Phyllis Gates checks in with memories!

A very busy 40 (can it REALLY be that long!) years.

Mills College for 2 years, then Univ. or Oregon 2 years, graduating in 1962. Married 1963, 1st daughter 1963, 2nd daughter 1965, 3rd daughter 1968, divorced 1970. Re-married in 1973 and moved to Portland, OR, area and have been here ever since. 2nd divorce 1984.

Finally got it right the 3rd time-been married to the same guy for 11 years! We are living in a cedar log home on 7 acres of his great-grandfather's homestead west of Portland.

I've worked for a book distributor (6 years), a property development and management company (4 years), and medical electronic manufacturer (7 years), and have now been with NIKE almost 2 years.

Looking forward to retirement in about 4 years.

I have 4 step-children with 3 grandchildren (step-grandkids?).

My oldest girl is married and living out of Corvallis and working for the OR State Univ. credit union; her husband works for the Forest Service and they have just purcahsed a new home on 5 lovely country acres outside of Monmouth, OR.

My middle girl works for NIKE and is expecting her first child any minute! Her due date was 10/9/98!! She has two great step-kids, 11 and 14 and they are very excited about the baby.

My youngest is in Honolulu, has worked as a personal trainer and is just starting back to school to get her RN degree.

We are off to Hawaii the weekend after the reunion to cruise the islands for a week and then spend 3 days in a B&B on Oahu and visit with Amy between her classes.

I'm VERY excited about the reunion and seeing old friends, but scared to death I won't recognize anyone!!

See you soon!

Phyllis Gates Pintarich

Sherry Thrash Porrazzo writes:

Things I remember:

Thinking my "gang" was the only bunch that cut school to do the beach thing. Phyllis Martin, Jill Papenhausen, Cindy Kaye, Judy Warren, Donna Eckroat, Fran Corradi and a few others. The old "tell your folks you're staying at my house tonight " round robin . Lots of beach parties on cold foggy days at Half Moon Bay.

Driving a bunch of very blasted kids home in Roger Keely's car after we all discovered just how drunk you can get on screwdrivers. Making it to Carmel in Cindy's red '50 Merc convertible in about an hour-no ticket! ; or more slowly in Phyllis' Ford or my baby blue '50 Chevy convert-the dog I bought from some senior who probably laughed his head off all the way to the bank!. (We had "older" cars, and thought they were great.)

Trying desperately to get my very limp hair to stay in a duck tail like Sue Clancy's (whose hair was NOT limp!} "Tooling" up to San Francisco during fleet week to check out the submarines- and the sailors on them. Mooning over Fran's cousin Sonny Siino (a senior at the time), and then when he asked me out (I was 16), having my mother tell me I couldn't go-he was "too wild & old for me"- ! The kid sold shoes at Chandler's at Stanford Shopping Center for spending money, for crying out loud!

Running into Judy Chapin at a Carlmont dance - and being surprised that she was dating a guy from another school (so was I!).

Cruising Marquard's ("Quard's") and Sugar & Spice in Redwood City. Wearing shades driving at night and rapping the pipes going under the overpass in Palo Alto at El Camino. Dragging up at Pogus Temple-yes, even girls did that. ( I was an early women's libber.) Cutting class when it snowed in the Stanford foothills. Flunking chemistry and transferring to art and getting As. (Found my true calling there.)

Shock at Jill Papenhausen's "accidentally" shooting herself in the temple. She & I were in the hospital together having our first (and her only) kids. A year later we were both single again and she was dead.

Now, I'm shocked at the names on the "memoriam" list. It's that old wake up call--do it (whatever "it" may be) before it's too late--life only gets shorter, and all that. Hindsight is miraculously visionary, isn't it? Well, I've had 2 marriages, 3 kids, outlived one of them, have 3 grandchildren, done some bad things and more good ones, but it's not enough life, yet. I'm greedy for some more. How about you?

Sherry

10/9/98

Ben Blair writes:

Jan et al. I have been looking forward to being with all of my old MA buddies for many months. I have reservations at the Villa for me and my wife Marice. I am very sorry to report that one of those unavoidable bussiness matters has come up and we will will not be able to be with you. The planning for the events, the MA homepage, etc. has been spectacular. I cannot tell you how dissappointed we are. Dave and Dottie Webster have remained close friends of mine for all of these years and will be able to fill you in on our very active and happy lives. Seeing all of you and renewing old friendships after so many years was certainly to be a highlight of my life. Believe me this has to be an extremely important matter for me to allow it to stand in the way of our being with you. We are very sorry. We thank all of you for all of your enthusiasm and hard work in making our 40th the success we know it will be. We will be thinking of you and wishing we could be with you. Our very best wishes to all of you and God Bless! Ben

Liz Kennedy Kok reports in with a newspaper article from the San Jose Mercury News of September 24, 1998 about Oroville Austin - our former history teacher at M-A:

Orville and Ruth Austin of Sunnyvale celebrated their 50th anniversary Aug. 18 at a party attended by their sons, Brian Austin of San Diego, Tom Austin of Sunnyvale, and their daughters, Helen Tieger of San Jose, Jeannie McCutcheon of Marysville, Ind., and Claire Barclay of San Diego.
     The Austins have lived in the Bay Area for 43 years. They have seven grandchildren.
     Mr. Austin is a retired history teacher from Menlo Atherton High School. Mrs. Austin is a retired classroom aide for Fremont Union High School.      Children's statement: ``We thank our parents for their convictions and integrity. They raised five children through thick and thin and now can enjoy their seven grandchildren!''

9/29/98

Hi Folks,

Peggy came home Friday, 9/18. I stayed home with her last week and yesterday. Our daughter, Stacey, will stay with her this week. She improves every day. When she came home she walked with a cane and had a lot of trouble with the steps going into and out of the house. Her left leg is still weak, but now she walks without the cane and handles the steps pretty well. She has speech tharapy and physical therapy on Tuesdays and Thursdays for three weeks, starting last week.

My lower back is sore today, but, I never thought I'd say this, it's nice to be back to work.

Peggy is taking the blood thinner Coumadin and she gets her blood tested once a week. I think it's a pain to get tested that much, but Peggy says it's a lot better than having a stroke.

Later,

Neil McCarty

Hi, It's me Patricia Louise Dudley Lowe alive and kicking..I got a call from my cousin Mary Mazzula in Washington State saying there's a MA High school reunion for the class of 1958..YaHoo..Sounds like fun.

Pat

Hey Patricia! Thanks for checking in! Peggy's got your information and stuff's on its way to you!
Jan

8/21/98

Donna Gaylord & Nancy Farr: did we really sneak out of Donna's grandparents house in Felton and wander the dark mountain roads looking for guys?

Did we go to Tahoe when our parents thought we were spending the night at each other's house?

Did we read True Romance magazines?

I don't think so. Well, maybe. Looking forward to seeing all, especially, Hillview School grads at the reuinion.

Does anyone know where Mignon Carroll is today?

Betsy Winnberg Nolan

8/10/98

Hey! Anybody remember Orville Austin, the lively history teacher? Yeah, I had him for history, too. I decided today to look him up in my continuing quest to find more alums and teachers.

I found him on the first phone call - he still lives in Sunnyvale - and his wife answered the phone.

"Hello?" she said,

"Hi! This is Jan Claire and I hope I have the right telephone number. I'm looking for Orville Austin who was history teacher at Menlo-Atherton High School in the 50's."

"That's him!," she said, "but I don't know if he's awake...he has been very ill with emphysema from all his years of smoking...and he's 76 now."

"Well don't bother him then, I'll just make sure he's sent all our reunion information since we're doing our 40th reunion this year, and we wanted to assure he was invited."

"Well I don't know if he could attend, but let me see if he's awake."

I waited a few moments.

"Well hello Jan!" came this chipper, outgoing, friendly voice that took away 40 years in a flash! "I remember you!" he said brightly.

"Mister Austin I can't believe..."

"You were the tall, lanky kid. Are you still as crazy as you used to be?" he broke in.

"Of course! And I'm never gonna change!" I laughed, and added, "Your wife said you're 76 now...heck you're just a kid! When I was in high school, I thought you were old then! You must have been young as a teacher...just older from the student's point of view"

"Yeah, I started teaching at age 32, at Menlo-Atherton and retired 30-some years later."

"Well what do you like to do now?" I asked.

"Fishing. I like to go fishing off the pier at Santa Cruz...of course El Nino has stirred up all sorts of strange creatures. I never know what's going to be on the end of my line when I haul it in!"

I told him, "Just don't catch any of those giant squid we keep hearing about!"

Our conversation went on about all sorts of things, but I felt I was keeping him from much needed rest so I didn't talk long. Funny, though, how 40 years can be wiped away in moments. Imagine how frequently that will happen when we all get together in October and begin recapping cumulative centuries of lives. What a magical thing reunions are!

I hope we all work hard to make sure every one of our living classmates and teachers is able to come to the reuion. Keep up the great work on helping us track down the Bears of '58!

Jan Claire

5/19/98

After high school, I was in the Navy for over four years, then a number of years in the electronics industry in the Silicon Valley. Finally had enough travel and long hours, we moved to the mountains in northern California for a slower paced life.

I am currently working as the property controller at High Desert State Prison. My wife Lee (of 33 yrs) and I together have seven children and 15 1/2 grandchildren. Besides enjoying our family, we play golf as often as possible.

Regards,

Ron and Lee Simonini

5/13/98

THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE EFFORT I KNOW IT WILL ALL PLAY OUT AND BE LOTS OF FUN FOR THE ENTIRE GROUP .DOTTIE AND I ARE SO LOOKING FOREWARD TO THE EVENT.

Dave Webster

5/13/98

Let me add my compliments to you for the superb job you are doing with the website. It is most informative and fun. It's too bad it took 40 years to get back in touch with so many friends-- notice I didn't say "old"-- but now thanks to your great efforts we will all be talking to each other when we are in our walkers.

By the way-- I'm probably the guy stretching my racing dive to hit belly first in response to Coach Tommy O'Neill's urging. I got a chuckle out of Neil McCarty's story. I have stayed in touch with Nick Biondi who was Tommy O'Neill' successor coaching water polo and swimming. He is also the proud Dad of Matt Biondi of Olympic gold medal swimming fame. We've seen Nick several times in recent years and I have his address in the Bay Area if the commitee would like it. Keep up the good work!!

Pete Hayes

5/12/98

Wow! Peggy was right . What a neat homepage.Thank you so much for the great work. Dave Webster and I along with our respective spouses Dottie and Marice are coming to the festivities together and are very excited about renewing old friendships. With the information flowing through the web page it makes everyone anticipate the fun all the more.

Thanks again and again.

Ben Blair

5/9/98

Just to break the chain of all guy memories, here's a funny one on me.

Notice how blond my hair is in the Sr. Pic on the Alum of the Mo. page (and thanks Jan for that, I think)? I was living with my grandmother that year and she used to help me rinse my hair after I washed it as it was long and heavy. I found out about 25 years later that she was putting bleach in the rinse water! I honestly never knew that was why my hair was so blond that year! I was floored. Boy was I naive!!

I've enjoyed reading all you guys stories--- you were really bad!! Sounds like you had fun though!

Lindsey King Phillips

4/30/98

Who was the other party in this note? Neil thought it was Jack Lorton but evidently it wasn't:

From: Neil McCarty

I have this memory: Tommy O'Neill used to tell us to stretch our racing dives all the way into the water. We had noticed that everyone stretched and then folded just before entering the water, thus going in head first. We were either in a practice or in a swim meet. It was a relay. We were taking off from the deep end, so we weren't on the blocks. We agreed to stretch our dives all the way when it was our turn. We both ended up hitting belly first, backs arched, stretching all the way. We were probably the first on the team to stretch all the way into the water. I think Tommy said, "What in the hell was that?"

4/23/98

From: Neil McCarty

High Beams
----------
Steve Sierra's '40 Ford Coupe was raked so much that his high beams were lower than everyone elses low beams. When an on-coming driver had his high beams on, Steve wouldn't be able to blink him down. Either the other driver didn't see Steve lights flashing, or he just didn't care. Steve came up with a solution to this problem. I was with him one time to witness this. When the other driver failed to dim his lights, Steve swerved into the on-coming lane and headed straight at him, scaring the stuffing out of me, of course. And for some reason, a driver who previously "didn't see" Steve's signals, knew immediately that the correct action to get Steve out of his lane was to dim his lights.

Neil McCarty
Class of 1958

4/14/98

We've had a nice letter from Russell (Rusty) Fisher who lives in Redwood Shores, CA. He wondered if we're also gonna do a reunion in 2000 (42nd Anniversary). He joined the Navy after graduation and he says, "eventually it got to the point where my tailor-made Navy jumper no longer fit!". He's SERIOUSLY into model railroading and it looks like his hobby is turning into a business. Visit his web page at: http://members.aol.com/ggrailroad/index.html

Rusty is beginning treatment for a "nasty case of cancer" and we're wishing him all the best. You can write Rusty at: RUSTYDONNA@aol.com.

Jan

4/14/98

Hi class. This reunion shall be my first. I find myself getting excited already. In fact I even had a dream about the reunion last night--wow, that gets serious. I have two children, live in St. Louis, and practice psychiatry. I guess my profession makes it handy if I ever want to analyze last night's dream. See you all in October.

Bob Andersen

4/9/98

We heard from John McManus today. He has been having a busy life. Here's a portion of his recent note:

great page! would love to get together..........went to hawaii in 58 travelled in europe on 100.00 month for a few years after that...went back to hawaii got into restaurant business in 66...built and ran over thirty restaurants in calif and hawaii since then. still have three restaurants in honolulu and one in lahaina ( shorebirds and lahaina fish co) bought buildings in truckee, ran truckee river llama ranch in truckee for a few years. (skied in tahoe with john garibaldi over the years ) have house in sausalito which i use as my base in the bay area. now in tortola british virgin islands building small hotel and restaurant/marina on an island that i bought. (one acre ) near virgin goda. (retirement project) (sabarock@caribsurf.com) rum 2.00 bottle play with computers trying to learn???? In tortola bvi now for a few more weeks working with the construction on "sabarock resort." back to sausalito in two weeks

John McManus

John also created this "logo" for us!! Here's to you John!

4/9/98

Barbara Buckles Boatright and husband Lee have a website! It's at http://www.pacific.net/~boat and there are pictures of both Lee and Barbara on the site. Congrats also for the new granddaughter! (Pictures on the website!). They have lots of pictures of their many diving and sailing adventures as well...and on the main page there's a little animated version of Barbara in her canoe! Great to hear from them!

Neil McCarty stays in touch and has been forwarding some great memories to us...here are a bunch:

4/9/98

I believe my cut-school, go to the racetrack buddy, Bill Sumner is dead. Years ago, his mom and dad came to me in a dream and told me he was dead. I cried profusely in the dream, something I wouldn't have allowed myself to do in my waking life in those days. Anyway, that dream was so powerful, I believe it to be true. I miss you Hatchamigo, we will meet again. Hey, do you get to gwig in the afterlife?

4/6/98

Dave Leahy

I remember when Dave Leahy contacted the disease that killed him in the early '60s. The doctors didn't have a clue what the trouble was. They surgically removed some gangrene from his nose, and when I saw him he had a smaller nose than I remembered. Everyone was positive and upbeat, telling him he would get better. Finally, the doctors discovered he had some rare, African disease that was incurable. When I was told this news, I was told not to tell Dave. Knowing what I know today, I wish I could have told him. But in those days it was fashionable not to speak of death and never were you supposed to let a dying person know what was in store for him. So you go visit Dave and pretend everything is OK, and talk about the things he's going to do as soon as he gets better. Basically you get to lie in order to save him from the awful truth. You erect walls made of lies between you and the victim. Now I know better. I'm sorry I couldn't have been honest with you Dave. I'm sorry that none of us could speak the truth. Please forgive us, Dave, for we know not what we do.

Steve Sierra

Mountain View cops had a reputation of being the meanest cops around. If you went down the main drag in Mt. View, a cop would be assigned to follow you until you either left the town or you made a mistake. If you made the slightest mistake, you got a ticket. This had the desired effect of keeping teenagers with wheels out of Mt. View. One time I was with Steve Sierra in his raked '40 Ford Coupe. We dared to challenge the Mt. View main drag. No one had ever made it through without getting a ticket (OK I"m exaggerating a little). I was real nervous. We immediately had a cop assigned to tail us. Steve somehow managed not to make any mistakes and we were on our way out of Mt. View making a left turn onto El Camino with a motorcycle cop car right on our butt. Steve turned left, slowly accelerated to 30 MPH, they weren't going to get him for speeding. The flashing red lights went on and we pulled off the road. The cop was ticketing Steve for blocking traffic by driving too slowly in the left lane. Then the cop went over the '40 Ford with a fine tooth comb looking for anything that didn't work, head lights, tail lights, license plate lights, windshield wipers, etc. This annoyed Steve no end. Steve had more guts than I, I just wanted to say "yes sir, no sir" until it was over. But Steve took me over to the cop's motorcycle and he started checking it out. He made sure the head lights, tail lights, brake lights, etc., were working on the cop's bike! He made me help him. He'd put on the brake and I'd tell him if the light went on. I thought we were gonna get in big trouble for doing this. Steve checked everything on that Harley. I guess the cop was lucky that everything was working OK, considering it was a stinking hog. I'm sure he was shaking in his boots at the thought that Steve would find something illegal. Anyway, the cop got off without a ticket and Steve got off with a trumped-up ticket.

Steve Sierra was very good in metal shop. He made some special locks out of cold-rolled steel. These locks could not be cut with bolt cutters. Then he added a spring-loaded pin locking mechanism. The locks would lock once. Once the pin slid into the receptacle, there was no way to unlock them. Then one night Steve put locks on both ends of the Administration Building. Nobody could get into the building in the morning. All the faculty was hanging around, locked out. The fire department was called, but the bolt cutters couldn't cut the locks! Ha ha ha. Finally one of the firemen noticed that one of the locks didn't lock completely and he was able to open it. If he hadn't found that, they would have had to cut the locks off with a cutting torch. God bless you Steve Sierra.

Steve had Mr. Loftus for PE. One day Steve came out of the boys' locker room, looked around, didn't see Mr. Loftus and shouted, "Where's that [expletive], Loftus?!.

"Right behind you, Steve" came the reply - from Loftus, of course.

I went with Ned Hales to visit a girl in Danville. While there, I met Marianne Rabb, Ned's girlfriend's girlfriend. We spoke maybe two sentences to each other in a period of four hours. After that, we were writing each other love letters, go finger. Anyway, Steve Sierra caught on that I was corresponding with Marianne Rabb, only he never could remember her name. So he would ask, "Are you still writing to Clavoli Boob?" Ha ha.

I used to sneak over to Steve's house late at night to wake him up, sneak out, and roam the streets, on foot of course. So one night I snuck into his bedroom and quietly shook him. He didn't wake up, so I shook him harder. He still didn't wake up, so now I shook him so hard that he was bouncing off the bed like a basketball. He still didn't wake up! In desperation, I quietly said "Steve, wake up," and he work up.

Steve would go into a market on Santa Cruz avenue and go in back by the coolers. When no one was looking he'd carefully pop the top off a 7-up and chug it on the spot. Then he'd open a beer and pour it into the 7-up bottle. He'd ditch the empty beer, put the cap back on the 7-up bottle and go buy the 7-up. Then he'd brazenly walk down Santa Cruz avenue drinking a beer.

Neil McCarty
Class of 1958

3/17/98

Seeing myself listed as "Alum of the Month" brought back some memories:

Ray Carter was a BMOC and I was a shy guy trying to fit in. I think Ray was maybe a year ahead of me, maybe not. Anyway, one week Ray was named "Athlete of the Week" in the M-A paper. I was in the boys locker room and Ray came in. Hoping to suck up to him, I said, "Hey, athlete of the week." Ray's response was, "F*** you, you little s**t." So much for sucking up to the big boys.

Here's a Gary Emmick story. We had Spanish 1 together. I was getting pretty good grades. One day Gary grabbed my Spanish book out of my hand and threw it in one of those 55 gallon trash barrels in the main hall. I tried to reach it but it sunk to the bottom. Now I got embarassed, I wasn't about to climb in the barrel to get my book. I went the rest of the year without a book. I either flunked or ended up with a D.

Here's another. Gary got kicked off the wrestling team for racing motorcycles at the Belmont Speedway. It seems he lost his amateur status by racing professionally. Times be changed!

Here's another. Gary's little brother, Ronnie, was killed racing motorcycles in the LA area. Ronnie was sweet. One day I almost exploded trying to hold in the laughter when Ronnie and his dad had an argument and Ronnie called his father a "Bald-headed crome dome" in front of me.

A bunch of us were having lunch at Jiffy Burgers, home of the 19 cent burger. Jerry Hattoom didn't like pickles on his burger, so he carefully removed a pickle, flipped it in the air and shouted, "pickle on the hood," as a mayonnaise-coated pickle landed on the hood of someone car. Jerry's still alive today, so I don't think the owner of the car witnessed this activity.

Neil McCarty
Class of 1958

2/25/98
Hey Everybody!
This is your gossip place! Got anything you'd like to share? Comments about the upcoming 40th (gulp!) Reunion? Trivia - like did the MA Bear ever have a name?? Or tell everyone what you've been up to 'lo these many decades? Got a personal website we can look at?? Send us a note by filling in the form at bottom of the page below and we'll post it here, listed in order received!

Jan Claire
Class of '58

2/25/98

VERY nicely done. A great beginning! (I think that you've done a better job that I would have).

I was thinking of listing the names of the entire class on a page. Then turning the names into links to their bio page as they send bios in to you. I'd be a great way to get the latest on everyone. And, it would help to see who's checked in and who's still to be accounted for.

I don't see why, with a little effort, we can't find everyone. I'm sure that everyone has kept in touch with a few classmates. It's the old "six degrees of separation" thing.

You might call your site the "Old Bears Network." (Although, some might not want to be thought of as old).

Nice to hear from you again, Jan. I'll think up some lies and exaggerations to post.

Bob Beggs

2/26/98
From: Neil McCarty - 1958

Good Memories:

Sneaking into other peoples pools, including the MA pool, late at night with Hank Rullhausen, Jerry Hattoom, Roger Postlewaite, ... I don't remember the exact cast of players anymore, if I left someone out, I apologize.

Pouring gasoline on the Sequoia football field, setting it on fire and burning a large MA on the field. I think this was after they put sequoia graffiti on the PE building at MA. I think Dave Linebarger and Vern Schuhe were in on this one, but I think I fried some of the brain cells that hold that memory.

Cutting school with Vern Schuhe, Hank Rallhausen, Dave Linebarger and others. We were going to hop a freight train, so we're waiting on the tracks, the train comes, we run like hell to get up to speed, I jump on, climb up to a safe spot and look back on the tracks where the rest of the guys are laughing and waving good-bye to me.

Steve Sierra's 40 Ford coupe. What a nice car. It always ran downhill because it was raked so much.

And how did Terry Slack's horse get inside the Administration Building at MA?

Neil McCarty
class of 1958

3/3/98
From: Neil McCarty - 1958

This came from an e-mail I received:

"...Anyway, it seems I've fried too many brain cells. I don't remember you yet, but I do remember something about a Plymouth with a push-button automatic transmission. I remember a bunch of guys in the car helping the female driver (Mary Ann??) have a drag race on Ravenswood Ave. We were telling her when to push the next button! Ha ha. She ended up breaking one of the buttons (Hey Dad, I blew the transmission, this little button broke off)."

Heh heh. That's a funny story...and I'm almost sure it was Mary Ann Linforth because I don't know anybody else at school that drove a cherry '58 plymouth and the only times I ever saw her driving it were on Ravenswood!

Neil McCarty
class of 1958