Frank Kewl. Kids are so great. My other favorite job was having my boys and keeping an open front door for all of their friends. We have a great back yard and my parents ranch was a couple of miles up the road, so I just loved being creative with the kids.

So that’s it!! It is just a NATURAL that you should have been a teacher. It suits you. From today’s entry and others you have contributed, I envy your students. I can easily imagine that from time to time you encounter one of them, and when you do, they regale you with the “I remember whens”. I too served as a teacher, and for me, it WAS fun, and a job at the same time!! Work, certainly, but fulfilling for the most part. Teaching has changed a great deal since I began in the 70s. Unfortunately children cannot be children anymore, and their parents do not seem to know how to parent. Today I own and operate my own tutoring company, still believing in the ability of children to rise to challenges when they are presented in a loving and patient way. Very few students leave my classes unsuccessful—most, infact rise at least one grade level in about four to six months! I am always very proud of them and rejoice with them. Faith in them and their willingness to work hard makes it rather easy to come to the office each day. I still find education very satisfying.

I forgot to mention that I was working the day after the SLA bombed one of the guest houses at The Castle. There were FBI agents and their dogs all over The Hill. The entire guide staff was very shaken because the bomb, which had gone off just one minute after the tour left the house, was obviously timed to cause injury. The damage was extensive, ruining many priceless pieces, but fortunately no one was hurt and the structure was untouched. We all said, afterward, that Julia Morgan would have had mixed feelings about the bombing…she would have denounced the bombers but would have been proud of her building.

Julia Morgan rocks rocks rocks! When they asked her why she was still on the board of Chapel of the Chimes years after she’d built it, she answered, simply, “So they won’t #$% it up!” Woman after my own heart. Two of my friends live in a house she built for her aunt. My dream for winning the lottery — a real Julia Morgan house!

Maurine—I did some continuing education architectural design study at Cal while very involved in SF in early 90s with projects at the AIA etc. And we too did the ‘Julia Morgan’ tour. One of my friends who went to Cal on a football scholarship…lives in the same hidden charming cottage he did then…incredible garden that should be in a magazine…his housekeeper cares for the home…he’s always in the garden…and is in between a Julia Morgan house and Alice Water’ Garden…Berkeley Hills is beautiful up by the Rose Garden…..and the Cheese Board pizzas…Umm in the Gourmet Ghetto….Epicurious, the flower stalls, Chez Panise….fun area.

Frank - Here are a couple of websites about the great Ms. Morgan http://www.juliamorgan.org/story.shtml http://www.juliamorgan.org/story.shtml and her biography “Julia Morgan, Architect” by Sara Holmes Boutelle (whom I was fortunate to know) is one of the best.