Bill Nelson I grew up in Mill Valley and went to Park, Alto and Edna Maguire Schools. At Edna Maguire Rick Lambretti and I satisfied our mole-like urges and spent many hours crawling through the narrow drainage pipes that went under the school. One day we came out partway down Lomita Dr! I was in class at the time Rym broke both wrists long jumping, which quickly ended Edna Maguire's short-lived track and field program.  After Tam I went looking for a major for two years at Marin, then transferred to Sac State where I threw the javelin and came out with a degree in business. Most of us guys who graduated from college around that time had Vietnam staring us in the face. With a low draft number I went into the Air Force rather than get drafted as second looey in the Army. I was fortunate to get into the journalism field, and spent my first two years at Hamilton helping to put together the base newspaper.  While at Hamilton I spent as many weekend nights as I could in San Francisco with a friend from the base, going to shows at Winterland, the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore. The Fillmore was our favorite. We'd get in line early so we could be close to the stage on the wooden floor, and then we'd get blown away by the incredible bands. We were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time in history. It was an unsurpassed (and I feel unsurpassable) musical experience. I feel sorry for the kids now who have to go to huge arenas and see their favorite bands on a big screen.

Vietnam was next, and I was stationed out of Tan Son Nhut with Combat News. I traveled around the country by jet, cargo plane and helicopter, whatever I could hitch a ride on, taking pictures and writing stories about Air Force people doing their jobs. Then we'd send the stories and pictures to the airman's hometown newspaper. It was a great experience, and I only had a couple of close calls. From Vietnam I went to Dover AFB and spent my last year in the AF writing, photographing and putting out their base paper. I began working for Social Security in 1974 and worked for them until I retired earlier this year, mostly due to injuries from getting mowed down from behind by a truck going 45 mph while I was riding my bike in a bike lane. I worked for Social Security in Reno, Carmel, Salinas and San Rafael but for the last 17 years I have worked in the Napa office. I met my wife Ann while working in Reno and we've been happily married since 1981. She works, also for Social Security, and is on the road to becoming a master quilter. We have a daughter Kelley, who just graduated from high school and will be going to SF State this fall.  To keep active I've run many marathons over the years and have ridden countless centuries and double centuries on my bike. I also learned to play golf and love to hike, especially the trails around Mt. Tam. I joined the Tamalpais Conservation Club and will be out helping maintain the trails as soon as my left leg is out of a cast.  Looking at our class picture taken in Mead Theater, I'm not at all surprised that I can put names to a large percentage of the faces. After all, a bunch of us grew up together, going to the same schools, and we saw each other every school day of the year, year after year.

Roger Ludlow After graduation I went to Marin JC for 6 semesters and studied engineering and Art. That being a complete waste of time I decided to take a trip to Italy to study stone carving and lost wax process for bronze statuary. Now that was fun! I came home in 1965 or 66 (I can't remember) and went to work at Schoonmakers in Sausalito (boring!). I went back to Europe in 1967 to go to the art school in Geneva. I came back in 68, stumbled around until I landed a job building churches for a San Rafael construction company. This led to a custom home in Woodside Calif. - which led me to marrying Camille DeHaven (an old friend of my Mother and Fathers) It is now 1969! By this time I had become completely wrapped up in Transcendental Meditation. I became a teacher and taught for 4 years until I was forced to go back to carpentry due to "NO MONEY HONEY" "Chandra" was born 9/13/72 and is the Joy of my life. I worked my way up through the Union ranks to finish apprentice School become a foreman then superintendent for a multitude of projects all in the south bay. My second child was born on 12/2/77 (Tristan) and became the second joy in my life. I became a general contractor in 1980 and was merrily working on Stanford Hospital in 1984 when my life crashed around my feet. I found out that my lovely wife was being untrue and I was left no choice but to dump the Bitch! This cost me my home in Los Altos, my booming business, my children and my sanity! I want back to working with my tools and started a new Construction company. Seven long and tough years later I met Carol, a "Brit", we met and married in 6 weeks and have been together for the last 11 years! In 1992 I started a "School House" building inspection business called "Ludlow Inspection service" Under Title 24 there exists the "Field Act" which calls for an "Independent contractor to inspect all trades for any school built in the State of California. My wife brought with her two children John and Garreth both of which think I walk on water, (Hah) My son Tristan has become a General Contractor at the age of 25 and my daughter works for me. Carol has gone back to School (SJUC) to get her Bachelors Degree and I am currently Project Inspector for the new $21,000,000.00 Los Gatos Elementary School District. I was asked be Project Inspector for the Tam modernization - but turned it down! (too many termites).

Diana Weil Randrup September 1963: Married Chris Randrup, a Tam High drop out. September 1964: Had my daughter, Kirsten. December 1965: Had my son, Matt. We lived in Sausalito, Glen Ellen, and San Anselmo.  Summer 1967: I divorced Chris, moved with my toddlers to Oakland, and became a Raider fan. 1968 - 1984: In Oakland, I went to Heald vocational school and became a secretary at a hospital in San Leandro. I stayed there for ten years doing various jobs, winding up as business office manager. I then worked four years at TAP Plastics in San Leandro as data processing manager. Then I worked two years in Berkeley for the computer services division of a large insurance company, as a data entry operator and writer of user manuals. My working life ended here, at least working for money, and it was as tedious to do as it is to read about.  The adventure of my life began at the end of 1980. During a quest for love, I descended into a pit of insanity. Not that I hadn't been living in a shallow hole already, but now I fell into a pit so deep and dark, it defies coherent description. The descent took about four years and ended in the submersion of my mind and spirit in a maelstrom of terror, with an astonishing array of subsidiary assaults (talk-talk-talking voices, delusions, grotesque visions, among others). As far as I could tell, the world went on doing business as usual, but I had lost my place in it. Then, in 1984, some shred of logic prompted me to look for help, and I found myself in the psychiatric unit of a local hospital, the first of many stays in many Bay Area hospitals. Unwittingly, for I was almost without wits altogether, I had entered The Mental Health System. During the next twelve years, I rattled around this strange, enclosed, self-perpetuating world populated by drugged, blank-faced patients and smugly incompetent Mental Health Professionals. Although it was immediately clear that apathy prevailed here, I still wasted many desperate years looking for someone who would show at least a professional curiosity in my plight. In vain, for all I got were a lot of ineffective psychiatric drugs and a variety of canned diagnoses. Terror is exceedingly stressful, and in 1996 I was found to have a long-developing ulcer which resulted in the surgical removal of half my stomach. I guess this forced the beast within to concede some rational territory, because it suddenly occurred to me that I could leave my asphalt-surrounded apartment in hellish Concord for better digs. (I was, and still am, receiving Social Security disability benefits.) So I got out my California map and found Crescent City on the coast in the far north. I longed for the sanity of natural beauty and found it here. Every window in my house gives a view of lush greenery, misty in the mornings. Nearby I have beaches, redwood forests, the magnificent Smith River, acres of lonely dunes, and more.  So I have escaped The Mental Health System and found some mental health. My body is actively employed caring for my house and yard and walking with my dogs. My mind and creative spirit are not active enough, but I can see some remedy for this in the future. I did some paintings and drawings during my time in the pit and have done a few drawings here. My daughter and her three children live here now, so I am involved in their affairs, including all of our participation in the local community theater. I would like to write my story in fictional form some day, but this seems remote right now.  This is my first attempt to tell my story in writing. Thank you, Charles, for giving me the excuse to do it.

Mary Hamilton Roberts has contributed these class photos from Old Mill and Edna Maguire schools. Are you in any of these?