by Mary Costello

Maxine Schneider was and is truly as nice on the inside as she is pretty on the outside. She is sincerely interested in people and likes them, although she is no naive polyanna. Max makes you feel that you have value as a person. She has made me feel that way as long as I have known her, which is from about age 14, when graduates from my grammar school merged with those from several others to become the Class of '58 at Southside High School. Maxine came from a place called Southport, which many of us would have considered the sticks. There she attended Pennsylvania Avenue School.

Unlike many of our SHS alumni, Maxine stayed in Elmira, married, raised five children, worked, and in general lived an active life . Emily Dickinson felt that the soul was the traveler and that you did not have to leave home to experience life's fulfillments. Maxine proves her right.

I have seen Maxine over the years at our class reunions and often in between as I visited my family and friends in Elmira, and I remain as comfortable with her now as I always have been. I can't specifically remember meeting Max, but all of a sudden many of us became part of what we called the gang in those innocent fifties. Our gang consisted of girls who shared ideas and experiences as we traveled through the SHS years. No Tommy Hilfiger baggy clothes for us, but rather poodle skirts, saddle shoes, bermuda shorts, etc. for the girls and crew cuts and crew neck sweaters for the guys, except for those rare few who dared to sport DAs. Remember those? Although we were part of a large crowd of girls, we also had separate friends from different classes and groups. Maxine, especially, had a wide variety of friends and acquaintances in those years.

I remember Maxine's laugh, which was more like an infectious giggle than a guffaw,. She appreciated humor and humorists, especially our class clowns . You Tom Quinns and Mike Murtaughs out there know who you are! She was also a good listener and conversationalist and we would spend hours talking about whatever we considered the serious issues of the day. We talked endlessly, both in person and on the telephone. What would a teenager do without a phone? I shudder to think.

I have been talking on the phone with Maxine again lately. All these many years later we talk easily about things that interest us both. Maxine Schneider Manning is a great person and I have been blessed to have had her as a friend all these years. Because she is not one to talk much about herself, it was really fun twisting her arm to get her to agree to be the Whatever Feature this time.

The Early Years: 

Mary: Maxine, can you remember your grammar school classmates at good old Pennsylvania Avenue School?
Maxine: Sure. There was Bernadine Butler (of Pat Boone Oh Oh Oh fame), Donna Zeigler (Oh, Donna...Paul Anka?), Martha Miller, Diane Lampila, Sue Bailey, Don Guyer, Bill Middaugh, Sandy Schaef, Skeet Merrill, and Brenda Adams. Also Sandra Auge, Bob Blanchard, Larry Bohl, Sharon Dando, Janet Denison, Warren Hill, Laurie Kinkade, Dale Leonard, Russ MacDowall, Joyce Mattison, Don Moffat, Gerry Smith, and Mary Vaughn. Pretty good memory, huh.
Mary: I am impressed. What did you kids all do for fun out there in the country? Were there cows and chickens out there?
Maxine: No, we weren't that far out. We used Seely Creek a lot (we called it the crick) for skating and swimming. Some of us were brave enough to jump off the railroad bridge off of Caton Ave. (I will never get used to its being called Cedar Street).
Mary: Were you one of the brave ones?
Maxine: No, I was a chicken.
Mary: Me too. That was one thing we had in common--a strong sense of self-survival.  No interest in life or limb threatening actions. What else did you do out there?
Maxine: When we were old enough, we wandered a bit farther from home and went bowling at Dixie Bowling Alleys and ate at the Dixie Barbecue.
Mary: They became two of my favorite places when I got into high school. I could never figure out exactly why that area was called Bulkhead. Maybe someone out there knows.
Maxine: I remember we used to run along the top of the Seely Creek dike, which extended quite a ways. We also belonged to a girl scout troop out there, which was lead by Bernadine's mother. I loved that. We square danced at the Pennsylvania Avenue Methodist Church as part of our physical education classes.
Mary: As I recall, Pennsy Ave. School was all concrete outside. Right?
Maxine: Right, but we had great fun in the school yard anyway, and didn't really care if it was concrete or grass.

The Southside years.

Mary: And then came time to continue on with the growing up process and move on out of that relatively protected environment into the big bad city of Elmira and the blackboard jungle of Southside High School
Maxine: You exaggerate.
Mary: I do indeed, but the movie Blackboard Jungle gave many of us our first taste of rock & roll: Bill Haley and the Comets doing Rock Around the Clock. I will never forget the impact it had on most of us in the theater. Kids yelled, clapped, and stamped their feet. Wow, "hail, hail, rock and roll." But on to your high school experiences, not mine. You all had a long distance to go to school. Did you walk?
Max: Mostly. We always walked home but sometimes got a ride in with one of our fathers in the morning. We did the avenue every day
Mary: After a while, we all cruised the avenue. We logged a lot of walking time on that street, going from Pitts to Dixie and back. I wonder why.
Max: I wonder too. Maybe it had something to do with looking for guys.
Mary: I think so. Anyway, we managed to get some exercise while we were looking. Who were your favorite teachers?
Max: I had four teachers who meant a lot to me in those days and their memories still mean a lot. I thought Mr. Pazahanick was a great teacher. He didn't intimidate me, but I knew I had to work. He made history come alive for me.
Mary: For me, too. I really liked the way he treated kids. He had just the right way of talking to us, teasing but never mean-spirited.
Max: After I married and had kids, his daughter and one of my daughters became best friends. I saw him often then as a fellow parent. I still run into him. Other teachers that I liked were Miss Bower, Mrs. Lund, and Miss Brookfield. These three women represented the old style of dedicated women teachers, who were proud of their vocation and who took their responsibilities very seriously. They must have worked very hard. I liked my other teachers also, but the four I just mentioned were special.
Mary: What did you like to do in those days outside of the classroom?
Max: I liked going to football and basketball games and, of course, going to Pitts for lunch and after school. I remember having hot fudge sundaes. In the early years, I used to go to Friday Nighters at the Y and dance. We met kids from all over the city. Did you go there?
Mary: Once in a while, but Father Toole, the pastor at St. Mary's, did not want us to go there because we would get into trouble. One night he came over there and dragged out the former and present St. Mary's kids. I wasn't there that night but heard about it. Those were the good old days, right? Imagine someone daring to do that now to kids!
Max: No, I can't imagine that. After we grew away from Friday Nighters, I liked going to school dances in the gym. Mostly, the guys stood around watching the girls jitterbug. Then they would get up the nerve to ask us to slow dance. Sometimes, they would ask to walk us home, which was great if it was someone you liked who asked.
Mary: I seem to recall that there was someone you liked who asked. I believe it was someone called Tom Manning.
Max: I met Tom at a school dance and he walked me home.
Mary: Was that it for you? I don't recall your dating anyone else.
Max: I dated other guys a little bit but never seriously. Mostly, it was Tom from sophomore year on.

Life after high school:

Eventually, we all had to move on with our lives and make decisions and choices about how we wanted to live them. In her own words, Maxine tells us how she has spent the decades since graduation.

I worked for the Telephone Company for three years after graduation. I got married (yes, of course, to Tom Manning) and stayed home after my first baby was born. I had four kids in five years and then had my fifth and last child in 1972, the year of the Flood. Our house was badly damaged during the flood, with water almost up to the second floor. We lived in a trailer for about 8 months and dug out the mud and muck, wearing hip boots, etc. What a great maternity outfit! Mike was born in November, just four months following the flood. It was not much fun living in a mobile home with a husband, four growing children, and a new baby. We had to gut the entire downstairs of our house and start over. Amazingly, we got through it and are still living in that house today.  
I went back to work in 1979, this time at my old alma mater, Southside High School. One big and highly noticeable change from our days, though, was that the school had now moved to a new building on a different site. I will have been working there now for 19 years this coming June and will probably continue to work there for another four years. I plan to retire when my oldest grandchild graduates from there. The cycle continues.  

Besides the new building and location, there are other noticeable changes in the school from the fifties, when we all went there. Lunches are closed now to keep the students in the school. No more running off to Pitts, which isn't there anymore anyway. (What would we have all done without Pitts?) We have a police officer on duty during the school day to deal with any problems or fights that break out.. We have two school psychologists and a drug & alcohol counsellor on the staff. Also, we now have five guidance counsellors to help the students with post high school opportunities. Kids in general are much less respectful now than they were in the past; however, there are still many fine and polite students still at Southside. I work with Tom Hall, who as you all know is a Class '58 alumnus. Tom is a teacher in the English Department. He is an excellent teacher, who has great rapport with his students and a wonderful way to get across the material in his courses. Tom and I are now probably two of the oldest people there.  

I now have six grandchildren: 4 girls and 2 boys, ages 5 thru 14. They are an absolute joy to me and I love spending time with them. I feel lucky to have school hours so I can get out early in the afternoon and be there for my grandchildren.  

In my spare time, I am learning to play golf. Laura Fanning Begeal took up the sport after her retirement and is now teaching me to play. She gave me her old clubs, which are like new to me. We went up to Harris Hill and played the 3-hole course there. I'm thinking about taking it up seriously now. Tom plays golf all the time when the weather is good, and this will give us another shared
interest.  

I still get together with some old friends, like Bev Park Moffe, Barb Tremaine Sanford, Bernadine Butler, Mary Costello, and my golf pro, Laura. We are all still good friends and value the opportunities to spend time together.   I'm looking forward to seeing everyone this summer at our class reunion. We can talk more and fill in the missing details of each other's lives. 

Editor's Note: If you would like to correspond with Maxine, her E-mail address is mmanning@mail.sctboces.org, and you can also FAX her at Southside High School (607) 735-3209.

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