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Blog 48 April 19, 2015

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Remembering Lora Fay  Lora Fay Foster’s obituary was in today’s newspaper. I have known Lora Fay since junior school at least, and thinking about her brought back a whole bunch of memories. Lora Fay and I both attended Travis Park Methodist Church. That was back in the day when probably 90 percent of our class went to church regularly and Sunday school as well. Lora Fay’s father, Woody, taught one of our Sunday school classes.  My family always went to church, usually twice a day. In the late afternoon, there was MYF—Methodist Youth Fellowship. I don’t remember what we did there—probably sang some hymns and said some prayers, and then had a supper some moms had prepared. Pimento cheese or tuna is what I recall. My family did not go to movies on Sundays, either. It was not a sin, but we just did not, probably a holdover from grandparents disapproving.

Digressing further, Woody Foster worked for Hammond Jewelry right on Houston Street between Hertzburg’s and the Texas theater. Years later, when I became engaged, I went to see Woody and bought Penny’s engagement and wedding rings from him.

At Jeff, Lora Fay played in the band and later became a nurse. She attended at least one of our reunions—maybe the fortieth.  I have not seen her in years, and she turned up on our lost list for a while. Texas searched for Lora Fay and tracked her down 14-16 months ago, living in an assisted living facility. Texas and Marcia and maybe Sarah visited Lora Fay and said they had a grand time reminiscing.

It is sad to see another of our classmates gone. We have lost a bunch recently, which makes me realize we  still here truly have been fortunate all these years to enjoy our health, our families, and our friends.

Here is Lora Fay’s obituary. I put on a more cheerful air next time.

LAURA FAY FOSTER OWEN

January 27, 1936 – April 16, 2015

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Lora Fay Foster Owen was born January 27, 1936 in Pearsall, Texas and passed away peacefully on April 16, 2015 with her family by her bedside. She was preceded in death by her father Woodman Foster; mother, Sara Foster, along with husband Fred Whiddon.

She graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio in 1954 and attended Travis Park United Methodist Church for many years. Lora Fay was known and loved by many and she dedicated her life to helping clients buy and sell real estate. She loved real estate so much she encouraged her kids to get into the real estate business.

God blessed Lora Fay to adopt all of her children and lived a life of unconditional love over the years. Her legacy of love, faith and willingness to serve others will continue. There was never a day where Lora Fay did not smile and she was a true friend to all that had the privilege to know her.

She is survived by her children: Robert Owen, Craig Owen, Carolie Willoughby and Amy Karns;

grandchildren, Cameron, Caitlin, Chandler, Callyn, Carys, Adam, Aaron, Aiden, Christopher, Megan and Heather.

In lieu of flowers a memorial to feed the hungry has been set up through Travis Park United Methodist Church in Memory of Lora Fay Owen 230 E Travis Street San Antonio, TX 78205.

The family will receive friends beginning at 9:00 a.m., Tuesday, April 21, 2015 at Alamo Heights United Methodist Church.

CELEBRATION OF LIFE TUESDAY APRIL 21, 2015 10:00 A.M. ALAMO HEIGHTS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 825 E. BASSE ROAD

A private family burial service will be held in Pearsall, Texas.

You are invited to sign the Guestbook at www.porterloring.com

Blog 47 April 16, 2015

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It has been a while since writing. I suppose the 25-30 of you  who were following have moved on to other more interesting thoughts. I have been remiss, but there are  many interesting time occupiers and some mundane that must be done.

Harry Jones: Over the years, I probably received more queries about Harry than any other one person in our class.  Yesterday, Harry was laid to rest at Sunset Memorial Park on the Austin Highway. Our class was well represented at the event. Bobby and Phyllis Tate came down from Austin, Billy and Bettye Sue Dube, Danny and Irma Sciaraffa, Don Martin, Charlie Griffin, and I were there, along with Connie Orr from the class ahead. It was a simple and heartfelt service, with a good visit after, as we exchanged memories of Harry. Harry’s daughter, Lee Ann, and son, Gene, were there and Harry’s brother, Dudley. Many sent me their expressions of sympathy or condolences. I have promised Lee Ann that I will send her those emails.

A denial: Someone commented to me that I keep people in touch by sending out notices of who has died. It is not my intention to always be the bearer of sad news. Recently we have had several deaths. Two were to update the list in the history book, as Jan Cox and Robert Lacey had been on the lost list. Harry was a “person of interest” and that is why I broadcast his passing. But I do deny that the purpose of my communications is to pass on news of other losses.

Reminiscing: Yesterday, someone remembered Harry and also George Pierce taking over and teaching a class—maybe geometry. I recall how Harry was the favorite of Mrs. Davis in chemistry class. That was so obvious that it must have embarrassed Harry. If anyone wants to share other memories of Harry, please comment.

Further reminiscing: A group was chatting recently about the movies back in the day. For a quarter, you could go to the movie, buy popcorn, and a drink. For that, you got to see a movie, a few serials, a cartoon, previews and the feature. Then we remember the “News of the Day” from Movietone or “News on Parade” from Paramount. Part of the lead-into one of those two was a montage of various activities. The one that sticks in my mind were girls clad in shorts doing jumping jacks. Does anyone else remember that? Then someone remembered that there was often a sing-a-long, where you followed the bouncing ball. I may not be all that sophisticated today, but singing along at the movie and the bouncing ball seems so cornball today.

I do hear from a lot of you guys for one reason or another. I pretend not to be a gossip, but I do think it is appropriate to pass along some of the comments and news. One flash is that Jerry Harris has recently become engaged after being widowed eleven years ago.

I intend to be a bit more regular with the blog—won’t comment about other things. The newspaper has been running a feature about events in SA over the past hundred or so years—I will include some of that in the future.  Till next time….

Blog 43 March 6, 2015

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About the book! Most everyone who ordered a book has received it by now, and the response has been completely gratifying. To all who sent kind comments, thank you. The post office does strange and not so wonderful things, so if your copy has not arrived, be patient. I followed some of the tracking numbers and found that our astute postal service sent a number of the books to Dallas even though for delivery in Austin and here in SA. Go figure.

I will include a few of your comments below, edited a bit.

From Pete Sweet: My reflections booklet arrived on Monday. I cannot begin to tell all of you what a terrific job you did with it. It has so many memories and I started at the front and have read through letter “C”, the information submitted by classmates shows what a diversified group of young people attended Jefferson High School graduating in 1954. To see everyone of our classmates is a true joy and to hear their adventures and experiences was a true gift. I do not know what those who did not order a copy of the publication thought they might be getting, but I can personally say that I got way more than I expected. I thought that I would get a pamphlet containing what those who replied about the past 60 years had written. To get as much information as this fine book contains is priceless. I hope that perhaps in the future when classmates are in San Antonio they might be able to get together to keep in touch.

From Janet Walker Mathes: I just received my 6o Years of Memories book today and I can’t put it down. It is so great and I am so very thankful to all those who helped you get this together and get it out. It is such a treasure. Please relay may heartfelt thanks to all those who took their time and energy to compile and distribute this to all of us. I wish I had known all this about my fellow classmates before we were together. What interesting lives.

From Sue Grum Redding: Received the ’54 History Book on Wednesday. I spent all afternoon reading it from cover to cover and then reread some parts yesterday.  It is awesome.  Thanks for all your work and the others that were involved.  Thinking back on my time at Jefferson, I remember more about the fun and friends instead of all the studying we must have done.  Would you have believed when we graduated that 60 years later there would be this volume of success stores? 

Enough of the praises. On to more interesting:

History factoids: The bit on the Hertzberg clock history generated memories and comments. Patsy Hatch Patterson and Jeanine Kliefoth Price both remember getting off the bus at that corner and checking the time. Patsy walked down Houston Street and up Alamo Plaza to get to Joske’s. Ben Williams that “You may not know that Hertzberg’s is where Ike bought Mamie her engagement ring. He was an instructor for ROTC at TMI in his first assignment after West Point.” Back in the 80’s (1980’s) when I often presided over ribbon cuttings for the Chamber of Commerce, one of the events took place on a newly converted office building on Broadway. It had originally been an apartment building and was the first residence of Ike and Mamie after they were married.

And on TMI, how many of you remember that Douglas MacArthur was as student there? TMI (Texas Military Institute) opened its doors in 1893. Douglas MacArthur was an early graduate, finishing in 1897, before entering West Point two years later. Here are a couple of photos of MacArthur. More about TMI in a later blog.

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Closing with a few more photos sent by Jim Warren:

clip_image004 Bonnie Hirsch   clip_image006   Margaret Pratt

If you have old photos to include here, send them along to jeff-54@satx.rr.com

Blog 42 February 20, 2015

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Have you been to a wedding recently? As is the custom nowadays, a DJ playing music way too loud on over-sized amps will call the bride and groom to the floor for a first dance as newlyweds. The song will invariably be “At Last” (back in the day, it was “The Anniversary Waltz”, but who waltzes anymore?)

I did not just get married, but I am humming “At Last,” because the history book is in the mail, possibly delivered by the time you read this. Many thanks to Charlie and Dottie Griffin, Tas (Dorothy) Crawford McGraw, Sarah Belcia Yates, and Bob Blake for gathering on a cold, windy, wet Friday afternoon just past to get the books ready for the mail. The post office has them now, though I am scratching my head over that. The envelopes have a tracking number, and last night I tracked a few and it said they have gone to Dallas, even the local ones.

The Hertzberg clock is located downtown at Houston and St Marys Streets across from the Gunter hotel. Here is perhaps more than you care to know about the 137-year old clock.

Hertzbergclock 3159It seems odd that a 17-foot-tall landmark, standing on such a busy intersection of downtown, could be so camouflaged.

Most downtowners pass the 137-year-old Hertzberg clock at Hous­ton and St. Mary’s streets without noticing it.

A few years ago, the San Antonio Conserva­tion Society Foundation, the clock’s owner, re­ceived when it broke down

“We went down opened the door and said, “Geez, we have a complete restoration here.” said Ed Gaida, a now-retired repairman of clocks, or­gans and other complex mechanical devices, who led a team that restored the Hertzberg in summer 2008.

Built in 1878 by E. Howard & Co. of Boston, the clock was installed outside the Eli Hertzberg Jewelry Co on Commerce Street. In 1910, when Com­merce Street was wid­ened, the store — along with the clock — moved to the Gunter Office building on the corner of Houston and St Mary’s streets.

In 1979 the New York-based Friends of Cast Iron Architecture wrote that the “Hertzberg clock may be the last of these clocks operated by a system of weights. We know of no other that is hand wound, all others being electrified.”

Two of Hertzberg’s descendents donated the clock to the Conservation Society in 1979.  In October 1982, the clock was dismantled and removed by crane to make way for the Republic Bank Plaza, currently known as the IBC Centre. It was rededicated in December 1985, restored by London Watch and Clock Co. and Kurt Voss Metals Inc. of San Antonio. But just a few years later, it was removed again for Tri-Party upgrades that widened the sidewalks of Houston Street.

It was reassembled for the last time in 1990. A mechanical device, the Hertzberg clock runs purely on kinetic energy like the rocking pendulum and dangling weight system of a grandfather clock.

“It’s precisely the same mechanism, only it’s heavy duty,” Gaida said. “The wheels are bigger. The gears are stronger. The weights are heavier. Because, remember, it has to drive those hands and those hands are exposed to the elements. In a strong wind, it has to be powerful enough to drive those hands.

”The clock is supposed to be wound once a week, but Laven, a metal fabricator, winds it twice a week — Monday morning and Thursday afternoon— because it’s more accurate that way. Some of the key parts have been replaced or repaired in recent years, Gaida said. “Just off the top of my head, I would say it’s good for another 50 years, at least,” Gaida said.“There’s really not much that can wear out. They were built like battleships— all cast iron and brass.”

Hertzbergclock 2158

Here is the clock with the Gunter Hotel across the street.

Enough history for now. I am having some formatting problems with the inserted portion on the clock. More in a day or so.

Blog 41 February 17, 2015

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Energized again! After six weeks since last writing, I suppose the 30 or so following have drifted away. Laziness, procrastination, working on the class history, and keeping active on the usual chores like taking out the garbage have kept me occupied. Now I have self-inserted three AAA batteries and am ready to go again.

Our history book is at the printer. I picked up a copy yesterday to review and take to the post office for weighing preparatory to mailing next week. Looking at it, I see various opportunities to fine tune it, but I had to call a halt somewhere to get it sent out in our collective lifetimes.

Since last writing, I have had exchanges with Jim Warren and will include some of his old pictures in the coming blogs. Here is one now of Sam Kersh and Dagmar Kielgast. We were all that young once.

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Sam and Dagmar

   Jim has in interesting past, which is included in     the upcoming history. But for teasers, Jim was a pioneer in  the early days of Personal Computers and became well  known in publishing early computer publications. He married for the first time at age 65.

Here is Jim in some before and after photos:

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Photo 1 1957-teaching at what is now MacArthur HS

Photo 2  Wild and wooly as a Stanford grad student

Photo 3 1978 passport photo

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Photo 4. Today at home in Washington

American Pie—the day the music died. Our 1950 years saw the transition from ballads to rock and roll. San Antonio was late to embrace the new music—all the music at our dances in the gym was slow and easy. By the time I arrived in Austin for college in September 1955, I was amazed at hearing songs like “Good Golly Miss Molly” as well as seeing “Blackboard Jungle” and being blown away by “Rock Around the Clock.” Buddy Holly came along in 1959 and was incandescent for about eighteen months. Penny and I went to see a live performance of “The Buddy Holly Story” this past February 3. It was a memorable evening with about 25 songs that Buddy sang. By coincidence, February 3 was the anniversary of the plane crash that killed Buddy, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper. There was a special tribute and we all joined in singing “American Pie.” If you are not familiar with it, look it up on YouTube and listen to it—the day the music died.

In closing, I have other stuff to pass along but will save it till the next effort in a couple of day. In the meantime, most of you are in a warm clime. Here is a photo of a friend’s house in Boston, where they have had 90 inches of snow.

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Blog 40 Jan 9, 2015

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Happy 2015 to all! The holiday season sort of got in the way of keeping on with the blogs, but I am back. I have been thinking as to whether I have said all I have to blog about. The reunion is a still recent and still pleasant memory. I have re-told some of the highlights and remembrances that stick in my mind, and a small amount of conversation has resulted, though not as much as I had hoped. I don’t want to run some of those thoughts into the ground, and I certainly do not want give the impression that I obsess on the past or have nothing else to do. I do. But here goes.

Old stuff! You received the email asking for orders for the reunion booklet. It is time to get that to the printer, even though the CD in digitized form is not ready because I have some technical questions for which I have not yet found answers.

New stuff! As I was mulling over those questions, I had a suggestion from Doug White to put up a Jeff Class of 54 page on Face Book. I had thought about this several years ago, but I am not a Face Book devotee and I did not pursue it. I think Doug is looking at setting one up. Will keep you all posted.

Class facts: Over the years, I have collected a lot of files from earlier reunions and items from classmates. By admitting this, I let you in on a secret that I keep stuff and don’t throw away as much as I should. In working on the introduction to the class history, I looked through some old files. These were typewritten, mostly by Kay Matteson Gregory. As I get time, I will try to scan some of it in and reproduce it here.

Other stuff! On a somewhat regular basis, classmates send along items to the jeff-54 mailbox. Some have the mistaken impression that these communiqués go to the entire class, but that is not so. Only I see them, and I don’t forward them on. However, some catch my attention, and I think that perhaps readership can be widened by including on here. With that lead-in, does anyone remember those awful English classes where we read poetry and tried to explain what the poem meant? I do readily confess that I was never even close to guessing what the poet was getting on about. “It’s all Greek to me,” could not have been a more accurate statement in my case. I even once bought a collection of poems by Robert Frost but also confess I opened probably once 40 or so years ago.

Yesterday I had an email from Rudy Alvarez, aka Professor Emeritus of Sociology Rodolfo Alvarez, UCLA. It contained a poem from Poems on the Underground. According to Wikipedia, Poems on the Underground is a project to bring poetry to a wider audience by displaying various poems or stanzas on advertising boards across the London Underground rapid transit network. If you want to know more about this subject, Google Poems on the Underground. An overly long into to the poem, which I somewhat better understand than what we did at Jeff.

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Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,

From bad to worse. Some years, muscadel

faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,

sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;

Elect an honest man; decide they care

enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.

Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go

Amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.

The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow

That seemed hard frozen; may it happen to you.

Sheenagh Pugh (bl 1950)

Blog 39 December 6, 2014

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Can you believe? In 1940 San Antonio’s population was 200,000.  WWII brought a surge of new people and by the 1950 census, the city had grown to 400,000. How many of you remember that the post office printed on all outgoing envelopes a message that read “America’s fastest growing major city”? Growth continued, and it always intrigued me that after returning to SA in 1979 people on the phone (i.e. telephone order takers) would frequently ask in which state we were located, despite a population of around 800,000. Population is now approximately 1.2 million. Earlier this week, I read that growth is expected to continue and that by 2050 it will double. The city is already too big, so maybe it is a blessing that we will not be around to see it. There will not be enough water!

Harry Jones: Over the past couple of years, a lot of us who know Harry have lost contact.  Emails bounce back, the phone is not connected, and when I wrote recently, the letter was returned with the unable to deliver notice. Fortunately, Bob Tate found a telephone number for Harry’s daughter, Lee Ann, and this morning she and I had a cordial conversation. Harry is in a long-term health facility in Lockhart, Texas in poor health. He is no longer on the computer nor phone. Like many of us, his memory is not as sharp as it once was, but Lee Ann says that he does relish mail. If any of you care to write Harry, I will send you a mailing address.

More memories:

  Jim McNeel and Doug Campbell

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Bill Solcher, Don & Patsy Martin, and Harry Wharton

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Jane McRoberts, Betty Stensland, Bettye Sue Conrad, and Louise Dobbins

Blog 38 November 24, 2014

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Time flies when you are having fun, doesn’t it. So I must be having a hilarious time—I just have not realized it. Has been a month since I last posted. Best intentions and all that. When a thought comes to mind, I usually jot it down to write about. I have a bunch of comments to send along, but I cannot find my paper with the notes. Does anyone remember Sophie Tucker on the early days of television? She billed herself as “The Last of the Redhot Mammas” and was a definite plus size. I recall one skit on a TV show. She sang a memorable ditty: “I Brought My Harp to the Party, But No One Asked Me to Play.” That is sort of how I feel not finding my notes, but in this case, I can’t play my notes.

From memory, then, a few odds and ends.

Marcia Pittman/Rock Mogas: Marcia and Rock hooked up at our last reunion. I heard from Marcia the other day that they began dating and have just become engaged. No date for the nuptials has been set, but both are very happy. Congrats and felicitations to Marcia and Rock.

Laura Moore Brusenhan and Groucho Marx and Gonzales Gonzales: Laura sent the website url for an enormously funny clip from a time many years ago when Gonzales Gonzales from San Antonio appeared on Groucho’s TV show with the opportunity to say the secret word and win $100 (wow!). This was the appearance that launched GG’ movie career. Here is the website: http://www.chonday.com/Videos/funny-mexican-guy-with-groucho-marx#.UfVbmBN44QQ.email

Enjoy

Advance scoop! I asked recently if anyone remembers the Class of ’54 gift to the school. I had two responses that were totally different, and I intend to post the replies to the class to see if either sounds right. Ron Bridges wrote “Our 1954 gift to the glass was a gold curtain for the auditorium. Check this out but I remember the moment when it was announced.” Ben Williams wrote: “My memory of our class gift was a piano for the auditorium. It was a full 8′ grand piano, not new, but we had it reconditioned and it looked and sounded great. One of our students, name forgotten, convinced Miss Mattie Sharp Brewer that his senior class research project should be a piano concerto, rather than a paper written in English. He played it for the class and for all the music related faculty members. Ms Brewer wanted to try and verify it was all original. All of the faculty members thought it was fantastic.”

Jack Davis, sir! You made the presentation. Does either sound familiar? My gut feel is that we probably had funds for a curtain. Giving a reconditioned piano would certainly score high marks for originality. I doubt either is still in use after sixty years. And what about the original piano composition? Only David Mills might have pulled that off. We need to ask David.

I have not checked lately to see how many have been reading the blogs. I do get nice comments periodically, though great lapses probably has damaged the circulation.

It is Thanksgiving week. I send along best wishes to all of you and hope you have a memorable holiday. Penny and I are leaving in the morning for a few days at South Padre. I am a bit ashamed to admit that having lived almost three quarters of my life in Texas, I have never been to the valley.

Take care for now. I will return with more pictures and maybe my lost notes.

Blog 37 October 23, 2014

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Heeeee’s back!! What a great trip Penny and I enjoyed to New England. We selected Newport, RI as home base and made day trips from there. The Newport mansions are impressive, although back in the early 1900’s, the magnates and tycoons referred to them as cottages. Weather was superb, except for a day on Cape Cod, when rain and drizzle set in. We made up for that in Plymouth,MA with undoubtedly the best scallops ever tasted.  Autumn color was peaking and an extra treat, since we selected the dates to go and did not worry about what the leaves would be doing. Finally, we toured Brown University and Yale. Don’t want to offend anyone, but Yale has to be one of the ugliest campuses I have ever viewed.

Preserve Jeff! Two nights ago I attended the annual meeting of the TJHS Historic Preservation Society. I was expecting a fairly large crowd, but there were maybe thirty folks there, including Jack Van Vleck from our class. If you wish to see the website, go to www.preservejeff.org.  Two items are worth reporting.

1. Digitized yearbooks: the project to digitize all the old Monticellos from 1932 through 2013 is done and saved for the Jeff history. They failed to tell us how to order them, though I expect it to be through the TJHS HPS. The project was accomplished by a firm in Illinois, who will fulfill the orders. It will cost $50 a pop, with most of the funds going to the firm and some percentage to the Society. All the scanning was done by hand, page by page, so it was a time consuming and costly process. That I know from the class history project.

2. The Student Council fountain project: They explained in some detail about the project to renovate the SC fountain, which was a gift from the class of 1932. Turns out to be a very costly process/project. It presently is not water tight, so that must be repaired. All of the piping to supply the water are rusted and must be replaced. The fountain has had all the dirt removed and it turns out that it is five feet deep! Under current law that gets re-classified as a swimming pool! So they will have to decrease the depth. Because of other projects ongoing, this will not be started till 2015. However, if you are going to add a brick to raise funds, please do it now.

The fountain again. The fountain recalled a memory I probably have not thought of since 1951. Do you guys remember joining a club and participating in some mild hazing? When I joined the Senate, I recall taking a shoeshine box to school and polishing members shoes for a day. The other memory is that we had to go out to the SC Patio and do push-ups at the fountain. With feet on the outer rim, we propelled ourselves forward and down to the raised inner circle and did push-ups. The trick was getting back erect without falling in. I do not recall the trick to that. Does anyone? And did the girls do a little hazing?

Shirley France. Another memory that came back when I was working on the history was of Shirley France, now deceased. I recall that to one of our reunions, maybe it was forty-fifth, she brought a date who was a priest. Does anyone else remember that?

Harry Jones. I have tried to contact Harry to no avail. The phone indicates it has not been set up for voice mail and it is not answered. All emails bounce back as being over quota. (Same message for Guy Bragg.) I suspect Harry has a full time care-giver now.

Photos:

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Fritzie & Byrne                         Kay Gregory & Patty Ramby     Jim & Ann McNeel

Blog 36 October 7, 2014

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Sorry for the delay in writing. I think irregularity (in the blogging sense, not the medical) causes interest to wither. My interest has not waned, but perhaps the handful who do read this have found other pursuits. This is a hurried effort to report in before Penny and I leave very early in the morning for a visit to explore Newport, Rhode Island, Cape Cod and other points of interest, maybe come across some autumn color.

Beverly Cole I had a good chat with Beverly Cole not too long ago. For our reunion in 2011, Beverly had appeared on our deceased list. Shirley Inselman came to me alarmed, asking, “When did she die? I just spoke with her last week.” Like Mark Twain, news of Beverly’s death was much exaggerated. I spoke to Beverly after that reunion, and she was happy to be found and living in Wimberley, TX. I called Beverly after missing her at our reunion. She commented that her health is not the best and then we had some fun reminiscing.

Beverly discussed candidly her mark of shame—she skipped out on a sixth period class not too many weeks before graduation and was caught. As a result, she was removed from the Senior Play, where she had one of the leads, and was stripped of other privileges. I had asked Beverly about her part in the Senior Class Day program where she and Bobby Rios did a dialogue from Saint Joan of Lorraine, about Joan of Arc. Beverly said Mrs. McDaniel went toe to toe with T. Guy, claiming Beverly had been punished enough. Apparently, T. Guy blanched and the show went on.

Beverly has an interesting tale about her life, but she is not going to share it in the history.

A dowdy old lady! Last week, Penny and I went to a performance at the Aztec theater. I did not take the theater tour at our reunion and I wanted to see the old girl. She still looked about the same regarding the motif, but the seating and lobby were changed. Next to the Majestic, it was like comparing fine china with clay crockery. I enjoyed the performance but was disappointed in the over all aspect. A recent article in the newspaper discussed the old fake Aztec sacrificial table that was in the lobby, and was moved to a Mexican food restaurant after the Aztec was closed the first time. Now it is in someone’s back yard.

The Class history: Bob Blake is proofing it now. On my return, I will be getting cost estimates to put it all together. It should have been finished some time back, but you all know about procrastination.

In haste, no photos this time. See you soon.