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From Nancy Haselden Olsen
8/24/2014
Lynden Anthony Evans
Our friend Lynden passed away in 2012, at the age of 66, in the Florida assisted living residence where he had lived, on bed rest, for 10 years. He was visited regularly by his wife, Cecilia, and by his sister, Molly. Molly called me when he died to say he had gone peacefully in his sleep from pneumonia.
His brother, Corky, still lives in British Columbia where he has been since going there in the late 1960s as a homesteader. When I spoke with her recently, Molly said Lynden dearly loved to remember his Piedmont friends and his years at PHS. Those memories made him happy.
He was fond of watching old classic tv westerns such as Bonanza and Rifleman. He enjoyed reading spy mysteries, especially by John Le Carre. He also enjoyed listening to jazz.
He was loved by everybody he met, Molly said, because he always treated others with respect. That sounds like the Lynden I remember.
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Charlie Rogerson
Lynden was such a great, sweet guy. He and I drove down to UCSB to check it out the summer before college started, and as I recall, we both got speeding tickets on the drive back. Then we became fast friends at UCSB and hung out together all the time. We were part of a crowd of guys and gals who lived in two houses about a block from each other overlooking the beach in Isla Vista. Many fun times.
One day, one of the guys picked up a hitchhiker with a guitar case, who, in graditude for the lift, gave him a little bag of green stuff. We had never seen it before, but he rolled it up and we went down to the gals' house. Lynden was there with his girlfriend. They did not join in, but the rest of us sat in a circle on the floor and proceeded to try this stuff out. Another older guy who was there was quite annoying, and kept walking around saying "This is stupid. You're wasting your time, this is just a stupid fad!" (he also thought the Beatles were a stupid fad). Then everytime it came around, he would take a puff and say "See! Nothing's happening! This is stupid!". Well, it went around quite a few times, and he took a puff every time and continued to berate us. And he was right, nothing was happening. Until, slowly, my knees started itching more and more until I burst out laughing.
At that point, everyone burst out laughing hysterically, and we started rolling around on the floor, shaking and laughing. The sceptical guy fell to his knees and burst into laughter. Lynden and his girlfriend came running in, alarmed. They quickly determined that we were OK and baked us a batch of delicious cinammon rolls.
Lynden and I both got very active in the civil rights and anti-war movements, and then flunked out the same semester. We both ended up at Cal. He and I stayed in touch, off and on, until his death. Went to see him once in the Twin Cities in winter - man, it was cold!
He was amazingly kind and loving, a devout Christian with a wonderful wife. I wish I had spent more time with him in later years. RIP Lynden.
Tim Gasser
Thanks to Charlie Rogerson for sharing his story about Lynden. Lynden and I lived right across the street from each other on Wildwood Ave. We were good friends in those days, and I have always wondered what became of him after we both left Piedmont.