by Michelle (Fearey LaGue) Mock - ASM '69

What a culture shock when we came back to California - I wasn't used to Californians, they definitely were strange people, much stranger than the Madrileños. I finished high school in Los Gatos (CA), which didn't help with my perception of Californians as strange people. Everyone had their cliques and I came in the middle of my freshman year so of course I didn't belong anywhere but back in Madrid. I missed Madrid so much. After high school
graduation in '90, Pappa had another opportunity to work with GE in Madrid again so I took the ride back with my parents to study one year at the Saint Louis University Madrid campus. Loved it so much, just couldn't stay away!

Then I returned to California and finished my undergraduate studies at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara. I'm currently pursuing my MBA at Santa Clara and I'm working within a department of the business school.

I've been back a few time to visit friends and I plan on taking another trip in the summer of '99 for a friend's wedding. Can't wait to go! I guess I feel like a Californian now, but Madrid and Spain will always have a special place in my heart.

Cecilia can be contacted at cjallen@scu.edu

From Heather Lambert '87 (Redondo Beach)

I graduated from Andover High School June 1987. I earned my B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from Arizona State University in May 1992. I moved to Orange County, California right after college and worked at an advertising agency for about a year and a half. I have been working for GMAC (General Motors Acceptance Corporation) for the last 5 years in Santa Ana, CA, and I live in Redondo Beach.

Heather can be contacted at: hml1470@aol.com

From Lisa Vasconcellos '85 (Marina del Rey)

After ASM, I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area to finish my junior and senior years of High School. I continued on to San Francisco where I went to Film School at San Francisco State University. After playing around in SF for a few years in the consumer products public relations field, I moved down to Los Angeles to pursue my film career and get back to my screen writing which I had neglected since school.

My first Hollywood job was as the assistant manager to actor Eric Roberts. After four months of that, I went to work with an independent feature film producer. Over a year and a half later, I am now in the throws of post production as associate producer of a charming family film called Shiloh Season. Those with kids might recognize the name as it is based on an award winning children's novel.

I am back to my own writing and am hoping to have a draft of my own script ready for "shopping around town" in the Spring.

My boyfriend Mel Harker and I live across the street from the beach in Marina Del Rey, California - the next beach south of Venice. Mel is a songwriter and musician who performs around LA with his two groups, the California Cowboys and the Rhinestone Homeboys. He writes for Bob-A-Lew music, and produces music for his friends and other Bob-A-Lew artists including Rita Coolidge.

Lisa can be contacted at lvasco@earthlink.net

From Heidi Lambert '84 (Redondo Beach)

I left Spain in August of 1982 due to my father being transferred back to the States (he worked for General Motors). I graduated in 1984 from Andover High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In September 1984, I moved to California to attend Brooks College in Long Beach where I earned my AA degree in Fashion Merchandising. After school, I started out in the manufacturing end of the garment industry for a dress manufacturer called Sybil/ Taste of Honey. I then worked in Sales for a women's sportswear manufacturer called Blossom Rosen. In 1996, I began working for Kelly Services (the staffing company). I am the Sales Manager for the Torrance branch. I am currently living in south Redondo Beach and I am working on a BS degree in business marketing.

Heidi can be contacted at: Helam123@aol.com

From Marc Venturella '82 (San Francisco)

After Spain, our family went to live in Antibes France for two years then back to Attleboro, Massachusetts, where I went to Bishop Feehan High school to finish my senior year. I then joined the Air Force and spent four years doing avionics, traveling around the world again. After the Air Force, I went into modeling for two years. After that I went on a job assignment to California where I decided to stay and have been living here ever since in the San Francisco Bay area.

I have been going to college part time and working at Saturn (the car company) as a service consultant. I am married to a wonderful woman who I met in church one day. I am currently studying web design in the evenings and hope to move to that field soon.

Marc can be contacted at: mventm@vdn.com

From Joe (Fearey) LaGue '74 (Idaho Falls, ID)

I was plucked from the middle of my fourth grade year in 1965. With my mother, stepfather, and younger sister Cecile, we headed on an adventure that would have a lasting effect on the rest of my life. While my two older sisters, Michelle and Cheryl, stayed back in California long enough to complete the school year, the rest of us were headed for Spain. I was nine.

While my parents prepared themselves at Berlitz, I couldn't speak a word of the native tongue when we finally set foot on Spanish soil. I remember my first two conversations well. Outside of our Madrid hotel in a park, my mother armed me with two words from her dictionary. Cecile and I approached another young boy with my ball in hand and I asked: "Quieres jugar?" And we did. The second was with our new landlord in El Escorial. His friend at his side, he bent down to my level, pointed at himself while speaking and then pointed at his friend. He said: "Yo, Señor Sanchez. Este, Aurelio. Y tu?" Pointing at me. This went on for some time. I had absolutely no clue where he was going with this. I don't recall when I finally told him my name. It would be Pepe.

Another experience came soon after. I followed a young boy home in an effort to befriend him. Evidently, he was not that interested. He soon informed me: "Mi padre es un policia!" Again, I was a little slow but I caught this one and left. Toni later became my best friend. I was speaking conversational Spanish within three months and, as it turned out, his dad was a butcher. I worked for him during subsequent summers delivering meat orders. My bike, the
one with no brakes, was quite the rage. (A Huffy with pedal brakes, sshhhh!)

Attending the Real Colegio de Alfonso XII was, well, unique preparation for a later experience: Boot Camp. Drill instructors don't hold a candle to monks!

Years later, I found myself a Spaniard in an American school - ASM. During a Saturday school event, I remember watching the man who would become famous for his role in Patton, George C. Scott, spending the day with his family. I don't know if he was enjoying the festivities, but he seemingly spent an eternity flicking and sticking his Swiss Army Knife into the turf. I think Cheryl dated one of his boys for a while.

Back in 1969, there was no locker room at ASM, as I recall. For phys-ed, we'd pile into a classroom to change. I never really understood the purpose of it, but I found great entertainment in watching the older students push an unsuspecting student out of said classroom right into the middle of the hall and locking him out there . . . clad in only his jockstrap! What a roar! I was, fortunately, never a chosen victim. Perhaps because I didn't wear a jockstrap.

We returned to the States in early 1970. I spent only four months or so at ASM and it would be months before we really abandoned Spanglish. The world changed a lot in those five years. America's changes must have been a shock to my parents. Kids are more adaptable. But I guess we all became pretty hip in a hurry.

I have since done a tour in the Corps, spent a couple of decades in the San Francisco Bay area in high technology (Mary and I met at Memorex) and later was an executive for a community management firm. In 1996, my wife, son, niece, and I pulled the plug and escaped to Idaho. There were many good reasons. The children's education and the quality of life were among the best. I began skiing at age eleven in Spain. It is a continuing passion that keeps me young thirty-two years later. Idaho is beautiful country. Yellowstone is practically our summer backyard. But the kids are already bored with the park. I could never be.

In writing this, it occurs to me how much more could be said. I suspect the same thought occurred to those that also documented their vitae for this issue. Sorry I wasn't as brief. An employee of mine beamed over the podium at my going away roast and said: "The first thing I learned from Joe was to never say in two words what you could say in twenty!" Verdad, no?

Joe can be contacted at: JLaGue@aol.com

From Michelle (Fearey LaGue) Mock '69 (Corona)

I am a third generation Californian. I was born in LA and grew up in Altadena and Pasadena. My great, great, great, great, great uncle was the Spanish explorer, Juan Bautista de Anza who blazed the trail for Fr. Junipero Serra.

A statue in his honor was erected at the corner of 14th Street and Magnolia in Riverside, right next to Riverside Community College where I studied Early Childhood Education.

In 1965, my stepfather (who worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory) was transferred to Spain. Our family, including Cheryl '72, Joe '74 and Cecile '77) became residents of San Lorenzo del Escorial outside of Madrid. I attended Marymount International School in Barcelona and graduated from the American School of Madrid in 1969.

Now that you have all finished off the last of your turkey dinner leftovers, you might like to here about the time I tried (at age 19) to make an official American turkey dinner for a few close friends in El Escorial in celebration of New Year's Eve. My parents and siblings had returned to the States and I had been on my own for about a year. I was quite secure in my independence.

First, I ordered the turkey from the local meat market ... wild turkeys are the best they told me. Now, I did not have much experience cooking, but I did know that sometimes you had to pluck a few pin feathers out of a fresh turkey.

I also knew that they came with a bag of stuff inside the body cavity that I would usually try to throw in the trash! So, with great pride I went to pick up my turkey ... I was looking forward to creating a Turkey dinner with all the fixins!

It was a large bird ... about 26 pounds I believe. That was the first problem. How do you even fit a bird that size in a Spanish oven? The second problem was, this was Spain ... specifically El Escorial ... 1970 ... bag of stuff inside the body? I don't think so. This bird was complete: head, feet, innards ... and feathers!!!

After 4 hours of plucking feathers I called the chef at el Hotel Felipe II. ¡¡¡Socorro!!! He told me if I got most of the feathers off I could hold the bird over the gas burner and burn off the little ones. I did mention that this thing weighed 26 pounds? And how am I supposed to detach the neck?

Well, after struggling for who knows how long with the feathers and neck, I got to the innards. I was planning on stuffing this turkey American style but what was all the rest of this stuff??!! Another call to el Hotel Felipe II ... and a warning from the chef to be careful not to burst something inside the turkey or it would poison the bird. At this point I would have loved to poison the bird, but it was already dead!

Somehow I made it through this nightmare and got the bird stuffed into the oven! I don't remember much else, except the gravy. My mom would throw a bit of flour into the drippings, cook them awhile and turkey gravy would appear! Easy enough ... but mine would not thicken so I kept adding a little more flour. Un cuarto de kilo más tarde ... I can't even tell you what I had created! It smelled great though!!

When I returned to California in 1972, I went to work at Jet Propulsion Laboratory where I learned computer programming (much easier than cooking). I lived for several years in Pasadena, Glendale and Claremont before transferring to XEROX and moving to Hermosa Beach. In 1978, when I went to my interview at XEROX, they showed me the Alto Personal Computers and e-mail! When they offered me a job I had to weigh the commute (approximately 70 miles from Claremont to El Segundo) with the opportunity to work in an environment on the cutting edge of technology. I could tell that the Ethernet, e-mail, the Alto computer, and everything else I saw were going to change the world. You can bet I accepted the job! That was 20 years ago!

Why XEROX gave away the technology is something I will never understand. As Steve Jobs said in the PBS production Triumph of the Nerds, "Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry today. Could have been a company ten times its size. Could have been IBM - could have been the IBM of the nineties. Could have been the Microsoft of the nineties." Still, it was a great place to work. I wonder if there are any ASMers at the Xoo! Wouldn't surprise me at all!

Eventually my husband, Jerry, and I purchased a home in Corona. I did the drive for awhile but two hours of stop and go traffic each way was more than I could take. I reluctantly found another job closer to home. I quit programming to become a stay-at-home mom when our second child was born in 1985.

When the kids started preschool, I started volunteering in their classrooms teaching Spanish. Today, I teach computer at the Montessori School of Corona and Spanish at St. Catherine of Alexandria in Riverside. I enjoyed computer programming but I LOVE teaching. I teach Pre-K through 8th grade and working with the varied age groups is never boring!

The wonderful teachers I had throughout the years were significant role models in my life. I hope I can be the same kind of inspiration to my many young students. I thank my many teachers at St. Elizabeth's in Pasadena, Madres Concepcionistas in El Escorial, Marymount in Barcelona and the American School of Madrid.

Like my brother, I never paid much attention to the phrase "let thy words be counted". Do you suppose there is a gene for verbosity? Yeah, it is definitely genetic. Just wait until you hear from Cheryl and Cecile!

This newsletter is distributed by Michelle (Fearey LaGue) Mock (ASM '69). If you wish to receive a copy of future newsletters via e-mail, please send a message to MFeareyASM@aol.com. Also, please check out the Official ASM web site at <   http://www.amerschmad.org  > and the "Unofficial" ASM web site at < http://www.gutech.com/asm/ >. Please register and fill out the questionnaires at both sites (even if you were only at ASM a short time and did not graduate in Madrid).