………………….It seems like eons ago that I graduated from Elmont Memorial High School, and yet it was like yesterday!……We were known as “THE SPARTANS”……..As I look at the senior pictures of my friends it brings back so many wonderful memories…..Many in the pictures I was very close with, and we hung together all the time…….There were two teachers who’s pictures I had to include….Miss Ehrlich, my English teacher, and Ms. Lois Lazrus Locker, my art teacher. Miss Ehrlich taught me how beautiful the English language is, and always had the most incredible and beautiful vocabulary. I can recall during one class how she went on and on about the word….”MEL-LIF-LU-OUS, sweet and musical, pleasant to hear”…….She kept saying it over and over in a sing song voice….gently waving her arms as if she were an orchestra leader….She kept saying how beautiful the English language was, and because of her I learned to love it too….We are in disparate need of teaches like her today!….It’s a crime that there are so many graduates who don’t know how to read, and their speech is atrocious!…..I will never forget her……Many years later, when I was with Anne Klein, I was doing a trunk show at Saks Fifth Ave. Jac was there modeling…..Who should walk in but Miss Ehrlich! She came to see me!! I recognized her immediately to her surprise. She was slim and petite….She told me she left EMHS the year after I graduated. I told her the story of “mellifluous”, and how much she impressed upon me how beautiful the English language was……Then she really shocked me! She told me how I INTIMIDATED her!!!???…. Me, a lowly senior?…..She didn’t explain, and I think it was probably better left unsaid, but I did tell her she was the only reason I fell in love with English. We said our goodbyes, and I never saw her again…..However, I was so thankful that I did see her this one last time, and I was able to finally tell her how much she meant to me. She left happy……………Ms. Lois Lazarus Locker was a piece of work!!!! My senior year was her first, and I think her last year teaching……She really was an abstract impressionist artist, and was friends with the likes of DeKooning. I think she only took this job for the money, but she was fabulous in her way. She really paid little attention to the students without talent, and concentrated on those of us she deemed worthy!….She was bizarre. She looks very normal in the photo [lower right], but she was anything but. She had her hair cut by Kenneth, a very famous hair stylist, whos clients were the swans of NY….He had his own fabulous salon. She wore Chanel suits, and had a huge bottle of toilet water in her desk draw which she splashed on herself generously…..Somehow, in spite of all this…. she always looked eccentric, and a little disheveled…a true artist…I have to admit there were few talented kids in my senior class. There definitely were some like Mary, but I was pretty conceited, and though I was IT!…The BIG FISH in a LITTLE POND!…Ms. Locker gave us a homework assignment to do sketches about which I don’t remember, but when I brought them into school she critiqued all of our work in front of the whole class. She started drawing in red all over my sketches “correcting” them.!!I was livid!!, and reported her to Mr. Saxon the head of the art department……WELL….the next day she read my beads, and told me if I was so great and beyond critiquing there was no reason for her to waste any time on me!!!!!! She knocked me down many many pegs. The next day I came into her class with my tail between my legs and apologized. She taught me humility, a much needed lesson for one so young…and she said that in my lifetime I would come across many people who were as talented if not more talented than me….This was something I need to hear, and no one else could say it to me but her!…..After that we really got along great, and she taught me so much. She worked with me on my portfolio that I presented to the design schools I applied to…..There were very few actual fashion sketches, and mostly art….I got into every school I applied to…..I really adored her, and loved all of her eccentricities….even her toilet water!….There are always a very few teachers who you remember for being inspirational…..Miss Ehrlich, and Ms. Locker were the two for me…I’m sure you had yours too!……I had many friends in High School…..Adele at the upper left with the blond flip was one of those talented art students….She became Joan Rivers exclusive make up artist. We met years later after HS in the halls of QVC!!! It was a blast!!!She was there for Joan, who I knew very well…All of a sudden I hear someone at the far end of the hall yelling my name….It was Adele!!!…It was a wonderful and unexpected reunion!……Leslie Mesh, the large picture at the bottom left was a buddy of mine….She’s the girl with the long dark hair….She was an artist too. She Mary and I used to go to Greenwich Village where we thought we were so cool going to all of the underground clubs in our black turtlenecks!!! LOL…..Leslie is the one who introduced me to Donna Faske [Karan] in the summer of our senior year….Across the top is Carol….Mary, who I had a major crush on and who would become my BFF…..and Fredda, one of the sweetest girls I ever met! Carol and Fredda are still face book friends………In the center are pictures of Bobby and me……..my absolute BEST FRIEND from 7th grade until the day he died two years ago….We were closer than brothers, and I loved him…..Over the years we shared so many experiences……There’s talk of a 60th HS Reunion!……I have mixed feelings…..Do I really wanted to see all of these 75 year old people I knew way back when in our youth, and what about all of those who are no longer here like Bobby and Mary…..It could be a double edged sword I don’t know if I’m ready for………..Memories………..I have tons of them!………These pictures help keep them all alive for me.
