Home
Our Classmates
More
About You
|
|
Pat Reed Ike
252 Killearn Road
Millbrook, NY 12545
Phone: 845-677-5866
E-mail: patike@optonline.com
Occupation: Retired
Spouse: John
Children: 1
Grandchildren: 2
------------------------------------------------------
On 11-2-18 Pat wrote:
Wow
Still keeping a bog garden and fox hunting a few days a week
Horses and dogs keep me out and about
Wondering what will be next but one day at a time
------------------------------------------------------
A note to my classmates. (4-16-14)
I have just finished a book, The Dream of Scipio, by Iain Pears, in
which one of the underlying themes is that there are moments that change
your life forever. Never forgotten snubs, love at first sight, moments of
sudden clarity....eureka moments. Hearing of the death of Sidney Smith was
one for me.
A few years back, I woke up one morning and thought “this is the year I got
old.” When I heard about Sidney, I contemplated my mortality as I never
have before. In a way this was a secondary blow...David Andre being the
first. I had a brief email exchange with David after Mac Brooks died. He
said among other things that he felt he “should live each day well in honor
of the fallen.” I figured we would finish that email conversation over
time. We will not. David loved his life, his wife and his passion for
sailing. I think he felt he would have time to really enjoy them all. Not
to happen. Over the years I have gotten the news of the
random-seeming-passing-on of a classmate and have scurried to find my
yearbook. There we are, frozen in time. I wrote many of the descriptions
next to our class pictures.
Sidney Smith Athletic....dependable...friendly and
frolicsome....sincere....”just great.”
Sidney was Mr. GHS for a very good reason. He was the best among us and we
had the good sense to know it. Ditto Eleanor Milner...Ms. GHS.
We know a lot more than we think we do.
1961 was a long time ago and might be yesterday at times. What are we to
make of this? When we were last all together as seniors, we moved about in
well-worn corridors from class to class, knowing where we were to be next.
We had a clear set of expectations set in front of us. This I fear is not
the case for seventeen year olds today. We knew how we were expected to
behave, whether we did that or not. The world seem a safe place and the
future loomed like a universe to be explored. Today, the world seems less
safe and the universe is looking rather small.
I have acknowledged the deaths of each of our classmates and thought a bit
each time. This particular time I am not just thinking for a minute and
moving on. Spring is here finally in the Northeast and I am more aware than
ever that my Springs may be counted on both hands if I am lucky. If I am
really lucky, I include the toes. However, my observation of living to 90
has not been encouraging. My daughter recently decided to have “the talk”
with me. My response must have been prickly because the next day she wrote
to me “Mom, we will figure this out together over time”. Hmmmmm.
In the past, we have all, no doubt, shepherded parents or others in the gray
of life only to find ourselves on the front line. So here we are, on the
front line with few weapons. Living each day well is not a bad weapon. We
know how to do that better than we think we do.
The theme of the 1961 Log was Hands. And the opening page contained a poem.
In my
hands I hold the future
Like coins, bright silver, copper,
I must spend the brief hours and days of time.
What shall I buy?
Will it be dreams, a moment’s laughter,
Or swift arrows that speed to find
Their mark far in the future?
Well, we are in that future.
By my calculation about a fourth of us did not make it this far. “Ambushed”
along the way. It just happened and presented a totally closed door. Our
door is still open and we still have a few of those coins to spend. My guess
is that each of knows how to do that well.
Pat Reed Ike
------------------------------------------------------
Entry from 7/16/08:
Checking in again...turned 65 this year...as I assume most of you did. Still
riding horses, and foxhunting, but no jumping. Still gardening, still have
camera in hand and have started painting, mostly pastels. My brother Bill,
also know perhaps as the handsome devil, died in October 2007. My father is
94. I recently closed down the house and sold it. But with many of my ties
gone, I think of all of you often. There are few classes that have stayed so
connected. I have moved, married, and lived many places....but I am so glad
to have been in our class at that time. I read that we know ourselves best
in High School. What we think we want to do at that age is a "true" choice".
I have seen a lot of people, rich and famous among them.....but the group we
are is still the most honest and best, by far.
Onward and upward....
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Entry from 7/19/05:
Just updating.......among other things I am still alive.....most of my time is split
between photograpy, the computer, the horses ( foxhunting) and gardening. My daughter
Andrea is married as of last Oct. 2004, teaching at Hofstra, a PHD.
I had my hip replaced Dec.17, 2004........have been riding 3 days a week....
Onward and upward .....
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Previous entry:
Besides moving a lot over the last 40 years.......I have continued an interest in
photography and for the last 20 years or so have lived on farms keeping horses for
foxhunting and tending a flock of sheep and chickens. High points of the last decade have
been two trips to Africa on horseback safari and of course taking loads of pictures,
foxhunting in NJ, NY and Ireland watching my daughter grow in to a terric young woman who
is currently completing her PHD and teaching at Columbia University.
My current home in Millbrook NY is an hour and a half North of New York City and wild
enough so we have lost a Jack Russel Terrier to a coyote and have seen a bobcat cruising
through the back of the property. Best (or worst) of two worlds. |
