Turkey Bowl two days away

It was tough, but I have agin resisted the very strong temptation to fly out to the Bay Area for Thaksgiving. As I wrote earlier, the usual way it works is if you don't buy your plane tickets by early September, the only decent fares are all gone. Well, this year turned out to be the opposite. In September, fares were horrible and flight selection was worse. But then the economy sunk and gas prices sunk lower than ever. I could have been on a flight with 48 hours advance purchase for $109 each way, non-stop, coast-to-coast. I saw that fare Saturday morning and considered it. I love the Turkey Bowl. The players have changed and the majority are no longer the same old friends from San Ramon High that played for so many years. But Bob and Rick Riley are always there. Brian Robinson as well. Plus, we get visits from Scott Bisson and Jud Drennan in most years. So, it is something I will miss greatly. I hope that the players that show up have a great and safe time.

Reunion update

I got an email from Jay Briggs and Jim Robison.  It looks like they are working hard to get out the word about the reunion.  Jim did a great job in 1998-99 creating the 20 Year Reunion Committee website which had a form for class members to update their address information as well as attempt to reach out to "missing" alumni.  This time, they were comparing the websites Reunion.com and Classmates.com and came to the conclusion that Classmates would be better for us because they have so many more members from our class.  I used them in 2004 to send out announcements for the 2004 reunion which was only announced about six weeks before the event. I think almost everybody knows Classmates.com as a site to check when you're wondering about a potential reunion.

Jim also let me know that the new location of the website:

http://homepage.mac.com/johnbramsey/SanRamonHi/classof79.html 

is not showing up in Google.  This surprised me as it WAS there last week, alongside the now defunct listing for the aol.com site.  Perhaps the Googlebot saw it as a duplicate site and not a replacement and removed it from its listings.  Hopefully, I can get it back up there so it's easy to find for everybody.  I'm working with Google sitemaps and trying to figure out how to properly upload those things.

Turkey Bowl

I've been playing football in Alamo on Thanksgiving Day since the mid-70s. High school friends Rick  Toft, Will and Rich Tauchar, Steve Tienken, Britt Burns, Bob and Rick Riley and others would get together on Fall Sundays and play football.  After our high school days, we used Thanksgiving weekend as a chance to catch up on each other's lives.  After college, we still kept it going, and in 1986 Nick Manadalou began videotaping the games with his camcorder.  I see games like that going on every week in my own neighborhood out here in the Maryland suburbs.  This year's Turkey Bowl will again take place on Thanksgiving Day at Rancho Romero School in Alamo.  See our website for more on the Turkey Bowl.

This year will be only the fourth time in my twenty years living in the Washington DC area that I will not be flying out to California to make the game.  I had a good excuse in 1999, when our second daughter was born just nine days before Thanksgiving.  This year, at first it seemed that air travel would be expensive, but it turned out that as oil prices decreased and the economy slowed, airfares were reasonable.  But there are still five plane tickets to purchase for my family.  And we are anticipating a 30 year reunion in 2009, so we have just decided that we will have to miss out on the fun of Turkey Bowl weekend.

Over the last 20 years, the weekend grew to include a Thanksgiving-eve (later moved to the weekend) poker game, a Friday breakfast and finally a hike in the Las Trampas Hills.  It's been a blast and a lot of new friends as well as family members have joined in the fun.  I look forward to being back for the 2009 weekend.

30 Year Reunion Planning e-mails

Jay Briggs recently contacted me to tell me about some e-mails he had exchanged with other class members interested in getting the 30 year reunion organized. He asked me to share this with as many others as possible. I've snipped out address and phone numbers as well as non-reunion related discussion. Please leave a comment here if you want to have input into the 30 year reunion.

John

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From: Jay Briggs [mailto:address & phone hidden for privacy reasons]
FW: SR reunion
Date: October 15, 2008 12:55:39 PM EDT

John,

I hope all is well with you these days. I wanted to give you a heads up since you tend to be interested in this. Please let us know if you can help out. Please share this with anyone you think also would be interested.

Thanks.

Jay K. Briggs

{address & phone hidden for privacy reasons}
www.JayBriggs.com
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From: Ben Deane [mailto:address & phone hidden for privacy reasons}]
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 8:05 PM
To: 'Jay Briggs'; 'Jeff Nelson'
Subject: RE: SR reunion

I think that's a great idea. I'd be happy to pitch in as I can. Ben
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From: Claudia Gravelle [mailto:address & phone hidden for privacy reasons}]
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 3:21 PM
To: Jay Briggs
Subject: RE: SR reunion

[snip]

I have had some emails from folks showing interest in a 30 year class reunion. I think it would be great to have it jointly with 78.

No one, that I am aware of, has been planning anything for the 30 year. I am certain that I have a little extra time on my hands to help makw something happen. Devon and Katie Benson have both told me they are on board to make it work, too. I hope you will be on the team!

Maybe we can get together soon for cocktails/lunch/ soon and discuss in detail. Let me know how your schedule looks! Would love to see you!! I know Devon and Katie would be happy to be there for the brainstorming. Will cc them, as well as Chuck Douros who definitely was a big part of our success last reunion.
------------------------------------------------------
From: Jay Briggs [mailto:jaddress & phone hidden for privacy reasons}]
Sent: Tue 10/7/2008 2:59 PM
To: Claudia Gravelle
Subject: SR reunion

Claudia,

[snip]
I was contacted recently by Guy Houston who was seeking to do another joint reunion with our class at the 30 year mark. Has anyone been in contact with you and is anyone currently organizing around a 30 year reunion for our class?

I hope things are good with you.

-Jay

Contributors Wanted!

As we approach our 30 Year Reunion, I'd like to see fellow members of the Class of '79 contribute to this blog. If you are willing to be a contributor, please either leave a comment here with your e-mail address or send an e-mail to me directly at [ SanRamonHi AT aol DOT com ] so I can set it up.  

Obama Class of '79

With the election of Barack Obama, Punahou HS '79, I got to wondering what was on the web about Barack and his old high school class.  Back in my college days, there was this guy in the dorms who seemed to wear a "PUNAHOU" shirt everyday.  So I knew about this elite Hawaii high school way back in 1980.  Anyway, one of "Barry's" classmates posted a page of their yearbook on the web in January 2007.  She made some cute comments and thought that would be the end of it.  Sadly, people misinterpreted her intentions and in this highly volatile and hostile political atmosphere, a lot of folks slammed her and she had to cut off the comments. 

My opinion is that the mere fact that some publications, such as high school yearbooks, happened to be published before the internet existed does not mean that they should not be converted to this new medium.    

Presidential Election

This isn't the venue to endorse candidates or issues.  But the election is certainly the dominant event in our country this week.  Keeping this related to our Class of '79,  I thought about the presidential election of 1976 -- the one that happened during our high school years.  Ford versus Carter.  I remember when President Ford was in Walnut Creek in the Spring of '76, probably campaigning against Ronald Reagan in the California primary.  I think the event was near the corner of Broadway and South Main Street.  A young Governor Jerry Brown was running in the California primary for the Democratic nomination in a late and unsuccessful attempt to derail the Carter candidacy.  

One thing to note about this current campaign is that Democratic candidate Barack Obama is a member of  Hawaii's Punahou High School's Class of '79.  Even if we may not necessarily have the same beliefs as Sen. Obama, it would be a first to have a member of our late baby-boomer generation in the White House.  As for Sen. McCain, I recall seeing on TV the Vietnam POWs returning home in 1973 and although I don't specifically remember McCain, I am sure he was one of the heroes I saw on TV back then.

Easier web address

I just learned that I can create subdomains with the domain names that I own.  So, you can now use http://1979.sanramonhigh.com to go to the homepage.mac.com website.  A little easier to remember!