10 minute read
Broke Girls ’
“And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you . . . ” — “Time” by Pink Floyd
My high school graduating class, the Armijo Class of 1982, is having our 40th reunion, a three-day affair, on Aug. 12-14. I didn’t go to my 10- or 20-year high school reunions, but for the 30th back in 2012, I hooked up with Claire Cepeda Kelley, my classmate and friend since our days as Grange Grizzlies, to plan it.
We got help with the planning from several other classmates and the event was very successful. Yours Truly acted as the emcee and everyone had a blast. In fact, my own regret was that we had Class of 1983 grad Yumi Wilson as our photographer and she was under strict instructions that everything was fair game to shoot – except for pictures of me dancing.
And yet among her hundreds of beautiful photos there was one of me trying to bust a move, which also captured the resultant horrified look of classmate Greg Johnston, who didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or call the paramedics.
Claire and I are back to plan the 40th with the help of the usual suspects: Ed Lockhart, Victoria Bartels, Roberta Arnold-Nichols, Frederick Wallace and Brian Evans. It has been a bit of a challenge getting folks to commit to come and who can blame them? I mean, many people repeatedly got burned having to schedule and then reschedule events that were ravaged by Covid-19 and that stigma (and the virus) persists. Plus, it's easy and economical even with gas prices as high as they are now for me to drive across town to the Paradise Valley Clubhouse where our main event on Saturday the 13th will take place.
It's not quite as economical for classmates now living in say, Florida or Hawaii.
It is truly astounding to think that 40 summers have passed since that one back in 1982 when me and nearly 400 others donned purple and gold caps and gowns and marched onto Brownlee Field to "Pomp and Circumstance."
Honestly, I don’t remember much about that day. I mean, I still have the program so I can see that Class President Judy Jernigan led the Pledge of Allegiance and class brainiacs Kristi Lown and Kevin Christian gave speeches (“Where Do We Go From Here?” and “Friendship: Life After High School,” respectively), but I recall nothing they said.
The program also says that Diana Ehmke was accompanied by then local musician Ron Kimball (former bass guitarist of Fairfield band Laser Boy) and performed “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac. It would be really cool if my brain hadn’t completely deleted that.
Now out of fairness, it isn’t just that it was 40 years ago that things are a little fuzzy; they were a little fuzzy on that day, too. The one thing I definitely remember was drinking some scorching hot Southern Comfort before the ceremony that had been left in the trunk of my buddy John’s Vega. I remember right after the event we snuck another slug of Janis Joplin’s favorite drink and immediately two young ladies from my church, Cindi Gibson and Giselle Taylor, appeared and gave me congratulatory hugs. I held my alcohol-flavored breath.
Four decades have passed since then and, honestly, I am most disappointed in only a couple of things. First, that those moving sidewalks they had in "The Jetsons" still aren't a thing; and second, that the white tux with black trim I wore in my senior picture hasn't come back into style.
You know what I learned at the 30th reunion we had? That a lot of the things that separated classmates when we were teens didn't really matter decades later. I mean, I was kicking it with people that I rarely or never talked to back in high school. We hadn't kicked it before, not because of enmity, just that we moved in different circles back then. Those cliques and categories now seem quaint and rather silly when looked at through the clarifying prism of time and life experience.
Navigating adolescence at the same time as other folks can be a bonding experience that lasts a lifetime, but there are lessons that only living life and going through its tumult and triumph can bring.
Then there is death. We have lost many classmates along the way, including one last month, and it puts our celebration of our 40-year milestone in stark contrast.
Now, in addition to being a member of the Armijo Class of 1982, I am also an honorary member of the Armijo Class of 1942. For five years I attended their annual reunion luncheons as a guest of the late Guido Colla.
The class that they started with was much smaller than mine. It had 72 people, and by the time I started attending their reunions, there were only four to five classmates left. I saw firsthand how they were very much alive at those events and savored being in the moment with each other and I will never forget it.
So next month the Armijo Class of 1982 will meet, laugh, talk, eat, drink, dance and reminisce. We'll rekindle old friendships and hopefully spark some new ones. I look forward to hearing and sharing stories with folks I spent some of my formative years with.
Tony Wade The last laugh
I even forgave Yumi Wilson and she is back as our photographer.
We're gonna party like it's 1982!
The Armijo High Class of 1982 40th Reunion main event will take place Aug. 13. Tickets are $75 per person. Register online at https://ahs8240.bpt.me (there is a per ticket fee) or make a check/money order out to Claire Kelley and send it to P.O. Box 460, Fairfield, CA 94533-0045.
Courtesy photos The Armijo Classs of 1982’s graduation program and Tony Wade rockin’ the then popular white tux look.
Fairfield freelance humor columnist and accidental local historian Tony Wade writes two weekly columns – "The Last Laugh" on Mondays and "Back in the Day" on Fridays. Wade is also the author of The History Press books “Growing Up In Fairfield, California" and "Lost Restaurants of Fairfield, California."
At this new resort in Mexico, getting drunk is part of the wellness program
BloomBerg
Lisa Harper would like you to know that in a post-pandemic, you-onlylive-once world, throwing back mezcalitas and cheladas for the purpose of inducing a hangover and then curing it with barbacoa tacos falls squarely within the definition of holistic wellness.
“When I talk about wellness, I don’t talk about deprivation or hard work,” says Harper, the former chief executive officer of retail brands as varied as Gymboree and Hot Topic, and current CEO of Belk, the North Carolina-based department store company with some 300 stores around the US. “I talk about it in terms of experiences that provide that much-needed mental and creative reset,” she says.
Getting drunk in Mexico? That can do it.
Harper first landed in the cluster of fishing towns surrounding Todos Santos in the mid-1990s, determined to cure herself from corporate burnout by setting up temporary residence in a humble palapa (beach hut) while hunting for creative reinvigoration. She was so inspired by the culture and the land - its physical beauty, the food, and yes, the drinks - that she decided to buy a small parcel of land there. She returned home determined to turn it into a sumptuous wellness retreat called Rancho Pescadero, which she’d subsequently design herself. It opened with 12 rooms in 2009 and quickly developed a loyal following.
Now the resort is set to emerge in September from a four-year renovation that makes it effectively a whole new property, with 103 oceanfront suites on 30 acres and an intentionally indulgent approach to wellness, making Harper a sort of anti-Gwyneth Paltrow. Instead of cutting out booze and focusing on detoxifying diets and boot camp classes, the hotel pairs a 25,000-square-foot “wellness pavilion” with activities that connect guests with generationsold local traditions (think cacao ceremonies and apothecary sessions that make personalized use of the sprawling medicinal herb garden).
None is more emblematic of this unique approach to wellness than the Hangover Experience – not something you’d find at a typical spa retreat, but a cornerstone of the resort’s new programming. It will focus not just on drinking, but also on a dish that Mexicans use as a hangover cure, cochinita pibil, and all of the ways that preparing and eating it can have a restorative effect. According to Harper, the ceremonial process of cooking barbacoa, from the wrapping of lamb in banana leaves to the way it’s lowered into an underground hearth for a slow, overnight roast, was considered by ancient Maya as a way to commune with the Earth – and healing to both heart and mind.
But at Rancho Pescadero, learning to make the dish won’t be as simple as signing up for a cooking class. (After all, argues Harper, you can’t exactly replicate that recipe in your own home kitchen – so what’s the point?) While guests will get to participate in the cooking process, they’ll mostly do so by picking chiles and turning them into accompanying salsa and sauces. They’ll also get to prepare tinctures to pair with the next day’s hangover cure using some of those aforementioned medicinal herbs, to make tortillas by hand using a traditional comal oven, and to tell stories or listen to music around a communal fire. All of these activities play with ideas of working with your hands, engaging with Mexican culture, and building community – cornerstones of mental wellness.
“The idea is that you’re engaging with rituals,” says Harper. “We want people to feel like they’re living it up but also taking part in something that carries historical legacy and feels, for lack of a better word, authentic,” she says. “You’re forming community with new people, learning about drinks and foods that you may not have heard of before, and getting taken care of in a whole different way.”
Getting drunk is, of course, baked into the premise, though even that is done purposefully. The open bar portion of the experience includes lesser-known traditional drinks like pulque, which blends agave sap with fermented pineapple rind. A cultural ambassador will be on hand to weave in elements of Indigenous and historical significance –such as why pulque was considered sacred by the ancestors of many locals.
And while the cooking and drinking all takes place in the evening, the eating really happens the next morning – after the boozy damage has been done. “We’ll wake guests up at a considerate hour, somewhere post-9 o’clock,” says Harper. “We’ll kindly come to their room with the very first phase of their cure, which will be one of the tinctures [made the night before], or something that would help them rise to the occasion.” And then, she says, they’ll be escorted to hotel’s restaurant, where a ceremonial unveiling of the cochinita takes place around a bountiful communal table.
“Of course, we plan to bookend the whole thing with more drinking,” Harper laughs
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