Sacramento Revisited - 2011
Return from Sacramento to Memphis Home
June 24 - 27, 2011
Updated July 26, 2011. Please visit again.
By Lewis Nolan
California's Marin Ballet Senior Faculty teacher and retired, standout ballerina Leslie Crockett with Bay Area student Olivia Hornstein
4sacvisit6-24-11
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June 24 – 27, 2011
- Updated July 27, 2011
Photos taken by Betty
Nolan during her visits with husband Buzz Nolan’s Sacramento
High School classmates, several former members of the Sutter Lawn Tennis Club
swim team he coached in the early 1970s, the graves of family and friends at
East Lawn Cemetery and commemorative Rose Garden/Vietnam War Memorial near the
California State Capitol are posted at www.kodakgallery.com
in various albums registered under Lewis “Buzz” Nolan’s email address. Email lewis_nolan@yahoo.com for instructions
how to access the pictures.
By LEWIS NOLAN
June 27, 2011 – Monday
– Travel from
Betty and I have really enjoyed being with my two brothers
and some of my old friends during a long weekend in the capitol city of
California and are now prepared for the long flights back home to Memphis. We
enjoyed our last breakfast of the trip (paying $14 cash) in the Courtyard by
Marriott restaurant on the property that is now mostly occupied by the
Fortunately, the schedule for the flights home gave us a
free morning to relax and prepare for the long journey with reasonable leisure
instead of having to rush around like we did for the trip out here. On the
instructions of the motel staff, we used a facility computer and printer at no
charge to print our boarding passes in the lobby. We left the motel shortly
after 10 a.m. after paying out bill of $567 for three nights including $190 for
meals and drinks. We then drove 20-to-30 minutes to the
Our Continental flight departed
on time just after noon; the Boeing 757 plane was mostly full. There were no
snacks provided on the flight although snacks and light lunches were sold from
a cart. Soft drinks were provided at no charge and Betty packed some packaged
nuts and granola bars in our carry-on luggage. We arrived pretty much on time
at the huge
Other charges included $150 for the high school reunion dinner, plus $15 for two glasses of wine and another $100 or so for such miscellaneous expenses as gasoline, photography services for a souvenir booklet and parking. The grand total of money spent on the trip that I kept track of amounted to $2,277 – which I think was worth the pleasure I got from seeing so many people who were important in my life over half a century ago and introducing my much-loved wife of 43 years, Betty, to them.
Once at home, it took several days to unpack and write various emails and cards to some of the people I’d seen and organize and write my trip account segments. I think I’d like to do it all again if my high school alumni group should put together another reunion and my Sutter Lawn swimming associates would like an encore lunch gathering.
Among those I had hoped to see at the Sac High reunion but
didn’t was the magnificent ballet star Leslie Crockett. We were never a couple
even though we were classmates and good friends at both Kit Carson Junior High
and Sac High. For a while my steady date in high school was one of her fellow
dancers who later roomed with her in
Leslie, her parents and her sister had all been principal
dancers at the famed San Francisco Ballet Company and were important founders
of the Sacramento Ballet company and school. After dancing professionally and
then teaching for 13 years at San Francisco Ballet School, Leslie went on to
join the senior faculty of the Marin Ballet school in the Bay Area in 1995. She
has been married to famed sculptor Al Farrow for many years; some of his work
is on display at the de Young Museum after being purchased by the Fine Arts
Museums of
In short, Leslie is the one classmate (from a
Leslie and I have been in loose contact by sentimental emails for several years. I was disappointed to learn that her ambitious plans to attend the reunion were regrettably cancelled by the painful condition of sciatica caused by a damaged nerve in one of her shapely, dance-conditioned legs. She said in late July, 2011 that “I will be SEMI retired starting in the Fall.”
Following is an email I sent to Leslie once I was back in Memphis, her response to me.
July 1, 2011
Lovely Leslie - Always
great hearing from you. Glad Maridee seems to be doing OK. I think somebody
told me she changed her plans and didn't come because of serious illness. I
certainly hope you are right and whoever told me that was mistaken. Much more,
I hope your health is improving and am among those sorry your beauty and graceful
presence didn't add to our class 50th reunion festivities.
On the chance I didn't mention it earlier, my notes indicate the following were
among the 146 in the announced attendance since they had paid the advance fee
of $75 for the dinner (number I think includes guests like spouses):
Gerald "Buzzy" Chernoff (whom I did not see); Bruce Fletcher;
organizer of so-so quality of event, I thought, Richard Lattimer; Dennis
Ghisletta (who was drafted by a major league baseball team but didn't play due
to injury); Nancy Hoos, onetime girlfriend of Bob Reid who now is married to a
youngish man with facial hair who looks to be in his mid30s; Kathy Howell
(still rather aggressive and loud); Pete Price (who didn't graduate with us
after his father, D. A. John Price pulled him out in senior year and enrolled
him in a private school after he and others including yours truly were caught
in a massive truancy crackdown that resulted in several of us driving to
Roseville for summer school to graduate on time); Bob Reid; Doug Sykes, a great
athlete and fellow David Lubin-er alum who got an M.A. in history from
Cal-Berkeley, I think).
The food at the pretentious Arden Hills Club way out on
Among the missing were Merry Millward, Marty Klinefelter, Judy Sherman, Leslie
Crockett, Vicky Perry, Dan Dittman, Harry Singer, Bob Zanders, Ed Nannini and
Dick Hyde.
Among the deceased listed on a poster were Jim Hunt (who "stole"
Diana Doody from me in junior high (she didn't come either, or if she did I
didn't recognize her), athletic incompetent Elwood Orr, baseball standout
Robert Belden; Eddie Sizemore and my date for the senior ball Judy Wessler, a
tall and lanky looker who was brave enough to ask me in a HS hallway to take
her to the blowout dance.
It's a shame you couldn't make it because with your great looks (said with
respect bordering on awe) you would have been far and away the belle of the
ball since quite a few of the females in attendance (other than my Betty, of
course) have way-plumped up to the point they were mostly unrecognizable. But
nametags in large type along with small photos clipped out of the senior
annual helped identify those present. There were not but a very, very
small number of African-Americans there and only a few Asians.
I continue to look forward to whenever I can see you and meet your amazing
husband. By the way, a secondary reunion of members of my old Sutter Lawn
swimming team that lesson teacher Bob Reid (now a successful heart transplant
patient and retired director of the
I'll soon send you a copy of a travelogue I've started work on plus a website
URL for pics taken by Betty when I can get to posting them. If you've their
addresses, please send me the emails of Merry, Maridee and any others you think
might be interested in seeing my pending account. A number of us paid extra to
have our pictures posed and taken by a professional photog for a future
"brochure" containing pix of attendees. Depending on quality, I may
send you a copy whenever it comes out, provided of course that it can be copied
and we're not blinking or flashing a bird when the shot was made.
Love, Buzz
_______________________________________________________________________________________
July 1, 2011
Hi Buzz,
Sounds like you had a great time in
Was a little surprised to hear that our “old
gang”, for the most part, did not show up. I very recently reconnected
with Maridee Hayes and she said she was not attending. We did have a
great “catch up” conversation, after a couple of emails. She is an artist
(painter) and is living in
Am looking forward to your travelogue and pix.
love, leslie
On 6/28/11 7:21 AM, "Lewis Nolan" <lewis_nolan@yahoo.com>
wrote:
______________________________________________________________________________
--- On Mon, 6/27/11, Lewis Nolan <lewis_nolan@yahoo.com>
wrote in an e-mail:
From: Lewis Nolan <lewis_nolan@yahoo.com>
Subject: Back home after enjoyable trip to Sacramento
To: "Casey Nolan" <nolan_casey@hotmail.com>, "Caroline
Nolan" <caroline_cardon@hotmail.com>, "JoAnn Cardon Glass"
<jojocardon@aol.com>, "Kitty Boren"
<katboren@comcast.net>
Cc: "Betty Nolan" <betty_nolan@yahoo.com>, "Bob Reid"
<bob.reid99@comcast.net>, "Nancy Mee"
<nancy@nancymee.com>, "Peter Anderson" <pjjanderson@sbcglobal.net>,
"Beth Leonard Schatz" <BLeonard@sbcglobal.net>, "Robin
Anderson z9Hayes" <rhayes@hayeslaw.net>, "William Bill
Nolan" <nolan.william8@gmail.com>, "Barbara Fackenthall"
<bfackenthall@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011, 10:36 PM
Dear ones:
It's just after 10 p.m. on Monday, June 27, 2011 and Betty and I arrived safely
home after a fun but uneventful flights home in Memphis after our long weekend
in Sacramento, CA to attend the 50th Reunion celebration of my High School
graduating class of 1961. We had a good time with my longtime friend and
onetime business partner Bob Reid and others involved in the swimming business
at Sutter Lawn Tennis Club. The high school class reunion turnout was 146, a
bigger number than I had expected. There were only a few present whom I
remembered spending much time with other than Bob Reid and Pete Price.
But my onetime star swimmer I coached in the early 1960s, now celebrated glass
sculpture artist Nancy Mee of
Seeing a bunch of former classmates and several onetime swim team enthusiasts -
after a half-century of being apart and some now with their own families - was
a somewhat emotional thrill thrill for me and I'll always be grateful to Bob
Reid and Peter Anderson for pulling the event together. Amazing how many of us
have expanded our waistlines and raised our hairlines but continue to maintain
keen interest in one another's progressions in life. I'm proud to say I've
learned that nearly all our hotly competitive swimmers have done very well so
far now that they are in their 40s and older; they generally reacted with
admirable pleasure upon seeing recent photos of our very good looking, new
grandsons.
Betty took a bunch of photos at the reunion dinner and also at our small lunch
gathering of veteran swimmers at Sutter Lawn while a club tennis tournament was
underway. I plan to write a travelogue fairly soon and post it with some pix
and will let you know when it is available.
Cheers and regards, Lewis "Buzz" Nolan
(Continue with Part 1, Flights from Memphis to Sacramento / Return to Nolan Travels)