Thanksgiving in California sans boots or snow

thanksgiving
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - So today is the after-Thanksgiving madness of shopping. The newspaper yesterday was bursting with advertisements: specials on everything.

Time to run up the credit cards again, still recovering from last year's day after Thanksgiving orgy of spending.

My main memory of Thanksgiving from upstate New York was a pounding headache the day after from the Manhattans my uncle, Howard McAvoy, would make, drinks that even as a teenager I was allowed to have one of.

One drink? Ha!

(Here's the recipe: three parts blended whiskey, two parts sweet vermouth, dash of bitters, dash of cherry juice, pour over ice and drain into Manhattan glass.)

As I had Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with my daughter and various in-laws, there was a lot of talk of what store to hit today, where the best buys would be and how much loot to pack away for Christmas presents.

I remember Thanksgiving in the 60s as being all about the food (and drink, ok, and drink). It was the only time of the year that we had turkey, a decidedly more tasty bird than the Super Duper chickens that were a staple of my diet growing up. I swear those chickens were genetically linked to rubber trees.

It was also a very social day with people dropping by the house all afternoon, grabbing a quick Manhattan before toddling off to the next Manhattan stop or their eventual destination for their feast.

After the feast - and cleanup - the rugs got rolled up at my aunt's house and the records came on, records that mortified those of us early teenagers. Good God - they played the Polka!

Mostly the women danced while the men fell asleep in chairs, stultified by a combination of drink and way too much food.

Today I woke up hungry, the other thing I remember from the day after Thanksgiving, which was no problem because the family would prepare so much food for the whole clan that everyone took home enough food to keep us in turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing for a week. Although as teenager, I remember putting a pretty good dent in that food with a speed my mother found almost alarming.

Instead of turkey leftovers today, however, I'm going to do a very California thing and go out to a little cafe down the street for a light breakfast - sans any poultry - before deciding which stores to attack later today. The newspaper today was full of advertisements, too.

But I'm not shopping for Christmas gifts for people. I'm in search of new boat stuff, of course.

Sailboats need gifts, too, or at least their captains do.

It's autumn for the trees and me, too

Autumn leaves
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - As I stood up to argue in a university meeting last week (taking the moral high ground, of course, and getting pounded for it by the bad guys, as usual) it suddenly occurred to me that I have been doing such things for a long time and that in terms of my time (not just the season), it's definitely fall.

I remember that old Frank Sinatra tune, "It Was a Very Good Year," and how he walks through his life, in song. Then there was George Burns' "I Wish I Was 18 Again."

That, I do not wish, though I could shave a few years off the 57, nearly 58 I'm carrying, particularly those years that have given me a bad-enough knee that I'm looking at surgery, enough little skin spots that I have to put on some kind of special cream from the dermatologist, and a creaking set of discs in my neck that give me pause every time I swing my neck around.

I always disliked fall when I was in high school - summer was my time. Fall always meant more clothes, shorter and shorter days, and the inevitable winter.

And boots. Goddamned boots!

It wasn't until I read about how the lack of sunshine can affect you (Seasonal Affective Disorder?) that I caught on to why I found winters tough. It also explains living in California and my love of the south of the border. (OK, I like the margaritas there, too. Ok, senoritas, too..)

Summer was always ahead though, however far. I always knew the ice would break eventually on the lake and I would be sliding my boat back into the water and water skiing was in the future (along with summer school, most likely).

When I look ahead now, I see summer, too, but for me anyway, the days are more precious than ever.

I made a mistake two years ago of guessing that I might live to be 75 (a very big might with my family history). I know that in 2005, that's not that old, but I decided to run the numbers.

Don't do it.

I broke it down from 20 years into months, weeks and days. Even a generous interpretation of the figures says if I want to finish unfinished novels, sail across to the South Pacific, or rescue any damsels from the clutches of evil I damn well better get off my ass and get to it.

Where did I put my sword anyway?

That's the trouble with the autumn of life, you also begin to lose your memory. (Or did I write that earlier in this blog?)

Here's the song for today, kids, from Frank Sinatra:

It Was a Very Good Year

When I was seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We’d hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen

When I was twenty-one
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for city girls
Who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was twenty-one

When I was thirty-five
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
We’d ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five

But now the days grow short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
from fine old kegs
from the brim to the dregs
And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year

It was a mess of good years.

Breathalyzer tests before SWCS dances?

breathalyzer
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

ALBANY, Calif. - There was a column in today's San Francisco Chronicle about how a high school in Albany, Calif. is going to test its students with a breathalyzer before letting them into school dances.

It seems that a number of students are going into these dances half in the bag and the school wants to stop it.

Here's the column itself.

Chip Johnson

What's fascinating about the column is that it doesn't really address the issues of consequence for the students - other than that they will be sent home.

Sent home. Terrifying!

I remember walking into a couple of SWCS dances with a little beer (and sometimes Southern Comfort) in my stomach, but I was also so terrified of getting caught that I probably acted more straight then when I was, well, straight.

I don't think whomever was chaperoning those dances would have settled for just sending me home. And if they did, well, come Monday morning I would have (at best) been sentenced to a lifetime of detention with Mrs. Kistler at the front of the classroom. (Oh, the horror!)

I also remember when people got into serious trouble - like arrested for stealing a car for example - they seemed to just disappear into some void. I don't remember them ever coming back to school boasting about how they boosted someone's Chevy.

This posting probably says as much about me as it does the school district that wants to educate the students about alcohol abuse instead of giving the students a couple of months of community service for showing up tanked at a school function or sentencing them to the equivalent of detention in 2005.

I shouldn't read the Monday morning newspapers so closely, especially when I have to teach undergraduates today - all of whom have likely not read the chapters I assigned for my lecture or done the writing assignments due in class. There's been an epidemic of ill grandmothers this semester and an outpouring of grandchild concern that has been keeping them from their university studies.

Final exams for the university are only three weeks away, however. And I won't be taking any breathalyzer tests on my students before they walk in to take a humdinger of a final.

Goodbye Cheracol bring on the Sudafed

Cheracol cough syrup
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A damned cold has laid me low for a couple of days, making me long for a jolt of Cheracol cough syrup - not the stuff they sell over the counter now - the real stuff I got as a kid, loaded with codeine.

Aaaaaah.

Whenever I got a cold when I was kid - and started hacking - my mother would drag out the Cheracol and give me a good dose. The fact that I would go into a stupor for a couple of hours seemed to escape her - I guess she thought it was the cold bothering me.

That whole experience all came flooding back to me in the past few days when I took Sudafed - a drug I don't like to take at all. Hell, I don't like any drugs anymore - including aspirin.

But when my nose was running like Niagara, I gave up and took a half-dose so I could work without turning my keyboard into a petri dish.

One would think a half-dose would be, well, a half-dose and not that potent. But about a half-hour after gulping the small red pill with a cranberry juice chaser, I was alternately wired and exhausted, suddenly thinking about cough syrup.

When I went to Villanova, the campus infirmary would dole out bottles of codeine-laced cough syrup every time you went in. And several of my buddies (who mixed the syrup with Coca-Cola in some kind of weird conconction that tasted awful) would develop cold symptoms every Friday so they would have something to keep them partying through the weekends. And, of course, they encouraged everyone to drop by and pick up a bottle (sometimes two if you got the right doctor or the friendly nurse who dated some of the basketball players).

I never developed a taste for the stuff (probably a realllly good thing), though I confess to getting a fair share of the drug for my buddies. One bottle of cough syrup was good for three or four bottles of Schmidt's of Philadelphia in a trade. I didn't much like the Schmidt's beer either, but a sober weekend? At Villanova? Pleeeeeese...

If the Sudafed doesn't do the trick today, it's on to more serious stuff - Four Roses Blended Whiskey mixed with ginger ale. I'll feel worse in the morning, but the evening will be much better.

Where's that Cheracol when I need it?

Memories of my 55-mph dream machine

Yamaha 80, the dream machine
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

LAKEWOOD, N.Y. - The summer between junior and senior years, it was summer school time again, thanks largely to my inability to study either Math 11 or chemistry.

While both Ethel Goller and Hank Weiss gave me passing grades, in those two classes, the Regent's exams were not so kind.

But instead of riding a bus to Jamestown, I signed up the Chautaqua High School program which necessitated wheels, as my mother would not let go of her automobile for my commuting - particularly when she had given me the summer school money for Jamestown, not up the lake.

At the time, Yamaha 80 motorcycles were the rage. Bud Hooper had one already and so I purchased one on a time payment plan, $16.23 per month. Bob Fulcher and Jim Carr ended up with machines, too. What a summer!

I only crashed a few times and once jumping one of the hills at SWCS my girlfriend Cindy Hall slipped off the back and landed squarely on her ass.

Seems funny today, but at the time, she didn't see the humor and had a bruised tailbone for weeks.

Most of us got pretty good at popping wheelies and speed shifting. I remember that the fastest I could get the machine going was 55 mph, full out on Summit Avenue headed down towards where Cheryl Towers lived. We used to encircle Bill Loftus, who had a Honda with a smaller engine. He wasn't too steady on it, either, and more than once we thought he might end up in the ditch.

I once eluded the Lakewood Police by cutting through back yards up on Winchester, shutting the engine off and pushing my motorcycle home the long way around, covering it quickly before the police figured out which red motorcycle was popping wheelies in front of Mayor Roland Rapp's house on Erie Street, right near where Randy Carlson still lives.

That's exactly the kind of story you shouldn't tell your children. My eldest son tried the same trick with his small cycle but got caught. In fact, I must have been the luckiest kid alive because I rarely got nailed for the things we were doing, but my boys - after hearing tales like this - were in constant hot water.

I've owned two other motorcycles since that Yamaha 80, a BSA 441 Victor and Yamaha 200.

The BSA Victor rarely ran. I should have learned from owning two Triumph Spitfires. The Yamaha I sold when I was about 40 and had one of those close calls that screamed - LAY THE BIKE DOWN - except that I didn't and somehow made it through a gap between a car and a truck that Chester Anderson's nose could not have fit through.

Still, seeing the photo posted with this blog reminds me of riding all the way around Chautaqua Lake on summer days - without a helmet, of course.

When the helmet law went into effect in New York, that's when my red Yamaha 80 and I said goodbye.

Seeing your cousins - 40 years later

The Three McAvoy's
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

LAKEWOOD, NY - My extended family bailed out of Lakewood shortly after we graduated from high school so that nary a Fitzgerald or McAvoy or Puls lives anywhere near a Jamestown zip code.

The Puls family included Gordy Puls, Jr. who taught math at SWCS. And the McAvoy's pictured here at a wedding a few weeks ago, all bailed, too, with Nancy on the left (Class of '68 or '69) leaving for Virgina, Kathleen (Class of '65), center, eventually ending up in Maine, and Robert, well, I'm not sure, except he's the youngest and the wedding of his daughter was in Michigan, so he might be roosting there. I know he was in the U.S. Army and did a lot of jumping out of airplanes.

My sister Evelyn took the photo. She lives outside of Boston.

I worked at Lakewood Beach with my cousin Kathleen for several summers right out of SWCS. She was a lifeguard but also taught swimming. Working the beach was a family tradition. Gordy Puls and his older sister Barbara both were lifeguards there years ahead of my showing up. Sue Guertin worked at the beach also, but up in the playground area keeping the kids in line.

What's striking about seeing these cousins of mine after so many years is how much they look like their parents. Nancy is the spitting image of her mother, Helen (and also my grandmother). Robert is clearly Howard McAvoy's son.

Kathleen just looks like Kathleen.

In the meantime, I'm still working on how many bricks I'm going to buy for the SWCS garden, and what to say on them.

Some of the latest ideas include:

To Mrs. King, who never let me look at the damn typewriter keys.

To Gunny Anderson, who would have killed me if I called him that in school.

To Lakewood Mayor Roland Rapp, for giving me my job back when Doss Johnson fired me from Lakewood Beach.

And that's the short list.

Buying bricks to help future SWCS students

SWCS brick graphic
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

JAMESTOWN, N.Y. - Tom Priester sent along an order form several days ago - which I in turn sent to members of the Class of '66 - for purchase of an engraved brick to be placed at the school. A portion of it is posted here, the graphic of the area where the bricks will be placed.

The money raised will go for various schools things, all of which Tom Priester can explain in great detail.

I'm going to buy several I think, though I'm vacillating about what to put on the inscription.

Think about it: To Mrs. McKay, for letting me hide out from Algebra Class for most of a year, or To Ed Stupka, for telling me arguably the most filthy joke I ever heard, or Gene Munson, for telling me I'd be lucky to get a job driving a garbage truck.

I've been off the blogging circuit mostly for weeks, moving the boat, and now (God-help-me!) moving again to a new house. A friend has offered to let us house sit his casa for a year, maybe longer, and by the time that gig is up we may be at a point where we can actually retire from the university and grab Sabbatical and head south again.

I don't know that we will do that, but it sounds nice as I look at the window at a cold gray day here in Northern California.

I'll bet quite of few of the class are retired already or getting very close to it. I never really planned for retirement, given that males in my family traditional pack it in around 45. What a shock to be 57 and the only thing wrong with me (physically anyway) is a knee that will require some minor surgery. The rest of me has been abused, of course, but the genetics that took my father and grandfather seem to have skipped me, my doc tells me.

By sheer accident, I am a member of the California Public Employees Retirement system, arguably the best in the nation, which will be taking care of me for many years when I leave teaching. I remember my mother's New York State Teachers' retirement would have been ok (had she lived to collect it) but she needed to hit around 62 or older to collect I think.

In CalPERS, we can bail anytime after 50, with 55 being the magic number (2 percent times your salary times your years of service equals your paycheck).

It seems odd to think that at this reunion, instead of swapping tales about adventures, we will more likely be talking about our retirement plans, how many grandchildren we have (and what great things they are doing and how perfect they are), and scratching our collect head about how we suddenly got to this age.

I went to a reunion for one of the newspapers of which I was an editor back in the 1970s and was startled when I walked in to see a woman who had been the "society editor" when I was there. The last time I saw her she was probably in her 40s, and now, well, she's in her 70s.

My editor from that era, who retired 20 years ago when he hit 65, didn't make the reunion and although I want to see him, I wonder about him at 85 and if the image I have of him from years past is the one I want to keep.

It must be time to read "You Can't Go Home Again," by Thomas Wolfe.

Is it obvious that I am writing and writing to avoid packing my condo? Sorry.

Instead of more rambling, here's a song for today, one that has nothing exactly to do with bricks or retirement or going home, but one that reminds me of the year or so after graduation.

Happy Together
by The Turtles

If I should call you up, invest a dime
And you say you belong to me  and ease my mind
Imagine how the world could be, so very fine
So happy together

I can't see me lovin' nobody but you
For all my life
When you're with me, baby the skies'll be blue
For all my life

Me and you and you and me
No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be
The only one for me is you, and you for me
So happy together

American Bandstand and Sheena of the Jungle

American Bandstand
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

PHILADELPHIA, Penn. - In between grading papers from my magazine writing class, I've been tapping on the keys, looking at music for my 'rockumentaries,' but also looking forward to our reunion next summer.

I ran across several songs by Fabian, whose music is a little hard to find. And then I tripped across a dozen interesting sites related to American Bandstand.

I remember watching that even when I was about 6-years-old. I would sit with my older sister, much to the chagrin of my grandmother, who did not approve of the dancing on the program and certainly not of her grandchildren watching the on-screen gyrations.

(Oddly, she had no objections to the torrid-blond Irish McCalla (starring in Sheena of the Jungle) swinging through the trees, hanging out with apes who were dying for that leopard skin tunic to tumble.)

I remember being entranced by the music and all the happy people jumping around, and the dance contests and rating of music.

And years later, when I hear a song and someone asks my opinion, the first words I think of are usually, 'well, it has a good beat...'

But in the meantime, is anyone making up some lists of music for the reunion parties? Maybe that could become part of the Yahoo! site (where I deposited some photos recently of Bob Swanson's Rasta Ranch adventure).

I know I have a playlist in mind - which I'll share another time.

While that's being pondered, here's today's song - just downloaded to my computer - performed by Carole King.

It Might As Well Rain Until September

What shall I write?
What can I say?
How can I tell you how much I miss you?

The weather here has been as nice as it can be
Althought it doesn't really matter much to me
For all the fun I'll have while you're so far away
It might as well rain until September

I don't need sunny skies for thing I like to do
'Cause I stay home the whole day long and think of you
As far as I'm concerned each day's a rainy day
So It might as well rain until September

My friends look forward to their picnics on the beach
Yes everybody loves the summertime
But you know darling while your arms are out of reach
The summer isn't any friend of mine

It doesn't matter whether skies are grey or blue
It's raining in my heart 'cause I can't be with you
I'm only living for the day you're home to stay
So It might as well rain until September
September, September, oh
It might as well rain until September

The email list is fixed - at least I think so

An email box
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - You should have received a test message from me sometime in the last day or so that was just a test of our email list.

Somehow, somewhere in the electronic bowels of this Apple iBook G4, my emails lists started, well, co-mingling and it seems one of my notices about an update went to half of the upper administration at the university.

I suspect they were quite amused. (That's pure sarcasm, in case you missed it...)

In any event, after redoing the list and sending the test, it appears that the Class of '66 list is ok, and now I just need to get back to writing in this space on a regular basis.

It's more likely to happen now that I don't have any writing assignments (until Monday anyway), my sailboat is almost home (next weekend, seas permitting) and the semester is half over.

That means midterm exams and lots of grading - for my student assistant!

Iremember taking lots of tests in high school, all leading to the dreaded Regents exams. But did we take midterms, halfway through the semester or maybe in December? It seems to me that we got report cards on a quarterly basis, but I have scrubbed my memory clean of most of those details.

My students - right about now - suddenly remember that they are going to be graded in my classes and are keenly interested in what that grade may be. Just yesterday I had a very earnest young woman ask me what system I used for grading.

SWAG, I answered. I use the SWAG system.

SWAG?

Sophisticated-wild-ass-guess.

She wasn't very amused, but pretended to be. Still eight weeks left in the semester and there is that matter of a grade at the end.

Did Harold Burgard and Hubie Davis and Henry Weiss SWAG our grades? If so, they generally guessed a little low for me, I think. Then again, maybe not.

Forty years later, those grades are pretty distant (except for the ones that doomed me to summer school). But the importance of the death of chivalry (thanks to Harold), the ability to write a sonnet (14 lines of rhyming iambic pentameter, thanks to Hubie), and the knowledge that sodium and chloride make salt (NaCl, thanks to Henry) are as close to hardwired in as a human brain can get.

I better stop here, before I lose control and start writing "An Ode to Miss Goller..."

Today's song?

Poetry in motion
performed by Johnny Tillotson

When I see my baby
What do I see
Poetry poetry in motion

Poetry in motion walking by my side
Her lovely locomotion
Keeps my eyes open wide
Poetry in motion see her gentle swaying
A wave out on the ocean
Could never move that way

I love every movement
There's nothing I would change
She doesn't need improvement
She's much too nice to rearrange

Poetry in motion dancing close to me
A flower of devotion a-swaying gracefully
Woh-woh-woh-woh-woh-woh
Woh-woh-woh-woh-woh.....
Poetry in motion see her gentle swaying
A wave out on the ocean
Could never move that way

I love every movement
There's nothing I would change
She doesn't need improvement
She's much too nice to rearrange

Poetry in motion all that I adore her
No number nine love potion
Could make me love her more
Woh-woh-woh-woh-woh-woh
Woh-woh-woh-woh-woh.....

Rasta Ranch wine tasters talk to San Diego

Rasta Ranch talks to San Diego
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

VALOIS, New York - The phone rang last week while I was on deck on Sabbatical in San Diego, getting ready for a 400-mile upwind bash to San Francisco, my nerves fraying by the minute with the weather reports forecasting, well, sloppy weather.

So it was great to hear Bob Swanson's voice, along with the shouts of the crew from Jamestown (all bunched up in this photo) who were on their annual wine tasting pilgrimage to the finger lakes, specifically about a mile from the Seneca Lake house where I spend my summers. It's the Rasta Ranch winery, home of Uncle Homer's Red wine, a personal favorite.

They took this photo - as well as some others I will post on the Yahoo! site - and several times during our conversation I could hear the group having a very good time.

I've been out of contact, offline and almost incognito for a week as I moved Sabbatical north through the worst seas I have ever been in. But we made it as far as Monterey, Calif., where the ship will sit for a couple of weeks while I get the rest of life back on track.

And, frighteningly enough, I had numerous SWCS-related dreams on the trip while we bounced off 12-foot waves and took enough green water over the bow to make the whole crew about the same color.

More on those dreams later.

For now, Cheers, Bob! Thanks for the photos.

Joe Rushin - the best doctor I ever had

Joe Rushin
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

JAMESTOWN, NY - In high school, when I had sprains and strains and all the things that happen when you run track (or have people wrenching on you on the wrestling mat) most often I would talk with Joe Rushin about what I needed to do.

He seemed to have a knowledge of physiology that say, Dr. Marvin Siegel, our family doc, was clearly missing.

I sure miss Joe right now, as my right knee is swollen like a football and the MRI to check it out is scheduled for December.

Yup, December. I just love managed health care.

Joe taught us how to use isometric exercises and how not injure parts of the body like knees. The ultimate though was to be allowed to sit in the whirlpool in the locker room if you had a sprain. You always had to have a spotter when you soaked, I guess because he was afraid you might fall asleep and drown. With the racket in the locker room, that seems pretty doubtful in retrospect.

Maybe I just need to break down and purchase a hot tub to soak. I could get one a lot quicker than December.

I ran across Joe's photo today when I was thumbing through the yearbook, avoiding all the work I need to get done today and this weekend for next week's classes and writing.

I always heard Flash Olsen and Dick Shevalier refer to him as director of athletics, but his title in the yearbook is administrative assistant.

Administrative assistant? Somehow, athletic director fits the Joe I remember a lot better.

Batting about .500 on names of people

One of those twins
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Winni Anderson (on the Yahoo discussion list) gave me a heads up that the names of the twins I seem to be writing about every day in this space are Val and Vaughn, not Val and Vicki.

Oops. Sorry Vaughn. I still have a crush on you. Or maybe it was your sister.

But, in a more drastic goof, I said Winni's dad's name is Fred - but it's Syd. Fred Anderson was Nancy Anderson's dad. Confused?

So for roughly 40 years, every time I tell the story about the croquet hoops in the backyard, or make reference to Bud Hooper's NASA-style launch of his blue and white '63 Chevy through the Triangle Cleaners, I have called Syd by the wrong name.

Merde!

Some of my students read this blog by the way, and I expect to have a sign on my door when I get to the university today that says "Syd Called about Fred..." They're think they are sooooooo funny.

In the photo today taken from our yearbook, Val/Vaughn is standing behind the counter with I believe Andy Robinson. Given my recent track record on identifications, his name could be Stanislaus Phalegglast. But I'm pretty sure that it is Andy. And I'm pretty sure his last name is Robinson and he has an older brother named Steve.

Out front, standing on the right is Marianne Jim, and possibly Linda Hanson. But I won't swear to it and if I misspelled their names, too, I'll take one of my own remedial classes.

In the meantime, can someone find and please invite the twins (Val and Vaughn) to our reunion next year?

Today's song isn't from our high school days, but it fits, so what the @$%@#%#^:

Double Vision
by Foreigner

Feeling down n' dirty
Feeling kinda mean

I've been from one to another extreme
This time I had a good time
Ain't got time to wait
I wanna stick around
Till I can't see straight

Fill my eyes with that double vision
No disguise for that double vision
Ooh, when it gets through to me
It's always new to me
My double vision gets the best of me

Never do more than I really need
My mind is racing
But my body's in the lead
Tonight's the night
I'm gonna push it to the limit
I live all of my years in a single minute

Fill my eyes with that double vision
No disguise for that double vision
Ooh, when it gets through to me
It's always new to me
My double vision
Always seems to get the best of me
The best of me, yeah

Ooh, double vision
I need my double vision
It takes me out of my head
Takin' me out of my head
I get my double vision
Oh, seeing double, double
Oh, I have double vision, yeah
I'm getting double vision...

The conversation is lively over at Yahoo!

Yahoo logo for Class of '66
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - So today I logged onto the Yahoo discussion site for our class and learned that Herr Pfaff was once principal of SWCS, back in 1991.

He was my homeroom teacher my senior year. (I think it was senior year, that's a little hazy.) I just remember he was one of the few teachers who I thought of as relatively young.

Guys like Byron Windoft were, well, ancient. And Pauline Cook. Jaysus, don't go there.

In the meantime, Randy Carlson has let me know the names of the two, tall gorgeous blonde candy dispensers (Val and Vicki Morris) whose names I couldn't come up with when I was waxing poetic about Mallo Cups and how I was afraid to go up to the window when they were working. They're probably both grandmothers now - gorgeous grandmas...

So while I'm wandering down that lane again, does anyone know what every happened to Sandra Carlson (aka Sandy) from the Class of '67? I've tried Classmates.com in the past, emailing some of her classmates but come up empty. She had an older sister, Cindy (Class of '64).

Sometimes the nostalgia actually gets to be a little too much for me and I remind myself that my philosophy is to look forward, not back. Lot of scary stuff back there, as well as those fond memories.

But as I was writing a short piece some time ago (for the book I hope to someday publish, though I think it's becoming more of a therapy project) I was laughing so hard my wife came in to check on me. It was about an episode of a group of Class of '66 miscreants 'sleeping out' at Randy Carlson's house, but actually wandering the streets, ending up at Linda
Anderson's house, only to be discovered by her dad Fred.

We ran like frightened gazelles through the backyards of Webster Street until we hit Sue Post's house where they had been playing croquet, the wire hoops still set up.

Ever hit one of those babies running full tilt?

Anyway, while you ponder 10 or 12 of us sprawled on the lawn, think about joining the Yahoo discussion group if you are not a member.

I sometimes migrate some of that discussion in this space, but more often not.

The url is:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/swcs66/

Or you can simply click on the button on the list of links.

Today's song?

Sunday Will Never Be The Same
by Spanky and Our Gang

I remember Sunday morning
I would meet him at the park
We'd walk together hand in hand
'Til it was almost dark

Now I wake up Sunday morning
Walk across the way to find
Nobody waiting for me
Sunday's just another day

Sunday will never be the same
I've lost my Sunday-song,
He'll not be back again

Sunny afternoons that make me
Feel so warm inside
Have turned as cold and grey as ashes
As I feel the embers die

No longer can I walk these paths
For they have changed
I must be on, the sun is gone
And I think it's gonna rain

Sunday will never be the same
I've lost my Sunday-song
He'll not be back again

I remember children
Feeding flocks of pigeons
I remember sunshine
And you were mine

Sunday will never be the same
I've lost my Sunday song,
He'll not be back again [...fade]

Mallo Cups - when addictions only rotted teeth

Mallo Cups
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - You can't buy Mallo Cups in California, not anywhere retail anyway. If you go online, you can order a jumbo box (like the photo) which they can pack in a special wrap to keep the little Mallos from turning into total mush while they make their way to you.

In junior high and high school, Mallo Cups ruled for me - followed closely by Chunky candy bars, very closely. ("What a chunk 'a chocolate," Arnold Stang would say in the commercials.)

During the last winter my grandmother left for Florida for three months, Bob Fulcher and I would grab a half dozen or more Mallo Cups (or sometimes Chunkies), a quart each of Vernor's Ginger Ale, and sit and watch television at my house after school while the snow fell outside. I wouldn't eat much dinner those days until my mother discovered the garbage can full of wrappers and the empty quart bottles from the ginger ale.

We were on top of the world, even if we got some serious stomach aches in the process.

I remember the little Mallo Cup tokens that were included and if you saved up enough, well, they would ship you a whole box of the damn things.

Bob and Bud Hooper and I did once - and I think after we ate that box full of Cups the company sent us, we swore off the things for a long time.

Thanks to Mallo Cups, Chunkies and Vernor's Ginger Ale (oh, and Coca-Cola, lots of Coca-Cola) Dr. Joe Griffo installed a lot of silver in my mouth which many years later still is in place, a marvel of engineering several dentists have told me, especially the dentists that try to remove any of it.

I seem to remember that there was a sort of student store, run by the student council as a fundraiser. I don't remember if they sold Chunkies or Mallo Cups, but it was in the main hallway of school near the front doors.

Our senior year the store was most frequently manned by two tall, blonde, twins sisters from the junior class who so intimidated me that I don't think I ever bought a candy bar when they were working the counter.

The best candy around - though generally too expensive for me - was sold at a little candy factory right next door to the Hideaway Bar, converted years later to a restaurant. One chunk of candy there could cost 50 cents (50 cents!) a small fortune it seemed when a gallon of gasoline was 30 cents.

All of this came flooding back today as I am writing a magazine story about how people fritter away money - and how much they would save if they gave up something, like lattes, or smoking, or Grey Goose vodka. I'm supposed to calculate how much a person would save in a year and how much money the person would have in 10 years if they invested that money instead of spending on lattes, smokes or Grey Goose.

Figuring out the math on this story is enough to make me break out the Goose, but I also started to think about how many Mallo Cups, Chunkies, Reese's Peanut Cups, M&Ms, Good 'n Plentys, Raisinettes, Goobers and Tootsie Rolls (oh, and Tootsie Roll pops) I have had over the years and wondered about assigning a monetary value to them.

But I'm giving that up, because my head really hurts and there's not a Mallo Cup within hundreds of miles to soothe my battered psyche.

Today's song?

The choice was easy:

Candy Girl...
sung by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

I've been a-searchin' all this wide world
Now finally I've found my
Candy girl Candy girl

I-yi-yi-yi found me a girl (Candy girl)
She-ee-ee-ee sets my heart a-whirl (Candy girl)
With huggin' and kissin' and lov-in'
(She's mine) mi-ine (mine) mi-ine
Whoa-oa-oa-oh-oh (Candy girl)

We get along so well (Candy girl)
I know just why I fell (Candy girl)


She's thrillin' (thrillin') oh, chillin' (chillin'),
yes she's so divine
(She's mine) mi-ine (mine) mi-ine
Whoa-oa-oa-oh-oh (Candy girl)

When we're out together
Everyone knows the way we feel
We both seem to glow with the glow of a love
And it's plain to see
Our love is real

I-yi-yi-yi'm happy as can be (Candy girl)
She-ee-ee-ee vows eternally (Candy girl)
To hold me (hold me) and love me (love me)
until the end of time
(She's mine) mi-ine (mine) mi-ine
Whoa-oa-oa-oh-oh

Candy girl

How did our teachers get through the day?

Pay for teachers
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - I just finished teaching two classes today, a total of about three hours of performance time and I'm exhausted.

For two separate undergraduate classes, I fielded questions about journalism, (why some stories are, well, stories and others ignored) and gave a brief lecture on the dismal state of ethics in the media.

It was short because my stomach rolls if I think about some of what's published and broadcast right now and labelled as news. (See O'Reilly Factor...)

But tonight I was thinking about our teachers in high school who stood up in front of frequently disinterested crowds - five days a week, maybe five hours per day - who then took home all those papers and tests and quizzes to grade in their off time.

How the hell did they do it?

How did Carl Rennells (Suddenly I remembered his name!) have the stamina to teach 9th grade algebra? In my class, a fellow named Don Dittman (I think) would wait for Carl to turn around to write on the blackboard and Don would hit him square in the back of the head with the neatly placed spitball. I was much more impressed with Don's accuracy than Carl's formulas.

One day, after we had gotten a test back (which nearly the entire class failed), Don talked most of the class into firing on poor Carl simultaneously. He turned his back was bombarded with wadded up paper from maybe 20 people, and the wet spitwads stuck to the board all around him, leaving kind of an outline like they draw on the floor around a corpse in one of the CSI series.

He turned around, sat down at his teacher's desk and put his head down like a kindergartener that day. He might have wept. I know the bell rang moments later and we filed out quite quietly.

Not my proudest hour, I think now.

But consider the energy that a guy like Harold Burgard poured into his classes. The guy was a maniac and waved those damn ditto sheets around like lethal weapons. My grasp of world history, I have him to thank for.

I got to know Harold after I graduated from high school. He hung out with my cousin, Gordy Puls (Gordy taught in the junior high) and when I dropped out of college I would sit and swill beer with Harold at Gordy's house while the two of them reloaded shotgun shells or cleaned the ducks they had just blasted apart out on the lake. (Drinking beer and loading shotgun shells might seem a little dangerous, but did I mention that Harold smoked, too?)

And that urban legend about Burgard breaking some kid's jaw at a high school before coming to SWCS to teach? I asked him once (after a few beers) if it was true. He didn't say yes or no. But remember that evil grin he had sometimes? That was his answer. Hmm...

After I started teaching years ago, I found I had a lot more respect for what our high school teachers put up with - and had to do. And in my case, I teach at a university where, in theory, everyone is in my classes voluntarily and, again in theory, at least curious about the topics.

I can't imagine what it took for, say, Ethel Goller, to every day stare down five or six advanced math classes of 25 students per class, classes full of kids whose minds were miles away from tangents and cosines, already wondering who they might be dancing with after the football game.

But those dances after football games I'll save for another posting, except to offer this number up as our song of the day - a favorite for those gym-class dance lessons that were either torture or heaven, depending...

Town Without Pity
by Gene Pitney

When you're young and so and love as we
And bewildered by the world we see
Why do people hurt us so
Only those in love would know
What a Town Without Pity can do..

If we stop to gaze upon a star
People talk about how bad we are...
Ours is not an easy age
We're like tigers in a cage
What a Town Without Pity can do..

The young have problems Many problems
We need an understanding heart..
Why don't they help us, try to help us
Before this clay and granite planet falls apart...

Take these eager lips and hold me fast..
I'm afraid this kind of joy can't last
How can we keep love alive
How can anything survive
When these little minds tear you in two..
What a town Without Pity can do..

How can we keep love alive
How can anything survive
When these little minds tear you in two..
What a town Without Pity can do..

On the set of "Kate & Steve" in upstate NY

On the set of "Kate & Steve"
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

CAYUTA, New York - In my spare time, I'm learning to make videos, videos I call 'rockumentaries,' which, as you might guess, include a lot of music in the films.

I've completed a half dozen of the things in the last couple of years including Cruising For Croissants (a 10-day canal boat trip in France) Sailing with Bees (a bee infestation in Sabbatical's mast) and The Whales of Banderas Bay. (Can you guess what's the big feature in that one?).

All of which leads me to the wedding I shot a week ago when a second cousin of Admiral Fox was married and I spent the entire afternoon filming and interviewing the participants, interspersed with a little eating and drinking of course.

Not many of our class got married by the time I did - Dec. 23, 1969 - and I left that next August for the west, so I missed a lot of champagne punch and toasts and garters flying into the crowd.

But one wedding I did attend in the late 60s I was reminded of while filming. It was when Merle Butler was best man at a wedding of a woman from the Class of '67 (all I remember is her name was Jody) who married a fellow from Egypt. I remember that Jody's intended had sandy blonde hair, but definitely sported Arabic-Middle Eastern features and his accented English was fascinating to listen to. I attended the wedding with Sandy Carlson (Class of '67 also) who was one of Jody's good friends. I went wherever Sandy asked, but that's another story.

Merle was serving in Vietnam at the time and suggested that I should do everything possible to avoid going over and get shot at. He was killed a few months later. But that's another story, too.

At the time, I didn't think anything about the racial and/or cross-cultural elements of that wedding at all. I just remember Jody's father being fairly beet red most of the wedding and at a hastily arranged dinner right afterwards. I realize now that he was not a happy camper - and it wasn't bourbon that was bothering him. His little girl was likely to be going back to Egypt, though that wasn't certain, and, well, her husband was definitely not your average Jamestown boy. (I remember wanting to ask him a question about the pyramids and Sandy cutting me off before I could say a word. She had a lot more class than I did.)

At the wedding last week at the gorgeous Fontainbleau Inn on the shore of Cayuta Lake, my wife's mid-20s second cousin (who grew up in rural Hector, New York and holds a degree in genetics from the University of Connecticut), married a sophisticated architect (also mid-20s) who grew up in Indianapolis and it was the wedding of the summer for the east side of Seneca Lake, with people who hadn't been invited calling up the week before the wedding begging to attend.

The sophisticated architect (and now husband) is African-American, the second cousin (and now wife) of English and Irish background. But in a some measure of change from the 60s it was one of the happiest weddings I've attended in my life. There was singing, dancing, and a ceremony that was heartbreaker. If there was any tension about this architect marrying a geneticist, I didn't see it. And my right eye is still sore from the filming and my jaw weak from talking with everyone I could.

This is one rockumentary I am really looking forward to pulling together. I've even installed some new software on a second dedicated movie computer - Final Cut - to do it justice.

Now if I could just find someone to teach all my university classes this semester...

Any volunteers?

Grey Goose mini-golf tourney at Webb's?

Miniature golf at Webb's
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

MAYVILLE, New York - For some reason, now that I am 2,500 miles away from Lake Chautauqua, I'm thinking more about our reunion than when I was a couple of hours away in Valois.

(Note to self: get new wheels for next year's high school class reunion. Showing up in late mother-in-law's ancient white Buick would be very uncool.)

I guess part of what prompted me to be thinking about next July was an email from Barb Bunce Garlock, saying that she and her husband and some other Pittburgh folks were thinking about making reservations at Webb's for the reunion weekend.

It's on my 'to-do list,' also, though the way my life seems to bounce, I hate making something that definite for nearly 11 months from now. I could be somewhere off the coast of Costa Rica on my sailboat dodging hurricanes the way things are going.

But that brings me to a serious topic: golf.

Serious? Well, okay, not that serious.

Back when we were all learning to play golf in high school in P.E. - and my mother was so intent that I learn that she paid for some private lessons - my myopia prevented me from doing much except digging trenches all over anywhere I attempted to tee off. Since getting eye surgery, I can whack a ball pretty well, but because I never really got into it, I won't be joining anyone on any golfing expeditions that are part of the reunion. (Unless we went somewhere with electric golf carts, I love to careen around in those like Rodney Dangerfield.)

But I see that Webb's Resort has its own miniature golf course, so maybe we can put together a few rounds of that with an appropriate trophy and recognition at our dinner soiree. Besides, it's much easier to carry around a tall, iced glass filled with Grey Goose & collins mix while playing the miniature version anyway.

Fore!

Reunion is official - now we have T-shirts

Official Class of '66 reunion T-shirt
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

LAKEWOOD, New York - Sometime in the next day or so you should receive an email with more details about next July's Class of '66 reunion and a form to fill out about what events you will attend, food you want, and other sundries.

But today, here's a preview of the T-shirts you can purchase. Sweatshirts will also be available.

Randy Carlson has been sending me names for the email list. And if you are getting your email, you should be receiving the updates. A gaggle of people who work at Cummins should have their emails forwarded in the next few days, too, which will put us well over 50 members of the Class of '66 in email contact.

School has started for me in California so for a few days, I won't have much to say here, as I am already swamped with requests for advising, lectures to prepare, university committees to wiggle out of, and which student start-of-the-semester keg party to go to this Friday night. (Ok, the last one isn't real...)

But I'm still pondering the Class of '66 Yahoo website conversation about the different societies we had within high school, Lakewood vs. Busti, etc... And who, exactly were the 400s?

Later on that, though. I have a class in 20 minutes and undergraduate noggins to start knocking on.

What to make of the dreams of reunions

Darby O'Gill & the King I
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

VALOIS, New York - I've entered the last few days of summer vacation, which is a gross misnomer given that we have to close up the cottage, put away two boats for the winter, attend a wedding Sunday (which I have to videotape for a rockumentary) and then fly to California Monday at 0'dark early to begin teaching the same day. (I have three classes that day...)

Jaysus.

Add to that, a veneer of all the thinking I've been doing about our high school class and reunion.

So what do you get? Weird dreams. Extremely weird dreams.

Being Irish, believing in leprechauns, banshees and sundry other spooky things is second nature. So Darby O'Gill invaded my sleep two nights ago, as did the occasional banshee (a ghost, the kind of ghost you do not want invading your sleep time).

But last night the dreams were all about our high school class. Well, at least filled with people from high school. And while the usual cast of characters moved in and out of the scene - Randy Carlson, Bud Hooper, et al, - last night Nancy Anderson popped up and, well guys, she looked marvelous.

I barely remember Nancy Anderson, except that she lived on the corner of Brook and Erie Streets in a big brick place. She had red hair, more freckles than your average person named Anderson and sometime she just vanished, like Jackie Hamm, Gary Shenkle and a lot of others.

In this dream, we were having a reunion and she was going from person to person, filling them in on what had happened in her life since high school.

I strained to hear what she was saying but couldn't. Sometimes in dreams you can simply crank up the volume. Not last night. Nancy's secrets are safe, unless someone can fill us in.

I can hardly wait to take a nap today, if I have time between close-the-cottage projects.

Today's song? It's by the Everly Brothers, of course.

All I Have to Do is Dream

Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
When I want you in my arms
When I want you and all your charms
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream

When I feel blue in the night
And I need you to hold me tight
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam

I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine
Anytime night or day
Only trouble is, gee whiz
I'm dreamin' my life away

I need you so that I could die
I love you so and that is why
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam

I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine
Anytime night or day
Only trouble is, gee whiz
I'm dreamin' my life away


I need you so that I could die
I love you so and that is why
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream

FADE
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream

Do all Class of '66 reunions involve wine?

Three amigos
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

VALOIS, New York - You might think that a wine that goes by the name of Uncle Homer would be, well, not something that would stir the soul of Robert Mondavi, let's say.

But Sunday, Bob and Donna Swanson drove from Jamestown for the day and we visited - and revisited - a large bottle of Uncle Homer's Red during the afternoon.

It's a great wine, from a winery two miles up the road called Rasta Ranch, a place right out of the 60s with posters, tie-dyed shirts and Janis Joplin music playing not-too-softly while you sip.

That last time I saw Bob was at our 25th reunion and we had a lot of good laughs Sunday remembering things like trying to do 'the stroll,' at the Casino on the second night and how we survived the flood at the 20th soiree.

We also lamented the state of public education today, dredged up lots of memories of different teachers we had (it turns out Donna is related to Calvin Hanson), and wondered aloud about how many people might actually show up in Mayville next summer for the 40th reunion.

Between the list of people signed up for the Yahoo! discussion group that Allan Winger put together and the number of regular hits on this website, my guess as of today would be maybe 100 people (50 from the Class of '66 and their spouses).

Maybe we can get the whole event sponsored by Rasta Ranch Winery or Poplar Ridge, another Valois outfit. Poplar Ridge is a favorite of Bob & Donna's. It's owner, Dave Bagley, is a local legend, not just for his wines, but for sitting at the tasting bar sipping Coors light while people sample his selections.

In the meantime, I'm going to have some Uncle Homer's Red wine shipped to California to offer to some wine snobs I know. And I think I better brush up on how to do 'the stroll.'

With my knee still on the injured list seven weeks after an epic lake party here, it's likely I'll sit out dances with names that include The Twist.

So I say today, anyway. Enough Uncle Homer and who can predict?

============

Today's song, of course, is a stroll, the one stroll song I remember from high school dance class (or was it junior high dance class?). What I remember most, is getting my feet tangled while dancing with Sally Smith and, it seemed, the entire world watching.

I Want to Walk You Home

by Fats Domino

I want to walk you home
Please let me walk you home
I want to walk you home
Please let me walk you home

You look so pretty, babe, ooh-ooh-wee
I wish I was the lucky guy
Who could walk you right on down the aisle

I love the way you walk
I love to hear you talk
I love the way you walk
I love to hear you talk

I'm not trying to be smart
I'm not trying to break your heart
But if I ask you for a date
Will you tell me that I'm not too late

I want to hold your hand
Please let me hold your hand
I want to hold your hand
Please let me hold your hand

You look so pretty, babe, ooh-ooh-wee
I saw you walkin' all alone
That's why I want to walk you home

So let me walk you home
Please let me walk you home
I want to walk you home
Please let me walk you home

You look so pretty, babe, ooh-ooh-wee
I saw you walkin' all alone
That's why I want to walk you home
That's why I want to walk you home
FADE:
That's why I want to walk you home
That's why I want to walk you home