Saratoga News

Saratoga Sampler

Mary Ann Cook

YSI offers a zoo of critters for the young set

BUG ME: At Vasona Park Youth Science Institute headquarters, you can see an insect zoo that includes hissing cockroaches, African millipedes, walking sticks, scorpions, tarantulas and other stuff fascinating to the peanut-butter-breath set. Look for a lab and classroom to be added to the office soon. Plans are in the works.

Does YSI have the best board in the valley? Executive director Anne Dunham thinks so, anyway. There are 17 members and room to expand to 25. Janice Bastiani of Los Gatos is the only West Valley member at the moment. This summer the three camps will serve 1,700 campers during one-week stints at Vasona, Sanborn and Alum Rock parks. Now 150 different sessions are offered, reflecting a 60 percent growth each of the past two years at Vasona and Sanborn. Spaces are still available for camps at Sanborn. Call 356-4945.

The YSI Guild runs a Thrift and Gift Shop at Alum Rock Avenue and White Road. Active in the guild are treasurer Cynthia Allen, Joanne Geggatt and Lyn Johnston of Saratoga, Pam Allison of Los Gatos and Merlene Bottomley of Monte Sereno.

Geggatt produces the newsletter and is science safari coordinator. Science safaris are hikes designed for the whole family. The next one is Mysteries of the Night, July 25, 8-11 p.m. Astronomy will be a crucial part of the adventure, with Ralph Libby, a volunteer at Mt. Hamilton Observatory.

On the August agenda: a Summer Night Hike, Aug. 28, 8-9:30 p.m., with Pat Cucker, animal curator; and Calling All Coyotes, Aug. 29, 10 a.m.-noon, with naturalist Chris Carson.

"I have the perfect job," Dunham says. This is her third incarnation. She taught 16-year-olds for 16 years at Monta Vista High School, then switched to the hospitality business, including six years running Annie's restaurant, overlooking the creek in Saratoga. After hours she weaves and spins (much like those six-legged creatures she pointed out earlier). She and her husband, Gordon, both volunteer at Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic in Palo Alto.

MONTALVO WEDDING: This bride and groom grew up within a mile of each other but didn't meet until each was working in Seattle. They are Nancy Stillger and Thomas Ahearn, who were married at Montalvo June 27. After the ceremony, dinner and dancing, the couple exited in a prized model TR-3, owned by the bride's father, Fritz. Her mother, Mimi, when not helping orchestrate a wedding, volunteers at Elmwood through the literacy program.

The groom's parents are Anne and George Ahearn. The reason they never met? He went to Bellarmine, she to Los Gatos High. Her Scripps College cronies were bridesmaids, and the cake was four-tiered and gift-box-shaped, each layer set at angles. Overheard at the nuptials: "They were made for each other."

BACKSTAGE: "Backstage at the Rep" is being held July 30, 6-9:30 p.m., to benefit the New America Playwrights Festival, a joint effort of the San Jose Rep and Montalvo. The festival will be held Oct. 17-18. On the fundraiser playbill are cocktails, dinner and a workshop reading of Legacy.

Legacy is based on Studs Terkel's Coming of Age, interviews with those beyond retirement age, and will be presented at the Rep next season, tailored by artistic director Timothy Near. No cast members under 68 years!

Ann Atkinson of Los Gatos is chair of "Backstage," and a $100 donation is asked. Table directors from Saratoga: Mickie Anderson, Judy Bartee, Ginny Bowman, Pat Compton, Joyce Filpi, Sarita Johnson and Mary Lou Taylor. For tickets, call Tish Bayer, 367-7264.

KING DODO: King Dodo Playhouse owners Ivan and Jaleen Holm closed the playhouse and moved away 10 years ago. Now news comes that Ivan Holm has terminal cancer. For those who would like to express their appreciation for being entertained through the years, their address is 8509 Janet Engle Way, Fair Oaks, 95628.

Ivan played comedy leads in two different plays per weekend while rehearsing a third during the week, and held down an 8-to-5 job as well. Jaleen directed all of the productions and acted in most. The Holms ran the playhouse for 26 years, part of that time at Azule Crossing in Saratoga.

This news via Len Overholser of Enterprise Trust and Investment Co. in Los Gatos, who was a character actor with the Holms during their last seven years here. Ivan's rubber-faced expressions and double takes were priceless, Overholser recalls.

TRAVELIN': Saratogans are decidedly on the go these days, making travel plans or just back from far-flung jaunts. Though some are business-related, many are strictly holiday. What doesn't sound like holiday are the horror tales of traffic elsewhere.

After caterwauling about traffic growth in the Bay Area, I find a perverse pleasure in hearing about traffic tangles in such distant and exotic spots as Bangkok, Athens and Tokyo. Of course, I manage to cluck sympathetically, knowing how miserable I'd feel stuck for hours in traffic on an elephant or in a rickshaw or chariot.

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