A house full of daughters and their friends. What grand memories.

Still remember his class ...

He was very proud of himself when he learned the Big Mac commercial.. 2 all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun!

He was my teacher and I loved him. One day he came in and told us he had had a skin cancer mole removed from his face but don't worry he would be fine. He even taught us a little about it and showed us some cells. Then in my mind it seemed like only 2 months went by and he was gone ! It was actually a very traumatic thing for me at the time because he had convinced us he was gonna be fine. And 2 months he was gone ! So sorry for your loss, but please know he made a big impact in my life and I have thought of him often over the last 26 years . Myself and my family always wear sunscreen because I remembering him telling us to.

Jennifer, thank you SO MUCH for sharing this; it was 9 months from his diagnosis to his death, although he took medical leave from RHS almost immediately. We all thought he'd fight it and win, just as he had any and all adversity in his life. Glad to hear that you learned from him, and sunscreen is a part of your life (as it is mine); I'm sure that your skin is healthy and looks great! Thank you for remembering him so fondly.

I had your dad in 10th grade biology in 1980. He was my favorite teacher in high school! I was never much of a student until his class. And he was the first to really convince me to not worry about the grades, and just enjoy the material. He really changed my attitude about school and that changed my life! I also used to see him on the floor at the Milrose games when I ran there. He was just a great guy who took an interest in me and I would have to say was the teacher that had the greatest impact on me!!

John, so glad that that you have such a fond and indelible memory of him; he certainly never told ME not to worry about the grades! He enjoyed officiating at Millrose and ALL the indoor meets so much; in fact, if you ever see the Back to the Track, Jack episode in the first season of the Cosby Show (1985), it was filmed at the Olympic Invitational in the Meadowlands and you can clearly see him at the pole vault pit! Got to meet all the "kids" and see the "race"; and the DVD let me show my kids their grandpa. The following year, he had to miss Millrose as it was the same day as his tumor surgery; since he recovered well, I went to MSG that night and brought a Get Well card with me in case anyone asked where he was. EVERYONE signed it, and it made him cry the next day when I gave it to him in the hospital. And I still have it!

I had your Dad for 10th grade biology as well in 1979. He made learning fun. Had such a great sense of humour. I remember referring to him as BIG BEAR! And he really cared about the kids in his class! We were very luck to have him touch our lives!

My lab drawings saved my biology class with him; also a film I'd constructed from super-8 footage I'd taken off of the Apollo 12, 14-17 missions on TV, combined with music gotten from WNEW-FM's 'night trips' programming.. :) He was a great fan of the space program!

He gave great bear hugs, too! He truly loved teaching and tried to make his classes fun and relevant. Stephen: he always appreciated anyone who really TRIED even when they didn't get the best grades, and gave extra credit whenever he could. He did love the space program; I clearly remember sitting on the foot of his bed watching the little TV on the rolling cart and seeing Neil Armstrong take "one giant leap for mankind", although I was only 4 at the time. Thanks so much for the kind words and memories! He would have been 84 next month....

"You kids are like bananas: they come in a bunch. Born green, turn ripe, die rotten." He had a million of them.

He was a funny teacher. I had him for biology. He always showed slides of his daughters - a proud father.

Sorry, I was never called to his office, but I do remember him as a man who liked to have a laugh...when my eldest brother was at Ridgewood High School, he always shared a practical joke with Mr. Mc.

I loved him! He used to always say "Como estas?" to me and laugh!

I was dragged into his office by my Biology teacher after she caught me smoking in the bathroom. He was really cool and nice. Just told me not to smoke in the bathroom anymore, and let me go.

Sent to his office by Herr Perkins, McC suugested I try to avoid irritating the guy.

At the football banquet Junior year he made a comment to my mother about a play that happened in the first game of the season. So over two months after that occurred he remembered the play, knew who my Mom was(she was NOT on the PTA for sure) and made a comment. It was a compliment, actually. He was all over the place with his tongue and not being able to stand still, but he was very sincere and really cared about all the students.

This guy was the "bad cop" of RHS, but, at heart, a really terrific man. Most students probably never saw him perform, but I will never forget him as "Deadeye Dick" in the annual "Jamboree" in the early 70s.

Larry Coyle taught English at RHS and was Head Coach of both the Men's Cross Country and Spring Track teams. I often think about the last words he said to our team in 1976, before he took his family to England for a sabbatical:

"Dare to be good."

Not that it was some world-changing utterance, but it was and has remained to me a gentle reminder to try hard at all endeavors no matter how humble they might seem.

I know he meant it in the immediate context of our next race, but I also always felt he had a eye on developing us as human beings, too. As a former athlete himself he knew how quickly the glory would fade and how important it would be for us to have something to fall back upon other than medals and ribbons achieved in athletic competition.

He offered us these words to make us think, and hopefully to inspire us when there wasn't a big meet to hold our attention and make us excel to our fullest potential. I always meant to ask what he meant but our paths didn't cross too many times after that and this philosophical discussion never took place. I suspect if we had spoken about it he would have offered me a modest smile and his customary encouragement. It was never his way to draw attention to himself and I think he probably would have blushed to think that I would remember his words and that I repeat them to people from time to time.

Len Vallone passed away from stomach cancer (1976-77), I believe. I had him as a teacher and I always remember him fondly. I remember feeling so sad because as I recall, it took him quickly.

Mr Valone had died at some point in 1976.. He had been the long time adviser for the RHS yearbook and that is why the yearbook was dedicated to him. They did not replace him for the 1977 year book, leaving us, the editorial staff our own to put together our yearbook. If my memory is correct, we did not have a faculty adviser that year.

I had her for geometry in sophomore year. She was so nice, but we must have frustrated her a little bit--I remember her saying "dammit" twice that year! She also had lots and lots of shoes!

Great math teacher (and the only one I remember : D so she must have been good!)

He believed every student could and should get A's. He posted the Rangers(not Texas) score in the morning after every game. If they won, it was large. If they lost, it was tiny. He was also a member of the Finnigan's Wake Society and read about a third of a book every night!

He was my favorite, what a sweetheart! Bob Sullivan and I sat next to each other and talked endlessly about the Boston Bruins before class began. He was always supportive and patient, but when we got the "disapproving parent look" we knew it was time to shut up fast. He loved to "argue" about hockey with us after class though.

My sister had him for US History Through Literature. Apparently, he used to have little ants making the comments on essays. One of his US II students came to me upset one day because Mr. Ahearn was telling them that he was a communist in class! He didn't realize it was just a "devil's advocate" technique. I felt very fortunate to become his colleague and learn a little bit from him to take with me. I think I get the prize now for spending the most time on the Constitution, something for which he was notorious! There is a scholarship in his name that one of the Mrs. Rosengrens (sorry I forget which one!) announces every year at the Senior Awards ceremony.

So do you recall how for every test Milo would hand out a review sheet of what you had to know for the test. Sure enough, every test was exactly off that review sheet. So I used to take the review sheet, type up all the answers to the test and then sell them for like $1.00 each (a start to a sales career). So one day Milo calls me in after class (I was scared to death), and he told me he had confiscated serveral of the answer sheets during a test, because people were using them to cheat. He asked me if I had made them, which I admitted, and he asked me why I made them: I told them they were a good study tool, and so why not sell them. I'll never forget this, he actually smiled, laughed, and started quizzing me on the stuff on the sheet, to see if I had used it to cheat. I nailed the answers, and he handed me the particular test (which I got a 97 on because a 100 was statisticlly impossible) and told me not to sell them anymore. I think USII was the only class I ever got an A in.

He was my last period class...the class from 2:00 to 3:00 and his room was on the west side of the building near the clock tower so the afternoon sun would pour in, and put me sleep everytime! I was a horrible student, but I didn't mean to be, I just kept falling asleep. I can however recite the Gettysburg Address and the Preamble to the Constitution by heart because "Milo" made us memorize it for our senior history test. I also have always remembered John Donne "Ask not for whom the bell tolls" which "Milo" had over the classroom door.

My Dad used to love telling this story. If he caught a kid with a pack of smokes, Mr. Barkocy used to crush the pack in his hands. One kid, trying to trick Mr. Barkocy, cut out a block of wood in the shop and put it inside a an empty cigarette pack. Well, word got back to Barkocy, so he waited to confiscate the pack until class was over, tossing the pack in his desk on the way out the door and telling the kid to come back after school. After school, the kid comes back in, but Mr. Barkocy had been down to the wood shop himself in the meantime. So he holds up the cigarette pack, tells the kid, "You know what I think of these things," and crushes it. Sawdust falls out on the floor.

I had him for gym class junior year. The class was gymnastics and he took the teaching of it very seriously. Just so happens there were a few varsity athletes in that class with me so we took it seriously too. Dave Andre, Frank O'Connor, maybe one or two others. We had to create our own gymnastics routine. It was great and I learned a lot about what it takes to be a gymnast.

I worked for him for 5-6 years at Graydon. He ran that place the way it needed to be run. We drilled and followed his rules and kept a very dangerous place as safe as possible. I rode in an ambulance with him with a body that had been pulled off the bottom of Graydon. That was I think only the second such incident he experienced in 30+ years? What a record. That turned out to be the thing that kind of ended it for him at Graydon. He retired that year and we had the party at my house. We took one of the small stands and put it in the back of a pick up to put up near the front door of my house. We had some of the old crew there at the party too. I never saw him laugh so much talking old stories with those guys.

For some, at that time, he was a little bit old school but he was fair and took the responsibility given to him as father, husband, teacher, AD and pool manager. And one more thing that just popped into my head which I haven't thought of in 25? years. He used to cut his wife's hair. She told everybody she used to get her hair cut at Chez Richard. He loved telling people that joke.

And one more...at a banquet he was up there speaking and he said something like, "I saw Jane Smith earlier tonight. She is a Graydon regular and I have never really seen her anywhere but at Graydon. So when I saw her I said, "Oh Jane, it's you. I almost didn't recognize you with your clothes on." That was classic "Fleck."

As Paul noted, my Dad ran Graydon for all of my childhood. It's interesting to read Paul's perspective on Dad's management style and remember Dad's thought processes during those years.

First, some thoughts about Graydon. As Paul observed, during the time Dad was in charge, there were no fences at all. There it sat, acres of natural swimming pool, in the middle of a town of 25,000, in the middle of a county of several hundred thousand. Now think about that: you can't put a 15'x25' pool in your yard without a fence, but Graydon was surrounded by nothing but sandy beaches and grassy banks, in the midst of as dense a population as one might find west of the Bronx.

Well, Dad took his responsibility for the safety of Graydon swimmers very seriously. He was responsible for everybody on that piece of property, and he had very little control over who wandered onto the grounds. I remember one day a small child fell off the wall and under the water, while his mother chatted on the beach. Dad scooped him up, but came home haunted by the fact that he had seen it happen before the child's mother. That was the nature of the time, and Dad accepted the responsibility. But it also forged his adherence to rules and regulations. Ironclad rules were his mechanisms for accepting responsibility for a big swimming pool in the middle of town.

Later on, when I became a lifeguard, I learned to appreciate Dad's approach to rules. It removed the arbritary nature from the job. Rules are rules, and nobody can throw sand, not even your buddy from school. I learned a lot about leadership, responsibility and consistency from Dad. I learned many years later from other former guards that he taught the same lessons to just about all that passed under his leadership at Graydon. (As an aside, one summer I also learned to decline the advances of an "older," probably mid-20s, married woman - wheee!!)

At RHS, Dad merely demonstrated and administered his authority. At Graydon, he took the opportunity to teach it. I wish more people could have known the teaching side of Dad.

Jack was one of the best teachers I ever had. Fantastic, dry sense of humor. People always thought he was cranky, but the man was funny as hell. I lived in Glen Rock before Ridgewood, and was friends with his son. Really liked the family.

Doc Lee had an amazingly dry sense of humor. Initially, I thought he was utterly detached and disinterested in his students. One day in class he said, "Zerbe! What is this I hear about a play you're in?" I told him it was Shakespeare's "Midsummer...." He said nothing more for a couple weeks, then one day in class, after the show had closed, he added with a wry smile and devilish twinkle in his eye: "Zerbe! That play you were in...saw it. Pretty good." I was shocked, and so pleased. I realized how much I'd missed of his real character. Shame on me. He became one of my favorites.

Tom Jones doppelganger.

He taught me the meaning of the word fuck during a summer vacation at RHS. After hearing someone outside yell it and everyone laughing he spelled it out in class f-for u-un- c-common-k-knowledge on the blackboard. Most i learned that summer. LOL

I saw Tom Jones perform, great show. Al Bennett was my favorite RHS teacher. As Mr. Cooke (BF) taught me grammar, Mr. Bennett taught me to appreciate literature, and began to teach me how to relay my thoughts in writing.

Bob, I have the same rememberance of both teachers. Big Al actually got me interested in reading. I'll always be grateful to him for that.

One of my favorites. I remember his pep talk before the SATs . "Don't worry, in the grand scheme of life this is not important."

And Big Al? I loved him so much as a teacher that I didn't even care that he would eat with his mouth open while expounding on some fine literary point. He and Amy Emmers were my favorite teachers at RHS.

Al isn't with us any more. I stopped by his classroom the last year he was teaching at RHS; sounded as though a lot of people did that, which he loved. I think he got it.

He was a hoot and a great English teacher. One of a few that I do remember.

My Al Bennett story involves another RHS classic teacher, Jack Wanek. Autumn 1976 sitting in Big Al's English class and Rob Kraemer comes knocking on Big Al's door. Remember, things were pretty loose around there in those days. You could get away with that sh*t depending on the teacher. So I step outside to talk to Rob. He, Johnny Frazz and I had Wanek for History. We had this big ass project in Wanek's class and Frazz, Rob and I came up with the brilliant idea of sharing the load between the three of us but handing in our projects as if we had done them individually. Well, Big Al overheard this litltle scheme as Rob and I were discussing it in the hallway. Big Al lowers the guilt boom on me and tells me something along the lines of, "I won't rat you out. You decide what the right thing is here." BOOM...that was the end of it. So I could go ahead with Rob and Frazz and split the workload for the Wanek deal or I could come clean with Mr. Wanek. Feck what am I gonna do here? I asked that question to myself but I knew the answer already. I worshipped Al Bennett as a teacher and a person. He was the biggest reason why I ended up becoming an English teacher myself. So, I have to go give it up to Wanek but I have no idea how he is going to react. He was pretty cool himself. I remember at the end of our senior year he invited a few of us over to his house for beers. Anyway, I have the powwow with Jack and he says, "This is what I will do. Hand the paper in and I will take care of it. And since you are coming clean I will give you a chance to make it up." So in the next few days or so our projects get handed back to us in class and I still have no idea how I am not going to get an "E" on this thing since I told Jack we basically took the short cut. Jack's speech that day, "Well, some of you did really well on this. And some of you are idiots. It wasn't very obvious at all that some of these papers weren't done by you individually, that you did them in groups. I should fail some of you but I'll give you a chance to make it up..." And a day or so later when I was walking into Big Al's class he was standing by the door as he often did and he gives me a little nod and says, "I heard you did the right thing." And I nodded back and that was the end of it. It was never spoken of again.

Loved loved loved him. He passed away several years ago, heart attack, I think. Last I heard, his daughter was a teacher at Somerville :) so in 10th grade we read Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. You may recall the ending when Sidney is guillotined and says,'Tis a far, far better thing I do...' Well Al held a debate about whether that was an optimistic or pessimistic ending. My memory is that I was the only supporter for optimistic (story of my life ;) and he agreed with me. Gave me confidence to attempt to be an English major - at least for awhile ;)

He instilled a love of reading that is with me to this day! One of my favorite teachers of all time.

One of my absolute favorites, as well...sadly he passed away quite young--42 or something like that...I remember reading his obit in the Record one day, just by chance and being absolutely traumatized by the news...he was one of the best! I, too, can still hear him reading aloud from Tale of Two Cities...I so wish he had lived long enough to teach my kids at RHS--a true inspiration!

I adored Mr. Bennett. He took an extraordinary amount of time and effort to encourage my love of reading, literature, history and justice. During junior year, he assigned me an entire reading list of books by black authors - such as Ralph Ellison and Imamu Baraka - and made me write book reports about them, which he graded and discussed with me in depth. I told him that it wasn't fair to give me so much extra work that no one else had to do. He said, "Get used to it, kid. Life's not fair. You're black, so you're always going to have to work harder than everybody else. I've been trying to get these books in the curriculum for years, but can't. But I'm not going to let you graduate from high school never having read anything by a writer who looks like you as part of your official workload."

I called him after I graduated from college and told him how much I appreciated everything he had done for me. He said, "Oh, shut up, Jones. I'm not grading you anymore so you don't have to kiss my as*!"

I called him a few years later and his daughter told me that he had passed away a few months earlier from cirrhosis of the liver. So sad.

He was a wonderful man.

Thank you for the great memories you've shared in your posts. My Dad loved teaching at RHS. Unfortunately we lost him in 1988 when he was just 47. I have been an art teacher at Somerville for the past 15 years and he is one of my biggest inspirations too.

Mr. Bennett was Student Congress Advisor and a really great friend to me. So sorry I didn't get to say goodbye. I remember reading a mindless book in the library one day and he told me to forget that shit. He handed me a classic and turned me into a literary snob. I am still grateful!

I really liked Mr. Bennett. I learned so much-my vocabulary expanded that year. On day 1 of school that year, he read my full name and said it sounded very poetic

Mr. Brown was my coach, first with the Skeeters T.C., then with RHS. I remember when he had long hair and a Fu Manchu and his nickname was Scuzzy! No one more devoted to the promotion of girls' T&F and XC in the state of New Jersey! His son lives here in Colorado and we get together from time to time.

To me, a total jock, he was just someone who was always "around" the school. Can't tell you how many times I was trying to find someone to open the door to get into the "weight room"(the Universal Gym down in the equipment room) early in the morning before school and 9 times out of 10 it was Coach Brown. I remember the paint cans that he used to have the XX girls hang over their feet to do toe raises. He is/was an awesome coach.

Not having run in high school, my memories are few. But my daughter just did 4 years of hs track and xc, and Mr Brown is still running around all of the big meets with his clipboard and stopwatch.

Ah, Larry Burke. Really the only teacher I remember from RHS that mattered to me, only because I spent so much time in graphic arts or the photo areas from sophomore year to graduation. Keeper of the flame, emperor of the lost arts - who else at RHS can legitimately claim to have steered at least 5 young men into their life's work? John Humrich, John Viggiano, Dan Unger , Steve O'Connor, me - have all made a living or pursued degrees in the graphic arts.

When I sat down with my guidance counselor at the beginning of senior year to discuss college he asked me what I loved. "Math and photography", I replied. "Math", he said, "What do you do with that? Photography..." I stopped listening, mostly because my mom called him a dope (thanks mom!) and Larry eventually steered me towards RIT, along with Chubba, Dan and Vigg. Took me another year to get there, but it provided me with a framework for everything that was to come, the perfect meld of technology, craft and art.

It could have been yesterday when I first stepped into the dark rooms at RHS and he showed me how to make a print. I can still see the image coming up through the developer, shadowed in red, cast in pure magic. I can hear his huge baritone in the dark room senior year, remarking, once again, on the strange odoriferous mix of acetic acid and "that smell off you and O'Connor - burning your underwear (frying your brain cells, smoking your shorts, etc.) during free period again?"

The King of Alchemy, Long Live The King!

Mr. Burke, teacher who listened and also was generous with his cigarettes.

We had an adopted cat named Timothy. that was his name when we got him so we kept it. Anyway, my father loved this cat. He had the coloring of a siamese but he was one fat cat, like 25 lbs, or something like that. I was taking photography with Mr. Burke 1st semester of senior year. I had brought a camera home and was going to give a picture of Timothy to my father for Xmas. Well, I let it go to the last minute so on the last day of school before Christmas break there I was after school rushing to try and make this print. Some of you may recall that Mr. Burke was asst. wrestling coach that year so we both got out of practice somehow and got to work on the print. I guess it was 12x12. It was black and white. I was very likely showing signs of frustration or maybe worries about skipping wrestling practice so when we get to the final stages and we are in the dark room the print starts to appear and it is just an awesome photo. My parents hung it in the enclosed porch in our house and it was up there for 20 years at least. Anyway, as the print comes out we kind of look at each other like, "Shit yeah, good print" and he blurts out, "There ya go Timmy PAPA's GONNA HAVE A PRINT TONIGHT!" I laughed my ass off.

On May 3rd 2010 we lost a brave champion against the fight of ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. We have also lost our great friend, mentor, coach, and teacher Jack Elwood. Jack took on his courageous battle in the same manner in which he lived his life every day...with dignity, courage, and that "can do" gentle smile he always illuminated. Many of us have already expressed loving memories of Jack and the many ways in which he continues to be an inspiration.

I still remember him saying "You put a drunk in the shower, and you just get a wet drunk. Feed him, and you just get a full drunk. Give him coffee and you just get a wide awake drunk"