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Saratoga Sampler
This was a marathon with great purpose
By Mary Ann Cook
BLISTERED BUT BLISSFUL: Tessie and Phil Young were two of the 1,800 who walked, ran or propelled their wheelchairs through the 26.2-mile marathon in Honolulu earlier this month. The event was a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
The Saratoga couple raised $9,000 themselves. Their time was 7 hours, 50 minutes, walking. The winning runners made the same distance in 2 hours, 15 minutes.
The Youngs trained almost daily for four months. "We saw more of Saratoga than we ever thought was there, even after 30 years of living here," Tessie says. L&L marathons stress training and keeping the focus on the reason for the walk by having the honorees, leukemia survivors, at practice sessions.
The training involved meeting on Saturdays, in a group effort at area parks, along with roughly 80 others from the South Bay. About 300 from the Bay Area took part in the Hawaii marathon. Some $6 million was raised nationally, with $1.6 million coming from the Bay Area contingent.
There was a cheering section when they alighted from the plane in Hawaii and inspirational talks from leukemia patients, relates Tessie. One particularly wrenching story was from a bone marrow patient who met his donor for the very first time that night and gave her a tearful hug.
A carbo-loaded pasta dinner was on the menu the night before the marathon and there was a victory dinner afterwards. All the people on their team made it all the way to the finish line, she reports.
At the 22-mile mark Tessie thought she wasn't going to make it. And then their mentor showed up and walked with them up a hill and her stamina and dedication were renewed. "He walked up that hill 15 times with different groups," she says, admiringly and amazed. His daughter had had leukemia.
"By the end I was probably delirious--didn't even recognize a member of our group, asked who she was." The Youngs stayed for three days after the marathon trek to recoup. The salt waters proved a curing restorative for blistered feet.
But it was their hearts that experienced the most expansion from signing on for this endeavor. The L&L Society sponsors triathlons, bike rides and Iron Man marathons, as well as walks throughout the year. The website is teamintraining.com and the phone number is 408.271.2873.
HOLIDAY TRADITION: The Nutcracker is as much a holiday tradition as plum pudding and roasted chestnuts. Wait, I somehow slipped into a Dickens Christmas. A California Christmas is more likely to be persimmon pudding and jalapeno-flavored roasted almonds.
(That's pronounced ammons in that productive valley east of us that produces them. Seems they've had the "l" knocked out of em.) However that may be, another Nutcracker tradition is the appearance of ballet school muppets playing mice in these productions.
For many of the mice it's their dancing debut. Here's a list of the Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley School locals who are performing this season: Ashley & Jessica Tomkins, Marie Schonfeld, Danielle Salah, Lillian Chen and Sophia Wood. Those mice all scurried in from Saratoga.
From Los Gatos come Honami Ishibashi, Leilah Moeinzadeh, Pamela Smith, Simona Frank, Sarah Santich, Isabella Conrad, Abigail Dunlay, Miho & Miki Nakano and Madeline Foy.
And from Monte Sereno, Katie Wardenburg and Clare Schweitzer.
NEW OFFICERS: The Association of Republican Women held its installation and Christmas brunch on what proved to be a red-letter day for the Republicans--the very day that their U.S. presidential candidate gave his acceptance speech and Al Gore his concession remarks.
Planners of the brunch, of course, had no idea months back that this would prove to be such an historic date. So it was a festive day for the relieved Republicans when the local club installed its own slate of officers for the year.
And there was no trouble in the tabulations at this election. The officers for 2001 are Barbara Wales, president; Pam Bryant, vice president; Mandy Nelson, recording secretary; Diana Strannigan, corresponding secretary; and Helen Gaetano, treasurer.
Pat Dando on San Jose City Council was the installer. Mary Johnson won a certificate for outstanding service to the club presented by Marian Cosgrove, town clerk.
These presenters included Don Gage, county board of supervisors, Bok Pon, northern vice chairman of the Republican Party; Steve Blanton, Los Gatos councilman; and Rita Baum, Saratoga News senior columnist.
WINNING PIANIST: Pianist Clara Yang played at the 10 a.m. service on Christmas Eve at Westhope Presbyterian. Yang is an award-winning pianist and Saratoga High grad. Born in China, she immigrated here in '96.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
