Steven Baker

My wife and I have been together since 1979. In 1983, we started a movie catering company based out of the Dallas area. We provided the food for the cast and crew. We were mainly working for film companies that were based out of New York and Los Angeles and were filming in Texas. In early 1986, we catered the Coen Brothers movie "Raising Arizona", and then, later in the year, were asked to cater a movie to be filmed in Lake Lure, North Carolina - "Dirty Dancing". I had been a good friend of Vicki Swayze (Waltrip and College) and her Mother Patsy and had known her younger brother Patrick (Buddy) since he was fourteen, so it was fun to see him. Small world.

After we finished that job, we opened a cafe in San Francisco in 1987. In 2017, the City of San Francisco awarded us it's "Legacy Heritage" status. We recently sold the business after 33 years of operation. It was a good, long run. I'm now a volunteer driver for Catholic Charities.

We live in Sonoma County, about an hour's drive north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

As a joke, my brother Ronnie nominated me for "Most Handsome Senior". I went down to the office to pay the $3.00 fee, and the clerk told me the one other person who had been nominated had dropped out, so I was automatically the winner by default. My friends really got a laugh out of that. The final note: my last name in the photo is printed as "Bakey" instead of Baker....

Another memory: I was friends with Gary Barton, who was Vicki Swayze's boyfriend at the time. Gary called me one Friday night and asked if I'd like to join him in "egging" Coach Burton's house in the Oak Forest neighborhood near Waltrip. Gary drove a green Volkswagen at the time, and I drove a blue Volkswagen. We stopped by a local "U Totem" store and bought eggs. We drove up across the front yard of Coach Burton's house, and our friends who were "riding shotgun" (passenger side) threw the eggs at the house. Louis Calderera was riding in my car.....

Vicki Swayze happened to read the "minutes" each morning in the main office before classes started. That following Monday, she heard from the faculty that the Coach's house had been egged, and that whoever had done it had been driving a Volkswagen. A baby-sitter at the Coach's house had seen a Volkswagen speed across the front lawn. Vicki alerted Gary and me that we were going to be called in and questioned. On Tuesday, Assistant Principal Burch called me in to his office. He said someone driving a Volkswagen had "egged" Coach Burton's house, and wanted to know if I knew anything about it, especially since they had the names of any kid who drove a Volkswagen. I told him I had been at home studying, and that i didn't know anything about the incident. Gary made up some story, too...

Vicki passed away in the 1990's, and I found out that Gary Barton also passed away recently....they were good friends.