PUSHING ONWARD POST-WEDDING

Steve and Liz hosted a brunch in their seventh floor suite the morning after the wedding.  Quite a few folks dropped by before heading off to their various post-wedding destinations.  Lee's images from the festivities were widely appreciated, and there was lots of good conversation all around.
 

Later in the afternoon the O'Tooles and the Makelas had an early supper at the M Street Cafe on Main Street (a spot Liz has frequented so often over the last several days that they must suspect she's a restaurant reviewer visiting for multiple tastings).

Heidi and Lee then drove over to the Hollywood Bowl for an early evening concert featuring Gustavo Dudamel, a young and very dynamic conductor from Venezuela, and the great tenor, Placido Domingo.  The venue holds 18,000 patrons and was completely filled for this benefit performance coming at the conclusion of a week-long celebration of American music traditions.  Ana Marie Martinez, a fine soprano, joined in the festivities which ranged over classical, musical and Latin song stylings.  We've heard Domingo before, but (at age seventy) he seems in better voice than ever.  The soloists wre particularly effective in their singing their broadway numbers ("Some Enchanted Evening" from SOUTH PACIFIC and "I Could Have Danced All Night" from MY FAIR LADY).  The crowd particularly enjoyed their offerings sung in Spanish, songs familiar to the large number of Latinos in the audience.

The Bowl is an interesting setting, in and of itself.  The boxes seat four and are configured so as to allow picnic suppers to be spead out on removable tables whisked away once the meal is concluded.  We sat on wooden benches off to the side which nonetheless gave us a good view of the stage and the adjacent large video monitors.  Even leaving was much easier than anticipated; "stack parking" puts one car right behind another, often several deep in the same row; however, we were on our way quickly within ten or fifteen minutew after the concert ended.

Overall, a perfect way to end a leisurely final day on the West Coast...

THE BIG DAY

COMMENTARY TO FOLLOW!

WEDDING WEEKEND, DAY ONE

We drove the rest of the way from San Franciso to Los Angeles today, arriving in Santa Monica in the early afternoon in plenty of time to check in at the DoubleTree Suites Hotel and settle in before the start of the wedding festivities this evening.

Along the way we stopped in Santa Barbara for an hour or so to break up the five hour trip.  We strolled around the (rather elegant) downtown to stretch our legs and indulged in a bit of people watching while sipping our high-end espresso coffees seated curbside at a local, organic, hand-crafted coffee emporium.

This evening we joined the wedding party and other out-of-town guests at Hostaria del Piccolo in Santa Monica for a dinner hosted by the Maskiell Family.  The multi-course Italian meal and the outdoor patio setting were both fantastic; and we were able to sit with the bride and groom, Megan and Andrew, as well as with Liz and Steve (Megan's parents), providing ample opportunity to catch up with the latest family goings-on.  Jessica (Megan's sister), her husband, Jess, and their older son (Carter) were there as well, which made the evening seem even more festive.

All appears to be in readiness for whatever the 'morrow might bring, and we're very much looking forward to the events to come.

COASTING DOWN THE COAST

There are few places on earth quite as extraordinarily spectacular as the highway wending its way between Carmel and San Simeon along California's Pacific coast.  The route along California Highway One takes effort and time but is well worth both for the rewards provided.

Today's drive began somewhat inauspiciously when we stumbled into a Classic Car Rally in Carmel mid-morning.  Unable to even think about finding some place to park, we headed out of town chagrined at having to forgo a visit to one of California's most picturesque coastal towns (and one of our favorites, to boot).

However, as we motored down towards Los Angeles, we encountered one "old fash" after another en-route to the week long showcase further north in Carmel.  At times we didn't know where to look: at the coastal beauty on the right or at the classic cars whizzing by to our left!

The weather all day was perfect -- cool and sunny with a touch of fog hanging low over the Pacific.  We stopped for lunch al fresco at the Big Sur River Restaurant (where some lucky folks can sit on wooden deck chairs mid-stream, dangling their toes in the cool river water).  We pulled off the highway to admire the scenery on numerous other ocassions as well - as the following collage attests.
 

This evening we are lodging at the Sand Pebbles Inn in Cambria immediately across Moonstone Beach Drive from the ocean.  We arrived early enough to witness the evening fog roll in as we wandered along the beach boardwalk before heading into town for a light supper at Linn's (clam chowder and quiche).
 

 
Tomorrow we complete our drive to Santa Monica, the site of Megan and Andrew's wedding on Saturday.   This, however, has proven to be one of the most rewarding days of our trip - even the elephant seals lazing on the beach in San Simeon cheered our progress down the coast towards LA. 

What more could one possibly desire than that?

BACK "HOME" IN PALO ALTO

The Arbor Guest House provided the expected hearty breakfast and lively conversation (plus several rounds of bocce ball) early today prior to our mid-morning departure.
  

We first stopped off at Cuvaison Estate Winery, a beautifully situated spot where we shared a wine tasting of some really nice varieties and vintages, including an especially tasty Chardonnay.  We called our connoisseur son Jon in Illinois while lounging on the patio looking out over the vineyards, wine glass in hand;  "Mom," he exclaimed, "It's only 11:00 in the morning!"
 

 
Once back on the road, we returned to Walnut Creek for lunch at a Rossmoor restaurant with Helen and Dave before driving on to Palo Alto later in the afternoon.

This evening we had dinner with SCOTT SUTORIOUS whose family lived in Shaker Heights (and were active members of Plymouth Church) for years before moving back to the West Coast to be with Scott's mother here in Palo Alto.  We missed seeing his wife, CAMELIA, because she was off in Florida settling HER 90-year-old father into a new condo there.  We enjoyed our evening together, catching up on the activities of their four sons as well as those of the parents, and look forward to seeing some of them again, at least, at on a future Ohio visit.

A DAY IN THE VALLEY

Beautiful weather -- four great wineries -- seven delicious wine "tastes" -- an informative tour -- a picnic lunch -- glorious flowers everywhere -- a "pause that refreshed" overlooking acres of vineyards from a hilltop patio at the end of the afternoon - a light supper at Celadon in Napa to round out the day -- great company -- scenery to die for -- the Arbor Guest House, an elegant,  quiet and comfy bed 'n breakfast...

What more needs be said?
 

ON THE MOVE AGAIN

In the mid-seventies, one Sunday, when Heidi and Lee settled into the pews of Plymouth Church of Shaker Heights for the very first time, we came to realize we had done so on the day a new senior minister was to deliver his very first sermon to the assembled congregation.  That new pastor was DAVID REES.  And we were impressed, both with what he had to say and the way in which he said it, so much so that soon after we, too, joined the congregation ourselves, which has remained our church home ever since.

DAVE and HELEN, together with their two daughters, SARAH and REBECCA, evenually moved on to serve churches in Berkeley, California, and Miami, Florida.  Summers, however, the family always returned to their lake cottage on Lake Mohawk outside Malvern, Ohio; and the Makela family were frequent weekend visitors.

Over the years, we basked in the sun, rode around the lake in DAVE's boat, swan off their dock (after a lengthy trek down several flights of stairs to the shoreline), ate many a meal on their open-air deck, played lots of games and enjoyed endless stimulating conversations.

One summer we even stayed in the Berkeley home while they were off in Ohio.  We also stopped by to visit them in Florida on a couple of occasions, and they stayed with us at our timeshare on Hilton Head Island.

More significantly, DAVE presided over the marriages of all three of our children (two at Plymouth; one in Cincinnati).  And together we all watched their two kids grow up, marry and begin families of their own.  It came as no surprise, then, that, when DAVE finally retired, they would choose to move back to California where both daughters' families had taken up residence.

Today we drove up to stay with them at their new condominium apartment in Rossmoor, a retirement community on the outskirts of Walnut Creek, and to visit with both Sarah's and Rebecca's families.  It was wonderful to meet Sarah's husband Dave Carroll for the first time, to visit with Rebecca's Alex again, as well as to meet all three grandchildren: Dylan, Oliver and Lola.  Dinner at Marica in Oakland was also a special treat.  And, not surprisingly, the conversation all along the way was as stimulating as always.
 

Tomorrow the four of us members of the senior generation will be off to Napa Valley for an overnight visit to Wine Country, fulfilling a pledge we made one another once we knew the REESES were moving back to California.

Details to follow (once we sober up) ...

GOOD FOR THE SOUL

OK, folks, pay attention; this could get complicated. 

Brunch today (and much of the afternoon to follow) was spent in the company of BARBARA and JOHN BOYLE  in their wonderfully welcoming San Francisco pied-a-terre.

Both BARBARA's and Heidi's fathers were on the faculty at Wheaton College when the two were youngsters in Norton, Massachusetts.

BARBARA later married JOHN, whose academic career eventually took him into the East Asian History Ph.D. program at Stanford University in the early 1960s.  When Lee was considering which university to attend for his Ph.D., we got in touch with the Boyles at their home in Palo Alto for their assessment of the program at Stanford.

JOHN's words of encouragement (tempered by an admission that the major faculty figure in the program was personally somewhat distant -- to say the least!) helped convince Lee to take Stanford's admission offer (and the promise of a National Defense Foreign Language Fellowship) over those of Harvard, Yale and the University of Hawaii (sans scholarship aid).

Several months later we two landed on the Boyle's doorstep fresh off the plane from Thailand.  They (and their two young children, Tommy and Martha) graciously took us in and under their protective wings as we gradually made our readjustment to life in the United States and as a graduate student couple living in married student housing on the Stanford campus.

During the ensuing four or five years we became fast friends and spent a lot of great times together before JOHN, Ph.D in hand, accepted a faculty position at Chico State College (now, University) in Northern California. 

In 1969, a scant year later, JOHN was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research in Japan and invited Lee to take over his instructional responsibilities at the university in his absence.  Once again we invaded the Boyle household, this time living in their home in Chico for a full academic year, taking care of their cat Homer, and overseeing BARBARA's mail-order psychological testing service.

That year of teaching experience gave Lee a leg up a year or so later when he himself was applying for a permanent university position.  It also helped him through the oral defense of his dissertation several weeks after he began teaching when a member of his Stanford committee asked how he might teach the material uncovered in his research (a consideration Lee had given much thought to as he prepared for his initial classroom instructional experiences at Chico State with JOHN's helpful lecture notes close at hand).  Thereafter Lee kept the committee focused on his curriculum plans for much of the time, likely avoiding a good many probing questions concerning the validity and proof behind his actual dissertation thesis statement!

All these experiences -- and many more -- are well documented in letters Heidi sent her parents in Massachusetts during this period.  This cache of correspondence recently turned up in the back of a file cabinet drawer down the basement in our Shaker Heights home.  References to shared experiences with the Boyles therein are quite frequent, so common in fact that Heidi began to mark them with post-it-notes in anticipation of today's visit!

We spent much of the afternoon, therefore, listening to Heidi read these excerpts aloud, historically documenting in written form episode after episode none of us could recall today for the life of us!  Nonetheless, we laughed a lot; and occasionally a light bulb would blink on as we did, in fact, remember (however dimly) an incident long buried in our collective memories.

All this while, as well, we basked in the spectacular view out their floor-to-ceiling wall of windows overlooking Alcatraz and sunny San Francisco Bay all the way west to the Golden Gate Bridge.
 

To be sure, laughter is good for the soul, as this afternoon so amply demonstrated.  So, too, is spending a day with such good friends, sharing with them all those (hazy but golden) memories of times long past.

TODAY'S BAY AREA TEMPERATURE: BETWEEN 60 AND 100 DEGREES

A visit with LYN MAKELA, Lee's sister, was first on today's agenda.  We drove over to Half Moon Bay this morning to take her out to breakfast at Joanne's Ketch, a cozy restaurant right on the coast with a view out over the marina.

Although debilitated by nerve-related damage both to her speaking voice and to her walking ability, she still exhibited flashes of her usual humor and kept up a steady stream of labored but clear conversation for the whole time we spent together.

We also got to see completed and in-process examples of her passion for quilting and caught, in the sparkle in her eyes, telltale glints of the pleasure she still derives from this longtime crafting pursuit.  She lives very much in the moment without obsessing on "what might have been" nor on what might lie ahead as she and her doctors work towards a fuller diagnosis of what appears to be a genetically-linked degenerative condition.  Meals on Wheels provides sustenance five days a week; someone cleans and shops for her; a good friend and her two cats keep their eyes on her; the small single story house she rents is ideally suited to her current needs.

All in all, she appears to be managing as well as can be expected.  It was good to reconnect and to see her again after all this time.  We were relieved as well to find her in such a calm and accepting state of mind, optimistic but guarded about the future.

Our agenda next brought us to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco where we met CLAIRE and JIM MARCIANO for a delightful lunch and lots of good conversation on the sunny terrace overlooking the Civic Center Plaza.

CLAIRE was in Heidi's Peace Corps group; and later she and her fiance (and, soon enough, husband) JIM were frequent good-time companions during our Stanford days as well.  Both are still employed, JIM as an Appellate Court Judge and CLAIRE as a career counselor working with those seeking employment in Contra Costa county outside San Francisco.

After lunch we wandered around the Avery Brundage Collection in the museum, admiring the classic architecture of the former public library building in which the collection is now housed, the beautiful objects themselves and the contemporary art inspired by favorite items within the collection's purview (under the rubric of an exhibit entitled "Phantoms of Asia").

Back in Palo Alto, this evening Andrew Wolf and family joined ELIZABETH and us for an alfresco supper on the patio (rapidly becoming our favorite place on the property).  We enjoyed exchanging anecdotes around our mutual Peace Corps experiences (Andrew served in Guatemala during the early 90s, encouraging rural development using available technology) while Alexander, Spenser and Emme cavorted around the yard under wife Drew's watchful gaze -- a most pleasant conclusion to yet another day spent busily "rebooting the past".

ANOTHER FINE DAY ON MOCKINGBIRD LANE

ELIZABETH WOLF is one of the most intertwined people in our lives, despite the infrequency of our actual physical interactions with one another over the years. 

Back in those long ago Taunton / Norton days, Heidi often wore hand-me-down clothing once worn by Elizabeth.  Later Heidi's mother introduced Hans Wolf ("the most eligible bachelor in town") to Elizabeth Bassett; and Heidi's father, an ordained minister, presided over their eventual marriage ceremony six months later (They were engaged within six weeks!).  Equally special, their first daughter (of three followed by a single son) was named "Heidi".

Later, when Heidi and Lee were married in Thailand, Hans extended a business trip to Germany to take in a visit to the newlyweds in Bangkok (!) and provided the Martins with the first 8mm film evidence of Lee's actual existence. (He also filmed Heidi at work in the television studio teaching her weekly elementary school English Language lessons, our only visual record of that particular Peace Corps experience aside from a handful of black-and-white photos.)

Both Elizabeth and Hans traveled with us to China and Tibet in 1988, and we visited with them (on both the East Coast and at their Palo Alto sanctuary) over the years.  Hans died in 2004, and we last visited Elizabeth here in 2006.

On this trip we arrived on Mockingbird Lane a day before she did!  Next day in the afternoon we picked her up at the airport together with Phyllis Willits, her travel companion over the past several years.

And therein lies the kernal of yet another serendipitous adventure: we stopped in to drop Phyllis off at her home in the faculty housing neighborhood nestled in the hills behind the Stanford campus and walked into the house only to encounter the aroma of fresh-from-the-oven brownies baked by Bob Eustis, a retired Professor of Engineering, with whom she lives.  Bob and Phyllis and Elizabeth (along with their respective, now deceased, spouses) have been fast friends for years. So we stayed long enough to sample the brownies and sip some tea and to admire Bob's masterfully crafted wooden chairs (to which he held the patent until he transferred it to Stanford as a scholarship bequest).

Their home, like so many nearby, is an architectural wonder, all mid-century Danish modern with lots and lots of  polished wood beams and paneling, overlooking Hoover Tower in the distance.  The surrounding yard features several huge, old live oak trees and a shaded patio to die for -- it was a real treat to spend the short time we had there with them becoming acquainted and chatting in such an exquisite setting.
 

Back "home" on Mockingbird Lane, Elizabeth wrestled up a tasty salmon supper for the three of us out on the covered patio, and we heard all about her Canadian travels, a relaxing end to a busy day.

All rested and refreshed, this morning we drove to Menlo Park in search of Keplers, a favorite bookstore from decades past, only to find it undergoing renovations in an attempt to avoid the fate of so many other independent bookshops in the Age of Amazon. 

We made do with a stroll through the nearby main shopping street before retreating to the Stanford Bookstore to browse their shelves.

It's always good on occasion to have access to the kind of unexpected discoveries that bookshelves provide so much better than an online list of recommended titles.  And both of us found prospects we hadn't considered before our visit.  Of course, we'll likely download them onto our Kindle or Nook rather than burdening our suitcases with more weighty tomes, but that's they way of the world nowadays, isn't it?

The afternoon hours we wiled away reading and dozing on the patio.  Tonight we're off to Akane, a Japanese restaurant in Los Altos for dinner: review to follow, yet surely the end to another restful and enjoyable day ...

DIM SUM AND MORE

BILL LEE, his wife Pauline, and their three sons (Peter, Kerwin and Rod) were fellow parishioners of ours at Wesley United Methodist Church in Palo Alto during our Stanford years.

Kerwin and Rod were particularly active members of the Methodist Youth Fellowship with which we were involved then (Peter was already away at college). After we moved to Ohio, Pauline would sometimes phone us “out of the blue” at totally unexpected times to catch up, and Bill's holiday card sketches were always clever images capturing events (significant and otherwise) taking place over the year just past.

Bill, a chemist, worked at SRI (Stanford Research Institute), one of the most prestigious organizations in the Bay Area, and would regale us with stories of his San Francisco Chinatown upbringing in the days prior to World War II. Another memorable anecdote recounted how he and Pauline came to be the first Chinese-American family to move into their Palo Alto neighborhood (where they resided in an iconic Eichler-designed house on California Avenue.) Bill -- a talented writer as well -- eventually compiled many of these stories into a self-published autobiography which appeared last year and which both Heidi and Lee thoroughly enjoyed reading.

A few years after Pauline died, Bill (now 89) reconnected with Rose, and the two of them moved in together and set up house in nearby Sunnyvale. We last visited Bill in 2006, shortly after Pauline had died, and had never met Rose (although we certainly heard a lot about her from Bill).

After a leisurely breakfast this morning and an eye-opening walk around the Stanford campus (so much new construction around, it took ten minutes or so to even encounter a familiar building!), ...

 

,,, we met Bill and Rose for dim sum at the Port of Call restaurant in Sunnyvale. The vast majority of lunch patrons were Chinese, always a good sign; and the variety of small plates we shared indeed proved delicious. Afterward we went back to their home for a longer visit (and some wonderful root beer floats and homemade cookies).

Catching up on Bill's three sons and getting to know Rose “up close and personal” proved a real treat.

Especially interesting was learning that the two grew up together in Chinatown – Bill was actually closer in age to Rose's older sister; but, from the very outset, she (Rose) had a crush on Bill. Moreover, after Bill returned from serving in the army during WWII, the two actually spent their respective honeymoons together (quite by chance) in the same location at the same time! After raising their two individual families and both losing their spouses, they reconnected in 2007 and have been together ever since. 

Now, if that's not a romantic movie plot, we don't know what could be!

Another surprise: David Schlager, the son of Bob (and Evelyn) Schlager, our senior minister while attending Wesley, is now the pastor at the Sunnyvale United Methodist Church that Bill and Rose currently attend! Dave was also in our MYF group and, when we moved East to Ohio, drove with us across country on his way to spend his Junior Year Abroad in Spain.

It really is a small world after all!

We left Bill and Rose in time to pick up ELIZABETH WOLF (our hostess here in Palo Alto) mid-afternoon at the San Francisco Airport upon her return from a Tauck tour to the Canadian Rockies.

But that, dear family, is a tale for another day...

OFF WE GO !

The view from the covered patio here on Mockingbird Lane in Palo Alto overlooks a tree-covered valley and hazy, distant, forested hills. Aside from the persistent construction noise nearby, all is quiet, sunny and serene.
 

We're relaxing a bit after our twelve hour travel marathon taking us from Shaker Heights early this morning to the Akron-Canton Airport for a 6:15 AM FRONTIER airline flight to San Francisco via Denver, Colorado. Actually, the whole trip so far has seemed much more tolerable than often is the case, likely because we weren't headed overseas as has often been true in the past; the five or six hours spent in the air seemed a piece of cake compared to other (long, long, long) flights we've taken previously!

All along the way, moreover, we've remarked on the general level of civility and general good humor encountered everywhere, from the genial shuttle bus driver at our departure airport to the counter help at the car rental location here in the Bay Area. That, too, surely has lowered the potential travel anxiety level considerably.

The time here on the West Coast is just a bit before 2:00 PM in the afternoon; but, of course, it seems more like late afternoon to us. Nonetheless we're settling in nicely. We're fortunate in that the area is somewhat familiar, even after nearly fifty years away, and that our hostess won't be back until tomorrow evening. We're pretty much on our own 'til then with very little on our agenda – which makes the adjustment process even less stressful.

Within an hour and a half of our arrival (and after picking up our rental car), we stopped for an early (and leisurely) lunch in downtown Palo Alto at La Strada, an Italian restaurant on University Avenue, which we enjoyed immensely – nothing beats alfresco dining, believe me! The entire downtown area struck us as VERY different from the cityscape we recall from our Stanford days: much more upscale and prosperous than remembered, with lots of dining options unimaginable “back in the day”.

That observation allows us, appropriately enough, to introduce a major theme for this particular travel experience. The principle reason for this trip, of course, is to attend our niece's wedding, coming up in Santa Monica ten days from now. However, we're also reconnecting with lots of good friends who all happen to be living in the Bay Area currently, friends (and family) who have been a part of our lives for decades.

Some of these connections go back to growing up years in Massachusetts and Illinois; some, to Peace Corps days. Other friendships date from our time at Stanford in the late 1960s. We'll even be visiting with folks from our years in Shaker Heights who have migrated out here to the West Coast. In fact, we're pretty much visiting with friends and family from each and every stage of our collective lives together and even earlier.

Although we generally have kept up over all these years, we haven't visited with many of these folks since at least 2006, many even longer ago than that. Hence the notion of a “reboot”, not unlike the one we experienced when we went back to Surat Thani and Bangkok, Thailand, in 2003. Then, that sense of what the country and the culture were like when we lived there in the 1960s was quickly replaced by a sense of the reality of contemporary life in the early twenty-first century, not unlike the transformation we're likely to be encountering here in California over the days ahead.

As we go along, we'll try to tie everything together for you as this recasting of our own personal history takes place. We hope you will enjoy this ride “Back to the Past” with us as we experience the inevitable “real life” transformation of Past into Present as it takes place in real time.

And so begins another Makela travel adventure ...