GCCCD Grapevine

Volume 15, Number 3                                                Grapevine Home                                            November, 2005

     Good Retiree Turnout at President’s Barbecue
                                                      Click to enlarge  photos outlined in blue
  
                Eating in the tent   photo by John Dixon                     Lots of Happy Cooks!    photo by John Dixon

At least 30 retirees attended Grossmont College President Martinez’s All Campus Barbecue on Monday, August 15. The weather was perfect. The timing, for retirees, at least, was also perfect, because most arrived at noon whereas most of the non-retired staff were still in a general meeting and hadn’t yet arrived. Consequently, retirees avoided the long lines that formed after the meeting ended, and were already seated in the shade enjoying their barbecued chicken tacos, salad, beans and carrot cake.

Retirees attending included Don Anderson, Nancy Blasovic, Bill Bornhorst, Barbara Cline, Gay Cox, Barbara Farina, Art Fitzner, Bill Givens, Wayne Harmon, George Hernandez, John Lomac, Mike Matherly, Millie McAuley, Ken Nobilette, Joanne Prescott, Felix Rogers, Lee Roper, Bob Rump, Tom Scanlan, Gordie Shields, Bob and Virginia Steinbach, Barbara Strand and Irene Zens. At least a dozen other retirees had RSVP’d and apparently escaped my notice (or my memory, more likely).

The informality of these barbecues provides the ideal setting for renewing acquaintances among retirees and their less fortunate non-retired colleagues. The food and conversation were accompanied by live music provided by the Footloose band. This annual flex-week event was sponsored by the Grossmont College Foundation. ts

           
  Bill Givens with cook Dick Vessel           Bob Rump and Art Fitzner            Don Anderson and Lee Roper

     
  Gordie Shields, Beverly Mays, Joanne Prescott & Bob Steinbach               Music by Footloose    photo by John Dixon

Editor’s Comments
            
                  By Tom Scanlan   

This isn’t the editorial I had originally written for this issue of Grapevine. That’s because the front page story I had written for this issue was deemed inappropriate for our newsletter--as was my accompanying editorial. The story and editorial detailed the fractious issues currently afflicting our district. It was decided by those in charge that my article and editorial might jeopardize the neutrality of Grossmont College and the college foundations—our sponsors. The battles within the district are still going on and the board and district administration are quite sensitive about this issue.

Our newsletter is apparently not free to publish just any story deemed newsworthy to retirees. Because we’re not supported by advertisers or by subscriptions, we depend on the help of Grossmont College staff, facilities and financial support of the two college foundations for production, printing and mailing. Consequently, to ensure this newsletter’s production and mailing, there was no choice but to accept the decision of our sponsors. I respectfully submit, however, that the nature and extent of our district’s problems justify their newsworthiness to our readers. That story should be published.

I first became aware of the severity of the district’s problems while reading the flood of claims and complaints being disseminated through district e-mail. Dozens of hours on the phone, on-line, and in-person, provided material for a major story. Here was a situation that would certainly interest and concern readers whose primary career was with the district. Given the importance of this situation, this was to be our lead story. Because of concerns expressed when I originally submitted the proposed November Grapevine, I rewrote the article and agreed to include a disclaimer that I was solely responsible for its content. In spite of significant revisions, I was still asked not to use the story. That seemed like an appropriate topic for this issue’s editorial.

Pat Higgins, our previous editor, wrote a lead story in the November, 1996 issue of the Grapevine about the battle going on between Grossmont College faculty and the district chancellor at that time, Jeanne Atherton. As in the current conflict, the Grossmont Faculty Senate had submitted a Resolution of No Confidence (in the chancellor) to the district board. As in the present district situation, the board supported the chancellor but the contract of the president of Grossmont College was in jeopardy. Pat’s front-page story was headlined, "War-GCCCD Chancellor vs. Faculty". I’m sure that the board and district administration were just as sensitive to that issue back then.

A year later, the headline of the Grapevine read, "Chancellor to Retire…GC President Will Stay". A very contentious situation had finally ended. I’d like to quote something that Pat Higgins wrote in his editorial of that issue. "Nobody in authority in the GCCCD has ever told me what could or could not run in the Grapevine, so up to now censorship never has been a problem, and I think that happy situation will continue." I wish that were so.   

                Medical Benefits Workshop for the Retired and Near-retired

There will be a repeat this coming January of the informative and well-attended medical benefits workshop held on August, 2004 (see November, 2004 Grapevine) and the following January. The workshop will be held during the week of January 17-20. The room and time were not available at the time Grapevine went to press. You can call the District’s Risk Management/Benefits office at 619-644-7710 to obtain the date, time and place of the workshop. Dolores Barajas from HICAP (Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program) will be the workshop presenter. One of the primary topics of the workshop will be the new Medicare Prescription plan. Packets of information on various programs will be available to attendees at the workshop.                                                                                                                                           

                                New Retirees

Fourteen more GCCCD employees have retired or left since June or will be retiring by year’s end. The list includes three deans or associate deans, a director, two supervisors, an administrative assistant, four classified specialists and three instructors. Six of these were District employees, six were Grossmont College employees and two were Cuyamaca College employees. (ed. note: Bill Bradley was erroneously listed in the July Grapevine as a June, 2005 retiree)

                           
         Bill Bradley                 Pei Hua Chou                   Patti Griffin                 Elisabeth Hamel             Linda Langley
   Dean Math/Natl. Sci.     Assoc. Dean Learn. Res.   Business Services Spec.  Assoc.Dean Health Prof.    Math Instructor
    GC  76-Dec. 2005            CC  78-August 2005         GC  90-August 2005         GC  81- July 2005           GC  85-Dec. 2005 

                           
     Lorraine Martin        Dorothy McDonald          Cathie Norris              Karl   Oemick             Sandi Phoenix
   Child. Dev. Instructor       Contracts Spec.          Dir. Employment Serv.   Electronic Maint. Supv.      Health Serv. Sup.
    GC  84-Jan. 2006       District 69-Sep. 2005    District 76-Oct. 2005    District   71-Sep. 2005     CC  89-Aug. 2005      

                      
    Cathie Robertson    Teddy   Herrera-Rosales     Elenor Stenzel                Nancy Yale
  Child. Dev. Instructor              Payroll Spec.              Admin. Asst. /VC        Hum.Res.Lab.Rel. Spec.
   GC  87-Aug. 2005      District  95-Nov. 2005    District  97-Dec. 2005    District   65-Dec. 2005

                                                     Five Awarded Emeritus

The GCCCD Board awarded emeritus status to five retired faculty at their board meeting on August 15. The five new emeriti are Marcy Diehl, Business Instructor; Homer Lusk, English Professor; John Maley, PhD., Chemistry Professor, Dianne Merlos, PhD., Biology Professor, and James Sumich, PhD., Biology Professor.

                        
       Marcy Diehl                 Homer Lusk                 John Maley              Dianne Merlos              Jim Sumich

     Driftwood
    Snippets of gossip that have been burnished by friends and washed up on the Grapevine desk
     
          by Bob Steinbach

Tom and I have decided to try a digital addition to Driftwood. If you feel uncomfortable writing, send us a picture of you and your new dog/home/hobby/what-have-you with a brief caption. Remember, the "you" part is important; we’ve all seen pictures of Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon without you in the picture.

  Shirl Collamer and Rosie cruised from San Diego to Acapulco in November. Entertainment during "at sea" days featured writers from The Nation magazine, a weekly journal of opinion, featuring progressive ideas and analysis on politics and culture, published since 1865. Shirl said that one of the highlights was meeting Arianna Huffington.

  Ed Daner (sociology) is pleased to report that he and wife Doris have endowed a scholarship fund at Del Mar Community College in Corpus Christi, Texas where they make their home. The "Professor Edward W. Daner Scholarships" provide financial assistance to ten students a year in any of the helping professions. The Daners own office buildings and a management company in San Antonio and Corpus Christi.

  Marie James and husband, Bob, took a 35-day cruise of the North Atlantic in July/August. Highlights included the Marconi Museum in Newfoundland where Marconi sent the first transatlantic message; hiking across the North Atlantic Ridge in Iceland, where the tectonic plates of Europe and Eurasia are drifting apart; and the fairyland-beautiful fjord land of Norway from Bergen to Voss. Marie was delighted to see that oil income is helping the Norwegians improve their infrastructure.

  Joanne Prescott flew to Boston in September to visit her daughter. After attending a Red Sox game, they drove to Bar Harbor, ME and took the "fast ferry" to Nova Scotia. The road trip in Canada included Prince Edward Island. A wonderful visit, but very few leaves had changed colors.

  Tom and Rosemarie Scanlan flew to Appleton, Wisconsin on October 19 to meet their brand new grandson, Thomas Mosby Frazier.

  Chuck and Janet Seymour have moved from their mission ship – their new address is: PO Box 1404, Lake Charles, LA 70602. See their letter elsewhere in this issue. Their timing with hurricane Rita was unfortunate, but they evacuated to Mississippi. After a "look/see" in Lake Charles where they found their apartment intact, they spent some time in Florida with his sister and then passed through San Diego. They plan to return to Lake Charles after power, phone and postal service are restored.

  Bob and Virginia Steinbach   spent three days in September discovering Rome, including a great tour of sites from the Dan Brown book, Angels and Demons. They then joined a Redlands Alumni tour that visited Florence, Siena, Assisi and other Tuscan sites and sights from a base in Pienza. See Digital Driftwood.

  Bill Tester writes: "My wife Sue and the Twisted Sisters (a spinners group) are at the ranch this weekend. They throw me out and take over. There will be 18 to 20 of them spending the weekend. They spin and dye their yarn as well as chitchatting about all that goes on in the area. There were visitors up there last night, a Black bear, a Mountain lion and her cubs, a bunch of Elk and a Bull Moose. Monday I saw 4 deer around the buildings.  I will send you a bunch of pictures of the area around the ranch. [Ed. Note: He sent one, see Digital Driftwood.] Within a mile of the ranch there is a ski hill with 9 lifts, two are high speed quad lifts also there is a world class cross country ski area just across the road and groomed snowmobile trails just to the north of the ranch. In the summer there are hiking and motorized trails in the surrounding national forest."

And from our Grapevine Guest Book on the web –

Once again I'm grateful for those wonderful volunteers who create the Grapevine. Even living in Tucson I still feel a connection with Grossmont and the friends I made there. Don Scouller.  donscouller@comcast.net

Nice job. Jane West   

Please e-mail items for  you'd like to see included in Driftwood or Digital Driftwood to Rcsteinbach@cs.com

Digital Driftwood: Pictures from Retirees

      
A highlight of the Steinbachs' trip to Italy was listening to             Check this out, I have to look at it everyday at the ranch.
Gregorian chants in a mass celebrated at Abbazia di Sant'Antimo,  The mountain is Ross Peak in the Bridger Mountain Range and
founded in the ninth century shortly after Virginia's 38th great         is 9004 feet, about 3 1/2 miles away. The picture is looking west
grandfather was crowned head of the western Roman Empire.      and was taken on October 5 from the front patio. There was
                                                                                               18 inches of snow in the field. Bill Tester

  Please e-mail items for  you'd like to see included in Driftwood or Digital Driftwood to Rcsteinbach@cs.com   

                                                    Did You Know?

…that our newsletter "The Grapevine" is called "THE GEEZER GAZETTE"  Who gave it that name?  None other than our own retiree, RAY RESLER. 

Ray must have read Chaucer.  The earliest English usage of the word is found in the writings of Chaucer in which was written : "the Knyght visits his father who is quoted as saying "doth verily geeze hys sonne when he cometh and when he goeth."   

Evidently the word has been around for a very long time and today it is still in use, especially when "after seventy years of age, "OLDE GEEZERS LIKE TO OGLE AT YOUNG WOMEN."

Submitted by Mary Ann Beverly (luvlyfemab@yahoo.com

                                 Retirees Write

Excerpts from a newsletter from Chuck and Janet Seymour

  August 10, 2005         Dear Family and Friends

As we approached our six-month anniversary with Friend Ships* at the end of June, we experienced an undeniable leading that we should move off the ship and rent an apartment in town. We found a suitable place ashore and during the process of moving we took time to take care of some personal maintenance items. These are things we simply have not had time to do in the last 6 ½ months. We are pleased to report that [we] are in pretty good shape, especially when you take into consideration the total accumulated mileage!

The church we have been attending is the largest in Lake Charles but has not yet developed a relationship with Friend Ships, even though the church is very active in missions work. This is significant because a growing number of churches in Louisiana and Texas are ardent supporters of Friend Ships. We have been doing some volunteer work at the church and through this had an opportunity to speak to the senior pastor about Friend Ships. We are confident that we are on the path that God has chosen for us, even though these detours can be a little unsettling. We came to Lake Charles fully expecting to be living and working aboard ships for the next two years as missionaries. We will still be working part-time at Friend Ships and we also will be expanding the work that we have been doing at the church. We are praying for guidance regarding our roles at this time and would welcome and appreciate your support, too.

Thank you for your letters, cards, calls and prayers. Your support means so much to us.

In His Service,

Chuck and Janet

* Friend Ships at Port Mercy in Lake Charles provides food, medicine, clothing, and other critical life support relief items to people in need throughout the world. Two of their ocean-going freighters were in New Orleans by September 15. In addition to work in Los Angeles, international operations include Haiti, Israel, Indonesia and Sri Lanka and have recently expanded to include a program in Honduras to provide trade school training, Bible studies, agricultural development and community services programs. www.friendships.org RS

  Adrienne Chevalier-Adams writing to the Grapevine.

September 9

Hi Tom,

I can't believe it's been almost 2 years since I retired from Grossmont College and have been living in beautiful Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, married to my high school sweetheart.  We live in an old-style house about 800 feet above the ocean, with about a 160 degree panaramic view of the it.  We see the magnificent sunset every evening, and every evening I can't believe I'm really here.  It's just beyond description.  It seems like yesterday that I just started working at Grossmont as a student hourly (making $1.25 an hour.....).  I just wanted to take an opportunity to say hello and thank you to all the truly wonderful people I was fortunate enough to work alongside--especially to Virginia Steinbach, who saved my life.  Mahalo nui loa.

...........................................................................................................................................................................................

  Bill Tester writes the following in response to my note that I’d be flying instead of driving to Wisconsin (to see my new grandson) via his place in Montana because of my concerns over driving weather in mid-October. ts

October 7

Tom; 

You made a wise choice!! This picture was taken on October 5, 2005. There was 18 inches of snow in the field. Snow plows were clearing the highways. Good luck on your trip to the east (see picture, Digital Driftwood). 

WDT

Please e-mail typed letters to tom.scanlan@gcccd.edu or mail to The GCCCD Grapevine at Grossmont College, 8800 Grossmont College Drive, El Cajon, CA 92020. If possible, include a recent color photo of yourself, as well as color photos related to your letter content.

 Bibliofiles:
      
  by Tom Scanlan
(click on bookcovers to enlarge; click on title for Amazon.com reviews or purchase)

  I’m a Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson (Broadway Books, NY 1999)***

Here’s another book that I’d probably never have read if one of my daughters hadn’t recommended it as one of her own favorites (although I recall that she liked another of his books even more, A Walk in the Woods). I read all of this book over a period of weeks while ‘on the throne’. It’s perfect for light reading because it’s actually a collection of witty and amusing columns on life in America, each only a few pages long. It was written by an American who had just returned from living twenty years abroad in England and has now moved into a small town in New Hampshire. His adjustments to life in the U.S. are often frustrating and always humorous, as were his adjustments decades ago, to life in England, which he also mentions from time to time throughout the book.

In spite of his frustrations, Bryson is in love with his native country, even though he does sometimes find English customs pleasingly different. His style reminds me of Andy Rooney in some ways, or maybe Dave Barry. He does use hyperbole, but each of his mis-adventures is one that most of us have experienced. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy this book; it’s a great reminder that the frustrations of day-to-day living are universal but not necessarily lethal.

Incidentally, I don’t in any way intend to disparage this book as ‘bathroom reading’. I would have enjoyed it equally well on an airplane or in an easy chair listening to music. I’ve even been known to read at least portions of far more literary works while on the throne. I confess that I always read while at the toilet; it seems like such a terrible waste of time not to (no letters on this, please).

  On the Road, Jack Kerouac (Viking Press, 1957) ****

I first tried to read this book nearly 50 years ago and couldn’t get past the first few chapters. The narrator seemed to be an impressionable fool whose friends were mostly psychopaths. Besides which, hitchhiking or tooling around the country in beat-up cars with friends and drinking lots of beer and in general behaving like an irresponsible adolescent didn’t seem all that unique (I’d done much the same my last few years of high school and the first year after graduating, before a three year stint in the Marines rather significantly changed my world-view). Still, I knew this was a classic so I recently picked up a used copy of the book and this time had quite a different experience.

It’s a fictionalized autobiography/travelogue but I wouldn’t compare it with Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley or William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways, both excellent personal travelogues with lots of glimpses into an America that is fast fading (especially in places like southern California). Kerouac’s book is more a chronicle of adventures experienced by a small group of ‘beat generation’ types as they drive back and forth across the country, focusing mostly on New York City, Denver, and several parts of California, with significant visits to New Orleans and a long drive through Mexico, which is where the journey ends. This small group of friends-writers, ranchers, students, bums and ex-cons are traveling from place to place (or from girl friend to wife to girlfriend) and back again, searching for that perfect feeling of what is ‘right’, living often from hand-to-mouth and sometimes by wile and theft. It’s a darker picture of those two decades preceding the sixties, a time which for many of us was happier and more productive as we finished college, married, started families and careers.

This chronicle of adventures and misadventures is sprinkled with numerous side trips through small towns along the way, especially if they are hitch-hiking instead of driving. If you’ve done much hitch-hiking and remember your late teens as a time when a road trip was sometimes the best of adventures, you’ll relate to this book—and that probably makes this somewhat of a ‘guy’ book (I don’t remember that any of my women friends ever hitchhiked, even back in the late forties and early fifties when it was safer to do so). However, Kerouac’s near-poetic and memorable descriptions of some of the neighborhoods and their resident characters provide most of the appeal of this book, and on that basis alone I’d recommend the book to any of you who find different people and places interesting and worth exploring, even through someone else’s eyes. In spite of today’s high gasoline prices, this book does evoke an urge to hop in your car to drive somewhere else--just for the sake of traveling. 

Founder of Cuyamaca College’s Heritage of the Americas Museum Dies

  Bud Lueck, founder and chief benefactor of the Heritageof the Americas Museum at Cuyamaca college, died on August 31 at the age of 85. A memorial service attended by more than one hundred relatives, friends and students was held Saturday, September 10 outside of the museum.

Bernard L. "Bud" Lueck was born Jan. 4, 1920, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. For most of his life, Mr. Lueck dreamed of opening his own museum. He collected so many pieces of historical art and artifacts, so many links to ancient civilizations, that his Santee home was practically bursting at the seams. By the time he opened his museum, Mr. Lueck had assembled 15 major collections, some of them purchased at estate sales and auctions. The collection grew over the years to include ancient Chinese artifacts, adding to the core items from North, South and Central America. Mr. Lueck launched the 11,000-square-foot museum on land donated by Cuyamaca College with about 2,000 items. A capital campaign to build the museum structure raised about $300,000, well short of the goal required. To reach this goal, Mr. Lueck and his wife, Bernadette, helped fill the financial gap, estimated at more than $600,000.

The museum opened in 1993. Because of his childhood experience, Mr. Lueck wanted the museum to be free and accessible to children. Although tourists, college students and adults throughout the community visited the museum, classes of preteens provided the bulk of the attendance – more than 50,000 in the past 12 years. Mr. Lueck, worked and conducted tours at the museum six days a week even as his health declined. He was very popular with the students he took on tours and received so many letters from them afterwards that he published them in a small book.

One of our retirees, Sam Ciccati, was president of Cuyamaca College at that time and was a prime mover and benefactor of the museum. For more information on Mr. Lueck and the Heritage of the Americas Museum, see Sam’s article in the March, 2001 Grapevine at http://www.grossmont.edu/grapevine/Mar01/gvmar01.htm

                     Grapevine Now Has Google Search Engine

The next time you want to search any of the last fifteen years’ issues of Grapevine, you’ll be using a brand new Google search engine. To use this feature, just visit the Grapevine home page at http://www.grossmont.edu/grapevine/grapevine.html and click on Search All Issues. You can then type in one or several key words (a person’s name, an event, a date, etc.) in the search box and in an instant you’ll have links available to all issues of Grapevine that contain your key words.

If you plan to use the search engine, be sure to read the example and hints under the search box. They will guide you to a quick, focused search for an old friend, an obituary, a retirement party, a retiree letter, a Driftwood item, a book review—you name it. It’s the perfect tool for those of us who find that our personal memory isn’t always up to the task.

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