Ellen Wolfson

June, 2015

Oh, where to begin! Am I really 68? Yes, I guess I am…..and you are too (or will be soon!). A lot has happened in the past 10 years. I continued to teach special ed in Sharon (for a total of 43 years!). After double knee replacement 5 years ago, I worked one more year and decided that enough was enough. After a discussion with the teachers’ retirement board, I discovered that even with all the part time work I had done, I would make significantly more not working than I was making working once I turned 65. Well, my momma didn’t raise a fool so I retired that June. What a wonderful decision. I have been traveling, especially to San Francisco to visit my son, Mark, granddaughter, Olive Hazel, and grandson, Max Lee. Wow, being a grandparent is everything it is cracked up to be! I just wish they lived closer. My younger son, Adam, will be married this September to a lovely woman named Nicole. They are in Somerville so perhaps there will be grandchildren closer in the far distant future (I’ve been told, if at all). I’ve been spending increasingly longer time n the winter in Phoenix. If we have another winter like the last one, it will be even longer! I even took the dog and drove to Arizona two years ago. Last summer included a trip to Alaska.

I recently had an eye opening health setback. Coming that close to death gave me a new perspective on how I wanted to live my life. I had been struggling with a-fib when my cardiologist said she thought I needed a stent…no big deal right? Wrong…2 ½ hours later they were wheeling me into surgery for a CABG (coronary artery bypass graft) You know, where they stop your heart and put you on a heart lung machine and rearrange your arteries. I woke up 12 hours later feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. It is now 8 weeks later and I am beginning to believe that I will live and I have plans to travel even more. Life is way too short; friends and family are so important and every minute needs to be lived to the fullest.

I am so grateful to Bob Hertzel and Howie Elkin who have worked with me on the reunion and took over when I was not able to. Hopefully I will be able to jump back in and help again very soon…..well, maybe not jump. Speaking of which, we need help with centerpieces for the tables at the reunion. I remember thinking, when we graduated, that we would be 68 at our 50th; to me, that was incomprehensible, and yet, here we are. Where did the time go? I look forward to seeing many of you at the 50th reunion of the Class of 1965.

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Originally submitted 2005:

OK folks, I’m having a better time with my high school friends now than I ever did in high school. When I left Sharon High 40 years ago, I was eager to start over because high school had been a painful experience for me. As strange as it seems, I now teach in Sharon at Heights Elementary and I live in my old house on Pond St. in Sharon. After years of teaching special education and then Community Service Learning, now I’m back to special ed again. And, after the last reunion, I reinvented myself again. The friends who were there for me, people who knew me when, were there again to support me while I sold my house and ended my 32 year marriage. And thank you to all of you (and you know who you are) who helped me clean closets and empty the basement and stayed with me through 3 yard sales!!

Right after graduating Boston University, I married a law student and we spent the next 31 years trying to build a life and a practice. Two wonderful sons, Mark, age 28 and Adam, 26, are the best things to come out of that relationship. Mark graduated Vassar College in 1999, and headed off to teach English in Japan for 2 years. He’s now a bilingual special ed teacher and grad student living and working in Queens, NY. He takes every opportunity to travel the world. He collects languages the way we used to collect gum wrappers. Adam attended Drake University in Iowa for one year, did well academically and then decided that that college was not for him. He’s currently a senior at Burlington College in Burlington VT. Neither is married and there are no grandkids that any of us know of, lol!

I've stayed in close contact with Susie Rosenthal Kraus and a wonderful group of new, old friends from the last two reunions. I so enjoyed working on this 40th reunion and reacquainting myself with a number of people who were once important to me are again. I still feel this need to reconnect at this stage in my life. Being an only child and having lost both my parents has made friends an even more important and valuable part of my life. I have thoroughly enjoyed being in touch with former classmates. Even though the 40th is over, we will find some excuse or another to start planning for the 50th. Maybe a 42 ½ is in order for us to take a cruise or head to Vegas as a group. I hope you will all be in touch so we can get this 42 ½ going! Love to you all and I’ll see you soon.