December 25
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Written a good letter lately?All over Pacifica today, friends and relatives are wishing each other a
Merry Christmas or some variation of that theme. I, too, want to wish you
and anyone else who happens to read this column the best of the season.
That should cover your situation, whether the period you celebrate is
Christmas, Hannukah, or even the special day of some community most of us
are hardly aware of. In this city we've Christians of many stripes and
subdivisions, though I'm unaware of any Nestorians.
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December 11
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Don't call it a failure. It was a survivorNo one will be saving souvenirs from the Sea Vue when and if it's torn
down. It's not the kind of building people discuss with awe and admiration.
When I first heard it had closed, the key word I heard was "failure." It
wasn't a failure. Like the Ocean Shore Railroad that once operated nearby
for thirteen years, the Sea Vue became rather grubby and beat down.
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November 27
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Stirring the Terra Nova soup potIn the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you I really like David
Kazakoff, the Principal of Terra Nova High School. He's a charming, verbal,
knowledgable guy. He spoke to Rotary earlier this year. Rotarians liked him
so much he was immediately invited back to speak a second time, which he
did in October. When I speak to some of my own kids, TN graduates from
previous decades, I'm told what a good teacher he was.
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November 13
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Wearing out shoe leather wins electionsWhen you take your politics seriously, as I do, you sometimes have to go through a process of grieving. Two good people, hardworking, concerned
citizens, persons I've known and admired for decades, were turned out of
office eight days ago.
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November 6
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Some thoughts the day after elections I really enjoy elections, because I'm in favor of democracy. Since I write this column in advance, I don't know which Pacifica City Council candidates
came out winners yesterday. It used to be I could predict the winners in
advance, but times change.
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October 30
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Why I like Measure E I spent the best part of my life before retirement as a newspaper ad man. It's an honorable profession. So I intend a compliment to the Tribune's
"junior" columnist, John Maybury, when I say he'd have made a good ad man.
He quite accurately quoted me last week while very possibly leading his
readers to the wrong conclusion.
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October 23
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Steinbeck! Is he hero or SOB? Who would have guessed in 1902, when California had fewer than one and a half million people, that one particular baby born in the tiny town of
Salinas would eventually win the Nobel Prize for literature, mostly for
tales of his native state and often his native county? John Steinbeck used
the local clay to mould masterpieces. He wrote about ordinary people.
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October 16
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Yellow paintbrushes and stagnation? My friend Herbie, the political consultant, is a fountain of practical
vote-getting advice. The other day we were discussing ballot measures, and
how to persuade voters to vote your way when they might just as easily vote
the other way or not at all.
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October 9
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A thousand books, a thousand days Somebody once said, "politics is the art of the possible." Aim too low and you'll never get close to your goals. Aim too high and you're bound to fall
short. Which brings us to the Pacifica library situation. It's not good. It looks
right now as if it might take all the resources we've got just to hold on
to the status quo.
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September 4
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The insufferable know-it-all speaks his piece I've always thought highly of Nick Leone, but as he correctly pointed out in his letter last week, I've been known to be wrong. So I may be wrong in my opinion of him. Truth is, in spite of the fact that
he seems to have serious disagreements with some of my ideas, I still think
he's a fine person who wants what's best for a city we both cherish.
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August 28
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Some folks are
really worth admiring Many years ago I was advised
never to write about religion or politics. Good advice! If I'd listened
to the part about politics, this column would have appeared rarely
these past decades, pleasing my critics no end. I've touched on
religion only sparingly over the years, however.
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August 21
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When will John
bring us a good idea? "Exactly what makes God-almighty
John Curtis think he can clomp in here from Pedro Point, push his
weight around, and bamboozle Pacificans into opposing Trammell Crow's
concepts for the quarry.
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August 14
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It's time to
level the playing field What I found particularly
infuriating in Bob Brodey's letter last week, (the ironic headline:
"Everyone Wins") is his complete lack of sympathy and understanding
for the ordeal he and his "friends" generated for both seller and
buyer of the Gypsy Hill five acre site.
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July 31
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Seventy years
ago on the Coastside What is now Pacifica, in the
Thirties was hard to get into, hard to get out of, and a great place
to practice your Italian.
The roads were twisty, poor, narrow and poorly kept up. When Laguna
Salada flooded not many residents from Vallemar south traveled very
far for a few days. In the thirties, it's likely most of the cars
were Model T's and Model A's.
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July 24
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"Bertha, get
me 1-Y-3, and howahya today?" Neither Lydia Comerford
Fahey, the Gust family nor the Rockaway Café were listed in the
phone books for this area from 1933 through 1936. Mrs. Fahey was
a long time, prominent and relatively well-off citizen. Charles
Gust, Nick's father, owned the Rockaway Café, later to be called
Nick's. Few had phones, least of all on the rural Coastside those
depression days.
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July 17
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Did my DNA make
me a possible spy? I was conceived early in the
Depression. I turned 11 in March, 1942. By the time I was 15 World
War II was well over. 1942-43 were years of transition for my family.
An abortive job hunt took us to the northern Rockies. Our return
to California was complicated by such tight gasoline rationing we
might have been frozen in place in Idaho for the rest of the war.
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June 12
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Hoe rare weeds,
go to jail? I hope I don't shock Ian Butler when
I say he made some good to excellent points in his letter last week,
even though he was rather rough on me in the process.
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June 5
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Why is the Devil's
Slide tunnel like a boat? Lord knows, most of the
folks who pushed so hard for a Devil's Slide tunnel were sincere.
And they were persuasive. So persuasive that about three out of
every four voters in this county back in the mid-nineties voted
for a Devil's Slide tunnel and buried the idea of a Devil's Slide
bypass quite deep.
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May 29
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To benefit from
it, fence it and clear it! Either Zacharia Pineda
is confused, or I am. One of us doesn't seem to know the exact location
of the Fish and Bowl. In a letter to the editor the San Bruno resident
praised the F and B as a secluded yet accessible piece of beachfront
property, and says how much he enjoys using it for recreation.
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May 15
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Am I really
white trash? From time to time I've been attacked
via letters to the editor, often because I'd written something intelligent
and thoughtful, but differing from the letter writer's point of
view. It goes with the territory when you write columns of opinion.
Last week, however, was the first time in memory I've been called
"white trash."
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May 8
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It's enough
to make me gag Some of us take an interest in history.
All of us will become part of it sooner or later. When I first came
to Pacifica I had a very low interest in the Little Brown Church.
At that time it was still a working Presbyterian church, still being
run by Rev. Herschel Harkins, the pastor of the Coastside.
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April 24
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Reason to celebrate
or big mistake? Perhaps you also received the invitation.
In joyful words it announced the transfer from the Trust for Public
Land to the bureaucratic grasp of the Golden Gate National Recreation
Area of yet another irreplaceable part of Pacifica's heritage, the
lands of Mori's Point and its environs.
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April 10
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Loose dogs revisited
Amy Hoffman of Vallemar took exception to my column
about loose dogs (letters 4/3). No problem. I take exception to
her letter. Just as I was in denial when my wonderful dog Bingo
needed better control, Ms. Hoffman appears in full denial when confronted
with the fact (repeat: FACT!!!) that loose dogs often endanger innocent
human beings who are pursuing legitimate goals. Did I react emotionally
when my ten year old son walked up a street in Sharp Park (as he
had every right to do) and was savagely attacked by a dog for no
reason? You bet your boots!
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April 3
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Selling parents
on Laguna Salada Well, I'll be go to jello. According
to last week's Tribune, the Laguna Salada school district is hiring
some folks to "market" the district's services, because enrollment
continues to decline.
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March 27
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Can you predict
which dog will bite you? There's a lot of pressure
these days to allow dogs to run loose on some or all of our beaches.
Some people prefer not to take a simple NO! for an answer. Having
been generously permitted to walk their dogs on a leash in most
parts of the public domain, they now want those dogs to be able
to run loose.
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February 13
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Let's have real
competition for county offices The system ain't
workin'. Five Supervisors run San Mateo County. They've an important
job. Their ideas, competence, energy and goals are crucial to whether
this county succeeds or fails. They're "elected" officials, and
it's true each of their names has been on the ballot in recent years,
either in the year 2000, or this year, in the election of March,
2002.
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February 6
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Is it time to
defend the barricades? I don't know if any readers
of this column are in the U.S. illegally. My guess? few if any.
Today my target audience is intended to be only those of us who
are American citizens. You and I, as citizens of this country, whether
you were born here or accepted the invitation to profess your loyalty
to the USA and become a naturalized citizen, have decisions to make.
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January 30
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Jackie's voting
for Gene. So am I Sometimes I have to get pretty
pragmatic about the people I vote for. No candidate is perfect,
and unfortunately, some are even more imperfect than the usual .
This year, in the 19th Assembly District, I'm happy to say there
are two good Democratic candidates, and even the third and fourth
choices are not bad as candidates go.
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January 23
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A non-artist
looks at the Art Guild situation Though I was once
honored in a national competition by the giant McGraw-Hill Publishing
Company for my abstract painting "The Soul in Hell", I'm not a painter.
Which may explain why I've never gotten involved with the Art Guild
of Pacifica. For the most part, in my 38 years in Pacifica those
folks have been either strangers or casual acquaintances at best.
To the extent I gave thought to the Art Guild, my impression was
of a genteel, well-behaved group who treated each other and the
world with civility, magnanimity and courtesy.
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January 16
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History, heritage,
and a church painted brown For the past 90 years,
perhaps the two buildings most visible to visitors on the San Mateo
northern Coastside have been the Salada Beach Presbyterian Church
and Bendemier, the castle built by Henry Harrison McCloskey. They
were both "side effects" of the Ocean Shore Railway. They were within
sight of each other in Salada Beach, with the railroad track between
them.
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January 9
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How to maximize
your political choices If you're a registered voter
for the Reform, Natural Law, American Independent, Green or Libertarian
Parties, I know how you can maximize your influence during the coming
year. Unfortunately, you may not like my idea. Re-register, either
as a Democrat or Decline to State (Non-Partisan) before Feb. 18.
After the March 5 Primary, rejoin your party at your leisure.
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January 2
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Artichoke awards, 21 years and counting
About ten years before I'd ever heard of Pacifica, and a few years before there actually was a Pacifica to hear of, San Pedro Valley was a place renowned for a food delicacy.
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