Laura Boggs Newman/Yates

I'll bet you thought I went to graduate school-- but the truth is: I'd had enough of school when I graduated from TL, and 1970 hippies weren't supposed to be thinking career, so after one quarter of college I dropped out of Mt. Angel in Oregon, moved in with my boyfriend, and lived on love. A couple of times I tried going to junior colleges, but then I got expelled.... Perhaps consequently, my work life has been haphazard-- perc tester, Middle Eastern dancer (Broadway in North Beach), lots of years in veterinary clinics, journalist, charter boat service-- but I always write fiction, design quilts, camp and have animals. Five years ago I fell into a library job and found it was something of a glass slipper.
Marriage to "the boyfriend", David Newman (Class of '69) was a good fit, too, for a couple of decades in Sonoma County, but that ended badly. After five years on my own, I tried again with a wonderful blues musician/mountain man, but the same issues surface (funny how that happens...) So now it's been another four years on my own in a little town at the foot of the West Elk Mountains on the Western Slope of Colorado. It's a beautiful community with lots of organic farmers, artists and writers, and a very small gene pool.

Isn't this (partly) why we're having a reunion? I look forward to reminiscing in person. I don't even have Internet at home, only at the library, so I'm stealing a few minutes to do this.
.... Okay, it's a slow evening at the library, and I just got back from watching a bunch of kids "Celebrate the Beat", dancing to the music of John Lennon, so I guess a little nostalgia is okay:"West Side Story", "Anne of the Thousand Days", Albee's "American Dream", and all the other extravaganzas-- I did my first play since 1970 a few years ago, and it's a lot harder to learn lines than I remember-- but I made a pretty good "Ouiser", the Shirley McClain character in "Steel Magnolias." I did play the Happy Hooker of a mining town in a little vaudeville show, but I just made that up as I went along. But thanks, Sally Rupp, and all you fellow thespians. We had some great cast parties.
Creative Writing with Kee Higday, who wore those fruit earrings and cats-eye glasses.
Doing modern dance on KTVU with Geoff Hamren.
Forgetting my locker combination-- and every once in awhile I still dream about it.
Mr. Stocking confiscating the film Eric Kelly made, starring Kai Adler with me as the love interest. Our principal was afraid it would ruin my reputation: sex, drugs & rocknroll.
Getting to (finally) wear pants to school-- can you believe we put up with those rules???
Colleen, Kris B, Steven, David Page, and of course Fred: I still love you guys.
Farther back: Peggy and Sally, green hair, glasses and braces. I wouldn't do junior high again for anything. In fact, I like being 58. I wouldn't have missed the Sixties even if it meant I wouldn't have wrinkles.
And even earlier: puberty was a real shocker for me, since I had gender AND species confusion. I really did believe I was going to grow up to be the Black Stallion. But I've adjusted.

Bernard Hoffman, Don Timoteo

Vallecito

Yes