Diane Baldini, Class of ’73; Debbie Montes, Class of ’75.

Q: Did you enjoy attending San Dieguito?

Baldini: Absolutely. Walking distance to the beach. That’s where I was a lot.

Q: How has the school changed?

Baldini: It’s bigger. I miss our old gym because we had the nice archway. I miss the pine tree that used to give us pine nuts during lunchtime. I miss the lunch ladies, that always made our food. This library was our typing classroom and Mr. Alexander was our typing teacher. All the boys liked him because he rode a bike. He wasn’t really into letting girls be his TAs, but I was ’cause I knew how to fix typewriters. We had trampolines in the gym.

Montes: In ASB we had donkey basketball. We played against the teachers. It was down here in the gym. You ride the donkey and you play with the basketball. And then, you know, you play it like a regular [game of] basketball. Everyone had their own donkeys, you were riding on donkeys.

Baldini: You would never see that here [now]. That’s cool! I would’ve done it!

Montes: [One of my teachers], he used to take roll call. It was a big classroom but after he would take role, everybody would jump out of the window. By the time he looked up there were only a few kids, and they were all headed towards the beach.

Baldini: The beach was very important to all of us.

Montes: [on school dances] We had the Harlem Globetrotters, the basketball team-they came and did a thing for us. They were funny. And there was a really big band. He had the big ‘fro, I can’t think of what that band was called!

Baldini: [on drivers ed] There was a girl in my class, whose father was Herman Cook. That was the year we got VW Bugs to drive. They weren’t automatic; they were stick shifts. I remember Mr. West was a math teacher, but he was my Driver’s Ed teacher. But, we were going up a street on North Vulcan where you pull onto La Costa Avenue, and that’s a bit of an incline. I had a boyfriend that had a 63 VW Bug and I used to drive that, so when I took Driver’s Ed I knew how to use the clutch. Mr. West said to me ‘Wow, you didn’t roll back or anything!’ and I didn’t know what he was talking about. But the minute he said that, the next minute we made a stop on a hill, guess what happened? I rolled back.

Q: What kinds of San Dieguito traditions were there when you were here?

Montes: The class that was graduating. They would paint their number on the roof

Baldini: Yeah, that’s coach Fields. If you talk to [him], he’s from the class of ‘73. He’s one of the ones that painted our number on the roof. Everybody thinks he’s innocent but he’s not.