Heard Around Town: One of Salem High's great classes holds a reunion

SALEM — Mayor Kim Driscoll's job isn't always fun. She has to attend a lot of boring meetings and deal with a lot of crazy people. But there are also those days when she is just thrilled to be mayor — and one of those was last Friday.

Driscoll was invited to attend the 63-year reunion of the Salem High Class of 1945, a luncheon celebration at the Hawthorne Hotel.

That's one of those amazing classes that went to school during World War II and has stuck together and remained friends — some for almost 80 years. It's also the class whose football team beat Miami Senior High 7-6 in one of those mythical schoolboy gridiron clashes.

An impressive total of 39 classmates made the reunion — out of a class of 264.

Classmate Edward Sullivan, for example, talked about being near the Bikini Atoll during the atom bomb tests of the late 1940s and 1950s.

A hospital in California named a wing for Dr. Geraldine Sztramski, who worked to ensure children got proper medical services in Long Beach.

And classmates learned that Dr. Burton Polansky will receive an honorary degree in humanities this month from Massasoit Community College in Brockton.

Polansky, the former chief of medicine at Brockton Hospital, "contributed thousands of volunteer hours for decades," according to Massasoit. He pioneered a cardiac rehabilitation program in the city and was involved in a volunteer medical and public health program to benefit the city's homeless.

Former Salem resident Roland Pinault II made a heroic attempt to save a man whose car crashed into a creek in Arkansas.

Pinault, who works at Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bella Vista, Ark., was out jogging near work when he heard someone shouting for help. A man standing near Little Sugar Creek was yelling and pointing at a car upside down in the water.

Pinault entered the murky creek, got the doors of the BMW 535 open and found a man hanging by his seat belt. Pinault could not get the man out — neither he nor the other man at the scene had a knife to cut the seat belt.

Fire and ambulance crews arrived momentarily, cut the accident victim loose and rushed him to the hospital. Sadly, he eventually died.

It had to be a difficult experience for Pinault, who, according to a newspaper account, "risked his life" in the rescue effort.

A call came into the station at 6:46 p.m. Tuesday about a man in a car "slumped over the steering wheel" in front of a store on Trader's Way. When an officer rushed to the scene, he made a startling discovery. The man "was taking a nap while his wife was shopping."

Imagine the poor guy's shock when an officer rapped on his window. What's a husband supposed to do while his wife goes shopping?

The store, by the way, was Market Wine and Spirits. So maybe police had good reason to check out the sleeping man.

A woman walking her dog spotted one of the pit bulls stranded on a rock under the pier — with the tide coming in.

"It was crying, and the water was coming over the rocks," said Heather Walker, a Salem resident.

She tried to enter the water to coax the dog to shore and eventually went for help. The police scanner carried a broadcast about a woman and dog in the water, and before long police, firefighters and the harbormaster were all on the scene.

The dog eventually made it safely to shore — but now two stray pit bulls were loose. They had no tags, and one had sores and was bleeding from a leg wound.

Thankfully, a few animal-loving Willows residents came to the rescue. According to our crack Willows investigative team, Ros Dennis fed dog bones to the canines, with help from Patti Martin. With the aid of a passer-by and police, they got leashes on the animals and put them into the backseat of Patrolman Brian St. Pierre's car. He drove them to Danvers Animal Hospital.

When it was all over, Walker was grateful for all the help and felt badly that police had to get involved. She was also surprised, and a little upset, to learn the city does not have a full-time animal control officer.

"Why should Salem residents be responsible for taking care of stray animals?" she asked.

The numbers out of Burma this week have been devastating. Some 100,000 people are feared dead, and 1 million may be homeless after this week's cyclone, according to news reports.

Diane Bochynski, the church clerk at the First Baptist Church of Salem, still remembers the time a group of missionaries from Burma visited the church in the early 1960s, part of a yearlong visit in Massachusetts.

"They spent some time at our church," Bochynski said. "They went to a lot of different churches to preach and spend time."

The church actually has ties to Burma dating back to Feb. 19, 1812. That's the day Adoniram Judson and four other men became the first American missionaries and set sail from Salem Harbor en route to India.

Judson then traveled to Burma, where he translated the Bible into the Burmese language and preached Christianity to thousands living in that country until his death in 1850.

"It's always in the background that Adoniram Judson was there," Bochynski said. "It's a big part of our heritage."

Congratulations to Edwina LaBrecque, who was named a "Volunteer of the Year" by Dominion, the owners of Salem Harbor Station.

LaBrecque, an administrative assistant at the power plant, is a founding member of Salem Harbor Alliance for Reliable Energy, which has cleaned up city-owned Dave Beattie Park and installed a Veterans' Memorial Garden in the park with an engraved stone bench dedicated to the city's military veterans.

She also is a company liaison at The Phoenix School and volunteers at the Salem homeless shelter and at Pioneer Village.

Speaking of Dominion, the company just donated 450 saplings — those are baby trees — to third-graders at eight city elementary schools.

Insuranceman John Walsh is one proud dad. That was his son, Adam, who won the home-brew contest sponsored by the Boston Beer Co., makers of Sam Adams. His son's beer will be sold at all home New England Patriots games this fall.

That's quite an incentive for a father who already goes to a couple of Pats' games a year.

Photos

The Salem High Class of 1945 held its 63-year reunion last Friday at the Hawthorne Hotel. Mayor Kim Driscoll poses with class members, from left, Dr. Burton Polansky, Dolores Jordan, Tom Brennan, Armand Longval and Dr. Richard Winer. Courtesy photo