Hometown child hood friends organize an impromptu “Glasco Girls” reunion. Valerie Naccarato, a local businesswoman hosted a Pot Luck dinner at her home in Glasco on Friday evening, June 22nd. This is the first time that some of these ladies have seen each other since beginning kindergarten together at the Riccardi Elementary School (then the Glasco Elementary) over fifty years ago.
The ladies in attendance all originally hailed from Glasco but some of them relocated and Pam (Mauro) Frost now resides in California, Janice (Ramondi) Stephens lives in Wake Forest, North Carolina and Maureen (Sasso) Lugo lives nearby but also has a home in New Jersey. Current local residents included’ Rita Mary (Rinaldo) Pettit, Gaetana Ciarlante, Barbara Sasso, Diane (Amendola) Stones and Valerie. Bernadette (Granato) Andreassen and Joanne (Mayone) Farrell could not attend but sent their regards.
Laughs, tears, hugs and stories filled the air on Valerie’s backyard deck, as the ladies reminisced and shared their professional and personal life journeys. Pictures of children and grand-children circled among the table, each son/daughter and grandchild was beautiful, smart and seemingly perfect. Childhood memories wouldn’t be complete without thinking of the fiends that have passed away. A toast was shared and those who are watching from above were remembered, gone but never forgotten.
Other memories of childhood were the pranks played on each other, ice skating on Mr. Vincent Buono’s pond, Friday night trips to the Orpheum Theatre, pizza at the Hunting Lodge (currently Marabella’s ), attending the St Joseph’s church bazaar, with Valerie’s dad, Jimmy manning the penny throwing booth and Glasco firemen’s bazaar with the greatest fireworks around.
Discussions included how many times each one had watched the Beatle’s movie, “A Hard Day’s Night” and other enjoyable times. Joanne’s dad, “Peppy” Mayone was nominated the “Patient Father Award” by the ladies for all the “girl talk” (about boys, of course) at his home where he sat and quietly listened. Many Friday nights he was the DFD (designated father driver) responsible for hauling adolescent girls to and from the Orpheum, the Youth Center and around town in Saugerties.
Elementary and junior high school teachers were retrospectively evaluated for their kindness, as well as strictness (when needed) and most-or-all fun. After all these years it is still better not to admit to some of the school pranks that were pulled off, even though we didn’t get away with most of them. But we don’t want to give todays’ students any ideas that they may not already have. However, we would like them to know that probably anything they come up with has already been tried before by the Glasco “rebels without a cause”J
Hometown child hood friends organize an impromptu “Glasco Girls” reunion. Valerie Naccarato, a local businesswoman hosted a Pot Luck dinner at her home in Glasco on Friday evening, June 22nd. This is the first time that some of these ladies have seen each other since beginning kindergarten together at the Riccardi Elementary School (then the Glasco Elementary) over fifty years ago.
The ladies in attendance all originally hailed from Glasco but some of them relocated and Pam (Mauro) Frost now resides in California, Janice (Ramondi) Stephens lives in Wake Forest, North Carolina and Maureen (Sasso) Lugo lives nearby but also has a home in New Jersey. Current local residents included’ Rita Mary (Rinaldo) Pettit, Gaetana Ciarlante, Barbara Sasso, Diane (Amendola) Stones and Valerie. Bernadette (Granato) Andreassen and Joanne (Mayone) Farrell could not attend but sent their regards.
Laughs, tears, hugs and stories filled the air on Valerie’s backyard deck, as the ladies reminisced and shared their professional and personal life journeys. Pictures of children and grand-children circled among the table, each son/daughter and grandchild was beautiful, smart and seemingly perfect. Childhood memories wouldn’t be complete without thinking of the fiends that have passed away. A toast was shared and those who are watching from above were remembered, gone but never forgotten.
Other memories of childhood were the pranks played on each other, ice skating on Mr. Vincent Buono’s pond, Friday night trips to the Orpheum Theatre, pizza at the Hunting Lodge (currently Marabella’s ), attending the St Joseph’s church bazaar, with Valerie’s dad, Jimmy manning the penny throwing booth and Glasco firemen’s bazaar with the greatest fireworks around.
Discussions included how many times each one had watched the Beatle’s movie, “A Hard Day’s Night” and other enjoyable times. Joanne’s dad, “Peppy” Mayone was nominated the “Patient Father Award” by the ladies for all the “girl talk” (about boys, of course) at his home where he sat and quietly listened. Many Friday nights he was the DFD (designated father driver) responsible for hauling adolescent girls to and from the Orpheum, the Youth Center and around town in Saugerties.
Elementary and junior high school teachers were retrospectively evaluated for their kindness, as well as strictness (when needed) and most-or-all fun. After all these years it is still better not to admit to some of the school pranks that were pulled off, even though we didn’t get away with most of them. But we don’t want to give todays’ students any ideas that they may not already have. However, we would like them to know that probably anything they come up with has already been tried before by the Glasco “rebels without a cause”J
Conversations were had comparing growing up in a big city versus a small town. Even though, there may be some benefits in metropolitan areas, no one wished to have grown up anywhere else but Glasco. As Stephen King mentions in his book, “Stand by Me”; You never have friends as special as the ones you have when you are 12 years old.
It was getting late and as the reunion was coming to an end, everyone said their goodbyes and we vowed to make this a yearly event. Next year, we hope to get in touch with more Glasco Girls and that they can join us at Valerie’s house for fun, food and good company.
