By STAN STAPP

NOT LONG AGO, eight of us old-time folk dancers got together for lunch, something we have done annually for some 40 years. We met at Zoopa's Restaurant at Northgate: Alice and Carl Nugent, Kathy and Bill Sellars, Joan (Harris) and Gus Mundel, and my wife Dorothy and I. We had a nice lunch and a couple of hours recalling our folk dance experiences.

Little did we know it would be the last time for Alice, for not long after she died suddenly at home of a massive heart failure on Sept. 24. She was 80 years old. Memorial services were held Oct. 14 at University Congregational Church, followed by dancing afterwards. But this time without Alice running out to join the circle, remarking (to no one in particular) "Oooh, my FAVORITE dance!" They were all her favorites.

I first met Alice 41 years ago at the Third Friday Dance in Eagleson Hall, just east of the UW Campus. She and Eleanor Lippman had started Third Friday, which featured international folk dancing, particularly Balkan. I had previously taken a course in Scandinavian folk dancing in the same hall from Gordon Tracie. Earlier than that I had done quite a bit of ballroom and jitterbug, but this was my introduction to line dancing. I "ate it up" and was soon heavily involved in learning various international dances, and in helping form Festival Folkdancers - which is still going today.

Over the years I became aware of the extent of Alice's involvement in folk dancing activities - teaching, putting on exhibitions, planning programs, and encouraging newcomers. She must have known more folk dancers in Seattle than anyone else. If someone was trying to contact a folk dancer, and the rest of us didn't know the answer, we'd refer them to Alice: "She'll know!"

In 1969, Alice ran the performing stage at the University District Street Fair at which Dorothy and I and others danced, dressed in a wide variety of international attire. At one of our dances her XL-sized husband performed the Charleston, with two dinky little girls accompanying him - he in the center, they on each side - my daughter Jacquie and next-door neighbor Dee Etcheson. It brought down the house!

In 1990, Alice wanted to honor a fellow folk dancer, Heleri (also previously known as Helen Stout, and Helen Gilmartin) on her 80th birthday. She rounded up a bunch of us to put on a Maypole dance. Carl set up the be-ribboned pole in Heleri's next-door neighbors' front yard on 28th NE. (Heleri's yard was too small.) Alice then taught us how to do a Maypole dance, first with several dry-runs and then with taped music. It was 28th NE's highlight of the year, I am sure!

Alice was Festival Folk Dancers secretary and author of our board minutes - her vivid accounts of our meetings providing entertainment for the rest of us when read at the next meeting. We met in various members' homes, or sometimes in restaurants, such as the Coals Restaurant at NE 54th St. and 26th NE, which had a little room upstairs we could use. Generally our meetings began about 11 p.m., following one of our dances.

Besides our folk dance business, we sometimes wandered away from the subject at hand, as reported in Alice's minutes: "Stan demanded that we put in the minutes that Helen Gilmartin moved we put in the minutes that Bill Sellars cat drank Eleanor Lippman's coffee." This died for lack of a second.

When some problems with one of our dances surfaced, Eleanor wondered about repercussions from other folk dancers. After some discussion (and it was nearing midnight) it was agreed, when all else fails: "Take it to the Board will be our motto."

Helen asked who gets in free at our dances? The answer? Alice wrote: "If they come to help out or teach they don't pay; if they come to dance, they do." Any other problems? - "Be fluid." Bill reported that Festival Folk Dancers made money in January! Later he reported we made a profit of $2.61 for the year 1963. Alice noted that someone suggested we might do even better "if the teachers taught a little faster."

One time, in suggesting a number of appointments to the Board Alice said: "I reserve the right to be indiscriminate."

And another, after the business at hand was finished, she wrote: "We then discussed the Cuban Situation."

Alice once reported: "Dorothy Dunstan was voted on the Board." Then added: "President Stan Stapp immediately appointed her Membership Chairman." (It was probably the last time I ever appointed her to anything - without first asking. For shortly thereafter Dorothy and I were married.)

At Alice's memorial service, the church auditorium was filled with some 300 people. Many folk dancers were there. At first I couldn't figure where they all came from - until I learned how many activities Alice had been involved with in addition to folk dancing. She truly believed in making the world a better place to live.

Perhaps the most touching part of the program was daughter Jennifer Nugent playing her guitar and singing - ending with "I love you, Mom!"

We all miss Alice, too.

* * *

WAS IT COINCIDENCE or was it a Higher Being that was steering me around the other day?

Whatever ... it all started with Dorothy suggesting that I build her two trellises to be mounted on the house, one in front, to support her Winter Jasmine, the other in the back, to support her Camelia Sasanqua. A few sticks of 1x1 would suffice and we decided to stop by Eagle Hardware (now Lowe's) at N 125th and Aurora to get them.

"While we are at it," I suggested, "Let's combine lunch with our errand" - for conveniently, right across the street from Eagle's, is Robbs 125th St. Grill. I'd eaten there once before - in March of 1974, when it was then known as the Black Angus.

(The occasion 26 years ago was my first day on the job as "Editor-in-Chief" of the Today newspapers, following the sale of the "old Outlook" which had been published by the Stapp family for 52 years. A half-dozen bigwigs associated with United Media - Today's publishers - were there. The restaurant chosen because it was near the Today office at N 130th and Stone Ave. N. The lunch was fine, but the occasion for me was a nervous episode I'll never forget. The place was so dark I could hardly make out the surroundings - probably a blessing in disguise - for it may have hidden my ill-at-ease demeanor from the others.)

This second occasion was very pleasant. After picking up my sticks we walked across the street to the Grill. A sign informed us that a banquet was in progress but that there was room for us. Just by chance we were seated right next to the banqueting group which consisted of about a dozen men, seated at pushed-together tables. Which was fine with me. I like being in or near the action.

We immediately became part of it when one of the men (recognizing me) came over with a copy of the Jet City Maven opened to my column. He pointed to the others at his table and said: "Here's the guy who wrote this article about his life as a student at Lincoln High School." Then I discovered that seven of the men had attended Lincoln High, graduating in 1939 or thereabouts.

The party was to honor Russ Arwine, Class of 1939, on his 80th birthday. Russ had been past president of the Lincoln High School Associated Classes (LHSAC) and (according to the Lincoln Annual) I discovered later: "Believed an Ideal Life would be 12-months of vacation a year." Also present were: Paul Happold, also a member of the Class of '39, current secretary/treasurer of the LHSAC, a Yell King in school who thought: "An Ideal Life would to be a WPA worker" (one employed by the government during the depression). Other Lincoln alums present were: Vince Abbey, Class of '40, "Ambition Unknown"; Bob Cooper, who recalled being an Outlook carrier, even remembering his Route Number: 33; Forry Keyes; John Hardesty; and Dick Kimball, Class of '39.

Best of all, when they cut the cake Dorothy and I each got a piece.

* * *

HISTORY HOUSE marked its second birthday recently with a nice party honoring the docents of the Woodland Park Zoo and Trudy Weckworth, veteran police reporter. Marty Bluewater, of the Zoo, and I, former publisher of the old Outlook, briefed the party-goers on these two "institutions."

History House, a museum featuring Seattle's neighborhoods, is located in Fremont under the Aurora Bridge on N 34th.

I have known Trudy for 52 years, 19 of them when she was on the Outlook staff as a reporter, news editor, and editor. Trudy was also active in Wallingford with the Commercial Club, Boys Club, and president of the Interlake PTA; and in Ballard with the Chamber of Commerce. She was best known for her Outlook police column, "Hash Ground Fresh Weekly", which later appeared in several other North End community papers. Her writing has netted her more than 80 state and national awards.

Trudy made a few remarks, revealing that she was born in a small town in South Dakota. "Would you tell us the name of that town," I asked, "and how it acquired its name?" "Lemmon," she replied. And we all laughed.

Then a member of the audience, Gwen Anderson, jumped up and exclaimed: "My Dad was born in Lemmon!" (Lawrence Johnson, about 1913.) What are the odds? - I doubt that anyone else there had ever heard of Lemmon.

In my atlas, Lemmon is listed as being in North Dakota, not South. On the map it looks like it could be in both. Trudy said that it does spread across the border, and that Dakotans identify their state by which side of the boundary line they live.

The town is named after a pioneer, and today has a population of about 2,000 residents. Now the question is: Was It A Co-incidence, or a Higher Being that steered two non-related people to the History House party: Trudy who was born in Lemmon, and Gwen whose dad was born there?

Has anyone else out there ever heard of Lemmon?