Bethel High School grads stick together, Marba Cowan says, especially when one of them's in trouble.

Cowan and Jan Scott are helping to organize a fund-raiser for fellow alum Tom Mires, who is fighting cancer.

It's a free-form kind of benefit, part garage sale, part auction, part concert, all of it aimed at helping out Mires' family.

The friends have collected an impressive variety of items, including a cord of wood and a supply of breast self-examination pads. Most of the donations will go into a garage sale Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 22 and 23, at Uncle Sam's Bar and Grill at 160th Street and Pacific Avenue.

The best of the goods, including the wood, will be sold in a silent auction Saturday at Uncle Sam's.

Sunday at 2 p.m., Bikers Fighting Cancer will sponsor several bands in a benefit concert at Uncle Sam's.

I've been getting some calls from folks wondering about the increased activity around the University-Union Club. That's the white mansion just up the street from the old Elks Lodge that most-recently housed David's On Broadway restaurant. (OK, Winfields was the most-recent but it wasn't open long enough for most to notice).

The grounds are being cleaned up, the old Winfield's sign was removed and a fabric sign advertising the now-closed David's was hung on the water side.

So I asked Aleta Benedicto,the agent marketing the building, if there was some news.

Not yet, she said.

"There is a very interested party but no written offer yet. Just doing some clean-up around the property," she wrote.