 Sandy Lydon, The History Dude, Santa Cruz Main Beach, 1941. Sandy and his family lived in Santa Cruz from 1940-1942 before eventually moving to Hollister where he became a Hollister Haybaler. |
The
Instructor – Sandy Lydon, The History Dude
45 Years in the Saddle!
Sandy will be celebrating 47 years of teaching in 2008. From 1961-1968
he taught at Elk Grove Senior High School (Sacramento County) where
he taught History and English and coached the Varsity Baseball team.
Since coming to Cabrillo College in the fall of 1968 to teach Asian
and United States History, he developed a diverse local and regional
history curriculum ranging from courses on Asian immigrant groups (Chinese,
Japanese, Filipinos) to the history of the Franciscan Missions, the
Civil War, and World War II. He has taken thousands of students across
the region’s historic landscape.
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| Sandy Lydon, 1989, as the founding weather anchor (aka Weather Dude), KCBA Fox 35. Kirstie Wilde (middle) was the news anchor while Craig Kilborn (right) was the sports anchor. The Weather Dude metamorphosed back into the History Dude in the fall of 1990 when he returned to the Cabrillo College classroom after resigning his position at KCBA. “Daily news television is just too much work,” he said. (Wilde went on to be the editor of the Carmel Pine Cone newspaper, while Kilborn went from KCBA to ESPN, the Daily Show and finally the Late Late Show which he left in 2004.) |
He was a regular columnist in the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian and
the Santa Cruz Sentinel and was the founding weather anchor on KCBA
Fox-35.
Why is he teaching this class again? Why
now?
Thousands of new residents have moved into Santa Cruz County and the
Monterey Bay Region over the past eight years, bringing with them the
ways and mores of the places that they left behind. A good number of
these new folks moved here from the Silicon Valley and San Jose, bringing
with them expectations and assumptions that don’t always fit with
the local and regional landscape. Their values do not always match ours.
The History Dude thinks that it’s time that newcomers
learned something about this place and perhaps forgot something about
the place they left.
A majority of the people living in the Monterey Region was not here
30 years ago. An entire generation has grown to maturity without being
exposed to the region’s history.
Also, many residents have expressed regret that they never took the
time or opportunity to participate in the local history class over the
25 years that the History Dude taught it.
Finally, this coming class will be videotaped for future generations.
So, the History Dude is pulling out all the stops, calling in all his
markers and dragging every history practitioner and expert out of the
bushes to participate this time around.
This is it. This is the last time.
Catch it now or you’ll not ever catch it.