Thursday, August 18, 2005

Class of '66 entourage visits Sonoma winery

SONOMA, Calif. - I missed the visit of Steve, Linda, Barb and Scott to California in July, a photo from which is posted on the Yahoo website put up by Allan Winger. (And posted here, too, obviously...)

Steve and Linda have a home in Santa Rosa, not too far from where I live in Sacramento. And they visited the Sonoma Valley (with Barb and her husband Scott), where I spent most of the 1970s working for newspapers before moving to Grass Valley (in the mountains) for a few years.

I probably should have stayed in the mountains and avoided the Sacramento Valley, but that's another story, better saved for another day or our reunion next summer.

It was great to log on to the Yahoo site and see the photo. I've been preoccupied with back-to-school issues and haven't been checking it as often as I should - or posting. I wonder if our teachers like Harry Robie or Hubie Davis or Harold Burgard got stressed the week or so before school, getting their lesson plans set up.

In my case, I have been teaching journalism classes for 20+ years and feel like a dinosaur. (I heard what you just thought, Cheryl...)

The weather in upstate New York has turned to fall already, a very familiar feel from when we would be getting ready to return to SWCS. The days suddenly seem shorter, the air is cool in the morning and already the leaves are starting to drop off some of the trees. The two boats on the beach already represent a chore, not potential good times. They both have to be hauled, winterized and stored before I make my sojourn back to California August 29.

When you live in Sonoma or Sacramento, fall arrives sometime in, well, maybe late November. Winter is December and January (it gets as low as 40 degrees sometimes) and spring is already springing in late February.

That's not why I moved to California in 1970. But it's a nice spiff anyway.

So today's song is a natural:

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

performed by The Mamas & Papas
(Phillips-Phillips)

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray
I've been for a walk on a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A.
California dreamin' on such a winter's day

Stopped in to a church I passed along the way
Well I got down on my knees and I pretend to pray
You know the preacher liked the cold
He knows I'm gonna stay
California dreamin' on such a winter's day

------ flute ------

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray
I've been for a walk on a winter's day
If I didn't tell her I could leave today
California dreamin' on such a winter's day
California dreamin' on such a winter's day
California dreamin' on such a winter's day

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