Saratoga Sampler

Sheila Arthur puts talents to use at senior center

By Mary Ann Cook

DÉJÀ VU AND MEMORIES: The Saratoga Senior Center has a new program coordinator with a familiar face. She's Sheila Arthur, former executive director of the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce. We'll hear later about any new ideas she has.

Senior Center Director Mary Richards is just back from a trip with her new bridegroom, Tony Goulart, and some 16 others in her family. They went far afield to welcome in the millennium--to Auckland, New Zealand, no less.

Incidentally, the center is still looking for a cook to prepare Wednesday lunches. The job takes about six hours per week and up to 50 people are fed weekly. There's a speaker after lunch, so food for thought, as well as stomach, is offered. The center is also seeking a dishwasher for the Wednesday meal.

In other Senior Center changes, Emily Hendrickson and Louise Webb have switched roles. Now Hendrickson is taking the memoirs class, and Webb is teaching it. The class meets the first and third Fridays of the month from 10:15 a.m. to noon.

Usually 10 to 15 participants are on hand to read from their work. Topics that trigger memories may cover pets, a first job, one's favorite activity as a child, or information the writer wants to pass on to the next generation. The environment is so supportive that it's more like a family than a classroom, its instructor says.

In Webb's case, the discipline helps her to put her own memories in written form for her book on twins. For instance, when the subject was costumes, she remembered when she and her sister sallied forth on Halloween outfitted as a two-headed lady. The working title of her twins book is Wombmates.

Webb also takes a course in Los Altos in memoir writing. In the course she runs, she offers writing tips at the beginning of each class, but the members are so eager to read from their own work that the tips are necessarily curtailed.

"Everyone has a story, and every story is important" is Webb's philosophy for the Saratoga class. After being together for several years, she has seen a lot of progress in the craft of memoir writing in her colleagues. It's a very caring group, and newcomers are welcome to jump in at any time.

There are still a couple of millennium capsules at the Senior Center, courtesy of Jack Mallory, who sells them on the Internet. Must be tricky to decide what to put in them.

VICTORIA FOR THE MILLENNIUM: Those who took the Saratoga Recreation Department-sponsored trip to Victoria, British Columbia, over the millennium are still raving about its wonders: The first night in Seattle was a wonderful dinner aboard the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train.

Then three nights at the Empress Hotel in Victoria and a trip to the Butchart Gardens that was aglow with a lavish display of lights. It was a fairyland, absolutely magical, reports Dottie Lathuras of Saratoga. Everything was well organized. The food was excellent, and people were friendly.

The Empress is known for its high tea, and the visitors raved about it. Lathuras said the hotel was so vast and luxurious that she and her sister, Bessie Zachariou, got lost in it at first.

Other highlights: the British Columbia Museum's exhibit of Native American culture of the region and horse-drawn carriage rides around Victoria. New Year's Eve dinner at the hotel with big-band music for dancing was splendid accentuated with good-natured Canadia-U.S. rivalry.

In the group of 600, some 150 were from the Bay Area. Other Saratogans who took the trip are: Janet Cazel, Louise Chamberlin, Millie Otto, Karen and Vikram Patel, John and Gail Perl, John and Isabel Prussian, Gladys DeLuca, and James and Sandra Killian.

A commemorative cedar box was presented to each participant to be used for holding mementos or burying, perhaps, in time-capsule fashion. Golden Gate Adventures is the tour sponsor.

MONEY MATTERS: Pick up the December '99 issue of Money Magazine and you'll find an article by former Saratogan Rebecca Graveline Doane. She and her husband, Randell Doane, have written a book called Death and Taxes: The Complete Guide to Family Inheritance Planning.

The article in Money Magazine cites the book as a good reference point. The article is titled "Making a Plan: Wills? Trusts? Gifts?" and is subtitled "Some Talking Points Can Help You Get Started."

The Doanes are double achievers: both husband and wife are CPAs and lawyers. Rebecca Doane is a 1978 grad of Saratoga High, who went on to San Jose State University, where she majored in accounting. At 20, she went to law school at the University of South Carolina.

Today she works for Jones, Foster, Johnston and Stubb, a law firm in West Palm Beach, Fla. She is the daughter of Bob and Betty Graveline, who lived in Saratoga for 16 years and are now in Titusville, Fla., near their accomplished offspring.

SISTER CITY POTLUCK: Sister City meets Jan. 21 at 6 p.m. at the Community Center for a potluck dinner and graphic presentation by Fred Armstrong on the Sister City-sponsored trip to the Baltic last summer.

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