Saratoga Sampler
Love blooms during a bus ride to Benicia
By Mary Ann Cook
MYSTERY TRIP VALENTINE: Since it's nigh onto Valentine's Day seems appropriate to hear from some couples who could qualify as banner bearers in the hearts and flowers department. One union nominated was that of Bunny and Ted Roland. They met on a Mystery Trip.
The trip was sponsored by the Saratoga Rec Department and the bus was headed to Benicia, unbeknown to those aboard. Otherwise, two of those en route would not have signed up, since both had been to Benicia recently. You know the two I mean.
They lunched together with another couple--friends of hers. Then met accidentally at various Saratoga locales. during the Saratoga Village Open House, Bunny was bedecked in red and white, and had her picture taken at a camera shop, with the eye to making it her Christmas card.
But when she picked it up, the storeowner warned her it hadn't turned out. "Look through this pile," the proprietor said. There she ran across a picture of Ted, looking like an escaped convict on a wanted poster. The store owner said, "I don't know who that is, how to get it to him.
Bunny said she would take care of it. She unearthed Ted's address and sent him a Christmas card-- with his photo inside. "I found this on the post office wall," the note said. Later, he called to get together, but she was leaving for Europe. Another invitation came and again she was booked.
By the third time she figured she'd better change her appointment calendar or she'd never hear from him again. So she asked him to a dinner party. And things took off from there. "We had so much fun, so many laughs. He's crazy, has a great sense of humor," says Bunny.
Married for 12 years, it was "one of my better moves," Ted says. "She's so effervescent, full of pep and get up and go." To illustrate, they come home from travels only long enough to do the laundry. Or so he claims.
LOVE BOAT: The Wales--Barbara and Bob--met on the Love Boat. He was a widower who raised seven kids alone. A friend said, "Now it's time for you to do something for yourself," and talked him into a cruise.
She had never married, was working, and caring for her mother, who lived with her and had Alzheimer's. Neither were thinking in terms of marriage. Far from it. And yet. . . They met at a singles party on the boat where there were "four men and 50 women," says Barbara, laughing.
That was March: they married in November--at the nursing home where her mother was living after breaking a hip. It was the first marriage ever performed in that nursing home. That was 10 years ago, and now they hold hands and dance together at every opportunity.
VOLLEYBALL: Saratoga seems to produce some of the winningest women volleyball players around. Case in point is Joanne Saunders, a junior at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., who was named to the AVCA All-Northeast Region Team, the first player from Fairfield to receive such an honor.
At 6 feet, she racked up a high of 541 kills, hitting .287 percent for the year. Her total was the second highest single season total in the school's v'ball history. Saunders led the Stags to their fourth consecutive Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament title and NCAA tournament berth.
Fairfield won its first ever game victory at the national tourney, defeating Pepperdine, the No. 4 seed. She's on the record books at Fairfield for kills of 1,372 and a team best of 369 digs. For the v'ball illiterate, kills are like spikes, a (presumably) unreturnable return.
Digs are kills that are coming at the player hard, but who yet manages to dig out--to either pass or get over the net. Saunders was named to the all-MAAC First Team and chosen MVP at the MAAC Tournament.
A graduate of Mitty High School, she is the daughter of John and Rena Saunders, the youngest of four. Oh, she also played basketball and golf in high school, the only woman on the golf team and the only one to win a CCS award.
CHURCH UNITY: Sacred Heart and Saratoga Federated combined forces to present a Youth Game Night one recent Friday at Sacred Heart. The event drew some 75 middle schoolers who played tug of war, basketball and relays. Next date for a similar evening is March 23.
Sacred Heart Parish council member Roberta Witte reported this news. Witte evidently cuts a wide swath: She bills herself as the Mother of All Trades on her card. Now enrolled at West Valley, one of those trades is being a student--in the computer field.
BRACE YOURSELVES: Annual Acts of Random Kindness Week is coming up Feb. 11-14. Louise Webb made sure this week was made official by Saratoga's city fathers some years ago. She cites one example to get the rest of us in motion.
While on a trip to San Francisco Mildred Perry refused to fork over money to a panhandler. Instead, she treated him to lunch. On a personal note, my son sometimes pays the bridge toll for the car behind him.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
