I did something crazy this weekend. No, I mean outside the box CRAZY, not my normal crazy.
I drove 300 miles chauffeuring an old friend and his dad to a school reunion in Ojai.
If you follow my socials, you've seen bits and pieces of the trip.
Here it is, all in one place, with some context. Beware, it's a long, convoluted
journey blog post!
Meet
Carmaig de Forest:
Meet his dad, Kellam de Forest:
It was Kellam's 75th school reunion at Thacher School, in Ojai. He wanted to attend.
Carmaig lives in Seattle and was able to fly down to help him get there.
"But what about transport?" pondered Carmaig. "Rent a car? Oh wait, there's Anne, she might do it!"
Indeed I did.
Kellam is the son of
Lockwood de Forest Jr, who was a landscape architect well known in Santa Barbara.
Lockwood was the son of
Lockwood de Forest, an artist and designer, who knew my
Great Great Uncle Howard Russell Butler. Both of them held painter Frederick Church as a mentor. (An interesting coincidence, both of their sons became landscape architects, one in Santa Barbara, one in Princeton, NJ).
After picking up Carmaig in Pacific Palisades, we drove up PCH, making our way to Santa Barbara to fetch Kellam. Before heading to Ojai, we took a detour to the
de Forest property on Todos Santos Lane. <
Click on that link -- it's historical info about the property.
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| It has now gone through two owners since Kellam sold it, but the de Forest name is still on the lane entry sign. |
The current owner has made significant changes to the interior of the home
(and why the house was completely open with no workers on site was a bit disconcerting to this Los Angelina). The gardens have been neglected, but there are traces of its former glory.
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| The original bird bath. |
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| View from the house -- the trees have grown above the original vista of the Santa Ynez mountains. |
On to Ojai. But first some more history.
Scroll down to the next photo if I'm boring you.
We took CA150, the twisty route that I used to take to Thacher when I was going to College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara. You see, my senior year at Emma Willard (in Troy, NY), 30 Thacher Juniors (boys) came to our school (girls) on an exchange program.
THAT was a bit wild, for both sides of the equation! I became good buddies with Carmaig and Harrison. When I narrowed down my college choices to either Nova Scotia College of Art and Design or CCS, I chose California. It was 3000 miles away from my family (a good thing, in my adolescent mind) and I at least had some friends within range. I knew no one in Halifax.
My apartment that I ended up renting in Isla Vista was horribly depressing (a 60's era motel mid-conversion into apartments. Mine was still a motel room). Almost every weekend that first fall quarter, I was up at Thacher, staying with a faculty member, and hanging out with Harrison and Carmaig. But by spring '75, I had finally made some friends at UCSB and had "moved on" in the boyfriend department
(I performed one of those awful restaurant breakups with Harrison. Sorry, Harrison). I lost touch with the Thacher boys.
Fast forward 20 years.
I reconnected with Carmaig in the late '90s -- he was now a singer-songwriter doing solo performances on the ukulele. Severo and I saw him at The Knitting Factory in Hollywood, and get this -- Severo knew Carmaig too! He had played with Carmaig! (The connections are getting pretty tangled, right?) We became Facebook friends, kept the reconnection alive, and in 2015 I did a de Forest road trip, accompanying Carmaig from LA to Seattle.
You can read about that look at art from it here.
Back to June 2019.
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At Thacher, on the track.
Finally an outfit photo, right? Thank you for indulging me my detour down memory lane. |
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| Carmaig told me I was in the photo and a made a silly face. I am not a lizard trying to catch bugs. |
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Posing with the 1974 sign was a must.
My own school reunion is next week. |
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| Pretty table setting. |
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At Thacher's reunions, each class picks a speaker to give a toast for their class.
Kellam was the only '44 alum attending and gave a moving toast. |
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| That's a wrap. |
Carmaig and I overnighted at his mother-in-law's home in Montecito. I took him to LAX the next day. I might go more into intersections and connections with Carmaig's family (because there are connections with his wife Diana too!), but that's enough for now. I gotta pack for my own high school reunion, I leave tomorrow AM!
Going on any road trips this summer? Did one in the past?
Link it up on my Summertime Link Party! I think I'll extend it to ALL SUMMER!
Doing my own linking with
Patti's Visible Monday
Shelbee's Spread the Kindness
Catherine's #shareAllLinkup
