So, what has happened since 2014?  I retired in 2009 and we moved to Scottsdale in 2011 and have been living a pretty ordinary life since then: going to Costco, playing a lot of golf, etc—probably a lot like the rest of the class.  No major earthshaking events and everything has been pretty smooth.  I am not reshaping the world or doing anything of significance like some of our classmates.

In 2015 I qualified to play in the USGA Senior Amateur golf tournament in New Jersey but played really poorly.  That was the acme of my golf career although I have played in a couple of national tournaments since then without doing much better.  Nearing age 78, my golf game is deteriorating---perhaps others are having similar issues?  Later that year, we spent a month in Scandinavia looking for signs of Valorie's ancestors.  It was three weeks of going through Norwegian church graveyards looking at headstones for anyone named Herbranson, but no luck.  But we got to visit St. Petersburg that summer---we never even thought about visiting Russia before that!  What a mess!  No wonder the Russians revolted in 1917.

In early 2018 my mother died at age 96 which sadly led to an estrangement with my brother.

In 2019 Valorie and I spent six weeks in Scotland and Ireland, looking for my Craig and Gorman ancestors.  Again, we were completely unsuccessful.  But we played 36 beautiful golf courses and had a lovely time!

In 2020 Covid hit hard, and having to stay in Scottsdale all summer wasn't as thrilling as it may sound, so we decided not to repeat that.  We started looking for cooler summer weather near our daughter and three grandchildren who live in Charlotte, NC.

In early 2021 we bought a condo in Sugar Mountain, NC sight unseen (don't ever do that!).  It was a fun, round condo that is surrounded by trees, which gave us a summer view of (you guessed it) tree leaves.  Sugar Mountain is a small ski area with one of the most beautiful short municipal golf courses I have ever seen!  It's in Appalachia, near Boone and Appalachian State U, so we thought we should buy an older car to try to fit in.  A 2003 Kia Sorento seemed just right, and we bought it sight unseen over the internet (did I mention don't ever do that?).  That Kia was so rusted out that the previous owner had completely removed the parking brake assembly so the car would drive.  Once we got to Sugar Mountain, we were confronted with Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Mercedes as well as rusty pickup trucks because the Sugar Mountain/Banner Elk area is home to nine of the most exclusive summer country clubs in the South.  Who knew?  After enduring a half summer of loud weekend parties in the other condos, we bought a house nearby and sold the condo.  That house is now our summer residence and Charlotte has become our second home base as we sold two Hawaii houses and re-invested the money in Charlotte houses and condos.  In September 2021, Valorie got to cross off her #1 bucket list when we spent two weeks in Kenya and Tanzania.  I was skeptical about going but it was life changing.  We visited a Masai village and met the chief who insisted on renewing out wedding vows since we were in our 50th anniversary year!  It wasn't Catholic but who cares!

We make two or three trips to Kauai each year and mostly work on our house in Poipu.  I stopped surfing because I gained too much weight during Covid and can hardly do a push up on dry land, let alone push up and stand up on a moving surfboard.  This summer our daughter and her family will join us in Kauai.  Afterward, we fly to Scotland for three weeks of golf and sightseeing, then down to Venice for a few nights and a cruise to the Croatia coast.

My health has been good for the past ten years; Valorie not so much.  We both caught Covid several times but had very mild cases.  Valorie has a chronic bronchial condition that we are working hard to eliminate.  She has had pneumonia, valley fever and numerous bouts of bronchitis.  When we were in Sugar Mountain last winter, she decided to go skiing again and completely tore her ACL and MCL.  Luckily our son-in-law is an orthopedic surgeon and one of his partners put her back together again, but the recovery was a full nine months.

Let me take a minute to brag about our son and his family.  Bryan and Sarah have been married for almost 19 years and have two boys, Cale and Dane.  Bryan sold his investment advisory business and became a Maricopa County Sheriff Deputy.  In May 2016 he was shot during a drunk driving arrest.  Luckily, the two bullets were in his leg and buttocks (think Forrest Gump!) and he has mostly healed.  While he was recovering, he decided to learn to play guitar.  Our grandson Cale has ADHD badly and has always had difficulty going to sleep.  Bryan found that Cale fell asleep faster when he was practicing plunking his guitar.  It was the randomness of the plunking that calmed Cale down.  Bryan then did some research and ended up publishing a guitar CD entitled "ADHD LULLABY".  He finished the first year #8 on the Billboard charts in his small category and is currently about to get a gold record for it!  Since I have a tin ear this is astounding.  He took medical retirement from the sheriff's office and is now back in the investment advisory business at Almega Wealth Management.

Our daughter, Natalie, has been married for almost 16 years and lives in Chalotte with her husband, two sons and one daughter.  The kids run her ragged with year-round soccer and baseball.  Little Lauren runs the house and will become president someday.

I will miss seeing everyone and invite anyone to come visit us when in Scottsdale, Poipu or North Carolina.  We have extra rooms.

Buzz Wisda

James Buzz Wisda


Did you ever feel like a pair of old brown shoes amid the tuxedos? Some of you have done some amazing things! I am looking forward to seeing all of you again and am very sad that we will not be joined by our classmates who have departed. In particular, wouldn't it be great to say hi once more to Anthony Albanese, Patty Healy, Mike Horton, Toni Lenwell, Paul Molloy, and Patty White?


There were many good memories at St. Monica's for me. There were great days surfing at Topanga with Nicky Saenz, Terry Flanagan, and the rest of the Topanga bombers. Terry and I thought about making surfboards at one point, briefly. He and I had some great days and I always admired his sense of humor--it was hard to tell if he was serious or not but he usually cracked a smile sooner or later. He made up "Mr. Samana" to blame everything on. One day when the surf was flat, three of us got blown offshore miles out into Santa Monica Bay in a rowboat and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. I think it was Julian and Nicky, but I am not sure anymore. I just remember one of us getting naked to be able to wave his trunks for help at passing boats. I was very small and got cut on the first day of freshman football and had to find something else to do while all the friends I had played football with during Little Conference Football and CYO football had their games. That is why I started surfing in the first place. I grew a little and came back to football my junior year and got to travel with the varsity for the playoffs, but I sat on the bench during the games a lot. The mornings before school socializing with everyone are a special memory. It was amazing, we all came to school early just to talk with each other. There were some funny stories about the parties thrown at my house and Terry's house, but my memory is hazy as to who did what, and to whom. I just remember laughing about all of it afterward, and I hope everyone else does also. I remember a lot of pranks that might have landed us in jail today. Heck, one of them did land me in jail back then! I remember the guys you could always count on to be loyal and positive, particulary Bill Diebold and Ray Sabersky, no matter what was happening. And who could forget Brother Aloysius and the dowel that he paddled us with............so many memories.

After high school graduation, and a summer surf trip to Oahu, I entered Harvey Mudd College. It was too tough for me and my idea of what college should be like. I played football freshman year, dated a lot and lasted just 2-1/2 years with summer jobs at Rand Corp trying to figure out how far the USSR missiles could reach, unsuccessfully. One day after exiting Harvey Mudd, USC accepted me into their business school which led to a BS and MBA. The best part of USC, besides the football games and the frat parties, was meeting Valorie Jean Paschall on October 31, 1968. What a dream she is! We got engaged about a year and a half later on Kauai and married in June, 1971 in Long Beach. I cried at my own wedding, what's up with that? She was homecoming queen at Long Beach Poly and her friends still tease her as "Queenie". She has been my friend, partner, confessor, stabilizer, constant companion and the love of my life ever since. We have a son, Bryan, who graduated from the University of Arizona and now owns his investment advisory business in Carefree, AZ. In his spare time he is a reserve sheriff. He and his wife Sarah have two gorgeous boys, Cale (7) and Dane (4). We also have a daughter, Natalie, who graduated from USC and Boston University in Occupational Therapy and then married a young resident who is now an orthopedic surgeon in Charlotte, NC. They also have two gorgeous boys, Brady (3) and Jace (1).Ê

After USC, I worked for a couple of years as a financial planner for a crook firm, then sold houses in West LA for Jon Douglas Realty when he was just starting out (there were six of us in the firm). Out of the blue, I got a call from the brother of a Harvey Mudd classmate who convinced me to take a real paying job at Pardee Construction Company, which became Pardee Homes. I didn't have a clue about building anything but went anyway, figuring it would be short term. The Pardee brothers turned out to be three of the most ethical to walk the face of the earth and they taught me plenty. Thirty seven years later I retired in 2009 after having helped house over 60,000 families. For a second job, and none of you (particularly Havel) will believe this, I taught the Dale Carnegie Course at night for fifteen years. After taking the course to improve myself, I realized that it would be good if I stayed involved. Besides helping me, I saw that course change peoples' lives in ways I couldn't have imagined.

We lived in Santa Monica near Main Street until 1976, then built the first house in the Venice Canals in twenty years. Immediately after, the Venice Canals got very pricey so we sold that house and built our dream house in Palos Verdes for the school system for our kids, even though it meant an hour commute each way for me for the next 26 years. We built a house in Mammoth in 1978 and kept it until we couldn't ski anymore. We kept going back to Kauai almost every year and built our first house there in 1998 and our second and third houses there in 2006. We rent them out as vacation rentals now (hint, hint) and they provide a big chunk of our retirement income. We moved to Scottsdale in 2011 to be near our son and grandsons--Valorie was getting upset that the other grandparents were getting more face time with the grandsons than she was. I like being near them too. Moving to Arizona gave us a huge pay raise--no mortgage, lower taxes, lower cost for almost everything--if you are Republican you should consider moving from California to Arizona. Just saying.

I still surf about 40 days a year on Kauai where the water is warm and clean and the crowds are smaller and the waves are stronger. But my passion since college has been golf. I broke my leg in college in a motorcycle accident and took up golf to learn to walk again. When I was given an opportunity to join a golf club in LA, I jumped at the chance thereafter spending way too much time and money playing golf while I was working and raising a family. Now I play at least four times a week in Scottsdale. Some people never learn, but at least now Valorie is also playing and we have plenty of golf dates. In the middle of all this, I earned a second degree black belt in American Kenpo.

I am lucky my mother is still alive and kicking at 92. She plays bridge almost every day. Sharp as a tack. My brother John lives in Santa Paula with his second wife, who you might have known as Patricia O'Herlihy in high school.

Valorie and I just returned from Europe where I visited the town in the Czech Republic where my great, great grandfather John Joseph Hvezda was born in 1844 before his family emigrated to Ohio in 1850. Legal immigrants....I think. The red photo of us was taken in Vienna, Austria a few days ago.

See you Saturday. I plan to study hard so I can recognize everyone, but I hope we have name tags.