By SUSAN MONAHAN Special to the Palisadian-Post At 6:05 p.m. the ballroom at the Fairmont Hotel was still empty’and chilly. Blue and silver balloons floated above the tables. The reunion committee expected 250, plus walk-ins’the highest attendance this group had seen. Clinks cut the silence as bartenders stocked up on glasses. ”Two collages flanked the entrance. The first was a standard high school reunion bit, with black-and-white snapshots of the seniors’ last football game, and boys with their Chevys in the parking lot. But the other evidenced why the Palisades High Class of 1965 is extraordinary: the nation’s press has kept an eye on this group for 40 years. ””Yes, I remember Time magazine coming,” said Padre Clayton (who went by Greg in high school), the first alumnus to arrive. ”During their senior year, Time devoted a cover story to the newly built high school’s group of affluent students, writing about their social and scholastic habits as 500 models of “Today’s Teenagers.” The article deemed them graduates “on the fringe of a golden era.” ”Beyond the social order at Palisades High was a world in flux. These teens experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis during their first month in high school; then came the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The number of men drafted into the Vietnam War climbed as the students marched through graduation. ”Ten years later, the Time article left questions in the minds of two Palisades High ’65 alumni: David Wallace (later Wallechinsky) and Michael Medved. From a late-night reminiscing session came the shared idea to write a book about whether or not their classmates, Time’s “leaders of tomorrow,” really “changed the world.” Medved, voted Most Intellectual by his class, and Wallechinsky, son of famous author Irving Wallace, tracked down and interviewed nearly 50 classmates. The compilation book “What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?” was published in 1976. Its chapters had titles like “The Cheerleader” and “The Joiner,” and contrasted the students’ high school images with their candid accounts of moral and sexual experimentation and how they discovered’or avoided’adult responsibilities. Almost all interviewees claimed drugs influenced their lives. ”The press and public were again intrigued. Were these classmates still prototypes of the era? The Daily Californian reviewed the book as “gossip, melodrama and cultural history.” It became a national best-seller. The Los Angeles Times covered the class’s 20-year reunion to follow up. But the classmates’ opinions on the book were as varied as the directions their lives had taken. On this night 30 years later, many of them have watched children of their own graduate into adulthood. What conclusions have they drawn now? The Quarterback’s Record ””You still look just like Paul Newman,” a classmate said as she shuffled out of the ballroom past Mark Holmes. In the book’s first chapter, “The Quarterback,” Medved and Wallechinsky cite other classmates’ memories about the attractive young man, whom they voted Most Likely to Succeed. The authors continue: ””For 10 years we heard nothing of Mark Holmes until we ran into him in the men’s room following a ‘Cosmic Mass Celebration”he was organizing the annual ‘Conference of Grace’ for the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness.” ”These days Mark has moved back to Los Angeles after spending time in Panama, where he continued to practice the Asian medicine he’d spoken of in the book. Holmes ran a medical practice in Beverly Hills, has been married, and is now engaged again. Saying he did not want to be negative about the situation, Holmes pointed out he didn’t feel accurately portrayed in the book. ””I was the first chapter. Then there I was in the New York Times, and they misrepresented the religion.” He has a strong presence and conveys opinions largely with his eyes. “It wasn’t the story of the class. You can’t generalize about a group of people, as being from Palisades, or being that age. We all have our own biological individuality. It’s like the dinner they’re serving. Everyone in the room can eat the same thing, but we’re all going to react differently to it.” ”Wallechinsky arrived at the reunion, dressed in an eggshell-colored suit jacket. He flew in from France, but makes his home in Los Angeles. A published author many times since “What Really Happened…,” he hasn’t heard many complaints from the interviewees recently. ””It’s people you know. I haven’t written a bad word about someone I know since. I didn’t like that part of it. I’ve heard what Mark thinks and I’m sorry he feels that way. All the interviews were transcribed from tapes, of course. But I still don’t agree with the religious movement he was involved in.” The Beauty ””Suzanne!” A woman called her name over the noise of the registration table and soon a small group of women circled the champagne blond, sun-tanned and gracious Suzanne Thomas. ”Wallechinsky and Medved entitled her chapter “The Beauty.” They wrote about the girl voted Most Natural: ””We got Suzanne’s number from her parents, but hesitated for several days before making the call. There was no logical basis for our nervousness, but old-time insecurities die hard. In high school, a call to Suzanne Thomas would have been unthinkable; she was too desirable, too mature, too far above us in the rigid social hierarchy.” ”From the interview she gave at the time of the book, she was waitressing in Marina del Rey and enjoying free time at the beach. This surprised her classmate Harvey Bookstein, who was quoted in the book saying he assumed she would be married and a mother. Thomas’s quote in the book explains her indecision: ””In high school, everything was more organized. I knew what I was doing and where I was going. Now it’s kind of helter-skelter. I don’t really like the way things are going’I think people are a little too free.” ”At the reunion Thomas smiled warmly at her classmates and seemed comfortable to talk in groups of just two or three, stationing herself outside the perimeter of the ballroom floor. She spoke in a soft but optimistic voice. ” “I live in San Diego now, and I do landscape design,” she said, adding that she didn’t have children. After reading her personal feelings in the book about hoping to find a Prince Charming and wanting a family, it’s almost too severe to pose the typical reunion inquisition, Well, why aren’t you married? ””I don’t know if she ever was married. She’s pretty quiet about that stuff,” classmate Jeff Stolper said, whose chapter in the book was titled “The Surfer.” “She still looks beautiful,” Stolper said of the woman dressed in a nautical-blue jacket and skirt. ”Wallechinsky said people developed an instant bond to those profiled in the book: “The comment I usually get on the book is people saying, ‘My class (in whatever state) had the same cast of characters.’ Which is what we were trying to accomplish, but had no idea how successful we would be.” ” However, some feel that Medved and Wallechinsky’s book was not the right sampling. ””I wasn’t interviewed for the book. My life was very normal,” said William Kaplan, a classmate who now has a dental practice in the Palisades. ””They basically got their friends involved,” Mark Mathews, a classmate whose band used to play at Sports Night dances at Palisades High. “We would have made an interesting story’the Vietnam War eventually broke up our band.” ”Wallechinsky explained his and Medved’s selection method: “We tried to get a cross-section of the class; to identify ‘classic’ types.” ”Tom Betts, the reunion committee member credited with the giant Internet outreach for this 40-year event, cited Google.com as his tool. “This is a special group of people,” he said. “We have a Nobel Prize winner, Richard Gelinas. It’s a very diverse class politically. That book mentioned only one guy affected by Vietnam, but I’ve found over 30 classmates involved in the military, like myself.” ”Gelinas was a member of a research team awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1993, recognizing their discovery of split genes. He currently works at the University of Washington’s Department of Pathology. ””This is my first Pali reunion.” he said. “The committee used modern technology to locate us, and old-fashioned emotional persuasion to get us here.” ”Gelinas was not interviewed for the book. “I was too busy studying to be noticed.” But Medved and Wallechinsky did donate a chapter to one bookworm. He was “The Idealist.” Who Didn’t Show? ”Conversation about classmates who weren’t at the 40-year reunion erupted as the DJ lured couples onto the dance floor to the beat of Otis Redding. ””Did you hear about Kelso?”‘ a classmate asked Wallechinsky. ””Tom found out from Google,” Wallechinsky replied. He said Kelso was the reunion no-show who surprised him most. ”Jamie Kelso’s chapter, “The Idealist,” began with Kelso’s declaration: ””I think probably a lot of people remember my lecture on Sartre in Advanced Placement English. Inside my own head, I was in a crisis. Existentialism is, of course, a fraud. Jean-Paul Sartre is an imbecile. I’m quite aware of that now. When I got up in front of the class I was so torn up inside that I couldn’t see.” ”During an Internet search, Betts came across several articles naming Kelso as a member of the National Alliance under former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke. ”When Kelso was interviewed for the book, he was a member of The Church of Scientology and living south of Kansas City. ””He was always a joiner,” said Betts. “We were friends. But I’ve lost touch with him now. In fact, he’s the reason I called Michael [Medved]. Michael said he was up-in-the-air about coming tonight.” ”Medved did not attend. He lives with his wife and three children in Seattle, where he hosts a conservative talk radio show. “I had the invitation on my desk and couldn’t decide. Eventually the date came and went, so I guess that was the answer,” said Medved, who also skipped the 20- and 30-year reunions. “Saturday at 6 p.m. is the heart of the Sabbath. It just didn’t seem like the right thing to do, and I didn’t want to spend the weekend away from home and my kids.” ”Medved published the book “Right Turns” this year, which he considers a kind follow-up to “What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?” “One of the things that’s very striking is the political prominence of this particular graduating year’Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush were the high school classes of ’64 and ’65.” Medved attended college at Yale with these same leaders. ”Did Medved find the answer to Time magazine’s expectations of his classmates? “It wasn’t that expectations changed. But [teens] went from general expectations of success to having no idea of the right thing to do. In the ’60s there was a strong prejudice against careerism. We were self-indulgent and self-destructive.” Couples’Did Any Last? ”The book dedicates one chapter each to Anita Champion, who declared her goal was to be “a good wife and mother,” and Ron Conti, entitled “Big Bad Ron.” ”The pair married a few years after college. Ron worked for Douglas Aircraft after high school, then began to attend Santa Monica City College and began “bumming around” with an older, rowdy group. He is further quoted in the book as saying: ””All I remember about Anita [in high school] is her hair piled up on her head and sticking straight up in the air, with about three cans of hairspray to keep it up there.” ”Anita’s memories were recorded in the book as follows: ””I was going out with a guy fairly seriously for awhile, but he got drafted into Vietnam’then I got together with Ron. He was very gentle and he always smelled good.” ”Chris Wolfenden Woods, a classmate and reunion committee member, said the Contis would not be attending. They are no longer together. After coming across so many classmates on their second marriage, were there any sweethearts from the class of ’65 who made it to the 40-year reunion together? ””The Doerners are still married,” said Woods, referring to actor Karl Malden’s daughter Mila and Tom Doerner. “But they didn’t get together until college.” ”Stolper has a Palisades love story that culminated in late July. He married Janice Hayes, a Palisades Elementary classmate who moved to Palo Alto. They hadn’t seen each other in 46 years, but preparations for this reunion brought them in touch again. In his 1975 book interview, Stolper was working as a speech therapist back at Palisades High’where the surfer had nearly been expelled for not cutting his hair. Now his hair is short and combed smoothly to frame his head.” ”Woods, who wasn’t interviewed for the book, called many of the stories in it rebellious. “I didn’t go through my rebellion until about 40, after my divorce. I was 22 when I got married,” she said. “Someone told me I was a ‘goody-two-shoes’ in high school. I think I’ve changed a lot. My parents were wondering when I would settle down and marry again. But I was getting to travel often with my new job. You look at this group tonight, all the different things we’ve done, and you realize it’s never too late to create your dreams.” Retiring the Image ”Possibly the most sensational chapter in Medved and Wallechinsky’s book was “The Bad Girl” about Lisa Menzies: ””In school I was always getting into trouble. I’d smoke in the bathroom. I’d ditch class’I actually counted how many men I went to bed with, and then I stopped counting.” ”The chapter catches up on her 10-year story of experimentation with drugs, travels with different men, the birth of two children, and the loss of her baby’s father to lung cancer. ”Classmate Lany Tyler moved into a house in Venice near Menzies and offered this comment for the book: “We didn’t see each other often, but I remember being struck by the amount of pain she seems to have lived through in the years since high school.” ””I was happy to see [the book] out there,” Lisa Menzies Corletts said at the reunion, with a direct and assured tone. “I think it says a lot about the human outlook on personal development, if only to be able to expose others to our stories.” ”Medved said, “The subjects in the book were the most surprised it became a best-seller. But a few, like Lisa Menzies, really reveled in the attention. She went on a few talk shows.” ”Corletts now has three children and three grandchildren, and recently retired from a career in special education. What does exposing Corletts’ story do for future high school students? ””Some people don’t progress; some are just frozen in time,” Medved said. “But to look at our generation, we hope that from the leaps and bounds we made, in transgressing our differences, future generations will be able to build from how far we’ve come.” ”Medved describes 1965 as “when the bottom fell out. After we graduated, dress codes disappeared. Drugs, other than beer, were totally unknown to us at Palisades. We were the last class of the optimistic and functional period.” ”Holmes said the conditions the class of ’65 graduated in were not as tough as those currently. “Back then it wasn’t as frenetic. Now there’s more of a breakdown’of family, of young people unsure what it means to be American. I am appreciative of the opportunity we got to live in a place like the Palisades.” One Successful Night ””This is my first reunion,” Kevin Goff said over his salmon dinner, admitting he hadn’t kept up with classmates. He sat talking with Holmes. “I feel like now we’re all moving up a notch in life. Now it’s time to tie loose ends.” ”Holmes agreed. “My mother just passed away, and my father died some time ago. I no longer have those roots in L.A. That’s why it’s nice to come back to something like this.” ”Betts hopes that this reunion in particular will reconnect classmates. The Web site (www.palihiclassof65.com) is an instant conduit to catch up on what peers are doing. ”The turnout was about 275, even after a last minute change-of-venue from the Sofitel Hotel to the Fairmont. “It’s nice here, closer to the beach, and our roots,” said Woods, who sent one of her three children to Palisades High.”The school changed a lot. If you look around the room, almost all of these people are Caucasian. The district began to bus kids in from all over L.A. So then unfortunately, many families left the school system because of that.” ”Medved did not send any of his children to public school when he still lived in Los Angeles. “I was very involved in religion when I lived (near Venice).” His oldest daughter recently graduated from a private Jewish high school. “Shana is a stronger and sensible girl, much more committed than I was at that age. She’s very religious-minded,” he said. ”Although Medved considers the current high school graduating classes “more competitive,” he pointed out, “our standards are still the ones to beat. Look at our music’The Rolling Stones are still selling out stadiums. And politicians, we’ll sway many elections to come. Our generation still has the power.” (Susan Monahan is a freelance writer who lives in Brentwood. She has written for the Beverly Hills Weekly and several Kansas City business publications, as she’s a transplant from the Midwest. This summer she has been learning to surf.)

Going on a date in Los Angeles can mean having to make a lot of choices. Thanks to the range of excellent restaurants, you might spend hours trying to decide what kind of ethnic food you’re in the mood for only to conclude that you’d love to just hit the trattoria down the street if only the dining atmosphere were a little more…hip and off-beat. Before you furiously scour the Zagat guide, consider this: an Italian chef at your service, ready to guide you and your date in preparing a savory Tuscan feast. Work for food? You might ask. But don’t be mistaken. Date Night at Chefmakers Cooking Academy in Pacific Palisades is an example of what founder and CEO Richard Klein calls “edutainment”‘part interactive cooking instruction, part entertainment and social interaction. And together, those ingredients make a distinct and enjoyable evening. At this particular Date Night (there are a variety to choose from depending on the type of cuisine you prefer), Chef Valerio Castellano greets guests as they enter the kitchen following a pre-dinner champagne at 6:30 p.m. He wears a pink hankerchief around his neck and sarcastically jokes about everything but cooking. Originally from Rome, Castellano says his family had a beach house on the Tuscan coast, so “I had to spend 30 summers there.” He’s one of Chefmakers’ popular instructors and also a private chef. The menu for this Friday evening event, appropriately called “My Love for Tuscany,” includes two kinds of bruschetta; an original bread salad recipe from Siena; spaghetti with a zucchini sauce; chicken cacciatore, and a Florentine version of panna cotta for dessert. Red and white wine are served throughout the evening, though many of the couples bring their own bottles to enjoy. Most of the people who have turned out for this particular Date Night are married, including newlyweds. One couple recently returned from Tuscany, where they learned to make bruschetta, so they thought they’d pursue their interest in Italian cooking. Another couple was there as part of a birthday gift, and for the sake of doing something “grown up.” And a group of friends decided that this was a great alternative to their usual night out on the town. Castellano tells the group of 24 (the maximum number of people for these events) that his goal is to have them complete the menu, or follow through with the recipes to the end. How much or little each person participates is up to the individual. “We have to make our own salads?” one woman asks as she sets down her glass of wine and joins the group gathered around the kitchen island. Others roll up their sleeves and survey the countertop, which is divided into two work stations, each with bowls of pre-prepared and measured ingredients. Hands-on participation is encouraged, but it’s not mandatory. You might have to pass a ramekin of dark chocolate shavings to someone across the table, but you won’t have to squeeze the vinegar-water out of the bread with your own two hands unless you want to. After all, some like to be in the driver’s seat and others prefer to observe and enjoy the ride, asking a few questions here and there. What kind of bread should we use for the bruschetta? How long should we marinate the cherry tomatoes? Why does the milk need to boil before we add it to the egg-yolk mixture? Castellano is as comfortable answering everybody’s questions as the participants are snacking on the fresh ingredients. While some find comfort in reading out loud the recipes conveniently printed on large notecards, others prefer to take orders’pouring, stirring and mixing under Castellano’s watchful eye. Taking additional notes on the cards might be helpful for those who plan to try out these recipes in their own kitchens. Castellano encourages them to follow the recipes, but adds that the recipes are only a guideline; preparing the ingredients correctly and following the order of putting them in is key. Tips like this, or Castellano’s advice to use chunks of garlic instead of chopped garlic to flavor olive oil, are helpful, especially to the non-cooks. When the participants realize that the spaghetti forte dei Marmi and the pollo alla cacciatora di Montalcino require time to saut’ and cook, some voluntarily see these dishes through while others return to their elegantly dressed tables to chat with friends’new and old. Two participants (one man, one woman) who have assumed control of the cooking appear completely relaxed and even a bit daring as they stir and taste the simmering sauces and continually check the pieces of chicken for doneness. Their spouses seem content watching from a distance. When the food is ready to be served, the rest of the group instantly forms a well-organized assembly line, not unlike kids at camp who know the mess-hall routine. Castellano and his sous chefs are at the end to implement the final gourmet touches, adding a basil leaf to the spaghetti or wiping sauce stains off the gleaming white plates for presentation. “Buon appetito,” says Castellano. The next Date Night is Caribbean Fever, September 16. Contact: 459-9444, www.chefmakers.com or stop in at Chefmakers, 872 Via de la Paz.

A takeover robbery occurred at Washington Mutual Bank, corner of Sunset and La Cruz, on Monday evening, shortly before closing. It was the fifth bank robbery in Pacific Palisades this year, following two at Bank of America, one at Citibank and one at First Federal. Police said that a single suspect, described as a white male in his 60s, entered the bank with a handgun at approximately 5:35 p.m. The suspect fled with an undisclosed amount of money and left what appeared to be an explosive device in the shape of a pipe bomb. The employees were evacuated, the area was sealed off for public safety, and the LAPD bomb squad responded with a remote-controlled robot used to handle and move suspicious devices. Morgan Genser, a freelance photographer, was watching from Sunset when the robot entered the bank. “I heard the police shout, ‘Fire in the hole!’ and then there was an explosion,” he said. “I was standing 150 feet away and it was still pretty loud.” LAPD Senior Lead Officer Chris Ragsdale, who was on duty and one of the first policemen to arrive at the scene, said he believed it was not a charged device. He explained that in such situations, “the bomb squad detonates [the device] with a secondary device in a protected zone. It is then taken into custody as evidence and for further examination.” According to FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller, the suspect was about 6 ft. or taller, unshaven, with gray hair and a slim build. He was wearing a straw hat, dark pants and a plaid shirt. Eimiller added that the unidentified suspect is known as the “Armed Old-Man” bandit, and is “a bandit that we believe has robbed at least six banks,” including one in Glendale on August 17. A police report confirmed that the suspect has been connected to three robberies, two in the San Fernando Valley and one in Glendale. Meanwhile, a July 15 Los Angeles Times article referred to a “Senior Citizen Bandit” believed to have been responsible for three Orange County bank robberies, and questioned “whether there’s any chance under the warm California sun that he’s James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, a crime figure legend in Boston and on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.” The suspect responsible for Monday’s robbery “victimized multiple tellers and asked for large bills,” Eimiller said, describing what is known as a takeover robbery. “He also threatened to detonate the device.” In addition to officers from the bomb squad, 16 uniformed patrol officers and a patrol supervisor responded to the scene, as well as detectives from the LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division and Criminal Conspiracy Division and special agents from the FBI. Sunset was closed off in both directions from Carey to Swarthmore. Ragsdale was at Chautauqua and Sunset when he received the call about the robbery, and responded in just under a minute. “The [bank] employees were across the street by the pharmacy [Pharmaca],” said Ragsdale, who put out a request for eight units (16 officers). “Not far from [the employees] was a pile of money dumped by the suspect, still smoldering with the red dye.” A dye pack is a tool often used by banks because it explodes over the stolen money, thus making it unusable by the robber. The Robbery Homicide Division and the FBI are handling the investigation. Washington Mutual opened and was fully functioning at 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

NIKILA SRI-KUMAR Palisadian-Post Intern More than 200 people gathered on the Village Green last Wednesday evening in a vigil to support Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a marine who lost his life in Iraq. Sheehan had been camping outside President Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch for more than two weeks in an unsuccessful effort to meet with him and discuss the Iraqi war. Supporters stood on the edge of Sunset Boulevard with candles and signs with slogans like “Vietnam 2, Relive the Tragedy,” “Question Motivation, Explore Alternative Solutions” and “Honor Casey [Sheehan’s son] by Bringing the Troops Home.” As cars driving by honked constantly’in support and dissent’the people at the vigil sang songs for peace as author Jose-Luis Orozco strummed a guitar. “Somebody has finally broken through to the mainstream media,” said Pacific Palisades resident Karen Fairbank, “and that’s why we’re all out to support her.” “I want the White House to know that the number of people who are against this war is growing fast,” said Gary Nash, emeritus professor of history at UCLA. “It’s time to end it. This was a war fought on lies and deception. The Mexican-American War was also fought on a tissue of lies, and it was called Mr. Polk’s war. This is Mr. Bush’s war.” There were hopes for another vigil of its kind soon. “I think if we repeat this, twice as many people will come,” Nash said. Meanwhile, Palisadians Maria Kelly and Carol Sanborn flew to Texas the next day to join the protest set up by Sheehan at “Camp Casey.” “We left early Thursday morning and arrived late afternoon in Crawford,” Sanborn told the Palisadian-Post. “We went straight to Camp Casey and arrived as Cindy Sheehan was leaving.”(Sheehan had to return to the San Fransisco Bay area to take care of her mother, who had suffered a stroke.) As Kelly and Sandborn drove down Prairie Chapel Road., where the president’s ranch is located, the first thing they saw were the 1,800 white crosses put up around Camp Casey. The crosses had been mowed down by someone driving a tractor, but volunteers set them all back up again. “There was a large bedsheet hanging that said ‘Camp Casey,’ and there were satellite trucks and tarps and tents pitched all around it,” Sanborn said. “There were people there from all different peace groups.” A number of cars were parked along the road, most of them personalized with pictures, paintings or signs. “One car jumped out at me because it had the birth date written on it,” Sanborn said. “The year was 1986, which is the same year my daughter was born, so I just thought ‘This could be my child.'” People at the campsite were warm and friendly, Sanborn said. “It was hardly like a protest. The atmosphere was very calm and welcoming.” At an interfaith prayer service, she and Kelly met soldiers’ parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers who had traveled from all over the country to Crawford. “I talked to one man whose 18-year-old son was killed 12 days before he was scheduled to come home,” Sanborn said. “There were many people there sharing their stories of their relatives in Iraq.” Hundreds of volunteers in Crawford were constantly directing traffic, bringing people water, or making food, Sanborn said. “A lot of people think that the protest failed because Cindy Sheehan had to go home to care for her mother [without meeting the president], but they are wrong. The volunteers there are so inspirational; they have kept it going.” Sanborn and Kelly stayed in a motel in Waco, Texas, that night, and returned to Camp Casey the next morning. Sanborn remembered going past the white building called the “Peace House” in Camp Casey, and hearing someone driving by yell “Go home!” to a volunteer. “The volunteer just said, ‘I am home. Home is where the heart is,’ and it was very moving. The entire experience was very moving.”