MEN’S CLUB NEWS
The Men’s Club: WE'RE BAAAAAAK!
Breakfast is Back at Buffy’s!
MEN’S CLUB BREAKFAST AT BUFFY’S:
EVERY TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s last collaboration.
The song “Edelweiss,”
which our moderator played for us,
was their last composition together.
Oscar Hammerstein passed away at
65 years of age one year after “The
Sound of Music” opened. Richard
Rodgers died 19 years later at the
age of 77.
As usual, after the lecture Toby
opened the mike for questions and
comments which proved to be interesting
as well as insightful. The next
morning during breakfast at Buffy’s,
the men could not have been more
complimentary regarding the lecture.
The melodies that were heard
really resonated with them.
Jerry told us that he will try to get
Richard to do another lecture in the
future. I’m sure that if that entails
him having to fly to Omaha, Jack
Sevita would be more than happy
to write the check. Ha Ha Ha!
BY HOWARD ARKIN
It had been almost a year-and-a-half since
our last club breakfast and you could sense
the excitement as the first members began to
arrive at Buffy’s at 9 am on June 1st.The wit and
wisdom of the club would soon be on display for
all to see and hear.
Some have compared us to the Algonquin
Round Table of bygone days. The main difference
is that we have more members and our table has
more of a rectangular shape. We had a nice crowd
for the first three breakfasts, which included a few
new members and some newly arrived Florida
expatriates.
As usual, the discussions were very eclectic,
ranging from elections (both board and mayoral)
to the collapse of the Knicks. The Men’s Club
was well represented in the board election having
three members, Richard Levine, Barry Berman,
Henry Greenberg, and Rhonda Schorr, the wife
of club member Jason Schorr, running.
It was good to play the Guess the Picture game
again. This is a game in which Artie Rose shows
us a picture that he has put on his iPhone and
we guess the location of the picture. I'm still
Waiting for their oatmeal! Photo by Toby
Horowitz
basking in my glory having guessed correctly
the Canarsie Pier last year. I've had no success
since. Artie, have you taken any pictures of The
Statue of Liberty recently?
As many of you might know, the Men’s Club
breakfast of choice is Buffy’s world-renowned
oatmeal--in this case, the world extending to the
ATM machine in the arcade.
At our first breakfast, something went terribly
wrong. Arnold Feldman’s and Yale Kessler’s oatmeal
was too watery, as was mine. They chose
not to send theirs back as I did. When my perfect
lumpy replacement arrived I offered them a few
tablespoons of mine which they both graciously
accepted. All’s well that ends well.
During the COVID-19 pandemic we had the
misfortune to lose two of our breakfast regulars,
Howard Kimmel and Paul Detkin, who were
both gentlemen of the highest order and are
sorely missed.
The breakfasts are only the first step in the
club’s return to action. Toby and Jerry are planning
the return of bingo, our monthly dinners,
the BBQ and some other surprises. To those
members who have not attended any of the
breakfasts, consider this an invitation. We know
how to make the table longer.
Guest Lecturer Richard Knox -
Rodgers and Hammerstein
BY HOWARD ARKIN
On June 10, Richard Knox
made his second Zoom appearance
before the North
Shore Towers Men’s Club, speaking
from of all places, Omaha, Nebraska.
Richard discussed the careers
of musical composers Richard
Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.
These enormously talented men
were responsible for revolutionizing
Broadway musical theater, and their
collaboration gave us the shows that
ushered in Broadway’s Golden Age.
Their first show, and considered
by many to be their best, was
“Oklahoma,” opening on March
31, 1943, to overwhelming reviews.
The show ran for five years and in
1955 it reached the silver screen,
winning an Academy Award for the
musical duo. Their second success,
which followed two years later, was
“Carousel.” Despite having a tragic
plot, the songs were very uplifting.
Three of the most well-known are
“June is Busting Out All Over,” “If
I Loved You” and “You’ll Never
Walk Alone.” That same year they
gave us the music to “State Fair,”
this being the only time they wrote
a score directly for a film. The film
won an Oscar for the song “It Might
As Well Be Spring.”
Their last great hit of the 1940s was
“South Pacific,” which opened in
April of 1949. The story was based on
James Micheners’s book “Tales of the
South Pacific.” In one of the show’s
songs, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully
Taught,” they hit on issues of racism
and injustice. This would become a
theme in some of their later shows
as well. One such show was “The
King and I,” which opened in 1951
and ran for almost four years. Yul
Brynner’s performance in the show
was instrumental in launching his
film career. It also helped Gertrude
Lawrence revive hers.
In 1957, Rodgers and
Hammerstein did their only collaborative
effort for television
when “Cinderella” was televised
nationally. That same year they
wrote the score for “Flower Drum
Song.” Despite both productions
being deemed successful, neither
one delivered the blockbuster hit
songs as some of their other shows.
But wait, the best was yet to
come. One day actress Mary Martin,
a personal friend of Rodgers, came
to him with an offer of a show on
the condition that she was given the
leading role. The leading role was
that of a governess to an Austrian
aristocrat’s children during the time
of Hitler’s rise to power. As we all
know, Rodgers accepted the offer
and on the evening of November 16,
1959, “The Sound of Music” opened
at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater. Six
years later, “The Sound of Music”
movie followed, becoming the highest
grossing film of all time.
“The Sound of Music” was
AT 9AM.
Please join us for an in-person chance to
mingle with some of your fellow members
while enjoying breakfast or just a cup of
coffee. Come and enjoy comradeship after a
long withdrawn period of in-person activities
caused by COVID. See ya there, Toby
July 2021 ¢ NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER 19