Santa Barbara – Home for a day

Santa Barbara, California is my hometown. I had a great visit there yesterday on my to Australia. I had lunch with my brother, sister in law and with my niece and nephew. I drove by the school where I first taught and coached. I was pleased t see that they now had a new track to replace the grass track I had laid out in 1969. In the afternoon I visited one of my best fiends and a great coach, John Larralde. He is the assistant track coach at Westmont College. Talk about a beautiful place, nestled in the foothills. That brought back many fond memories of my days training for the decathlon, that is where I first trained. John made my day when he dug out some very old results from a Quadrathlon I had competed in at Westmont in 1971. I was surprised to see that I had actually beaten some one. How many 5884 point decathletes can say they beat an Olympic Champion and world record holder, I did that day. I beat Bill Toomey, 68 Olympic Champion, there is one catch, he only did three events, and nevertheless on the results I am listed ahead of him. Needless to say my hat size went up accordingly. I am writing this somewhere over the pacific, if the first day of the trip in California is indicative of the rest of the trip this will be a great trip. I am looking forward to catching up with old friends and meeting new ones and learning new ideas.