Lee Note 91 California Dinner Report August 21, 2001

Well, this was quite an experience! Kay had contacted all the classmates known to live in California for a dinner get together since she would be here teaching a class in Irvine.

There were five listed as living in California who had email addresses. Carol Altman in San Diego, Raymond (Rayn) Brock in Visalia, Tommy Prince in San Diego and John Fulkerson in San Jose. I mentioned to Kay that Thresia Arnett lived in Monrovia and she said she thought Donny Page lived out here. Well, this is what happened!

Rayn lived too far away and he works every weekend, Carol had too much work this week, Thresia was not able to join us and John lives too far north near San Francisco. I proceeded to email Tommy and received a nice note back from him that he was moving from California the 27th of July. Now this leaves Donny Page!

With only an address, I dropped him a card (his address being only about 30 miles from the town where I live). No response! Decided to try directory assistance and got a phone number. For two weeks I called and either got a busy signal or no answer. Not willing to give up, I drove to the address and after quite a time trying to locate his house, arrived to find a locked gate (the house sat quite a distance from the street).

Well, I had come this far so honked my horn and out walked a guy. I yelled out "Donny" and I got an answer of "who wants to know?" I stated Margie Morris. He walked down to the gate and, yes, it was Donny Page (now called Don)! After visiting with Donny and his wife Linnea for about an hour, she convinced him that they should join Kay and I on Friday night.

Friday night I arrived at our meeting place. Kay joins me shortly and about 1/2 hour later Donny and Linnea arrive. We then go to the Irvine Spectrum Mall for dinner at Wolfgang Puck's Cafe. Had a great dinner and non-stop conversation. We then all go back to Kay's hotel to continue looking at pictures and checking out our Lee website on her laptop computer.

Our website is www.rel1960.org.

Now comes the funny part! We get ready to leave and Donny is taking me back to my car. A short distance down the road, I realize that Kay's car is also at the other hotel where we met. We go back to get Kay (bear in mind now she was getting ready for bed and had an early flight back to Dallas the next morning). Just imagine her shock and surprise she would have had when she went out the next morning to go to the airport and no car. However, all ended well. We were having so much fun that we forgot we had left our cars at the meeting place.

It was a great evening and I plan to get together with Donny and Linnea again real soon. Mike Murphy is going to be doing some work in this area and had hoped to join us, but was not able to get away just yet. Actually, he has been working in Las Vegas. He builds garden centers for Home Depot. His next job is here in California, so he is to get in touch with me and we can plan on getting together with Donny and maybe Carol this time. I called Thresia Arnett last night and had a nice phone visit. We are going to try to get together for lunch and she would like to join us when we have a get together.

Thanks to Kay for always looking for ways to get classmates together. Take a look at the web site for pictures of the California get together. If anyone is planning on visiting California in the future, please give me a call or send an email. Would love to hear from REL classmates.

Margie Morris Dolezal

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