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Jan
McCready Harris
Ten years after...
I just read through my ‘bio’ from graduation until the
40th reunion on the website Charlie made us. I wasn’t going to
write anything for this one, but it has occurred to me that this 50th
could be the last I attend, and maybe I owed it to myself to
reminisce on the past decade.
Dear Julia Bergman emails... “It would be really great to
learn what you have done and accomplished. What are you most proud
of? Do you have regrets? What did you plan to do when you left Tam?
What are your hobbies? Do you have a good story about Tam to
share?” Provocative questions, worth mulling over.
In the last ten years, Adventure Rents Canoes & Kayaks on the
Gualala River has grown to become one of the ‘attractions’
of this Mendonoma coast, from Fort Ross in Sonoma Co. to Irish Beach
in Mendocino Co. Who knew?! Every season we put literally thousands
of folks in this beautiful, but “bunny slope” of rivers. We
outfit school and scout groups of kids from about 5th grade up and
families with all ages of kids... even babies (if they fit in our or
have their own PFD’s). It thrills me to turn these kids onto
appreciating nature and our river and its resources. All of the
photos on the site are of our river and area, and we’ll be
adding more wildlife photos soon. I’m also going to add a blog,
so that interested folks can learn more about us, the river, its
herstory (rivers being female, right?) and why this is such a special
place to live and/or visit. I extend an invitation to all of you
classmates to visit our Mendonoma coast and Gualala and come play
with us on the Gualala River.
I retired as ED of the Redwood Coast Chamber of Commerce in
2007 after a dozen years in various capacities, but I did not lose my
love of this coast and support of the small businesses and
organizations that exist here. So, if you go to Adventure Rents
website you will find a link to OUR COMMUNITY, with subsequent links
to lodging, dining, attractions, and more. I am also part of a
movement called GO LOCAL, that I feel is critically important to all
small cities and villages in our present economy... or any economy!
Besides growing our canoe/kayak livery, I am still a ULC
minister along with being a wedding & event planner/coordinator.
Since 1986, I’ve officiated close to 500 weddings and other
ceremonies here on the coast. Lately, I’ve been getting a
business boost with requests for same sex marriages, which I perform
gladly. Besides the planning and such, I’ve added an interesting
adjunct to my wedding services. For various reasons, fresh flowers
for weddings up here can be quite expensive, and once the wedding is
over, there are no hospitals or retirement homes nearby that can take
arrangements. Hence, the bouquets often have to be chucked after just
a few hours of enjoyment... not truly environmentally correct. Also,
most weddings up here are outside, so the unpredictable coastal
weather can become a factor when flowers have to remain long in the
sun, wind, fog, drizzle, etc. Flowers brought up from the greater Bay
Area can’t always make the trek on our scenic curves at the edge
of the continent and end up looking sad and tired. So... what I’m
getting to, is that I do faux arrangements with high quality silks,
most of which can’t be told from real (unless you come close and
feel... and even then, some will fool you). And finally, I’m
offering “wedding makeup” with an airbrush system for
brides to look their best for photos, without looking too made up and
dramatic. I just found a new webmaster and will have a new
Celebration Connection site up soon that will include the new
services. I figure I’m taking advantage of my theatrical skills
of set decoration and makeup that can be put to use.
Community-wise... 10 years ago I helped create the Redwood Coast
Whale & Jazz Festival (now just the Whale & Jazz Festival)
that in a decade has grown to be quite a phenomenon. Take a gander at
the Gualala Arts website for the festival and browse the past years
for the various concerts and artists. For a tiny (pop. less than
6000) community like ours... to offer nineteen separate events, over
the entire month of April (and into May) from Timber Cove in Sonoma
County up through Elk in Mendocino County... well, I challenge you to
find another such public offering. AND... we have whales... who love
jazz! Now that the festival is proving sustainable, I’m limiting
my participation to Festival Consultant... but I’m very proud to
have had a hand in creating this festival for our community.
Of course, I had different plans upon leaving Tam. I was
convinced a theatrical/musical career would be where I would find
success aligned with my interests and talents. I did not count on
missing the “ambition” gene. I went to LA briefly, but
could not stand the weather and the pace. Contented myself instead
with turning to directing as well as performing in local Community
Theater venues. I’ve been proud of the shows I’ve produced
and directed, but realistic when it comes to supporting oneself in
the arts in a rural area. So, theater got tabled for the boat livery
and wedding business. Itching to be ‘back on the boards’ or
at least directing something, I taught a Musical Theater Workshop a
couple of years ago with the help of my gorgeous and talented
daughter, Bryn. It was quite successful, enjoyed by both students and
audience, but brought me face-to-face with my mobility issues and how
they affect my ability to teach and direct. It was a tough go, and
one I’ll not repeat unless I can function better physically.
Unfortunately, health-wise, my leg joints seem to be going
out and my mobility is sorely compromised. I never thought this would
be my dole. Having been relatively active all my life... and having
worked as a dancer, choreographer, and aerobics instructor... this
does not sit well. It is possible that some joint replacement can
turn things around, and I’m investigating that possibility, but
for right now... it sucks. I’ll be there, but in my electric
chair. Being the baby of the class did not guarantee being the
fittest! I’m bringing my husband, Wayne, who attended the 20th
with me. Besides needing him for my physical assistance, he’s
smart and funny and will enjoy the company of y’all.
My family...
Son Val & Daughter-in-law Jenn (Tam 1988) added a
‘sprout’ in 2004... my first and only (so far) grandboy,
Justin. He is now a strapping 9-yr-old, adept at Tae Kwan Do,
basketball, soccer and is starting football! Dang! They grow up so
fast. Daughter Bryn (32 years) would take me pages to recount her
theatrical accomplishments... so suffice it to say, I’ll share
with those interested at the reunion, not here.
One of the most phenomenal things occurring since the last reunion
is the prolificacy of the internet and the advent of Facebook. I have
re-connected with friends and acquaintances from my past, including
several classmates, and have re-established close friendships that
had diminished by time and distance. It is delightful to share in
their adult lives... meet their families... and “like” each
other’s posts. I’m looking forward to touching base with
all of my Tam classmates who have “friended” me on FB.
I’m getting very excited about this reunion. It is another step
in closing the circle, and one I would not miss for the world.
Side note: I just finished reading Paul Schwarzbart’s
amazing book: “Breaking the Silence” Reminisces of a Hidden
Child. I’m almost speechless. What a book! What a life! Mr.
Schwarzbart was my French teacher at Tam for three years and I adored
him! Strict, but kind and fair, and I always suspected there was a
lot more to him that he let on. Julia just informed me that he and
his wife will be attending the Sat. night dinner AND will be at the
reception at Tam on Saturday afternoon. I’m beyond thrilled! Bob
Greenwood will be there as well, and Mr. Wallace&ldots;a triple treat
for me.
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Charles
Kelly
Those of you who knew me as a National Merit Scholar might be
surprised to learn that after I flunked out of College of Marin in
record time, my formal education was over. I was drafted in February
1966 and assigned to the medical outfit that was used as the model
for the movie "M*A*S*H." I spent most of my military
service in Arizona, and left the state before the sheriff in Sierra
Vista, Arizona could locate me to serve the warrant.
Meanwhile, back in Marin, my good friend Mark Hazell ('Tam 62) was
rooming at Bill Champlin's house and giving me updates on the Sons of
Champlin and the San Francisco music scene.
When I left the army in 1968, I was a rare commodity, a healthy
male without a "draft problem" of the sort my friends who
had gone to college were now facing. After a suitable courtship, I
joined up with the Sons as the roadie in 1968, and I have held that
position ever since. Other Tam grads who are now or have been in the
band include Bill Champlin, of course, Bill Bowen ('65), Rob Moitoza
('63), Dave Schallock ('65) and roadie Steve Tobin ("64).
For nine years I waited for the Sons to make me rich and they
didn't, but I got to tour with groups like Three Dog Night, Average
White Band and Leon Russell, as well as working shows with every
legend from that era. Plus, I got to see Janis Joplin naked.
When the Sons dissolved in 1977 I purchased the equipment truck
and got into the moving game, while my hobby gradually took over my
life. During the '70s I had taken up cycling for the simple reason
that I seemed to have an aptitude for it. In the 1979 my roommate
Gary Fisher and I entered into a partnership with a frame builder
named Tom Ritchey, and we started marketing a new type of bicycle,
which we called a "mountain bike." For a year or two people
told us we were crazy, and it would never take off. They were wrong
about that.
In 1980 a club newsletter I had agreed to produce escaped from the
club and became the first magazine for mountain bikers, the "Fat
Tire Flyer." I got out of the manufacturing end of bicycles in
1983, and concentrated on publishing the magazine until I ran out of
other people's money in 1987. Although a dismal financial failure, it
was by far the most creative and fun thing I ever got to do. I was
inducted into the Mountain
Bike Hall of Fame as soon as it was founded, in 1986.
For a while I wrote for bicycle magazines, and I had a very bad
book published, but that is not a steady way to make a living, so I
went back to moving, concentrating on piano moving. In 1986 I married
Mary Moffat, and in 1990 my daughter Dana was born. We bought a house
in San Anselmo with a white picket fence and a dog in the back yard.
Actually, the dog didn't come with the house. We brought it with us.
In 1997 the Sons of Champlin
decided to play some shows, so I took up as the roadie again, and had
the supreme honor of introducing them on the stage of the Fillmore
Auditorium. When they aren't playing, which is most of the time, I
run my piano moving company, Kelly Moving in San Anselmo. I also play
in my own band, "Duck and Cover" wih Tam grad Bill Bowen
('65).
In 2010 I retired from the Sons of Champlin gig after 42 years. In
that period I had missed four performance, one when Bill Graham threw
me out of the Fillmore West, and the other three when we blew a truck
engine on tour and I stayed with it for the rebuild, then drove 1100
miles in one day to catch up.
In 2012 our daughter graduated with honors from the University of
Oregon and has taken a position with a public relations firm in Los
Angeles. We could not be prouder parents.
Last year the SFO Museum at the San Francisco Airport created a
display of the history of mountain biking. The exhibit included many
items from my collection and ran for six months in the International Terminal.
This year I have been honored for my contributions to bicycling
with a public monument in Fairfax. How many people get their name and
image on a permanent public monument while they live, let alone get
to show it to their mothers?
The Smithsonian Insitution asked me for my 1972 Velo Club
Tamalpais cycling jersey, and I have donated it along with several
other items in my unique cycling collection.
I have delivered the copy of my second book to the publisher, a
rough autobiography of my years in the bike business. Next year you
should look for "Fat Tire Flyer" wherever books are sold.
I continue to move pianos because retirement does not look like an
option. Fortunately, the wimpiest kid at Tam in 1963 is a little
tougher now.
My life has had more adventures to it than I or anyone else
deserves, and I have chronicled some of them in my personal
website for those who are truly desperate for something to read.
Every day is a gift, and I try to enjoy every minute because one of
them will eventually be the last.
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Geoff
Van Lienden
Hello
Fellow Tam Alums, Hope you are all enjoying your reunion events.
Julia
Bergman asked me to put together a little bio (since I won’t be
attending), so here it is. After Tam, I went to Cal and managed to
get a couple of engineering degrees.
I
stayed in Berkeley and formed a successful little geotechnical
engineering company (with my business partner------who
graduated from Drake High the same year as our group). We officially
retired (at least mostly) last year.
I’ve
been married a couple of times. Two kids with wife #1. My current
wife (of about 30 years) had two of her own, so we spent many years
raising a “blended” family. We now have 8 grandchildren 1l
under 9), with one more on the way. Five of these little guys are
very local (less than 10 minutes) so we are very involved with them.
I’m
a guitarist and have been playing in various bands since high
school. The music thing has been pretty central to my life. Nowadays,
you might find me playing jazz (mostly), rock, blues or Celtic music
in cafes, clubs, and music halls with various bands and local
musicians in SF and the east bay about once a week.
We have
done and continue to do a fair amount of travelling. On a daily
basis, you might find me playing music with friends, pushing a
stroller, playing racquetball or tennis, hiking the hills, bird--
watching, or very occasionally working (mostly as expert witness
these days). In spite of living close by, I haven’t kept in
touch with anybody from our class, although I suspect I would
recognize some of you even now. Wow! 50 years— imagine that.
Cheers,
Geoff Van Lienden
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Liza
Goldblatt
Elizabeth Goldblatt,
PhD, MHA/PA
Chair, ACCAHC
Past President,
Council of Colleges of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine
Co-Chair of the
DAOM Integrative Medicine Department and faculty member at the
American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM)
Elizabeth (Liza)
Goldblatt, PhD, MHA/PA is the chair of the Academic Consortium for
Complementary and Alternative Health Care through which she served as
a member of the Conference Planning Committee for the Institute of
Medicine (IOM) National Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Public
Health. Conference Planning Committee on Integrated Medicine
2008-2009. Dr. Goldblatt current serves on the 3-year IOM Forum for
Global Innovations in Health Professional Education. Goldblatt is a
leading educator in the acupuncture and Oriental medicine profession.
She served as vice-president of the Council of Colleges of
Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from 1990-1996, president from 1996-2002
and is currently on the CCAOM executive committee. Goldblatt also
co-chaired the Education Committee of the North American Acupuncture
and Oriental Medicine Council, from 1993 to 2003 and served on the
Board of Trustees for Pacific University. From 1988-2003, Goldblatt
was president of the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM) from
1988-2003 and currently serves as a faculty member and Co-Chair of
the Integrative Medicine Department for the clinical doctoral program
at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM) in
San Francisco, California.
Throughout this time,
Goldblatt has been a strong advocate for inter-disciplinary,
collaborative, academic efforts. She assisted in creating three NIH
NCCAM centers with Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) and
Kaiser Permanente that included representation from the complementary
and alternative healthcare colleges. She helped OHSU and the other
complementary healthcare educational institutions to create the
Oregon Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine
(OCCIM). Goldblatt also had the lead in creating two of the
eight clinical doctoral program in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine
(DAOM) at OCOM and ACTCM. These programs focus on collaborative and
integrated medicine which she views as a major step for our
educational programs. Goldblatt is currently working with UCSF Osher
Center, San Francisco General Hospital and California Pacific Medical
Center in acupuncture internship placements, cross-education
projects, exploring collaborative research projects and having
medical doctors from both UCSF and CPMC on faculty in the DAOM
program. Goldblatt has a Masters in Public Administration/Health
Administration (MPA/HA) from Portland State University. She earned
her PhD from UCLA in ethnomusicology, a discipline which combines
anthropology, medical anthropology and ritual arts. Her emphasis was
on Tibetan culture.
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John
(Ian) Forbes
After leaving Tam, Mill Valley, and California in ’63, I went
to Oregon State Univ. and graduated in ’67 with an earth science
major and minors in petroleum engineering and business. I joined a
major energy company after graduation and through the years worked my
way up the organization through several technical positions from
field geologist to district manager. Spent the majority of my career
in the Gulf Coast States from the piney woods of Mississippi and
Alabama to the offshore Louisiana Gulf to the corporate towers in
Houston. I have had a very challenging and rewarding career in the
energy industry; at one period in the middle 1980s recommending and
managing annual capital budgets in excess of $100 million and being
responsible for generating, over the long run, at least a 15% return
on invested capital in my district. Although I did manage to escape
most stress-induced health problems, I did develop high blood
pressure for which I’ve been on beta blockers and calcium
channel blockers ever since.
I have been married for 46 plus years to the former Kay Snyder of
Knoxville, Tennessee, and we have raised two sons, both in their 40s
now, and both high school teachers, the oldest in Phoenix and the
youngest in Dallas. We have 3 grandchildren which are our pride and
joy and we try to spend as much time as possible with
family—grandchildren are God’s best gift. We currently live
in a modest two-story on a golf course in suburban Houston where we
have been the last 21 years. We have really enjoyed living in the
South; the people are so friendly and trustful, and the food is
fabulous. I will always remember the backyard barbeques and crawfish
boils and the catfish and alligator fries in the parks and parking
lots; talk about good eatin’.
We both consider ourselves fortunate to be living in the greater
Houston area with its world-class medical and healthcare facilities
as we have both battled cancer. Kay beat stage 3 breast cancer about
10 years back and now I am fighting a very rare form of genetic
leukemia for the last 3 years with experimental chemotherapy (which
is why I will be absent from the 50th). My father succumbed to the
same disease 20 years ago. We both are very active in our church, one
of the largest in the Houston area with a membership of north of
10,000 and stay active in a few local cancer support groups and charities.
My most useful high school course? Without a doubt, Mr.
Wallace’s Writing classes in 10th and 11th grades. You can take
all the math, science, engineering, and business courses (which I
did), but if you can’t organize, prioritize, and effectively
communicate your ideas and recommendations to management you’re
dead in the corporate world. So thank you Mr. Wallace for teaching me
the foundations of effective writing, they were put to good use about
every day of my working career.
I wish you all an awesome time at our 50th reunion. God
Bless you all, John (Ian) Forbes
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Craig Palmer
The long and winding road from Miller Avenue -- who knew how long
and winding! I never completed my senior year at Tam in another of
life’s great surprise turns, moving to Pasadena, where I went to
Pasadena City College, majored in music, studied jazz writing, and
even formed a quaint little stage band, though alas, leading off the
Rose Parade was probably the musical highlight. Next, Los Angeles
State, majoring in flute. And then came another fork in the road, as
you will see. I got married, had two kids, and moved to Houston to be
an arts critic on the Houston Chronicle.
I panicked at the humid South, and returned to San Francisco as
Publicity Director at San Francisco Opera, and then San Francisco
Ballet in its more fragile days. Did I say long and winding?! Got
recruited to help launch the national life of Pennsylvania Ballet in
Philadelphia, where, alas my marriage crashed... and later one
opening night, I discovered what I should have known much earlier:
yep, gay.
Eventually I opened my own boutique advertising agency in
Manhattan specializing in arts accounts: Carnegie Hall, Jacob’s
Pillow Dance Festival, Dancers (the company launched by Joanne
Woodward and Dennis Wayne), and others. All of which eventually led
back to San Francisco where I was part of the team that raised the
dollars that built the San Francisco Ballet’s new home in Civic Center.
Now, 30 years later, I’ve been long settled with a wonderful
partner in our home among the old goats on the rogue side of Potrero
Hill, keeping my deck-bound collection of conifers on the edge of
life, and running my own small consulting firm. The focus is fund
raising, marketing, organizational development, strategic planning
and event production in the fields of higher academia, medical
research, health and human services, the arts, and the environment.
Current clients are Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation,
and the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in Steamboat
Springs. More recently, there have been staff gigs at San Francisco
Botanical Garden Society, University of California San Francisco
(Department of Neurology, and before that its AIDS Research Institute
where I had the unique pleasure of producing an evening with Elton
John), Glaucoma Research Foundation, Audubon California, Yerba Buena
Center for the Arts and others.
I’ve served on some Boards of causes near and dear: Building
Diversity in Science, Shanti, Dance Bay Area, California Institute
for Biodiveristy, Dance Through Time. And fondly I remember chairing
all those Challenge Panels of the California Arts Council, and my
classes at Golden Gate University where I was an adjunct member of
the faculty in its graduate level non-profit management program. But
everything I learned in life, it turns out, I learned at
Juanita’s Ferry.
Craig Palmer Consulting Services
1420 De Haro Street #2
San Francisco, CA 94107
415.254.8658 (mobile)
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Lee Donnan
Sandy
(Ringleman) Burdette Donnan
Hey guys, You get two biographies in one with this letter. Since
we (Lee Donnan and Sandy (Ringelman) Burdette dated for the last two
years of high school and through two years of college and married in
November 1965, our lives have been one big adventure together rather
than two. After graduation from high school, Sandy went to SF State
for two years while I went to College of Marin. We set a date for the
wedding after numerous attempts to convince my parents that we really
were old enough to take on that responsibility. In preparation for
adulthood, Sandy went to secretarial school in the afternoons after
her college classes and got a job at Miss Burke’s, a private
school for girls in Pacific Heights.
Two weeks before our wedding I received my draft notice and
immediately went and enlisted in the Navy. I figured that if I did go
to Viet Nam, I would be on a nice clean ship off the coast and nobody
would be shooting at me. I didn’t know that signing up to be a
Hospital Corpsman made me a prime candidate for becoming a Marine
Corps medic. Oh well, live and learn. Long story short, I did go to
Viet Nam with the Marines and obviously came back, none the worse for
wear. That was the beginning of a 21 year career in the Navy. We were
stationed in San Diego, Pensacola, Florida where our son was born,
Fallon, Nevada where our daughter was born, Hawaii, Detroit,
Michigan, Whidbey Island Washington North of Seattle, and Warminster,
Pennsylvania just north of Philadelphia where I retired from the Navy
in 1987. I retired on Friday and came back to the same job on Monday
dressed in civilian clothes as a government contractor.
In 1994 our Base was put on the closure list and we knew that all
the jobs would go away in 1996. I went back to school and got my AS
in Nursing and worked as an RN in one capacity or another until I
retired in 2010.
While I was having all the fun being a Navy guy ( I can’t
really say I was a sailor because I spent 21 years in the Navy, but
was never stationed on a ship. I got into aviation medicine and
physiology early in my career.) Sandy was doing a great job being MOM
to our two kids. While stationed in Pensacola in 1968, we joined the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, and have
been actively engaged with church callings and activities ever since.
No matter where we were stationed, we always knew we had a
“church family” waiting for us when we got there. Sandy
became extremely interested in Family History Research in 1972 and is
still going strong. She has worked for a company that does heir
searches for inheritances and has taught genealogy classes wherever
we have been living.
In 2001, after having spent 19 years on the East Coast (which
Sandy absolutely loved), we moved to Phoenix, AZ (which Sandy
absolutely hates) to be closer to our children and aging family
members. Our son lives in Los Angeles and our daughter lives here in
Phoenix. Each of the kids have two daughters. The best accomplishment
of our lives was raising two great kids who, in turn, are raising or
have raised good children of their own. Sandy and I feel very blessed
to have traveled this road together and to have survived the trip.
We are looking forward to seeing as many people as we can
during this reunion since it is the first one we have had a chance to
attend. From the pictures that have been posted, you guys sure have
gotten old. I wonder who takes the most pills in the morning.
Lee and Sandy Donnan
P.S.: I wonder if Mr. Wallace remembers me. The magic word is ERASURE.
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Wayne
Ybarra
After graduating from Tam in 1963 I attended Cal and earned a BS
Civil Engineering in 1967 and an MS in Engineering in 1968. I planned
and designed airports and passenger terminals with a subsidiary of
Peat Marwick Mitchell located in Burlingame, California and similar
consulting assignments in New York City. In 1979 I went back to
school -- this time to Columbia University School Law School in New
York. In 1982 I started practicing law at the Orange County Office of
Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker, a large Los Angeles firm.
I have practiced corporate and commercial real estate law for
about 30 years and opened my Laguna Beach office about fifteen years
ago. I work about four days a week and spend as much time as I can
with our five children, our grandson Atticus (3) and our
granddaughter Dorothy (11 months). Marlene and I will celebrate our
20th wedding anniversary next year.
My funniest memory of Tam involved Biff Younger and our first
period senior English class teacher. She frequently gave us three or
four short writing assignments each week. Our performance rating was
in the form of two letter grades, one above (for creativity) and one
below (for language mechanics) a short horizontal line just like a
fraction. One morning after our graded papers had been returned,
Biff’s hand shot up and he said, “Why did I only get an
‘A’ over an ‘A-‘?” A collective intake of
breath silenced all of the background noise. We hadn’t yet
learned how to step on Superman’s cape or question authority in
1963. The teacher took such an affront to her authority she could
only sputter for a moment before resorting to the high school
equivalent of “because I said so.” “Oh, I just
don’t think your paper was written up to college standards.”
It was Biff’s turn to do a little sputtering of his own.
“Good grief. This is a high school English class. I’m not
writing for the Nobel Prize in Literature!”
WAYNE A. YBARRA, ESQ.
Ybarra & Associates
PO Box 4198
Laguna Beach, California 92652
Tel: (949) 497-3662x12Fax: (866) 497-9780
Email: wybarra@ybarralaw.com
Website: www.ybarralaw.com
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John
"Biff" Younger
After high school I went to Stanford, and worked my way through
(plus loans; Dad had lied about having the funds; I did everything
from music store [a continuation of my stint at the Village Music] to
hustling) and majored in history, music, and classics. The classics
was a continuation of my (meager) interest in Latin with Fitzgerald;
music was my passion kindled by Mabel Pittinger, but I had only a
moderate talent for it (which I well knew); the history was easy
(with Kappelman's training, I was good at it). In the summer after my
sophomore year I worked in a brewery in Switzerland (Frau Roth's
German came in very handy) and made enough $$ to buy a huge BMW
motorcycle and spent the Fall touring Italy, Greece (my second home
now), up through Yugoslavia (as it was then), and Austria. Left the
bike with American Express in Hamberg to ship back to Stanford (yes,
it arrived 10 months later), and continued on through Germany (did
East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie and was detained for 2 days),
France, and England and came back. The following semester I took a
Mythology in Greek Art course with a distinguished professor who
asked if anyone would volunteer to help him catalogue the Greek &
Roman clay lamps in the university museum, and I raised my hand, and
changed my life.	
After high school I went to Stanford, and worked my way through
(plus loans; Dad had lied about having the funds; I did everything
from music store [a continuation of my stint at the Village Music] to
hustling) and majored in history, music, and classics. The classics
was a continuation of my (meager) interest in Latin with Fitzgerald;
music was my passion kindled by Mabel Pittinger, but I had only a
moderate talent for it (which I well knew); the history was easy
(with Kappelman's training, I was good at it). In the summer after my
sophomore year I worked in a brewery in Switzerland (Frau Roth's
German came in very handy) and made enough $$ to buy a huge BMW
motorcycle and spent the Fall touring Italy, Greece (my second home
now), up through Yugoslavia (as it was then), and Austria. Left the
bike with American Express in Hamberg to ship back to Stanford (yes,
it arrived 10 months later), and continued on through Germany (did
East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie and was detained for 2 days),
France, and England and came back. The following semester I took a
Mythology in Greek Art course with a distinguished professor who
asked if anyone would volunteer to help him catalogue the Greek &
Roman clay lamps in the university museum, and I raised my hand, and
changed my life.
Back at Stanford I began ancient Greek and ran around with David
Harris & Joan Baez & Ronnee Blakely and participated in
anti-war protests, but I was really interested in the old stuff in
the basement of the Stanford Museum. I graduated (1967) and went to
grad school at the University of Cincinnati, department of Classics
which has its own endowment and had then the best Greek archaeology
program in the US. Soon I got married to a woman I had met at
Stanford (or rather, since I wasn't paying any attention to her in a
horseback riding class, she ran me over in her red MG; I started
paying attention then). I got my MA in 1969, and was ok'd to continue
on to the PhD, and was drafted. Since my wife & I were having a
messy affair with an old boyfriend of hers, the army gave me a 4-F
and I went to Greece that summer to start excavations on the island
of Kea (just east of Athens) and to start the one-year archeological
training program at the American School of Classical Studies, which I
completed in 1970, and then stayed on in Athens, writing my
dissertation (on the chronology of Late Bronze Age [ca. 1600-1200 BC]
sealstones and fingerrings).
At the time, Greece was run by a military Junta that the US was
supporting (one of my down moments was giving Spiro T. Agnew a tour
of the Acropolis), and which was very repressive and autocratic
("el Leader" posters everywhere). As an archaeologist, I
was nominally constrained by the US Embassy not to interfer in
politics. But my wife was not so constrained. And soon we were mixing
with the underground resistence people (Theodorakis, Hatzidakis,
Melina Mercouri et al.) and, since she was doing her dissertation on
the French writer Robbe-Grillet (sadistic novels), she was running
messages and money to the government in exile in Paris and I was
boarding runaway resistence fighters in our apartment and smuggling
food and money to prisoners. Everything came to a crash in October of
1973. I had gotten my PhD earlier that May and was teaching in an
British high school in Athens (the entire senior class everything
from piano to trig, and coaching the soccer team [didn't know nothing
about soccer, but I sure learned]). In October, the students at the
Polytech University rebelled, and resisted all attempts to surrender
until the military stormed the walls with tanks; there were fleeing
students everywhere and 2, wounded, made it to our apartment where we
hid them. The whole city was put under curfew (we did grocery
shopping by candlelight at 2 am, sneaking around apartment
complexes). By December, things had lightened up but it was obvious
that the government was going to fall. Then, out of the blue, I got
an invitation to teach at Duke University in North Carolina (where'z
dat?), I accepted, my wife told me she was staying in Athens with a
Greek pilot (who was having an affair with his half-brother; I warned
her) and that she was having an abortion (!). So that was pretty much
the end of our marriage. I returned to the States in July, 1974, alone.
At Duke, everything went by in a kind of blur. I was still going
on digs in the summer, mostly to Greece where I dug at Knossos in
Crete and on the island of Melos (these were long digs lasting
several years each, mostly Late Bronze Age but sometimes good
classical Greek stuff), and shorter digs in southern Italy (a
Jewish-Christian catacomb) and in northern Israel (an early
synagogue). Upon arrival at Duke I came out as gay (Dad wanted to
know what he had done wrong - plenty, but that wasn't the cause of my
being gay; Mom just wanted me happy), taught Greek art &
archaeology day-in and day-out, loved it, was denied tenure in 1981
because one of my colleagues wrote a letter to the Promotion &
Tenure Committee that I was immoral, and then circulated copies of it
- he was so proud. I got a copy and took it to the President of the
university (former govenor Terry Sanford) who was outraged (bless
him!) and I was tenured the next year (full professor in 1990). So I
became political (yet again) and conducted grassroots campaigns to
get "sexual orientation" added to the university's
anti-discrimination statement (passed 1988), to establish a
President's committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual (and eventually
Transgender, Transsexual) concerns (1991), a LGBT student programming
unit and center (1992), the first LGBT Studies course (1993, which I
taught every Spring semester, as an add-on [= no $]), a
certificate-granting undergraduate minor in LGBT Studies (1995),
same-sex spousal equivalency benefits for staff (1996), and a
freshman-only program of allied courses in race, class, and gender
& sexuality called "Diversity & Identity " (1996).
In 1992 I went to an archaeology conference in Tasmania (go
figure) and met Paul Rehak, a Roman archaeologist. We kept telling
each other we both had boyfriends (I had met mine in 1978, an
[unemployed] actor) and were therefore off-limits, but that didn't
work. Back state-side, I threw my boyfriend of 13 years out of my
life, Paul did the same with his, and he left his going-nowhere job
at Loyola University (Catholic institution & out-gay, not much
future there) and moved in with me and taught occasionally at Duke.
Then my 25-Year service medal came through the mail and I realized
that things better happen soon or another 25 years would pass in the
blink of an eye and I'd be dead.
So we started looking around, and lo! the University of Kansas
beckoned. Its classical archaeologist was retiring in 2001, and Paul
landed a temporary job replacing her for one semester; I moved out
with him and our 2 dogs on an unpaid leave so KU could look me over.
The department here and we were/are a great match; they thought it
was cool we were a gay archaeology couple handling both Greek and
Roman art (so does Art History, so does Women's Studies for which I
do sexuality courses). We met the deans who also thought we could
offer the university something (a married couple in the same
department is rare; a gay couple in the same department, well, we're
it), and Paul was offered a contract, then a month later I was
offered one and we both accepted, much to disbelief of our colleagues
back at Duke. We then bought "Hadherway", this great 1880s
house at the top of Mt Oread in Lawrence KS, and moved in that
summer. I went back to Duke to honor the end of my contract and
taught my last courses there that Fall, and moved permanently (not a
glance backwards) to Lawrence on 1 January 2002 (change is great,
moving is hell). I've just completed my first full year here at KU
and love it. Northeast Kansas is rolling hills with a few trees and
lots of sky (much like northern Marin; North Carolina is rolling
hills too but they're covered in thick pine forests, so you see
neither hills nor sky; plus it has mosquitoes that raise welts and
make gardening a medical nightmare). And we have 5 dogs now, a 3rd
from our next-door neighbor who turned 82 and was being dragged down
the street, and 2 Shelties we couldn't resist.
The above was written, duh, in 2003 just before our 40th reunion.
The following brings me down to 2013.
Paul died on June 4, 2004, after some 10 years of living with
AIDS. He had been diagnosed HIV+ in 1993 so, unless some miracle
happened (it didn't), we knew his death was coming. So we did a lot
of traveling and a lot of writing archaeology articles together. We
had a great decade (his CV and bibliography is still online,
accessible through my own website, URL at the end of this bio).
Soon after that, I started getting involved in administration. I
was interim chair of Classics the year after Paul's death. In 2008,
Women's Studies (now Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies) asked me to
be its next chair. Of course I said "yes," and inherited a
barely begun proposal for a new PhD program which I completed and
shepherded through the myriad committees on up to the Board of
Regents who approved it in November 2010. We are now the 18th and
most recent PhD program in Women's Studies in the nation.
I stepped down as Chair of WGSS at midnight, December 31, 2012,
and immediately became Director of Jewish Studies ("who
knew?"), a program with a checkered history of neglect -- thus,
a challenge! I had excavated an early synagogue in northern Israel in
1982 where we found a controversial piece of sculpture with 2 lions
on it, a pediment to the Torah Shrine. Since orthodox synagogues are
not supposed to have figural art (no people or animals), the pediment
remained locked away and unpublished until the Antiquities Authority
had the guts to ask me to publish (not being Jewish or Christian I
was finally OK'd to do this, this was in 2003). Since then, I've
published other pieces of ancient Jewish art and architecture. To the
Dean, my being Director of Jewish Studies seemed a natural fit. I'm
still a bit shell-shocked!
Meanwhile, I'm back on a dig. Since 2011, I have been excavating
every summer in east Crete (Greece), at the major prehistoric site of
Gournia where I'm in charge of what is now a huge architectural
complex for the production of pottery: we have everything from
potter's wheels to drying areas to display rooms, all dating about
1800 BCE -- everything but the kiln (but we'll find that next year).
As for a boyfriend, I've hooked up with a really neat guy who's
into archaeology and travel, but we still have a few things to work
out: he's 22 (and I'm not, which is my problem). As for the dogs
— I'm down to 2, one of the Shelties is still with me; recently
I went down to the animal shelter and got a scarey-smart, standard
poodle named Luigi. He came with his own pet, Ted-the-Cat. So, 2 1/2 dogs.
If you need more information (masochist), take a look at my
homepage and resume+bibliography: http://www.people.ku.edu/~jyounger .
So that's my life — so far. It keeps getting more and more interesting.
Biff and students at the dig
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