Bruce Wilson

These folks (Joy of Cooking was another Berkeley band) played in PB at a place on Garnet, which I cannot remember the name of. 

Anyone remember it?

1971-1972? It is not listed below, but I know they played there since I attended.

Bruce Wilson

I ran into Vanna White quite some time ago in the grocery store parking lot in Burbank (limo with driver, but she went into the store by herself).

Anyway, clicking thru the channels tonight I discovered that she's still flipping letters on TV.

Haqppy 60th birthday to her on February 18,.

Photo courtesy of the Huffington Post.

Bruce Wilson

What does anyone recall about "bitchen"? 

(The real) Gidget wrote it in her diary in the late fifties. I'm quite sure I was using it in junior high and it was disproved of by my parents, though clearly not as bad as some of trash talking that flowed out of my mouth.

"Bitchen guy" became very faddish in high school.

Terry Lee Maple

My older brother Brian used the term in the mid-to-late fifties. I'll have to ask him if he remembers when the word became popular, so it predates our high school class. You can look up words like this in the Dictionary of Slang. I haven't seen that book for awhile, but my old buddy Hank Sieradzki (now Stevens) lived by it. He first introduced me to the word "lewd". Hank was a really smart guy who went to Brown and then obtained a Ph.D. in classics from Bryn Mawr. If anyone wondered about him, he lives in Rhode Island recently retired from a career as a private high school teacher where he taught Latin and Greek.

Richard Thor (Dick) Holmes

On a lighter note, Jim McKechnie, Bruce VanPatten and I (Dick Holmes) got together last week for a round of golf as soon as the rains stopped.  The course was a little wet, but the three of us had a grand time splashing around.  The beer afterwards hit the spot as well.

Bruce Wilson

Looks like you three  had a very enjoyable time. What course is that?

All this golf talk brings me naturally to Jerry West. Jerry is now 78 so this is about a year old.

Now 77 years old, West plays all the time. And while he's only hitting it 250 yards "on a good" drive, he's still shooting his age regularly. How many times? "A lot, oh, yeah...I'd say a lot."

He;s looking pretty good, eh? 

Mr. Clutch shares the atrial fibrillaton malady with both my mom and Chick Hearn. He does not talk about having any strokes, but my mom and Chick sure did, not counting TIA's.  

Bruce Wilson

Terry:

I'll be stoked if we can get to the bottom of this "bitchen" mystery. I'd certainly welcome a contribution from Hank, if we could lure (not lewd) him out of retirement.

A long journey begins with one step in the right direction, I've heard, so here's Gidget (from Gidget Makes the Grade," in Life magazine (October 28, 1957):

The book tells how Gidget learned the difficult art of surfboarding—catching the "bitchen wetbacks" (big waves) and "shooting the curls" (riding the surf) without "getting the ax" (falling under a breaker). An indomitable girl, Gidget finally masters the board.

Well, we all heard of such things I'm sure, but never in tandem.  Kathy Kohner. (Gidget). Not as indomitable as Putsy (IMO), but indomitable nonetheless.

Bruce Wilson

All this Jerry West business got me thinking about Bill Walton. I would be inclined to rate him a "bitchen guy", but I like the Grateful Dead too. To say the least, he had a bitchen tournament in December of 1969.

Coincidentally, after about a five year hiatus, I ventured back onto the hardwoods at Harmon Gym commencing what turned out to be about a seven year interval where I played ball almost every single day.

Walton seldom ventured beyond the County, but his performance in December, 1969, at the prestigious Covina Tournament got him on the national stage.

Helix defeated Rancho Cucamonga Alta Loma, 90-35, Montebello, 72-48, El Monte Arroyo, 92-57, Long Beach Millikan, 71-49, and Pasadena, 110-68.

Millikan went on to win the major Southern Section championship.

Against the playoff-bound Pasadena Bullpups, Walton scored 50 points, had 34 rebounds, and made Sports Illustrated and its Faces in the Crowd feature.

The Highlanders averaged 88.2 points a game, went past 100 six times and topped 90 on 10 other occasions.  Walton scored 964 points and averaged 29.2, but he is remembered as much for his unselfish play and dominating defense.

If the foto wasn't so grainy we could calculate the ratio of low to high tops.

Bruce Wilson

And what about those 1944-45 champion Hoover High School Cardinals. One picture says it all.

No doubts about shoe height here.  Doesn't #50 look like Freddy Workman's older brother?

George Bracey Gillow

Anthony's Seafood Restaurant on the San Diego Embarcadero closed for good yesterday (Jan. 31st).

The Anthony's in Chula Vista, at the end of "E" street, closed in 2011.

The only Anthony's left is the one in La Mesa.  It has the lake in back.

The City of Chula Vista was tricked into approving a "Girlie show" called "Eye Candy" at the former Anthony's location in Chula Vista. The City thought it was going to be a comedy club. It took time and effort to get it removed.

Bruce Wilson

Susan Ecoffey, Michele and I went to the CV Anthony's restaurant not too long before it closed. As far as I know, none of us visited EyeCandy.

Interestingly, Susan's brother, a teacher at HHS, was the one that told me that the big rebuild project at the school was a toxic waste cleanup.

Does anyone remember Anthony's being on the east side of Harbor Drive? Well, I do.

The location that recently closed.

Right down in the area, prototype crewless ship, formerly manned by Richard Joly & Linda Keating.

Robert Eugene (Bob) Beckwith

Here's a question to my fellow Class Mates.  What does everythink of building a wall between us and Mexico.?I guess I wonder how would it help?

What would it fix?

Do we want to use our tax dollars or increased tariffs to pay for it??

It seems like a giant waster of time and money to me.  Thoughts???

Bob Beckwith

Bruce Wilson

Bob:

I agree that iit is extremely wasteful and will not have much effect even if built.

My first "research paper" was on the Great Wall de Chino.

I met a guy who built surveillence systems for the Navy. He couldn't say a lot because his work was classified, but he said,  we'd be amazed at what can be seen.

George Bracey Gillow

The smugglers of people and drugs are very innovative. They constantly keep ahead of US Federal agencies. 

In 2006 a 2400 foot long, 90 foot deep tunnel was found under the border here in the San Diego area. Most likely there are many tunnels that have not been discovered.

Before I retired, I attended a Homeland security seminar on drug smuggling and border security. What was amazing was how many billions of dollars were spent by all kinds of agencies including the US Navy.  The smugglers always seem to stay a step ahead.

Here is an interesting TV-10 story on use of small aircraft and Jet Skis for smuggling. They don't mention mini-submarines that was one topic of the Homeland Security seminar I attended. These are very difficult to detect.

(After pressing Play click on the "Watch this video on Youtube" to see the video)

George Bracey Gillow

An interesting book is The Coyote's Bicycle: The Untold Story of 7000 Bicycles and the Rise of the Borderland Empire.  It is about border security.

There is a book review video on CSPAN.org:

 https://www.c-span.org/video/?421265-1/coyotes-bicycle 

Here is the YouTube video of jacking up the border fence that is mentioned on the CSPAN video:

Bruce Wilson

I've never seen any published numbers, but I would not be surprised to find out that a substantial amount of illegal contraband gets across the border the old fashioned way, via bribery.

In the interests of fair play for Cuba ... make that  "via bribery and/or threats and indimidation".

Terry Lee Maple

It's a shame that our generation is largely responsible for the dramatic increase in the demand for drugs. US citizens are driving the illegal drug trade, but there doesn't seem to be any good way to decrease demand. I applaud any reasonable effort to stop the flow of drugs that are poisoning our children and grandchildren.

Robert Eugene (Bob) Beckwith

A Super Bowl Solution!!

I have spent a lot of time contemplating the problem we ask the government to fix.  The government can’t fix it, we the people can.  Fences, laws, billions of dollars haven’t diminished use.  Cartels thrive because we the people buy-cash stacks of $100 bills.

What happens if we do a Super Bowl Sunday: a double reverse, Statue of liberty on the problem??  Legalize them all.  Wow, a scary idea.  The only reason I suggest the idea is because nothing else has worked.

I have faith in we the people.  We could all be alcoholics.  We can legally buy as much liquor as we want, and we can legally become alcoholics-we don’t.  Probably it would work the same way with drugs?  More addictive, more devastating maybe.  With $$$ saved on fences, incarceration, law enforcement, trials, Judges, and foreign aid are $$$ that become available to help create better choices and lift people up from poor choices.   

Take all the billions and billions that are being spent and target our youth and young adults with better choices.  If billions were infused into before/after school programs and more, changes could be made.  I know we benefited from some of those extracurricular activities growing up.  Why not bring them back in force?

George I use the tunnel example all the time talking to people about ineffectiveness of the wall idea (the end of the tunnel popped out close to my sister’s house in East Lake).  Bruce, you are right there are so many ways to “see” without the wall.  Terry I know you and I benefited from some of those extracurricular activities as did many others.

How do we convince our Leaders to pick a different direction?  Marcia and I went to see Hidden Numbers.  I read the book as well.  We had no idea how to put men on the moon when we got started.  Our brain power figured how to do that, we can figure out how do this.  Guess we just have to get off our fatty acids and see what can be done.

Bruce Wilson

Before moving on, the high school valedictorian a ways back is Antonio Gentile, who produced the sketches from which Mr. Peanut was derived.

Continuing on, for my first  thought on drug consumption let's look at arrests data. Lots of problems using this as an index, but ya gotta start somewhere. Kinda strange that the number for 1970 is zero. My guess is that they had no data.

Bruce Wilson

What about violent crimes? Pretty flat whilst we were in high school, but started trending up fast once we left.

Andie (Joan) Ault (Harvey)

I totally agree with everything that George and Bob stated. Re: drugs, Prohibition didn't work, it simply created the Mafia, precursor to the modern cartels; the "war on drugs" hasn't worked either, because the cartels are fulfilling the demand. The only way to defeat the cartels is to cut off their profits by legalizing all of their enterprises, especially the drug trade. About half of our states have legalized marijuana for medical and/or recreational use, turning huge enforcement expenditures into significant tax revenues for those states. As for "the wall," it would also be ineffective because of all of the various ways to get around it, as George and Bob have indicated. A baseline estimate of building it is $15 billion. What else could that amount be used for? I might suggest scientific and medical research; expanded grants for innovations in STEM areas *and* humanitarian issues; reinforcing infrastructure nationwide; renewable energy research; renovating and adequately staffing VA hospitals; effective rehabilitation/education programs for incarcerated people; and support for public schools, among many other societal needs.

George Bracey Gillow

I agree with Andie and Bob that the only solution that would work would be to legalize all drugs.

This, especially, after seeing the Navy presentation on the impossible job of stopping the illegal drug trade even after spending billions of dollars. The Navy personnel giving their presentation were discouraged.

The industry could be highly regulated and taxed. Tax money could be used for rehabilitation and education.

Then, maybe, anyone who uses drugs would not be allowed to drive and not allowed to operate any kind of equipment that might endangered people. I'll bet that most would choose not to use in order to drive.

Chance of this happening is slim to none in today's political environment.  Most likely nothing will change in our lives, the lives of our children and our grandchildren. Hope I am wrong.

Terry Lee Maple

So we have become Libertarians, have we? There is a lot of public support for Bob's position. Rand Paul should be President. It wasn't easy, Bob, to get into TJ when we were in high school. My buddy George Kelly put me in his trunk and drove me across the border when I was sixteen. It was frightening. We had a few beers in a bar and a women sat on my lap for awhile. She looked a lot like my Hispanic mother; that scared the heck out of me. I didn't return for a long time. About 1968, I took my new girlfriend Addie (now my wife) to dinner at the old Heidelburg restaurant in Tijuana. John Vredenburgh and his girlfriend at the time made it a foursome. Addie was so frightened that we left early. Mostly bad things happened south of the border so I avoided the place. Most of the fun stuff was further down in Baja where families stayed in trailers and spent their time fishing and snorkeling. Tijuana was a great place to buy upholstery and chrome. If you could eliminate the cartels, the gangs, the violence, Mexico would be a wonderful place. Let's drink to reform.

Bruce Wilson

I spose that once all los drogas were legal, then these folks could switch?

Cute San Diego kids, anybody recognize them?

I don't know what the answer is, but I have seen, up close and personal, the devasting effects of alcohol. Likewise, the others.

The answer that I have never seen is why some people succumb to abuse more readily than others. 

Bruce Wilson

Medicare deductible increased more than 10% in 2017 (from $166.00 to $183.00)!

Watch out  .. inflation. BTW,  I found ths (incorrect) graph on the nternet.

Read up on Trump's orders on Dodd Frank,

Financial advisors should maximize their returns, not their clients?

W