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Saratoga Sampler
Birthday was cause for a little family get-together
By Mary Ann Cook
MAUI BIRTHDAY: Bill Wickett, retired Sonoma doctor, decided what he really wanted for his birthday was to treat his entire family to a nine-day trip to Maui where all 41 could be together. Since he owns a condo on Napili Bay, that seemed like the way to go, so he rented additional units to accommodate the crowd for the week of June 23-July 1.
That's why Saratogans Anne and Jon Cross and their two sons and their wives, Eric and Sarah and Brian and Jenny, can be found luxuriating in the balmy breezes of Maui as you read this. Youngest member of the family and only great-grandchild of Bill Wickett so far is Emily, 8 months, daughter of Sarah and Eric.
Eric, a Saratoga High School grad of 1989, married the girl next door, Sarah Pollard. And you thought that never happened. Wickett has eight children (including three stepchildren) and 17 grandchildren, all of whom are convening.
Other attendees with a local connection are Terry Rutledge of Almaden, who is director of the Los Gatos Community Hospital Wellness and Fitness Center, his wife, Nina, and children Jayson, Sean and Bryan.
The last evening will be devoted to showing the honoree's father's life through the decades via spoofs, skits and swing dancing. Her sister in Seattle produces shows, so the whole family is bound to get into the act. It's a hammy family, Anne Cross admits.
Other highlights will be snorkeling off the island of Lanai and signing books at a Hawaiian Border's. The book is called 7 Wicketts on a Ticket and details the Wicketts' lives during 1960-61 when the family lived in Africa for a year with Dad doctoring through a Methodist missionary program which he developed.
All the Wicketts had a hand in writing the book shortly after they lived it, but it's just now been published--self-published--and each offspring has added a recent appraisal of how that year influenced the rest of their lives.
Since that time, their mother, Jean, has died, but their blended family has very strong ties. "My father makes no distinction between his children and stepchildren," says Anne. Stepmom is MarGy, whose name has an unusual capitalization.
NEW PUBLISHING HOUSE: In other publishing news, there's a new publishing house in town, called Portos Publishing. It's family-owned and operated and focuses its attention on the spiritual side of experience, along with publishing work that is entertaining and thought-provoking.
One of the first titles is a children's book called When I'm By Myself by Catherine Johnson Kay. Kay grew up in Saratoga, graduated from Santa Clara University, Saratoga High School and Sacred Heart. After years of fighting an increasingly debilitating illness, she died in February.
But she left several more books for children, which Portos will publish as a series of self-esteem books. If you can dream it, you can be it, is the book's main message. For example: "When I'm by myself I know what is best. There's no need to be just like the rest."
"I can walk on my hands/Clap with my feet/Do anything/'Cause I'm really neat." The rhyming book's illustrator is Ron Morgan. It can be ordered for $17.95 through Portos Publishing, P.O. Box 2009, Saratoga, 95070. The phone number is 867-7946. Anne C. Johnson is vice president and in charge of marketing.
WELCOME OFFICERS: Joan Miller is the newly elected president of the West Valley Welcomers. "Dynamic and so organized that she has the entire next year planned" is the way the new president is enthusiastically described by club member Jan Petrucha.
Other new officers include: Dianne Guisinger, vice president; Jeanne Holst, secretary; Judy Szetela, treasurer; Grace Shepherd, historian; and Sally Neubauer, membership. First program of the new order: Opera Day on Aug. 15. The Welcomers contact number is 867-5809.
GOLDEN MILE: In "Walk a Golden Mile," the annual event that raises money for several senior centers in the area, Saratoga seniors raised some $2,000 for the center by collecting pledges.
MYSTERY INITIALS SOLVED: Thanks to the research efforts of Pat Gast and Les Landin we now know what CVO stands for. Those initials were on the letter that Kay Stave received from Prince Edward after she wrote him a congratulatory note about his nuptials to Sophia Rhys-Jones and he (well, OK, his secretary) wrote back--immediately.
CVO was tacked onto the end of his name and title and stands for "Commander Victorian Order." Boy, Queen Victoria got her name permanently affixed to almost every official document in Britain, it sounds like. Gast's parents are British and she was itching to know the answer. "I can't stand not knowing something that shouldn't be a secret."
So when she saw Landin over the weekend he called some United Kingdom friends of his to get to the bottom of this. Both Julia and Eric Gast, Pat's children, are members of the Skillet Likker Family and sing with the group from time to time.
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Saratoga, California Since 1975
