By Michael Paull
(Edmonton) – It was a long weekend – from Friday August 19 to Sunday August 21 – that went by very quickly.
My first e-mail from Sandy Fayerman (Calgary) came April 27 and 492 e-mails later, they are still coming in. Sandy put together a team to have a Talmud Torah Reunion which involved all the kids that were born in 1956. Michael Dower gets the prize for coming in from the furthest place (England) with an honourable mention going to Danny Kredenster and his wife Celine (Albany NY). A large group came from Ontario, and of course from Calgary. A few representatives came from BC but the largest group (13) were Edmontonians.
The weekend started with a dinner event at Tiramisu Restaurant with drinks afterwards just to get rid of the jet lag. The next day an energetic dozen got on bikes and rode to the old neighborhood to locate the houses that they used to live in and then down the river valley to finally end up at the Talmud Torah that they went to in 1963. The school is now the Progressive Academy and we had permission to tour the inside of the school and to bring back memories of where we had lunch, learnt Hebrew, climbed the ropes in the gym and looked for the metal climbing bars where we got our tongues stuck in the winter time.
The big event was a BBQ at my house that started at 5 pm and ended at 1:30 am with 28 out of 50 kids showing up for dinner. A massive birthday cake was made by Bliss Bakery to commemorate or 60th year of living. Even though not everyone could make it to Edmonton for the weekend they still participated in weekly quizzes that were sent out, as people tried to identify who was in the pictures and some trivia questions to be answered, such as: who in our class qualified for the Olympics and in which year, who in the class won an academy award and in what category, who in our class became a world champion and in what sport. We also remembered our four classmates who are no longer with us.
The weekend ended with a brunch at The Refinery, where we could say goodbye to our long lost friends.
A copy of the Class of 68 reunion photograph will be sent to the Edmonton Jewish Archives; their help made the event so much more memorable with all the old pictures and information they provided. The reunion weekend truly was a most memorable event!
By the way Class of 68 – what was Mike and Lisa’s last name? And what was our Gym teachers’ name?
Be the first to comment on "Class of ’68 gathers for a truly memorable Edmonton Talmud Torah Reunion"