Chuck Tappert
25 Justamere Drive, Ossining, New York10562
914-941-5426,
You may remember me as the guy who designed the class pins shown above. I have often wondered if I would have gotten to know you better if it had not been for an experience I had my first day at Central. Going into the lunchroom, I was overwhelmed by the noise, bedlam, and the lack of familiar faces. I recall sitting by myself and whatever I ate (possibly a hotdog) didn’t agree with me. That was the first and last time I ate lunch or even entered the cafeteria during our four years. Instead, I went to the library and did my homework for the day. Looking back, I suspect that the free time and camaraderie of the lunchroom helped friendships develop, and I’ll always be curious about the fun I might have missed.
The teachers I remember most are Warshaw, the little tyrant, Shock, and Grimsley (Math); Schrage (Chemistry); Greenstein, with his oral recitations (History); Eissler and Cades (English); Knapp, Johnson, and the difficult Sandstrom (Latin); Lyster, the fencing coach, Montgomery, the cross-country and tennis coach, and Snyder (Physical Education). Disheroon, I never had as a teacher, but he wrote for me, with his hand on my knee, recommendations for college. Although he didn’t know me, his recommendations were glowing, and he would write the same nonsense for any student in return for his wandering hand. But they worked because I did get into college.
As for classmates, just to mention a few, I sat next to Bob Tabachnikov in homeroom and with his charisma and story-telling ability I thought he would make a great orator in Congress. I thought Murray Eisenberg would solve famous math problems and Mike Richter would win a Nobel Prize. Larry Udell was a clown who would look over anyone’s shoulder to get an answer in an exam – so he was either going to be a successful comic or a criminal. Perhaps those I knew best were teammates on sports teams: Jerry Batt and Paul Cooperstein from cross-country, Ed Haggans from tennis, Herb Scheufele and Ted Kaufman from fencing, and Jon Schwartz from both tennis and fencing. If I had eaten lunch, however, I might have gained enough weight to have played football and gotten to know an entirely different group of athletes. As it was, it’s amazing that I had enough energy to do the sports that I did.
Although I was rather “out of it” at Central, I was reasonably successful in my subsequent academic and professional career: B.S. from Swarthmore, M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell, 26-year career at IBM’s Research Center, seven-year teaching position at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and currently in my sixth year of teaching at Pace University. I also have two children from my first wife and am happily married to my second. Since I’m perhaps a late bloomer, I may continue teaching until they ask me to leave. For career details you can visit my website (above).