Alumni II
I enjoyed thinking that I was the only person to spot the Occidental magazine's horrific screw up, but regretted the grief it must have caused Mrs. Sysmanski. Camille, who worked in the Alumni Office, had seen to it that my request was honored and I no longer received any mail from the college, including the magazine. However, Munson remained an alumnus in good standing and continued receiving the magazine year after year. Every so often I spent a weekend in San Francisco at his place and could never resist checking out my favorite parts of the magazine.
Years ago when I first began receiving the magazine, I discovered a small section at the very back called "Milestones". Here along with births were listed the Occidental alums who had passed away since the prior issue. The details were sparse but always included the deceased's name (including maiden name), and their graduating class year. The college began soon after the turn of the previous century so there was never a shortage of deaths to report. I became hooked on the death notices and began looking forward to every issue. Initially, it was the only thing in the magazine I ever read. What the magazine provided was not remotely adequate to serve as an obituary but it was this lack of information that made it so intriguing.
I had no knowledge of most of the people, yet there was much to ponder:
Class of 1923? Christ he must have been 100 years old. Could there possibly be another member of that class alive, or did he close the books on 1923?
Cruise ship victim – when will people learn? Sky diving makes more sense.
What the hell was she doing in Zambia?
Graduating class of 1989 – she could not have been more than 30 years old; what could have happened?
Christ, another small plane crash! How many is that? Don't they keep records on this?
Last name of Roberts – that reminds me that when I was a freshman in 1962, a kid in our class named Roberts went downtown and jumped off the roof of the Occidental Insurance building. Do you suppose he made it into the Milestones section of the magazine's next issue? I'd really like to know the answer to that.
The most engaging Milestones' items were for people I had known:
Well I'll be damned if it isn't my old nemesis Dean Culley! Rot in hell you bastard! If I knew where they buried you I'd rip off your headstone and toss it off the jetty in El Segundo where the sewage treatment plant empties into the sea.
Heidi Rottweiler – wasn't she the one who didn't shave her armpits?
Pat Dandridge – It makes no sense at all, but it feels terrific to know that he died before I did.
John Sachs – One crazy bastard. Probably a closed casket.
Years later I found a second place of interest inside the magazine. I was flipping through pages of an issue to get to the back when the name of Kathy Alagna in bolded text caught my eye. She and I had gone to the same high school prior to attending Occidental. I stopped and read what amounted to a retraction. The magazine apologized for incorrectly reporting Kathy's passing in the prior issue and was happy to now inform everyone that she was, and always had been perfectly fine. This part of the magazine offered corrections for errors found in previous issues. From that point forward there were 2 places in each issue that I checked in every magazine. Over the years I was surprised to find that Kathy Alagna's erroneous death report was not an isolated incident.
In 2006, during a weekend at Munson's place, I began looking through the latest issue of the Occidental magazine. I first located the place where corrections were usually found. There it was! By God, they've done it again! The magazine apologized for stating in its prior issue that Gloria (Schilling) Sysmanski had passed away and went on to say that Gloria was in fact just fine, so please excuse the error and give her a call to welcome her back with the living.
Gloria was from the class of 1944. The name of Schilling shown in parentheses was her maiden name that she went by at Occidental prior to her marrying a Mr. Sysmanski. Most of her college days covered the bulk of WWII and there's a good chance she married Mr., Sysmanski after he came home from the war. She was now living in Palo Alto in what one would hope was the nice part of town.
I then turned to the back of the magazine to review the Milestones section. I almost wish I hadn't found it.
Charles Sysmanski, class of 1942 at Palo Alto, California.
One can only hope that the Sysmanski's had either out-lived or no longer maintained contact with anyone from Occidental. If anyone does call her I hope she sues the shit out of the college. Can you imagine the calls she's going to get?
Old college friend, "Gloria, I am so happy to hear your voice. I was so upset when I heard you passed on but now I'm just thrilled to know you're fine."
Gloria, "Yes I'm fine, but now Charley's dead."