Saturday, March 7, 2009

Bascom's Babble: First Contact!

I had breakfast with Van Dyke Roth and his wife Marty at an IHop near my hotel. Those of you who went to Riordan should be very familiar with Van. He is still the great guy that I knew over 35 years ago. Van is a very creative person, always was. So in addition to his "real job" as VP of Marketing for a San Francisco Credit Union, he spends all his free time producing or choreographing community theater in the north bay. He actually has several overlapping projects that run for nine months out of the year. At the breakfast I surprised him with memorabilia from days gone by.
This included the original Class of 1973 Frosh Handbook for students entering Riodan, sheets from the Riordan-Mercy Bowling League where I was secretary (Gary Aguiar is listed in those sheets as well), A Riordan Crusader newspaper from 1972 that has his byline for artwork and layout, a couple of programs from plays produced during that period, and one share of Slimco (Van's Junior Achievement company). He was quite surprised as we both relived those days in our past. We were both amazed at the things we have done and where we have come. I can't believe he has so much energy to do so much in the community, but he and Marty love it so. In fact, they had to take off to do some of that community theater work this afternoon, so after breakfast we exchanged contact information and said our goodbyes. Van is one of my Facebook friends now so we will definitely maintain contact.

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