1944

The December 21 deadline for this issue precluded a report about the swell stuff we received for Christmas, so let's be content with some "visions of sugarplums."

Traversing the open spaces of the Southwest, we find that in Corrales, New Mexico (look for Albuquerque), Wally Olin's sugarplums are spelled tennis and trumpet, both of which he is easing back into after heart surgery last summer. He is well tended by wife Barbara, a sister of Bruce Dean. Their younger daughter is nearby, and they visit her sister in both wet Seattle and dry Palm Desert. Son Scott lives on the island of Hawaii, which is where Wally last saw John Peacock, 22 years ago. Wally's doctor surmises he won't go under the knife again until 2015, a nice stocking stuffer.

Pete Peterson (the R.W. one) was Wally's classmate at East Denver High. Pete was outof-burb in mid-December, but Louise kindly took a moment from moving-in chores to say that she adores the pure mountain air at their new home by the golf course in Cornville, Arizona (look for Sedona between Flagstaff and Prescott). Their years in humid Laguna Beach (east of the Pacific) and stifling Edmund (north of Oklahoma City) preyed on her arthritis, but now she is "happy as a clam" and busy with furniture shuffling and picture hanging. Louise and Pete were headed to California (south of Oregon) for Christmas.

George Kent was Wally's and Pete's classmate at East Denver and saw them both at their soth. In December 2000 he was looking forward to Christmas in Phoenix with children and grandchildren.

Guess where John McAllister went to high school? After selling his construction business in Vail, where he was a pioneer, he and Penny moved to the Denver suburb of Arvada. (Not as far west or south as the guys already named, but close enough.) They'll be home for Christmas. John last visited Hanover for our 20th, staying with the late Frank Ebaugh. Yep, Frank was East Denver High. John stays close to our '44 scene, however, and has sparked the endowment of a Frank Ebaugh Memorial in the Class of 1944 Place. Despite staggering medical woes he remains staggeringly cheerful and buoyant.

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