March 15, 2026  Zoom Gathering of Class of ‘58 NVHS and Delbrook

 Starting with Rob Hohert, whose birthday is March 15^th – we learned he lives in Stoughton, Wisconsin which is a Norwegian community that has a Heritage Foundation which helps locate Viking (and Viqueen) ancestors. He spent 6 months on his boat but is now back home. He spent Christmas and New Years with all his family which includes 9 grandchildren. We all sang Happy Birthday to Rob (even if a bit off tune some of the time).

 Marion (Humphrey) Marsden is “hanging in there” and having a good time with her family. She has a great granddaughter in Edmonton which is a little far away.

 Liz (Spouse) Lee is currently in Merida, Mexico where she and Martin own a place where they find they have more friends and they do in Ottawa. They have a very busy life which includes volunteering with a group that supports children with cancer. They are about one hour’s drive from the coast, which has a busy port, Progresso, which has a lot of cruise ship stops. Merida has a great deal of activity with visual arts and music. As they do not have a car in Merida, they either walk or take “ride shares.” Later in the zoom, Liz explained some of the many trips they have taken in Mexico, especially to Mayan ruin sites (19 so far) and guided tours of Mexico City and other places.

 Bill Riddall keeps busy with gardening because the weather has been good and he is anxious to get a head start. He is going to Portugal in April to visit with his daughter and her family who live there. He also has a brother who lives on Maui in Hawaii whom he visited with in January. His brother reported the heavy rains they have recently had.

 Nina (Genjack) Kurle talked about the Red Hat groups she participates with. They are all women in their 80s or 90s who are former square dancers but who now take trips together to various destinations. She brought the group up to North Vancouver for one day. Nina also has readied her gardening boxes for planting herbs and other veggies. She and Herb have extra room at their place and kindly offered to host any of us that may wish to pass through Everett. She says they have easy access to the Highway and they enjoy having visitors.

 Chris Taschner cut a Facetime phone call from his daughter in southern Norway to be able to join this zoom call.  Though the weather is deep winter in Ontario, he is waiting for golf weather. He thought Sunday was a good day for a zoom meeting as he is less busy. He lives slightly north of Toronto in Aurora. He is looking forward to his first great grandchild who will be birthed in May. He said he declined to talk about “seeing doctors” as he is sure that we have all been there!

 John Bartok has been “hitting a lot of balls” but hasn’t been out fishing much lately. He is usually playing tennis or attending family gatherings. He explained that otters have been interfering with crab pots by stealing bait or literally taking the whole bait apparatus away. Recently he had so many crabs that he had to return some of them to the open sea because there is a limit of only 4 crabs a day they can keep. The otters also push crabs out of the pots. They also wait at the Thunderbird Marina mouth to catch fish as they try to find protection.

 George German had 3 things to talk about. First, he thanked those responsible for setting up the zoom (that would be Bill Wedley and Laura and Sheila Ward. He finds the zoom a good way to keep up with classmate even if he sometimes has difficulty identifying us old folks from his high school memories. Next, he said that his wife (our classmate Cathy Bottomley) had her 85^th birthday yesterday and all their family came to celebrate. And lastly, they live in a 4-bedroom house on the water in Portland, Ontario that has 2 ½ acres of land. They will soon put their house on the market and move into a Retirement home in Perth. While in Portland, they have been active with the Heritage Committee (George has chaired) which is concerned with the many stone homes and buildings around. Though George and his family moved many times while he spent his working life in the military, they are all settled within a fairly close distance around so they can see family regularly.

 Bill Wedley described a big wedding he attended in Agassiz at a Resort. Getting married was the grand-daughter of Sharlene and Mike McManus who many of you may know. Bill’s daughter and grandson came from Australia to the wedding as did his niece from Halifax who is a good friend of his daughter. He also said he was glad to see Chris Taschner on the zoom as several years ago, he had mistakenly labeled Chris as deceased. The mistake didn’t last very long. (Chris commented that he had hoped to see Don Risk on this call. Chris accepted Bill’s suggestion to have his phone number passed along to Don.)

 Diana Davidson and her husband Mark started a publishing company 3 years ago. She has written about her boat trips and has a line of children’s stories for which she is searching for an illustrator. She will put a link on the website for those who might be interested. They have had lots of visitors in February and rather than take a distant journey, they have chosen to “staycation” and attend symphonies, plays and have special meals out. Her family know she and Mark work in the morning, have lunch and a nap in the early afternoon, and are then free after 3 pm to gallivant. Mark remains professionally active and Diane reports he is one of the top people in the world on the subject of “critical thinking”. They are very active in the lives of their grandchildren. She has advice, “until you die, you don’t need to think about it and once gone, you are no longer thinking”.

 Ken Matheson and his wife keep very busy with their 4 grandchildren. They live in an apartment on the Vedder River in Chilliwack. His wife who was once a marathoner, still jogs along the river which is very lovely. He also sees a lot of people from other places come to the Vedder River to fish. Fish are in abundance – mostly steelhead and salmon. They have to return them to the river after catching them. This description reminded George of a time when he was a young one and liked to fish on the Upper Vedder. George also recalled that ours was the first graduation class to have a class group portrait in colour. He wondered where the old photos were stored. (Sheila said she had tried to track the photo archives in the Lynn Valley Center but was told they didn’t have them. Does anyone know where they may be??)

 Liz also reported that all Mayan Ruins once had Ball Courts where a Ball game was played where arms and feet were not allowed to touch the ball which had to be put through a hoop. There was a demonstration of the game once in Merida.

Before closing, it was decided to hold a luncheon gathering on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. Bill will set up a reservation and post an announcement.