June 1996 A Friend's Graduation

Surf, Sand, Sigthseeing, and Sunburn in San Diego

About a month ago, I returned from a trip to Phoenix, and much to my surprise, I had three graduation announcements in my mailbox. The first two, for Cathy Gellis and Kathy Heilmann were no surprises, since both had told me that they were graduating several weeks before. The last one however, was a pleasent surprise, it announced the graduation of Carla M. St. Laurent from UC San Diego Medical School.

I first met Carla when she and then future, but now ex husband Mark (who I carpooled with to St. Joseph's school back when I was in 1st and 2nd grade) came to a Rally Comm orientation meeting 10 years ago. She quickly became a good friend, and while we haven't kept in in touch frequently, we've managed to keep in touch. When I saw the card saying "Carla M. St.Laurent, M.D.", my heart just filled with pride for her.

I looked at my schedule and said "I gotta go." I made sure that attendence wasn't limited, and then asked a few friends "are you coming too?' Each of them said "I would, but I have something else that I have to do that weekend." They also said "Be sure to tell us all about it." (which is what this is going to do)

I made my plans, and decided to leave *early* Saturday morning so I would have time to spend at the San Diego Zoo without having to pay for an extra night at the hotel. Carla also warned me that I probably wouldn't get to see her too much on Sunday, her graduation day, since she would be spending time with her family, but also said that Monday would be a possibility. I opted to return as late as possible on Monday evening.

Shall We Dance (cha-cha-cha)

Not too long before the trip, I received two passes to see a special screening of the movie "The King and I" at The Paramount theatre in downtown Oakland. The show was two night before I had to travel, so I figured, "Why not?" The event was hosted by TCI Cablevision and American Movie Classics. AMC host Bob Dorian was filming the latest installment of "Movie Palace Memories" at the Paramount as part of this event. The line for the show was incredible, but I picked the shortest, and had no problem getting seats in the front row of the balcony. As we walked in, someone was playing Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes on the mighty Wurlitzer (sp?) organ. A little later, Bob Dorian was introduced and he started mentioning facts about the Paramount:

It was the 2nd to the last of the great Movie Palaces that were built (the last was Radio City Music Hall)
When the theatre was restored for the Oakland Symphony, they decided to restore it to exactly the way it was originally right down to the mohair seats (he even brought up the house lights so people could see the detail put into the walls, the ceiling, and the grand curtain).
Originally the theatre had the 17th (and last) mighty Wurlitzer ever built. The organ was later removed and lost. When they restored the theatre, they found the first mighty Wurlitzer and used it instead.

Bob Dorian also gave some background and some stories about The King and I:

The song "Getting to Know You" was originally written for "South Pacific"
Marni Nixon supplied the singing voice for Deborah Karr, except for the song "Getting to Know You", which Karr sung herself.
Prior to playing The King, Yul Brener was a director of a kids puppet show, which Bob Dorian was also working on.

And there were more stories...Bob Dorian could have gone on and on about it, but he stopped himself. The print for the film was pretty good (not pristine, but not faded either). The crowd really got into the film, and sang along to a few songs. After the end, people were walking out humming various songs. For soem reason, the song "Shall We Dance" was running though my head. One last thing...AMC's film preservation festival at the end of this month will contain American Musicals, including all of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals on July 4th...get your VCRs ready.

Something Tells Me It's all Happening at the Zoo

Because I wanted to spend all day at the Zoo, I opted for the earliest flight to San Diego, which departed Oakland at the ungodly hour of 6:55AM. Somehow I managed to drag my tired carcass out of bed at 4:30 to get ready. I had packed the night before, so all I did was shower, dress, and then eat a light breakfast. My flight was uneventful, I got into San Diego at 8:20, had my rental car by 8:45, and was at the zoo at 9:10.

On the advice of friends, I opted for the "deLuxe" package which included a bus tour, two skyride tickets, and admission to the zoo. It was worth it. I started with the bus tour to give me the layout of the zoo. The driver pointed out all of the animals that were stirring and said we were very lucky to see so many. The tour gave me an idea of what route I wanted to take to walk around the zoo. My walk around the zoo included a few special moments...

One of the antelopes gave birth...You could see the baby's head, then the mother sat down, got up, and then there was the newborn baby on the ground. The zookeepers let the mother lick her newborn dry, and then gave the newborn a chance to stand on its own. Unfortunately, the newborn didn't stand up, so the zookeepers had to take the newborn away.
While walking to one of of the shows, a Hornbill (which our bus tourguide had pointed out as being AWOL earlier) landed 6 feet in front of me. I got a real good look...and this wasn't inside one of the aviaries.
While inside one of the aviaries, I heard this growling sound from "Bear Canyon". I walked over and two of the Sun Bears were fighting.
A younger gorilla was playing around with its mother in the Gorilla exhibit.
I got to see some of the snakes getting fed.

All in all, I had a great time, and I will go again. Though next time I'll get the "Kangaroo Tour" which allows you to hop on and off a bus which goes around the park. In addition, I'll try to get to the cats, bears, and hippos in the morning (during which it seems that they are more active).

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I left the zoo at about 5PM, and went to my hotel to check in. At the same time I noticed that I could watch a baseball game at Jack Murphy Stadium. The Padres play night games on Saturdays and were hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates. As a bonus, it was "6 pack cooler" night. I drove to "the Murph" and when I saw that the parking lot was crowded (but not full), I thought "Oh no, I'm going to get a rotten seat". When I walked up to the ticket booth, I asked "What's the best I can get for myself?" The seller said "How about 11 rows back from the field just past 1st base?" I said "sounds great!".

I walked into the stadium, picked up a Tamale and some Horchata (excellent BTW) and walked to my seat. The seat was great. I was close to the field, had a good view of the scoreboard and jumbotron. Sitting next to me was a family who was visiting from Delaware, and so I had a long conversation with them. The anthem was sung by a professional women's acapella group who dressed very similar to the California Golden Overtones (blue jeans and sweaters). They did a decent job. There were two first pitches: the better one was the second, which was tossed by actress Nancy Travis (So I Married an Axe Murderer).

The stadium is a decent place to watch a ball game. The field was in pristine shape, with grass cut low both in the infield and outfield. Unlike other stadiums, they raked the dirt every three innings instead of every 4 1/2. The food selection was ok--a standard selection of hot dogs, pizza, hamurgers, and ice cream. The only specialty foods I saw were Fish Tacos and the one Tamale stand. The announcer has a good clear voice. The music selection was nothing special. The replay screen featured the usual replays and such, but no dot racing, cap dance, or any of those other games which you see at other parks. The only real disappointment was the scoreboard. The out-of-town scoreboard isn't divided into AL and NL games; it just flashes scores of both leagues mixxed together. The main scorebard is used to display both the batter and pitcher stats (including the speed of the last pitch) and the line score; Instead of the pitcher stats, I'd rather see the lineup so I can see who is due up. Still, this was a good place to watch a game.

And what a game I watched. It started off with the Pirates scoring a couple of runs in the top of the first. In the bottom, Rickey Henderson treated us to a "Henderson double" (a walk, followed by a stolen base). Tony Gwynn then lined a ball down the 1st base side which the ump ruled foul. Both the Padre 1st base coach and manager got run from the game because they argued the call. This told me that it was going to be "one of those games". After watching the Padre starter give up two runs and then make up for it by doubling in two runs, I didn't need any more convincing. Eventually the Pads took a two run lead into the 8th. With two outs, the Pads brought in Trevor Hoffman, who walked in a run. He then managed to strike the next batter out. Then in the top of the 9th, hoffman struck out the first two batters and it looked like we'd go home. Nope, the next guy doubled, and then scored on a long single. The Pads did nothing in the bottom of the 9th, so we waited, and waited, and waited. I turned to the familly next to me and said "Hey, we're gettin' our money's worth." They eventually left at the end of the 13th. Finally, in the top of the 14th, with a man on, a Pirate hit a home run. Following the second 7th inning strech, the Pads mounted a rally, but after a spectacular diving catch of a ball hit deep into center, the rally collapsed. The time of game was 5:03. One saving grace was that most of the 43,000 fans who came to see the game were already gone. The other was that the Padre loss helped the Giants ;)

Pomp and Circumstance

That night I was really happy that Carla's ceremony wasn't until 11AM. I had time to get enough sleep, get breakfast, go to mass, and then arrive with enough time to get a decent seat. I had no trouble finding parking as there were signs saying "UCSD Med School Comencement Parking" pointing me to the right place. I found a seat about 5 rows behind where the professors were sitting. Since I hadn't seen any members of Carla's family for about 8 years, I didn't try to find them; I figured I find them afterwards. Still, I chose to wear my Cal hat and bear tie so I could be recognized. Somehow it turned out that the people who sat down next to me were related to a Professor Bogy at Cal (Go Bears). I also opened up the program I had been handed, and I got another surprise...Carla had won an award! She won the Bud Whipple Memorial Award. Unfortunately, there was no explanation about what the award was for. Oh well.

By this time I had been waiting for about an hour, and I was getting thirsty. Fortunately, some people were selling water and sodas near by. Of course, as I started walking towards one of the vendors, the quartet started playing Pomp and Circumstance. I still went ahead and bought the water, because the procession was starting right next to the vendor and wound through the crowd. I wasn't able to spot Carla until she sat down (it helped that she was sitting on the inside aisle).

I patiently sat through several speaches. The student speaker, David Kim, asked the crowd to "remember an event in your life that occured 10 years ago" Of course, the first thing that popped into my head was that I met Carla 10 years ago, though several other, far more life altering events had occured at that time. He then asked "now try and remember this event 10 years later...what will you be able to recall?" He used this as a launching point to recall all of his friends that he had met in his 4 years of Med School. At some point while he was rattling off names and events I started to wonder "Is he going to say something about all 114 people that are graduating today?" Fortunately he didn't.

The official speaker, Dr. Henry Foster (who was President Clinton's last Surgeon General Designate) then took the stand. He spoke of the future of health care in the US. He reminded everyone that the US gets the least amount of value from what it spends on health care, that the infant mortality rate is 17th overall, that women are living longer despite the fact that very little is being spent on women's health care, and went on. Fortunately his speach was short and relevent.

Next came the awards. This too was pretty short, and that was good, because I then found out that the conferal of degrees was going to take quite a while. When people receive PhD.s, they are awarded with hoods that are placed over their heads and around their necks. This same ceremony also applies to MDs...oh boy. By this time I was baking in the sun, and wishing that the ceremony was either earlier in the morning, or indoors. One thing about the hoods. The hood describes both the institution confering the degree and the type of degree conferred. At Mark's graduation ceremony eight years ago, one of my best friends, Dori, upon seeing the blue and gold hoods being given to the PhD candidates, commented that she would love to get one of those hoods. Oh well. I thought of this when I saw the blue, gold, and green hoods being given to the doctors at this ceremony.

Eventually, it came close to Carla's place in line. I walked up to center aisle, close enough to get a good picture of Carla receiving her hood, Carla receiving her "diploma", and Carla walking back to her seat. It was kind of funny when after Carla picked up her diploma--she walked off stage, and was greeted by an entourage. Several other Doctors walked past while she was being congratulated by her friends to the left of the stage; I even lost sight of her for a bit. Then she walked back to her seat, and I got a nice close up of her smiling with her degree in one hand and a couple of boquets of flowers in the other (Well I say nice, but I haven't gotten the photos developed yet.) Since she was sitting on the aisle, I had no problem walking over, giving her a good hug, and talking for a bit. I asked her "where should I look for you after the ceremony". She said "look for the crowd."

Not too long afterwards, the ceremony concluded. The new doctors were asked to go behind the stage to take a class photo. I managed to sneak in next to the photographer, and take a few shots. Unfortunately, I lost sight of Carla, and after about 5 minutes decided to head over to the reception (I was thirsty too). The school reception included water and punch, and finger food (veggies, grapes, strawberrys, bread, cheese, and meatballs). After some bites and some water, I looked around some more. By this time the crowd had spread out and I could tell that she hadn't gotten to the reception yet. No problem, I slowly walked back to the stage, and lo and behold, there was Carla with most of the entourage that had greeted her off stage. Eventually I met everyone there, her two sisters, her parents, her grandmother, her uncle, and 5 people who knew her from when she worked at Clorox. It was fun just talking.

Carla's family also had arranged a reception of their own at a nearby hotel. We were all invited, though two poeple couldn't come because they had to catch their flight back ot Oakland...oh well. As usual, I was one of the first to arrive at the hotel (actually, I was the 3rd person to arrive) After brief introductions ("Oh, you're Sean!") others arrived and we entered the reception room; It was the perfect size (actually, we had room for about 4 more people) and elegant. Inside two oposing walls were fish tanks with coral and tropical fish; it reminded me of Captain Picard's ready room on the Enterprise. Along the other two walls were mirrors that made the room look larger. In front of the wall adajacent to the door was a table with a big white frosted cake with "Congratuations Carla--June 9, 1996" written in strawberry glaze. On the side of the cake was a sunflower and two carnations. At the other end was another table which we used to place the gifts, Carla's diploma, and her flowers on.

While they wer setting up the room, I noticed that one ofthe hotel employees had a very unusual name--Nedra. This was only the second person named Nedra that I've ever met; the first one was (and still is) my dad's current wife. But back to our story.

In addition to taking lots of photos we ended up talking. Sitting at my table were two Clorox friends (Ann and ), Carla's uncle, and Carla's grand mother. While everyone was chatting, they brought out h'ordourves (veggies, cheese, and crackers) and champagne. The people at the hotel did a first class job. After a toast, they took our orders for dinner (another surprise). Everyone at our tables ordered Prime Rib. This was not your typical hotel food--the food was great. Following the meal, it was time for Carla to cut the cake (after all, she's going to be a surgeon) and open the gifts. I wish that I had brought a gift with me, but I'm terrible at picking out gifts...at least I did have a card, and I was inspired to write a message in the card. Still, Carla had a wonderful reaction to the gifts she did receieve. The best one was when she opened two consecutive cards. The first one had a brand new 100 dollar bill in it; she was shocked. The second had a 100 dollar bill and a 50 dollar bill in it; she was futher shocked. Then she found that the 100 dollar bill was 2 100 dollar bills stuck together; she was no longer shocked, she was astonished.

At the same time, the cake was distributed. MMMMM....even though it was angel food cake, it included whipped cream frosting with custard in between the layers, and an ocaisonal strawberry inside the cake...delicious. At this point, things were starting to wind down. Only one thing had marred the event, which was that two of Carla's friends who had driven down from the bay area for the ceremony, hadn't made it to the reception. Wouldn't you know it, but as people were saying their good-byes, the two friends arrived. Still, it was time to go. It had been a long day.

I'm too tired to sight see.

The success of the reception had one down side for me; It changed my plans for Monday. Originally Carla had figured that her friends would not have gotten a good chance to see her on Sunday, so she advised us to stay until Monday. But, it turned out we did get to spend plenty of time with her on Sunday, and so she realized she had to pack before going off to endure her internment--er uh, internship. So, I suddenly had an extra day on my hands.

I was too tired to sight see, so I opted to sleep in and then visit the Balboa Park museums. Some advice in case you visit San Diego: don't visit Balboa Park on a Monday...most of the museums are closed. At least the Air museum was open, so I went in. The air museum concentrates on San Diego's role in aviation history, and is an excellent museum. The museum entrance is dedicated to Charled Lindbergh and includes a full scale flying replica of the Spirit of St. Louis (the original was built in San Diego by the Ryan Aircraft Company). Following that, the museum is laid out in a circle. You walk through the museum counter clockwise--starting with an aviation "hall of fame" which has portraits and descriptions of many contributors to aviation. Next you walk through history, starting with early aviation craft (baloons and gliders), the Wright Brothers, and so on up until you reach the space age. The one thing I wish the museum included is an observation deck to watch the planes on approach to Lindbergh Field.

Following the Air museum, I walked around the Balboa Park grounds. The museums are housed in buildings built for the 1915 Panama exposition. They're all beautiful adobe style buildings with colored tiles decorating towers on each. By this time it was near 3pm, so I decided to visit the Fleet Space Theatre and Science Center, which houses an Omnimax theatre. The IMAX feature was "The Living Sea", and since I had not watched an IMAX film in an Omnimax theatre before, I bought a ticket...It was ok; I would have preffered to have seen "Stormchasers" but I arrived too late for that feature.

By this time it was time to eat. The last time I had visted San Diego, I had dinner at "Old Town" and it was good, so I returned. I dined on Mexican food and sipped a large Margarita at the Plaza del Mundo...a perfect end to a great trip. The flight back was as uneventful as the flight down. Now that I'm home, I'm tired, I have quite a few photos to develop, skin is peeling off of my face because I'm sunburned, and I have work to do. The trip was definately worth it all.


"Is there a doctor in the house?"
    --several members of the audience after all the doctors "walked".