5 Comments

1. Gene Focarelli, November 11, 2010:

   Vin Gargiulo and I went from kindergarden through high school together –1957-1970. We did stand up comedy together ,a clown magic act and formed the musical comedy revue Gargerelli. We performed in the 70’s and early 80’s and 6 years ago reformed the group and infact we are performing a show this Saturday 11/13/10.Not to many people can say they sitll have friends from kindergarden. I am proud to say that Vin Gargiulo is one of my best friends.We also went to high school with Joey Pants and he remembers us doing comedy in high school. It’s a wonderful thing called friends. You don’t need a lot of them but one or two good friends can get you through life.

2. Vin Gargiulo, November 11, 2010:

   Gene beat me to it but I saw this High School Buddy” blog and I knew I had to tell my story. When I had my 8th birthday party, Gene Focarelli ate the candles off my birthday cake. I looked at him and I thought “this guy is very weird” and I knew we were destined to be friends for life. We withstood the horrors of Catholic school. We made it through 4 years of high school even though we cut school more times than I can count. We honed our comedy skills and we honed our musical skills. And we were able to entertain our friends and neighbors and make them smile and laugh. Many birthdays passed from that September day back in 1960 but I have not shared more laughs and good times with any other person as I have shared with Gene. I think Groucho Marx summed up friendship most elequently when he said “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

3. Mella Avon, November 15, 2010:

   I have to start by saying that I am fortunate to have a number of “lifelong” friends. Although we may not speak to each other on a regular basis, we are Always there for each other and I love them dearly. I first recall seeing Susan Savianeso in Mrs. Ehrlich’s foods class in 1971. We did not click. If it weren’t for mutual friend Linda Toscano(RIP)inviting me to Sue’s surprise 16th birthday party, it may not have happened. We have taken the car keys from each other, seen each other through boyfriends, husbands, children, life threatening illnesses and also laughed until we cried. What ever life can throw our way. Real friends tell it like it is because they love you. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

4. Chris DiBenedetto, November 23, 2010:

   Some of my best memories at Cliffside Park High School involved antics and a close friendship with Steve and Stan Fellerman, also known as the twins….The Italian/Jewish connection is very similiar and I remember all of the good times we had whether it be in sports, music and just plain old messing around at #6 school. To this day,42 years later We are still close and talk to each other.. Although there is great distance between us as I live in Florida, Steve in Maui, and Stan in New Hope, pa. we have managed to visit each other and keep informed of our family and professional status. I am very happy to have kept the friendship alive and will always cherish the old days back in the 60’s growing up and thinking how we were all hot shit only to learn later on in life we were simply a part of easier times and less confusion.

5. charlesmaranzano, November 29, 2010:

   Wow! One of the strangest twists of irony was my relationship with a West Virginia transplant to Cliffside named Steve Priestly. Steve was a “southerner” who moved to Jersey and attended Cliffside High and played basketball for CPHS. Steve and Alex Denterstein, Freddie Douglas, Jay Dworkin, Paul Cecere and I would hang out and were all amused by Steve’s perspectives on us “northeners”. Little did I know that decades later I would be a school superintendent in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, (heart and soul of the civil war)and I would be the odd man out (the Yankee) down south! In any event Steve and I have managed to keep in touch, Steve is a school board member in West Virginia! We are planning our 45th class reunion and Jay Dworkin and Albee Palmerie along with Nanc Fellerman, Miriam Taub, Virginia Kelly, Irene and others are doing a wonderful job of planning this fabulous event. Pepe and I are cousins and remain close after all these years and I have been connected to him through my visits to Carmel and to say the least our whole family is both proud and amazed at all he and Joey have accomplished. Buon fortuna!