’s Milne Library staff is hunting for new leads in the decades-old case of a missing 6-foot-tall, 350-pound statue of Minerva. Special collections librarian Liz Argentieri has been going through old material in the college’s archives, such as newspaper stories from the 1920’s. And on Friday, she put up posters around the village asking anyone who might have any idea of where the statue has gone and offering a $50 reward for conclusive information about the statue’s whereabouts.
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The plaster statue’s history is hazy at best. The college got it in 1906 - one of a number of New York’s colleges that had such statues in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It stood in the entrance of the library of SUNY Geneseo’s Old Main building until 1921, when it was moved to the ground floor.
The statue was last seen in 1951, shortly before demolition of the Old Main began. Much of Old Main’s remains were tossed into a landfill, Argentieri said. “A lot of folks think that’s what happened to her.”
Although the statue’s been long gone, interest in it never vanished, she said, and the library staff recently decided to try to find it. If found, the statue would go into the Milne Library entrance. “This is a way to bridge the generations here, acknowledge the history,” Argentieri said.
Such Minerva statues can still be found around New York state. SUNY Potsdam in fall 2003 dedicated its new Minerva Plaza - a quad of brick walkways and benches surrounding a concrete Minerva statute and flowerbed.
The concrete Minerva statue is a replica of the campus’ original Minerva state, which now is in the library’s café, said Jason Ladouceur, Potsdam’s associate vice president for college advancement.
That original plaster statue came to Potsdam in 1892, a gift from that year’s graduating class. And before the campus moved from downtown Potsdam in the 1950’s, the statue was a major landmark, Ladouceur said: “Students would say ‘let’s meet at Minnie.’“
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By Matthew Daneman
Staff Writer for Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
December 6, 2004
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Sig Tau Old Guard Composites Available on our Website
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Dave Mead ’68 has been scanning composites to put on our website. We have posted the composites for 1965, 1966 and 1967. They can be viewed on the picture link at Dave’s website at http://www.lilbytesoftstuff.com/etog.html. If you are in possession of a 1968, 1969 and/or 1970 composite PLEASE submit it to us so we can all enjoy it. Send a scanned file to ETOGPhotos@lilbytesoftstuff.com using the subject ‘composite’ or send us a Xerox copy by mail to either Chuck or Dave (see Active Old Guard Directory for their addresses) so we can do it for you. We will return the original and the xerox copy (if you wish) to you after placing it on the web. To enlarge the photos in Internet Explorer look for the orange button near the bottom right corner with arrows on it and click it to change the size. |
In Firefox (and likely other mozilla based browsers) click on the magnifying glass when it appears. Special thanks to Dave for taking the time and effort to do this for us as well as letting us use his website to post our newsletters and pictures!!
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OLD GUARD JOKE BOX
After returning from his honeymoon in Florida with his new bride, Virginia, Luigi stopped by his old barbershop in Cleveland to say hello to his friends.
Giovanni said, “Hey Luigi, how wasa de treepa?”
Luigi said, “eveytinga wasa perfecto except for da traina ride down.”
“Whata you mean, Luigi?” asked Giovanni.
“Well, we boarda da train at Grana Central Station. My beautiful Virginia, she packa biga basket of food. She broughta vino, some nice cigars for me, and we were looking forward to da trip. Everytinga wasa Okey Dokey until we getta hungry and open upa da luncha basket. The conductore come a by, waga hisa finger at us anda say, no eat in disa car. Musta use a dining car.”
“So, me and my beautiful Virginia, we go to dining car, eat a biga luncha and start to open a bottle of nica vino! Conductore walka by again, waga hisa finger and say, ‘No drinka in disa car. Musta use a club a car.’
“So we go to club car. While drinka vino, I start to lighta my biga cigar. The conductore, he waga his finger again and say, ‘No smokina disa car. Musta go to smokina car.’
“We go to smokina car and I smoke a my biga cigar. Then my beautiful Virginia and I, we go to sleeper car anda go to bed. We just about to go boomada boomada and the conductore, he walka through da hall shouting at da top of his voice, “Nofolka Virginia! Nofolka Virginia!”
“Next time, I’ma gonna take a da bus!!”
Thanks to Jack Sheehan ’66 for this submitting this joke.
Got a good joke to submit for the Joke Corner that’s funny, tasteful…..not raunchy? Submit to ccuratal@rochester.com for consideration.
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UPDATED MEMBER DIRECTORY
Active Old Guard Member Directory*
| * Members whose email addresses are known. Receive Newsletter via email. |
B=Business
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New to list. |
Inactive Old Guard Members*
| Name |
Address |
City/State |
Phone |
| Leroy Clinton |
675 Hammond St. 1 |
Chestnut Hill, MA 02167-2117 |
617-879-9824 |
| Tom Crowley |
240 West Cornwall Road |
W. Cornwall, CT 06796 |
860-672-0103 |
| Jeff Gosch |
4307 Cinnamon Path |
Liverpool, NY 13090-1927 |
315-652-4492 |
| Chuck Hall |
6480 Reservoir Rd. |
Hamilton, NY 13346-9559 |
315-824-1674 |
| John Hoffman |
6 Terry Ave. |
Schenectady, NY 12303-4812 |
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| Roy Howard |
3438 Valley Ranch |
Dr. Lutz, FL 33548-4758 |
813-908-0817 |
| Mike Luczak |
68 Brookridge Dr. |
Exeter, RI 02822-3619 |
401-294-9766 |
| Bill Marion |
824 7th St |
W. Babylon NY 11704 |
516-888-0159** |
| Robert Kochman |
301 E. 21st St., Apt 7E |
New York, NY 10010-6534 |
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| Howard Kranz |
70 Manton St. |
Sayville, NY 11782-1326 |
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| Chet Kuhn |
4219 E. Main St. |
Williamson, NY 14589-9212 |
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| Larry Horgan |
1 Cline Rd. |
Victor, NY 14564 |
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| Larry Patzwald |
122 Miner St. |
Canton, NY 13617-1349 |
315-379-9597 |
*Have not responded to invitations and/or requests for email addresses.
**Honorary member
Lost Old Guard Members*
| Wayne Crawford |
Jim Goldseth |
Sal Marchese |
Peter Schonleber |
| John Duncan |
Henry Harvey |
Bob Meyers |
Greg Sutherland |
| Ed Garrison |
Ron Leffler |
Jack Piedmont |
Erik Wilson |
*Members whose addresses are not known. Unfortunately, the Alumni Office does not usually keep track of those who drop out or transfer before graduating. Many on this list apparently did not graduate from Geneseo. IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ON THE ADDRESSES OF ANY OF THESE BROS PLEASE CONTACT CHUCK AT ccuratal@rochester.rr.com SO HE CAN SEND OUT OLD GUARD CONTACT INFO.
REMEMBER: Submit bios, articles, notes, jokes and Spring Alumni Weekend Reservations to Chuck at ccuratal@rochester.rr.com
Next Newsletter Publication: May 2005 (Stay tuned for Special Bulletins.)
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Link to archives and pictures below:
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