30th Anniversary of First Day at Cal

30 Years ago today the high school classes of 1979 began their first day of classes at Cal Berkeley, thus officially ending our high school years. Of course, there had been a week to move into the dorms and get settled as well as the class enrollment process. But on this Monday, 9/24/79, we had to attend college classes for the first time. And my first class was 8:00 AM. English 1A. And boy, did I learn how far behind I was in my writing skills while taking that ten week class. The other classes, Math P and Poli Sci 1 were also challenging, but I will always think of the English 1A class as the one that jolted me into taking school seriously and forcing me to realize that I had to work hard to make it at Berkeley.

Also on this day 30 years ago, I attended an Elton John concert at the Berkeley Community Theater with my friend Rick Toft, also a Cal freshman from San Ramon's Class of '79. The concert was really fantastic. First, it was a relatively small venue and second, Elton John had decided to scale back from the bombastic glasses and high heel shoes and just play piano. No band, save for Ray Cooper's percussion accompaniment. We had a lot of San Ramon students at Cal and I really regret that we all went our separate ways for the most part rather than bonding together a bit more. Of course, a lot of us were ready to explore this new world rather than hold on too much to the past.

Classmates.com Announcements

I used Classmates.com to send out an announcement of the reunion to over 300 Class of 78 and 79 members who have registered there. On Monday, I sent out a followup announcement that the October 1 payment deadline is coming up. But after seeing what Classmates.com sends out, I am dissatisfied and a little embarrassed. I feel like I'm being used to send unsolicited junk mail to hundreds of classmates because, rather than send out a useful announcement, Classsmates.com sends out a teaser that forces you to log into Classmates.com to see the message.
Here's a sample:

NEW Announcements

1 announcement with big news:

From Announcement
Jim R. Classmates! Planning For
John R. The 30 Year Reunion Is On

At least Classmates.com is free for most people although I pay a fairly small fee to be able to be a Reunion Organizer. Anyway, if you felt like I had spammed you with the Classmates.com message, I do apologize. I'm just trying to get the word out.

On another Classmates.com note, a fellow Class of '79 member recently contacted me and was puzzled as to why she was not on the list at Classmates.com. As I told her, the Class of '79 (nor any other school's class) does not submit a list to Classsmates.com. Individuals choose to register and sign up for the Classmates services. So far, I do think that Classmates.com is the best of the companies out there simply because they seem to have the highest percentage of alumni registered there. But Facebook might soon catch up with them.

Monte Vista's 30 Year Reunion

Through a Facebook friend, I happened to learn that Monte Vista's Class of '79 is also holding a 30 Year Reunion in October. Theirs will be held on October 17th at Orinda Country Club. Their website was interesting to me since I attended either Intermediate School and/or Elementary School with a lot of the alumni listed on their RSVP list or Missing list.

Monte Vista's reunion costs $95.00 a person. I'm sure it will be a nice event, but I am glad that our San Ramon reunion is scaled back so that it is only $30.00 so no one should claim that the price was an obstacle.