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Message |
    
magmasystems
Citizen
Username: Magmasystems
Post Number: 36
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 10, 2003 - 4:24 pm: |     |
Just curious... got my Stuyvesant alumni newsletter today, and noticed that a few alums were living in Maplewood and Millburn.
Hillcrest HS (Jamaica Queens) would have been my local high school if I had not gone to Stuy.
Marc (class of 76)
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lah
Citizen
Username: Lah
Post Number: 89
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 8:22 am: | |
My husband was Stuyvesant class of '80. I believe that there's another '76er in town (first name Mike, father of one of my son's friends). |
xavier67
Citizen
Username: Xavier67
Post Number: 138
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Friday, February 14, 2003 - 4:56 pm: | |
I'm a 85 Stuy grad. "Ashear" is also a 85 grad. We are both in Maplewood.
Was Mr. Fisher as charming in the mid 70s as he was in the early 80s? |
naborly
Citizen
Username: Naborly
Post Number: 187
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, February 16, 2003 - 5:06 pm: | |
My husband graduated Stuyvesant in 1962! |
Hank Zona
Citizen
Username: Hankzona
Post Number: 506
Registered: 3-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, February 16, 2003 - 5:49 pm: | |
any of you Stuy grads have Frank McCourt as a teacher? He was fairly non-complimentary to some in "'Tis"...wondered what the students thought of him after reading that. |
magmasystems
Citizen
Username: Magmasystems
Post Number: 40
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, February 16, 2003 - 9:34 pm: | |
I had McCourt for junior year english. Great class and a very nice teacher. Who would have ever thunk that he would have become as popular as he has gotten!
I never read "Tis", so I do not know what he said about Stuyvesant kids. Can you fill me in?
The big celebrity to come out of the class of '76 was Tim Robbins, who was also in McCourt's class the same time I was. Tim still goes to the Stuy reunions. |
xavier67
Citizen
Username: Xavier67
Post Number: 139
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 17, 2003 - 4:26 pm: | |
I had Frank McCourt as my creative writing teacher senior year. When things got slow, he would take out a neatly-typed manuscript and read us excerpts from a book he was working on, and many of us listened politely thinking "Yeah, good luck getting THAT published." The book, of course, was "Angela's Ashes."
I haven't read "Tis'," but I'm not surprised that he didn't think much of the kids he taught. Many of us didn't think much of him either.
One, because he had a reputation for being a minor ruffian. I remember one class being cancelled because, as rumor had it, during lunch he slugged it out with the boyfriend of a fellow teacher who didn't appreciate McCourt's advances to hs girlfriend. In fact, McCourt's quote in our 1985 yearbook was "I tried to be respectable and failed"!
Two, because many of us, children of immigrants dreaming of unlimited upward mobility, saw him a failed writer, now over the hill, inappropriately clinging to youthful dream that he would never attain. And for an unknown writer, he had a sizable chip on his shoulder.
But I think the main reason why McCourt and many Stuy kids didn't respect each other was because he cared deeply about literature, and we cared mostly about our SATs, grades, and getting into the Ivies.
I was almost moved to tears when I first read excerpts from "Angela's Ashes" in The New Yorker, mainly because I remembered him reading those same passages back in 1984-85. After all those years of struggle, he had finally arrived, and I felt lucky to have been a small part of his journey.
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Hank Zona
Citizen
Username: Hankzona
Post Number: 509
Registered: 3-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 18, 2003 - 12:58 pm: | |
magmasystems,
Yes xavier is right..in "Tis", McCourt was critical of those students who didnt take English class and literature and writing seriously and with love, but rather were most concerned about their grades. |
marinab
Citizen
Username: Marinab
Post Number: 26
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 10:32 am: | |
This is an old post, but maybe you'll read this. Didn't go to Stuyvesant, but I did (unfortunately) go to the local Hillcrest H.S. in Queens, so am obviously from the same neighborhood. |
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