One more saturday night

Last night Leslie and I were honored to be the guests of Retha Evans and Doug Diener at the fiftieth anniversary gala for KPBS, the San Diego Public Media outlet.  The theme was a celebration of the sixtes, the decade when KPBS was founded.

This was a grand and tony affair, black tie, and attended by the cream of the San Diego philanthropic community. Our hosts treated us and the rest of our table mates to the pricey tickets. I had to visit the tailor early in the week to have my old suit jacket let out the maximum one and a half inches.

National Public Radio correspondent Scott Horsley was a featured guest and speaker. He is an affable man who travels with the president and cut his teeth at KPBS, working there for 14 years. We were treatd to an awards presentation lauding local philanthropists for their generous contributions to public radio and television. KPBS is the only charity that I contribute to every year in my own modest way and I was very happy to attend. The President of NPR Paula Kerger had flown in from Alexandria.

As luck would have it and in a moment of cosmic caprice, the event was held at the Torrey Pines Lodge, whose restaurant A.R. Valentien was recently critiqued in these pages. I would have to return to the scene of the crime. All week my dinner companions were asking me if I was going in disguise, under an assumed name, or bringing a food taster? While thoughts of intentional poisoning did enter my mind once or twice, what almost kept me from going was the nasty cold that I have been fighting all week. I managed to suck it up and face the music like a man.

When we got to the Lodge, a gorgeous girl in go go boots and a beehive hairdo handed us each a long stemmed sunflower. We were escorted along a path a daisy decals back to a meeting room where we surrendered our flower, which was then placed in a peace sign centerpiece.

People were having pre dinner cocktails when I caught the glance of the Lodge's owner. Let's just say that he was less than ecstatic to see me. When I tried to explain my legitimate beefs about the past meal, he said that I was not only mean spirited but also ungrateful, forgetting that we had once been fully comped at the palatial digs. I really do like the man and asked him if he would prefer that I leave but he took the high road and agreed to ignore me for the rest of the night.

Dinner was good, starting with a roasted tomato soup, a great salad, a bacon wrapped filet and a carrot twinkie dessert. Whoever planned the evening did an amazing job, from the clothing on the attendants to the faux tv screens to the slide shows, it was meticulously decorated to the nth degree. Each table had peace symbols for the guests to take home made out of the fences at Woodstock. I sat next to the lovely Natalie, a KPBS employee for the last 16 years. My pals the Fish's, Swan's and Patchett's made up the rest of the table.

It was a who's who of San Diego philanthropy: Irwin Jacobs, the Price family, Darlene Shiley, Rivkin's, a representative of the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation. The late Joan Kroc was feted as were the Copley's and Viterbis.  Glori Penner was there as was Audrey Geisel. What I took away most from all of these people was just how humble, self effacing and genuine they seemed to be. They had all reached an incredible level of wealth and you would never know it from looking at any of them. They could be the people you see in the market every day. Devoid of ostentation. And they felt compelled to share their wealth in a most progressive way, giving millions to KPBS to make it a state of the art facility and funding a host of other civic treasures.

Darlene Shiley was witty and funny and a great speaker. One of my table mates had lost her father this week and his last days were spent in San Diego Hospice, a facility generously funded by both the Shiley's and Mrs. Kroc. His funeral was that very morning. Connie shared with Darlene how much the hospice meant to her as it does to us, being the final destination for my wife's father as well. Where would we be without these generous donors?

After dinner there was a silent auction and a live auction. We were then led into a dance room and full bar where a really good Supremes style band serenaded us. We all danced and had a marvelous time.

I want to thank my hosts Doug and Retha, and Bill Evans and the Torrey Pines Lodge for hosting such a great event and KPBS for serving our community so well for the last 50 years.