Good Guys Traditions

By Dennis Richardson Oregon-Canadian Forest Products of California, Orange, Ca.

IIn San Francisco, site o[ this year's Western Wood Products Association spring meeting, another lumber tradition was continued on March 23. For the 3lst year, the "Good Guys" met again for lunch at Johnny Foley's Irish House (formerly Bardelli's) on O'Farrell near Union Square.

This year. 33 lumbermen. active and retired, once again enjoyed excellent food, friendship, camaraderie, laughter, memories and even a tall tale or two (see photos on previous page).

The "Good Guys" was started in 1914 by eight close friends from redwood mill and wholesale lumber firms who were attending that year's WWPA spring meeting. The informally organized get-together has grown into a much-anticipated, not-tobe-missed a[[air. held every spring in San Francisco. Even when the WWPA holds its meeting elsewhere, the Good Guys always return to "The City by the Bay" to carry on their rradition. Now drawing lumbermen and women from all over the country, it is not uncommon to find folks flying into the city just for the lunch and to renew old friendships, and then fly back home that afternoon.

The roster of those having been at the lunch through the years has over 200 names, including several sets of second generation Good Guys. Care is taken each year to recognize new attendees as well as remembering those who passed away during the previous year.

A tongue-in-cheek "Legend of the Good Guys" tells the story of how it all began:

Now, it came to pass that in the year Nineteen Hundred and Seventy Four, on a Wednesday numbered thirteen in the month of March, in the great lobby of the Saint Francis Hotel in Union Square in downtown San Francisco, California, at the time of day when both the hands on the big clock pointed straight up, there happened a happening. The happening started simply enough, there was a proclamation.

The proclaimer of the proclamation was a notable fellow of some local renown, by the name of Robert H. (that's for Herbert, thank you) Bonniksen (which translates to One Standing Over The Crowd, Shinning Above). Ole Robert Herbert, who had a long history of Grand Pronounce-ments, but of recent found himself in the Company of Loose Promises, simply and boldly announced, "Let's go to lunch!" and that would be that. forevermore. The die thereby cast, the events set, fortunes determined for years to come. The cry has been carried far and wide over the land, "Let's go to lunch!"

Attending Robert Herberr that fateful day all these years past was a faithful band of lumbertype guys, knot a shaky post in the lot. There were eight tallied in that first unit.

Don Kelleher, Harry Lyon and Jack Betts, not to be left moulding away for anyone's name sake, agreed to take on a load with this band. Bob Macfie, an old flyboy and sailor shipmate of R.H., signed on for that first cruise, as did their

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