50th Fri Wrap up by Ron Bispo

Calm Before the Storm

By Ron Bispo

 

The weekend of September 6th, the start of the 50th reunion of the Class of 1974, began as many weekends began in the 70’s for many (most?) members of this class — an evening on Sunset Drive, overlooking the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, albeit not yet dark enough to catch the evening’s submarine races.

As has been the case for 50 years, the Reunion Committee, always dedicated to planning and executing a great reunion weekend, started us off with a fun evening of spirits and spirit. 

Mark Elstob was our gracious host at his beautiful home on Sunset Drive, a home many of us have driven past hundreds, perhaps thousands of times as we traveled, always at reasonable speeds, around Asilomar. The fire pit was on and comfortable seating available for those with “PG weather” still running through their veins. For the less hearty, with plenty of room indoors to mingle and mix, saying “hey there” to classmates we still see around town, catching up with others we have may not have seen in a long time, and in some cases, meeting partners and spouses we have not met before. Also spied in the crowd were are couple of folks from a class ahead or behind us, because, I guess, we are just that fun!

As with many a weekend evening of our youth, the Ice Breaker Gathering was a BYOB party; but unlike 50 years past, there was no shortage of beverage — enough so there was beer, wine and spirits available for more partying on reunion night. Mark and the Reunion Team also laid out a nice spread of Campagno’s board sandwich trays and “un-health” foods and snacks, I suspect, an attempt to mitigate the expected consumption of many beverages of various proofs and alcohol contents.

All told, 60ish (+/-) classmates and significant others came to party for a 2-hour mixer that for easily guessed reasons if you’ve ever attended one of the many previous reunion Friday night shindigs, went about 5 hours — this class knows how to party! My fellow Class of ’74 Best Rockers & Knockers and  Most Spirited awardee, Dena (Rockwell) McCague did attempt to get folks dancing in Mark’s TV/music/49’ers Shrine Room to no avail, but bless her heart for giving it the old Breaker try. (Saturday night’s after-party dancing made up for we party poopers on Friday). We had a few first time reunion attendees as well as others who returned from as far as Punta Gorda, FL and Pearl City, HI, to a few who live only a couple blocks away. Attendees came from across all of the US of A; Naperville, IL, Birmingham, AL, Spring Hill, TN, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Northern California, Southern California, the Central Valley, from The City to The Bay, Santa Cruz, Hollister, Watsonville, Salinas, Marina, Seaside, Carmel Valley, Monterey and PG, all coming back for the Big 50!

On to Saturday night and the big event… but wait!

Remember those days when someone said to a couple of friends, “Let’s grab some beer and we head down to Asilomar and party a little?” Before you know it this person told someone, who then told someone, then someone else heard about it and so on and so on. Next thing you know PGPD is breaking up the party of 50 high schoolers and pouring out perfectly good Olympia. Well, in typical Class of ’74 style, we had a similar but different occurrence. Since we are OLD and don’t stay up that late anymore, a  few folks said, “ Wanna get breakfast in the morning?” thinking it would be great to have a little quieter time with a couple of friends to catch up. The place and time were agreed to and… well… you can imagine how it went; someone told someone, who then told someone, then someone else heard about it and so on and so on and so on. At the appointed time (9am) and location (Aquino's Birrieria & Brunch on Forest Hill) your intrepid reporter arrives for a quiet breakfast with a couple of classmates, which ended up being about 35 classmates. Go figure, eh? An impromptu small breakfast turned into what was probably Aquinos’s best breakfast crowd ever! Hell, Aquino's Birrieria even posted a photo of the breakfast crew on their Facebook page. A good time was had by all, bills settled, see ya’ laters exchanged and NOW on to the Saturday night reunion.