GATHA HURLEY'S SISTER, CAROL CLEVELAND, PASSED AWAY

 

Carol Dennison Cleveland, sister of Monongah’s Gatha Hurley of Monongah, passed away Wednesday, May 26 in Williamsport, Maryland. Another sister, Mary Ann Dennison Klara of Grant Town, passed away in 2017.

The other sisters are Sue Dennison Slimmer of Myersville, Maryland and Mabel Dennison Berry of Carmichaels, Pennsyvania.

Carol was predeceased by husbands Ebert Eugene “Bud” Hartzell and Robert Alan Cleveland.

Carol’s obituary:

Obituary of Carol Dennison Cleveland

Mrs. Carol (Dennison) Cleveland, 77 years of age of Williamsport, MD (and formerly of Grant Town) WV passed away on Wednesday, May 26 at her residence. She was born February 16, 1944 in Grant Town, WV the daughter of the late Beldon Gordon and Gladys Rebecca Gregory Dennison.

 

She is survived by daughter Becky (Hartzell) Stanley of Williamsport, MD; four step/bonus daughters Latisha Rich-Garcia of Rockingham, NC; Kelly Cleveland of Providence, RI; Jennifer Cleveland of New Bedford, MA; and Lynn Penkunas of Williamsport, MD; three grandchildren; three great grandchildren; three sisters Gatha Hurley of Monongah, WV; Sue Slimmer and husband Jack of Myersville, MD; and Mabel Berry and husband Waldo of Carmichaels, PA.

 

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by husbands Ebert Eugene “Bud” Hartzell and Robert Alan Cleveland; a brother Gary Dennison; and a sister Mary Klara.

 

Carol retired from First Data Corporation as a technician in Hagerstown, MD. She was a member of Rehoboth United Methodist Church in Williamsport, MD and was a former member of Ballah Chapel United Methodist Church in Grant Town, WV.

 

She enjoyed traveling, reading, drawing/painting, and studying history and geneology. She will be greatly missed by family and friends.

 

Friends will be received at the Ford Funeral Home, DeGarmo Chapel, Second Street, Rivesville, WV on Monday from 4:00 PM – 8:00 PM. The funeral service will be celebrated in the funeral home on Tuesday, June 1, 2021 at 11:00 AM. The interment will follow in Mannington Memorial Park, Mannington, WV.

 

Condolences may be extended to the family at www.fordfuneralhomes.com . The family has entrusted the care and arrangements to the Ford Funeral Home, DeGarmo Chapel, Second Street, Rivesville, WV.

COPY, PASTE REGISTRATION FORM ON 8X10 SHEET. MUST BE IN JOHN OLESKY'S HANDS BY JUNE 26

 

MONONGAH POLICE CHIEF LEAVES

Monongah is looking for another Police Chief since Morgantown native Ian Bailey has resigned.

Monongah Town Councilwoman Susan Staron Sanders said: “He decided to leave law enforcement John and I just loved him. The kids, everyone loved him.”

Bailey began as Monongah Police Chief in 2020 after living in Louisiana and Georgia. Since 2016, he had been working in the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana as a sheriff’s deputy. Before that, he was in military law enforcement as a staff sergeant from 2007-2015 at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.

 

Fairmont native Chris Veltri resigned as Monongah police chief in 2014 and retired from the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Police Department. Before Monongah, Veltri was police chief Rivesville.

 

Rick Barnhart, who came from the Salem Police Department to replace him in 2014, retired in 2017. He lives in Bridgeport.

Terry Queen, a police trainer in Clarksburg, replaced Barnhart. Terry resigned to become a patrolman in the Anmoore Police Department in the Clarksburg area, where Terry lives.

Douglas Montague also was a Monongah Police Chief.

My memories are of the Monongah Police Chief who was summoned to put my childhood dog, Fritzy, out of his misery after he was hit by a car and his back was broken. I think his name was Pasquale but I can’t be sure because I was still in Monongah High so it was in the 1940s. Even though he had a gun he seemed afraid of the dog and it took a couple of bullets to finish Fritzy off. 

LEATRICE YOKAY GREASER HOME AFTER MONTH IN HOSPITALS

 

Leatrice Yokay Greaser, Class of 1950, spent about a month in hospitals after having a heart attack. She left the hospitals three weeks ago.

Leatrice is no stranger to hospitals, as are most of us in our 80s.

 

In late 2015, Leatrice wound up in ER after sliding on her floor.

 

In 2014, Leatrice had two stays in Fairmont hospitals to deal with an adverse reaction to antibiotics she was taking for her sinus infections.

The Kathryn Grayson of Monongah High, as I call her because of her great singing voice during my MHS days, says medical help shows up at her house several days a week to check her blood glucose reading.

For those too young to remember, Kathryn Grayson was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and was an opera singer who acted in movies with Mario Lanza, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Mickey Rooney and was in “Show Boat” (1951) and “Kiss Me, Kate” (1953).  

A janitor heard 12-year-old Kathryn singing in an empty stage in the St. Louis Municipal Opera House and introduced her to Frances Marshall of the Chicago Civic Opera, who gave Kathryn voice lessons.

Leatrice recalls “climbing up that hill” to Fairmont radio station WMMN (MMN for Senator Matthew M. Neely, who got WMMN a favorable spot in the middle of the dial) with Mary Jo Forte Richards, Class of 1948, when the two of them sang (Leatrice) and played the piano (Mary Jo) with their own radio show.

Mary Jo later moved to Las Vegas. Her parents were Patsy Forte, who ran the drug store in the center of the Monongah business district, and Mary Romino Forte.

 

Leatrice has trouble with her balance so she relies on a cane or, at times, a wheelchair to move from one room to another.

Physical therapists come to her Fairmont home so often that Leatrice, a feisty one, calls it “crazy time.”

She was in J.W. Ruby Hospital, part of the WVU Medicine complex across from Mountaineer Field.

Leatrice had been divorced from Bill Talkington for 8 years when Bob Greaser showed up at her doorstep. Leatrice’s son accompanied Bob because told her son, “I’ll give you my paycheck if you’ll take me to your mother.”

 

Bob and Leatrice were married until Bob passed away in 2013.

 

Leatrice’s brother, John Yokay, Class of 1953, calls often and they “talk of old times in Carolina,” where they lived when they were attending Monongah High. And sometimes sings to her in Hungarian, their ethnic background.

John played for the 1952 state champ Monongah High football team and once worked at St. John’s School of Boys in Deep River, Connecticut. He lives in Mount Airy, Maryland.

Their sister, Patty Yokay Maddox, Class of 1948, passed away.

John’s son, Steven, a senior paralegal at Astra Zeneca in Gaithersburg, Maryland who lives near his father John in Mount Airy, 20 miles from Steven’s work, has been a big help, Leatrice said, even though Steven lives 3½ hours away. He came from Maryland to drive Leatrice home from the hospital after her weeks-long stays for medical and rehab care and set up a hospital bed ln her home.

Steven has won world national and state wrestling titles in America and in Japan,  including the North American
Grappling Association crown for his weight.

Steven sold his house to live near his father, John.

John has 3 other children, including another John Yokay, a Barrackville High and WVU grad who retired as a teacher in Sacramento City Unified School District in California.

Leatrice chats by phone with Patty Urban Utz, Class of 1950, who lives in Springfield, Virginia; Nathaleen Cameron Oliverio, Class of 1948; and Rose Commodore Cain, Class of 1950, who lives in Fairmont.

COPY, PASTE REGISTRATION FORM ON 8X10 SHEET. MUST BE IN JOHN OLESKY'S HANDS BY JUNE 26

 

FORMER MONONGAH RESIDENTS MEET AT TALLMADGE, OHIO PASTA RESTAURANT

 

The really, really SMALL world department:

 

I picked up my usual pasta from Danny Boy’s on the Traffice Circle in Tallmadge, Ohio today. The waitress, Rhiannon, saw my WVU T-shirt (I don’t go anywhere without WVU clothing) and said, “Are you from West Virginia”?

 

I replied, as I always do, “Yes, Fairmont” (because it’s the largest city in Marion County).

 

She said, “Me, too.”

 

Then, as I do when someone indicates they lived near Fairmont, I said, “Actually, Monongah.”

 

Rhiannon said, “Me, too.”

 

Tallmadge and Monongah are 195 miles apart but thisclose in our hearts when people from Monongah meet each other, either in Marion County or somewhere else in the world.

So both our faces lit up. My heart perked up, too. I don’t know about Rhiannon.

 

I asked her to name people in Monongah that she knew.

 

She wrote down “Carol VanMeter” and “Kim Kendzior.”

 

Carol Lucille Kendzior Van Meter, Class of 1963, and Kimberly Kay Kindzior, Class of 1976, are sisters who live in Monongah.

 

Their brother is famous golfer and girls softball coach the late Walter Gene Kendzior, Class of 1958, who married Sheila Stotler Kendzior, who passed away in 2013 as Gene’s widow.  

 

Their parents were Walter Kendzior and Virginia Shaver Kendzior.

 

When I checked with Kim she replied:

 

“Rhiannon is my great-niece. She is the daughter of Carol’s son, Jeff, so her last name is Van Meter.”

 

Kim moved from Virginia to Monongah and lives in the old East Monongah home where she grew up.

 

Kim once lived in Reseda and Virginia Beach, Virginia with Paula Harr but moved back to Monongah. She’s a cashier at Circle K. She also learned to drive big 18-wheeler trucks at the Diesel Institute of America in 2000-2001.

 

Carol lives in Monongah with husband David Lee VanMeter, Class of 1962. They have been married 55 years. Both spent their entire lives in Monongah.

 

Jeff Van Meter is Carol and David’s son and Rhiannon is Jeff’s daughter.

 

Gene’s daughter, Jennifer Kendzior, lives in Bloomington, Indiana, with Jason Wright.

 

Gene coached the Monongah girls softball team that won the 1960 Marion County championship.

 

One of the players on the team was Sherry Van Meter, Class of 1965, who had her leg in a cast after sliding into third base.  

 

Sherry married Dorsey Edward Nicholson, who passed away in 2009. Dorsey was an artist for NASCAR auto racing and Ohio State. He worked 30 years for General Motors.

 

My cousin, Irene Fazio Preolitti, also was on that team.

 

Monongah High Alumni Association president Linda Lopez Gandy, Class of 1965, living in Florida with husband Jim Gandy, Class of 1964, also was on that championship team.

 

And later was coached by David Van Meter, Gene’s brother-in-law and Rhiannon’s grandfather.  

 

Gene was a weekly golfing companion for 20 years of the late Fairmont Times Editor John Veasey, who I tried to hire away to the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News sports department when I was #2 in command there.

 

John declined a pay jump from his Fairmont Times job because he was happy staying in Fairmont. I got a 50% pay raise by leaving the Charleston Daily Mail for the Dayton Daily News because of the wide salary gap between West Virginia and Ohio newspapers.

 

Bill Meredith, Class of 1959, who lives in Sarasota, Florida, and Gene attended elementary and Monongah High together. They reunited at Monongah High Alumni Banquets in recent years.

 

Kim attended the 2016 and 2008 Monongah High Alumni Banquets. Bill showed up in 2014, 2011, 2010, 2008, 2007 and 2006 with wife Roleta.

 

Carol showed up at the MHS Banquet in 2013,  2012, 2011, 2008 and 2005 with husband Dave.

 

I attended in 2005 for the 55^th anniversary of my Class of 1950 along with 1950 grads Kathryn Toothman Crim, who lives in Farwell, Michigan; the late Jim Commodore; and the late Jim Wimer.

 

Also with me in 2005 was my sister Jackie Olesky Straight, Class of 1955, and Duane Harbert, Class of 1951, who lives in Marlton, New Jersey and was in the faceitiously named Gang That Terrorized Marion County that I ran around with during my MHS days along with Bob “Satch” Kasper, my friend since we were in first grade 83 years ago who lives in South Lyon, Michigan, just west of Detroit; Tony Eates, who lives in Fairmont with wife Lucy Cann Eates; Frank Franze, who lives in Slidell, Louisiana; Donald Halpenny, who lives in Fairmont; Steven “Bucky” Satterfield, a retired West Virginia Highway Patrolman living in St. Albans; and those who passed away, Lawrence “Sonny” Godby,   Anthony “Plumber” DeMary, Ronnie “Coolie” Delovich, Joe Manzo and Jim “Judge” Starcher.

 

And in 2010 for our 60^th (!!!) class anniversary. And in 2013 and 2017 and 2018. I plan to attend in 2021 over Labor Day weekend, too.

 

I will be co-hosting with my sister, Jackie Olesky Straight, Class of 1955, the J&J&Lions Get-Together July 17 in the Monongah Town Hall. Dinner at 6 p.m., music from 7-9 p.m.

 

If you’re interested, print up the Reservation form on this blog and mail it so that it’s IN MY HANDS no later than June 26 so that I can tell Say-Boy how many people to feed.

 

Monongah Town Councilwoman Susan Staron Sanders, the Angel of Thomas Street married to Ron Sanders, and Shellie Yankie of Susan’s Monongah Christmas Lights Committee will be decorating the Town Hall in red and black streamers (Monongah High’s colors) and I will bringing a 21 x 30 inch framed photo of the Monongah High Lion and a 6 x 6 foot (yes, foot) thin quilt to set the proper atmosphere for a rememberable Monongah High yippee-ki-yay hooting-and-hollering time.

 

In addition to the Say-Boy food, Susan and her army will be bake a cake with a likeness of Monongah High on it and pastries with an “M” for Monongah on them.

 

No one will be allowed to attend unless they have had their COVID vaccine shots. We want it to be a safe and fun time with no one wearing masks because we’ll all be safe with and for each other.

 

Jackie’s family and my family and our Fazio cousins will be there, too.

 

The more the merrier. Join us!

 

This is NOT the annual Monongah High Alumni banquet but a John Olesky attempt to get family and classmates together during the summer as a break from the COVID restrictions.

iHH

 

The annual Monongah High Alumni Banquet will be on Labor Day weekend at the Knights of Columbus in Fairmont. If you have any questions call Donna Davis at 304-534-5636.

PEOPLE ARE THE #1 EXPORT OF WEST VIRGINIA

 Almost Heaven or imposed Hell?

 

West Virginia has lost a bigger percentage of its population in the last 10 years than any other state in America.

My native state lost 3.2% of its population in the decade, about 59,000 people. That’s equivalent to every person living in Monongah, Charleston and Bluefield leaving simultaneously.     

West Virginia is among the seven states to lose a Congressional district because of the 2020 U.S. Census count.

Why the exodus?

Low pay, lack of opportunity, oppressive political climate (West Virginia’s vote for Trump was among the highest percentages among the states in 2020), poor cellphone and internet service (45 states have a higher percentage of households with broadband internet subscription than West Virginia, which has only 79%).

There are more deaths than births in West Virginia for the past two decades.

16% of West Virginia’s residents live in poverty. Only people in Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, Lousiana and Mississippi fare worse.

West Virginia, despite being America’s second-largest coal producer, has lost 56% of its mining jobs since 2009. All the promises by politicians of both parties to save coal mining were lies to get elected.

West Virginia teachers are 48^th in the nation in salaries, so they are leaving in droves, spurred by the State Legislature passing laws that favor charter schools over public schools and its teachers unions, a tactic that has had terrible results in Ohio.

Rebecca Recco left Belle, West Virginia, in 2017, where she was making $42,000 as an art teacher to get $68,000 for teaching middle-school art in Oakland, California. That’s misleading, though, because $68,000 in California won’t buy any more than $42,000 in the Charleston area. But the anti-teachers union attitude of the State Legislature is a valid tipping point.

 

When I left West Virginia in 1959, where I was working at one of the largest newspapers in the state at the Charleston Daily Mail, for the non-union Dayton Daily News I got a 50% increase in my pay by doing it. My standard of living improved immensely. And jumped even more when, after being fired in Dayton for my union activities (an Olesky family tradition), I was hired in 1969 by the Akron  Beacon Journal for the final 26 years of my 43-year newspaper career. So much so that I paid for my trips to 56 countries, 44 states and more than 30 winters in Florida for up to 4 months and left plenty left over for my 25 years of retirement.

 

Ironicly, some people who retire in other states are moving to West Virginia because it’s far cheaper to live there. There are homes in Monongah listed for sale for one-tenth the price I paid for my Tallmadge, Ohio home.

 

Like most people who leave West Virginia, I love the state and its people, and regularly thank Monongah, its teachers (particularly Mary Turkovich and Sister Agnes) and residents (my surrogate parents keeping me from harming myself when I roamed the streets out of sight of my parents) and visit every chance I get just to get a whiff of Almost Heaven. But it’s difficult to rear, feed, clothe and house a family in a state that pays so little in so many jobs.

 

It is NOT a reflection on the quality of the people living there, who are good-hearted, moral and intelligent people. It is an economic reality. I admire those who remained, despite the unnecessary adversity, particularly financially. I contribute anonymously regularly in one-on-one assistance to people in Monongah. It’s payback for the superior childhood experience I had there. Because nearly everyone was a coal mining family, Monongah was unique in America for having no class distinctions – we were all in the same financial boat because the coal operators who plundered the land took millions of dollars to where they lived far from West Virginia.

 

Every visit I make to Monongah is like a family welcoming back the son who left very reluctantly 60 years ago. The problem in West Virginia is not the hearts of its people but the heartlessness of the political and financial system that holds the people down financially. These are good people who have had bad things done to them by ruthless, powerful people in America who favor people with yachts over people with leaky financial rowboats.

 

West Virginians voted for Trump by such a large margin because they are desperate to grasp at any straw, even false illusions, in hopes of bettering their lives even a little bit.

 

America did West Virginia wrong. And that’s not right.

 

Instead of attacking politicians they think erroneously are harming the coal industry they should be supporting any efforts to bring new industry and businesses into the state to lift the financial status of every citizen there. America owes West Virginia an apology. And reparations in the form of a more humane treatment.

 

THE REST OF THE STORY

Theodore E. Uchiek

May 24, 1933 - January 22, 1993 

Wow, this is really a blast from past about Theodore E. Uchiek, who attended Monongah High when I did before my 1950 graduation and I headed to Fairmont State for year and then 2½ years at WVU where I got my degree from the School of Journalism that embarked me on my 43-year newspaper career.

The email came from Theodore’s granddaughter, Devin Cline, daughter of Tamara Sue Uchiek Cline, who was the daughter of Theodore and his first wife, Joyce Rollyson Uchiek.

I’ll let Devin Cline set up the situation:

Hi John,

 

I hope this email finds you well. I stumbled across a post from 2016 (in this Monongah High blog that I publish) in which you asked about Theodore Uchiek. 

 

I’m Theodore’s biological granddaughter, Devin Cline, originally born Devin Uchiek. I can confirm that the Theodore referenced is Theodore Uchiek from MHS in the 1940s. 

 

My mother is Tamara, daughter to his first wife Joyce Uchiek (maiden name Rollyson), who passed away when my mother was 6. My mother and her two brothers, Theodore Jr. and Tom, also attended MHS. 

 

I read that you’re passionate about keeping up with Monongah’s records. As both my maternal grandparents passed before I was given a chance to know them (Theodore passed in the early 90s when I was only 2 or 3), if you have any information about them you’d be willing to share I would love to hear it. If you have any other records regarding the Uchieks you need clarification on, I may be able to assist. 

 

Hope to hear from you soon!

 

Devin Cline is TTEC Pittsburgh area service delivery supervisor working in the outsourcing/offshoring industry  and a 2014 psychology graduate from West Virginia University.

 Teddy, as many called Theodore later, worked for Fairmont Wall Plaster, which went out of business in 1995.

I can’t find Theodore Uchiek’s name in any of the Monongah High graduation lists that Ramona Fullen Michalski, Class of 1949, gave me years ago or in the North Marion alumni directory which includes Monongah High graduates that Bob Kasper, Class of 1950, gave me that belonged to Bob’s sister, the late Helen Kasper.

I did find photos of Walter Uchiek, Class of 1948, Theodore’s brother, who was listed as Walter Uchick in the 1948 Black Diamond yearbook.  Walter lived at Swisher Hill at that time and was a member of the MHS Stamp Club.

The 1940 census lists Walter as a 10-year-old and Theodore as a 7-year-old, which meant Theodore started with the 1950 or 1951 classes but even the fantastic updated information provided of 1951 graduates as adults doesn’t include Theodore so I suspect he never graduated.

In the late Clyde Ernest “Buddy” Davis, Jr. obituary Ted Uchiek was listed as his brother-in-law who married Buddy’s sister, Sandy Davis Uchiek. The age is right for Ted to be Theodore and Sandy might be Theodore’s second wife and not Devine Cline’s mother, Joyce Rollyson Uchiek, Theodore’s first wife.

It’s all guesswork despite me spending several days Googling information. The only mention of Theodore Uchiek in this Monongah High Alumni blog is the 2016 article that Devin mentioned. If ANYONE can provide better information, email me at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com or via my Facebook page and I’ll be delighted to add it to this article so that other Lions can find out what happened to Theodore.

Jane Ann Pritchard Moore, Class of 1975, tells me:

“I think Tamara Cline lives around Core in Monongahela County. My husband, Henry (Moore), grew up with her and her brothers” – Theodore Uchiek, Jr. and Tom Uchiek.

Jane is correct.  Tamara lives in Core, 10 miles west of Morgantown on West Virginia Route 7, with Roy Cline.

When I inquired later for more information, Jane replied:

“Younger Ted should have his picture in the Monongah yearbook, maybe 1973, 1974. He was in my Class of 1975 but I’m not sure if he graduated with us or moved to Fairmont Senior (Fairmont West, we called that high school in my Monongah High days; Fairmont East the other Fairmont school, thus East-West Stadium in Fairmont where both teams played football, including against Monongah when I watched the Lions play in the 12^th Street stadium).

Helen McDougal Mudry remembers when Tamara Cline and Devin Cline “lived next door to us on Swisher Hill,” where I got the biggest sledriding thrill of my life in 1950 when a 45.5 inches of snow in three November days shut down Rt. 19 to auto traffic and we pulled our sleds to the top of Swisher Hill and hit such amazing speed that, as our sleds became a blur going UP the hill to the curve near Angelo Raymond’s Tavern, we had to drag our feet all the way uphill to keep the sleds from hurtling off U.S. 19 and into homes along that highway!

The top of Swisher Hill was about 2 miles from my Church Street, Monongah childhood home. I can still hear the swooshing of my sled in my memory bank!

Arthur Yuchek is Class of 1974. Uchiek, Yucheck, Uchek is a common name among Americans. In my Googling I came across those different spellings in states all over America.

Among my research findings:

Joyce Uchiek was born February 4, 1937 and passed away in September 1965.

Walter Uchiek was born October 6, 1929 and passed away March 26, 2009.

Theodore E. Uchiek was born in May 24, 1933 and passed away January 22, 1993.

Sandra K. Uchiek was born November 18, 1946 and passed away November 5, 2001.

Frank E. Uchiek was born February 2, 1917 and passed away May 29, 2007.

Mary M. Uchiek was born March 5, 1917 and passed away January 2, 1998.

In Africa Uchechi means “God’s mind” or “God’s will.”  Other sources said Uchiek means “genius, good, good judger” or “thou are the cause of us” (for Uchick). Pretty weighty meanings in every case.

I haven’t been able to nail down the nationality – Polish? Russian? German? Eastern European?

CONTACTED AMICI BAND FOR POSSIBLE PERFORMANCE JULY 17 IN MONONGAH TOWN HALL

 

I am trying, through my niece, Lea Ann Straight Barnes, as the intermediary, to get the Amici band led by keyboardist Stephen Pishner, brother of author Diane Pishner Walker, for the Saturday, July 17 J&J&Lions Get-Together in the Monongah Town Hall!

As a bonus I hope to persuade Stephen to let Denise Roncone, who has a beautiful voice, to sing “God Bless America” at the July 17 gathering to evoke echoes of Kate Smith’s version in my mind.

Denise has made some recordings with Stephen and Amici so that might not be a problem. And promised to put in a good word for me. Now if Amici is available (some members live 2 hours apart) and my checking account doesn’t get overdrawn we’ll be golden . . .

I Googled and listened to some of Amici’s songs and they provide soothing, quality music, something that those of us in our 70s, 80s (like me at 88) and 90s would appreciate when we’re trying to chat with friends during the 7-9 p.m. music.

The dinner will begin at 6 p.m. EVERYONE in the building, those at dinner and the band, must have their  COVID vaccine shots to be allowed in the building.

Amici has performed at the Italian Festival in Clarksburg, the most Italian city in West Virginia. Amici is Italian for “friends” and that’s exactly who will be at the July 17 gathering, friends – and family and Monongah High alumni, also qualifying as friends.

There’s not much hair on the Amici heads which is encouraging for those who don’t want loud music by male musicians whose hair comes down to their waists.

I see only 4 band members performing in the Italian Festival in Clarksburg.

Print the Reservation form just below this article, fill it out, put it in an envelope with your check for $20 per person and mail it to me. It MUST BE IN MY HANDS by June 26 so that I can tell Say-Boy how many people to cater the food for and how many of the available dinner choices each selection drew.

Don’t procrastinate. Celebrate with family, friends, my Fazio cousins, Monongah High alumni and Monongan townsfolk!

Do it NOW! Or be left out of the fun. There will be NO admittance at the door for last-minute showups without a prior Registration so that we can make sure the check doesn’t bounce and that everyone in the Town Hall has had the COVID vaccine!

The J&J stands for John Olesky and Jackie Olesky Straight, my sister who lives in Rivesville.

MANDATORY songs:

 

National Anthem

"Country Roads"

 

"West Virginia Hills"

 

"God Bless America"

 

"Mona Lisa"

 

Not mandatory, but "Merry Widow Waltz"' would be appreciated, too. 

 

And, since it’s Amici, “Oh, solomeo” would be nice, too.

My mother grew up in Italy – Pellizano, birthplace of my grandfather Severino Futten and 5 generations that preceded him – and my Nona (Mom’s mom) was born in Mione, a 2 block by 3 block “town” northeast of Pellizano in the foothills of the Alps, which Paula and I saw in 2005 when we entered the 1848 stone home that Nona grew up in  with one bedroom that slept all EIGHT family members.

We went there for a few days after our 15-day bus trip that included Venice and the Isle of Capri and Rome and Florence (nighttime in Florence with street performers was among my favorite memories of that trip).

It’s obvious why I want Amici, or the band I get if Amici can’t make it or I can’t afford them, for the National Anthem, "Country Roads," "West Virginia Hills" and "God Bless America."

 

Those tunes give me goosebumps every time I hear them, stiring pride of America and West Virginia.

 

“Mona Lisa” is personal with me. That’s what I called my late wife as a play on her birth name of Monia Elizabeth Turkette during our half-century together.

 

When I pass away I will be buried next to My Mona Lisa in Northlawn Memorial Gardens in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio under a double grave marker with “WV” under her name and my name so that any visitors a century from now will know that we were WVU fans. WVU allows the “WV” on grave markers without charge for WVU alumni.

 

As I tell everyone repeatedly, “I will be the happiest man in the cemetery” alongside the woman who made me the luckiest man on earth, gave me 3 children, 7 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.

 

Well, we had help achieving that  number from the 10 children and grandchildren.

 

For a coal miner’s son from Monongah I feel like I’ve dodged 88 years of bullets, particularly during my teen stupidity years when the town kept busy being surrogate parents when I roamed the streets to keep me from harming myself and their crops.

 

And during my 25 years of retirement that resulted in trips to 56 countries, 44 states and 30 winters in Florida of up to 4 months with My Mona Lisa and, for another 15 years, with Paula.

 

This is NOT the annual Monongah High Alumni banquet but a John Olesky attempt to get family and classmates together during the summer as a break from the COVID restrictions.

iHH

 

The annual Monongah High Alumni Banquet will be on Labor Day weekend at the Knights of Columbus in Fairmont. If you have any questions call Donna Davis at 304-534-5636.