October 15 is Dodie's 68th Birthday
My Oldest Son Dodie Katague: From Berkeley Student to Author of Cloyne Court
A Father's Pride in His Son's Unexpected Journey
As I approach my 92nd birthday, I find myself looking back more and more at the people and experiences that have shaped my life.
Among my greatest blessings are my children. Today, I would like to reintroduce my oldest son, Dodie Katague, to my worldwide readers.
Many people know Dodie as an attorney and former Prosecuting Attorney for Contra Costa County, California. October 15 this year is his 68th birthday. 💚
But there is another side of Dodie that I would like to share.
He is also a writer. And in 2009, he published a book called Cloyne Court.
Who Is Dodie Katague? Dodie is my oldest son.
He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1981 with a degree in Geography. He later earned his law degree from the University of California, Davis, King Hall School of Law, in 1985. He went on to spend more than three decades as a prosecutor in Contra Costa County.
I have always been proud of his professional career.
Being a prosecutor is not an easy profession. It requires judgment, persistence, knowledge of the law, and a strong sense of responsibility.
But long before he became a prosecutor, Dodie was simply a young college student trying to find his way. And that is where Cloyne Court begins.
The Berkeley Years
Dodie lived at Cloyne Court Cooperative from 1977 to 1979 while attending UC Berkeley.
Cloyne Court was and remains, a famous Berkeley student cooperative. According to Dodie's own description of the book, it was an unusual, counterculture, student-run residence filled with young people from many different backgrounds and with very different personalities.
The book is based substantially on journals Dodie kept during those years.
Amazon describes Cloyne Court as a coming-of-age creative memoir set in Berkeley in the late 1970s. The current Kindle edition was published by Three Clover Press in December 2009 and is 328 pages.
That fact fascinates me. When Dodie was a young man, he was keeping journals.
He probably did not know that decades later those journals would become the foundation for a published book.
That is one of the wonderful things about keeping a journal.
You never know which ordinary memory may become precious many years later.
From Journals to a Novel
Dodie calls Cloyne Court a coming-of-age story. I think that description is appropriate.
It is about a young Berkeley student entering an unfamiliar world and learning about friendship, relationships, independence, and life outside the classroom.
Dodie has explained that the story is partly factual and partly recreated for the purposes of storytelling. Some characters are composites, and some events were reconstructed from memories when his journals did not provide every detail.
That makes the book particularly interesting to me as a father.
It is not simply a history of Berkeley. It is Dodie's interpretation of his own youth.
It is a story about discovering who you are. And isn't that what college is supposed to be about?
The Young Dodie I Didn't Always See
Parents sometimes forget that their children have lives that exist beyond the family home.
We see our children growing up. We see them go to school.
We celebrate their graduations. We watch them begin careers and families of their own.
But there are chapters of their lives that we never witnessed.
For me, Cloyne Court opened a small window into one of those chapters.
I knew Dodie as my son. I knew him as a Berkeley student.
Later, I knew him as a lawyer and prosecutor.
But through his writing, I could see another Dodie, the young man living at Cloyne Court during a very different period in American history.
The late 1970s were a fascinating time. America was changing. Berkeley was changing.
And Dodie was growing up.
From Cloyne Court to the Courtroom
There is an interesting contrast between the young man in Cloyne Court and the professional Dodie I later watched develop.
The young Dodie was experiencing the uncertainties and adventures of college life.
The older Dodie became a prosecutor entrusted with serious responsibilities.
He eventually spent more than 30 years in the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office.
That is quite a journey. From a Berkeley student cooperative...to law school...
to the courtroom...to public service...and eventually to retirement and writing.
Life certainly does not always follow a straight line.
Retirement and Another Chapter
Dodie is now retired. But one lesson I have learned from my own retirement is that retirement does not mean that life stops.
Sometimes it simply gives us time to do things we could not do before.
For Dodie, writing became one of those things. For me, blogging became one of mine.
I have been writing online since 2009, and today I continue to write about family, aging, science, Filipino-American life, genealogy, faith, technology, artificial intelligence, and the many experiences accumulated during a long life.
Dodie and I have taken different paths as writers. But we share something important.
We both believe that our experiences are worth preserving.
Why I Am Proud of My Son
I am proud of Dodie because of his professional accomplishments.
I am proud that he served the people of Contra Costa County.
I am proud of the family he has raised. But I am also proud that he became an author.
Writing a book requires something different from practicing law.
A lawyer works with facts, evidence, statutes, and arguments.
A writer works with memories, imagination, observation, and human experience.
Dodie brought those two worlds together. He took memories from his youth and transformed them into a story that other people could read.
That is a form of legacy.
What Our Children Teach Us
At my age, I have learned that parents never completely stop learning about their children.
Even when our children are adults, they can still surprise us.
Sometimes they surprise us with their careers. Sometimes with their talents.
Sometimes with the stories they tell. Dodie surprised me by becoming an author.
And perhaps he was always a writer.
The evidence was there in those journals he kept as a Berkeley student.
He was preserving his experiences long before he knew what those experiences would eventually become.
A Message to My Worldwide Readers
Many of my readers are older adults. Some of you may have children who have followed careers very different from what you expected.
Some may be lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, artists, business people, scientists, or writers.
Others may have chosen paths that surprised you completely. My advice is simple:
Let them surprise you.
Our children are not simply extensions of ourselves. They are individuals with their own stories.
We give them roots. They grow their own branches.
And sometimes, if we are fortunate, they give us a book that lets us see a part of the journey we never knew.
A Father's Final Word
Dodie, I am proud of you. I was proud when you graduated from Berkeley.
I was proud when you became a lawyer. I was proud of your years of public service as a prosecutor.
And I am proud of you today as a retired attorney and author.
Your book, Cloyne Court, reminds me that every life contains many chapters.
Some chapters are written in classrooms. Some in courtrooms. Some in family homes.
And some are written in the memories we carry for decades before finally putting them on paper.
You have written one of yours. And I am grateful that I get to call you my oldest son.
A Thought From a Father
At 91, I have come to appreciate something I did not fully understand when I was younger:
Our greatest legacy is not always what we accomplish ourselves. Sometimes it is watching our children create something that becomes uniquely theirs.
Dodie, Cloyne Court is your story. But it is also a small part of our family's story.
And for that, your father is grateful. Keep writing, my son. Your story is not over yet.
💚Happy 68th Birthday, Dodie!
For More Details about Cloyne Court visit:
https://dkatague.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/whats-cloyne-court-the-novel-about/
For Reviews: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7576060-cloyne-court
Dodie Katague
- High-Tech Crimes: Specializes in cases involving computer hacking, identity theft, and internet scams.
- Major Cases: Led the prosecution of the Diablo Valley College "grades for cash" scandal, where students were charged with hacking systems to change grades for money.
- Consumer Protection: Handles cases related to elder adult theft and financial fraud.
- Teaching: Lectures to law enforcement agencies nationwide on the topic of high-tech crime.
- Content: The book is a fictionalized account based on his personal journals from 1977 to 1979, when he lived in the Cloyne Court student co-op while attending UC Berkeley.
- Acting: Beyond writing, he has been involved in local theater, recently appearing as "Evan" in the Benicia Theatre Group's production of Sweat.
- B.A. in Geography: University of California, Berkeley (1981).
- J.D. (Law Degree): University of California, Davis, King Hall School of Law(1985).
- DVC Grade-Changing Scheme: Katague was the lead prosecutor in a massive scandal at Diablo Valley College, where dozens of students were charged with paying to have their grades fraudulently upgraded in the school's computer system.
- Public Employee Payroll Fraud: He successfully prosecuted a former Contra Costa Fire Battalion Chief for falsifying payroll records to obtain unearned pay [Previous Context].
- Online Harassment & Privacy: As a specialist in high-tech crimes, he has been a vocal advocate for strengthening laws against online harassment and digital stalking.
- Elder Abuse & Senior Scams: He frequently works on cases involving financial exploitation of the elderly. This expertise extends to community education, such as workshops hosted by Contra Costa Legal Services to help seniors identify and report scams.
- Investment & Real Estate Fraud: His unit investigates "white-collar" crimes, including grand theft and deceptive business practices that target local residents.
- Genre: It is described as a "creative memoir," blending factual events from his journals (1977–1979) with fictionalized elements and composite characters.
- Subject: The story focuses on the "coming-of-age" experiences at Berkeley’s student co-op shortly after it became co-ed.
- Future Projects: He has worked on a young adult science fiction novel titled "Rock Star Planet" and has expressed plans for a fictional account of life in a district attorney's office titled "".
- Notable Roles:
- Played Evan in the Benicia Old Town Theatre Group's 2024 production of "Sweat" by Lynn Nottage.
- Appeared in the Onstage Theatreproduction of "Social Security" in Martinez.
- Style: His roles often range from dramatic contemporary plays to lighthearted comedies, reflecting his long-standing interest in the performing arts alongside his professional life.
https://chateaudumer.blogspot.com/2026/07/dodie-katague-my-oldest-son-author-of.html
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