Patricia (Fatima) Lassar

From your last posting I was delighted to learn you still live in CA part time and you are still driving a Tesla. Thought we had lost you to the Midwest and as a Tesla convert. You were thinking of stopping the lease on your Model S. I wondered how anyone could go back to an ICE after driving a Tesla. Ginger May and her husband met your personal trainer, now without you, on their regular hiking path. He was sorry you had moved to the Midwest. They are leasing their first Tesla and love, love, love it. Are you in the same house in Novato? Same email and phone? When things open up, I'd like to arrange another North Bay get together.

Dear Ilene,
Thank you for introducing me to the music of Bob Dylan. Do you remember playing his first album for me at your house? I fell in love! I probably read you the letter I received in Feb. 1964 from the Stanford freshman I was dating. He had just seen Dylan for the first time and described how he felt.. You may have known he took me to see Dylan at Ravinia that summer. But I never got to tell you that I found that letter and thought he should have it. We hadn't been in touch since 1965 but 2 years ago I located him in Portland and returned it to him in person.

I will never forget you.

Posted on: May 20, 2019 at 3:33 AM

Posted on: Oct 09, 2017 at 9:33 PM

Fred, did I understand you to say it was the school's policy for the boys to wear nothing when swimming? Is that correct?

Posted on: Mar 16, 2015 at 11:05 PM

My original is running off the page and I can't see the functions to edit or delete so I'm submitting this again

We were together for at least one year in high school I remember the beginning and much of the time we spent together but I  have no idea why or how or when  it ended. It just wasn't any more. As with the others whose path in life joined with mine for a while and then parted, I don't know if their lives continued or ended but they  remain alive my memory. The ones from high school always occupy a greater part of my life as reunions approach. This was the first time Preston Jones was not listed as missing. He also was not yet among the In Memory.  I did my usual search in the unlikely chance he had created a profile. Now there were ** after his name. He will always be, alive in my memory  until I am also only in memory. 

The rules that most of us find easy to follow,  for Preston, they were impossible. He simply ignored the ones that weren't right for him.  He never tried to hide this and I could see it would be a problem as he got older.   I wondered how he would survive in a society that would want to punish him to make him conform and he would be unable.

To those that didn't know him he probably appeared to be timid or shy because  he so seldom spoke.  He didn't smile often and laughed even less. But when he did, it was worth the wait. I can still see and even hear him chuckle but can't recall the tone of his voice. Beneath the quiet exterior and innocent boyish face he was audacious. We were like the central characters in a very exciting silent movie.

When his brother,  Buck, was away at college, he left his dark blue 1957  Thunderbird convertible at home.  Probably not for the first time,  Preston, age 15 borrowed it. This night he got in an accident in front of the  Pizza place on Noyes where Marty Grenzebach, had arranged for me to meet him.   The court said he couldn't apply  for a driver's license when he turned 16. I forget how long he had to wait but it didn't deter him any from driving.  He continued to "borrow" the Thunderbird as well as his parent's cars.  He wrote a letter to the DMV claiming he had not received his license in the mail. They wrote back they were looking into why he hadn't received his license. This letter he carried with him in case he was ever stopped and asked for his license. With no computers, they couldn't check. 

Once the police pulled us over while we were pulling the boat on McCormick Ave.  What now? He always drove carefully to stay off their radar.  The officer asked if he knew his boat was about to fall off the trailer. No he did not. He asked to see his license and registration. Out came the letter from the DMV which worked like a charm. He promised to slowly drive straight home and finally was allowed to go.  But the only way to get the boat straight on the trailer was to take it off in the lake. .It was more logical to first go to the lake which was our destination when stopped. So that's what he did

Another night we went by boat to downtown Chicago. There was a reason but I can't recall what it was that we thought it would be the best place to see something that was happening at I think perhaps McCormick Place. When we were almost there,, a Coast Guard cutter, like the highway patrol, came flying at us out of nowhere with siren screaming,  lights flashing, searchlights blinding us and blaring ominous commands through a bull horn. Our crime, we learned, we didn't have the  required color or number running lights for our particular type and size boat Was it really so important that We were to go ashore immediately. Then we would be stranded downtown in our bathing suits with no money and no place to leave a boat. A terrible idea which he promised to do and headed toward shore. When he was very close and they hadn't followed us, he turned off all the lights and headed north for Evanston. First creeping and then full throttle.

He drove around with me as I practiced driving and drove me to take my driving test, twice, while he still didn't have his own license.

His parents let him order  a new car.  He chose a  burgundy Ford Galaxy convertible with  a police interceptor  engine .The biggest  engine available,  We never fought and he never got mad.  On my first ride in the new car I remarked that it smelled terrible. This turned out it be coming from the dog shit I tracked in on my shoe. Not even then. 

He was an avid skier and went to Colorado at least once a year.  He took me to see Warren Miller when he came to the area with his wonderful ski movies. On our first ski trip we went to Wisconsin.  It was also our last ski trip which was fine with me.

I was behind him on a rope tow about halfway up a hill when I fell off.  He was smiling when he picked me up and told me to wipe my nose.  I kept batting at it unsuccessfully with 3 layers of heavy mittens which he found very funny. Then his look of amusement turned to one of absolute horror Suddenly it had dawned on him that the whitish yellow patch he had laughingly been directing me to wipe off, was in fact a spot that was now frozen solid.  This happened after being outside no more than 30 minutes.  Thankfully he never suggested we go again.  Skiing was definitely not for me. I loved watching others  through glass or on a screen from the comfort of indoors.

If finding ways to enter locked buildings through windows on upper floors was a school sport, Preston would have been a star player on the varsity team. Maybe even made All State.

One morning I awoke in my second floor bedroom to find a lipstick on my dresser that I knew I had left in his car the night before.  He had been in my bedroom and I hadn't woken up. After that he appeared frequently and I would wake up when he opened the window. Did we have sex? Not in any traditional defintion.  Imagine the softtest touch of two angels with wings and no hands. 

 Thank you Preston for giving me so many sweet memories of a truly innocent period of our lives. 

Posted on: Oct 12, 2014 at 4:42 PM

Posted on: Sep 14, 2014 at 8:19 PM

I looked for you at the reunion. I never did find the right person to ask if someone wasn't coming so I wouldn't waste reunion time searching the event for them. I'm on my way home with my list of people to seek out mostly checked off.

Posted on: Aug 26, 2014 at 8:04 AM

Thank you for sharing your negative experience. It's too bad it has taken us 50 years to unburden ourselves. It wasn't our fault that it happened to us and I doubt you and Helga were the only ones those teachers touched. I don't think the girls today would accept it and let them get away with such inappropriate behavior.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I just saw Bill Robb's posting that you found the movie and are having DVD's made. Sorry I nagged you but not too sorry if it helped. You are my hero! I don't see you signed up for any reunion events. I would love to see you and give you the letter you wrote me from Amherst in 1965. I'm free in between events to arrange something. And of course get a copy of the movie.