Miss Utah

I went to high school in Ogden, Utah, and one of my many classmates was a lovely girl named Charlotte Castetter. She was so lovely, in fact, that she was runner-up Miss Utah in one of their pageants a few years later. Charlotte graduated from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, I think, and as a casual acquaintance of hers in high school, I talked to her a few times at various class reunions in subsequent decades.

Charlotte married a man named Barry Lamb, and together they settled in Boulder, CO to make their living and raise their family, which was two boys.

In 2005, I was waiting for a Bay to Breakers race to start in San Francisco, and in the big crowd at the starting line, always a friendly, fun group, I happened to meet a woman from Boulder. When I asked if she knew Charlotte Lamb, she replied, "Oh! Didn't you hear?" and shared the heartbreaking news that Charlotte's marriage had ended in tragedy a couple of years before. No, I hadn't heard. Searching the internet later, I found a news account confirming it. Sigh.

Standing at the counter in the Palo Alto Apple Store, around 2010, a young man came in asking to pick up his computer, which had been repaired by our Genius Bar. His name was Iain Lamb. I looked at him and asked, "Is there a Barry Lamb in your ancestry?"

"Well yes," he said, "Barry was my father."

"Well," said I, "your mother must've been Charlotte, right?" He nodded. "Your mom and I knew each other at Ogden High School. I'll bet you didn't expect to run into a classmate of your mom's at the Palo Alto Apple Store!"