By STAN STAPP

FROM TIME TO TIME I've heard that the richest man in the world sometimes eats at the same restaurant as Dorothy and I. But now I can verify the rumor as being true. For on a recent Sunday, who should we see leaving the University Village Burgermaster?: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and his wife Melinda and their young son and daughter.

We didn't actually see them in the restaurant, but had a window seat view of them leaving, walking to their parked car, and carefully tucking their youngsters therein: Jennifer, 5, and Rory, almost 3 - just like any other proud parents would do. And they are expecting a third child in October.

Bill seemed very calm, considering he'd lost $6 billion of his net worth last year, and that several hours later that Sunday, he was due to speak to 3,500 AIDS researchers at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center.

However, I'm afraid the Gates family missed the FREE coffee and cake being handed out by the Burgermaster to mark its 50th Anniversary. That could have cut Bill's Microsoft loss somewhat, and helped him hang on to his current $53 billion.

Bruce Lee, assistant manager of the University Village Burgermaster, further confirmed that Bill Gates (who grew up in Northeast Seattle) has eaten there before, and that his dad, William H. Gates Sr., has eaten at Burgermaster even more often than has son Bill, Jr.

* * *

JO BAILEY'S ARTICLE in the Seattle Press recently got me to recalling some interesting times and radical acquaintances I have known. She was writing about Robert Horsley and his Fremont print shop, at 108 NW Canal. In the '60s, Horsley was one of a group of students and other young men working on the Helix, an underground Seattle newspaper opposing the Vietnam War. His cronies on the paper included Walt Crowley and Paul Dorpat, both of whom would later go on to become historians, writers, and entrepreneurs. The name of Horsley's print shop in those days was "Endless Despair" - which said it all, I'm afraid.

Horsley told Bailey: "At the Helix there was a constant undercurrent that people wanted to do us harm. We used to set type at Stan Stapp's Outlook in Wallingford. Stan let us have the run of the place at night. He had a police scanner and one night I was there writing a last minute article for the Helix when we heard a call on the scanner from the University campus police that someone was burglarizing a building. It was the address of my print shop. I got there before the cops, and when asked I told them I heard about it on the 'grapevine.' The cop looked at me and said, 'I always knew it was true.'"

In fact, one night Dorothy and I stopped by the Outlook office, at 4273 Woodland Park Ave. N - at about 3 a.m., having delivered the Outlook "flats" to the printers, and eaten a late night dinner at the Dog House restaurant (now the site of the Hurricane Cafe). A few lights were on and Horsley was struggling over some job of his. Not surprising, though, because 35 people had keys to the place: 20 for Outlook staff members, and 15 for customers who liked to come and go in producing their own publications - mainly high school papers. We had 11 of those at one time, plus Seattle Pacific College's student newspaper, The Falcon, and several others to boot.

People wonder how we could safely have so many keys in customers' hands. But the fact is, that we never lost any equipment over the years. Our only loss was an occasional can of coffee, and a four-pack of toilet paper - important necessities if you don't have any!

Bailey's article reminded me that I'd met her a couple of times in the '80s, when she was a columnist for "Nor'westing," the "Pacific Northwest Yachting Magazine." The publisher was my brother-in-law, Tom Kincaid, who twice asked me if I'd be willing to become acting editor and writer for a couple of issues so he could take a month off and sail around Vancouver Island - and the like.

I didn't know anything about boats - but Kincaid's writers and small staff did. So the magazine came out on time, Kincaid enjoyed a month of relaxation, and I even got paid out of someone else's pocket - for a change!

* * *

NEARLY EVERY DAY I'm outside sweeping our concrete driveway, the sidewalk, and the street gutter, for we have six 70-foot trees in our front yard and they're always sending something down: seeds, leaves, branches, etc. But I don't mind for I like our place to look nice, and set off Dorothy's gardening skills. I also like the exercise (about 45 minutes a day) and meeting a lot of our neighbors passing by. In addition I enjoy the walking kids from Eckstein Middle School, some of whom will talk to me on their way home at about 2:30. Recently, for example, the first kid to pass was RUNNING down the street - not time for a long conversation. Stan: "SCHOOL'S OUT!" Little Kid: "HOT DAMN!"

Now, where did he learn that?

* * *

THE LINCOLN HIGH School Alumni Association (LHSAA) and the Lincoln High School Associated Classes (LHSAC) have merged into one organization: the Lincoln Lynx Alumni Association (LLAA).

For years there was but one association, the LHSAC, which was open to all who had graduated 50 years earlier. The LHSAA started much later, and was open to all Lincoln grads.

Confusion over the similarity of names, duplication of efforts - ONE membership list to keep up, ONE mailing list, ONE newsletter, ONE set of meetings to attend, and the increasing number of deaths of members of the first group - dictated the change.

* * *

JEFF COLE of Huntington Beach, Calif., had been doing some family research on Carl Reuben Olson, who he believed may have published a newspaper in Greenwood; and his wife, whose maiden name was Margaret Waldal. Carl may be Jeff's Grandfather, he told me. Jeff contacted Ann Bowden, development director of the Phinney Neighborhood Association, and she referred Jeff to me.

I DID KNOW who Carl was, he had been one of the main competitors of the Outlook back in the '30s, '40s, '50s. I hope to do a future article on what and how he ran down various leads a number of which I have already passed on to Jeff. In the meantime, if you have any such info about Carl Olson let me know and I will forward it.

Also I have an inquiry about a George Hinton Henry, a radical labor newspaper publisher in Alaska during the Gold Rush. Seeking the information is Steven C. Levi, of Anchorage. Hinton published several newspapers for 12 years, "and was sued too many times to count," Levi said. "Henry fled (?) Alaska in 1919." Phil Stairs of the Puget Sound Regional archives referred Levi to me. So far I've found nothing. Have you ever heard of such a person?

* * *

WHILE GOING through some old issues of the Greenwood-Aurora Outlook (as the Outlook's Greenwood edition was called in the olden days) I discovered an error.

Page one of the Aug. 2, 1962 issue lacked a masthead.

That was 40 years ago. So please consider that we finally caught the error. I don't believe we noticed before, nor did our readers.

Probably because "Seattle's Liveliest Newspaper" lived up to its motto - and was easily recognized even without our page one nameplate.