WHAT IN THE NAME OF SELMA SALOWAY!

Bellport at the height of Rush Hour

On Friday nights, while in High School, Ernie ‘Butch’ Mancuso and I would meet at his house, all slicked up and ready to go. Where to was always the question. We would play the latest 45’s and talk about classmates and then off to Patchogue we would head. We usually caught a ride from someone, or else we hitched it into the big town. Coming from a small town like Bellport, the only thing going on was stoplight on the 4 corners. It did change into two different colors, so we would bet on what the next color was going to be. Sometimes we won and sometimes we lost.

Holiday traffic during rush hour

But going to Bellport High School was an experience. There was the Boy’s Room Choir, Miss. Auchtolooney, the Biology teacher from Hell and Scotland, Miss Wagar the school nurse, Mrs. Keiller the librarian and our favorite: Mr. Gabrellian, the social studies teacher.

Miss Auchtoloonie was an exchange teacher from Scotland, and when she was finished with us as students, fled back to Scotland where she must have joined an Anti-American cabal. She had a high rate of student punishment. It seems whenever one of us was caught talking or not doing what she wished, she sent us off to the library for punishment! Soon you could find the 3^rd period Biology class gathered in the library, happily chatting away, with Mrs. Keiller trying to maintain quiet and discipline. There was a song out then called ‘Tequila.’ Whenever the old girl went by, under our breath we would exaggerate: “Tequila!”

Miss Wagar was an elderly woman, slight and grey, and it seems we as students made her greyer yet. If anything, she probably loved kids but was very strict about the rules. One day my buddy Rich Scaretta was in a gym mishap, and flew off the ropes we were swinging on. He went flying off the rope at its height and slammed into the concrete block wall. We all watched in amazement as he literally slid down the wall with a lump on his forehead. The coach immediately took concern and told me to take him down to the nurse. Miss Wagar asks him how he felt and what happened. Rich says he was tired and let loose of the ropes by accident. She looks at Rich and says: “Did you have breakfast this morning?” He replies: “No.” She says: “What would happen if I didn’t put gas in my car, how would I get to school?” she inquired. Rich looked up at her, in all sincerity and said: “You’d take a bus?”

In the course of all this was an emotional gentleman who loved to teach. He was a teacher’s teacher, but he had one flaw. He cried easily, and with that had a rather large proboscis. This was the famous Mr. Gabrelian or Gabe or God forgive us all: “The Beak”. Once during a PTA meeting at the high school, a set of parents came up to a few students who were standing in the hall and asked; “Can you direct us to Mr. Beaks classroom?” Without forethought they did, and hung around for the intro’s.

But the boys’ population started with your name and led the charge to insanity or should I say your mother’s name? What I mean is you were called by your mother’s name, if you were one of the guys. Picture a 6’5” bruiser named Mary! Now picture him responding to your calling him that, civil like, followed up by his calling you by YOUR mother’s name, if you are a guy.

For four years they tried to get out of me my mother’s real name, but couldn’t. It is such an odd name that I had to hide it. Someone went into the phone book and found my Aunt’s name, which was Tessie. They called me Tessie, but it was a lot better than what they could have called me.

P.S. Selma Saloway was an inside joke between me and Ernie Mancuso!