Hello, everyone, from Sedona, Arizona! I’m so sorry to hear about your wife’s stroke, Bill! I hope the doctors are wrong, and it proves to be temporary. And I know you suffer from severe arthritis; so, I can imagine your lives are turned upside down for sure! Do you have family nearby who can assist you? Blessings on all of us Buccaneers as our minds and bodies enter their golden years. “Old age ain’t for sissies.” Bette Davis Joan Morris Westmoreland (August 3, 2024)
(Thanks, Joan.. Jeri and I really enjoyed watching you perform on stage when you were living in San Diego. You are a very talented actress. Unfortunately, Jeri’s sudden blindness is total and permanent. Family has been great. Bette was right about old age. I quote Baseball Hall of Famer Bob Lemon: “Whoever called them the Golden Years was full of shit!” …and thanks to all for your kind words about my wife’s blindness.)
Just read your August Beachgeezer and I think you said your wife had a stroke. So sorry to hear about this. Hopefully she can regain some of her sight.
I just had a knee replacement Friday, July 26. Not a lot of fun but nothing compared to what you’re going through. I was lucky and came home the next day. Now I just have to get off my rear and move and I will be much better. I’ve gotten a bit lazy in my old age, I thought I was going to come to the August breakfast but I’m not moving too fast right now . I keep saying next month?!?
Prayers and good thoughts are with you and your wife.
~~~Janet McDonald Walz (August 3, 2024)
Bill,
Sorry we missed you this morning at our MBHS breakfast. The turnout was small but active.
Frank Bion Gordon (August 3, 2024)
Hiya, Bill… I strongly suspect the seller of the ’58 Taroga is Donna’s daughter, Laura. Donna an’ I were a pair thru 3 years of MBHS. She married Tony Rossi while I was in the Air Force.
Here’s the link for the ’57 Taroga also listed by the same seller:
I’ve messaged them, an’ will report in full subsequently!
Thank You once again, Bill, for all your hard work…It’s not such a dirty job, but I’m sure glad you are the ‘somebody’ that’s picked up the slack.
Very sorry to hear of your Lady’s tragic loss…Blessed Be! wlw Warren Whittier (August 3, 2024)
Well, it may be Donna’s, but the seller isn’t Laura (her daughter).
The fellow says he buys storage locker clean outs & etc., an’ isn’t part of their family. Damn!
I can’t put my hands on my copy of the ’58, so maybe I’ll pick up Donna’s…just because, y’know? wlw Warren Whittier (August 4, 2024)
Roni Parry Star bought the ’58 Taroga (details below)
Missing the Geezer Breakfast is not fun. See you in September, if not sooner. I think your idea to pry out old prettified brains is good, if we don’t volunteer the info, pry it out. Walt. Walter Andersen (August 3, 2024)
Johnny Mathis was my absolute favorite singer in the ’50s. I just loved everything he was singing. Well in early 2023 my daughters arranged a visit to Palm Springs where Johnny Mathis was going to perform. 2 days before we were going to go I fell and really injured my left knee, so I ended up in the hospital for a couple of days and there was no way I could go. That’s one of my biggest regrets. Nancy McElvain Servatius (August 3, 2024)
At breakfast is morning, my daughter and I were talking about our upcoming cruise to see the fall colors on the East Coast in the US and Canada. We only have six weeks to go until our cruise, so will I make it? Without falling? Nancy McElvain Servatius (August 4, 2024)
What a very healthy and handsome lot we are!* Roni Parry Star (August 3, 2024)
Whoops. I go to an exercise class on Saturday mornings for my arthritis. I totally forgot it was the first Saturday of the month. Dammit. I really like going to those breakfasts and won’t be able to go again for a month. I really liked the story about the Japanese boy.s. It was really good and warmed my heart. Sandy Jaworski Shortt (August 4, 2024)
Sandy at San Diego State College
Remember our class mate Alice Kurashagi. She and her family were held in detention during that war.
(I wrote an article about Samuel Coolidge Yamaguchi which, for unknown reasons, wouldn’t transfer to August newsletter. I was able to successfully include it at the end of this Beachgeezer. It is quite a story about a Japanese American kid who grew up in Pacific Beach during the 1930s.)
I wonder which of us will buy it (the 1958 Taroga)? I would but the postage is too high. Do let us know. It’s a rare treasure. Where are those who worked on it .? Roni Parry Star (August 4, 2024)
The 1958 film version of “South Pacific” starring Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi recently appeared on Turner Classic Movies. Sorry girls, but “South Pacific” really was as corny as Kansas in August. Over 65 years ago, I took a girl I wanted to impress to see it. Afterwards, she told me that I wasn’t “romantic.” At the time, I thought she was faulting my Don Juan moves which had yet to be fully mastered.
Now, I realize she was probably just commenting on my criticism about the movie’s dialog. When a boy took a girl to the movies when we were young, both were subjected to unrealistic expectations about love, relationships and happily ever after…
Today, I watched “Carousel (1956)” on TCM. Carousel ain’t corny. It ain’t even a real good clambake. Some good songs, but a bad movie with lines that would be unsuitable bytoday’s standards.
Daughter: But is it possible, Mother, for someone to hit you hard like that – real loud and hard, and it not hurt you at all?
Mother: It is possible dear, for someone to hit you, hit you hard, and it not hurt at all. Bill Swank (August 5, 2024)
Dear Bill, I am on holiday for two weeks in a rest home. Falling over on my 84th birthday hurt my ribs and my pride. In the next room is Daryll. He has some weakening condition so he lives here. In our chat, he mentions surf boards, Gordon an Smith and one called Monto. It turns out that he lived in San Diego in the 60s, la Jolla to be precise. He surfed all the beaches. Later when he moved to Australia, he used to surf the pocket, right here in Iluka. What a small world it is. Cheers, dear editor. Ronistar49@yahoo.com * Roni Parry Star (August 17, 2024)
With just 90 of us left, I thought I couldn’t pass up such a jem. I note that a 57 annual is still available. That splendid edition was done mostly by Woody , a clairmont Heights classmate. <ronistar070740@gmail.com> wrote:
Here is a surf report from Roni star downunder. It was Friday, the trades were out in force looking more like a pod of seals. An unusual north wind blew waves pushed up from the south. Wind against tide blew waves almost as tall as the sea wall that forms the pocket. I have never seen such perfect surfing conditions. The 15 or so surfers literally danced on the top of those waves. It was a real heart warmer for this old surfer girl. More thrilling, I am told the women surf daily at 10 am, same spot. Surf Iluka !* Cheers, ronistar49@yahoo.com * Roni Parry Star (August 21, 2024)
Dear Bill, whilst on my 2 week holiday, I had the pleasure of meeting with an old surfer. His name is Wayne Galloway. He surfed Pacific Beach and Ocean Beach and lajolla in 1968. He came to Australia and invented the Monto surf board and eventually owned 142 surf shops. WAYNE now has Parkinsons. His body is frozen in the shape of a surf boarder. I read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck to him, to our mutual reverie. What an honour. (Roni sent the same photos a second time.) Roni Parry Star (August 26, 2024)
Editor’s note: Cannery Row may have the best opening paragraph to a book ever written! (See below…)
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries or corrugated iron, honky-tonks, restaurants and whore-houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop-houses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peep-hole he might have said: ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing.
Hey Bill, I’m not sure if this is the right way to “check” in but I’ll try. My 84th is coming up soon and I am still driving, quilting, shopping and traveling. I just took a 2000 mile road trip by myself to visit a bunch of grandkids I hadn’t seen in a while. I’ll be in San Diego for a week in September, but I’ll be flying in and out and won’t have a car. I’ll be at the beach in Carlsbad. I feel great and love reading about what everyone else is doing. Kathy Carpenter Staley (August 27, 2024)
Hi Bill – miss seeing you at Costco. Love the Beachgeezer and hearing from some of the alumni.. I do still connect with a lot of the gals – mostly from 1957. Diane Hernandez (Becker), Kay Thornbrough (Reed), Karen Brindley and Donna Shuffler (Gibson ). We are all doing a Mother/Daughter trip to Paso Robles in September — all 10 of us – a little wine tasting. We also have a Zoom call together every Tuesday. As for me, I play bad golf 2 or 3 times a week – have big family dinners. Hope you are doing well. Love and good health to all.
Chuck Reed, Judi Saville, Karen Brindley, Kay Reed, Diane Hernandez Photo from 65th Reunion MBHS Class of 1957 at DeAnza Cove (September 9, 2022)
I too miss thus months issue of beechgeezers. Let us know if you need any help. Cheers, ronistar49@yahoo.com * Roni Parry Star (September 3, 2024)
Monthly MBHS Breakfast (September 7, 2024)
We had a better turnout for the breakfast this month. Another mellow, pleasant get-together with old friends and classmates. (first photo: Sheila, Ann, Orpha, Sandy, Pat (second photo: Tim, Chrissy, Sandy (third photo) Bill and Bill
Keys to Happiness Found at Key Club Kaper
The headlines of the January 20, 1958 MBHS Beachcomber were “Keys to Happiness Found at Key Club Kaper.” The Kaper was scheduled for January 31, 1958 in the high school gym. “The Hi-Lites – the same band that played for the San Diego R.O.T.C. Ball – will help make this one of the finest dances of the year. Door prizes will be given at this year’s Key Club semi-formal dance, there will be beautiful bids given to each couple in remembrance of this occasion.”
The question for classmates this month is what is a “bid?”
Named after Uncle Sam and Calvin Coolidge, this San Diegan was a Japanese American war hero, baseball standout
The San Diego Union reported he was the first child to be named after Calvin Coolidge, who had ascended to the United States presidency nine days earlier after Warren G. Harding died of a heart attack.
Yamaguchi’s first name, Samuel, also had patriotic overtones.
The Yamaguchis, truck farmers in Pacific Beach and Bay Park, were proud Americans; why not name their child after Uncle Sam?
Though slight of build, Samuel Yamaguchi loved sports and was proud of the letterman’s sweater he earned at La Jolla High School.
When asked if he experienced prejudice, he said: “Life in San Diego’s pretty good. I grew up hanging around with American kids. We were having a good time. Going to the beach, you know, and playing ball.”
Yamaguchi played for the Pacific Beach American Legion baseball team. On July 16, 1938, he participated in an unusual game in which both pitchers threw no-hitters. PB won the game 2-1. Ned Haskell got the win; future major league pitcher Duane Pillette took the loss. Later that summer, Pillette and San Diego Post 6 would win the National American Legion Baseball World Championship.
“They were bigger, older, stronger, better, but they couldn’t hit Ned,” Yamaguchi said. “Of course, we couldn’t hit their pitcher, either. Errors decided the game. We didn’t know how big it (the win) was at the time.”
Yamaguchi was supposed to graduate from La Jolla in 1942 but was instead sent to the Poston War Relocation Center, a Japanese American internment camp on the California-Arizona border.
A year later, the 19-year-old Yamaguchi joined the military. He was assigned to Company F, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Squad and received six months of basic training at Camp Shelby in Louisiana. His outfit shipped out of Newport News, Va., and landed in Oran, Algeria. They were quickly transported to Anzio, Italy, and immediately sent to defend a hill.
Their colonel was blunt.
“We’re going to battle tomorrow and a lot of you boys are going to get killed,” he said.
Yamaguchi became separated from his platoon. As he ran to join them, “I was hit by a shell and I blew up,” he said. “I went up maybe about 10 feet in the air. My gun went flying that way. My helmet flying away. I just laid there stunned. That was my first day in battle.”
A week later, his outfit was sent to Hill 140 known as “Little Cassino,” site of a major battle during the Anzio campaign. They were told, “We had to take this hill at all costs. I don’t know how I came out alive. I got wounded and my sergeant dragged me out. I was hit in the lungs and the back. We lost a lot of good men there.”
During the next three months of hospitalization, Yamaguchi was prematurely sent back to his unit three times. Every time, Yamaguchi had to be returned to the hospital because he was still recuperating from his injuries and was too weak to fight. The second time, he had pneumonia and a 106-degree temperature. The final time, a captain ordered him back into combat for a minor transgression.
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is the most decorated unit in the history of the U.S. military. Of the 18,000 men in the regiment, 4,000 received Purple Hearts, 4,000 were awarded Bronze Stars and 560 were awarded Silver Stars. The president bestowed 21 medals of honor on members of the 442nd; seven received Presidential Unit Citations.
After the war, Yamaguchi loved to attend 442nd and La Jolla High School reunions. “I have a friend who was a movie star. His name is Cliff Robertson. He knew I was 442nd and said, ‘You guys were the best fighting men over there,’” Yamaguchi said.
“I still have nightmares, but I’ve had a good life.”
