John and Becky's Home Page!
Sarah is a Junior at Tracy High School; Sam is in the fourth grade at Tracy Central Elementary; Chris is an eighth grader at Tracy Clover Middle School and Becky is a sixth grader in BuchserMiddle School in Santa Clara, CA
This is the latest from the home of John and Becky in Magalia (Where the Hell is Magalia?) California. We have some great links which will tell you more than you want to know about where we live.
As most of you know, John retired from Lockheed-Martin in 1992 and Becky from National Semiconductor Corp. a year later. We have four grown children, only two of which have had any children of their own. Our daughter, Siobhan, married Bill St. Clair and is living in Tracy, CA. Sarah, Chris and Sam belong to them. Little Becky is Tony's daughter. She lived with her mom, Shirley, in Hollister, CA. until Shirley lost her apartment. From August 1998 till 2000, Little Becky, lived with us. She is now twelve years old and a real charmer. Now she is in Santa Clara in 5th grade at Buchser Middle School. She is back in Santa Clara because her Mom and Stepdad got Section 8 housing in a very nice neighborhood and moved from Forest Ranch last August. .
What do retirees do for grins?? We live in a retirement community not too far from Chico, CA, called "Paradise Pines." It is actually a part of Magalia, CA, just a few miles above Paradise, CA. We have a lot activities up here - we are volunteers at the local elementary school, are active in Democratic Party politics - John was chair of the local Democratic club for two years, then the Corresponding Secretary, and now is on the Butte County Central Committee and worked for Gen, Wesley Clark. Becky is pulling for Dr. Howard Dean. The election, of course, didn't go as we wished and we are in now in a long term state of recovery.
Little Becky, alas, is no longer living with us. After her Mom moved to Forest Ranch, a community near here in 2001, she found a house in Santa Clara in July of 2002..Becky stayed with us last summeruntil school started in Santa Clara in September. She has found Middle School to be something of a challenge, but is still an excellent student with a very positive attitude. .
Although the following is old news, we do have winter in Magalia. We certainly had a doozy in 2001. A lot of snow; in fact, in early February, we had close to 36 in. in one storm. Three miles up the road, they received four ft.! Here are a series of photos taken over Feb. 10-12 showing the house and area around it. So far, now in early winter of 2003, we have had one minor snow, but we usually get the bulk of it in Feb. so stand by.
As I write this in 2004, we are having a mild winter, with beautiful sunny days interrupted by occasional rain.
John has had several major health events this year. It all started in December of 2003 when he was diagnosed with a condition called "Zenker's Diverticulum," which is a small pocket on the esophagus which collects food and causes choking and makes swallowing difficult. The surgery is relatively minor, but before it was scheduled, he suffered an intense pain in his right side in January of 2004 which was diagnosed as a major staph infection in his pleural cavity. For those of you interested, it is called "Empyema" and is life threatening! Immediate surgery was called for, and after 11 days in hospital, he returned home and tried to reschedule the throat surgery. But before that was done, his cardioligist scheduled a stress test to determine if there were any undetected heart problems. To make a long story a little shorter, he flunked that test and the following angiogram as well. Now it was June and a triple bypass was scheduled. Once again, all went well and after 3 days he was home again and embarked on an 8 week recovery program at the local hospital - treadmill, stationary bike, etc. Again the throat surgery was scheduled and this time it was attempted, but, for a number of technical reasons, it was not successful. Finally, in late October, it was reattempted with a new piece of equipment. This time it worked and everything is great. He can swallow as before and regularly works out at a local health club. With any luck, 2005 will be a lot better health-wise.
John has been showing his1969
Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider - the same model that Dustin Hoffman
drove the wrong way over the San Francisco Bay Bridge in the film
"The Graduate." The Alfa has been shown at the Concorso
Italiano at Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley at the the last two years.
The car was accepted and shown at Hillsborough, CA last year between
visits to the hospital. He had a Fiat Turbo Spider a few years
back , and it made a very nice street restoration. It also was
shown at the Concorso several years ago, and is a fairly rare
car - one of around 700 built. He sold it, however, this year
on EBay after it finally looked and ran better than it ever had
before. On the other hand, an Alfa Romeo Spider arrived at the
Cecil garage two years ago. We flew to Washington DC, picked the
car up, and drove it back while touring the east coast and renewing
friendships with people we had not seen for many years.This car
had only 17,000 documented miles on and ran like a new car (which
it essentially is).
We have a timeshare in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, to which we go in last half of March. The last two years we flew down as is our usual custom, but in 1999, we drove down with another couple and made the tour as interesting as the final destination. I have a link below which you can access and follow the trip log of the adventure.
If for some reason you would like to send us an e-mail, just click on the address or the e-mail icon.
Becky's
PageThe Trip to BajaAt this point, Let's take a look at some interesting local links which will let you find out a bit of the local geography, history and attractions of this part of Northern California.
Gateway
to Paradise, California
