FORMER Los Gatans Billie J. and Reece C. Jensen have produced a new book about their experiences living in Alaska in 1959-60, where they moved from their home in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Titled Up to Alaska, the well-illustrated book combines the Jensens' personal story with history, facts and folklore about "the last frontier."
The couple took the Alcan Highway, then unpaved, to Fairbanks, where Reece Jensen found employment at Ladd Air Force Base. Their book is partially based on letters exchanged between Billie Jensen and her parents in the "lower 48." Included are some 250 photographs in color and black-and-white. The Jensens have included much information about notable Alaskans and the past and present of our 49th state, including the fact that 87 percent of Alaska is controlled by the federal government.
With temperatures dipping to 30 below and colder, the Jensens winterized their home trailer. "One aspect of life to which we had to adjust," Billie Jensen writes, "was the 24 hours of daylight in the summer and 24 hours of darkness in winter. In the spring, every day we could count on an extra seven minutes of sunlight. In the summer when the sun 'went down,' it seemed to barely skim below the horizon before it popped up for the next day."
Billie Jensen owned the Ghastly Gallimaufry shop on N. Santa Cruz Avenue. In 1949, the couple published A Trip Through Time and the Santa Cruz Mountains. The soft cover books are available at Curious Book Shoppe, 23 E. Main St., and the Summit Store on Summit Road, and at $24.95 from Ghastly Gallimaufry Publications, P.O. Box 2781, Gardnerville, Nev., 84910. Forbes Mill Museum has A Trip Through Time.
THE FIRE Bell hasn't rung from its tower in the Town Plaza for quite a long while. John Spaur needs some expert assistance to fix it. Donated services are needed to repair an electrical short and a make a mechanical replacement for the hammer push rods. When the repairs are complete, the bell should ring again. Phone Spaur at 559-3262 if you can help.
A MEMORIAL service for Soquel conductor-composer George Barati, who died June 22 after a fall on a Los Gatos street, will be held Sept. 15 at 2:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 900 High St., Santa Cruz. The service was originally scheduled for later in September, but the date has changed.
DURING the Elks national convention in Las Vegas this month, David A. Fletcher, member of the Los Gatos Elks Lodge No. 1857, was appointed to the national public relations board of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Fletcher, who lives in San Jose, was recognized for his services to the organization.
More than 1,000 women have joined the B.P.O. Elks since they voted last year to delete "male" from membership requirements.
TWO WOMEN who regularly serve as docents at the Los Gatos Museum, proved their skill at table tennis during the Silicon Valley Classic Games held July 11-14. Ann Beaudet took home a gold medal and Billie Hanon a bronze. The event included a variety of games.
THERE'LL be a reception for George Kane, former publisher of the Los Gatos Times-Observer, July 31 at 4 p.m. at the Los Gatos Meadows, 110 Wood Road, where he'll speak on his collection of lithographed posters from World War I. Phone 354-0211 for information.
BOTTOM LINE Studios, formerly with an office in Los Gatos and now of San Jose, is cutting a completed new film, Dancing on Coals, labeled a dramatic comedy. It involves the Mafia and arguments over money. Lucia Marinelli of Los Gatos, who appeared with the Los Gatos Theater Project and other local area plays, has the part of a "grenade-throwing grandma." Alternating with Mary Foster, Marinelli played Ma Burnstein in the Los Gatos Theater Project's production of Auntie Mame. In Italy, Marinelli worked with the late director Federico Fellini.
THE JULY edition of Prime Monthly, a free magazine published in San Jose by Prime Times Monthly Inc., carries an interesting piece, first of two articles by Audry Lynch, about author John Steinbeck. Lynch interviewed Alicia Harby De Noon, proprietor of Alicia's Antiques in a building on Monterey's Cannery Row that once housed Wing Chong's Grocery. De Noon knew Steinbeck before and after his writing success. A onetime cannery worker, De Noon was one of a group that gathered for "high wine" (like high tea) at the laboratory of Steinbeck's friend, "Doc" Ricketts. Steinbeck and his wife, Carol, moved to Pacific Grove and then to the Los Gatos area, where he wrote the book that made him world-famous, The Grapes of Wrath.
AT LOS GATOS Youth Park, behind Los Gatos High School, members of Kiwanis, Optimist and Soroptimist clubs met for a barbecue lunch. Sue LaForge, chair of the youth park, introduced Dick Treat, Santa Clara County Boy Scouts executive. Los Gatos Rotary Club members met at the Youth Park where Bill Ritt, a commissioner on the county BSA Council, said the county has 10,600 registered scouts in some 400 units. Several members of 4-H Clubs demonstrated their projects, and youthful artists described their mural work on the Forbes Mill Foot Bridge.
IT WAS John P. Marquand, not "Thomas" Marquand, who wrote The Late George Apley, mentioned in an op-ed piece of mine that appeared in the July 24 Los Gatos Weekly-Times.
OUR TOWN lost one of its more familiar characters when "Tony" Anzalone, owner of the Black Watch, passed away last month at 72. Tony came from Omaha, where this columnist labored in the World Herald newsroom. I remember Tony saying that as an Italian kid, he had to "fight my way through the Irish district to get to school."
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, July 31, 1996.
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