Hans Halberstadt

You probably haven't thought about it this way, but fortieth anniversaries are a lot like coroner's inquests, except that the liquid preservatives are usually of a higher quality and the dear departed hasn't left. In both cases, you have an opportunity to take a long look at how somebody got from where they were to where they are now, and both can be pretty interesting.

This analytical process of events is something writers have to do all the time, particularly when it involves our own lives and work. That's because people are always oozing up to us at parties and coroner's inquests saying, "So, how'd you get to be a writer?" The implication is that anybody who writes well now -- or who gets paid for it, anyway -- must have always been pretty good at it, particularly in high school. I know that's not true because I was a horrid writer back then. Partly as a result of these questions, and partly as a result of this reunion business, I've been giving some thought to how I got suckered into this business, and I finally figured out who is responsible -- it's Bill Butler.

I've had great teachers before Tam, and great teachers after Tam, but none of the teachers we shared ever connected with me during those four years. Instead, the people who help push me off down the path of life were my friends and peers, and their parents, all of whom mentored me in ways I recognize now as very useful. My best "teachers" were actually our classmates Jeff Olson, Steve Pendleton, and Bill Butler, and it was Bill who corrupted me by introducing me to Road & Track magazine, and indirectly to the business of writing.

Bill, you may remember, was a smarmy, self-confident lad with a flattop, glasses, winning smile, and a Vespa (and from all appearances, nothing much has changed except the Vespa). Today, guys like Bill are getting their buddies to try heroin and carjacking, but back then Bill and I were both interested in exotic imported cars and exotic domestic girls. The exotic cars included confections like the Aston Martin DB4-GT and were celebrated in Road & Track and Car & Driver magazines, both of which were introduced to me by Bill.

The columnists in those magazines wrote in a style I had never before encountered -- they broke every rule of composition Mr. Wallace, Mr. Bode, and Miss Rogers had ever tried to jam down our proverbial throats. They were sassy, witty, and loaded with that prohibited personal pronoun, "I." Those columns, and the road reports, were a vision of another way of putting words on paper, and would later be a style model for me when I began the serious business of writing -- letters to my girlfriends and family while I was in the Army and Viet Nam.

Jeff Olson was one of those disgusting people with a photographic memory, good study habits, and he even picked up his room. I'd like to say Jeff taught me to emulate him in those respects but instead he taught me something about word-play and humor. Jeff was, and still is, the most disgusting punners I know -- you have to open the doors and windows when he shows up with his line of punny patter, they reek so badly. But Jeff is directly responsible for my Ph. D. -- he gave it to me himself. We both took a summer school psychology class in 1960 and after successfully completing the course, we awarded each other honorary doctorates on the spot. Jeff comes by our house every Christmas, he still calls me Dr. Halberstadt, and I still call him Dr. Olson.

Steve Pendleton showed me how to study and do research -- although seldom on anything related to schoolwork. Steve was fascinated with maps and geography and we spent a lot of time studying USGS topographics, looking for ghost towns in the Sierras, or similar spots, and sometimes went there with his family on summer vacations. We haunted the Wells Fargo museum in San Francisco in the summer, and Steve's dad, Nick, provided history lessons that stuck -- when he talked about World War II, it was as somebody who had seen it through a peep sight.

So the people that taught me the things that turned out to be useful in later life were not -- in my case -- the teachers employed for that purpose by Tam High, but the other inmates of the institution. They certainly include people like Karen Baukol, Cary "CJ" Carrillo, Conrad Breese, and many others who weren't close friends, or even friends at all, yet who set an example and were role models in one way or another. When it comes right down to it, you were my best teachers at Tam.