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| Cover art by Holman Davis, '59 |
My
dear alumni of Rockland High School and Rockland District High School. I am
sending this letter today in respect for all the memories you have of your four
years in high school. The Liz I mention was associated in some way with my old
Girl Scout Troop 6. If you know her or know how to contact her, please let me
know. I will tell you how it all turns out as soon as I hopefully get a reply
from these online vendors. Be aware of the scams out there.
An
Open Letter to
Classmates.com,
Memory
Lane Inc.,
And
a Girl Named Liz
When I opened the
package containing a reprint of my Rockland High School yearbook, the Cauldron
for 1959, I was very excited. I had lost my original copy from my graduating
class with all the personal notes from classmates in it in a flood four years
ago. I ordered this reprint from you, Classmates.com. The package itself came
from you, Memory Lane Inc.
As I flipped through the
familiar pages and viewed pictures of all the classmates and friends I had made
in high school, I was soon distraught. Why? Because there are five pages
containing the sports activities for that year that are missing. I am in at
least one of those sports pages as a member of our girls’ basketball team for
that year.
After consulting with a
classmate from 1959, we discerned that the pages should fall between the last
page of the Literary section and the graphic for the next section,
“Activities.” I have included copies of those pages for your reference. What
appears in the reprint you sent me in that space are 12 pages, front and back,
of ads and an autograph page. These ads should in fact appear in the back of
the book with the rest of the ads. In fact, one of the ads “The Wendell White
Studios” appears here and also in the back section of ads. Who would place ads
in the middle of any yearbook anyway?
Another question I have
is “Who is Liz” There are 13 personal messages for a girl named Liz, who I have
figured out was an under classmate that year. Obviously you copied Liz’
yearbook. Does she know about this? How did you get her yearbook? If Liz is
reading this, do you know that they in fact copied your yearbook and your
personal messages are now in the hands of me as well as anyone else who ordered
this book?
Today, Liz would be
around 68 years old if she is still alive. Perhaps the book was part of an
attic cleanout at one time and eventually fell into the hands of an
entrepreneur who said to himself, “Hey, maybe I can make some money here.”
In any event, I can live
with Liz’ messages in my reprint, however I would like my sports pages
included.
As someone who has been
in the printing and publishing business for most of her adult life, I can see
exactly how you put this book together. You obviously cut out each page,
remounted and scanned it for reprinting. Where was your pagination proofer or
do printers bother with such a very important member of their team anymore?
Memory Lane, I don’t
know if you actually produced this reprint or farmed it out to another vendor,
but as you and Classmates.com are the only people I dealt with, I ask you to
remedy this situation.
If you and Classmates
want to do the right thing towards me, here’s how you fix it. 1. Put the sports
pages where they belong between these two pages. That will leave you with 7
extra pages. As you must have an even number of pages in the book, I don’t mind
if you delete them altogether. Or: 2. Put the ads at the end of the book where
they belong. You may delete the “Autograph” page altogether if needed as no one
uses that page anyway. 3. Figure out for yourself how to even out the pages.
There are 2 extra blank pages you can play with at the end of the book.
I must tell you that
this letter will appear in my blog space at:
This blog “Beyond the
South End” currently has a readership of over 35,000. The letter will also
appear in my blog space on:
This blog space has even
more readers as it is a local newspaper that also appears online.
If you in fact “do the
right thing” and send me a corrected reprint of my Cauldron, I will publicly
thank you and I will also delete this letter from both online sites.
The Cauldron was printed every spring for close to 100 years or more.
As Rockland High School and Rockland District High School no longer exist, the
alumnus, including myself, consider our Cauldron
to be part of our personal history, a relic of our past if you will. I feel
as though you have disrespected all of us by producing such an inferior
reprint. I hope you will remedy the situation at once. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sandra Sylvester
Please
reply to www.southendstories@aol.com.
Also please forward this letter to Classmates.com as I do not have an address
for them. Thank-you.
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