Charles Van Norstrand

[Data...@aol.com]

Annette,

 

I checked the obituraries at the Adriance Library, and Charlie died in September 1984 after a long illness - cancer, I think it was leukemia.

 

He left a wife Karen and two daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, and worked as a sales representative for Prudential Life Insurance.

 

I did see Charlie several times when he was ill. He was counseling others about coping, and I can only hope to remain so positive in the face of such adversity.

 

Does anyone have a picture of Charlie playing the guitar?  Also, I suspect he was the only classmate to suit up with the NY Giants.

 

I know many others have special memories of Charlie as well.

 

Hooker

 

[Michael Fine]

Indelible memories of Charlie include his inimitable performance of Wipeout on the violin, his violin solo at our Krieger School graduation, and of course the day his father brought a huge toy fire truck to school. First grade?

[Bruce Wright]

I have a number of pictures of Charlie playing the guitar. We both moved from violin  to rock.  Actually Freddie Gumear got  us started asking us play for a  New Year's Eve party.  At that point we only knew  about three songs “Wipeout”  being one of them but once they got drunk we could play  those three songs all evening ! We decided that while Mrs. Dubois ( violin teacher?) was probably rolling over in her grave we started a rock group. Charlie on guitar, me on keyboards and occasionally on base, Brian McMahon on guitar, and Freddie on drums. We initially called ourselves The Pagans, then The Strangers, and finally The Dutchess Counts.  More impressive than Charlie playing Wipeout on the violin, during a high school dance we surprised those folks, who did not know that we started our music training playing violin, by doing a violin duet, of Norwegian Wood, and As Tears Go By. Of course we followed that up with a  wild rage by Charllie. We bought a cheap guitar intending to break it  by throwing it against the brick wall of the gym after a feedback solo  by Charlie.  The good news/bad news: the guitar didn't break that time so we had use it three or four more times before it finally bit the dust.

 

  Unfortunately the pictures I have of Charlie playing guitar are on 35mm slides.

 

 

 

 

Bruce Wright

WRIGHT & ASSOCIATES

Improving Human Resource Effectiveness

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[rvan...@gmail.com]

Hi,
I’m his daughter.