Main Street

AAUW play readers boast a soap opera veteran

By Mary Ann Cook

PLAY READERS: This reading group has a pro in it. She's Isabelle Schaffert, who played Ma's daughter Faye on the old radio soap opera, "Ma Perkins." Book review groups abound here, both public and private, but this one has a twist: They read plays.

An offshoot of AAUW, Friday Matinee is more than 25 years old and meets at the Saratoga Library on the last Friday of the month at 12:30 p.m. Guests are welcome, but are expected to join AAUW eventually or pay a monthly fee.

One person volunteers to be director each time, and the director chooses the cast and play and conducts rehearsals. Only the players know which play has been selected for that month. Lela Austin is the official chair of Friday Matinee.

The group has performed for the League of Women Voters and for the Friends of the Saratoga Library. It's a venerable gathering: "We've celebrated a goodly number of 90th birthdays!" says longtime member Marjorie Foote. One recent memorable play she recalls: Ladies First by Robert Gerlack and James McDonald.

CAMP CLEANUP: A contingent of Kiwanians participated in the Camp Costanoan restoration recently. The camp, near Stevens Creek Dam, is for children and adults with physical disabilities and is one of the Kiwanis beneficiaries.

Those who painted lockers at the camp one recent morn were Catherine Barrier, Paul Dubois and Mary Tomasi Dubois, Bart Raynaud and 17 Key Club members from Los Gatos and Saratoga high schools.

SCIENCE FAIR: For 39 years the Santa Clara Valley Science and Engineering Fair Association has sponsored a science fair for students in sixth through 12th grades wherein science projects are exhibited and judged. This year the fair will be held March 30 and 31 at the Parkside Hall in the San Jose Convention Center.

Two members of the board of directors of SCVSEFA are local scientists or engineers: Lynn Shannon of Los Gatos and Robert Bilner of Saratoga.

RELAY RACERS: Several Meadows' residents who participated in a fundraising relay race last June attended the Donors Recognition dinner held by the American Cancer Society. The annual relay on the high school track raises money to fight cancer, and some of the tracksters are cancer survivors themselves.

Those recognized were Rachel Braithwaite, Barbara Wood, Kay Bowens, Celia Lawson, Lee Hutchinson, Russ Price, Dodie Kelley, Nathalie Mason, and Nancy Castro, fitness consultant at the Meadows. Also in the group were Town Manager Dave Knapp and wife Kay. Castro, Hutchinson, Kelley and Kay Knapp have all personally combated the disease.

ANOTHER CENTENNIAL: Lowell High School in San Francisco is proud to boast the oldest high school newspaper in the West. The school paper celebrates its 100th year this spring, and Donna Muzzy, for one, is looking forward to the reunion planned for former editors and scribes. She toiled on the paper when she was a lass.

HALL OF FAME DOCENTS: Stanford alums help man the Athletic Hall of Fame at their alma mater. One such is John Eschelman, who serves as a docent there weekly.

PONY CART: You never know what you'll find in Los Gatos. Crossing Caldwell near Los Gatos Boulevard recently, I spotted a pony cart with (presumably) a father and daughter ensconced therein, jogging merrily along.

The horse looked like one of those small breeds found on the islands off the eastern coast of, say, Georgia. What a quixotic life we live here in this valley. I only wish I had been able to follow them.

RETURN OF THE NATIVE: Wilma Thompson is home from rehab to recoup at home, post-stroke. Though some of her muscle tone may not be back to normal, her feistiness/humor quotient have diminished not one whit. As witness: the physical therapist director at the rehab facility where she spent two months would intone, "Here comes trouble," when she rolled in.

Hard to understand why. All she admitted to was grabbing one attendant by the ears and saying, "Kiss me, you ugly so-and-so." But that's but a small example: the stuff she'll report on herself. (And it was cleaned up slightly for a family newspaper.)

MUSIC AS THERAPY: Here's another kind of therapy: music. Steve Barczak has turned his guitar-playing passion into his livelihood. He works for the Older Adult Program at West Valley College, strumming his stuff at convalescent homes, senior centers and the like. He taught himself tunes from the '20s and '30s for this new direction. Newly arrived in Los Gatos, he earned his academic degree in forestry.

PRE-TEEN COMPETITION: Los Gatan Michelle Alexandria Zelina took part in the Miss Pre-Teen Pageant in San Francisco Feb. 28, competing for prizes and scholarships by modeling, singing and dancing.

DIDJA KNOW?: The Happy Dragon, the resale shop that benefits Eastfield Ming Quong, has a music chairman. She's Rita Stoner and she it is who is in charge of records, rhythm instruments, CDs, sheet music and anything else in the music category. Would never have thought to look there for musical instruments or paraphernalia.

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