OFF PAGE: Old Bears with Dave Newhouse May 27, 2008

Dave Newhouse wondered what happened to the kids in his 1956 graduating class at Menlo-Atherton High School on the Peninsula. With the classs fiftieth reunion approaching in 2006, he hit the road to find out. It turns out these Happy Days kids experienced considerable unhappiness, and tragedy, in their adult years including three classmates whom he interviewed that died before the book was published. Going to school in the 1950s, they experienced historic change: the civil rights movement, space program, rock n roll, the Salk polio vaccine, and the popularity of television, fast food and Elvis.

Newhouses book looks into the difficulty of growing olderalcoholism, divorce, blindness, Alzheimers, a son in Iraqand offers valuable lessons for a younger generation.

Dave Newhouse is a long-time columnist for the Oakland Tribune. Old Bears is his seventh book.

Event submitted by Eventful.com on behalf of JCCEB.