Dear New Lincoln People,

Peggy Solow gave me one tough assignment! I’m not sure I’ll get a pink slip a green slip or whatever because this will be too long, too short, etc. ---but never overdue. She asked for something in writing about “what I have been up to and my memories of New Lincoln”. Actually, I am in the process of writing my life story (memoir would be too grand a word) and though I’ve managed about a hundred pages thus far, I still haven’t arrived at my New Lincoln years. I can just hear a huge sigh of relief as you realize you won’t get the full story.

That said, let me give you the condensed version of my life and times since NLS and a few choice memories of the lovely experiences I had while there. This is not in a particularly chronological mode, but an assignment is an assignment and I do take them seriously.

After leaving NLS in 1968 or so, I worked in a public high school in Yorktown, New York for about ten years. After that, I bought a bookstore in Greenwich, sold it after becoming a successful fixture in Fairfield County la la land for twenty-five years and decided to retire. The natives didn’t care for this. After all, I was THEIR bookseller and I was deserting them. We moved to the great Northwest, which was a beautiful and real-life alternative to Stamford. Our two sons live in L.A. and our daughter, husband and our eleven-year-old grandson live in Portland---so Portland was the place to be near all of our family. I spent a few of the early years here helping to build Habit for Humanity houses ---with little carpentry skills, but lots of enthusiasm. After my health went south, I became involved in less physically challenging neighborhood community activities, publishing a bi-monthly newsletter for the 7,000 residents and becoming a board member of the neighborhood association. I still do a few shifts a week at a local independent bookstore and thus am never at a loss for galleys to read. I have also started an organization dedicated to helping seniors stay in their homes as they age. This is most likely an area that many of you are now thinking about for yourselves or your parents.

On that happy note, back to the past. Instead of a narrative here because you folks don’t have all day and/or night, I am going to list a few key memories of New Lincoln life for me in no particular order of importance:

1. The Ramayana puppet show. Wasn’t that grand?
2. Our Town with Eli Richter as Emily and just about everyone crying uncontrollably at the end
3. Teaching Nectar in a Sieve, Johnny Tremain and Grapes of Wrath
4.  Zero Mostel uproariously funny at a “biology breakfast”
5. December holiday pick-up orchestra of kids and teachers playing carols in the lobby at the end of the school day
6. NL dances—fun chaperoning and dancing, particularly with Dale Leviton who was a great jitterbug
7. Taking Arthur Swan’s third grade class for a day (hour?) He was a magician; I was lost.
8. Elinor Gans and Ed Bley—may they rest in peace.
9. November 22, 1963
10. Taking the day off when I found out that my bride of six weeks was pregnant
11. Abner Weisman delivering that first child on November 9, 1964
12. Holiday open house at the Falks where the baked ham was unbelievably delicious
13.  Fred Schulz as show doctor extraordinaire
14. Ava Torre Bueno’s never ending cheerfulness
15. All those Zuckers

That list is nowhere near complete, but that’s all I’ve got for now. I am so sorry I can’t be with you as part of the New Lincoln family. They were great years!

Warren Cassell