Los Gatos Weekly-Times Main Street PenWest, Red Cross help needy for holidays Mary Ann Cook OPERATION REINDEER: Each year the West Valley members of PenWest Realtors and the American Red Cross combine forces to make deliveries of food and toys to needy families. This year the number served was 94, and college students home for the holidays helped package and deliver the bundles, too. Names of the recipients are selected from profiles drawn up by the Los Gatos and Union school districts, and by senior centers. For weeks individual real estate offices collect food and gifts. Scrips are included in the basket to provide perishable foods for the families. This year the scrips were redeemable at Safeway stores. The baskets usually contain enough food for about a week's supply of groceries. Frank Blaisdell was the coordinator between the Red Cross and the Realtors; Joan Donlon represented the Realtors; and June Sythe was chair of the West Valley Advisory Committee of the Red Cross. "Participating in this makes my Christmas," says Sythe. Operation Reindeer also contributes money to seniors selected through the Jewish Community Center LONGEVITY: Dorothea Bamford, longtime Monte Sereno councilmember, seems to have a habit of longevity. Not only was she on the Monte Sereno council for 16 years, now she may be setting hospital longevity records. She's been hospitalized in Los Gatos Community Hospital since late August with fungal pneumonia and she's been in the intensive care or coronary care units most of that time, which may be that hospital's record for intensified-care stay. She was recently transferred to a regular hospital room, though, and is hopeful that a couple of months more will find her back home and ready to gradually pick up her old routine. That old routine would include the League of Women Voters, AAUW and of course stints on tennis courts, such as Courtside and the Saratoga Tennis Club. Right now she's laying plans for taking a walking trip to Ireland next summer. Does the word indomitable pop into mind? To show the seriousness of what she's been through: there's a 30-percent survival rate for that disease, says her daughter, Barbara Holden. "I knew she was well-respected in the community. I had no idea she was so well-liked, held in such affection." she adds. Bamford is too weak for visitors, but cards are always appreciated. Dorothea Bamford is not the longest sitting councilperson ever to serve Monte Sereno, however. That claim is held by Barbara Winckler, who served from 1973 to 92, according to city clerk Andrea Chelemengos. EYE OF THE HURRICANE: Stephanie Workman is just back from Honduras and has some hair-raising tales to tell, since she was there during the terrifying and wildly destructive path carved out by Hurricane Mitch. Workman is studying in Honduras. REMINISCENCES: Jim Massey enjoyed "a walk back in time" when he put together a memoir for his two sons, at their request, so they'd know more about his childhood and growing-up years. He finished it in December of last year, appropriately for Christmas giving. Massey, now widowed and living at The Terraces, included more recent episodes about his life as well. He and his wife owned a business called Massey Services, mainly a data processing company. One of their foremost customers was NASA. The Masseys supplied NASA with men to test a giant centrifuge designed to show how the astronauts would react when beyond the pull of gravity, as well as how to quickly revive them. Each man was whirled in the centrifuge until unconscious, then taken out and given a pill or shot or allowed to sleep off the effects. The Masseys sold their company to ADIA Services in 1970. But though he divested himself of the business, Jim Massey still owns grape-growing land, enabling him to call himself a vintner and to gift friends with wine carrying his own label. SEAL WATCH: American Youth Hostel at Sanborn Park in Saratoga will sponsor an elephant seal-watching day at Ano Nuevo Beach near Pescadero on Jan. 10. Naturalist Mark Hougardy will lead a group limited to 14, which will depart from Sanborn Park at 9 a.m. come rain or shine. Seals are actually more active in rainy weather, Hougardy says. The cost is $10 and covers car-pooling, parking and admission. The number to call is Mark's at 733-7393. STORYTELLING ARTIST: Developing stories for teachers to nurture the classroom and solve discipline problems is the task Nancy Mellon sets herself. Mellon is a teacher/therapist/storyteller and director of the School of Therapeutic Storytelling in Concord, Mass. She'll present "Hidden Treasures of the Human Voice: Storytelling as Household Art" at the Saratoga home of Willys and Betty Peck Jan. 6. The event is part of the Kindergarten Forum, a program designed by Betty Peck and her daughter, Anna Rainville. Mellon also presented an afternoon of puppet-making at Lakeside School. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 6, 1999. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.