Another One

In April this year, I wrote a sort of obituary for Lamplighter John Rouse, who died at 66 of leukemia, diagnosed just 2 months before he died.  Professionally, John was a psychiatrist but he also sang with several different groups (including Yale's famed Whiffenpoofs when he was at Yale) and did so much more.  If Pasqual Calabrese had lived long enough, he and John would have been married.  Pasqual was the love of John's life and for the 30-something years after his death, there was never another relationship for John.

Today there was finally a memorial for John.  It took so long to put it together because people needed to come in from all over the country, four different groups had to get it together to perform, and it just had to be "right."  

Walt and I allowed 3 hours  to make the hour and a half trip, allowing time for us to find parking, since this was in one of the parts of the city where it was very difficult to park. But we had not planned for the parking lot that was the freeway from Davis to San Francisco.  It was after 3 before we got to the city and nearly 3:30, start time for the concert, before we arrived at Calvary Presbyterian Church (what a beautiful, welcoming building!).

As we passed through Berkeley, the car went slow enough I was able to enjoy the kite festival off in the distances.

Finally, we were on the bridge and the city was in sight...then we just had to get to the opposite side of it.

Walt dropped me off at the church and told me he'd be there in an hour or so, when he had found a place to park.  But good old Gilbert, my parking angel, came through again.  Unbelievably there was a parking place right. across. the. street.

They hadn't opened the church yet but let me go in and sit down so I was able to see the Lamplighters' rehearsal of the magnificent "if these shadows have offended...."

John himself had helped plan the program ("he wanted music, more music, little talking, much fun and happiness") which started with his friends from Yale, members of the Whiffenpoofs, the Spizzwinks, the Yale Glee Club and Alumni Chorus, who performed several songs.  I hadn't intended to film "The Whiffenpoof Song," but in the end I did and am so glad that I did.  When do you get to hear that song sung by actual Whiffenpoofs?

That was followed by a beautiful rendition of Biebl's Ave Maria sung by a group known as "The Family."

Singers from the Temple Emmanu-el, with which John had sung for all the high holidays, performed two songs and then the Lamplighters did five numbers including the aforementioned "if these shadows have offended" (music by Arthur Sullivan, lyrics by William Shakespeare, arranged by Barbara Heroux), which has become de rigeur for Lamplighters memorial services.  We have heard it too many times lately.

Two of his colleagues talked about John, the doctor, and his contributions to the medical profession in San Francisco.

Then members of the American Bach Soloists came to sing three folk songs.  

John chose a recording of himself singing "Ah, Moon of My Delight," recorded in 1994 with accompaniment by Orva Hoskinson, his best friend and voice teacher for more than 40 years.  Orva died three month before John.

Members of all the choruses joined together for two numbers from Mozart's Requiem and then it closed with a magnficent Toccata, by one of John's Yale professors, played by the organist John Walko.

There followed finger foods and wine and visiting with old Lamplighters you haven't seen since the last memorial.

All in all, it was a marvelous send off.  John would have loved it.

R.I.P.

Who could turn the world on with her smile?

The smile is now gone, as it was just announced that Mary Tyler Moore has died.  What a huge part of our past she was!

I am watching the tributes to her on Tv and they mostly center around her ground-breaking series. The Mary Tyler Moore show in which she played a successful single woman, living on her own, the show they said was the first of its kind (forgetting, I guess, That Girl with Marlo Thomas, who was also a successful single girl living on her own)

Oprah has often said that The Mary Tyler Moore show was her inspiration and that, in some way, she owed her career to Moore.

However, I mostly remember her as Laura Petrie (not PEEtrie, as a news reporter said today) on The Dick Van Dyke Show.  It is still some of the funniest stuff on TV.  Char and I can still go into convulsions talking about the episode where Mary, who has been accused of snooping, opens a box that is delivered to her husband.  It is a rubber raft, which immediately inflates and there were more laughs over the scenes of her trying to figure out how to put the raft back into the small box.

Another classic was the one about the walnuts .  Rob is having a nightmare, in which Danny Thomas is an alien from the planet Twylo.  It's like an invasion of the body snatchers and the way you know if your friends have been turned into aliens is they have eyes in back of their heads, they lose their sense of humor and their thumbs...and all they eat is walnuts.

And who can forget the time Laura accidentally revealed on a talk show that host Alan Brady (Carl Reiner) was really bald.

I always loved the episodes where the quartet of Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, RoseMarie, and Morey Amsterdam did musical numbers,

But I loved the new Mary Tyler Moore Show too, with its wonderful ensemble cast.  And who can forget the episode about the death of Chuckles the Clown?

Mary Tyler Moore always seemed to be such a genuinely nice person who really did turn the world on with her smile.  How glad I am that I was around to watch her in her hay day.

Larry Would Have Loved It

11 June 2016

I knew when I saw how thick the memorial booklet was that Larry would have loved it.

Yesterday we laid our friend Larry Fanning to rest at a Mass at St. Martin's Episcopal church in Davis.  Larry was a very religious man and any service without all the prayers and hymns would have cheated him out of a first-class send-off.

Born in Arkansas in 1947, Larry and his family moved to Dixon (the next door neighbor town of Davis) when he was a young man and he graduated from Dixon High, Sacramento City College and Sacramento State University, where he received a Masters in Medieval History.

He was baptized a Roman Catholic at age 16 (he always stressed the "Roman") but as a gay man, he was disillusioned with his exclusion from the church. He found a new welcoming home with the Anglican community in Davis, where he worked for many years in many capacities, both as a volunteer as an employee.

After his death, Stephen (his partner of 43 years) donated Larry's books to Logos and Susan said they were mostly medieval history and books on religion.  If there is one thing Larry liked talking about, it was religion.

The memorial service yesterday was a full house and as I looked around the church, and later the reception, it was just about every member of the Davis Comic Opera Company still living in the area. Stephen was an actor and director for DCOC and Larry was a faithful member of the tech crew throughout the company's 30 year history.  He was also an informal social director, hosting many social events for members of the company.

The eulogy given by longtime friend Nancianne Pfister underscored what I think everyone felt about Larry -- that he had a very big heart.  If anyone was in need, he was there.  He was ready to give himself to any cause and worked for many years for Yolo Hospice and other local nonprofits.

During the Mass, when it came to giving our neighbors in the pews a sign of peace, I spied Ned and his friend Greg in the back and flashed them a peace sign.  Ned and Greg have been friends since high school.  Greg is to Ned what Charlotte has been to me throughout my life.  I was going to say "though they are a bit more crazy than Char and I," but remembering our adventures with Christmas trees, pumpkin pies, and craft activities, I'm not so sure.

Ned and Greg made hundreds of movies together, their best work being Ned and Greg Investigators, the very fist made-for-local-TV production, a mystery which started with Walt being thrown off the highest building in town and the subsequent hunt for the murderer of "Ned's Dad."  It was filmed all over town, and included a major fight scene outside the local police department (for which they received permission of the police), and a gathering in a local restaurant, for which they opened in the morning and let Ned, Greg and all their friends inside to film.

This was in the very early days of Davis Community TV, when there was almost no local programming (and probably not many viewers either) and you could actually call the TV station and ask them to run Ned and Greg Investigators and they would.

The guys had just come from a whirlwind trip to our condo at Lake Tahoe to take up one of the big pieces of furniture, a cabinet that had belonged to Gilbert, from my office.  It fits beautifully, Ned reports, and holds all of the records that people have taken up to the condo over the years. (When it belonged to Gilbert, it was a record cabinet, so it has now come full circle!)

After Larry's Mass, we proceeded to the Columbarium behind the church, where his ashes were placed, and then to the parish hall for a brief reception.  It was old home week, with lots of friends standing around telling "Larry stories."

I had the chance to visit with one of Larry & Steve's neighbors, who is also a volunteer at Sutter.  She was with another friend of hers, who looked very familiar and obviously knew who I was (and who called Walt by name too).  It wasn't until she left, when she mentioned her husband's name offhandedly that I realized she was someone I had known for many years, though have only interacted with in the last 20 or so years through Facebook.  She has been through chemo and has what she calls "chemo hair," which has grown back curly (and grey, of course)...one reason I didn't recognize her.

But it was nice to chat with the woman from Sutter.  The problem with working the information desk is that you have almost no interaction with other volunteers, certainly not often enough and long enough to remember anybody's name. But now that we have shared Sutter experiences and our shared experience of mothers with dementia, I won't easily forget her name when I see her again.

I also had a very long conversation with a guy who was involved with DCOC, as was his son, who still acts (I recently reviewed him in a show...positively, fortunately!).  The guy is a very long time Lamplighters fan and we have discussed Lamplighters before in other encounters.  He has been attending Lamplighters performances for longer than Walt and I have (and we have been going for nearly 60 years!)  It's always very flattering to talk with him because of his nice comments about our two Lamplighters histories.

The whole day made me realize that Larry has hosted his last social gathering, and that he went out in the absolutely perfect way for him, surrounded by lifelong friends who were all there because we loved him so much.

Small World

23 May 2016

When we walked into the big hall, Walt and I commented that we had never been to a memorial service where they gave you ear plugs.

We were there for the memorial service for my sister-in-law Olivia's brother, Bob Castell-Blanch, who lost his long battle with cancer shortly after his 62nd birthday.

I didn't really know Bob.  Olivia is from a large family and though she used to have big dinners at Easter with both families attending, I never really talked with Bob because there were always others around and I mostly talked with my mother, who didn't know anybody and who felt uncomfortable around so many strangers.

In later years, when my mother started hermiting herself, I stopped going to those dinners entirely.  I would send Walt and I would spend the holiday with my mother, either cooking dinner for her, or taking her out to dinner.

What I remember about Bob, other than that he seemed like a really nice guy, was that he was an excellent musician.  He and Ned and/or Paul may have talked about music many years ago.  I remember when he brought his guitar along and got the family singing familiar tunes.

As I sat there at the memorial, I thought about how odd it was that we were there at all, and what a small world it is.

Some sixty or so years ago is when I first encountered The Lamplighters.  Walt and I ushered for just about every show in the 60s and we got to know "the regular" performers, from their performances on stage.  Two of the comprimario players, the second tier guys who may have a line or two, but who weren't talented enough to take the major leads, were Paul Hughes and Ray Castell-Blanch.

Many years later, when we were doing interviews for the Lamplighters history, I really wanted to interview those two guys who had, by that time, retired from performing.  I can't remember if I interviewed Paul or not, but I distinctly remember interviewing Ray, his wife, and their five white poodles.

Some time after that, Walt's brother Norm began dating Olivia and at some point I found out that her last name was Castell-Blanch.  I asked her if she knew Ray, and she told me he was her uncle.  Later, after Ray's death, at those Easter dinners, I got to know his widow a bit more.

So as I sat there at the memorial, I thought about how weird it was that sixty years after first becoming aware of Ray Castell-Blanch, whoda thunk I would be sitting with his family attending the memorial service for one of his nephews.

As memorial services go, it was lovely.  It began with a collage video and ended with a rousing, tear-jerking rendition of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," which was led by his daughter and others in such a professional chorus, joined by everyone in attendance.  Even though I didn't really know Bob, I was moved to tears by how beautiful it was.

Then came a video of Bob's last performance with his band, the PhDs.  His wife explained that he knew it would be his last performance and that he was feeling so ill he wasn't sure he would make it at all, but he did and the excerpt from the performance was riveting.  What a talented guy he was!  He had performed with many bands in the Bay Area and some names, some big, some not so big.  We found a framed copy of his ASCAP card with a record for which he had written the lyrics.

I am constantly amazed by how strange life can be.

Bob's band, joined by others, I think, performed on stage for people to dance.  It was very loud, and many people took advantage of the ear plugs. In fact, there were lots of packages of earplugs left as people were leaving and Walt and I picked some up.  We are often at musicals where the sound is just so loud that we have to put our fingers in our ears.  I think we both saw a lot of Motown the Musical last week with our ears plugged, wishing we still carried earplugs from our Lawsuit days.  Now we have some for the next big musical that wants to blast us out of our seats.

Before we went to the memorial, which was about an hour's drive from us, I stopped at Atria to deliver my mother's pills and her laundry.  I really should have done that yesterday, but put it off another day.

When I got there, her newspaper was still outside and when I knocked there was no answer.  I always fear the worst, and let myself in quietly.

I could see that she was still in bed, at 1 p.m., and tiptoed into her bedroom to see if she was alive.  I was happy to hear that she was snoring loudly, so I tiptoed out again, wrote her a note and left, hoping she'd figure out that the bag I left in her bedroom was filled with clean underwear.

Another One

There was another memorial service today.  I'd known Andy for probably most of our time in Davis, but I never really knew him.  I knew he was Judy's husband and that he was a doctor.  That's about it.  Our paths never crossed socially, unless it was some school event or a diving meet.  I don't think I've seen him in the last 10 years. I doubt that we ever had a conversation that went beyond "Hello." "Hello."  It was enlightening to read his obituary and listen to the memories today.  I had no idea he was an internationally renown Neurologist or that he was a master carpenter who could fix anything and helped build houses for Habitat for Humanity, among many other things.

Amazing the lives that people we know live and we have no clue unless we are close friends. I found that kind of sad.

From his obituary:  Andy expressed in his oral memoirs for his family, “I most cherish my wife and children. Family is the way to truly change the world. I hope you also believe this and act on this with your own families.”  What a lovely thing to say.

Judging from the outpouring of love today he was as nice a man as he always seemed to be on those rare occasions when I saw him.

We sat at the back of the church, the local Presbyterian church where it seems that everybody in town attends, and I thought what a shame it was that we had never been involved in that church because everybody in town attended it and I suspect I would have gotten to know people in Davis better.  It's 43 years too late, though.

There were more of the usual suspects in attendance, gathered around the ubiquitous food table.  These were some of the same usual suspects from last week's memorial, but a lot that were other usual suspects that we see from the group that I associate Andy and Judy with.  Like the psychiatrist (the one I worked for for 30 years) and his wife.  I used to see them frequently, but since I gave up transcribing for him, it takes a memorial service to bring us together.

There was also the father of a friend of our kids, looking quite unusually dapper.  He was widowed many years ago and recently remarried.  His new wife is obviously whipping him into shape.  He had lost a lot of weight and looked healthier and happier than I'd seen him look in a very long time.

The nice thing about events like this, with old time Davis people, is that when I am introduced to someone, they tell me how much they like my reviews.  So much nicer than the event I went to about 3 years into my being a critic, when someone told me how much she liked my letters to the editor and asked if I ever wrote anything else for the paper!  But I got really very nice feedback on my reviews, and I especially like the ones who tell me that they went to a show because I'd recommended and enjoyed it.

But the older I get, the less comfortable I am at big social things like this.  Walt revels in them and we are generally the last to leave because he gets around and talks to everybody, just like his sister.  He remembers everybody and even if he says "you remember so-and-so" I put on my big smile and say "Yes!  Of course!" but I don't have a clue who that person is.  

I look for the potted palm to hide behind or, lacking one, a quiet table where I can sit unobtrusively with a cup of coffee.  I usually eat too much because it's something to do, but food just didn't appeal to me today, so other than a couple of endive leaves with a bacon spread and a couple of cookies, I didn't eat anything, but drank two cups of coffee.

I did sit with a couple who were talking about my reviews and she and I discussed cruises we had taken.  I swear she and I co-led a Cub Scout troop together a zillion years ago, but she didn't mention it, nor did I because I wasn't sure I was remembering correctly.  Her husband did ask me if we still kept the Pinewood Derby track in our garage and I told him that since our youngest son was nearly 46, we hadn't had Pinewood Derby anything in decades.

So we have now bid goodbye to another Davis old-timer and you can't help but look around all the famiiar faces and wonder whose memorial service we will be attending next.

It's that time of life.

The Usual Suspects

Martha didn't want a funeral or a memorial service, so though this had the appearance of a memorial service, it was really a celebration...and a party.

Martha was beloved by so many people and once again we all gathered in a church to remember our friend, who, while she didn't die too soon (at 92), certainly has left a hole in the Davis community.

Once again, this was a chance to see "the usual suspects," people we haven't seen since...well, since the last one of these events...and these events are coming too fast these days, with no indication that they are going to stop anytime soon (after the formal part of today was finished, we learned that another guy we know had died Friday.  I hadn't seen him in a few years and had no idea he was as sick as he was).

Despite not wanting a memorial service, I think Martha might have liked this event.  Her children spoke, and two of her fellow performers spoke.  They ran two videos of her singing, which left us all teary-eyed.  Low key and lovely event, with grey skies and rain outside, depicting how we were all feeling at having to say goodbye to another friend.

Ironically, one of the 3 shows I reviewed this weekend was called "Shadow Box," the story of three dying people living in a Hospice-like facility, each in his or her own cottage, waiting for death.  

Joe is joined by his wife and son.  The son doesn't know his father is dying and his wife is in such profound denial that she won't enter the cottage because then she would have to acknowledge that this is the end.

Brian lives with his lover Mark, who is his caregiver.  Brian's former wife shows up, all glitz and glam and full of laughs and happy memories.  Mark feels marginalized until the wife sees tangible proof of Brian's disease and Mark gives her a no holds barred picture of the life of a caregiver.

Felicity is in a wheelchair, having had several operations and finally declared terminal.  She has dementia and her daughter is her caregiver.  She goes in and out of reality and some of her conversations with her daughter are entirely too familiar.

It's a powerful and moving play, but it gets us to think about life, to think about what is important in life and to live life to the fullest, as Martha did.

More Noses

Today we went to the celebration of Richard's life.  It was held at the Chabot Science Center, where his son Eric works.  The center is closed on Monday, so we had the run of the place.  When we entered there was a table of memorabilia

There was a place where you could pick up your own nose and glasses.

Char had brought a vat of clam dip and everybody hovered.

After we had mulled around for awhile, we went into the big theater where the program began.  Eric said that as a chemistry teacher, Richard always liked to create noises, so he and his wife Nan thought we should start the program with a bang.

There were several speakers, including these three.

Richard's older brother, on the left, reminisced about the two of them growing up in Wisconsin  Darian, who was Eric's life-long friend sang a Bob Dylan song with a verse added about Richard, and Char gave a nice summary of some of the silly things we had all done together over the years.

There was a ton of food and then we assembled out on the patio to take a grand group nose-and-glasses picture.

For those over 18, Char shared the photos of Richard's 50th birthday party, where the whole nose and glasses thing began.  Everybody at that party wore nose and glasses including Richard's 82 year old mother and Brandy, the stripper.

We enjoyed visiting with people we hadn't seen in awhile and getting caught up on the lives of our "family" (Char's kids, Eric, etc.).  When we left, we brought home two little tomato plants which I hope will grow.  Richard loved growing tomatoes.

All things considered, it was a very nice memorial.  When Walt went to put the program from the memorial in his suit pocket, he found the program from Arthur's memorial a week or so ago.  I told him to keep both in his suit pocket and he could add the program from Martha's memorial next weekend!
 

And So It Starts

Well, my guru called me today and said he'd found the perfect computer for me.  For those who understand those things (I am not one of them), it's a Dell Inspiron i3647-2309BK Desktop with an Intel Core i3-4150 processor, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, 1 TB hard drive, Windows 8.1 64 bit, 4 2.0 USB ports, 2 3.0 USB ports.

I don't have a clue what most of that means, but it will be much faster and store much more stuff than the one that died, and the price was right, so I gave him the go-ahead.  He'll get it set up for me (that will probably cost more than the computer).

I have an approach-avoidance reaction to the news that I will soon have a new computer.  The learning curve gets harder and harder, though the long time without a computer has given me work-arounds that make the loss of what was on the old computer less painful.

I know that the bonding process will be exciting and frustrating.  But when I've finally bonded, I suspect I will be very happy.  Oh heck, I know I'll be very happy.

I finally got out of my chair of sick today and went to visit my mother.  I hadn't seen her since our lunch on Monday, though I had called her every day.  We didn't have much to say to each other.  All she wanted to know was what I had been doing that was exciting, and all I could tell her was that I had been sitting in a chair with stomach cramps for 3 days.  Many, many times.

I didn't stay for lunch, but I dropped off her meds for next week and picked up her laundry.

Walt and I were going to a memorial service at 1.  It was for Uncle Herb, whom I barely knew, but he was Marta's step-uncle and we went to the memorial to honor him and support the family.  We had been to holiday dinners that Herb attended but I don't think I ever spoke to him--we were always in different parts of the table.

So imagine my surprise to learn that he was an author (Herbert Hocking) who had lived for many years in Perth, Australia and had written several books set in and around Perth and other parts of Western Australia.  Ned didn't know that either.  Had someone told me, we might have talked about Australia.  Instead, I'm going to read one of his books and see how they are.

After the memorial there was a reception catered by the amazing Sarah Clanton, of Stone Soup here in Davis.  It was a lovely spread but none of it looked good to me. I took a few things, ate a couple, and gave the rest to Walt.  My stomach just wasn't in a mood to eat anything...and that is saying something for someone who spends all of her time at things like this hanging around the buffet table trying to sneak seconds, thirds, and fourths without anybody noticing that the fat lady is hovering.

We had been invited to join the family for dinner at one of my favorite local eateries, The Buckhorn in Winters.  It's a real old fashioned meat and potatoes place, where you get huge slabs of meat and sit under the heads of animals who gave their lives so someone could slap them up on a wall (I hate that part, but the food is amazing).  

We almost never go there unless we are with a group, and I had been looking forward to it.  But given the way my stomach reacted to the reception food, I decided it would be a waste of money for me to go there, so I sent Walt on with Ned and Marta and I stayed home.  Probably a good idea.  Walt brought home some of his prime rib and garlic mashed potatoes for me and I did finish them, but it took me all evening before I could get them down.

As for me, I rented Boyhood  and watched it (love Amazon!).  Good movie, but the part that really got me was toward the end when Mom looks at her son as he is headed off to college and says, reflecting back over his life, "I thought there would be more."  No parent who has watched their child grow into adulthood can fail to identify and be moved by that sentiment!

In Memoriam

I wrote this several years ago and wish it were still true today:  "...here is a woman who, at 88, still volunteers for the Hospice of Marin thrift shop (which she has been doing for some 20 years or so), still drops what she's doing to help a friend or a family member in trouble, is the person that everybody takes their troubles to.

She is slowing down a little now, but she still does more in a week than I do in a month.  She lights up any room she walks into.  She knows how to talk to people, to make them feel special.  She is a gracious hostess who still hosts large dinner parties from time to time, always with beautiful table settings and food perfectly prepared.  Plants positively light up under her care.  More than one dying plant has burst into luxuriant bloom thanks to her.

She is always impeccably dressed, coifed and made-up, but is neither vain nor a spendthrift--she gets all of her clothes and shoes at the thrift shop where she volunteers."

...I'd be happy if only one of those things were still true today.  But at least she is still here.

* * *

We went to a memorial service this afternoon and I was very sad.  Not sad because of the decedent, whom I knew slightly, but probably, after all these years, would not have been able to recognize if I passed her in the street.

It was a lovely memorial service, with memories by her family and her friends and then a lovely bunch of refreshments which kind of crept up on you so that neither Walt nor I are hungry for dinner (no cooking ... yay!)

But as I looked around me I realized that the room was filled with the people that I knew best from the time when our kids were in school, when I was in so many activities, when I had friends I saw regularly in town.

I still have casual friends, of course.  But as I listened to the memories they had of the decedent, she had the life I always wanted to have in this town, making life-long friends with whom she was still close at the end of her life.

Book clubs.  I heard about book clubs and the friendship made there today.  The thing I wanted for so long.  I would listen to people waxing rhapsodic about their book club and how close as friends they were and I would make a comment about how I'd "always wanted to join a book club."  But nobody ever invited me, so I never got involved in the close relationships that these women formed.  Now it's too late.  They have a lifetime of emotional support, they know each other's inner secrets, have seen each other through triumph and tragedy.  I'm still the outsider. The person they all know, but don't really know in that intimate way that close female friends bond at a certain time in their lives.

In fairness, I suspect most of these groups formed as an extension of the Farm Circle, which it seemed everyone I knew belonged to when we moved here.  But Farm Circle was for people associated with the University, and we were not.  Nobody ever said "oh come on anyway -- nobody cares," so I didn't.

I am finally in a book club, but I may drop out after this year.  This is a huge book club with no discussion of books and just a formal presentation each month.  There will never be a chance to bond with anyone, since they live in a different town.  It's technically a book club, but definitely not what I hoped for.

Whenever I have an experience like today, I know it's me.  It's me because I never invited people to our home because I wasn't a good housekeeper, and we had the cacophony of being a quasi International House for so long, and I was embarrassed because I was too fat.  I realize I cheated myself out of what I most wanted in moving to a small town and now it's too late.

When you get to this age, you don't make new "best friends" any more.  I'm so happy Charlotte is in my life, but she lives so far away and you don't just "drop around" for coffee when you are 100 miles from each other. It's a long schlep to borrow a cup of sugar.

Three different people commented today about how they wanted to learn how to use Facebook and I offered each of them my services if they wanted to have me come and show them some things.  They all smiled blankly and moved on.  That will never happen and they were just giving lip service to wanting to learn Facebook.  I know that.  It happens whenever I run into someone who is on Facebook, doesn't know how to use it and knows that I do.  I don't care if you ever learn Facebook, but if you do want to learn it, I'd be delighted to work with you.  But you don't.  Not really.  It's just a topic of conversation.

I am very embarrassed about one woman who came up to me, gushing, remembering that time when I had met at so-and-so's pool, with my grandchildren.  Well, no.  My grandchildren have never been here to my house and certainly not left in my care in this town.  Then she went on to apologize about something she'd said, rattling on about the XYZ Foundation and how she realized later that I had founded it and she must have sounded stupid.  Well, no.  I never founded any foundation and didn't have a clue what she was talking about, so I must have seemed rude when I excused myself to get some lemonade.  Walt told me later he heard her say "School Arts Foundation," which I was part of (though not the founder), so maybe that was what she was talking about.  Anyway, our chance to have a nice conversation was cut off because I really didn't understand anything she was saying except that she had seen me with my grandchildren and I knew THAT wasn't true!  I wonder who it was....?

I don't know how I felt when I left.   Happy to see people again, sad that these were once potential good friends who now have their own close circle that never included me. Two different people once offered to go walking with me, many years ago, in the days when I could walk.  That only happened once because...I'm fat and couldn't keep up. Neither of them ever invited me again. It might have blossomed into a friendship if I could have kept up, but I couldn't.

Jeri always gets angry with me when I get down on myself like this.  But on days like today I see what my life could have been if I had been a housekeeper and not fat.  I have no one to blame but myself so yeah, I get down on myself occasionally.

A Truly Good Man

27 April 2012

This is not going to go down as one of the happiest weeks in our lives.

Our friend Jim Hutchinson lost his battle with bladder cancer this morning.  Our hearts are very heavy today.  Like Will, Jim was one of the good guys and everybody loved him.  He was also a quiet man and so I didn't know him as well as I knew his wife Pat, but Walt worked with him on projects for the Davis Comic Opera Company and, for the past couple of years on the board of, "Citizens Who Care" (CWC). a group which provides social support services to Yolo County adults and their family caregivers.

Jim's CWC profile gives a hint of the kind of person he was:

Jim Hutchinson is a long time member of Citizens Who Care. He served on the board from 1995 'till 2004, and returned to the board in the Fall of 2006. He serves on the Finance Committee, the Winter Concert Committee, and is an In-Home Respite Volunteer. He formats the Newsletter and is the web manager of the CWC web site. Jim is an Emeritus Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He retired 1993 and enjoys Golf, Bridge and singing. He was active for many years in the Davis Comic Opera Company and now sings with the University Chorus. He is still professionally active in organizing the biennial International Symposium on the Vibration of Continuous Systems, and runs the web site for that organization (www.isvcs.org).

We met Jim and Pat through the Davis Comic Opera Company (DCOC), so he has been in our lives for almost our entire time in Davis.  Their son Bill was a member of the Sunshine Children's Theater with our kids and their daughter Kate owns Ciocolat, where we just were on Tuesday.

Jim was a performer (among lots of other things) with DCOC and Pat, for years and years, was the house manager.  

Man with a Load of Mischief , 1984
(Photo by Tom Estes)

One of his roles was as one of the ghosts in Ruddygore.  For those who don't know the show, the set for Act 2 includes life-size portraits which hang in a gallary and at a point, the portraits came to life.  This means that the actors who play the figures in the portraits must resemble those figures and when the show finished, Jim took his portrait home.  It hung on the end wall of their hall...and completely covered the wall.  It was quite an experience the first time you headed off to the rest room and saw this humongous painting of a guy in a suit of armor staring at you.

There were so many parties and dinners at Pat and Jim's, Jim always the gracious host ready to share a glass of wine with his friends, Pat cooking wonderful gourmet suppers.  Their living room had stained glass windows on either side of the fireplace, which Jim had made when taking a class in stained glass. He was a man of many talents.  In later years, I mostly saw him when he and Walt got together to transport ficus trees to the theater for the annual Citizens Who Care fund raising concert.  DCOC owned six ficus trees which lived most of the year in a garage, but Jim and Walt would cart them out each year and take them to the theater and then back into storage.  They just did that this last February, in fact.  Jim had been undergoing chemotherapy, but was looking well and was not going to pass up the chance to work on that 20th anniversary CWC show.

If you needed an MC, Jim was the guy who could do it for.   After the last performance of the CWC show, it was Jim who handed out the gifts to all of the performers.

 
The thing about guys like Will and Jim is that they had such huge hearts and they touched so many lives.  I'm sure I don't know a fraction of all the ways that Jim helped everybody that he met.  But he was one of the original good guys and there are many sad people in the world today, hearing of his loss.

Will Connolly, 1943-2012

"I am just glum," Walt said, wandering around the house aimlessly.  We had just read our e-mail and learned that our friend Will Connolly had died.  Walt expressed what I was feeling too.  Another huge "presence" in the world had left it, and though his death was not unexpected, it still was a shock.

Will was our friend for decades.  I don't know how long.  Walt and I began ushering for The Lamplighters in the 1960s.  Will joined the company in 1970 and we watched him move up the ranks to the principal baritone roles.  Here he is as Samuel in Pirates of Penzance...I'm not sure if that is his hair or not!

Will became a more personal friend during my years working for The Lamplighters.  He, Gilbert and Henry Anderson were great friends, who liked to go on great adventures but be "home in time for dinner."  As my friendship with Gilbert grew, so, too, did my friendship with Will.

We were both born the same year, but he was a bit younger than I.   His father, also Will Connolly, had been a nationally famous sports writer for The San Francisco Chronicle.  At the time of his death, Will had been trying to figure out how to republish some of his father's better known columns on the Internet.   This one was one of three that I found on a site called "Western Neighborhood Projects," stories about a specific section of San Francisco. (Will, a native San Franciscan, was an expert on the city and had once worked as a tour guide.)

Will's mother was no slouch either, having received many, many honors and awards for her work as an advocate for the mentally disabled.  Her 2003 obituary is well worth taking the time to read.

When Gilbert died in 1986, Will and I, along with Henry and his wife Willa, took on the care of Gilbert's family during the week following the death.   While others in the Lamplighters took on the task of planning the memorial service, we were meeting with the people who would be handling his remains, meeting with the doctors who tended him at the end, and doing the practical thing.

When we had Gilbert put to rest, Will stepped in to be "Uncle Will" to Gilbert's niece Susie and her daughter Rachel.  Rachel, sadly never got to know her Uncle Buddy (Gilbert) but Will was a big presence in her life and visited her and Susie around the country several times over the past 20+ years.  (He, Walt and I flew to Oklahoma for Susie's bat mitzvah, in fact, and we went to St. Louis to be there for the production of the first play she ever directed.)  He was as proud of Rachel's theatrical successes as if he were her real uncle.

A year after Gilbert's death, Willa, Henry, Will and I, along with Diana Dorman, contractor for the orchestra, got together for a memorial dinner.  Out of that grew the GRUB, the name of which I never COULD remember.  The "something reinternment of Uncle Buddy."  It was a name Will dreamed up.  It was our yearly Gilbert memorial dinner, a group which, at its height had 17 attendees.  Will made all the arrangements and when I gently suggested calling a halt to it six years ago,on the 20th anniversary of Gilbert's death (more years than most of us knew him in life), it was Will who insisted we keep going.  (With Will now gone, and Walt and I going to be in Europe on the anniversary this year, this may finally be the year we stop meeting every July.)

Will was one of the funniest people I ever knew.  He always had a joke, a pun, a quip, a snide aside.  He found humor in all things and did one of the best W. C. Fields imitations.  He was born to play W.C. Fields  and, in fact, did play him in a Lamplighter Gala one year, and he even drove to Davis for Walt's 50th birthday party to sing "The Fatal Glass of Beer" from Fields' movie of the same name, accompanying himself on the zither.

But his finest hour may have been as a nerdy chiropterologist (one who studies bats).  Will embraced nerdhood and was so successful, the character was reprised in a later Gala.

Shelley Johnson recalls her favorite moment with Will on stage during that Gala:

It’s the closest I’ve come to Totally Losing It onstage. We were in a Gala where I was in the role of a Winery owner (a la the old TV series “Falcon Crest”) I was wearing an ‘80’s power suit and Will was playing a total nerd Chiropterologist; leading his flock of followers into the barns to research bats. He was dressed in an outlandishly goofy outfit – complete with a bat hat. His demeanor –hilarious.

Of course, the surprise was that when suddenly no one was around - Will & I did an “Oh Rapture” and ran onto each other’s arms center stage.

At that point he surreptitiously pulled the string under his chin on the bat hat so that the wings of the bat on his head rose: oh so slowly..... Well, you can imagine. The audience was howling. If I had not been able to bury my face in his chest and shake for a bit I would not have been able to stand up – much less continue.

We last saw Will a couple of months ago at a Lamplighter party.   He arrived quite late and Walt and I met him on the stairs as we were leaving.   He did not look well and confessed he felt "terrible."  I had this ominous premonition that I would never see him again.  I am sorry that feeling turned out to be accurate.

Stories of Will are legion and will be circulating throughout his very large circle of friends for weeks, I'm sure.  The one I shared was this:

Will and Gilbert were great friends. Will was also not particularly known for promptness. Gilbert one time made arrangements for Will to meet at his house, and was very specific about the time. He HAD to get there on time. Amazingly, Will showed up, right on time. Gilbert opened the door, looked at him and said "Good. I just wanted to see if you could really do it." and then closed the door again.

When I heard of Will's death I had the image of Will showing up at the pearly gates and Gilbert there to meet him with a "good--I just wanted to see if you could really do it" before shutting the door and sending him back to life again.

But I guess that probably isn't the way it works now.  

Ironically, Will died on the anniversary of Gilbert's sister's death.

Peggy Overshiner, Jeanne Ziaja, Gilbert, Mary Brown, June Wilkins, Arthur Contrad, Adrian McNamara, Ashton Bisbee ... there are so many Lamplighter principals in Heaven now, I'm almost looking forward to joining them myself, to see them all perform one more time!

WILL'S OBITUARY:  William (Will) Philip Connolly William (Will) Connolly, a lifelong resident of San Francisco, died April 24th at St. Mary's Hospital after a short illness. Will, born April 14, 1943, was the son of the late Will Connolly, a sportswriter for the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner; and Margarete Connolly, an activist for the developmentally disabled. He attended St. Brendan's Elementary School, St. Ignatius High School and Lincoln High School. Will was a history buff and proudly received a Bachelor of Science Degree in U.S. History from the University of San Francisco at the age of 57. Will's greatest passion was music. He was a member of the Bohemian Club Aviary Men's Chorus, Lamplighters Musical Theatre Group, St. Francis Yacht Club Sons of the Sea, served as a cantor at St. Brendan's Catholic Church, and was a former member of the San Francisco Boys Chorus. He was also a member of the South End Rowing Club, San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, former board member of Creativity Explored, an art program for developmentally disabled adults, Irish Literary and Historical Society, Musical Days in Forest Hill (board member), Welsh American Society of Northern California. Will is survived by his brother Paul (Gail) Connolly and sister Anne Connolly; nieces Christina Stark, Paula Suiso, Elizabeth Thomas and eight great-nieces and nephews; as well as Malone and Mahoney cousins and many, many friends with whom he sang and laughed.

Missed Opportunities

He's been part of my family for more than 20 years and I hardly knew him.   I don't remember what year my mother married her second husband, Fred, but he has been dead for 18 years so it may be more than 25 years ago that his children have been part of my family.

I was very happy when my mother and Fred married.  My sister had died a few years before and I was excited about having an extended family again.   Some of Fred's grandchildren were the same age as our kids and, when they met, seemed to get along well. I was excited that my kids would grow up with cousins, albeit "step cousins."

But the blended family thing never happened.  There were celebrations with Fred's family and celebrations with our family, but never joint celebrations, after the wedding.  In fact, this photo, taken at my mother's 90th birthday, 2 years ago, is the only picture of the four of us together -- and that wouldn't have happened if my mother's stepson Ed's wife hadn't insisted that I get in the picture with the three Rynders kids (Fred, Jr., Ed, and Ellen).  I actually cried because nobody had ever considered me as part of the family before. I will forever be grateful to her for that.

Since Fred died, my mother and Ed have spent a lot of time together.   He is her go-to guy, the one who fixes stuff around the house and helps her with some of her problems.  He and I have become friends, which is very nice.  I don't see him often, but I do see him, and we occasionally confer about concerns for my mother.

When my mother broke her ankle, and was in a convalescent hospital for a couple of weeks, I came to visit her every day and on a couple of occasions, my visits overlapped with Fred Jr.'s visits.  To my delight we learned that we had so much in common.  While my mother slept, we sat there and chatted about computers and the internet and lots of other interests that we shared.  More than 25 years as "family" and we were just getting to know each other.  I liked him a lot.

For awhile we exchanged e-mails, which was so special for me because we were finally getting to know each other.   But Fred had lots of health and other problems which severely affected his life.   He moved into an assisted living facility and then (I think) a convalescent hospital.  I didn't really see him much after my mother's ankle healed, but I felt for the first time that I kinda sorta knew him, finally.

Today we received the word that Fred has died.  As readers of this journal know, when a friend of mine dies, I usually write my own personal obituary, but I don't have much to say about Fred.  I liked the guy, but I look back over the fact that we were a blended family for more than 25 years, and I barely knew him at all, even though we seem to have had a lot of things in common.

Concetta

Our Pinata Group has lost its first real core member. Concetta Finocchio Jorgenson died last night. It is an amazement to all who knew her that she lived to celebrate her 70th birthday. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis before we moved to Davis in 1973. I cannot remember the last time I saw her with movement below her neck. Yet, despite her condition she lived a full life, traveled as much as she could, ran the Newman Hall Alumni Association for perhaps decades. She was an amazing woman.

I met Concetta when we were both attending UC Berkeley. I was the latecomer and missed most of the brouhaha surrounding the National Newman Club convention, which Berkeley hosted in 1961 ("Follow the Sun in 61"). That convention became the glue that bound together a large number of people whose experiences during the planning and execution of it became the stuff of legend. Out of its ashes, over time, arose the phoenix of the Pinata Group, my oldest and dearest friends.

Pinata Group (and others) at Concetta's daughter's wedding
(the priest in the back row was the priest who married Walt and me;
he died several years ago)

Just to briefly recap for those who may not know what the Pinata Group is, we were five couples who met, dated, and married at Newman Hall, Berkeley, in the 1960s. Many of us were attendants at the weddings of the others. Among us, we birthed 22 children, who have all been raised as cousins to each other. Many of us are godparents to many of them. We lived near each other in Oakland for a few years until the 70s when we started spreading out, geographically. Many of our children went to nursery school and early grammar school together. Each New Year's Day we would have a big party (because we didn't want to exclude the kids and have an adults-only party on New Year's Eve), which centered around the kids. From 1966 forward, each party included a pinata, for which there were strict rules, like lining up in birth order, youngest to oldest. The last time we had a pinata for the "second generation" was at the 40th birthday party for the five kids who had been born in 1966. They lined up like they always did. There was a pinata at Jeri & Phil's wedding, which was hit by the children in the 3rd generation, lining up, youngest to oldest.

I met Concetta around the time of the convention. Of all the Pinata People, she was probably the one I knew the least. Her parents owned the famous San Francisco night club, Finocchio's (a popular stop on the Greyline tour for decades) and Charlotte, with whom she attended high school, remembers seeing shows there when she was probably far too young to be night-clubbing.

Her wedding to Eric was a gala affair, with reception at Oakland's famed Claremont Hotel, overlooking the San Francisco Bay Area. They moved into a beautiful home high in the Berkeley hills. I remember the big bear skin rug on which many of our naked Pinata babies had their photos taken.

I remember the Pinata party we had there, where all the kids played downstairs, pretty much unsupervised. I don't know if they EVER got the candy out of the wooden floors, from the pinata which was broken down there. All of us "responsible adults" were pretty embarrassed by the behavior of our children.

It was late 1960s or early 1970s when she began to experience double vision and was eventually diagnosed with MS. She continued to be active and I remember parties she hosted from her wheelchair. Her husband left her not long after her diagnosis, leaving her to raise their four children. She raised their children alone in that house, with the assistance of caregivers, and the kids themselves.

When the fire erupted in the Berkeley Hills, all the houses on her block were destroyed except Concetta's. If you ever saw the movie made about that fire, her story is featured prominently, how she was rescued from the house and taken through the flames to safety. We hoped she would move off of the hill, but she was adamant. She wanted to stay in her house. Concetta was always adamant about most things!

MS never slowed her down. We all, at one time or another, were drivers for her to parties and other events. Char & Mike, and Jeri & Bill put in yeoman's duty, especially Char and Mike who even accompanied her to Australia to visit her daughter, who had married an Australian. Concetta wanted to be there for the birth of their first child. She made several trips to Australia, until her daughter and family finally moved back to California.

with her grandchildren, at son Eric's wedding

The last time I saw her was at her 70th birthday party, where we all marveled that she survived to 70. The time I saw her previously was during one of her hospitalizations, when we wondered if this was "it."

Our friend, Audrey (also a pinata mother) put it beautifully: Having known Concetta as a vibrant young woman continually engaged in a whirlwind of activities, never walking, always running, it has for many years been heartbreaking to see her so confined by the effects of MS. Yet she epitomized a level of faith and courage that was astounding, always smiling while enduring so many hardships, always concerned about the well-being of others in her life. She will be missed, for she has left us with a vision of true endurance and faith, and our faith tells us that she will be happy and with God in heaven forever.

At Concetta's 70th Birthday

Judy Watt Has Died

Judy Watt is the first member of our Compuserve women's group to die. She died of cancer on November 13. We heard the news from her husband yesterday.

Judy was the very first internet friend that I met, back in...oh lord...maybe the early 1990s? The women's group was just kind of forming at that time. I had been asked to be the sysop for the group (remember sysops?) and spent a lot of time scouring the newspapers trying to find deep, relevant topics for us to discuss, with varying degrees of success.

One day, I was totally out of ideas and I wrote an entry about housekeeping and how much I hated it. It was the most lively discussion we'd had to date and it sparked a different, more personal, kind of discussion.

Out of what I consider the first real intimate discussion grew this wonderful group of women who remain friends today, though our numbers are smaller now and are not growing because many years ago I had to move the group to Yahoo, where we no longer pick up new members. I think Judy is on the membership of the Yahoo group, but I don't remember her participating in any discussions after the move to Yahoo.

Most of us have met each other many times over the years, we have traveled together throughout the United States, England and Scotland. We were together in London on 9/11, in fact. We have seen each other through illness, divorce, births, deaths and lots of other things that mark the ups and downs of life. Even though I see them rarely, I consider this group of women among my best friends.

At some point during those very early years, Judy and I decided to meet, since she lived in San Francisco. This was a big thing in those days and we joked on line about the potential of one or the other of us being an axe murderer. We had a lovely coffee together at a nearby cafe (a safe, neutral meeting place) and I had only slight misgivings when she invited me back to her apartment to continue the visit. When I saw there were no axes in sight, I began to relax.

But Judy had a prickly personality. She was highly opinionated, highly intelligent and not hesitant to express her opinion. We clashed frequently and there was one huge misunderstanding in Ashland, Oregon, which really marked the end of our relationship. Neither of us cared enough to work through our disagreement at that time.

Our group met in San Francisco a few years ago, had dinner and then returned to Judy & Joe's apartment for dessert, but the two of us kept our distance from each other. I don't think we actively disliked each other, but our personalities were just different and there was no point in courting further explosive interactions.

Still, I continued to follow her, occasionally, through her blog, her post-crossing account (where I loved seeing which postcards she had chosen to send to other people), and especially through her Flickr account (not her Facebook page because we did not ask to be each other's friend on Facebook).

Judy was an excellent and passionate photographer and her favorite thing to photograph was San Francisco. As a native San Franciscan, I loved seeing the city through her eyes. Like me, she never tired of taking the same view over and over again (there are 327 pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, for example), but on different days, in different weather, and from different angles. I encourage you to pop over to Flickr and see her work. Some of it is breathtaking.

It is a shock to see one of our group die -- and prematurely, at that. This year in particular, with the number of deaths among peers that we have seen, it is depressing to watch yet another internet colleague die. I am a member of two long-term group of friends and when something like this happens, the natural reaction is to look around and wonder who will be next.... will it be me?

My sympathies go out to Judy's husband Joe and her daughter, Rachel, of whom she was so incredibly proud, and to all of those internet groups of which she was such an integral and beloved part.

Team Laura

Team Laura received the news we knew was coming eventually, but which we hoped would somehow be delayed a bit longer.

Laura Morefield lost her battle with cancer yesterday morning at 7:30 a.m.

I "met" Laura first on CompuServe, where we were both members of the David Gerrold forum. I don't remember when I met her for the first time, face to face, but I remember visiting with her when I went with David to a screenwriting class he was teaching at Pepperdine University in Malibu.

Walt and I stayed at the home she and husband Dan had in Santa Clarita, near Magic Mountain a couple of times when we were headed down to the Los Angeles area. I remember the help she gave me when I twisted my ankle in Los Angeles and could barely get out of the car in her driveway.

She introduced me to her mother, Charlene Baldridge, a theater critic in the San Diego area. I had just agreed to be a critic and I was happy to have her thoughts on how to do it well.

When Paul died, Laura drove the ~300 miles to be here for the memorial. I was so incredibly touched by her kindness. We remained in casual contact over the years.

In November of 2008, I received a note from her:

Hi Bev,

I know this is crappy news to get in an email but I can’t seem to face making phone calls out of the blue…so here goes:

I’ve been diagnosed with cancer (stage 4). It’s called adenocarcinoma and likely started in my colon (which is good news because it would then be more responsive to treatment). There are tumors in my liver and in my right lung. That’s all we’ve found so far. I’m in a tiny bit of pain but nothing serious.

I’ve got a lot going for me…I’m young, healthy (other than the cancer), surrounded by a loving husband, family and friends. So I’ve clearly chosen to fight this for as long and hard as possible. I’ll be starting chemo in a few weeks at most and will know in three months or so how my body’s responding to the treatment.

I wanted to let you know because you’ve been important in my life and it gives me strength to think of you rooting for me. I so appreciated our friendship over the years, starting with DG’s forum and blossoming into so much more as you stood alongside me when Bob died. I find you to be an amazing person, gifted and funny, a liver of life in bold and deeply personal terms. That’s an inspiration to me.

I hope you understand my desire to break the news this way. Every time I talk to someone about it (and there’ve been a lot of conversations that begin with “I have cancer” these past few days) it’s been very difficult and I want to shelter my emotions for a little bit. Thanks for listening, now, and so many times in the past.

Blessings to you, my friend

--laura

Knowing that attitude and support make a big difference in dealing with such a terrible diagnosis, she formed "Team Laura," a group of friend to whom she sent regular updates on her condition and asked for us to pray for specific things -- that this treatment would work, that her tests would be positive, that this or that number would be lower (or higher) on the next test, etc. We responded by praying for her and trying to keep her spirits up with cards and phone calls and jokes and all things that would keep her mind focusing on the positive.

I’m not looking forward to the steeper parts of this path, but I am so very grateful for the friends, family and incredible husband I have who have gathered around me and are already making me feel better.

She faithfully filled us in on the "gory details" of her surgeries, her procedures, her round of chemo, each message coming with hope and optimism...and concern for others.

I’d also appreciate prayers and candles and good thoughts (whatever your particular way of expressing your heart’s desire to the Creator) for my and Dan’s family. This has been a stressful time for them, as well as for us and our friends and I know we all can use a little extra tlc right now. (12/3/08)

When Laura was not able to write the updates, Dan would take on that task for her.

I was most impressed with her determination to live life to the fullest. She continued to play golf, do yoga, go on long walks, and travel with Dan.

Today was really special…I played golf for the first time since my surgery. The day before chemo is my highest energy day and I had enough today for 9 holes at the club (with my friend, Renee’) and 52 strokes (just under double bogey golf…so a good round for me considering I had 1/3 of my colon taken out less than 3 months ago!)

I feel healthy, gaining in strength and overall have a positive outlook…which is maintained by staying in the moment rather than worrying about what I can’t control. Prayers, journaling, visits by friends and family; these things all strengthen me and give more comfort than you know.

When her mood was somber she shared that with Team Laura too.

I can’t tell you how overwhelmed, loved and supported I feel after your emails back to me yesterday. Thank you for offers of phone numbers, suggestions of times to call, crazy photos, and funny one-liners! They all lifted my mood considerably!

The treatment seemed to be working midway through 2009 and she wrote:

I don’t know exactly what this means for the future…but I do know it’s excellent news today.

I got a phone call from my oncologist this afternoon, Dr. Cheng. He gave me my test results from Monday’s combined PET/CT Scan. I quote: “The scan did not find any active cancer in your body.”

I said, “Excuse me? What did you say?”

He repeated: “There is no evidence of active cancer anywhere in your body.”

First off, a big THANK YOU to the Creator for this amazing news. 7 months ago I was told there was no hope for this type of news given my situation. Yet here we are…and I am so grateful.

The good news was not to last, of course, and two months later there were new nodules on her lung (while the colon was the primary cancer, it had spread everywhere) The e-mails kept coming, titled "surgery update" or "chemo update."

In May of 2010, she held a virtual party to celebrate her surviving past the date they had told her she would not survive.

I’m having a virtual party this Friday. It’s called “Laura’s Sell-By Date Virtual Cocktail Party.” Here’s the concept: As of Friday I will have officially passed the median survival time (and the date I was told was a best case scenario back in November 2008). So I’d like to honor that (and you, Team Laura since you’ve been a big part of my will to live and desire to fight) by having everyone pause at 7:00 pm to raise a glass of whatever you want to acknowledge the date. I’d love it if you could take a photo of yourself celebrating and send it to me.

We all took pictures of ourselves toasting her and sent the photos to her. The party even made the Orange County Register.

In the middle of this, Dan's father died and a note went out to Team Laura, which responded with love and support for the famiy.

Thank you, Team Laura, for your amazing support. For enabling me to engage in a fascinating, joy-filled life because each of you brings such richness to our world.

In December last year she wrote:

We are enjoying my “extra” time off of chemo by being a big more active and have been to a few movies and even out to dinner with friends. We’re looking forward to Christmas and celebrating in a quiet way as our families are either far away or have children of their own with whom to celebrate the holiday. I am reminded powerfully of Easter every Christmas…that the joy of Christmas took Christ through a difficult path to the different, more painful joy of Easter. This year is no exception.

In March she learned that the chemo treatments had run their course and admitted that this was a scary time for her, but she and Dan took a trip to Hawaii before her next doctor's appointment.

There was some good news last month, but then came the report from Dan that she had gone into the hospital and then the sad news I received this morning.

Throughout this, Laura has acted with the grace and dignity that I always saw in her. I don't know how she was in person, but in her e-mails she remained as upbeat as possible. She defied the odds and lived more than a year longer than anyone thought she would.

She gave us wonderful lessons in how to live -- and how to die.

She will be sorely missed.

Betty

June 28, 2011

The photo was taken the day of my sister's baptism. That's my godfather Fred on the left, my grandmother (my father's mother) next to him, Betty McGlashan (Karen's godmother) in the middle, my mother holding Karen and my grandfather at the right.

The fat kid with the Shirley Temple curls in the middle is me.

Betty died last week, at age 94. She was probably my mother's oldest, best friend.

I'm not sure when exactly my mother met Betty and her husband Ralph. They lived in an apartment building across the street from our flat. My parents moved into the flat when my mother was pregnant with me. I don't know if Betty and Ralph already lived there and the two women were pregnant together, or whether they met sometime after my birth. I know at least that they were good friends by the time I and Betty's son Pat were 3 years old.

Throughout our childhood, Pat and I were friendly enemies. I don't remember peaceful moments this photo hints at; I remember being sent off to play in a back room and Pat teasing me unmercifully for being fat, for running weirdly, and just for whatever he could think of. I last saw him at my mother's 70th birthday party, shortly before he died of a cancer that nobody knew he had (he died just days after his diagnosis). We got along well at that event, all finally forgiven.

Betty's youngest son was several years younger than Karen -- I'm not sure exactly when, but I think there was probably 10 years between Pat and Doug (there was 4-1/2 between Karen and myself). I don't know exactly when Betty and her family moved south of San Francisco into a lovely home near Betty's beloved Stanford University, but they remained close to our family.

In time the marriage dissolved and Betty remained in the home with the two boys and we lost contact with Ralph. Betty got her teaching credential and became a high school history and English teacher in Palo Alto. During the difficult early days following her divorce, I remember my father doing a lot of funny things to keep her spirits up. He and Betty always got along very well and I remember that he liked taking strange things that had lost their address when going through the mail he worked and he would send them to Betty to get a laugh out of her (things like Chinese newspapers).

In time, the friendship settled into yearly Christmas letters, interspersed with rare visits.

My mother has said repeatedly -- something I have heard all of my life -- that Betty was one of the most intelligent people she ever met. She lived in awe of Betty's brain.

The last time we saw Betty was in 2004. I took my mother to Washington go to with myself and my friend Diane to see the Skagitt Valley tulips. I stayed with Diane, my mother stayed with Betty and drove to the tulip fields with her and her son, Doug.

As she grew older she became more confused and ultimately ended her life in a nursing home near Doug and his family (wife Lisee and daughter Caterina).

Her funeral will be held next week in Menlo Park, near Stanford University. Her ashes will be scattered in the Sierras, which have always been a part of her family, since it was C.F. McGlashan (I'm not sure the relationship--cousin? great uncle?--who wrote the definitive history of the Donner Party, published in 1940 (“Though first published over 60 years ago, McGlashan’s notable book on the Donner party has been in constant demand" ... “The author’s account is still the best available on that famous expedition.”)

Betty gave me "the talk" about college before I headed off to Berkeley. Neither of my parents--nor anyone else in my family--had gone to college and my mother wanted Betty to give me some guidelines for helping me settle into the Berkeley campus. She was so convinced I was going to pledge a sorority (she had been a proud member of Gamma Phi Beta) and gave me all sorts of guidelines about sorority life. I still remember her telling me that I would be called to "Pan Hell." (I don't remember exactly what that stood for...Pan Hellenic, I guess)

I think she never really forgave me for NOT being interested in the whole Greek life. But she told me something that I think of frequently these days when we are getting together with the Pinata Group, that in college I would meet the friends I would have for the rest of my life.

She definitely was right about that!

Betty was one of those "forces of nature" that you just assumed would be there forever and it seems strange to think that she is gone.

The last time we saw Betty,
here with her son Doug and my mother