By STAN STAPP

WOW! WHAT A SUMMER the Stapps had. Parties, Picnics, Problems - and more. (If I haven't identified everyone in this column, please understand that nearly all of them are relatives - and I have a hard time naming which one is which.)

We started off in a Giving Mood: My homemade blocks (some 200 or more) to Ronald McDonald House for the little kiddies to play with; my old IBM computer to Richards Business Machines (including some Daisy Wheels and ribbons which my iMac wouldn't be needing); my camera to Liz Kincaid (to photograph flowers that she might like to paint in watercolors); some garden hose and file boxes to a yard sale up the street (where the young lady made a sign that said "Antiques" and put it under the boxes); and some stuff on our front porch intended for the Salvation Army.

And there were several parties and dinners - for Trevor Gong, Cathy, and two kids, down from Alaska; for Kenny, who would soon be taking off for Sedona, Ariz.; and Barbara Leaf, out here from Boston; the annual Kincaid family picnic on Marrowstone Island; and maybe several other affairs (I've lost track).

Also former City Councilman George Benson invited my wife Dorothy and me, and Trudy Weckworth to lunch one day at his retirement home, the Broadview Ida Culver House. (I first got acquainted with George years ago at the Lincoln Pharmacy in Wallingford where he was learning how to be a pharmacist.) George was recently bestowed the title: "Father of the Waterfront Streetcar," which he made happen.

The day before one of our dinner parties our kitchen sink plugged up.

When I was unable to solve the problem myself, I called John Moran the plumber. After several hours of reaming and repositioning several pipes under the sink, he finally fixed the problem, and we cleaned up the mess in time for the party to go on the next day.

We helped Kenny get rid of some stuff he wouldn't be needing in Sedona, by visiting a couple of second-hand stores. Deseret wasn't accepting anything, and the Goodwill just small items. So the rest was tossed into the Fremont Dump.

Liz Kincaid and Larry Andrews were up from Soquel, Calif., and over to Langley, Whidbey Island, for her watercolor showing at the Museo Piccolo Gallery, and with news that she has been commissioned to write a book about her unique style of painting. Teddy Dunstan stayed with us twice - first a short stop and later for about six weeks. He owns rental property in Tukwila that needed painting and sprucing up which he did himself (he is a hard worker) so it would pass muster with the government, which provides support for several renters.

Teddy lives in Hawaii, and had recently, through the Internet, found himself a Canadian bride in Toronto. They'd barely been married when Monica arrived in Hawaii, and Teddy had to take off, bunking with us for six weeks, spending some of his honeymoon time with his mother in Seattle.

One day Dorothy and I headed for Friday Harbor via the Victoria Clipper, a high-speed catamaran, which takes off from Pier 63 downtown. The purpose was to deliver a number of historical photos and articles about the University of Washington Marine Laboratory, which had been designed many years ago by Dorothy's father, Trevor Kincaid, who had been head of the University of Washington Zoological Department for many years.

My daughter, Diane, came up from Phoenix, and Dorothy's sister, Barbara, flew in from Boston, and both of them stayed several days. We enjoyed just being with them for awhile, and sharing several ferry trips: Bremerton, Winslow, Mukilteo, Clinton, Edmonds, Kingston - and the Hood Canal Bridge.

Besides her involvement in all these activities Dorothy had to work in a haircut, two classes in Feng Shui, two Master Gardeners Clinics at the Zoo, renewed her driver's license, and hung out with three of her gardening friends who picked up her lunch tab to cheer her up for all of the energy she'd expended cheering up family members.

And the excitement wasn't over yet: Our grand-daughter, Debbie, husband Tim Haley, and three kids have flown from their Hawaiian home to Germany where Tim can continue his career as an Army doctor, now bearing the title of Major Haley.

Perhaps the saddest incident of this entire Summer Saga, was the selling of our 1989 Volkswagen Westfalia Camper. We had enjoyed many years of camping with it, but had not used it lately, except as a second car.

I guess I'll get used to it not being in its usual parking spot, but currently I "drop a tear" each time I approach that empty space.

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SUMMER VACATION is over for teachers and kids and its back to books and computers for the rest of the school year. Hans Loffler, who attended the same schools as I (Interlake Grade School, Hamilton Junior High, and Lincoln High) took the trouble to remind me of that fact. Of course you may know that Interlake and Lincoln have been long closed (Interlake is now the Wallingford Center shopping center and apartment complex, while Lincoln has been used by the School District as a temporary home for various schools in recent years). Hamilton is now known as a middle school.

Hans who lives in North Green Lake, graduated in 1941, and I in 1936. We both have vivid memories of our Junior High principal, George R. Austin. (By the way, in researching this column, I discovered there is a George R. Austin Middle School in New Bedford, Massachusetts. No relation to our George R., though.)

An article in the morning paper dealing with single-sex education, reminded Hans of Mr. Austin, who he said "had COMPLETE CHARGE of Hamilton and a theory that boys and girls in the seventh and eighth grades were experiencing biological and physical changes that distracted from the learning process, and by separating them eliminated one obstacle."

Most of the time boys had men teachers, girls had women teachers. Lunchrooms and play areas were separated.

"A stripped-down tennis shoe became the instrument of discipline," said Hans. "The sole transmitted misery, the heel provided the handle for doing so, and the buttocks or butt as it is called now-a-days (we can mention that in print now?) were the target."

I didn't recall the tennis shoe, but I remember a wooden "clapper" that made more noise then pain when applied to the back end of a misbehaving lad, in the lumber room of the woodshop by a teacher, with a second teacher as a witness. And I recall a game we used to play in the boys' gym, in which the chaser swatted the chasee with an 18-inch piece of rubber inner tube - around a big circle of boys - as sort of an initiation stunt, I guess. It was called "Swat the Kaiser", a remnant of World War I.

(Incidentally, for you younger people, an inner tube used to be stuffed into a tire and filled with air.)

Hans also attended John Marshall Junior High, "where we had a mixed gender in all grades. You couldn't tell the difference in our behavior even though our hormones were allowed to explode in all directions."

Hamilton seemed normal to me (Stan). It was not until I entered Lincoln that I discovered the difference. At Hamilton none of the girls wore lipstick. At Lincoln all of them did. They were WILD! But I soon got used to their painted lips - and liked it that way. At Lincoln boys and girls could walk to school together without having gotten written permission of their parents, like at Hamilton. Which didn't do me much good, for I lived just across the street from Hamilton. The only girl I could have conceivably walked with was my sister, Pat - and it would have been no big deal for either of us.

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LEO LASSEN, Seattle's voice of the radio, was finally honored by the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department. The four softball fields will be called the "Leo Lassen Fields at Lower Woodland Park." And the baseball field will be known as the "Mariners All-Star Field at Lower Woodland Park."

Lassen died in 1975.

Not quite what Gene Buck had wanted, but a good compromise. A million dollar donation by Major League Baseball, helped the pros get their wish.

Leo Lassen broadcast some 5,000 games from 1931 to 1960, and I heard a good many of them. The campaign to honor Lassen was mainly by Gene Buck, a fan of Lassen. I ran several items in my column - egged on by Buck. Lassen graduated from Lincoln High School in 1917, and lived in Wallingford. Buck lived in Greenwood, and also graduated from Lincoln High.