Stanford Magazine, March 2021 Issue

The caller identified herself by her maiden name, Marilyn Tower, and the bells rang ever so softly.  Yes… Stanford, 1953-1954; freshmen women’s dorm, Roble Hall; in the room across from mine.  I don’t remember ever having a prolonged conversation with her that year or ever running across her during the next three, though she was an English major and I a journalism major.  You’d think we’d have had some classes together.  And… maybe we did.  In all the years since, I’ve seen her only once — at our 50th class reunion in 2007 — the only one I ever went to.

At Roble, I had been assigned a single room, much to my disappointment.  As a single child, I had looked forward to having roommates… Marilyn, also without siblings, had been assigned the middle room of a three-room suite across the hall.  I remember being envious.  As it turned out, one of her roommates, Sandy Peters, became my best friend and, eventually we married brothers making our children cousins.  Sandy and I went together (with our present-day spouses) to our 50th — a first for her as well.

I have a vague recollection that Marilyn and I talked at an author’s gathering at the reunion where I had been asked to sign copies of my hot-of-the-press Dear Medora. Marilyn, apparently, also remembered and was contacting me for a short interview for the Stanford Alumni Magazine.  “Very short,” she said.  “No more than a hundred words.”  She is responsible for our class’s section of “Notes” — a periodic update of who’s doing what.  She’s working on something about women writers for the June issue and wanted to know something about my books.  I was impressed that she already knew a lot — had done her homework.  And I was pleased to tell her that the sequel to my ghost book, Haunted Histories of the Long Beach Peninsula, will be coming out on June 21st.  “Maybe about the same time as the magazine,” she said.

Marilyn Tower Oliver, from her FB Page

But mostly we “caught up” with one another.  I learned that she, too, had been a teacher and that she has written for a number of years for The Los Angeles Times — not as a staff member but more as a correspondent, I think — much as I write for our Chinook Observer.  I learned that she lives in the Silver Lake area of L.A. as does my son, Charlie.  And I was able to catch her up on Sandy’s death (a year or so ago) and ask her about another mutual acquaintance from our Stanford days.

I was amazed at how much we had in common after all these years.  So many similar experiences, places, interests.  She talked about visiting me in Oysterville, once we can safely travel again.  I hope that happens.