From: Stan Cusack [mailto:smcusack@yahoo.com.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 2 September 2009 10:50 AM
To: scribepj@tpg.com.au
Cc: pootnannie@optusnet.com.au
Subject: Class of '69 forty year reunion

Dear Philip, Peter and Anna

I thank Maurice, Greg and Linda and Peter and Anna for their support.  I am going to disappoint you  a tad.  The years are rolling on and I have health limitations, so I am coming to your celebrations for a brief time. I will sit down in the Blue Gum and have a meal at 6:30pm and leave to catch a train at 8.30pm at Hornsby back to Strathfield to catch a bus home.

I do not need any transport assistance thanks as I want you all to enjoy the evening and I like public transport as it keeps me in touch with a very different world we now live in.  I am just back from living in China for four years.  I cannot return as the Chinese Govt has placed an age limit of 60 on foreign teachers and I am slightly passed that. I had my last "City to Surf"' race a few weeks ago to prove the Chinese  wrong.  They won though. Never again would I dare to perform in it!

It will be wonderful to meet John Sheely, John Nicholson, Pat Thompson and maybe Ron Gow and any other former teachers that you guys can rustle-up.  I retain very fond memories of Leo's, the students and teachers that I worked with.

I do want to hear that you are having a fulfilling life as you were an exuberant student at school. Your one downfall was to think that maybe you didn't have to be an academic like your other brothers.  Sport was your forte.  Some of us have to be different.

You probably will not recognise me as I grow old gracefully, a wish I have.

Thanks for coming to Des' Kelly's Requiem.  I was in China at the time and have not got over his death yet.  I had lived with him for eleven years, had a wonderful time with him, but I have found out since that he had much sorrow in his life.

Blessings on all your families, Philip. Are you all grand fathers or merely fathers I should say "partners" these days?

Oh dear, the thought that you and your class mates may have changed frightens me.

I sincerely hope your wives/partners are present so that I can check you all out and relive the old times.

Stan