ROF

ROF = Retired Old Farts...

Members include:

 Retired Pacific Bell Employees from the Greater Los Angeles Area.

Relatives of Retired Telephone Employees.

Active Telephone Company Employees who aspire to be Retired Telephone Employees.

People who at some time in their lives have encountered a Retired Telephone Employee.

(the only real requirement for membership is to have a desire to attend)

(We hold the ROF on the second Thursday of every month)

The next ROF will be on May 13 at Shakey's

(May 13th is Christy's B'day, I will be passing on the festivities this month, have fun)

Shakey's is located about 100 yards north of Devonshire on Reseda Blvd in Chatsworth.

(Food is passable and beer is cheap, we are telephone people and have a reputation to uphold.)

Joke:

We took the family to one of those restaurants where the walls are plastered with movie memorabilia. I went off to see the hostess about reserving a table.

When I returned, I found my 11-year-old daughter staring at a poster of Superman standing in a phone booth. She looked puzzled.

"She doesn't know who Superman is?" I whispered to my husband.

"Worse," he replied. "She doesn't know what a phone booth is."

2/12/2004

One of the Largest turnouts for an ROF so far... I stayed too long... but had a good time.

Ed and Carmen Arroyo, Ed and Carmen Makabenta, Bill and Sandy Bohte, Paul and Joanne Lopez, Jeff Beam and Hazel ?, Joe and Darlene Mikus, Jim Milewsky and Lois Taylor, Bruce Miller, Sue Heil, Scilia Perez, John Downing, John Martin, Tony Natoli, Jimmy Elder and a friend of his (I was introduced but I am pathetic at remembering names) Margie and Mack Vyas', Carrie Cabanoc so, including me, there were 26 people there... and we had the place to ourselves (practically)...

There was another party (Retirement, I think) earlier in the day down town at Casey's Bar & Grill, you can see the pictures here HERE.  Dana Green, Betty Kane, Dick Brink, Ona (Interesting how it's just "Ona" now... she's a 'one-name-celebrity' like Cher or Madonna' ), Margie, Carrie, Scilia, Sherry Bragger, Ed, Roy Yokoyama, Beverly and Jeff

I saw this picture in the NPR site and said... what's Dave Michels doing on NPR? Silly me... the black and white one is Dr. Seuss... kinda eerie though isn't it.

2/9/2004

Loren Godfrey

November 8, 1939 - February 1, 2004

Loren Godfrey's funeral today, I told Tony I would be at his house at 1145. I got there a little early, he was cleaning his Fiat... he'd lost track of time... as usual. We made it to the Funeral with 7 minutes to spare. The cemetery is South of Hwy 126 bordered by Orange groves on three sides and up against the mountains on the other, a very pretty place. It was a gravesite service, A little Asian lady (Korean?) was the minister... The 'testimonials' after the initial service were very moving, no Phone People spoke only family and childhood friends... I spoke with Dave Smith, Joe Puhlmier, John McQueen, John Achen, Steve Harper and his wife, Ladonna Hunt and her brother in law, Andrea Spears, Nancy King & bunch of folks from the Newhall and Ventura area I should know them but I can't remember their names... I didn't know Loren except for one or two meetings many years ago so it was neat to hear his family and friends from the community talk about him, he must have been a pretty nice fella. It always surprises me to realize folks have lives outside the Phone Company, that's usually the only way I know them, to find out they were baseball coaches, played in a band, raised kids... it's not really a surprise I guess, more like a smack upside the head. Like with Rich Taylor and Rick Galceron, it just bothers me to think that I know someone and then find out I really didn't even scratch the surface...

1/16/2004

File this under, "You can run but you can't hide" It's a itty-bitty world...

Pete,

......Friday night after getting the motorhome set up we decided to go eat at Joe's Crab Shack (formally the Chart House). There was a long wait, so we parked ourselves at the bar awaiting for our table. After a while, a couple walked up to the bar and sat next to us. Joe exclaimed, "I know that woman!" The woman turned around and it was Peggy Vigil-Wood. She and Dennis now live in the Oakview/Ojai area and decided to go out for the evening. Joe and I had them join our table with the now shorter wait and we enjoyed a nice dinner together. .....

Peggy also said to tell you "HI"

Darlene

Hector De Los Santos

This information is from Leslee Legat, via Jim Henderson:

Hector De Los Santos, METS Facility Tech Support Manager, passed away on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 after being admitted to the hospital the day before in a Diabetic Coma. Hector had been ill with a severe cold for several days.

The Rosary and Viewing will be held at 7:00 pm on Friday, January 23,
2004 At
Guerra Gutierrez Mortuaries
5800 E. Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles 90022

The Funeral will be held at Noon on Saturday, January 24, 2004 At Resurrection Cemetery & Mausoleum Archdiocese of Los Angeles
966 N. Potrero Grande Dr.
Montebello, 90640

Hector is survived by three children. We will be accepting donations to help his children.
Donations can be sent to:
Leslee Legat
420 So. Grand Ave., Room 1500,
Los Angeles
Or
Alice Shepard
7337 Trade Street, Room 5000,
San Diego

He was just one of the guys in METTS, I worked about 25 feet from him for 3 years in LA03, tall Hispanic, mustache, I doubt we spoke more than 20 words, I couldn't have picked him out of a crowd if my life depended on it. He worked on transmission and fiber... Apparently he really knew his stuff in those venues, but he worked in Transmission and I worked in CO Translations our paths never crossed. According to John Kennedy he was one of the 'Good Guys" saved John's butt several times... it's sobering for me to realize that a good man can live a significant portion of his life a few scant feet from me and I was totally oblivious to him. I spent so much of my life wrapped up in making it through the day that I missed out on a lot... John wrote "..why can't god kill the dead-beats and keep the valuable people." I wrote back "If you were God, would you want a lot of deadbeats hanging around...?" I guess God is having some Fiber optics trouble and he needed a good man. Surprise retirement offer

1/12/2004 (From un-named source); . ..."intelligence" says that there will be another offer if the end result didn't garner the numbers SBC wanted. But, all that to say don't depend on it, hope for it!   SBC had the City of San Francisco take down Pacific Bell (logo) from the baseball park and put up SBC. But, our sports announcers keep referring to it as Pac Bell Park. Just one more eraser on our history. And, by the way, it was our (PB) money, none of theirs.   Sad, but as the acquisitions continue, we end up having been the cheapest hooker on the block. Quigley should have held out for more.   Ross Ireland announced that he will not spend any money (to speak of) in the CO's. The DND contracts (with NORTEL and Lucent) ran out a couple of years ago, and none have been renegotiated. There will be a new network, all the lights, bells and whistles that techies want, but the lowly wire line company will be left behind. Maybe they'll sell them to the highest bidder.   Yeah, the Maintenance Engineers are a thing of the past. There will be some sort of "working relationship" between what was METS and ESAC to do the work, whatever work there is. (From John Downing); We are looking at combining several of us newly retired folks into one party. Trust me we won’t be letting the company off the hook for that final obligation. 

1/10/2004 (From Steve Trotta) There was a retirement offer I believe the offer was 4+4+ some cash, not sure how much. It was made to all the LFO's and the NOC, although the NOC offer was a little different, they get extra money for a few years then go to their regular retirement. For management, we were not made an offer, but were told we might want to look for jobs in the non-wireline companies and broadband. They didn't get enough to go so the company started matching managers to other jobs. Some took the jobs and are very glad they did, some elected to retire. The only person that I know for sure that retired rather than take another job was Glen Kishi. (From Sharon Mitchel) I saw John Merrett the other day and he said that Geoff Eldridge and Steve Bull from LFO3 retired. He also said that the Maintenance Engineering group has been told that they have too many people and that their department needs thinning.    (From Laura Twombly Trinies) .....There was an offer made to craft only in SBC; it came up quite suddenly just a couple of weeks ago. Quite a few of the techs took it. A couple of months ago there was a big push that was mainly mgr force rearrangement, but if you didn't like the new job you were offered your only other choice was retirement. Bunches of managers left Network Ops and moved into marketing and Broadband; a few didn't like what was offered and retired.

Here are a few of the new retiree's I have been told about (Some sort of vague) If anyone has more info I will place it here.   Glenn Kishi (Sounds like there is more to this story) Helen Hans Sylvia Garcia ('Bout time) Bob (?) Masa Geoff Eldridge Steve Bull Margie Vyas (Is ecstatic) John Downing Bob Holtz (Not Holt, Ed spelled it wrong) Kandie Soderstrom, Lydia Parrish, Dolly Grundein, forgive the spelling, she worked in CXR on days in Canoga Park. A women working west valley evenings, don’t remember her name.   Bob Herrera, San Gabriel power, Sam power tech from that area also took it. Felix ? from Power in the downtown area, Guadalupe Brown from power in the airport – southern L. A. county area. Dan Cuni, Anita Rizzi, Lenore Slottke, Tom Abercrombie, Rupert Pierce

1/8/2004 Small turnout... but it was a pleasant get together, quiet too, the place was packed with the quarterly gathering of 'hearing impaired persons'

6/10/2004

The usual suspects (Pete, Jim, Lois, John) Nimrods Joe and Darlene were gallivanting somewhere in the Midwest, showed up and irregulars George (See picture), Joe Land and Jeff Beam & Helen. Bill & Sandy Bohte and Gary & Toni Ryan actually made it, Bill and Sandy have purchased a home in La Quinta. Bill took the pictures so there are none of him... Joe was taking pictures too, I will see if he has one...

Below is a list of the people on the Contact List, list. If you want to contact someone there please let me know and I will get you in touch
 

Andrea Still (Bonas)