Mystery Picture of March 8 a Mystery
John Bruckner, Jr. Knows Oyster Bay
John Bruckner, Jr. called to identify the mystery picture from the March 1, Enterprise Pilot. He said, “It’s Meyerdierks Country Store on Route 25A, and 106 in East Norwich.” Mr. Bruckner is the Oyster Bay High School fencing coach. He was pleased to see the coverage his team received recently in the newspaper. Tom Gould, OB-EN school district media specialist, wrote a wonderful story of how well the fencing team is doing.
Mr. Bruckner said he first saw the building when he worked at the Old BethpageVillage Restoration. “I worked at that general store, Layton’s. It was fun and interesting learning about history and knowing that the building came from the Oyster Bay-East Norwich area.” He said he recognized the photo three weeks ago and finally decided, “I’m going to call.”
The Enterprise Pilot just received a story about one of his fencers, Jack Greenfield. Mr. Bruckner said, “Jack recently competed for the high school and won the competition and is All County. Jack is a great fencer and in the Olympic trials, with 262 fencers competing, he came in 78 nationally last year as a 16-year old. Only the top four get to go to the Olympics. Jack has been accepted to MIT in the fall.” And for fencing itself, he said, “They call fencing physical chess. If you know your strategy, it’s just a matter of how you play. It is mind as well as athleticism.
It’s surprising too. One of my fencers, a girl on the team, her mom came to the first meet this year and said, ‘My sister was a fencer.’ She is so proud of her. Lots of the time it stays in the family. I’ve ended up having several brothers and sisters on the team. They see them fence and they think ‘I can do that too. I have to try it.’”
He said, “Anyone can start at any time. It’s great for your cardio vascular system. Remember my old coach, John Halasz, he was 84 years old and still fencing. He started from when he was 7 years old in Hungary. He taught me, so I am just passing it on.”
Fencing is in Mr. Bruckner’s family too. “My three kids fenced. My oldest was captain of her championship team in 2000; my son was an All County fencer and ranked no. 3 in all the northeastern states when he was 16 years old. The youngest was a captain and graduated in ’05.The big bites and they go after it!”
Virginia Slutter also called and suggested the older house in the March 1 issue was possibly the Boys Academy which is currently the Rectory at Christ Church. When she heard it was Meyerdierks, she said, “I know Thelma Turpoe, her parents had an apartment over the podiatrist office of Dr. Gottlieb about 20 years ago. My children played with her growing up. Thelma married Mr. Meyerdierks.”
Billy Minicozzi, too, called and guessed that the photograph in the March 8 issue was a scoreboard. That is an interesting guess, but not quite the answer we were hoping for. On a sports note, he said quarterback Peyton Manning has been let go. He played for 13 years with the Colts, and won a Super Bowl in 2006. Billy was hoping he would go to the Dolphins or maybe the Jets. The Broncos have been talking to him.
It’s been a great Mystery Picture. It’s really fun when we get to chat with someone and learn something new. We liked the analogy that fencing is like chess. That puts it into a whole new perspective.
– DFK
