Main Street

Bellarmine celebrates the Albanese family

By Mary Ann Cook

ALBANESE FAMILY HONORED: It was Albanese night at Bellarmine's President's Club Award Appreciation Dinner last week. The Albanese family members--strong supporters of Bellarmine College Preparatory for two generations--were the honorees at the school's annual event.

Rose and Joe Albanese of Saratoga are the patriarch/matriarch of the family and "have been a stalwart presence at Bellarmine for as long as anyone can remember," according to the Rev. William H. Muller, president of the Jesuit-run school. Joe is a 1936 Bellarmine grad.

Sons John, Kevin and Chris attended Bellarmine, and they, too, were honored, along with John's wife, Mary Sue, who is working on the school's 150th anniversary celebration to start in March 2000.

Also celebrated were nephews Bill, class of '61, and Tom, class of '64. These two are the president and vice president of Central Concrete Supply Co. and staunch Bellarmine boosters. Tom was a member of Bellarmine's first Board of Regents, and Bill is a current member of that body. Bill and his wife, Mari, live in Los Gatos, and Tom and his wife, Maureen, live in Saratoga. Tom founded and is an owner of Campo di Bocce in Los Gatos. The two men are the sons of the late Carmen and Ethel Albanese.

The entire Albanese family was commended for its dedication and hard work with Bellarmine and other valley causes. Bellarmine prides itself on being the oldest school in California.

MYSTERY FICTION: Loretta Scott Miller, who worked at Lockheed for 30 years, is now an author, a role she has wanted to play for years but put on hold until she was nearly retired. The book is a mystery set in Santa Cruz titled A Ride on the Trojan Horse.

The protagonists--TJ Billings, daughter Lisbee and Uncle Beau--span three generations and operate a private detective firm. The book is the first in a series that will feature this P.I. team. The publisher is 1stBooks Library of Bloomington, Ind., an international online library.

Under this system, a copy of the book is printed only after an order is received. The buyer can purchase the book online by ordering it and then downloading it electronically, or ordering it the traditional way--printed and sent from www.1stbooks.com.

Hot off the presses has been changed to hot off the computer and so, in a sense, it's custom-made. No warehouse of unsold copies to worry about. Conventional copies can be found in local bookstores, such as Crown, where Miller held a book signing last week.

She also will participate in an author signing on Dec. 11 at noon at Border's. Another author to be featured is Alastair Dallas, Los Gatos chronicler. Dallas's book is Los Gatos Observed, a meld of architecture and history.

As for mystery writer Miller, in her former life at Lockheed, she worked with a computer system that enhanced digital satellite imagery, a system still used by the military and government agencies.

She and husband Todd have a second home, a 38-foot seagoing trawler, berthed in Pittsburgh, Calif., near the bay and the delta. Loretta grew up in Los Gatos; she is a 1960 graduate of Los Gatos High School.

WHITHER VIRGINIA? Whatever happened to Virginia, the dummy stationed on a tree stump next to the BP station at Lark Avenue and Los Gatos Boulevard? She was always dressed in appropriate gear for the weather, and I miss her meteorological presence.

THE PASSING SCENE: Another recent letter-to-the-editor writer decrying the changing of the valley from agricultural to housing tracts is David Campbell, who comments particularly on the wildlife--wild turkeys, deer and snake sightings. He grew up in a house whose back yard faced the orchard on Blossom Hill Road.

A special memory he cherishes is playing hide-and-seek with his sister in the spring, using a dead apricot tree as home base and "simply ducking down in the field of yellowness as a hiding spot. Trying to run through those plants was like trying to run in fresh powder after a snowfall."

On the same subject, Betty Auchard, whose son created hand-lathed bowls from tree trunks in the abandoned orchard, wonders if anyone has a color photograph of the orchard in springtime. She would be very interested in purchasing one.

BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU: Jay Druian, who with wife Sallie Robbins-Druian, owns The French Cellar on E. Main Street, has been serving guest stints with KGO Radio's Gene Burns in Boston, Phoenix and San Francisco. His topic is the production and consumption of Beaujolais Nouveau, which arrives from France at this time of year and is to be consumed à l'instante.

Burns hosts the nationally syndicated show Dining Around with Gene Burns. Druian writes a wine column for Bay Area Communiqué, a magazine that targets the French community here and local Francophiles.

TREE LIGHTING: Don't forget the tree lighting at Plaza Park in front of the post office on Dec. 3 at 4 p.m.

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