NEIGHBORS

A true Healdsburg love story of 50 years. And Pat remembers just
about every minute of it, which drives Bill crazy sometimes. These
two, who are still like a couple of kids and still very much in
love, go back to sixth grade when they met in Mr. Hornlein’s math
class at the old Healdsburg Elementary School.
“I thought he was the cutest boy I’d ever seen,” Pat recalls. “I
fell in love with that ornery little brat right on the spot. But
the thing I remember most about dating Bill through the years was
that he’d always ask me to dances and then would abandon me once we
got there. He’d ask me out after he broke up with another girl, and
that would really frost me. I think he went with every girl at
Healdsburg High School: Laura Brigandi, Nina Galeazzi, Ann
Leighter, Darla Zunino, Virginia Hall (her twin Vivian was spared)
and Anita Aggi are just a few! When he finally asked me to go
steady, I said, ‘I don’t want to wear any old ring that’s been
around every girl’s neck in this school!’ Even though I secretly
wanted it, it had lost its meaning.”
“It’s true that I tried to go with every girl in school. I’ve
just always loved girls,” Bill confesses. “But Pat tends to
exaggerate.”
“If I get the yearbook out, I could name them all!” Pat
insists.
“Laura’s the one who slammed my finger in the gym door…” Bill
laughs.
“And she was also the one whose mother caught you kissing
her…” Pat recalls. “What were you… eleven years old?”
So let’s start with a little history…
Bill moved to Healdsburg with his family in 1946 at the age of
nine. Sister Sandy was six and Beth was eleven. They moved to 447
Piper, across from the ballpark, at a time when a house cost
$2,500. Bill’s parents divorced soon after the move, but Waldo
Iversen took Bill under his wing, getting him involved in Boy
Scouts and sports. Bill excelled in sports in high school, playing
varsity football with coach Art McCaffrey, a “wonderful, marvelous
man.” Though Pat claims that Bill was “not a student” because she’s
got all his old report cards to prove it, Bill, (like Pat) has some
great memories of his former teachers.
“Mary Uboldi was my English and drama teacher,” Bill recalls.
“John Uboldi taught industrial arts (woodworking), the only class
in which I always got an A. Ed Matteoli, the track coach and typing
teacher was another favorite. He was so down to earth, almost as
bad as the kids…”
“Mr. Matteoli was one of a kind,” Pat adds. “He played pranks on
other teachers. And when the kids did pranks, he’d just laugh and
make them run around the track!”
“And I sure remember Tony, the janitor,” Bill continues. “Once,
I fell off the top of a 12 foot ladder, just missing a classmate
and landing on my back. Then, in the shower room, a guy stuck his
cleats into the bottom of my foot. And another time I jumped on a
climbing rope that Nick Belli was trying to pull up. In an effort
to shake me off, he tugged it up and down and I fell again, having
to limp. Tony, who was like a big brother to all us guys, saw me
limping and said, ‘Hey, Bill… What’d you do now? Tony then pulled
out his pocket knife, saying, ‘Why don’t you just go over in the
corner and cut your throat and get it over with?’ That could never
happen today, but I’ve always remembered it and laughed.”
Pat also arrived in Healdsburg after World War II. Her parents,
Walt and Alma Meissner, bought the second house in the new
development, Solar Terrace, on Sunnyvale Drive for $7,000. Herb
Solem got the first house.
“The development, once a prune orchard, was built like a
football track,” Pat recalls. “Highway 101, which was full of
logging trucks, was the only way into town. My sister Lydell and I
could only come into town with my parents until they built
University Extension. And I never wore shoes in town. Everything
was about farming.”
Pat’s parents bought TV Mart, located where the Midnight Sun is
now. Some of Pat’s favorite memories include going to the river
with her pal Pattie Cordano and “thinking we were bathing beauties,
not understanding why the lifeguard paid no attention to us.” Pat
also burnt her fanny sitting in a white bathing suit on the hood of
a very fancy car one year in the FFA parade. She recalls working as
an “awful” waitress at Tip Top Cafe when she was 16. At that time
Highway 101 was just a country road and there was nothing else that
far out of town.
Pat has great memories of her favorite shops in town: “I loved
Garrett Hardware because if they couldn’t find something, they’d
climb up on a high ladder and search among the cobwebs. I remember
the Little Folk Shop for kids and the lingerie shop where we teens
could buy our bras on layaway. Then there was Schwab’s where we
bought all our shoes. John and Zeke’s was where it is now, then
Lefty Anderson’s Jewelry and Bank of America on the corner. Lefty,
who played baseball, gave every graduating senior girl a silver
teaspoon. Ernie Nisson owned the frozen food locker where the
Flying Goat is now. He’d sell and butcher half a beef and then keep
your butchered pieces in a locker. I was terrified of going into
that cold locker.”
Pat also has her share of memories of favorite and not so
favorite teachers at HHS, some of whom have been the subjects of
her stories in the Healdsburg Senior Writing Project.
“Mr. Matteoli taught typing like he taught football. He was
loud, rough, and not above certain unseemly gestures. He teased the
girls, told jokes, and recruited football players to his class.
Mrs. Long (English) terrified me! If you dripped one drop of ink on
the paper, you’d have to start all over. My stomach was always in a
knot. Miss Destruel was four feet two inches tall and weighed 90
pounds. No one breathed in her class. Stormin’ Norman Schwietert
was the journalism teacher when I was editor of the Hounds Bark. He
was all over the place, like a hummingbird. I don’t know how the
school paper was ever put together. And Clarence Ruonavaara… I
was in love with Clarence. I walked into the room and saw a
combination of Ronald Coleman, Clark Gable and Tyrone Power!”
After high school, Pat and Bill continued their on-again,
off-again romance. While Pat was going to college and working in
San Francisco, Bill would use her as a “pit stop” on his way to see
Virginia Hall. Then, when Pat was on vacation in Healdsburg with a
sprained ankle, he teased, “I was going to ask you to the New
Year’s Eve dance…”
“I’ll go!” Pat replied. So, with her foot wrapped in an ace
bandage and crammed in a high heel, she impressed him enough that
he proposed. She laughed at the idea, but he never gave up.
“He aggravated me so much that I finally said ‘yes’ and we got
married in 1961,” Pat recalls. “We moved to Healdsburg and had two
boys. Bill worked for Hewlett-Packard and I taught school. We just
had our 50th wedding anniversary.”
The most painful thing in their lives has been the sudden death
of their beloved son Scott at age 39.
“Maybe his death made us closer,” Pat says tearfully. “We’ve had
to share something that would isolate most couples, but we’re so
close that we’ve handled it together.”
Shonnie Brown is a local author and memoirist who is
interested in fostering connections between people and their
community. Shonnie writes personal and family histories through her
business, Sonoma LifeStories, and is also a licensed Marriage and
Family Therapist. She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]
or on the web at www.sonomalifestories.com.