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Keith Dinsmoor
As
I recall, about 11 of us í56 Muir graduates continued our education at
Stanford. Iíve lost track
of most of them, but Ron Rankin and I ended up as fraternity brothers and then
started law school together at UC Berkeley, along with Neal Brockmeyer.
After graduating in 1963, I had to find a military program better than
the Draft and ended up in a Coast Guard Reserve Program with 6 months active and
a 7 ‡ yr reserve obligation. The 6
months passed quickly with Boot Camp in Alameda and Yeoman School at the Naval
Training Center at Point Loma. That
enabled me to start my law career in Orange County and live at our old family
beach house in Newport Beach where I still remember the Muir Mountaineers Club
gathering while we were in high school (with the boys staying at Bill
Nelsonís family beach house on Harbor Island, and the girls at our house in
Beacon Bay, a quarter mile apart). Anybody
else remember that gathering?
In 1965 I met a legal secretary at a singles gathering called the "Losers and Rejects." I guess we found enough in common to get married the next year and remain married to this day. Appropriately for a guy who likes boats as much as I do, her name is Marina, and eventually we had a couple of children who are now in their 20ís and still unmarried. I had a non distinguished law career in Orange County, mostly in private practice in Costa Mesa associated with a couple of other attorneys, and when I reached my male menopause of my 40ís, I moved our family to Napa Valley in l985 to open a bed and breakfast, start a small vineyard and try and make wine, as well as continue to practice law. We had 3 ‡ acres, fruit trees, planted a vegetable garden every Spring, were raising our kids, and it was a busy life. In fact, there didnít seem to be enough hours in the day, and finally, during one of our vacation trips to Maui in l993, I told my wife I thought I had one more move in me, and if I did, I wanted it to be to Maui. She picked herself up off the floor, and 2 months later was faced with running our BnB in Napa Valley by herself (with a little help from our 16 year old son}, while I jump started a Maui 6 unit vacation rental place we first saw on our way to the airport (talk about your impulse buying!). I pulled our daughter out of college for a term to help me, thinking our Napa Valley place would be sold quickly, and our family reunited in a few months. But you guessed it, this was during the first California real estate recession in history, and it took 4 ‡ years to find a buyer to offer a reasonable price.
So we paid our dues to make the move to "paradise." After a couple of years of basically being separated, I got somebody else to manage the BnB, so Marina and I could be together in Maui. I retired from the law when I moved to Maui, and have concentrated on running ALOHA PUALANI, our Kihei bed and breakfast vacation rental place. On Nov 14, 2002 I sold our vacation rental business, Aloha Pualani, and am retired, still living on Maui at the other end of the island from Jim Carr.
Along the way, my primary avocation all these years has been sailing, and in 1994 I raced my 32 foot sloop from San Francisco to Hawaii in the Pacific Cup, the highlight of my sailing career. Now itís moored in the roadstead off Lahaina, and I have to track down Jim Carr and compare notes and boats!
I missed the 10th
reunion because I got married the next day, but made the 25th, and
the 40th was great! Iím
looking forward to the 50th, God willing, and enjoy reading all the
stuff on our super Web page, a little regretful at being too far to participate
in any of the present gatherings. But
life is certainly great on Maui, so come pay us a visit!
Keith, 2002
Keith can be reached at: dinsmoor@mauigateway.com
Ruth Bretzius Duncan
After graduating from Muir, I worked for Pacific Bell Telephone Company as an operator.
I married and began to raise a
family. Concerned about the education of our five children, we moved to Oklahoma and enrolled them in one of the top five school districts in the United
States.
I'm proud of my work record with the telephone company. I was the top
operator in the State of Oklahoma for five years and one of the top ten
for over ten years. I owned my own restaurant and at the same time,
drove a school bus while the kids were in school in Oklahoma. My husband and I divorced in 1983.
Believing it was time to have a life of my
own, I moved back to California and I remarried in 1995. We moved to Arizona, about 90 miles
south of Las Vegas, and enjoyed it very much, but after my husband passed away in 1999, I moved back to Oklahoma to be near my family.
In 1995 I lost my 33 year-old daughter to cancer. I'm very proud of my
children. They have always been responsible adults and have never given
me any problems - - - didn't take drugs, didn't drink or smoke.
I have 11 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild due in October.
I guess my legacy will be my children.
You can email Ruth at: r2x3@earthlink.net
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