Life After Capuchino by
Elaine Leblang Freed
Can’t believe it’s been 50 years since
Capuchino, but it’s been a good ride.
Always wanted to teach but instead of
going to S.F. State with my friends and living at home, I went to U.C.
Berkeley. On the very first day of Reg
week 1960, I met my husband of 46 years, David Freed, at an exchange at my
dorm, Freeborn Hall. We didn’t marry
until 1963, beginning our senior years, but have been riding the roller coaster
together ever since.
At that time at Cal, you needed an
academic major and minor so mine were French and English (thanks to Mr. Medders
and Miss Hallisy). No Education major;
needed 5 years for a credential. I was
accepted in my junior year for a special 5th year program to work in
Oakland at a “culturally deprived” (remember that language) school. I would get a beginning salary and go to
classes all year, finishing with a credential and a master’s in Education. It didn’t happen. Marriage led to a child born in March of my senior year,
finishing my B.A. with two summer sessions.
David was entering Boalt Law School; I had a 6-month old baby and needed
a job that didn’t require ALL my attention.
And so it began. By the end of David’s third year at Boalt, we lived in Married
Students’ Housing with two children:
Mark 3 yr. and Deborah 3 months.
David got a job in S.F. with a small law firm. We moved to Woodacre in Marin County, and bought a house in Corte
Madera within a year. We stayed there
for about 10 years, moving to Kent Woodlands with both children in Middle
School, Deb jumping to two years behind Mark.
We stayed for 15 years, the children both attending Redwood High School
and then U.C. Berkeley. Mark went to U.
of Michigan for an MBA; Deb got an MBA at U.S.C.
I, on the other hand, taught as a
kindergarten aide for a year, and then realized they were firing 10-year
tenured teachers in Marin. I made the
mistake of getting a job as a secretary instead of getting my credential anyway
even with no job in sight. I had
volunteered in the children’s classrooms, was in many organizations, played
tennis all the time instead of going to school. My job history then shifted from education to secretarial work,
ending as a Managing Partner’s secretary at a medium size patent law firm in
S.F. My English did come into play as
lawyers who are engineers as well are usually not so accurate with their
English.
David was Managing Partner at a medium law
firm and specialized in Taxes and Corporate Law including estates. He saw his clients were making a lot more
money than he was with investments and started the shift. By 1991 he moved the small firm he had
started to Napa and we sold our house in Marin in 1992 and moved to about 8
acres on the north edge of Napa where we live today. The only original structure on the property is the swimming pool
which miraculously has lasted to provide constant enjoyment for us and our
family. (I tell people that I learned
to swim at Capuchino in order to graduate and haven’t stopped since).
Mark lives in Menlo Park with his wife
Leslie and their two children Rachel 13 and Jordan 10-1/2 and is a senior
manager at Intel in Transfer Tax Pricing traveling all over the world. His wife teaches Special Ed at Woodside
High. Deborah lives in Mill Valley with
her husband Jonathan and their three children Hannah 11-1/2, Jack almost 10 and
Sarah 8. Jonathan works with David and
another partner in Napa at an extremely successful vineyard investment company,
owning wine grapes all over California and selling to wineries. The company started with individual
investors and now has corporate backing.
Deborah is extremely involved in Mill Valley schools and selling their
Oro Puro dessert wine to very fancy restaurants all over the country. We call her “Marketing Mom.”
I began to teach when we moved to Napa
working part time in elementary schools with non-English speakers, kids
struggling in math, and children who needed mentoring. I meanwhile put thousands of miles on
whatever car babysitting for my five grandchildren and nieces and nephews over
the last 13 years. That definitely has
been the best part of my life. David’s
sister Lynne died of pancreatic cancer in 2000 so we have “adopted” her three
children who all live in California with their families, Becca and Jeremy are
in Sacramento with two girls Taylor 8 and Madeleine 5-1/2; Tanya and Javier
live in Visalia with two boys Diego 2-1/2 and Elijah 1; and Jonathan and Arlyn
live in San Diego with Lukas who is almost 1-1/2. Our best fun is at our house with everyone for holidays and
weekends and then on a yearly July Anniversary trip to Hawaii with
everyone. David’s other sister Karen
and her husband have lived in Israel since 1977 with Arnold starting solar
energy companies, the current one based in Oakland and called Bright
Source. We see them much more now than
in the past, but also journey to Israel to visit their big family usually at
least once a year. We’re going in January
and then again for a Bar Mitzvah in June.
They have 5 children and 10 grandchildren with their two youngest not
married yet.
We have been fortunate enough to travel
extensively and have just started seeing places on cruises instead of
schlepping luggage from one place to another.
We love France, Italy and Spain particularly. And now that one of our nephews and his family lives in Australia
for a while, we might venture back there.
I am extremely grateful for my life and
the opportunities that have come our way.
The Bay Area is paradise, I think, so I want to live here forever (but
would consider La Jolla as an alternative).
My grands say that my obsession with Starbuck’s began when I was at
Capuchino High; I say, “But hazelnut lattes are my favorite.”