Farm Report

NEWS FROM INSIDE CAMPUS DRIVE AND BEYOND

Quote "Some people like to fly. . . . Some skydive or rock climb. I like to blow things up." -- University bursar Jon Erickson, '65, a licensed fireworks technician.

'Hey, Can We Write You a Haiku?' POETRY IN MOTION: Romanelli and Blankenbaker hard at play Mark Estes Like a lot of new businesses, it started as a lark. Stacey Blankenbaker and Elaine Romanelli were at an outdoor concert in San Francisco in 1996, waiting for the post-music fireworks. They began writing haiku about the people and things around them. That was nothing unusual; as housemates a few years earlier, they had become fascinated by the spartan Japanese form of poetry with the strict structure -- 17 syllables in three lines of 5-7-5. "Anytime something happened around the house, we'd write a haiku," recalls Blankenbaker, '93, MA '94. "We'd go through the day counting syllables on our fingers," says Romanelli, '93. But at the concert in Justin Herman Plaza, they took the next step, tearing a paper bag in half and making a banner that read: "Support the Arts." For 50 cents, they'd interview you and then write you a personal haiku. They made $17 that evening, thanks to a $10 tip from "a guy in a tuxedo." Okay, so it wasn't pay dirt. But they had a good time -- and even gave their "company" a name, Hanabi Haiku. (Hanabi means "fireworks" in Japanese.) These days they tend to set up shop in bars in San Francisco's Mission District, where more often than not they're paid with free drinks. "We dispense life wisdom," says Blankenbaker. Needless to say, they've kept their day jobs -- Romanelli as a classical singer, Blankenbaker as a children's advocate. They wrote this haiku for Farm Report: Stars in Stanford mag/Two poetic fuzzy grads/Aren't our mothers proud?

How a 50th Reunion Led to a New Union NEWLYWEDS: Five months after they met, the Hortons married. Courtesy Charlotte Horton Romance was the last thing on Charlotte Perrine's mind when she agreed, reluctantly, to go to her 50th reunion last October. But there she first met classmate Fred Horton -- and after a whirlwind courtship, she married him on March 13. "We should be the poster children for attending your class reunion," laughs Charlotte Horton, '48, MA '54. It was Charlotte who made the first move, asking Fred to join her and her friends for dinner at a Woodside restaurant. They struck up a correspondence, then a friendship. But Fred wanted more, reasoning, "This is stupid when you've got a nice woman here." On Christmas Eve, he proposed. She accepted immediately. Two days before Fred's 75th birthday, the Hortons were married in Carmel, Calif., in front of 30 friends and relatives, including three classmates. A widow, Charlotte had enjoyed a 41-year marriage. But Fred, retired and living in San Francisco, was a lifelong bachelor. Nevertheless, Charlotte says he has proven "very well domesticated. I didn't have to deal with any of that Playboy business." The couple has settled into Charlotte's home in the wine country town of Glenhaven, Calif. The Hortons say they knew their romance was charmed when they ran into President Gerhard Casper in the Maui airport -- on their honeymoon.

NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SHAME: CEO Breier Courtesy Beyond.com

'Just One Question, Where Do I Clip the Mike?' It was a naked attempt to draw attention to his company -- and it worked. Mark Breier showed up for a 6 a.m. interview on CNBC wearing nothing but a grin and a pair of boxer shorts. The CEO of online software vendor Beyond.com, Breier, '81, MBA '85, explained that he was just trying to "expose the power of digital downloading." Media outlets in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, London -- even Kuala Lumpur -- reported on the, uh, brief appearance in June, which was broadcast from a satellite-linked studio at Stanford (the facility closest to Beyond.com's Sunnyvale headquarters). The stunt played off the company's TV ad campaign, which shows a guy working at home in the nude -- to the chagrin of neighbors and the package delivery man. The 6-foot-4, 200-pound Breier clearly enjoyed sitting shirtless, holding a lapel microphone in his hand while being quizzed about software in front of the 407,000 viewers of CNBC's "Squawk Box." "I'm no Atlas," says Breier, who stays in shape playing basketball three days a week. "But that's all part of the fun." A Song in His Heart SOOTHING VOICE: Oyarce and patient David Tsay As a kid, Homero Oyarce dreamed of becoming a doctor. Today, he makes rounds at Stanford Medical Center -- as the nation's only official hospital troubadour. Oyarce, 44, emigrated from Peru in 1988. These days, he spends three days a week playing guitar and singing traditional Latin American songs to hospital patients. "The music is like a key that opens them up so they can talk about their fears and hopes," he says in softly accented English. "It's been quite a beautiful experience." Paid with donated funds, Oyarce has been playing for patients for two years. He was recruited for the job after appearing for a year in the Bing Music Series -- twice-weekly concerts held in the hospital atrium. Music, it seems, is good for your health. "We can't prove that your blood pressure is going to go down or you get to go home a day earlier," says series director Judith Fields, who hired Oyarce. "But we know it works."

At Least the Stamp Only Cost 15 Cents RECRUITED: Upshaw AP Wide World He was one of the nation's top high school basketball players, courted by many colleges. So it was no wonder that Marc Upshaw of Columbus, Ga., received a letter from the Stanford basketball coach hoping to lure him west. No, the wonder was that the letter took 21 years to be delivered. Signed by Dick DiBiaso, the Stanford coach from 1975 to 1981, the note to Upshaw was mailed in May 1978 -- and arrived a few months ago. Upshaw, now 38 and living in Atlanta, ended up at the University of Rhode Island, where he was an All-Atlantic 10 Conference player. He finds the missing missive "kind of funny" and says he probably would have gone to Rhode Island even if he had received it on time. DiBiaso, now a real estate agent in Santa Clara, Calif., hasn't lost confidence in the post office: "It took them 21 years, but now I know they persevere."

REEL FIND: Michael Wanger, Ott and Peter Wanger return to the KZSU studio. Peter Fox

For Deadheads, One More Reason to Be Grateful In July 1964, Peter Wanger and Wayne Ott were taking summer classes at Stanford and listening to local bands at a coffeehouse called The Top of the Tangent, located on University Avenue above what is now Rudy's Pub. Sometimes they'd record the bands and broadcast them on campus radio station KZSU. One of those groups, Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, was an energetic sixsome whose members played, among other instruments, guitar, banjo, kazoo, washtub bass and tin cup. The lead singer was a guy named Jerry Garcia, who was in Palo Alto that summer giving banjo lessons at Dana Morgan's Music Shop. He was joined at the Tangent by Bob Weir and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. "Little did we know that this group of crazy singers would become the Grateful Dead," says Wanger, '65. Which may explain why the recordings made by Wanger and Ott, '63, MA '66, PhD '72, were lost for more than three decades. In 1997, Wanger and his brother Michael, '69, stumbled on the reel-to-reel tape in their mother's attic. It was a piece of music history. Michael contacted Grateful Dead Productions, which earlier this year released an 18-track CD version of their fortunate find. The CD is the first known recording of the group that, a year later, became the Dead -- and went on to do 2,200 concerts over 30 years. It includes a brief interview with Garcia (who died in 1995) in which he explains how the group plays purely for the love of the music: "We don't expect to make a fortune at it or ever be popular or famous or worshipped." Just one more reason the band is so beloved by Deadheads worldwide.