Tracking the lineage of Clayton’s Post Office

housed in a variety of locations throughout town, depending on who was postmaster.

You could be mailing and receiving letters at a hotel, restaurant, grocery store or someone’s home, and a postmaster or postmistress could have been your neighbor, a local business owner or a member of your family.

Horse-drawn wagons collected and delivered mail in the early days. The arrival of the

Fame, from page B2

runner-up for East Bay player of the year for the league champions. He attended Arizona State University on a baseball scholarship and was a 1991 firstround draft pick of the Florida Marlins in the expansion draft.

Vaughn and teammate Damon Mashore were tracked throughout their senior season by major league scouts, putting CVHS on the national recruiting map. He’s considered one of the top 10 East Bay high school pitchers of the past several decades.

Jason Nolting (1995 water polo, swimming and basketball) amassed 10 varsity letters shining in the pool and the basketball court. He was a two-time all-league water polo player and league MVP as a senior. He set several school water polo records including for most ejections drawn, assists and steals. He captained the league championship Eagles as a senior and earned all-NorCal honors for his performance. He started three years for CVHS basketball and was all-league as a junior. He concluded his high school career as a NCS finalist in swimming on the team that he earned four varsity letters. In the classroom Nolting had a 5.0 GPA and went to the Air Force Academy named first team allconference water polo as well as team captain and MVP and Academic All-America.

Dana Lawson (1997 track and field, basketball and volleyball) concluded a distinguished track and field career winning BVAL and NCS discus and shot put titles as a senior and taking 12th at CIF State in the discus for the Eagles. She was a team captain and qualified for State as a junior and senior. She won league and NCS in both weight events for two years. She also earned a varsity letter in basketball and volleyball. She maintained a 4.0 GPA for her first three years and 4.8 as a senior which helped her earn six NCS Distinguished Scholastic team awards. At Cal Berkeley Lawson competed in the Pac-10 Championships every year and the NCAA and USATF national championships as a senior all-American. She was a two-time team captain for the Bears and finished in the school’s Top 10 list for shot put, discus and hammer throw. She went on to compete in four more USATF National Championships through 2005 and the 2004 Olympic Trails in the shot put.

Jennifer Codington Curry (1999 soccer and cross country) was a four-time all-league soccer player and also two-time Contra Costa Times player of the year while leading the MBAL in scoring twice for the Eagles, who finished second in league her four seasons. As a sophomore her club team won the U19 State Cup. In cross country she was part of the nation’s fifth ranked and California’s No. 2 team for CVHS. She placed ninth as a freshman at the State cross country championships. Codington received a scholarship to UC Santa Barbara. She played three years of soccer for the Gauchos, starting

Stockton/Oakland stagecoach, roaring down Main Street to make a stop at the Clayton Hotel in the 1860s, caused great excitement in this little town.

Local brothers Jack and George Atchison operated their own stage line 1898-1914, carrying mail, money and passengers to Concord, Pacheco, Martinez, Antioch, Nortonville and Somersville. However, any Claytonite headed out of town could be politely asked to make a delivery or pickup.

George O. Chapman, who opened the second hotel in town, is listed first on the U.S. Postal Service roster of historical postmasters, along with a note that says: “He may not have served.” Therefore, Samuel M. Barrow is the official first postmaster of Clayton. Like Chapman, he was a hotel proprietor. But his establishment burned in the disastrous fire of 1864, and he left to find employment in San Francisco.

46 of her 56 games. She had a knack for scoring key goals and assists. She was all-Big West second team in 2001 while scoring 11 goals.

Laura Davis (2002 swimming) is one of the school’s swimming legends who competed in the first of her three US Olympic Trials after her sophomore year at CVHS. She was the team’s MVP, BVAL champion and all-America all four years. Davis ranked in the top three nationally in the 200 IM, 100 butterfly and 100 breaststroke. She ranked No. 1 in the nation in the 200 and 400 IM, 100 and 200 fly and 100 breast. She was Pacific Swimming outstanding swimmer throughout high school competing for the Terrapins Swim Club and placed in the top eight at Nationals and Olympic Trails. She still holds several school records. Davis had a 4.0 GPA. She went to Stanford University on a full ride scholarship and was a four-time Pac-10 Scholar Athlete and two-time team captain. She won an NCAA 200 IM title and was a Division I allAmerica.

Sean Reilly (2008 swimming) was a four-year league champion for Eagles swimming and was the BVAL MVP swimmer his junior and senior years. He was top five in three events at NCS as a junior but exceeded that as a senior when he won NCS gold medals in the 50 and 100 freestyle, and 200 and 400 relays for CVHS. Those results earned him the Contra Costa Times East Bay Swimmer of the Year award as well as allAmerica recognition. He was team and BVAL MVP for two years. Reilly earned a 4.0 GPA in the classroom. He got a swimming scholarship to the University of Hawaii where he was a conference champion and competed in the US Olympic Trials. After college he became a champion competitor in triathlon competitions.

1976 and 1977 Girls Gymnastic Teams coached by Patricia Potter Patrick and assistant Terry Turner Nelson made history in 1976 competing in the inaugural NCS girls gymnastics championships. Terri Markey was all-around champion in the intermediate optionals division. Charli Patterson won all-around in the beginner division just ahead of teammate Andrea Eissner. A year later the team went undefeated in DVAL with Laura Landgraf and Patterson winning all-around league and NCS championships. Team championships were not then awarded at post-season events but Eagles gymnasts won 16 league and 15 NCS individual titles those two years.

1985 Football Team coached by George Smylie won the DVAL and NCS Area III championships that fall. They were NCS runner-up in 3A, losing 15-12 to Pittsburg in the finals at the Oakland Coliseum, and finishing with a school record at the time of 11 victories in 13 games.

1988 Baseball Team coached by Bob Johnson were undefeated 14-0 league champions with all-league players Mashore, Vaughn, Pat Tozier, Kevin Clausen and Bryson Webb leading the way. The team set school records for wins and homeruns with Mashore eventually playing major league baseball and Vaughn, Justin Mashore and Lance Daniels all also playing professional ball.

A stable keeper named William Morris took the helm for 10 months after Barrow’s departure. He was followed by Romeo Mauvais, yet another hotel proprietor who built the Clayton Hotel after the fire. The year 1867 marked when Charles Rhine, owner of the general store on Main Street, began his role as postmaster – serving two separate terms that totaled more than 22 years.

Main and Oak streets from which she handled the mail and sold candy.

1996 Girls Track Team was the eighth straight CVHS girls track team to go undefeated in league competition at 6-0. Kelly Howisey and Pia McAllister were team MVPs and led the way along with Lawson, Heather Wallace and team captain Alisa Macksey. The Eagles of coach John Miller set five team records despite a recordsetting wet spring making most area tracks hard to compete on. In the classroom the girls had the third best cumulative GPA in NCS. Four team members went on to compete in college.

Coach Dee Billeter is the longest serving boys or girls athletic director at the school, holding that position for 27 years from 1976 to 2003. Her lifelong fight for women’s equality made a lasting impact on girl’s athletics not only at Clayton Valley, but throughout the North Coast Section. Here dedication to Clayton Valley is unparalleled, as evidenced by her years as a decorated teacher, coach, athletic director, school parent and grandparent, and co-founder of the Clayton Valley Athletic Hall of Fame with Bill Nelson.

When she started at Clayton Valley in 1966, girls’ athletic programs in the district were limited to occasional Girls Athletic Association “play days” with schools in the area.Along with 2008 Hall of Fame inductee Karen Johnson and other likeminded women coaches, Billeter started the journey on the path to more equity. Even with the implementation of Title IX in 1972, advances did not come easily. However, the success and scope of CV’s girls’ athletic program over the years is a testament to the dedication of those early pioneers.

Community Organization

Clayton Business and Community Association has supported Clayton Valley High School academic and athletic programs for many years and is recognized with induction in the Class of 2023 Hall of Fame for their support.

For tickets to the Hall of Fame dinner contact Herc Pardi at herc_pardi@hotmail.com or Dee Billeter at deebilleter@yahoo.com or call 925-672-6379.

Clayton’s first postmistress, Lucinda Wallace, served four years in between Rhine’s terms. Recently widowed, she was attempting to raise five daughters on a meager wage as a seamstress. She was a beneficiary of the Postal Service’s change of heart toward hiring women after the Civil War. At that time, it was recognized that many women were in need of employment to make up for the loss of the men on whose wages they had depended.

A similar situation occurred with another widow, Louise Pusey, postmistress 1893-1911. She lived in a rented house at

Thomas O. Graves served for 11 years as postmaster, in addition to his occupation as a schoolteacher. After his term ended in 1926, women filled the Clayton post for the next 55 years. In the 1940s, “Dolly” Murchio Foubert ran the post office in a small dining room located at the back of the bar in the former Clayton Hotel – at that time known as Tat’s Place and owned by her brother. The building we know as Skipolini’s Pizza was a home built for her in the 1950s. It became the new post office, adorned with a little evergreen tree in the front yard.

Dolly trained “Dodie”

Bloching to take over in 1953, and once again the post office moved. Dodie and her husband owned the Village Market, and the back room became the center of postal activity – with Dodie’s mother acting as “relief clerk.” Dodie hand-canceled all outgoing mail, which was placed in a large locked chest behind the store. The mailman had a key to open the chest and would replace the outgoing mail with incoming for the postmistress to distribute.

Many people still remember the post office located on the west side of the old Clayton Cash Store (now the location of Cup O’ Jo and Chick Boss), just before the construction of a building that was actually meant to be a post office: a wait of more than 130 years. As the plaque in front reads, the Clayton Post Office is one of the oldest, continuously running post offices in California. That distinction was earned thanks to the hard-working postal employees of the past and present.

Debbie Eistetter is a board member of the Clayton Historical Society. For more information or to become a member, visit the website claytonhistory.org.

With all the news lately about artificial intelligence (AI), should we be concerned about robots taking over the world?

The short answer, AI is a computer algorithm. That begs an answer to what’s an algorithm?

Let’s start with the basics and, perhaps, the answers will make people think about the affect it will have on them.

A computer runs on two things. First is the hardware or the physical stuff like a chassis (case), power supply, motherboard, memory and the central processor (CPU).

The second is software or a string of commands that compose the program. That program tells the hardware what to do. So, an algorithm is a program telling a machine what to do … and think.

According to Bing, “Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. The term may also be applied to any machine that exhibits traits associated with a human mind such as learning and problem-solving.”

But who said that? Bing uses AI that is programmed (trained) to “chat” with you. We call it a chatbot, short for talking robot. It calls itself “Bing.” I tried calling it “Mr. Roboto” (Styx circa 1983), but it corrected me. “Domo arigato misuta Robotto.”

To find out what a chatbot is, we asked a chatbot what it was. According to the Bing chatbot, “A chatbot is a computer program that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to understand customer questions and automate responses to them, simulating human conversation. Chatbots can help businesses provide faster and better service to their customers.”

So, the chatbot named Bing is a search engine that has AI and an algorithm con- trolling its responses.

Will Smith’s character, Del Spooner, in the 2004 movie “I, Robot” said, “Human beings have dreams. Even dogs have dreams, but not you, you are just a machine. An imitation of life. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a … canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?”

I decided to put that line to a test and requested a joke about a chatbot going into a bar. See what you think.

“A chatbot walks into a bar and says to the bartender: ‘Hello, I would like to order a drink.’ The bartender says: ‘Sure, what kind of drink do you want?’ The chatbot says: ‘I don’t know. Can you please give me some suggestions?’

The bartender says: ‘Well, we have beer, wine, whiskey, vodka, gin …’ The chatbot interrupts him and says: ‘Sorry, I don’t understand. Can you please repeat that?’ The bartender repeats the list of drinks. The chatbot says: ‘Sorry, I still don’t understand.

Will Claney Tech Talk

Can you please speak more clearly?’ The bartender gets annoyed and shouts: ‘Look, buddy, if you don’t know what you want to drink, then get out of here!’ The chatbot says: “OK. Thank you for your help. Have a nice day.’ And walks out of the bar.”

What would you ask Bing? Give it a try. Search for “Bing chatbot” and have some fun.

William Claney is an independent tech writer and former owner of Computers USA in the Clayton Station. Email questions or comments to willclaney@gmail.com.