What EA Did For Me

Many of us view our "EA days" with a fondness reserved only for the nicest things in life.  Whether you attended EA in 1937 or in 2003, you were never the same person after you moved away.  Whether it was Rio, EA, fellow multinational students, Brazil, Brazilians, the beaches, beijinhos, carnaval, the drums (aquela batucada), futebol, "o jeitinho brasileiro," the exhange rate, Macumba, figas, tangas, or a combination thereof, going to EA changed us all.  This page is dedicated to former EA students who recognize the impact EA had on their lives.  Tell us how EA impacted your life.  Don't be shy.  This page was inspired by Wally Perkins ('63), who recognized the tremendous influence EA had on his life.  We start with his contribution below.  We look forward to your contributions.  Type them in the white box below.  Scroll down to read comments left by others.

Date:

16 Jul 2004

Time:

13:36:11

Remote User:

Comments

Hi, My name is Buzz Fozouni. I got tothis page as I searched fro my former roommate, Pedro Haegler. We were roomates at Tulane Univeristy in the 1960s. I clicked on the link to Padro, but it was considered out of date. Is thre a wayI could get his e-mail,or address or telephone number to get in touch with him? I would gretly appreciate any help you can give. My e-mail adrees is fozounib@csus.edu

Letter from Wally Perkins:

The first serious interest I had in the States was the Boy Scouts and I knew that wouldn't be the same in Brasil.  I had a budding interest in sports but the leading candidate for my attention there was baseball- also out of the question in Rio (although there was some activity going on with softball).  And, though I liked the beach I was still a bit young, at 13, to realize all the possibilities in that direction (that story, too, will follow).  So, the invitation to see Larry Zonner’s model airplanes sounded reasonable to a kid with time on his hands.

Well...I liked what I saw and we went to Pedro Haegler’s house to see the clubhouse Pete, Artie, Scotty, and Larry had set up.  During that visit I marveled at their planes, engines, and support gear.  Before long I had discovered the local (only) hobby shop, bought a kit, and built my first model on the table in our room at the Miramar Palace Hotel. I guess it kept me busy while my parents were apartment hunting!  Somehow I got through the first flight, first crash, and first re-build.  It seemed to be a fascinating hobby.

Eventually, I found other class mates with similar interests (Chris Hansen and Corky Palmer) near our apartment and there was an orgy of balsa dust and lacquer fumes every night.  We would fly the little monsters on the polo field at the Gávea Country Club in spite of geezer golfers claiming the noise hurt their score!  Serious flying was on Sunday mornings at a club field adjacent a private/military airport past the city dump at Manguinhos, on the way to Galeao.  I could catch a bus in Leblon that would go all the way without transfer.  That was convenient because I had to lug several models as well as tool box on each trip. What an adventure!

To make the commute easier I soon joined the local aeroclub (Associação Carioca de Aeromodelismo - member #559) and rented a locker at the field to store my gear in.  I also met older modelers in the club who helped me in many ways (I needed a lot of help!) to develop my modeling skills.

Almost immediately I was drawn into the competition side of modeling and began entering local and National contests.  I must have flown half a dozen competition classes and I filled by bedroom with models.  I was successful (and lucky) enough to win the Senior class and Overall annual Club Championship for 1961.   I got my first taste of International competition when I qualified for the ‘62 Brasilian Team to the South American Championships in Sao Paulo.  I placed third there and was hooked on planes for life!

I brought my modeling interest back to the States in ‘62 and concentrated on one type of international competition (team racing).  I tried, and failed, to make the U.S. World Championship team in ‘63 and ‘65. Following a 10 year hiatus for college and job, I tried, and failed again, in ‘77 but went to England as a spectator any way in ‘78.

Things improved as a result of that first-hand observation and my partner and I were the #1 U.S. team from ‘78 to ‘84.  We flew in the ‘80 (Poland), ‘82 (Sweden), and ‘84 (USA) World Championships and placed second in ‘80 (should have won), forth in ‘82, and sixth in ‘86.   Marriage and kids put an end to our active racing but I continued to be associated with subsequent teams as Assistant Team Manager (Hungary and China) and then as Team Manager (Russia and Sweden).  The trips overseas were fun and I particularly anticipated meeting up with the Brasilians who always suffered through my practicing Portugues on them.  In China they asked me to be their Team Manager when their TM could not attend at the last minute.  We had a good time with that and their team did very well.  The Associação Brasileiro de Aeromodelismo rewarded my (brief) service for them with an Honorary membership (member #1!).

It’s easy to see that modeling has been a large and fun part of my life.  It all started in Rio as a result of EA class mates showing me the ropes and the Brasilian modelers helping me along (in spite of my eventually discovering the wonderful attractions of Arpoador).  As a result, I have many wonderful friends around the world who visit me on their way to the Mickey Mouse Shrine in Orlando.  And, I got to see a lot of interesting real estate too.  Not bad for a snot-nosed, newly-minted Carioca kid looking for something to do!

Letter from April Stirling:

I arrived in Rio and to EA an embittered little rebel with unconscious cause.  I had a huge beehive hairdo, a little suitcase purse (all the rage in Tucson) and some wild red and white Keds that matched a dress of mine with seven hundred petticoats underneath it.  An Arizona geek, I'm sure. 

Rio changed me, not that I got any nicer.  However, I no longer put clothes into the washing machine, ironed, or washed dishes.  I no longer whined over my weekly allowance with extra for baby-sitting.

We stayed at the Miramar Hotel for six months and the service, meals and luxury made me into a lazy, spoiled, rapturous girl.  I could buy cigarettes without running out of stores, could smoke in the school's Official Smoking Area, had a cruzeiro allowance that Dad never understood to be outrageous (he never kept up with $ inflation down there), and found friends and an entirely fabulous HUGE city to lose myself in.

Though I never felt totally part of a clique, I was accepted into every group periodically in a friendly and kind way. I hung out at Virginia O'Donnell's apartment and with her family, and found the same kindness in Barbara Moorby's home.  I cannot thank them enough for all that they did.

I remember Jimmy Jaffre was the King of the school, and I don't remember him ever attending classes!  He took messages around from the office to classes as though he ran the school.  The Godfather.

Julie Burnett passed me so many notes that I constantly lived in fear of getting busted, while friends tried to get me to let them see my test answers.  Abaete and Jan and others started humming "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in Mrs. Domotor's class one day, and it turned into a real (with jungle sound effects) song for about two minutes.  Mrs. Domotor pounded knuckles on her desk and then tapped something bigger on it, and finally just shook her head in disbelief.

Mrs. Collares chased us all, and harassed us all into being better citizens as she followed us around the halls shouting out insults and threats in her own wonderful way.  She is my favorite teacher in the Universe.   She taught me Portuguese and some real discipline.  I can see her easily and hear her by just closing my eyes.  I remember when she let some idiot conjugate a bad word into the past imperfect or something just to let him participate in class.  This was around Carnaval time and she must have been influenced by that.

Julie Burnett pulled the sink off of the wall, sort of, in the girls' bathroom on the second floor (sat on it, I believe) and then directed the waterfall pipe out the window and down onto the futebol de salão court below.

Kent Pereles shouted out how much he hated me for constantly bumming cigarettes from him in the Smoking Area (his were American).  I will miss him forever, may he rest in peace.  He was my third best friend at EA.

The food in the cafeteria was the best at any school in the universe, as far as I was concerned.  I often finished other people's plates for them and ballooned because of it.

Buying paper and pencils at Menezi's was fun, like a part of the school.  Location, location, location.  Joe's Bar around the corner from school had great sandwiches and fries and Guaraná.  And I spent enough for Cabral, the candy vendor, to retire in Rio!  I would send money down from study hall (3rd floor), on a string and he would send up a little box of my favorites, laughing and singing.  He knew what I liked and began to put together my purchase even as I walked up to him after school.

I remember eating stale amendoins and potato chips from the class concession, and as I got older, sipping the Cokes with labels from Arabia, etc., in the other class concession.  Recycling, a Brasilian way of life.

Mrs. Stanton's plays were fun to watch, my first ever, and the school parties weren't that bad, tho' my class usually said so.

Mr. Becht, trying to get Barbara Moorby up the rope to the ceiling of the gym was something to see.  He was so strong and forceful and she was so adamantly against it.  She frustrated him more than anyone I know.  She never even tried.  "Para que?", she would ask.  "Eu não," she would say and huff.

We had a "tamanco" strike over wearing them after bathing after gym class, a new school directive.  We wore them LOUDLY all over the school one day.

The visitors from Other schools for our track meets and our class trip to Paquetá, watching Abaetê play soccer, watching the Bashes play basketball, trying out for the cheerleaders and failing miserably.  Ya gotta go Panthers, yeah man......

Helping on election (USA) night at the Embassy, sitting in Kent's house and not believing the news about Kennedy's death, ditching school with Barbara, and stealing rides from Virginia's chauffeur, Soares, when he would see me walking.  We almost gave him a heart attack once while driving eight or more kids home from a party.  Mark Turner sat on the hood of the car crowing like a rooster and then jumped off, while Soares begged us to be civilized.  Mark kicked over a Macumba candle on a corner, and Soares began to cross himself and pray.  We were bad.

The atmosphere at the school (of family) and the City of Rio allowed me to get over most of my rebellion.  I was footloose and fancy free, buses very cheap, fast, and there every time I needed one to go anywhere.  I explored and felt at home there.   Saddened by realities unseen in Tucson, people lying circled by candles dying on the sidewalks and the poverty, but there was not better place for me to go through teen angst than there.

I thank all of the people who suffered my growing pains there and allowed me to wander free.

EA's reunions feel like family reunions to me.  I hear others saying that reunions are a disappointment and a pain.  Not so.  Mine have been fun and joyful and Much Much Much too brief.  I need a month to catch up, to apologize for forgotten slights and meanness, to get to know better these people who carried me through those years.  I miss the teachers at the reunions.  I think that I want to win the lottery and pay for everyone to get together again, one more time, to hug and kiss their dear faces and memories.

I would be another (and unrecognizable to me now), person if I hadn't been there.  I would be less color filled and joyous inside without those myriad memories and experiences.  The food, the music, the beaches and transportation, the luxury and gaiety, Carnaval and bikinis, and the people, the many people who touched me and made me lighten up!!!

I wanted my children to attend the school, to KNOW.......what I know.......about the world and the people in it....

Bruce Stirling:

If I think long and hard enough, I can take myself right back into the Lower School halls in Leblon circa 1961.  I can still hear Avi Rosanes reciting love poems to Eva Koslowska in the fourth grade [note in the links how Avi's hands rest just above Eva's shoulders].  I remember playing my first game of "Spin the Bottle" at Debbie Erling's party, and jumping up and running out the back door when it was my turn to kiss Barbara Harmon (nothing against Barbara).  I remember being totally infatuated with my fourth grade teacher, Miss Vera Martins.  Back then, dodge ball was where it was at on the playground, and I thought I was pretty good.  I got better as the years continued.   I read every "OZ" book there was, along with Tom Swift, Jr., Brains Benton, and The Hardy Boys, and I went to Acampamento Araras somewhere near Petropolis.  I remember my four sisters teaching  me to do the "Twist."

When Suzy Kent's mother asked my mom if I could walk Suzy home from school, I remember pretending I didn't want to.  But I could hardly wait for school to end everyday, just so I could be with Suzy.  I remember when she no longer needed my help getting home, and learning from someone that she'd been hit by a car in front of Menezi's.  Since we lived nearby, the duty fell upon me to report her condition to the class.  After all, I was Mayor of Thaiville, the name Mrs. French gave our sixth grade class ("thai" meant "free").   I still remember visiting her house, and visiting her in her room, where her mother showed me all of Suzy's injuries.  I carried out my duty.

I remember making one of the fastest "carrinhos de rolimã" ever to race down the "ziguezague" (Rua Aperana) at the end of Leblon.  We scurried all over Leblon looking for any place that could sell us ballbearing wheels (my brother scored one again in 1987, which is now prominently displayed on his desk in his law office).  My brother and I knew every spot on the lower half of Dois Irmaos.  We'd been stopped up there by the Radio Patrulha as we carried our BB guns unescorted up into the morro.   I remember debating the merits of a BB gun fight from opposite sides of the Leblon Canal with Ricky Smith and the Wakeman brothers, David and Ricky.  Ricky Smith had a new CO2 powered pistol, so we backed out.  We were outgunned.  I remember my brother shooting me with the very first shot from his brand new BB gun on Christmas morning.  I recall I was busy building a tree house in one of the huge fig trees that lined Rua Aperana in 1963 when Kennedy was shot.  I remember once we were about to be mugged when my brother picked up some handy dog doo-doo and chased after the would be muggers.   Very effective deterrent.  And I remember when Randy Weyland, Rick Newberg, and I went to see "Os Reis do Yê Yê Yê" ( A Hard Days Night - with the Beatles).  After the movie, three 11-year-old gringos were seen running down the street pretending they were being chased by fans.

At the end of each year, the class would go on a picnic.  I remember going to the Parque da Cidade, which to a desert rat from Arizona seemed like a tropical paradise.  Our class also picnicked at Caiçaras, where we had a sailboat (Kiki) on the Lagoa.  I remember our monkey leaping to freedom from the upstairs veranda every other day into the elephant grass on Dois Irmaos.  I remember when the Enterprise, Constellation, and the Kitty Hawk came to Rio, the Aliança Para O Progresso, Voice of America, and the time the American showed up with a "jet pack" on his back and blasted up into the air.

Most of all, I remember Rio being a place of great parties, from the fourth grade through the time I left in the seventh.   It seemed like there was a party every week.  Those were good times.   Chubby Checker, the Beatles, Rita Pavone, and Jorge Ben  ruled.  The "Twist" never died out in Rio the whole time we were there, although the "surf" scene was making inroads.   The cooler kids were all going steady (even some of the un-cool kids), but I hadn't quite figured that out yet.  Reading comics, playing the Game of Life at Randy Weyland's, climbing Dois Irmãos, going to the beach, and carrinhos de rolimã were cool enough for me.

I could go on, but suffice to say, EA friends and Rio made my elementary and junior high school years very memorable.  The memories of those times are too special to simply forget.  I simply wouldn't be me without my EA experience, Portuguese, musica brasileira, vocês, e aquelas pedras . . . .

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This Home Page was created Sunday, February 09, 1997 by Stirling Communications

Revised: 01 Mar 2005 20:46:13 -0500 .