On Thursday, Avital, 84, and Lewis, 90, met face-to-face for the first time in the auditorium at Wappingers Junior High School.

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He said in an interview that his favorite moment in school was cutting class to go play the piano in the auditorium.

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We went together to the high-school auditorium in our old car, Mother driving.

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Had Mingus, who died in 1979 age 56, been around earlier this year, he would have been exhilarated to have heard his music surging throughout the auditorium at the Manhattan School of Music in the latest contest, which coincided with what would have been Mingus's 90th birthday.

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Esther Peterson, the top-ranking woman in the Kennedy administration, asked an auditorium full of working-class high school girls in Los Angeles how many expected to have a "home and kids and a family, " and the room was full of waving hands.

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