Hello, Central friends, and Happy Holidays!
This entry will be a little different...tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I am checking in with my wishes to you all to have a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.
Rather than go on and on here, I'd like to share a piece running in our local paper today. It sums up my feelings about the holidays from the perspective of looking back over the decades and Christmases Past...(you may or may not know that I'm a writer and do a column for our the three newspapers serving the cities (towns) of southern Santa Clara Valley here in Northern California).
Although I truly miss my Colorado roots - the snow, the seasons, the beautiful mountains - it's lovely where I live, too, and I've always been of the belief that we make our own happiness and there is beauty in all of nature.
Therefore, if you are so inclined, here is the link to my Christmas column, which is meant to be a sort-of-Christmas card and will, I hope, bring back a few treasured memories of your Christmases Past.
http://www.morganhilltimes.com/lifestyles/271304-scenes-from-christmas-in-the-south-valley
Blessings to you at Christmas,
Gale
P.S. The top picture is a portion of our Christmas tree this year...you may notice in the lower portion a small photo of a young couple, which is actually an ornament made for me by a dear friend in San Francisco in 1974. It's a picture of my husband and I the year we were married and our first Christmas together. AND - the little munchkin below is a picture of me that my parents took for their Christmas card - circa 1948 or '49 at our home back in Pueblo. Like all of the photos on this blog, you can click on the photo to see it full size...
HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!
Last week a promise made 5 years ago finally came to pass. At the 40th class reunion, Ethie Corcodilos Campagna and Gale Hoover Hammond (that would be me) decided we should get together since we live only 20 miles or so apart in Northern California...Ethie in San Jose and me in Morgan Hill, just south a few miles south. Ethie contacted me last month to relay the news that Lorraine Tortessi Reilich had recently passed away (see post of November 22 if you missed the entry about Lorraine). With this sad reminder that life is just way too short and opportunities that come our way may not come our way again, we set the date of December 8 to meet for lunch in my town of Morgan Hill.So on that stormy, rainy day, Ethie braved the elements and drove south to meet me at Rosie's at the Beach, a seafood place popular with the locals, and which isn't actually AT the beach, but close enough, for a lunch of sea bass and LOTS and LOTS of catching up - about 45 years worth.What we decided: the 45th reunion was the one where we REALLY needed name tags, Ethie and I had led seemingly parallel lives in California without even realizing it (one startling revelation after the next) and having grandchildren truly is one of life's greatest blessings. And a whole bunch of other stuff! 
Our waitress took this photo for us (Gale to waitress: "Would you take a picture of us please? We went to the same high school together back in Colorado." Ethie to waitress: "Yes...about 10 years ago!" Way to lie like a rug, Miss Ethie :) )The time passed amazingly fast - way too soon it was time to head back to our separate lives with promises to do this again soon and get our hubbies to join us for the next outing. (We learned they'd both worked for the same company - in this HUGE Bay area, what are the chances of THAT?!!! Parallel universes...)So - back soon to still more photos on this blog from the class reunion...in the meantime, if you have photos or stories - or both - that I can post on the blog, please e-mail them to me. Please note that I have a new e-mail address..it's galehooverhammond@yahoo.com. I would love to hear from you - and I know the rest of our classmate friends from the Class of '65 would, too. Take care everyone :)
The last photos from Joe Klune - Sunday morning tour at Central - and WHAT a lot of wonderful changes were made to the school...Pete Falletta led a fantastic tour of the facility that ended in the Central High School Gym...we also saw the beautiful (and BIG) school cafeteria and Ed Lesar Hall of Central History. And the first photo below is the entry to the cafeteria sporting a sign made by current students of the Central High art class. Quite a nice welcoming touch, wouldn't you agree?!
Now...at the moment you'll note there are photos but no descriptions/names of alumni. That's because I'm giving you the opportunity to play "Name that Classmate!" No, that's not quite true...what IS true is that I uploaded (downloaded? I never know which) these photos and then got caught up in the Christmas rush. But I didn't want to withhold showing you these pictures any longer.
In a few days I will be back to the blog to label these photos as I've done in the past. But for now - here's your chance for a little guessing game.
What I WILL give you is a giant hint...in these pictures you'll see faces of friends that you didn't see in either the Friday or Saturday night photos like Irene Blea, Miriam Price, James Cain and Mary Middleton, to name a few. Enjoy!
Hello, Central friends, and Happy Holidays! 
HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!
