A Fun Trip Back to Grim Time to Aid Red Cross

Several former Navy men in the crowd at Saturday’s “A Night of Red Cross Revelry” swore that the scene at the B Street Cruise Terminal was exactly like what they remembered from World War II, when Uncle Sam signed their paychecks.

Camouflage cloth draped the walls, sandbags supported the bandstand, and, over at the chow line, gruff, grizzled cooks whipped up stacks of buckwheat blinis and spread them with sour cream and caviar (there was no creamed chipped beef in sight.)

The good old days (when men were men, and Rosie did the riveting) were celebrated by 350 nostalgia-crazed guests at this first-ever gala, given by the San Diego-Imperial Counties Chapter of the Red Cross to benefit the organization’s local disaster relief and emergency preparedness programs. Should the predicted Big One ever set this city’s towers to rocking and rolling, the Red Cross will be $54,000 readier to deal with the situation, thanks to this tribute to a grim era during which people managed to find time for a little fun.

Co-chairmen Lynn Schenk and Art Madrid planned the event as a re-creation of a night at a USO canteen, which meant food stations set with compartmented tin plates (used for decorative effect only; guests were allowed to use china); boogie-woogieing to half the tunes of the 1940s Hit Parade, offered up by the 20-piece Biorhythm orchestra; a review of the troops, and a welcoming address by Eleanor Roosevelt, in this case played most convincingly by actress Eleanor Jacobs.

Period Outfits

The invitations specified “1940s civilian/military attire,” and judging by all the khakis, dress uniforms, narrow fur stoles and veiled hats, it looked as if quite a few attics had been plundered. San Diego County Sheriff John Duffy and his wife, Linda, captured attention when they strolled in dressed as gangster and moll, and Georgia Borthwick (escorted by Tom Fleming), an acknowledged doyenne of San Diego’s ancien regime, turned heads with her flowing blond wig and flaring poodle skirt.

Some committee members and Red Cross staffers turned up in period outfits borrowed from national headquarters in Washington. Yvonne Dows, dressed in the official garb of a volunteer Red Cross ambulance driver, pointed to her baggy, ankle-skimming trousers and noted, “The women in those days were broad and short.”

Schenk said that her hairdresser had had to search throughout Southern California to locate just the right color snood (a funky kind of hair net fashionable in the ‘40s) to match her powder blue volunteer’s cap and uniform.

Sold Out Fast

Commenting on the party’s head count of 350, an impressive figure for a first-time event, she said, “We sold out fast for the simple reason that, when the earth starts shaking, who do you call? The Red Cross.” She added that she expects the “Night of Revelry” to become an annual event.

Despite all of its professed concern about earthquakes, the Red Cross seemed willing to start one of its own by supplying more music than any one party is entitled to. The entertainment never stopped; cocktail hour guests were welcomed by the Navy Band, which later gave way to the uniformed Sentimental Journey (crooners of the Big Band persuasion), which then turned the crowd over to the jazzy Magnificent Seven. The dinner show alternated between Biorhythm (the all-M.D. group that modestly calls itself amateur) and C’est Si Bon, a trio of Andrews Sisters impersonators who made the World War II era seem rather more of a frolic than the history books indicate.

Among the guests were Maggie and Tony Anewalt, Peggy and Bob Watkins, U.S. Rep. Jim Bates, Karen and Don Cohn, Maureen and Mike Sund, Sharon and Tim Considine, Hugh Friedman, Molly and Larry Hartwig, Anne and Sandor Shapery, Marge and Paul Palmer, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, and Jeanne and Ron Kendrick.

Last Wednesday’s “Splash of Spring” fashion luncheon washed across its participants like a bucket of cold water, rousing them from their winter torpor and awakening them to the fragrance of the new season. Or something like that.

Described by chairman Darlene Smith as “an expression of love and support for the precious patients at Children’s Hospital and Health Center,” the event benefited the hospital’s outpatient clinic and set several records for this annual foray into fashion and frivolity. The attendance of 1,100 was the highest yet for the hospital auxiliary fund-raiser, and the proceeds of $30,000 were the greatest yet raised by one of the group’s fashion shows. Auxiliary President Marianne Alhadeff said that that figure will bring the total raised by the group this year to a solid half-million dollars.

The 24,000 kids who benefited in 1986 from one of the 30 specialized care services offered by the outpatient clinic were represented by special guest Jori Jackman, an 11-year-old Coronado resident who has been undergoing treatment at the clinic for four years. Her mother, auxiliary member Sheryl Jackman, supervised the luncheon’s decorations, which, in keeping with the theme of the party, consisted of color-splashed bundles of flowers.

Grand Finale

After browsing through a lunch of Oriental chicken salad (a favorite preparation of the kitchens at the Town & Country Atlas Ballroom, where the event was staged) and peach Melba, the group was treated to a J.W. Robinson’s-produced fashion show. Highlights included an exotic swimsuit segment, and, as the grand finale, a salute to the America’s Cup during which the stage filled with a marching band and a 17-foot canoe borne on the shoulders of parading models.

The committee included Connie Gorman, Roxi Link, Nell Waltz, Cathy Cornell, Nancy Clark, Bobbi Jones, Cathy Ryan, Kris Roston, Terry Merryman, Linda Gleason, Georgie van Sickle, Mary Lou Hart, Sharon Shea and Carol Dickinson.

Bill Waite, the affable San Diegan who selflessly sacrificed five months of his life to serve as hospitality director for the winning Sail America America’s Cup challenge in Fremantle, Australia (shed crocodile tears here, please), was treated to a hero’s welcome Wednesday at a party given by best mate (that’s Aussie for good buddy) Rick Gulley at the San Diego Yacht Club.

The return of Waite, the last Sail America team member to make his way back from Down Under, was regarded less as the close of an adventure than as the opening line of a new chapter that local yachting fanatics hope will culminate with a successful defense of the America’s Cup here in 1991. This feeling certainly seemed general among the 200 or so well-wishers who turned out to toast Waite on his return from an exile that included post-race sojourns in Thailand and New Zealand. Among those cheering loudest were San Diego Yacht Club Commodore Fred Frye and his wife, Joy, and Sail American Foundation Executive Director Sandy Purdon.

Party to Party

Waite, who sported the U.S./Australia flag pin presented him by the U.S. ambassador to Australia, William Lange, reported that life in Fremantle wasn’t all beer and skittles.

“It got pretty hairy during the last days of the races,” he said. “Most of the Americans decided to come at the last minute, and when they put you in charge of housing and there is no housing, you’ve got problems.”

Waite, whose horribly demanding duties included traveling from party to party, added that on the final day of the Cup challenge--the day Dennis Conner won back the silver trophy he had lost four years earlier--a key Yank supporter came down with appendicitis while aboard the VIP boat, which required quick thinking and quick action. The situation ended happily enough, he said.

As part of the welcome ceremony, Waite was presented the very first copy of the patron’s edition of the official Stars & Stripes poster; President Reagan has one, too.

Guests were invited to pose for photos next to a cardboard representation of the America’s Cup; Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who helped skipper Conner hoist the 8 1/2-pound trophy at the public celebration that greeted Conner’s return, was not present (in person or cardboard) for the photo opportunity.

Among those attending were the guest of honor’s mother, Betty Waite; Candy Westbrook; Jennifer Wilson; Ellen Choisser; Bob Driver; Lisa Sisco with fiance David Casey Jr.; Walter Zable, Jr.; Tom and Peggy Mooney; Mary Williams with Ted Graham, and Frank Brennan.

LA JOLLA--It’s said that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, and those of Jane and John Murphy’s friends who weren’t born under the shamrock were glad enough to temporarily change nationalities to enjoy the annual party--the 28th, to be precise--with which the Murphys celebrated the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland.

In all, perhaps 300 friends and relatives crowded into the Murphy home for the annual wearing of the green, a tradition taken so literally and seriously that first-time guests wondered if they might have blundered into the Emerald City of Oz. The clothes were green, the decorations were green, host John Murphy’s pointed leprechaun slippers were green--everything, in fact, seemed to have taken on an avocado hue except the corned beef sandwiches and the stuffed potato skins, fare that underscored the Irishness of the day.

The guest list included Mary and Bruce Hazard, Betty and Cushman Dow, Linda and Frank Alessio, Sara and Tom Fin, Mac and Tim Canty, Sarah and David Burton, Helene and Ed Muzzy, Midge and Ord Preston, Nancy and Henry Hester, Barbara ZoBell, Susan Farrell, Janet and Tex Cadenhead, Legler Benbough, Esther and Ed Keeney, Barbara Woodbury with Bill Black, Anne Evans, and Karon and Gordon Luce.