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2001 Archive

December 26

How I'd improve Shasta County food service
Mary Haenggi performed a public service with her letter of Dec. 5. (I don't necessarily agree with the points she made). She touched some nerves. I enjoyed reading both her letter and the responses. Her home on Outlook Circle probably wouldn't exist if certain local activists had realized soon enough her planned new residence high above Sharp Park Golf Course would actually be seen from Coast Highway. Horrors!

December 19

Had any great ideas lately?
When I first wrote this column, in the mid-70's, I typed it onto sheets of newsprint 5.5 x 8.5 inches in size, which were then transcribed by Sam Stewart into slugs of hot lead using a cumbersome machine called a Linotype. After the lead cooled, the galleys of type were locked into position to form pages of this newspaper.

December 5

Could you persuade the Pope?
Until I read Patty Manick's comments in last week's Tribune, I hadn't been aware I owed an apology to Nancy Hall, or that I was afraid of her. Surely Ms. Manick's wrong when she says a majority of Americans are "very suspicious of our government agencies."

November 28

A few bucks in the family
I never asked my dad or mother if one or both of my immigrant grandfathers were buck hunters. Or did the family hunting tradition start with an uncle? Uncle Robert was a talented taxidermist and must have had a vast fund of knowledge of the wild creatures of Sonoma County.

November 21

The Reactor and Osama

There are some folks in Pacifica who think I ought to censor myself when I'm tempted to be critical about certain of my fellow Pacificans. Besides my wife, who would often like to stifle my written opinions when she thinks I've gone too far on, for example, the Devil's Slide bypass, there are even folks, and I mean folks with strong opinions of their own, who think the editor/publisher of the Tribune ought to do the censoring if I don't have the good sense to keep silent on my own.

November 7

A few words about Nancy and Osama
Nancy Hall, who wrote that long letter in last week's Tribune so critical of our past and present national leadership, has at least one thing in common with me. Neither of us has ever been on any ballot for President. Neither of us has been elected, or even officially turned down, by our fellow Americans.

October 31

When county records might equal family history
I'd known most of the actual facts. I knew the date (in Sept. 1898) and the general location (northern San Mateo County) of my grandparent's wedding. I knew their names, of course. I even have their wedding photo, a rare artifact given the time, the place, and the relative cost of photography in 1898. What hadn't occurred to me was how difficult and time consuming it might be in 1898 to get from one end to the other of San Mateo County. I'm a Sonoma County native. So was my father.

October 24

Two slam dunks, one not so easy
There's an election coming up, as you may have heard. It happens Nov. 6. Only in Brisbane's three precincts are they using both sides of the ballot. Brisbane's been pushed into a version of horse and rabbit stew. You know. "Take one horse and one rabbitä" In this case some people in San Francisco, population more than 700,000, legally need a second municipality to help create a municipal utility district.

October 17

When "shadows" outlast stone and marble
One of the few real advantages of getting older, outside of the very obvious fact that it means I've avoided dying to date, is the perspective it gives me about what's permanent and what's not. When I had a cup of coffee on top of the World Trade Center ($3.78, May 2000) I chose not to buy a souvenir cup. I figured I could always pick one up on my next visit.

October 10

Open space. Part salvation! Part Smallpox!
Open Space, that panacea desired by so many, turns out to have many similarities to certain powerful medicines. Heroin for example. Medicines can be highly addictive. Medicines can have very serious side effects. So can the restrictions on land use implicit in defining it as open space.

September 19

Should sewers be optional?
There's a particular small group of folks here in San Mateo County. As individuals, those I've met are likable, hardworking, energetic, very dedicated to their ideas. Collectively they remind me of a bunch of joyful, enthusiastic, exuberant teenage vandals with sledge hammers.

September 5

Bring back Grant City?
There are those persons who wish to drastically limit those allowed to visit Yosemite, perhaps permitting only dues-paying, able-bodied members of the Sierra Club aged 18 to 34. While that would probably be fought to a standstill by the membership of the Mariposa County Chamber of Commerce, and objected to by millions of folks nearing or past my present age, it does represent a state of mind all too common these days.

August 29

Please remain calm during the earthquakes
While you slept last week highly sophisticated machinery was keeping track of earthquakes in California and elsewhere. Though you probably felt none, there were hundreds, all over the state. Most were small. They weren't felt even at the epicenters, except perhaps, by the same princess who had the problem with that pea in the children's fairy tale.

August 22

Should there be seven Macs on the PC?
A community defines itself by the rules it chooses to enforce strictly and those it enforces with more flexibility and sensitivity. Pacifica, which for many years chose to mostly ignore the leash law for dogs, is re-examining how rigidly dogs must be controlled. My family has suffered in the past because dogs were allowed to run loose.

August 15

Been wading in park puddles? You're under arrest!
I think everyone should obey the law, so the other day I decided one more time to review just what Pacifica's laws include. I scanned the municipal code. You're in violation of the code if your vessel approaches within 500 feet of the pier without written permission from the PB&R Director.

August 8

A few words about Bruce, beaches and bribery
To know Bruce Hotchkiss is to like him. He's a nice guy. In my case, to know Bruce Hotchkiss is also to often disagree with him. And he with me. Bruce's letter last week talked about dogs on beaches, Target and me, in that order.

August 1

A worthy cause is like a melody!
Not long ago, I started keeping a computerized record I call "requests for donations." Few came from charitable groups, the kind which feed the hungry or clothe and house those in need. Most are concerned with politics, environment and "causes." Some are gun control organizations.

July 18

Exuberance in Salt Lake and roadblocks in Pacifica
I wish I knew why there are so many IMBY'S in Utah, and so few NIMBYS. Lydia and I recently returned from several days back there celebrating some happy events in her family. Lydia's cousin and her husband were commemorating sixty years of happy marriage.

July 4

Medal of Honor recipients and Boy Scouts
Though a Korean veteran, I joined the American Legion only comparatively recently. After checking out the July Legion magazine, I'm having serious second thoughts about that membership.
Does a one-sided article defending bigotry by the adult leadership of the Boy Scouts really belong in a magazine presumably devoted to the interests of ALL veterans, including those rational, intelligent ones who view life from the middle of the political spectrum?

June 27

Memories of work under the morning star
I've a real dilemma when it comes to philosophizing about child labor, and especially, keeping children from danger on the job. No one actually argues in 2001 that children or teenagers should do dangerous work, yet a series of more or less marginally hazardous jobs I performed in my teens became some of my fondest memories and made me a better adult.

June 20

When mother earth gets the jump on us
Lurch by lurch, perhaps 10,000 times in the past million years, the land on the west side of Skyline Blvd. has moved north, leaving the east side behind. The next time it happens may well be the most important event in Pacifica's short history, and the most memorable, yet when it does happen, it will be overshadowed in the news by the impact on San Jose and San Francisco.

June 13

Jack London Elementary? Has a ring to it!
It's probably a little late to get involved in the renaming of several Pacifica schools, but I wish the school board had asked the community for suggestions. Everybody is smarter than anybody, most of the time. I hear they're renaming Pacific Manor School as Ocean Shore School. That's a good name, and appropriate. The Ocean Shore RR track used to pass through what's now the school yard.

June 6

How it might have happened in 1908
The council commission meeting of Salada Beach will please come to order. The first item on our agenda is a proposal by Mr. Henry Harrison McCloskey to build a castle on the rocky ridgeline east of the Ocean Shore railway track.
The chair recognizes council commissioner Curtis.
Mr. Chairman, I object to this monster house.

May 30

Would somebody please order pizza?
Some people remember their first date. Some their first long pants. I remember my first pizza. When the army sent me to Fort Devens, Mass., just in time for a Massachusetts winter, they confirmed my good judgment in choosing to be a native Californian.
Just before winter 1951 hit, I got my first pass in Mass. And in the company of a couple of other recently minted soldiers, I headed for the village of Ayer.

May 23

Cops need homes. Right?
Perhaps you heard Assemblyman Lou Papan sympathize with the housing needs of young Pacifica police officers when he spoke at the police station groundbreaking ceremonies last Saturday. He pointed out that many of them can't afford to live here. It was an appropriate comment in an appropriate setting. It seems unlikely, however, we'll ever be able to afford to pay our young officers enough that they can afford to buy a home in Pacifica. Housing costs locally are racing upwards at an exponential rate.

May 16

Volcanoes, cancer, and other hassles
I'll grant you, we skeptics don't have nearly as much fun as zealots do. Zealots are enthusiastic. Zealots KNOW they have the truth, even if their truth is the opposite of the truth espoused by the zealot in the next block. Religions have been where to find zealots in the past, though I've also known some really zealous atheists. Some zealots in power may kill, and make lots more folks miserable, as in the French Revolution, the Spanish Inquisition, when Aztecs ripped the hearts out of their prisoners, when Muslims participated in holy wars, or when Crusaders marched on the Holy Land.

May 9

How to share and economize at the same time
The Reader's Digest to me is like an old friend who's gotten really predictable, perhaps just a bit boring, but is still fun to have around. It was the Reader's Digest I was reading on my bunk in the barracks at Fort Devens, Mass. (March 1952) when I learned about the first American who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. He was followed by hundreds of thousands. He died at Fort Devens, of course. Worldwide millions died before that epidemic ended.

May 2

Who's to blame for violence?
I recently talked to a Pacifican, who ironically enough, shall remain unnamed. He blames the entire media for such unfortunate events as the recent high school shooting rampage near San Diego. If newspapers, TV, radio and magazines would simply stop reporting such "sensationalism" those kinds of events wouldn't happen any more, he reasoned.

April 25

A tour of six continents
You don't have to leave Pacifica to take a botanical tour of the world, unfortunately. I say unfortunately, because for every plant that grows well here that originated elsewhere and is universally admired and appreciated, there are five or 10 more that are, at best, mixed blessings, and at worst are weeds.

April 18

If it was up to me
On August 14, 2001, which is a Tuesday, there'd be a gathering at the Vista Point on Sharp Park Road which was dedicated to Grace McCarthy some time ago.
If it was up to me, the Mayor, the rest of the Council, and many of the other citizens who liked and respected Mrs. McCarthy would be there to rededicate the spot to her memory.

April 11

From out of our past: a roster of the missing
I've developed a kind of shadow memory of local structures that are gone. For some I've actual memories. For others, old photos or just my imagination have to serve. Historically, the biggest enemy has been fire. About 1908 Ernst H. "Harry" Danmann built what came to be known as Danmann's Hayloft. It was a bar and sometimes a hotel on Pedro Point, constructed next to another departed memory, the Ocean Shore Railway. Danmann lived into his 99th year.

March 21

A pleasant trip to the DMV?
I normally avoid the DMV as I would the Bubonic Plague. You could say I'm DMVphobic. For example, I renew my car registration regularly at AAA. The lines are shorter, for one thing. However, one situation I couldn't avoid. My birthday and my driver's license came up for review the other day. Pacifica Rotarians are fined $5 for their birthdays. Every few years the DMV basically does the same thing.

March 7

Hey, readers, I'm really a 'Liberal Democrat'
Leslie Davidson is going in the right direction, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading his letter in a recent Tribune. He sounds like the kind of person I'd like to sit down with and have a good conversation over a cup of coffee at Fog City Java or Pacific Java. He's got the concept and the purpose of opinion columnists like John Maybury and me down pat.

February 28 (alternate column)

Dreamin' about winning the lottery?
I'm sure you've heard the lottery commercials, the ones that suggest you "please play responsibly." This, of course, is good advice, just as good as the advice on cigarette packages. Of course it's also an oxymoron, a self-canceling phrase. It's almost impossible for the average person both to act responsibly and play the lottery

February 28

Letters, we get letters
Leslie Davidson is going in the right direction, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading his letter in a recent Tribune. He sounds like the kind of person I'd like to sit down with and have a good conversation over a cup of coffee at Fog City Java or Pacific Java.

February 21

Demolition or construction, the man took risks
His Viking ancestors led the way west from Europe centuries' before Columbus "discovered" the Americas. For a thousand years they lived in Iceland, that volcanic blob in mid-Atlantic. He was a Canadian, a child of Icelandic parents who then moved to the Bay Area. He joined the navy in World War II.

February 14

Some tired memories revisited
In the old west, a rancher's enemies might poison his wells. We have enemies as mean, and as mindless. Vandals can poison our generous thoughts and the impulses we might have to act in a kindly spirit.

February 7

Even second-class citizens deserve access to first class libraries
We are talking and thinking about a new library in Pacifica. It will have some advantages. There will even be so-called "virtual library" satellites, places with computer access, where books and materials can be ordered, picked up and returned. The promise is that the one new library to replace both our current libraries will be larger, with more books, more services, more computers.

January 31

Who owns that creek anyway? Years ago, when my brother got married in Petrolia, in the boondocks of Humboldt County, it was the social event of the season from Ettersburg and Honeydew to Cape Mendocino and points north. While there I met a local native who'd now be roughly 100 years old. Times have changed. In her younger days, she told me, when you went fishing or hunting in that area, you not only left your car by the side of the road unlocked, you were honor-bound to leave the keys.

January 24

Kevin Gogan boulevard? Why not! What does a tropical tree, the Palmetto, have to do with this even tempered and cool city? Why is the street that parallels the east side of the Cabrillo Highway in Rockaway Beach called Harvey? Why is that street on Pedro Point called Danmann Ave.? I don't know why there's a Palmetto. My guess is that if I knew the answer, I'd think it was pretty dumb.

January 17

An old story revisited There are only a few advantages to being a packrat. Nevertheless I'm a member of that sordid species. Which is why I recently rediscovered a note I received perhaps a couple of decades in the past from a co-worker. I'll call him Tim because that's not his name. Suffice to say he was a thoughtful, generous, intelligent, gentle and kind man, and an alcoholic. Those first traits don't always go with the last one. I've known, and been the victim of, some pretty mean alcoholics in my time.

January 10

Please remain calm during the earthquakesWhile you slept last week, and while you were awake as well, highly sophisticated machinery was keeping track of earthquakes in California and elsewhere. Though you probably felt none, there were hundreds, all over the state. Most of them were so small they weren't felt even at the epicenters, except perhaps, by the same princess who had the problem with that pea in the children's fairy tale.

January 3

Two decades of Artichoke awards This column marks the twentieth time I've presented the Artichoke Awards around this time of year. If you receive a Golden Artichoke, congratulations. You've done something right, at least in my estimation. A Purple Artichoke, on the other hand, as an item of food is undesirable. As an award? Not much better, but it's only my opinion, after all.

 
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