A young Saul advising the actives... Circa ????	Albert Ratner and Saul Isler 94

Roughly two months has passed since the reunion but I still bask in its incredibly warm glow. Looking out from the lectern at 200+ fellow BATs, some old enough to actually be others' great grandfathers, gave me a feeling of the club's posterity I've never quite felt before.
For the first time I came to truly believe in the reality of Bob Bachman's prophetic 1934 dream of "a real permanent club carrying on among men out in the world." Not because the present proves it but because the future promises it; a club not just for us but for our sons and their sons as well. For the first time I came to believe there actually could be a 100th reunion of passives and - why not? - actives as well. At this writing a committee is meeting to discuss the future - the permanence - of BAT. It could very well come about.
And if it does, so could a 100th reunion. If both happen, I mean to be an active member once more...and haul my 95 year old bones right back up to that lectern for another look-see at my brothers. I do hope you'll join me.

What exactly is BAT? That’s a question easier to ask than answer because there’s no way to start the answer with “It’s like…”

BAT is not like any club that I – or you - have ever known or heard of.

You’re likely not old enough to remember the heyday of high school fraternities and sororities before school boards banished them in the 60s. A fraternity then was something to briefly enjoy and quickly forget about. What we were supposed to remember for life was our college fraternity. But BAT somehow had became the one that stuck.

For proof, come to the reunion.

According to founder Bob Bachman, BAT began on a warm summer evening in 1929 when he and Dick Lustig were sitting on the front steps of their apartment building. “Why don’t we form a club?” one asked the other. So the two called up friends Harvey Lederman and Bernie Goldstein and the next day the club’s first meeting was held at Bachman’s apartment and the name was selected.

“No one has been more surprised and gratified at the subsequent development of this little club of four than the original gang.” Bob made this statement in the 25th reunion BattyHoo in 1954. He returned to attend the 65th in 1994 at the age of 82. Dr. Bachman is no longer with us, but his “little club” most certainly is.

Again, look around you at the reunion.

What does it mean to be a BAT? Just before that 65th reunion I received a letter from Dick Lustig. So help me God (or, as we used to say, on my BAT honor), he wanted to bequeath $100,000 to fund a yearly scholarship for “the most deserving graduating BAT.” He died within a month, unable to put his desire in writing.

Dick Lustig, at 17 and at 82, knew what being a BAT meant.

BAT itself was supposed to die with all the other fraternities and sororities that thrived way back then. As a prelude to total banishment in the 60s, the school board demanded that clubs come above ground and take on an adult adviser or fold their tents. So the club asked me to become its adviser. I attended meetings, oversaw dances and stags and made the club face up to the trouble they endlessly got into. The club continued to exist for the same reason – peer support and approval – that all clubs, even today’s gangs, exist. But the times they were a-changing. Heights was changing. And so, too, was BAT. Begun when all clubs were of one religion, it became totally mixed as to religion. By thus changing, it was able to stay alive and thrive. Others had folded years before but BAT remained as a delicious anachronism. Still, though the active club faded away in the mid-90s, has it not remained?

Look around you at the reunion.

If BAT has had a unique purpose it has been to create and seal friendships for life. A perfect example: My brother Mark, a brother BAT (I was a legacy), still meets weekly for lunch with sometimes a dozen friends. Most are the BATs he slew the ladies with and played football for Heights with and went to Geneva and jail with and got drunk with over half a century ago. Most are…BATs.

Do you get my point?

If you do, come to the reunion.


Saul Isler, January ‘52