ROLL CALL:
YAY! Another superb production, Bill…Thank you!
I’m damn glad to be among the Survivors of ’58…One Day At A Time; each one a jeweled gift.
Blessed Be, all of us…Warren Warren Whittier (October 5, 2024)
I have so enjoyed the Beachgeezer! So many thanks to Bill Swank. His Beachgeezer has put me in touch with two friends, Carol Smith Hayden who lives near by and Bill Dague who also lives in Lantern Crest. They both have joined me at one of Lantern Crest’s Happy Hours where my daughters entertained with 4th of July fun! Hopefully after a couple fun knee and hip replacements surgeries I hope to join my entertaining daughters and their husbands on a guided tour around the Mediterranean countries this summer.? Carol, Bill and I are planning on coming to the November Breakfast. That will be fun as it’s been way too long? Janet McDonald Walz (October 5, 2024)
Such a simple joy to hit a button and become a beechgeezer. More so right now because here in Australia it’s the beginning of our long hot summer. Today is the first day of light savings. I am telling you this in full daylight though it is 5.40 pm, eastern standard time. Rock on you Padres. Cheers, ronistar49@yahoo.com *
Roni Parry Star (October 5 2024)
So sorry to hear of the passing of Mr. Crosby: he was my favorite. I’ll never forget how he’d take one week a year, not to teach biology or chemistry, but to teach the cheerleaders football so they wouldn’t do the “get that ball” cheer when we had the ball.
We are just about to finish our Driving Miss Daisy run here in Sedona. Here are some live action shots from the last two shows. Be well, friend.
Joan Morris Westmoreland (October 6, 20
Yes I can read this, but the link you sent, tried to access that, and it required a password. Maybe that’s not the link I need to access? Duh.Great picture of all the classmates. Bill and his ears. You gotta love it right Love to you and Jeri. Pati Pati (Rice) Ricearoni (October 6, 2024)
One time Phil cherlin phoned me. Our voices had not changed over the years. It was fun. My number is 0448359916. It works overseas. Do phone me in our daylight hours.
Ronistar49@yahoo.com * Roni Parry Star (October 6, 2024)
October 2024 Beachgeezer is a winner Roni Parry Star (October 9 2024)
Email to Roni Parry: “What’s the deal on the photo of the kangaroo?”
It’s just one beautiful moment , Bill. I like that it sat with the kicks. It’s school holidays here and the camping area is full. Some 20 roos persist in camping there as well. You can use the photo in our much appreciated beechzeezer if you want (first email response)
The roo is sitting with kicks near the boat ramp. (second email response)
Kiaks (third email response)
From where this photo is taken the whales breach as they pass on their southern migration (fourth email response)
Woody head camping area . (fifth email response)
Jim and igo there every arvo. We count the kangaroos there. My irish nephew James wants to study them for his pH d. James is now in grade 3 primary school !* (sixith email response)
These are the kangaroos at woody head camping area. There are a out 20 of them. Jim and I drive through the rainforest here every day to count them. My irish nephew James wants to study them for his phd. James is now in grade 3 primary school. (seventh email response) Roni Parry Star (October 10, 2024)
Today’s drive around the village saw the trawlers getting ready to fish the deeps. Fishermen were cleaning those already caught. The pelicans hovered around waiting for the frames. (Email #1)
Birds are nesting everywhere. We may ve recovering g from our terrible flood. (Email #2)
Folks in hydrotherapy were remembering your people and the wild storms you are having.(Email #3)
Some ate having sphagnum bowl for dinner tonight. (Email #4)
Spaghetti Email #5) Roni Parry Star (October 13, 2024)
image only ??? Roni Parry Star (October 14, 2024)
Here is my friend Ang. She is a girl surfing. She is our age and surfed as a teenager. She relates how badly they were treated by the boy surfing. For instance they were only allowed to surf if the conditions were bad. When they both won a surf comp, the boys winning check was twice that of the girls.
The girl finally levelled the playing field by going to the surf beach on an excellent surf day. Then, not going in but sitting shoulder to shoulder on the sand. (first email
Today both genders share the waves and the prize money equally.
This may or may not become a beechgeezer yet it has a certain Aussie twang about it. (secondt email)
Here is a photo of where I am sitting on this beautiful spring day. Seeing whale splashes on the horizon.
Here is an amazing story by my friend with Parkinsons. His name is Wayne. As a young man he was on his surf board out in the kelp beds of LaJolla.
Suddenly the kelp moved and he became alert to possible danger below. However, up rose the head of a whale, its thin head parked next to Wayne and his board. It’s eye was the size of a dinner plate. It looked directly into Wayne’s eye. Wayne saw no iris or eye lid. Just one huge pupil starred at him. He said it was just taking him in. He saw total intelligence in it. Eventually the whale submerged back into the kelp. (third email)
The same surfing girl went on a trip to Ayers Rock in the middle od Australia. They drove there in one week, staid in Alice Springs one week then drove back in one week.
I asked her what the sunset on Ayers Rock, Uluru, looked like. (fourth email)
She said a line of cars parked in a row and watched the sun set. (fifth email)
Rather glib, I say* (sixth email) Roni Parry Star (October 23, 2024)
Dear editor, My friend Wayne has parkinsons. I visit him weekly. He has asked me to help him write his memoirs. I will bring paper, pen and a bag so that anyone can sit with him and write, including myself. The challenge is to find a thread among his hallucinations. We did ok with his amazing meeting eye to eye with the whale. I’ll keep you posted. Cheers, ronistar49@yahoo.com Roni Parry Star (October 24, 2024)
A visit with surfie Wayne
Surfie Watne tells the podiatrist that he is regenerating his toes.
Roni Parry Star (October 29, 2024)
Dear editor, I have a new mate in the form of Wayne who has severe Parkinsons. On a good day he can talk the leg off a pot. This arvo he told me about his hitch hiking adventures from Santa Barbara to San Diego. He had Australia written on his back pack and was treated in grand ole Yankee style. Good on us old fellas, at least we can still spin a good yarn.
Roni Parry Star (October 31, 2024)
After I visited Wayne and wrote his story, I went to the ladies craft group and told them where I had been. I said that if we all told our stories, no one would believe us.!* We all laughed in agreement.
Roni Parry Star (October 31, 2024)
I took my 16 year old to America to discover this new sport called skate boarding. It has come a long way since we nailed our skates on to a wooden crate. Three days before our return to Australia, cuz Janet drove us up the California coast. She let us blow bubbles from the car window. Great fun. We stayed overnight at a back packers which was also a light house. Sam was the guest speaker there reporting on our wildlife and what students at his high school were doing to reduce the harm plastic rings was doing. I took a long walk on the beach and was amazed to find the San Andrea’s Fault. It was about an inch wide od very dense but wet mud. Sam skated down a SanFranscisco hill. We returned with a load of sk8 boards and tee shirts. And we brought sk8ing to Australia, just as we did with fiber glass surf boards in our time Cheers, ronistar49@yahoo.com * Roni Parry Star (October 31, 2024)
Hopefully, you didn’t give up on the newsletter and read it to the end…
Australian Aboriginal Elders use the word ‘cheeky’ to describe the behavior of environmental weeds. Cheeky both describes plants that spread quickly and plants that become a nuisance.
A delicate gardening or aging problem has developed for the newsletter. I do not wish to censor anyone and have always encouraged email, but weeds have invaded The Beachgeezer.
Newsletters are interesting when they contain interesting content. When interesting content dries up and is replaced with weeds, newsletters wither and die…
If this is the result of cognative impairment, it is not my intention to be unkind. But henceforth, email from Down Under will not be included unless it is germane.
Classmate input is essential for this newsletter to continue with any relevance.
Please share your current activities, high school memories or even thoughts spurred just from reading a classmate’s name. Because this brief issue of The Beachgeezer requires filler, I’d like to share the following news bulletin.
The 2024 San Diego Press Club “Excellence in Journalism Awards” were announced last month. The San Diego Union-Tribune won thirteen First Place Awards; I won three of them: (Humor) “The old PCL Padres oozed character. Here’s a look at some of their craziest stories,” (Profile) “San Diego’s Walter McCoy was a living link to Negro Leagues, baseball history,” (Sports) “San Diegan’s 100th birthday brings back memories of Padres hero buried at ballpark site downtown.”
Not bad for an 84-year-old, self-taught sportswriter, huh?
Back in the 1950s, Larry Littlefield was my hero for being a North Shores Sentinel sportswriter while still in high school. When I was in high school, I wasn’t even qualified to write obituaries for biology lab frogs in the MBHS Beachcomber.
MBHS ALUMNI BREAKFAST (November 2024)
Good turnout at this month’s breakfast. 21 individuals including Chrissy’s cousin, Dave Fisher’s German friends, MBHS Alumni and spouses. Because attendance has dwindled recently, Chrissy asked if we should continue to meet into the new year? The overwhelming response was, “Yes!”
Sandy Jaworski Shortt (’59) brought classic black and white MBHS graduation photos, but I’m unable to upload them. (I am not a computer whiz.) Orpha Higley had a birthday portrait from last month with brother Teddy. Can’t upload it, either. After serious medical problems in the summer, Walt Andersen and Jeri Lynne Swank returned, but unable to upload any of the pics taken today.
A touching moment for me was when Pam and Wayne Lollis both came to greet my wife. Wayne bent over, told Jeri that he loved her and gave her a kiss on the lips. She replied that she loved the big Teddy Bear, too. I remember Bill Rice telling me how much kisses from Wayne’s mother meant to him as a kid.
Wayne and I embraced and cried at Ricearoni’s memorial service in 2007. These were encounters that would have been unexpected in high school, but have come to symbolize the affection we feel for one another as old Buccanneers. We do love oach another.
It was good to see Phil Cherlin’s smiling face for the second month in a row. I asked if he remembered telephoning Roni Parry in Australia. He said she called him and he asked, “What part of Australia?” Bill Dague was at Elijah’s, but where were Janet McDonald Walz and Carole Smith Hanen?
Tim Shortt (San Diego High School, ’58) is editor and publisher of the monthly V8 “FAN”newsletter. The December 2024 issue contains a two-page article about Walter Andersen Nursery, founded by Walter Andersen, Sr., in 1928. Unfortunately, I am unable to include the interesting story in this month’s Beachgeezer. The December 2024 newsletter will begin with “Walter Andersen, Sr.”
