Ben is ren: sports, business, family, music
Ben said he went to Yale even though the counselors at his high school suggested he try Scanton State. He said that because the coaches either refused or didn’t know how to submit his game films to Ivy recruiters or Penn State Paterno era that he and a teammate snuck into the football office and made their own highlight reels, using borrowed VCRs that they joined, figuring it out as they went. Ben went to Yale, excelled in football and javelin, graduated, and years later has four kids, co-owns a business and, the reason we are here today, has a wife Jesse running for School Board.
I would infer therefore that Jesse Fletcher Ladormirak as a trustee of Palo Alto Unified School District would yield a bumper crop of young people who both listen to their elders and improvise when they have to.
Good luck to Jesse, Ben, Sylvia, Marguerite, George, Jackson, Lu, and the campaign team.
Normally and for about three years now, I talk to Ben from sidewalk to stoop while Duffy teases and cajoles Yasmine thru the gate, but when I heard that Jesse was running for public office I broke protocol — even in these times — and entered the yard to wish them good luck.
Ben and I were discussing in this context the former wild man of Princeton Keith Elias, class of 1994, consideration of which prompted this random missive to a former Cornell sportswriter named Jasmine Marcus:
Princeton star Keith Elias
Hi, Jasmine. Doctor Jasmine. Nathan Ford was name-checked very specifically by the emerging genius Mindy Kaling who went to Dartmouth. I am on this topic this a.m. because I was looking for more info about famous Princeton athlete Keith Elias. But being a Palo Altan, my mind jumped to Nathan. Nathan was baseball and Football of course. His parents were rich, and they donated the lights to Paly High Field. (I actually went to rival Gunn of Palo Alto, so usually vote against the Vikes – -in fact I consider their name white supremecist. And Of course I went to Dartmouth. )
I am putting you in my Columbia pantheon, and I guess my Cornell as well. Next to: matt gonzalez, june omura, jack kerouac et al. I guess: ed marinero, william gould 3 or 4, my dear friend Ben Clements and Cindy Cuba, their friend the novelst and former spy — the Rain spy books, its early here, Palo Alto Barry Eisler — Witkowski threw for 5 tds against Dartmouth, my freshman year. I was a sports editor of The D.
Nathan played baseball at Paly with a kid named Max Pinto, who was black. Black. Is. And I met Max in the library, talking about Dartmouth. He went to Williams but I just found out that he went to Tuck as well.
Paly lost to Wilcox 2-0 in the CCS baseball finals. Max got picked off second a trick play, hidden ball. Nathan unfortunately tried too hard to pick a guy off first and that led to the run.
I don’t do social media but I will say: can we be “friends”?
Mark Weiss
in Palo alto
plastic alto blog
Not sure this helps Jesse Ladomirak for School Board but bless my little free-associating, web-surfing and football minutiae retaining Gray and Green Matter. (Which, because I was caregiver to my mother I know will likely someday hopefully not for 25 years be LACK GRAY MATTER or SLACK GRAY MATTER. excuse the pun, yo.)
and1: I also reached out to Max PInto who is now a money manager or VC in Boston. I met his dad at Carol’s 4th of July party two years ago, the swimmer.
also: good luck to my Dartmouth classmate Maya Wiley running for Mayor of New York (a la Ed Koch, Bill DiBlaiso, David Dinkins, Fiorello LaGuardia, Lindsey, Rudy Guliani, Michael Bloomfield). She would be their second black mayor and first woman. We met in Spanish class in fall 1982 — I am trying to recall the name of our professor.
Dartmouth alumna and next mayor of New York, Maya Wiley
andand: I am also high on Rebecca Eisenberg, a Stanford grad, Harvard law protogee of Elizabeth Warren and soccer mom for Palo Alto City Council.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 