Reelpol

MAKING AND BREAKING NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

 

Published in the January 4, 2012 edition of the Ventura County Star

As author Maria Robinson once wrote, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”  
 
For those of you who made New Year’s resolutions, today is the day that marks your success or failure. After the third day, 90 percent resume their old eating habits, surrender to the lure of demon nicotine or start employing the holiday-gifted exercise machine as a clothes rack.
 
So why do we continue to make resolutions that we will inevitably break?  
 
Experts tell us that the beginning of every year seems to bring new hope that life can and will improve. On the other hand, we are inclined to develop amnesia when it comes to toting up our past failures. It’s far easier, instead, to yield to our deeply-felt yearnings for a fresh new start.
 
In the words of Oprah Winfrey, the New Year’s resolution becomes “another chance to get it right.”
 
So how can you ensure that you will get it right in 2012?

The first step is to set priorities---that means figuring out what is really important to you. Many of us rate spending time with family as No. 1, yet after honestly consulting our day planners, we find that we are not as devoted as we would like to believe. In fact, studies conclude that our kids spend less time with us than in school (900 hours per year) or in front of the boob tube  (1,500 hours per year).

Second, make your goal realistic. Each and every year, the most popular New Year’s resolution is to “lose weight” or “stay fit.” Not surprisingly, these vows evaporate within whiffing distance of the nearest fast food joint. With dieting--- or, indeed, with any other resolution---if you focus on the end result rather than carefully planning the steps needed to get there, you will have already failed.  
 
According to a Journal of Health article by Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel, “Despite a $50 billion diet industry promoting countless weight loss methods, approximately 95 to 98 percent of all diets fail.” Those who do succeed, do so by making lifestyle changes, one baby step at a time---from religiously keeping food diaries to scheduling more workouts per week to incrementally decreasing portion size.  
 
Third, as the Johnny Mercer song directs: “You've got to accentuate the positive . . . eliminate the negative.” Many resolutions fail because our brains, which more naturally receive positive goals, tend to sabotage or rationalize away objectives that scream “thou shall not.”
 
For example, if you decide it is time to stop barraging your Facebook friends with an unending stream of FarmVille requests, just remember that professionals predict you will inevitably succumb to the rationalization “but I need this [virtual cow].” You won’t be able to help yourself.  At least, that’s the gospel according to Donald E. Wetmore in “Positive Goal Setting.”
 
So rather than vowing to cease and desist behaving in an undesirable manner (such as responding to each and every text you receive with either “K” or “LOL”), perhaps you could resolve to learn a new vocabulary word each day and text it in a sentence to your friends. You will probably be positively rewarded in this educational endeavor---unless Autocorrect transforms your message into something either scatological or salacious.

Fourth, it’s almost impossible to rid oneself of a self-destructive habit without embracing a less self-destructive habit as a replacement. For example, if you are sick and tired of friends and family threatening to submit your name to The Learning Channel’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive,” first figure out the bad habit you wish to replace.  Hint: you might discover that all the clutter in your house is being generated in the name of procrastination, as in “I’ll clean up this mess later.” “A place for everything and everything in its place,” however, is the expert-endorsed mantra for pathological pack rats. Perhaps your new habit will involve frequent yet costly visits to your friendly neighborhood Container Store.
 
Fifth, make your resolution public---keeping a promise private, seriously minimizes accountability. A billboard might prove a bit too much but a blog or a social media post on your progress might yield the encouragement you need to succeed.  
 
Sixth, misery doesn’t just love company---it craves it. If your goal is to drink or eat less, avoid associating with boozers or attending social events that abound in culinary delights---like dinner at your mother’s house.
 
Finally, as Nike advises,  “Just do it.”  No excuses.
 
Major League pitcher Dave Beard, who wrote, “Many years ago I resolved never to bother with New Year’s resolutions and I’ve stuck with it ever since” gets the nod for actually achieving his goal.  
 
The rest of us will have to just keep trying.

COUNTY BRACES FOR DIRTY WORK BY SUPER PACS

Published in Wednesday, January 18, 2012 edition of Ventura County Star

Why does Stephen Colbert have a super PAC? According to the ersatz Republican with Mitt Romney-helmet hair and a Bill O'Reilly demeanor, "because I can and because it's funny."

In addition to his "Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow" super PAC, Colbert instituted a 501(c)(4) which can legally accept money from corporations and transfer the funds to his super PAC without naming names. Colbert finds scant difference between his 501(c)(4) and money laundering.

Thursday, Colbert announced he was running for president of the United States of South Carolina.

"You cannot be a candidate and run a super PAC," attorney Trevor Potter told Colbert on the air. "That would be coordinating with yourself, but you could have it run by somebody else — even a friend or business partner."

Colbert turned control of his super PAC over to Jon Stewart, thus illustrating the Mack truck-sized loophole in the law.

Potter, counsel to John McCain during the 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns, told The New York Times that the beauty of Colbert's super PAC and 501(c)(4) is "bringing the audience inside the system. He can show them how it works and then leave them to conclude whether this is how it ought to work."

According to the Nielsen ratings, Colbert's viewers tend to be young, white, educated and male. So far this year, he's drawn 67 percent of his nightly audience from the highly coveted 18-49-year-old demographic.

So Colbert, the 11th of 11 children allegedly more funny than he is, connects with young people — so what? The "so what" is that, according to said young people, fake news shows like the "Colbert Report" have become their primary source of political information.

In fact, a Pew Research Center study on public knowledge of current affairs reported that audiences for the "Colbert Report" and its lead-in, "The Daily Show," score as well or better than audiences who get their news from conventional radio, television and Internet sources.

Colbert's viewers know that super PACs are becoming a big problem for the GOP. Already struggling to bring tea party members in under the big tent, the Republican Party is losing the monetary and strategic control once held over candidates.

The leadership is learning, first hand, that raising money the old-fashioned way may not be enough to counteract anti-Romney propaganda put out by the "Winning Our Future" super PAC backing Newt Gingrich or "The Red, White and Blue Fund" backing Rick Santorum.

Colbert's viewers know that super PACs are becoming a big problem for Mitt Romney, who is constantly forced to fight off a gaggle of foes, that but for the grace of the super PACs, would and should have dropped out by now.

Colbert's viewers know that super PACs are becoming a big problem for voters — especially those residing in states with early primaries.

Not only do super PACs enable a handful of wealthy individuals to finance all manner of campaign propaganda without disclosing their identities, but they can also inundate the airwaves in mudslinging spots, glut mailboxes with unrecyclable glossy mailers and tie-up telephones with annoying robocalls.

Super PACs will be coming to Ventura County very soon. Rep. Elton Gallegly's decision to retire at the end of this year makes the race for the new 26th Congressional District, which includes nearly all of Ventura County, highly competitive.

Based on voter registration and results of past elections, experts see no advantage for either political party, yet the outcome here may well determine partisan control of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

Under the rules of California's new primary system, the top two vote-getters on June 5, regardless of party affiliation, will meet in November. The field currently boasts seven declared candidates — with even more rumored to emerge from the woodwork.

Democrats include county Supervisor Steve Bennett of Ventura, Oxnard Harbor District Commissioner Jess Herrera of Oxnard, Moorpark Councilman David Pollock, retired longshoreman Zeke Ruelas of Oxnard and Westlake Village businessman David Cruz Thayne.

Tuesday, Republican county Supervisor Linda Parks was joined by state Sen. Tony Strickland, who narrowly won an $11 million campaign against former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson in 2008. Strickland, who has been campaigning in New Hampshire with Mitt Romney, returned home to toss his chapeau in the ring.

Simi Valley City Councilman Glen Becerra, considered by Gallegly as his heir apparent, told The Star, "This seat looks like it was designed for a Hispanic Republican."

It's going to get quite dicey between now and June.

As to Stephen Colbert, if you really want to incur his ire, just mention the Supreme Court ruling that money is speech. According to Colbert, the court's ruling in the Citizens United case was that "transparency would be the disinfectant but 501(c)(4)'s are warm, wet, moist incubators. There is no disinfectant."

Consider yourself warned.

 

STUDENT-RUN RADIO STATIONS FIND A HOME ON THE NET

Published on December 7, 2011

Question: What was America’s first college radio station?
 
Stumped? I’ve taught the history of media for more than three decades and I had absolutely no idea---until I looked it up.  
 
Initially known by the call letters 2ADD, WRUC (Wireless Radio of Union College) became the first student-operated radio facility in the United States when the station signed on at 8:00 PM on October 1, 1920.
 
A couple of engineering students from the Schenectady, New York campus hooked together five U tubes and produced a total of 27 minutes of music---with the ditty “Tell Me Little Gypsy”  as the initial song.
 
The original station, according to alum Doni Johnson, was located in a shack behind the administration building with the wire antenna strung between two nearby trees.
 
Today, WRUC, which bills itself as “the first station in the nation,” will broadcast with 100-watts at 89.7 FM and stream when Union College is again in session (January 2, 2012).

At a time when university administrators are selling off their radio licenses in order to balance the books, California Lutheran University students are busying themselves preparing for the launch of iCLUradio.com.   
 
Through the generosity of the Marvin E. and Martha K. Smith Foundation, an education suite consisting of a “smart” classroom with an adjoining production studio as well as a smaller studio dedicated to streaming student-produced internet radio programming has been completed.
 
Last month, more than 350 college radio stations took to the airwaves to protest the burgeoning list of institutions of higher education nationwide that have been liquidating or transferring their FM licenses to non-student operations---usually in response to budgets inundated in red ink and/or the uncertain future of terrestrial radio.
 
Mark Maben, general manager of Seton Hall University’s student-run station told USA Today, “In most cases, either an NPR affiliate or religious broadcasters are buying up the stations.”
 
“College radio is a dying institution,” reports ABC News. “Schools have a hard time keeping up with Top 40 networks because they just don’t have the money to do it.”
 
In addition, it’s becoming more and more difficult to justify the cost of running a broadcast radio station, especially in support of a media production curriculum.
 
Finally, with a fiscal downturn that threatens to linger even longer, no student-run station will be able to rely solely on student fees or donations.
 
So when push came to shove at Texas Tech, Augustana College (South Dakota) Chattanooga State Technical Community College, Vanderbilt University and the University of San Francisco, their respective administrations decided to cash in---employing the justification that a greater number of students would benefit from the proceeds of the radio license sale.  
 
The University of Houston bought Rice University’s broadcast tower, FM frequency and license for a staggering $9.5 million. Linda Thrane, vice president for public affairs at Rice, claims a student-led committee will be making recommendations on spending the nearly ten million dollar windfall.
 
Those on-air stations being threatened by budget cuts or sale of their licenses argue that campus radio stations provide an alternative to commercial broadcasting, serve as that all important first break to local musicians and make a platform available for idiosyncratic viewpoints.  

Ever since the 1960s, when the FCC began issuing class D licenses to 10-watt stations in order to further the development of FM, campus radio ushered in emerging musical trends---including punk, New Wave, indie rock and hip hop---long before those genres became mainstream.

Often employing a freeform format and encouraged to take risks and exercise creativity, a number of student-run radio stations found themselves basking in the national spotlight, garnering critical acclaim, and accorded status as an essential local media outlet.

Yet “student voices” don’t have to be “silenced,” as last month’s protestors tried to claim. Online radio is taking off, and once this techno-savvy generation gets on board with phone apps and who-knows-what media tool coming next, college radio will reinvent itself into something bigger and better than ever.
 
The student government at California Lutheran University was so convinced of this prospect that, even with their money already spread pretty thin, voted to fund the entire operating budget for iCLUradio.com next semester.  
 
California Lutheran University’s iCLU may not be the first student-run radio station in the nation, but its official launch online could not be any more historic for CLU---or Ventura County.
 
In its April 25, 1921 edition, the New York Times noted that a broadcast by the Union College radio club (an early incarnation of WRUC) could be heard 1,000 miles away. Next semester, the internet stream on iCLUradio.com should be accessible by any person on the planet with a computer. Hope you will give us a listen.

MAKING AND BREAKING NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

Published in the January 6, 2012 edition of the Ventura County Star

As author Marian Robinson once wrote, "Nobody can go back and start a new beginning but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

For those of you who made New Year's resolutions, today is the day that marks your success or failure. After the third day, 90 percent resume their old eating habits, surrender to the lure of demon nicotine or start employing the holiday-gifted exercise machine as a clothes rack.

So why do we continue to make resolutions that we will inevitably break?

Experts tell us that the beginning of every year seems to bring new hope that life can and will improve. On the other hand, we are inclined to develop amnesia when it comes to toting up our past failures. It's far easier, instead, to yield to our deeply felt yearnings for a fresh new start.

In the words of Oprah Winfrey, the New Year's resolution becomes "another chance to get it right."

So how can you ensure that you will get it right in 2012?

The first step is to set priorities — that means figuring out what is really important to you. Many of us rate spending time with family as No. 1, yet after honestly consulting our day planners, we find that we are not as devoted as we would like to believe. In fact, studies conclude that our kids spend less time with us than in school (900 hours per year) or in front of the boob tube (1,500 hours per year).

Second, make your goal realistic. Each and every year, the most popular New Year's resolution is to "lose weight" or "stay fit." Not surprisingly, these vows evaporate within whiffing distance of the nearest fast food joint. With dieting — or, indeed, with any other resolution — if you focus on the result rather than carefully planning the steps needed to get there, you will have already failed.

According to a Journal of Health article by Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel, "Despite a $50 billion diet industry promoting countless weight loss methods, approximately 95 to 98 percent of all diets fail."

Those who do succeed, do so by making lifestyle changes, one baby step at a time — from religiously keeping food diaries to scheduling more workouts per week to incrementally decreasing portion size.

Third, as the Johnny Mercer song directs: "You've got to accentuate the positive ... eliminate the negative." Many resolutions fail because our brains, which more naturally receive positive goals, tend to sabotage or rationalize away objectives that scream "thou shall not."

For example, if you decide it is time to stop barraging your Facebook friends with an unending stream of FarmVille requests, just remember that professionals predict you will inevitably succumb to the rationalization "but I need this (virtual cow)." You won't be able to help yourself. At least, that's the gospel according to Donald E. Wetmore in "Positive Goal Setting."

So rather than vowing to cease and desist behaving in an undesirable manner (such as responding to each and every text you receive with either "K" or "LOL"), perhaps you could resolve to learn a new vocabulary word each day and text it in a sentence to your friends. You will probably be positively rewarded in this educational endeavor — unless Autocorrect transforms your message into something either scatological or salacious.

Fourth, it's almost impossible to rid oneself of a self-destructive habit without embracing a less self-destructive habit as a replacement.

For example, if you are sick and tired of friends and family threatening to submit your name to The Learning Channel's "Hoarding: Buried Alive," first figure out the bad habit you wish to replace. Hint: you might discover that all the clutter in your house is being generated in the name of procrastination, as in "I'll clean up this mess later." "A place for everything and everything in its place," however, is the expert-endorsed mantra for pathological pack rats.

Perhaps your new habit will involve frequent yet costly visits to your friendly neighborhood container store.

Fifth, make your resolution public — keeping a promise private, seriously minimizes accountability. A billboard might prove a bit too much but a blog or a social media post on your progress might yield the encouragement you need to succeed.

Sixth, misery doesn't just love company — it craves it. If your goal is to drink or eat less, avoid associating with boozers or attending social events that abound in culinary delights — like dinner at your mother's house.

Finally, as Nike advises, "Just do it." No excuses.

Major League pitcher Dave Beard, who wrote, "Many years ago I resolved never to bother with New Year's resolutions and I've stuck with it ever since" gets the nod for actually achieving his goal.

The rest of us will have to just keep trying.

 

BEING 'PUZZLED' ON CHRISTMAS---IT'S A GOOD THING

Published in the Ventura County Star on December 21, 2011

Come Christmas morning, youngsters all over Ventura County will find age-appropriate versions stuffed in their holiday stockings.

Centenarians — including Hilda Corson of Simi Valley and Ventura's Gladys Williams — ask Santa for them to keep their gray matter well stimulated. Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq consider their inclusion in holiday care packages as precious as home-baked cookies.

So what is this phenomenon — dubbed by author Coral Amende as "the numero uno indoor game in America since the 1920s"? It's the crossword puzzle — and on this very day in 1913, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World published the first one.

Apparently, America birthed three indigenous art forms. In addition to jazz and the hard-boiled detective novel, Will Shortz, New York Times crossword editor, puzzle creator, historian and puzzle master, felt compelled to add the subject of his life's work as well.

On Dec. 20, 1913, Arthur Wynne found himself approaching deadline and at his wits end. Every week, this Liverpudlian was tasked with filling an eight-page section of the New York World labeled "Fun." His stable of staples, which included such head-scratchers as rebuses, anagrams and math puzzles, had been used up. So at the eleventh hour, he opted for adding a new wrinkle to the traditional world square.

The first crossword puzzle (http://www.crosswordtournament.com/more/wynne.html) was diamond-shaped and contained no internal black squares. Wynne placed small numbers on the first and last blanks instead of supplying a list of clues — divided into across and down — utilized today.

Hints varied from "What bargain hunters enjoy" (sales) to "The fibre of the gomuti palm" (doh). Players were only expected to come up with a paltry 31 three- to seven-letter words. The current record for a Sunday New York Times puzzle, which is held by aficionados as the most daunting and difficult, is 150 words.

The new puzzle caught on instantaneously and became so trendy that the World's mailbox was immediately crowded with complaints if the newspaper failed to deliver a challenging crossword. In addition, Wynne started receiving submissions from readers at the rate of 25 a day. Not even the prestigious New York Times has been so richly blessed.

For nearly a decade, the World held a monopoly on crossword puzzles. In November 1924, however, the New York Herald Tribune published the first daily version. Soon newspapers across the fruited plain exploited the popular pastime and a crossword puzzle appeared in just about every newspaper.

New York Times Publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger became so addicted to the Herald Tribune's crossword, that he decided his newspaper should boast a daily puzzle as well. In 1942, he hired Margaret Petherbridge Farrar (Wynne's former assistant editor) to instigate rules (most of which still guide modern crossword design) and to maintain the dignity factor expected of the Gray Lady.

If you are ever looking for a 14-letter word that means "a person who constructs crossword puzzles," the answer is "cruciverbalist" — but, in addition, you should also consider "accounting prof" and/or "Dr. Edward Julius."

California Lutheran University hired Professor Julius, who teaches financial accounting in both the traditional undergraduate and Adult Degree Evening Program, in 1981. The longtime member of Mensa and rabid trivia fanatic began crafting crossword puzzles at the tender age of 7, when his older brother showed him the ropes. Julius confesses that he didn't realize until years later, that most people liked to solve puzzles rather than create them.

His professional career as a cruciverbalist officially began at Rutgers University, when he managed to syndicate his weekly crossword in the Daily Targum to more than a thousand college newspapers across America. His graduate study at The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) was financed, in part, by a series of six crossword puzzle books for Bantam.

Julius, however, is most pleased that Shortz, the crossword guru and star of the 2006 documentary "Wordplay," credits him with having been the first constructor to emphasize popular culture in his work, thus earning Julius a pivotal place on the crossword puzzle timeline.

Even though so much competition exists these days for one's time and attention, Julius believes that "both solving and constructing crossword puzzles can become addictive simply because we verbivores and logophiles (lovers of words and wordplay) enjoy any challenge involving the dissection and interplay of words."

A demanding daily (15 x 15) puzzle takes him from 10 to 15 hours to construct. In the "olden days," he could only consult a college dictionary and almanacx. "Now, with the availability of almost any information on the Internet," he admits, "crossword construction is a far more efficient endeavor."

Solving crosswords also is far more efficient. In fact, if you get stuck this Sunday, cyber-elves are available on Christmas Day — as well as the other 364 — to assist you at http://www.oneacross.com/

But I would still use a pencil.

 

Christmas 2009

  Christmas, 2009

Not meaning to gloat, but not only have the Kelley-Sharkey stockings been hung by the chimney with care—they’ve been emptied as well.  Due to scheduling conflicts, Christmas was celebrated on Thanksgiving this year with all but Nathan, Naomi and Max in attendance.  Jon and Beverly will be meeting up with them in Tempe, Arizona during the week before Christmas. 

During January, Jon and Beverly will be crossing off a mutual “bucket list” item as they cruise the Caribbean Leeward Islands with three other couples on a 40-foot catamaran.  To prepare, Jon enrolled in an online knot-tying course while Beverly is getting in shape with her Wii Fit Plus.  In May, these nostalgic boomers also plan to retrace Route 66.  While Jon considered leasing a red Corvette, Beverly argued, these days, the most attractive means of transportation favors comfort over speed.

Not only is Jon finishing up his third term as mayor but he is also breaking his vow to retire from politics.  Apparently, having been re-energized by the newly elected members of the council, Jon brims with plans for Port Hueneme.   As to the first lady, in addition to full-time teaching, Beverly will be taking on the presidency of the Friends of the Library and assisting with the second annual Sand Sculpture Contest.

Nathan, Naomi and Max are enjoying another year in Great Falls, Montana courtesy of the Air Force.  They fill us in, via daily texts, on the exploits of eight-year Max, the world’s greatest grandkid and a rabid-to-the-max fan of “Mythbusters.”  Hopefully, there won’t be too many pulse-pounding explosions in their future.  On the occasion of his summer visit this year, Max was quite miffed to learn the indoor pool at Grandma and Grandpa’s was closed for repairs.  “Is the beach still open?” he inquired.   He still loves to help out with culinary duties and finds the Montana climate with its diversity of weather to his liking.   In fact, he learned, firsthand, there’s nothing quite like donning snow boots during the first month of school.

The newlyweds (Aug. 31 marked 1st anniversary) are still gainfully employed.  Trevor is toiling away in the Music Division of MySpace and Angie is managing the Urban Outfitters store in Glendale.  They reside in a classy apartment in Silverlake and while they love their awesome view, foot traffic stimulates their puggle, Emmy Lou Harris, into fiercely vocal protection mode.  Whenever they need a temporary home for their canine companion, however, Jon and Beverly eagerly volunteer—they get to spoil their one-and-only “grand dog” and Chloe gets to visit with her BFF.

Brendan’s beard and longish locks are growing on us.  He’s become a fixture at Countrywide—having survived, during the past six years, an equal number of down-sizings as well as a merger with Bank of America.  He’s not wild about his new job in the Flood Insurance Division but not having to take work home on the weekends allows him to indulge his passions—penning graphic novels and creating music.

Warmest wishes from Chloe and her height-challenged frozen friend as well as Jonathan, Beverly, Nathan, Naomi, Max, Angie, Trevor, & Brendan

Christmas 2008

 

Dearest Friends and Family,                                                                                                            Christmas, 2008

We marked this year with both a wedding and a funeral. 

On August 31^st, Angie St. Louis and Trevor Kelley officially tied the knot.  The bride’s mother Jane and husband Jim were astute enough to allow the couple to make the occasion uniquely theirs.  No traditional readings would have been as appropriate (or chuckle-inducing) as the frank and revealing anecdotes recounted by their closest pals from New York.  All was as it should be--with their dog Emmy outfitted in a dress that matched the bridesmaids and the officiant quoting Keats.  As Trevor and Angie recited their vows, (Trevor read his off his Blackberry) those of us in attendance felt like we were eavesdropping on a private conversation between the two of them—the candor and depth of their feelings for one another was quite moving.

Lillian, Jon’s strikingly beautiful mother, passed away on September 16^th.  Ever since an accidental fall at work six years ago and increasing troubles with her heart, her seemingly boundless energy had finally narrowed to a trickle. Eventually, a problem with shortness of breath kept her from even venturing out to shop for groceries or to pick up her mail.  It was not, she would insist, the way she had envisioned her “golden years.” When an operation to replace a faulty aortic valve in her heart was proposed, she convinced her surgeon that she was ready, willing and able to tackle the difficult work necessary to achieve a full recovery, despite having celebrated an 84^th birthday.  Lillian literally sailed through the operation, sufficiently mobile to leave the cardiac care unit in just three days.  A complication requiring emergency surgery was the last thing anybody, including her doctors, expected.  Jon and Beverly miss her so much—especially around 8:00PM, the time each day when she would check in via telephone.

Jon and Beverly spent Thanksgiving in chilly Great Falls, Montana, where Nathan, Naomi and Max now share domestic bliss, courtesy of the Air Force and Naomi’s extraordinary home-making skills.   Their 7 year-old grandson shoulders his “one-and-only” burden with aplomb, allowing his proud-as-punch grandparents to cheer wildly from the sidelines at athletic events, pound him with totally unnecessary questions about school, and force him to perform impromptu piano concerts at will.

Brendan has taken on a new look.  He’s now sporting a full beard and longish locks.  The facial hair-challenged Trevor is (the hippest shade of) green with envy.  Brendan’s also got a new job. The Flood Insurance Tracking Services people at Countrywide were so impressed with his quality/productivity scores that they recruited him to their division.  He cheerfully made the transfer to take a sorely needed respite from the carpal tunnel-exacerbating work he’s had to endure the past two years and, of course, more moola. 

Jon, again taking his turn as mayor this month, keeps telling Beverly that he will retire from political office in two years.  She doesn’t believe him.  He keeps busy with his piano tuning business, flying a Cessna whenever possible, and walking the beach with his favorite Yorkie.

Beverly, who was procrastinating big time re: finishing a conference paper this summer, whiled away the time refinishing the bedroom furniture.  She keeps busy juggling chair stuff (this semester only) and classes, writing her bi-weekly column for the Star, and walking the beach with her favorite Yorkie.

The best of all holiday wishes from the entire Kelley-Sharkey enchilada:  Jonathan, Beverly, Nathan, Naomi, Max, Brendan, Trevor, Angie & Chloe

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2011

Dear Friend and Family,                                                                                               Christmas, 2011

Having reached that certain age, Beverly observes that not only does Christmas tend to arrive at warp speed these days, but each year invariably brings more changes than anybody is really comfortable in accommodating. 

Last year at this time, even though the economy was circling the drain, both Angie and Trevor managed to find better jobs.  Forever 21 allowed Angie to cut down on traveling while Disney Music Group has already given their newest Digital Marketing director (Trevor) a promotion.  They still call Silver Lake home and are crazy busy with jobs, socializing with friends, and catering to Emmylou Harris (canine version). 

Having put in four years with missiles in Great Falls, Montana, Nathan, now an Air Force Captain, is looking forward to working on the space side---his real passion.  The family will be transferring to Washington DC, where Nathan will be involved with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)---specifically, weather satellites.  Naomi laments leaving her besties but is energized about living so close to the nation’s capital.  Since 10-year old Max is crazy about sightseeing in general, this move is right up his alley.  We hope they find room in their new digs for a couple of freeloading relatives and their winsome Yorkie.

Of all the offspring, Brendan seems to have set down the deepest roots.  He’s managed to survive so many reductions in forces at Countrywide, we’ve lost count.  He has great affection for Fort Worth and the close friends with whom he shares weekend activities.  He still amazes us with the number of graphic novels he has authored as well as the music he creates on the computer.  Brendan, his proud mother proclaims, is a truly happy person.

Beverly will be retiring, after 35 years, from California Lutheran University in August 2012.  This semester she was happily tasked with preparing for the launch of the student online radio station.  Her spring semester sabbatical will include the release of her third book (a history of political American film) and the presentation of a popular culture paper on Dr. Strangelove in Boston. 

Jon still relishes his position as a civic leader but is chagrined to find himself the institutional memory of the Port Hueneme City Council.  This intrepid adventurer, however, isn’t looking forward to facing his biggest life challenge---trying to coexist with Beverly-the-mystery-writer 24/7.  Yet not only is Jon throwing Beverly a big birthday bash in January but he is also arranging travel in April to destinations on both their bucket lists---Stonehenge and Paris.  It doesn’t get any better than this.

Wishing you the fulfillment of all your dreams at Christmas and during the New Year.

With much love,

Jon, Beverly, Nathan, Naomi, Max, Brendan, Trevor, & Angie

A NORMAN ROCKWELL THANKSGIVING

Published in the November 23, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

When you find yourself suddenly single, especially if you are solely responsible for your offspring, it's all about plotting a new and different course through life. The most challenging stretch of road, I believe, is that portion of pavement punctuated, each and every coming year, by the holidays.

I remember, as I was bewailing my lot in life, a similarly circumstanced friend advising, "Just resign yourself to the fact that this year you won't be enjoying a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving."

With "Freedom from Want," Rockwell painted the most idyllic version of Thanksgiving that most of us have ever seen.

The focal point of his picture is a 30-pound turkey, the perfect shade of golden-brown, being gently lowered to its place of honor on a tablecloth bleached so white it stings the eyes.

The woman doing all the work is a sober, bespectacled matron — her gray hair pulled back in a bun and her flower-print dress covered up by a full lace-trimmed apron. You can be sure that the original protective garment — now decorated with grease stains and flecks of potato — has been crumpled up and hastily abandoned next to the oven.

Standing directly behind her, sporting his Sunday-best suit, is her spouse of nearly four decades, whispering sugary words of encouragement.

The nine or so guests of various ages gathered around the table seem oblivious to the bird's arrival. Instead, they are engaged in animated conversation with each other — heads bent forward and smiles plastered across every visage.

Nobody is bringing up, for the umpteenth time, slights carted around since childhood. Nobody is assassinating the character of a relative who, for whatever reason, is not in attendance. Nobody has arrived at this celebration with anything more to share with the others than good will and unconditional love.

Rockwell admits that "Freedom from Want," first published in March 1943, was inspired by a presidential address in which Franklin D. Roosevelt touted four freedoms necessary for universal rights.

Reproduced in consecutive issues of the Saturday Evening Post — alongside thought-provoking essays by contemporary writers — Rockwell's interpretation of free speech, free religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear proved so popular that when the original paintings toured the United States in an exhibition jointly sponsored by the Post and the United States Department of the Treasury, war bonds enjoyed a staggering $130 million in sales.

A gifted observer of everyday life, Rockwell sketched the passing moments in small-town America that struck a chord in him. He invited ordinary-looking people — family, friends and perfect strangers — to pose for him. His populist approach, plus an eye for detail and drama, provided his pictures with both charm and credibility.

"Freedom from Want" was hardly the only time Rockwell painted a heartwarming Thanksgiving scenario.

The Literary Digest published a red-cheeked Grandma bearing a silver platter groaning under the weight of a rather overdone turkey on Nov. 22, 1919.

The Thanksgiving 1921 edition of the Country Gentleman brought together a typically Rockwell-winsome boy and girl, who are intensely competing in a traditional wishbone contest.

"Ye Glutton," which featured a locked-in-the-stocks Pilgrim who is being publicly ridiculed for overeating, appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in 1923.

On Nov. 24, 1945, the Saturday Evening Post celebrated the end of World War II with "Home for Thanksgiving," a kitchen tableau in which a still-uniformed GI provides assistance to his harried-yet-happy mother in the potato-peeling department.

In 1953, the five-member Rockwell family relocated to Stockbridge, Mass. — only 162 miles from the site of the "First Thanksgiving," a three-day feast in 1621 that featured neither turkey nor pumpkin pie on the menu.

Rockwell was seeking psychiatric treatment for his wife and would himself spend years in therapy with celebrated analyst Erik Erikson to deal with loneliness and depression. You see, Rockwell was as much a personally created myth as the mid-20th-century America he depicted on magazine covers.

Married three times, Rockwell remained a complex, conflicted workaholic, who, according to his oldest son, Jarvis, invariably put his art above all else.

"That was his life," Jarvis told the Berkshire Eagle. "He worked everything out in his painting."

So those of you who, for one reason or other, won't be enjoying a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving tomorrow, please take comfort in this pair of quotations.

According to Rockwell biographer Laura Claridge, during a session with his world-famous patient, Erik Erikson couldn't help pointing out, "Norman, you didn't live your happiness; you just painted it."

John F. Kennedy, on the other hand, provides some sage advice concerning Thanksgiving, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."

WRITING OFF ANY HOPE OF REMAINING ANONYMOUS

 

Published in the Wednesday, November 9, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

Joe Klein had 6 million reasons for passing himself off as Anonymous. You probably remember his 1996 roman à clef, "Primary Colors," the thinly veiled, warts-and-all account of William J. Clinton's 1992 bid for the Oval Office. This titillating tome, based on very inside sources, spent nine weeks at No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list.

Nobody would have begrudged Klein the lucre he gleaned from his clever "whodunit" marketing ploy had he 'fessed up to being the "Primary Colors" secret scribe the first time he was confronted, but Klein, the highly respected, award-winning Newsweek columnist, continued to prevaricate.

Frustrated by the rigged shell game Klein was perpetuating on the media, the Washington Post's Style editor David von Drehle cornered Klein during an interview and coaxed him to put his credibility and journalistic ethics on the line. Still, Klein wouldn't own up to the truth. It would take five months and a handwriting analyst in the employ of the Washington Post to finger Klein.

Klein also spent the same five months wrangling multimillion-dollar deals for the paperback rights, international (19 countries) rights and film rights for a book that would end up upping his bank balance by at least a cool $6 million.

Now let's turn to another "Anonymous," namely the recently released film that speculates on the actual identity of the author of various plays and sonnets credited to William Shakespeare. This whodunit question has not only intrigued countless academic scholars but also such literary giants as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Henry James and Sigmund Freud.

The film, directed by Roland Emmerich, who is also responsible for such explosion-heavy dystopian extravaganzas as "Independence Day" and "2012," conjured up the latest assault (for fun and profit) on the grammar school-educated glove maker's son from downtown Stratford-upon-Avon.

The premise: surely no ordinary man (read "itinerant practitioner of a disreputable profession with no connections to the educated elite") could have possibly penned such masterpieces as "Romeo and Juliet" or "Hamlet."

So instead of Sir Francis Bacon, the sixth Earl of Derby or even Christopher Marlowe, "Anonymous" claims that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, deserves the dozen or so pages in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations — instead of the bawdy Bard we all know and love.

But Emmerich's film doesn't just stop with asking, as a rosy Juliet did with "what's in a name?" — "Anonymous" also had to come up a reason for the Earl of Oxford, "a most wretched soul bruised with adversity," to allow a commoner to claim his literary legacy.

Here is where the quality of credulity is strained much more than mercy ever was. Spoiler alert — this is the first of four additional conspiracy theories unveiled by Emmerich. To save the child de Vere supposedly fathered in a sizzling affair with Elizabeth I, he is forced sign over the parcel of political plays he's passionately penned.

At this point, those moviegoers with even a passing knowledge of the Bard's work will probably be asking themselves "the leave or not to leave" question.

Most Shakespearean experts claim the film is making much ado about nothing. After all, according to Roger Ebert, "very few commoners of his time are as well-documented as William Shakespeare. There seems little good reason to doubt he wrote the plays performed under his name."

Stratfordians argue that Oxfordian theory (hatched in 1920 by a schoolmaster with the unfortunate name of John Thomas Looney) is simply impossible — de Vere died in 1604 before a number of Shakespeare's most famous plays were written. Oxfordians counter, "Do we really know when these plays were written, or are we merely making an educated guess?" Lord, what fools these mortals be.

Finally, teachers in general are disturbed by the film's unapologetic dismissal of complaints about factual errors.

"It's the best of both worlds for Emmerich," noted Stephen Marche, a former Shakespeare scholar, in The New York Times Magazine. "He gets to question hundreds of years of legitimate scholarship ... because, after all, it's just a movie."

When Vassar English professor Donald Foster, assisted by complicated computer analysis software, was able to attribute an obscure 578-line elegy to William Shakespeare, New York Magazine asked him to take a crack at figuring out who actually authored "Primary Colors."

After sifting through hundreds of thousands of words, written by more than a dozen suspects, Foster pointed to Klein as the only possible choice.

In his Feb. 26, 1996, article for New York Magazine, Foster added, that in 1609, Shakespeare, too, remarked on the difficulty of remaining anonymous once one's style had become a matter of public record; when "every word doth almost tell my name."

As Mercutio would say, "a plague on both your houses." But would he say it anonymously?

OUT OF THEIR GOURDS OVER PLUMP PUMPKINS

 

Published on October 26, 2011 edition of Ventura County Star

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people," offers Linus van Pelt in the Peanuts comic strip, "religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin."

Nobody knows where Linus will show up this year to await the Great Pumpkin, but the Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth (GPC), the official body that sanctions more than 90 pumpkin weigh-offs worldwide, estimates that each year 10,000 amateur growers cultivate Atlantic Giant pumpkins — the perfect candidate to stand in for Linus' toy-distributing Halloween icon.

Atlantic Giants bulk up so quickly you can almost see them grow. During their peak growing season, their weight can spike as much as 50 pounds per day. It literally takes a village to pick up an Atlantic Giant, these days, or at least a couple of buddies with a heavy-duty crane.

The furrow to prize-winning pumpkins can be traced, believe it or not, to Henry David Thoreau. Three years after penning "Walden," Thoreau planted a Potiron Jaune Gros de Paris (fat yellow Paris pumpkin) in his garden in Concord, Mass., that reached an astonishing 123.5 pounds.

Though gigantic by most standards, Thoreau's pumpkin paled in comparison to one grown in southwest England, tipping the scales at 245 pounds.

After the turn of the century, William Warnock, a machinist and farmer from Goderich, Ontario, produced a 403-pounder for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair — a record that held for more than 70 years.

With the current champion at 1,810.5 lbs, brought in by Chris Stevens, a general contractor from New Richmond, Wis., pumpkin producers are redoubling their efforts — learning complex biochemistry, plant genetics and microbiology as well as devising a slew of scientific strategies involving natural growth hormones, super-nutrients developed by NASA, double grafting and top secret brews of compost and soil supplements.

These folks invest thousands of dollars in water, fertilizers, mechanized farming equipment and a chemical armory to wage war on pumpkin-specific insects and disease. Pruning, weeding, feeding and watering has become, for them, a full-time job.

Rumor has it that the next record-breaker might ripen in the warm California sun. The extreme summer weather has somewhat dampened the prospects of contestants residing in the Midwest.

Professional tree-trimmer Don Young has set state pumpkin records in both Iowa and California. In 2009, Conan O'Brien, behind the wheel of a monster truck, smashed one of Young's enormous pumpkins on his television show.

Young regularly lays out $8,000 (he doesn't have) a year and uses 27,000 gallons of water a month — nearly enough to supply a family of four for a year — in his quest to produce a one-ton pumpkin.

Left to her own devices, Mother Nature never intended pumpkins to swell as large as a small car.

Giant pumpkins are cultivated from seeds the size of a quarter. Last fall, a Stevens 1810.5 (which came from the 1810.5 record-holder cultivated by Chris Stevens) brought a staggering $1,600.

Before that, Ron Wallace's 1,068 pound pumpkin yielded the most sought-after seed in the world. What was his secret? Wallace told CBS Sunday Morning in 2007, "We use a lot of fish, kelp, humic acid. The humates help open up the soil for microbial activity," he explained.

"Add any potassium or calcium, adjust the pH," he continued. "You know, we'll do all that in the fall. And then during the season we do tissue tests."

Due to shape, weight or weather, growth hormone-pumped pumpkins can split or rot from the inside, shattering dreams of prize money and that coveted mention in the Guinness Book of World Records. That's exactly what happened to the Wallace family, for more years than they care to remember.

In their story, told by Susan Warren in "Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking, Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever," Wallace muses, "Granted, you're always going to lose a pumpkin or two. But you know what? Me and my father deserve a little luck. I guess it's like Clint Eastwood said in 'The Unforgiven,' 'Deservin's got nothing to do with it.'"

"All you can really ask for," he added, "is opportunity."

So why do it? "By God, if we can get a pumpkin up to a ton, imagine what we can do to somebody's vegetable crop," GPC President Dave Stelts told Smithsonian Magazine. "What we are doing will be reflected on the dinner table of America."

Every time Charlie Brown asks Linus when he's going to "stop believing in something that isn't true," Linus vows he will give up when Charlie Brown stops believing in Santa Claus. The two friends appear to be separated by denominational differences.

Linus has waited for the Great Pumpkin every Halloween since 1960. That's five decades with no payoff. Yet, Linus remains undeterred. Someday, he'll find the patch the Great Pumpkin deems "most sincere." End of discussion.

  © 2011 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online

PAYBACK PROVES POPULAR ON TV AND THE STREETS

 

 

Published in the October 12, 2011 Edition of the Ventura County Star

"We're dealing in a particular time right now in American history, where I think the average American is going to want to see a takedown of the rich," claims Madeleine Stowe — the actress you love to hate in the new ABC series, "Revenge."

Columnist Deroy Murdock recently opined, "It's official: America is at class war; and President Barack Obama proudly leads the charge against this country's wealthy."

In fact, "Occupy Wall Street" dissent has already reached Ventura County — with placard-waving protesters gathering on Ventura Boulevard in Old Town Camarillo only last Wednesday. Their declaration that "We are the 99 percent" is an attempt to draw attention to the massive disparity in wealth distribution in America.

Every time one of the 99 percent reads about a single millionaire who pays less to the IRS than they do, they burn with righteous indignation.

Their biggest beef is "It's the stalled economy, stupid." They see too many Americans losing homes, retirement savings and medical care while banks hoard loan loot, Wall Street feeds its greed gene and partisans diddle in D.C.

Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid comes along and proposes a "millionaire surtax" that promises to turn the tables on the 1 percent but ends up merely pandering (with no chance of being passed) to the 99 percent.

Winning critical approval and the 10 p.m. Wednesday night slot against "CSI" and "Law and Order, SVU," "Revenge" is billed as a contemporary re-imagining of "The Count of Monte Cristo."

The drama centers on a protagonist bent on payback named Emily Thorne (Emily Van Camp). A nouveau riche lass with no past, Emily is unwisely welcomed by a slew of swells in the Hamptons. Yet, she isn't exactly new to the neighborhood. In fact, she regularly summered there with her father until a frame-up by local fat cats landed him in the hoosegow. Seventeen years later, Emily is back, loaded and determined to right wrongs — with a vengeance.

For those who passed on reading "The Count of Monte Cristo," the serialized novel published in 1844 not only remains in print in all modern languages, but also is the subject of some 29 films.

The narrative of the Alexandre Dumas classic follows the wrongfully imprisoned Edmond Dantes who escapes from jail, acquires a fortune and sets about getting even with the trio who destroyed his life. Unfortunately, his plans bear devastating consequences for the innocent as well as the guilty.

"Revenge is universal," claims the ABC series creator and producer Mike Kelley ("One Tree Hill," "Swingtown" and "The OC"), who was drawn to the topic because "revenge crosses time and culture. It starts unwinnable wars and visits generations of blood feuds on families with unsettled scores. Revenge is as old as humanity."

But in real life, is revenge really as sweet as it seems?

Actually, it is — at least, it is at first. "When (people) exact revenge, there is genuinely a feeling of relief and even a release of serotonin and oxytocin into the brain that will make someone feel better," writes Mia Bloom, professor of international studies and women studies at Penn State University.

A brain-imaging study published in Science in August of 2004 suggests we feel satisfaction when we punish others for bad behavior. "A person who has been cheated is (left) in a bad situation — with bad feelings," notes study co-author Ernst Fehr, director of the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at the University of Zurich. "The person would feel even worse if the cheater does not get her or his just punishment."

In fact, "people who are more vengeful," writes psychologist Ian McKee in Social Justice Research, "tend to be those who are motivated by power, by authority and by the desire for status. They don't want to lose face."

Current ads for the show feature the aphorism, "revenge is a dish best served cold." While often attributed to Mario Puzo who authored "The Godfather," the credit for the maxim actually belongs to Marie Joseph Eugene Sue with "Mathilde," a French novel that appeared in print at the same time as "The Count of Monte Cristo."

These days, most people believe the most satisfying retribution results from a calculated plan. Not only should it be long in coming but also totally unexpected. This is the "dish-best-served-cold" impetus behind the modus operandi of Emily Thorne.

Yet, in "Mathilde," Sue was actually cautioning his character to forestall vengeance with his "dish best served cold." The wounded party was to wait until passion had cooled and rationality had the chance to reassert itself.

"Revenge is a kind of wild justice," wrote Francis Bacon 300 years ago, "which the more a man's nature runs to, the more law ought to weed it out."

Something to think about — right, Sen. Reid?

  © 2011 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online

NEW ON NETFLIX---WHINING AND ENTITLEMENT THINKING

Published in the November 28, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

I have never received a missive from a chief executive officer before, much less one that began, "Dear Beverly, I messed up. I owe you an explanation."

The remarkably frank mea culpa — in which the aforementioned CEO criticized the way he had communicated a pricing change — actually included the sentence, "In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success." The email was signed "Respectfully, Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix."

Hastings' dispatch gave me pause.

I have been a subscriber to Netflix since December 2006. I've stuck around for two main reasons. First, with the two-DVD plan, I can expect a new red envelope in my mailbox, six days a week. The turnaround, since I reside near a distribution center, is close to warp speed. Second, the return date for any DVD I select is always "whenever."

So why did Hastings feel the need to issue me an apology?

It all started when the highly successful entrepreneur opted to separate his streaming video service from the DVD-by-mail division — a decision that makes perfect sense given his underlying rationale.

Streaming and DVD-by-mail are completely separate businesses. Each requires a very different cost structure, distribution method, marketing approach and management style. Most important, however, is the issue of licensing fees.

To rent out a DVD, all Hastings had to do was buy it. Netflix was spared any per-view or per-customer fees. To offer streaming (TV or film), however, Hastings was forced to shell out fees based on his total number of subscribers — currently at a staggering 26 million.

Studios in Tinsel Town are demanding that Hastings pay a per-subscriber-per-month licensing fee despite the millions of customers who rarely or never stream. Only by splitting Netflix in two — Qwikster (DVDs) and Netflix (streaming only) — was the second company, Netflix, eligible to compensate Hollywood on the basis of a substantially smaller subscriber base.

Yet, a good business decision never has a chance against self-absorbed whining and entitlement thinking — especially the nearly 27,000 comments, mostly natteringly negative, that managed to bloat Netflix's blog in response to Hastings' hasty act of contrition.

The carping coalesced around dual points of contention — cost and convenience. All subscribers were asked to accept a price hike. Streaming only costs $7.99 a month. Two DVDs-at-a-time costs $11.99 a month. Those desiring both (hybrid) would be billed separately (total $19.98) by both Netflix and Qwikster.

While I don't relish price increases any more than the next guy, I do understand the need for them — given spiking costs in all other sectors of the economy. Netflix, for me, is a necessary luxury. What I don't understand, however, is all the griping about inconvenience.

"It's as if I went to Mickey D's and had to stand in one line to order the bun, and another to order the meat," posted Lory Montgomery. Really, Lory? Where exactly are you standing in line?

Visiting two different Internet sites, depending on the delivery system I choose for a film or TV show, doesn't pose much of a hardship or hassle for me.

Yet a poll by PC Magazine found that 55 percent of Netflix members were going to pull the plug on their subscriptions.

Since July 12, Netflix Inc. stock has plummeted 55 percent.

Every day, financial analysts and money managers predict that is it only a matter of time before Netflix goes belly up.

Hastings has made tough decisions before. In 2005, for example, he decided to cut Netflix's pricing to defuse a competitive threat from Blockbuster. A Wall Street chorus of Cassandras, stuck in dirge mode, predicted the end was near for Netflix. Yet, wasn't it Blockbuster that shuttered its stores?

In the end, separating DVDs from streaming will prove a better deal for all Netflix customers.

It's important to remember that Hastings wasn't apologizing for the changes — it was his clumsy miscommunication about the changes that he regretted.

"I got the idea for Netflix after my (first) company (Pure Atria) was acquired," the Netflix CEO told The New York Times. "I had a big late fee for 'Apollo 13.' It was six weeks late and I owed the video store $40."

The day he founded Netflix, Hastings didn't know if anybody would sign up, but unlimited due dates and nonexistent late fees seemed to work in a powerful way.

When Hastings was featured in a front-page article in USA Today in 1995, he posed with his Porsche. These days, he told the Wall Street Journal, he would surround himself with "a bunch of movies." Hastings' all-time favorite is "Gloomy Sunday" — a love triangle set in Budapest — complete with sadness and redemption.

"Thankfully," he told CNN, "there are no parallels to Netflix."

Kelley: U.S. POSTAL SERVICE NEEDS TO EVOLVE, REFORM

Published in the September 14, 2011 edition of Ventura County Star

We all know that Ben Franklin, America's first postmaster general, opened a post office in his old house (316 Market St. in Philadelphia) on July 26, 1775. Now his post office, which is still operational after more than two centuries, is slated to be shuttered along with 3,653 others across the fruited plain.

Despite the considerable changes in the world since Franklin's day, the U.S. Postal Service manages to deliver an average of 563 million pieces of mail a day, six days a week.

We may not enjoy schlepping packages and waiting in line, but do take pleasure in counter workers who ask after the family, conversing up-close-and-personal with neighbors (largely invisible and inaccessible behind block walls) and the convenience of such close-to-home services as processing passports and supplying tax forms.

For a measly 44 cents, not only does the USPS service (via pack mule) the Havasupai Indian reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, but it also operates branches in towns of fewer than 100 residents. And that's a big part of the problem.

First, according to Dean Granholm, the Postal Service's delivery and operations vice president, 84 percent of post offices on the hit list take in less than $27,500 in annual revenue while generating about two hours of actual work per day.

Second, the popularity of email and electronic bill payments sent the whole concept of snail mail into a tailspin. According to the Government Accountability Office, in just the past five years, the USPS' annual volume has plummeted by 43.1 billion pieces. This loss is the major factor behind a $5.6 billion decrease in annual revenues from 2006 to 2010. The USPS expects first-class mail income to plummet another 37 percent during the next decade.

Third, the Postal Service's package business — the one genuinely profitable portion of its operation — can no longer compete with the likes of UPS and FedEx.

Savings from the closings could amount to as much as $200 million. But the closings also translate into potentially massive layoffs. According to Granholm, as many as 3,000 postmasters, 500 supervisors, and 500 to 1,000 clerks would be let go.

The first shutterings are expected by January 2012. None are scheduled in Ventura County. The only change of note is the move by the Oxnard Bulk Mail Entry Unit to the Oxnard Main Post Office, which occurred, without much fanfare or dissent, on Aug. 13.

Residents of Ventura County seem to echo the sentiments of Americans who view the USPS, at worst, as a time-to-jettison anachronism, and, at best, as the benign purveyor of junk mail — clogging our mailboxes with dozens of glossy catalogs, slick political mailers, grocery store specials and innumerable pleas from cash-strapped charities. 

But there's a new crisis on the horizon. If the Postal Service is forced to make its required $5.5 billion annual payment to the federal health care benefit plan, it will exhaust its $15 billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury and trigger a default.

Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe testified before a Senate hearing that even with President Obama's three-month reprieve on the $5.5 billion payment, the post office would probably run out of cash and face a shutdown next July or August — unless Congress passes legislation supplying a long-term solution for the ailing agency. You can imagine the staggering blow to the economy a shutdown would entail.

With more than 500,000 employees, the USPS is the second-largest employer in the country — behind Walmart. Add to that loss the multiplier effect that would impact millions more jobs in related industries and that's the very definition of economic catastrophe.

"The Postal Service is on the brink of default," Mr. Donahoe testified. "The Postal Service requires radical change to its business model if is to remain viable in the future." What specific reforms will be implemented remains anybody's guess at the present.

Will the USPS be just another agency anointed by the Obama administration as "too big to fail" and be bailed out to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars? Or will economic Darwinism prevail, with a slew of enterprising entrepreneurs figuring out how to make a buck where the USPS could not?

Ben Franklin's post office is the only one in America that doesn't fly an American flag. You see, Franklin's unassuming three-story brick domicile was called into service before America had become a nation, and the absence of the flag honors that distinction.

No matter how you feel about junk mail or the USPS's "has-been" status, the closure of your local post office — with its signature stars and stripes flapping in the breeze — would be a palpable loss to you and your community.

As for Ben Franklin, he'll probably be rolling over in his grave. Or, at least going postal.

 

JOBS' VISION CHANGED THE WAY WE WORK, PLAY

 
Published in the August 31, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

Randy Pausch succumbed to pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008. Every semester, I play this computer science professor's last lecture, "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," to inspire my students.

In an extremely moving presentation, presently preserved on YouTube, Pausch carefully staked out the territory he refused to cover in his speech — namely, cancer, his family and spirituality.

The only exception, he slyly added, would be admitting to having experienced "a deathbed conversion." Wait for it. "I just bought a Mac."

When the laughter and applause subsided, the virtual reality expert admitted, "I knew I would get 9 percent of the audience with that remark."

Astounding, as it may seem, Apple sold more Macs in the first quarter of 2010 than during an entire year a decade earlier.

Steve Jobs, 56, who announced last week that he would be stepping down as CEO of Apple for medical reasons, not only persuaded Pausch that he couldn't live without a Mac — when he had only months to live — but billions more.

And not just computers. According to The New York Times, consumers have purchased more than 314 million iPods, 129 million iPhones, 29 million iPads and can't wait for the next sleek and sexy apparatus introduced by the bluejeans and black turtleneck-clad icon.

Yet, for Jobs, who has been variously described as an innovator and visionary as well as a control freak and egomaniac, fearless risk-taking was key.

As a teenager, Jobs phoned William Hewlett to request equipment for a school project. Not only did he get the parts, but a Hewlett-Packard summer job offer as well.

In 1975, he walked away from a dream job designing video games for Atari to expand his mind in India. "One of the two or three most important things," Jobs told author John Markoff, "I had done in my life."

In 1976, he sold his only means of transportation — a VW van — to build the Apple I with Steve Wozniak in a garage.

The laid-back advertising by Apple seems to reflect the minimalist appeal of every Apple product. Madison Avenue must have done a double take when a series of advertisements in which a stubbly guy in denim and hoodie — "I'm a Mac" — bests, in a mocking yet modest manner, the clean-shaven suit who represents Windows PC.

Some 65 such commercials ran from 2006 to 2010 on television and the World Wide Web. The creators at TVWA/Media Arts Lab wisely traded on the fanatic loyalty most Apple aficionados hold for Jobs.

How loyal? Just check out the blogosphere where the responses to Jobs' recent resignation revelation ranged from radio host Bob Boilen's ("All Songs Considered") contrast with the break up of The Beatles to a profound disturbance in the Apple fanboy force on Facebook to a lighthearted tweet by by @9GAG that reads, “Steve Jobs’ text was meant to say, ‘I reign as CEO of Apple.’ Damn you Autocorrect.”

Apple stock dropped 5.5 percent after Job’s pronouncement.

NPR’s Linda Holmes credits the culture at Apple to the company’s ultimate success---not just the impressive profit margin or the glittery technical accomplishments but the unquantifiable “coolness” factor that may well disappear with the demise of Jobs.
 
“Google may have been the company that has popularized the slogan ‘Don’t be evil,’” writes Holmes, “but Apple is the company that used its cultural position to persuade its users most effectively that it wasn’t evil.”
 
“That's why Apple can refuse to implement an element as common as Flash,” she adds,  “and can straightforwardly say, in effect, ‘We’re keeping this from you for your own good, and eventually, you’ll be better off.’ And it works.”

Steve Jobs, in fact, is the culture at Apple. In a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford, the college dropout advised, “You have to trust in something---your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Jobs’ gaunt appearance has spurred over-the-top speculation. Pausch wouldn’t have criticized Jobs for keeping mum.

We do know that Job’s pancreatic cancer was diagnosed and treated in 2004. His controversial liver transplant in 2009 and medical leave---the third in 7 years---last January bought him even more time.

On August 27, 2008, Bloomberg updated its 17-page obituary of Jobs---and inadvertently published it in the process. Jobs’ recent resignation revelation will undoubtedly fuel preparation of hundreds of “just in case” death notices. Perhaps a few words of wisdom from Pausch might prove useful to those who would sum up the life of Steve Jobs.

“I’ve never understood pity and self-pity as an emotion,” explained Pausch. “We have a finite amount of time. Whether short or long, it doesn’t matter. Life is to be lived.”

That’s exactly what Jobs is trying to do.



  © 2011 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online

THE 21ST CENTURY'S OWN SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Published on August 17, 2011 in the Ventura County Star

You know there has been a shift in the zeitgeist — when it shows up in a commercial.

The boob tube was still in the experimental stage in 1928, but its potential as a salesman became evident on the September cover of Radio News. A man in an elegant smoking jacket is seated in an overstuffed chair — his eyes glued to a screen built into an ornately carved breakfront. The headline: "Soon."

"Mad Men," the AMC series about a 1960s advertising agency, juxtaposes major social transformations — advances in civil rights, the burgeoning women's movement and landmarks in space exploration — with Madison Avenue men (and women) who stimulated our longing for Lucky Strikes, Heineken beer and bouffant hair styles.

During the '70s, McDonald's opened a window on an African-American daddy who cheerfully takes responsibility for braids and breakfast, at a time when more and more women were entering the workforce.

During the '80s, the infamous "Me Decade," Pantene treated us to "Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful."

A 21st century generation gap is being documented by a Toyota Venza ad in which a young lady bemoans the fact that her folks are not as involved in Facebook as she is. "My parents are up to 19 friends now," she laments — then mouths "so sad."

According to Nielsen, social networking is the most popular online activity — exceeding sending emails, browsing the Internet or playing games. In the interest of full disclosure, I spend 15 to 20 minutes a day on Facebook — in the pursuit of academic research, of course.

Facebook, which posts statistics as up-to-date as possible, now boasts more than 750 million active users — with half logging in on any given day. The average user claims 130 friends.

"The new tools of social media," writes Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, "have reinvented social activism." From Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, as governments continue to teeter and tumble, the voice of a new generation fortified by Facebook and Twitter, appears to be opening doors for democracy.

Yet, is a Facebook friend the same thing as a real friend?

Probably not — but Facebook friends can prove invaluable.

First, they can be a real support in time of grief, according to Time magazine. "People the world over can post messages, photos and videos, and specialized sites offer interactive forums in which the bereft can chat with therapists and with one another."

Second, they can be the only source of information during a disaster. Victims with mobile phones were able to communicate via Facebook from the site of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The same can be said of storm and flood refugees in the U.S. South and Midwest.

Third, Facebook friends are a big reason that "it's a small world after all." This is especially true with respect to getting the word out about needs as major as a bone-marrow transplant or as minor as a pair of reading glasses.

I got the chance to find out jut how small the world is when I received an email via the Facebook page I set up for the Port Hueneme Friends of the Library.

The English grammar was a little sketchy but the message was quite clear. A Japanese individual named Kazuo Ohashi wanted to determine the "recent status" of an elder sister living in Port Hueneme.

I forwarded his email to Police Chief Kathleen Sheehan who dispatched Sgt. Chris Graham to do a "welfare check" on Ms. Mitsuyo Sawday. He found her house "clean and orderly" and Mitsuyo "a lovely hostess." Her health was good, other than coping with a tracheotomy, which, apparently, was not of recent origin.

The officer, according to Sheehan, "was too much of a gentleman to ask her exact age, but she seemed to be getting around and caring for herself just fine." In the notes they wrote each other, he discovered that Mitsuyo and her sister Fumiko Mikuni usually communicated via fax but Mitsuyo had been a little lax of late. She promised to remedy the situation that day.

Almost immediately I received another email from Mitsuyo's 65-year old brother reading, "Thanks so much for your prompt and deep kindness. I will respect that local community is very strong in USA. Thank you so much again Kelley-San and everyone."

Needless to say, Kazuo is now my friend on Facebook. He's since reported that his home, facing the U.S. supply base in Sagamihara City, was untouched by earthquake, tsunami or radiation.

Kazuo visited the "Friendly City by the Sea" 16 years ago. The vacation was nice, but it was his Facebook experience that convinced him Port Hueneme really does live up to its motto.

No, this isn't a commercial. Just an observation — about another shift in the zeitgeist.

SAND SCULPTURE IDEA TAKES SHAPE AT HUENEME BEACH

Published in the August 3, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

You probably associate Port Hueneme with either Naval Base Ventura County — home of the Fighting Seabees — or as the site of the fourth-largest deepwater port on the West Coast. You may not realize, however, that Port Hueneme beach sand has been certified, by a bona fide geologist, no less, as perfect for constructing sand sculptures.

Actually, Hueneme Beach Park itself should be considered a 20-acre sand sculpture, varying in size and shape from year to year. When the Navy built the east jetty at the harbor, it interrupted the flow of sand to Hueneme Beach while also creating a corrosive eddy current that scours away 1.25 million cubic yards of sand every year.

The Army Corps of Engineers is mandated by law to replenish the sand, which is usually pumped out of a trap west of Channel Islands Harbor every two years.

This year, the third annual city of Port Hueneme Sand Sculpture Contest is scheduled for Aug. 21 — giving out-of-towners something else to do from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., in addition to visiting Hueneme Beach Festival vendors, grooving to the bands, visiting the port or touring Ventura County's only lighthouse.

Donna Breeze hatched the sand sculpture idea while brainstorming various strategies to keep Hueneme Beach from remaining "the best-kept secret in Ventura County." Since her family has always enjoyed digging in the sand, she figured a competition on the beach east of the pier might provide the perfect introduction to "The Friendly City by the Sea."

Attendance at the first two contests, however, was disappointing. After a painful post-mortem, three number-boosting decisions were made.

First, there will be no entry fee. The contest is free — whether you are a sand sculpture virgin or an award-winning professional.

Second, the publicity blitz for the event will extend far beyond posters and free media. This year, according to Lisa Donley, Port Hueneme director of Recreation and Community Services, not only will there be announcements in all local newspapers, including The Star, "we will run a TV commercial on KEYT from Aug. 16 to 21" and media sponsors "Gold Coast Broadcasting and Cumulus Broadcasting ... will read PSAs beginning the week of the event."

Third, there will be a teaching demonstration. Professional painter and sculptor Dennis Shives entered last year's contest with an elaborate bullfrog (complete with textured skin) lounging on a giant lily pad. What impressed Breeze, however, about Shives, was the way he quietly pitched in, as officials roped off dozens of 14-foot by 14-foot shoreline plots at the crack of dawn.

His frog didn't grab the grand prize, but Shives wasn't disappointed — he just made the rounds complimenting the other entrants.

Breeze figured the reason most people balked at entering the contest was inexperience. So for those who want to learn how to sand sculpt or to glean a few tips from a professional, Shives was hired to conduct a three-hour demonstration on Saturday, the day before the contest, from noon to 3 p.m. He specializes in getting sculptors of all ages to tap into their imaginations as they use everyday tools from home to create masterpieces in the sand.

Shives, a natural-born storyteller, possesses an infectious sense of humor and has been passionate about art since childhood. He loves living in Ojai but spent ten mind-blowing summers in Alaska, where he learned how to fish for salmon, carve ivory and produce bear story paintings.

One of his favorites depicts a farmer lighting smudge pots in an avocado grove — with Ojai's iconic Chief Peak in the distance. The farmer is so preoccupied, however, he misses a bevy of avocado-loving brown bears warming themselves around a fire.

Shives also invented a bat or angel wing-festooned belly swing to simulate flying for little kids, and a wind-powered bubble machine, which may, weather permitting, bathe Hueneme Beach in bubbles on Aug. 20.

When I asked Shives what he was going to craft for his demonstration, he remained mum. He customarily depends on his most recent experience to jump-start the creative process. All I can tell you is that his last crowd-pleaser was a colossal sand car. The sculpture portrayed a vehicle traveling so fast around a corner that G-forces curve the automobile into a C-shape.

Shives told me that a little boy approached the sculpture, studied it seriously, and then confidently announced, "It's a Bentley."

Even though a total of $2,000 in prize money will be given away, Breeze isn't interested in Port Hueneme becoming just another stop on the professional sand sculpture tour. She insists that the contest remain family-friendly.

An amazing sand sculpture exists inside each of you. All you have to do, according to Shives, is just let it out. See you in Port Hueneme.

A sand-sculpting contest will again be part of the activities at the 13th annual Toni Young Hueneme Beach Festival set for Aug. 20-21. For more information about the sand-sculpting event (scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 21) go to http://www.huenemesand.com. For questions, email Donna Breeze at info@huenemesand.com.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME IN CALIFORNIA

Published in the July 20, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

If Thomas Jefferson had had his way, the 163,695-square mile landmass that is the state of California would have consisted of five equilateral rectangles with no meandering curves or unexpected projections.

We will never know if all of Ventura County would have fit in one of his Golden State squares, since Jefferson's proposal never gained much traction, but we do know that Ventura County farmers would not have been able to realize $1 billion yearly from local water sources alone.

Even though Southern California needed Northern California (at least, its water) when the state Legislature put division to a vote in 1859, 75 percent of Southern California voters, convinced that they were being ignored and unfairly taxed by state legislators, favored making their dry and sunny neck of the woods a new state.

Fortunately, the Civil War seriously distracted the powers that be in Washington and nothing came of So Cal's drive to divide.

Yet, since California acquired statehood in 1850, there have been at least 27 attempts to cleave America's most populous state. Californians got most serious about splitting up in 1941, when Lassen, Modoc, Siskiyou and Del Norte counties in Northern California got the urge to merge with Curry County in southern Oregon. The spanking new state was to bear the name of our third president.

Their reason for secession was reflected in the official Seal of the Great State of Jefferson. The founding fathers of Jefferson, convinced that an abundance of copper, gold and silver, dense forests and unparalleled fishing would enable their state to become "self sustainable," chose a gold miner's pan with two Xs painted in the center to denote being "double crossed" by both Sacramento and Salem.

Point your browser to Jefferson State to hear from those still patiently waiting for Jefferson, (the current incarnation incorporates seven Oregon and 12 California counties) to become our 51st state.

Quarrels over politics, religion, culture and natural resources resulted in state boundaries as jagged as a leaf's edge. For example, the 49th parallel was chosen as the northern border of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana to ensure access to the Great Lakes.

Although most people associate the Mason-Dixon Line with the War between the States, it was employed to settle the clash between the British colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania/Delaware over a charter that placed the booming Philadelphia within Maryland's borders.

If, after the 14-member California Citizens Redistricting Commission  sets new boundaries for the congressional, state Senate, state Assembly and state Board of Equalization districts, and Simi Valley, Moorpark or Thousand Oaks ends up voting with Los Angeles County, the dislocated municipality, too, might feel — 250 years later — Philadelphia's pain.

While John Q. Public has only one criterion — what's best for me — the commission is bound by six guiding principles: equal population, compliance with the U.S. Voting Rights Act, contiguity, communities of interest, compactness and, where possible, locating two Assembly districts in one Senate district. Note that these criteria are also prioritized.

Since equal population comes first — it's all about the math. An Assembly district is limited to 465,674, Senate district to 931, 349 and congressional district to 702,905.

The population of Ventura County, as of 2010, is 823,318, which means not only will it be mathematically impossible to gather all 10 cities into a single congressional district but it will also be mathematically impossible for state Assembly districts not to spill over as well.

As if the commission's redistricting assignment weren't complicated enough if merely confined to Ventura County — there are 58 counties in California and all are bellowing for the commission's attention and bawling to stay intact.

The ballot results of the Voters First Act of 2008 (passed by 50.83 percent) and California Congressional Redistricting Initiative of 2010 (passed by 61.3 percent) indicate that a majority agrees that the blatant gerrymandering, political stagnation and lack of competition that characterized Golden State politics had to go. The last straw for voters was the Democratic-controlled Legislature penciling in districts that protected all incumbents in 2001.

While not everybody will be happy after July 28, (the commission's deadline), we can trust that the commission, after weighing our polite and persuasive feedback, will have done its level best to group California's voting communities by geography, ethnicity and economic interests.

Moreover, we can be thankful that commission members are not folks who "allow" — no, make that — "demand" that voting records and party registration shape the new maps.

Only Thomas Jefferson would insist that California consist of five equilateral rectangles with no meandering curves or unexpected projections. Just think, had he had his way with the rest of these United States, none of us would be able to recognize states by shape.

They would all look the same.

More online
Are you smarter than a third grader?

Try this

BAD TEACHER BELONGS AT BACK OF CLASS

Published in the July 6, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

She's no Mr. Chips. I'm talking about the foul-mouthed Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) in "Bad Teacher," who goes into education for all "the usual reasons: short hours, summers off and no accountability."

The pot-smoking, flask-toting gold-digger is so totally obsessed with augmenting her bra size to trophy wife specifications that she connives all manner of embezzlement schemes to achieve said goal.

Her lesson plan consists of showing "Stand and Deliver," "Dangerous Minds" and "The Great Debaters" while she snoozes or nurses a hangover. She also foists her responsibilities off on colleagues who possess far bigger hearts for their students than she does.

The R-rated black comedy may have been intended as the lucrative demon spawn of "Bad Santa," but moviegoers aren't seeing it that way. Terry Zwigoff's 2003 Christmas offering, in which Billy Bob Thornton plays an alcoholic Kriss Kringle, raked in big bucks ($136 million) yet ticket-buyers seem to be staying away from "Bad Teacher" in droves.

Perhaps the critical difference is that Santa Claus doesn't exist but bad teachers do — and are responsible, at least, in part for the 30-year decline in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) as well as America's lousy (in comparison to other industrialized countries) rankings in math and science.

On the first day of class, I ask my students to supply adjectives that describe "a good teacher." I dutifully record their answers on the white board, only occasionally asking for clarification with such attributes as "accessible" (Does that mean 24/7?) or "understanding" (Would such a teacher allow you can turn in a paper late because of a fight with your boyfriend?) or "entertaining" (What exactly does "entertaining" look like?).

The list never holds any surprises: "prepared," "knowledgeable," "competent," "punctual," "focused," "fair," "respectful," "appeals to different kinds of learners," "creative," "passionate," "funny," and "leaves emotional baggage at home." Apparently, some teachers share too much information — on a daily basis.

Next question: "What makes a good student?" It doesn't take long before sharp undergraduates crack the code. The very same adjectives that delineated their ideal teacher are now showing up on the board defining ideal students as well.

Last question: "Can you learn anything from a bad teacher?" Somebody always says, "You can learn what not to do."

"Allow me," I say, "to tell you about Miss Fern."

She was my high school calculus teacher, at a time when not much was known about Alzheimer's. She would get terribly lost — unable to explain the illegible equations she scrawled on the blackboard and would dissolve into tears.

When we complained to the principal, we were told that under the terms of her contract, if Miss Fern didn't finish up the semester, she wouldn't be able to collect a pension. It was up to us, he advised, to improvise.

Perhaps his solution wasn't really fair but it certainly was profitable — life lesson-wise. We soon came to realize that, as a group, we could teach each other calculus, and by walking in Miss Fern's spindly spike heels, we could learn compassion as well.

So what would Miss Halsey be able to teach? Not only could her self-absorption, shallow sexuality, callous materialism, addictive personality and lack of empathy add up to a stunning what-not-to-do role model but she could also allow her students to more easily recognize her self-destructive characteristics in themselves.

Narcissism is the new black. Unfortunately many of us are wearing too much of it. According to such sociologists as San Diego State's Jean Twenge, University of Georgia's W. Keith Campbell, Notre Dame's Christian Smith and University of Kentucky's Nathan DeWall, young people, these days, are suffering from a veritable epidemic of narcissism — even more widespread and entrenched than previous generations.

Why widespread and entrenched? Certainly such mega-popular social networking sites as Facebook and Twitter (just ask former Congressman Anthony Weiner) as well as the instant celebrity afforded by "win-at-any-cost" reality and talent shows are working overtime to fuel narcissism across the nation.

"Bad Teacher," however, remains a very cynical look at public education when America needs to recognize and reward good teachers more than ever. While all may not rise to the level of a Jaime Escalante, Louanne Johnson or Professor Melvin Tolson, sharing their uplifting stories on the silver screen may, once again, inspire our best and brightest to become educators.

There's no "Goodbye, Miss Halsey" at the end of the film. Ironically, instead of being fired, Halsey is promoted, while Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), who is outstanding in the classroom, is banished to the worst school in the state.

"Bad Teacher" does offer a parting lesson. Instead of attempting to weed out bad teachers after the fact — via test scores, third-party evaluations, or threatening to close down schools — why not identify them as freshmen?

It's so easy — just look into their hearts.

WHEN IT COMES TO SCANDAL IT'S A MAN'S WORLD

"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," said Henry Kissinger, and the Nobel laureate, 56th secretary of state and unlikely sex symbol — linked to Jill St. John, Marlo Thomas and Samantha Eggar — ought to know.

At the Washington Press Club in 1972, Kissinger defended his reputation as a "secret swinger" by noting that although Gloria Steinem announced she "is not now and never has been a girlfriend," he wasn't about to give up. "After all," he wisecracked, "she did not say that if nominated she would not accept, or if elected she would not serve."

Kissinger was single when he carried on with his bevy of Hollywood beauties. Former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif. former Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, D-N.Y., former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and former President Bill Clinton were not.

"I'm telling you," Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., told The New York Times after the Weiner debacle, "every time one of these sex scandals goes, we just look at each other, like, 'What is it with these guys? Don't they think they're going to get caught?' "

In "A Matter of Judgment not Morality," published by the Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts Jr. concludes, "Women are possessed of something rare among men. It is called a 'brain.' Evidently, that organ tells them that when your private life is public record, when you live in a news cycle that is all intrusive, all the time, it might be wise to keep that other organ zipped."

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Torie Clarke recently observed on ABC's "This Week" that female politicians who are "seen as more honest, more sincere, as harder working" than men are gaining a distinct advantage among voters.

Indeed, as the world struggles to emerge from the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, the International Monetary Fund — the institution at the heart of the global economic system — is moving to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who was forced to resign after being accused of sexually assaulting a hotel housekeeper) as managing director.

Apparently, Christine Lagarde's gender is giving her the edge, even though IMF leadership has been largely French for the past three decades and Mexico's candidate, Agustín G. Carstens, appears, at least on paper, to be better qualified for the job.

Only a handful of minor scandals involved women in public office in America — either amounting to long-term love affairs quickly confessed and without political consequence (U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth and Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Sue Myrick) or chalked up to a last-minute campaign smear that backfired on the opponent (South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley).

So why do so few feminine politicos make the list of cheaters?

First, female elected officials do more and have more to do. Kathryn Pearson's (University of Minnesota) research on Congress demonstrates that compared to men, women introduce more bills, participate more vigorously in key legislative debates and give more of the one-minute speeches that open each daily session. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand sums it up for NPR's Cokie Roberts: "You're in the middle of diapers and bottles and bills and votes and markups, how could you possibly think about doing anything else?"

Second, politics remains, for the most part, a man's world. The Center for American Women and Politics has compiled data showing women currently hold only 16.6 percent of the 535 seats in Congress and 23.5 percent of the seats in state legislatures. Further, America boasts only six female governors and, of the top 100 big-city mayors, merely eight are women.

Third, along with shorter lines to the ladies room comes more scrutiny by the media. Since so few females throw chapeaus into the political ring, the spotlight is on them 24/7. "There are certain men that the more visible they get, the more bulletproof they feel," writes the author of "Why Women Should Rule the World," Dee Dee Myers. "You just don't see women doing that; they don't get reckless when they're empowered."

"The shorthand of it is that women run for office to do something, and men run for office to be somebody," Rutger's Debbie Walsh told The New York Times. "Women run because there is some public issue that they care about, some change they want to make, some issue that is a priority for them, and men tend to run for office because they see this as a career path."

There is no evidence that "Henry the Kiss" kept chasing skirts after 1974 when he married Nancy Maginnes, a leggy blonde aide to New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.

His second most notable quote, however, provides sensible counsel to politicos of both genders. "Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes," he quipped. "There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."

Kelley: Gender Question creates a "Storm"

Published in the June 8, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

My Greatest Generation parents were crazy about the ornately framed prints of Thomas Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" (1770) and Thomas Lawrence's "Pinkie" (1794) that hung in their bedroom.

When I studied art, however, I discovered that Gainsborough also captured a similarly posed adolescent male on canvas around the same time — only he decided to clothe the second model in a "pretty-in-pink" costume.

Experts claim, with both "Pink Boy" and "Blue Boy," Gainsborough was paying homage to the 17th century Flemish artist Anthony Van Dyck.

"Pink Boy," even though executed as well as "Blue Boy" was, for some reason, unceremoniously relegated to relative obscurity while appreciation for "Blue Boy" has carried well into the 21st century.

Do art lovers have a problem with a young boy dressed in pink? The Associated Press recently ran a story about a Toronto couple who torched quite a controversy when they refused to identify the gender of their newborn. Kathy Witterick, 38, and David Stocker, 39, contend that little "Storm" should have the right to decide his or her sexual identity.

Storm, the third child behind two "on-the-record" boys (Kio and Jazz), was born in a pool of water at home. The baby announcement, delivered via email, said: "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime."

The couple, subsequently besieged by reporters once their revelation went viral, fired off a statement on May 27 that read in part, "that the whole world must know what is between the baby's legs is unhealthy, unsafe and voyeuristic. We know — and we're keeping it clean, safe, healthy and private (not secret!)."

The parents maintain that there's nothing abnormal about Storm's genitalia but admit that they've been wounded by snide remarks directed toward their older boys for preferring pink and purple apparel, sometimes the occasional dress and/or long, braided hair.

This brings to mind two questions: 1. Should children have the ultimate say in choosing their gender? 2. No matter how well intended, does this experiment exemplify political correctness run amok?

I am having trouble with the idea of "choosing" one's gender unless our customary visual approach results in an ambiguous conclusion. While it is true that accepted gender-based roles do tend to limit children to behavior that fails to take into account their individual preferences and/or abilities, on the other hand, according to "Barbie Against Superman" (Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies), normative pressure via the socialization process at home or school and informational pressure from the media or peers do tend to exert an almost irresistible force as well.

During the past two centuries, wholesale discrimination against American women existed because men convinced themselves that women were physically, mentally and/or emotionally inferior — not just different — inferior. That was wrong.

Did you know that more than 400 women passed themselves off as males in order to fight during the Civil War? As to being judged by a jury of one's peers, Georgia was that last state to grant females jury rights — the date was Dec. 21, 1953. Women were shut out of institutions of higher education then and are still not occupying the Oval Office now.

Most would agree that gender differences seem to result from both nature and nurture. If distinctions between the sexes were merely biological, education would be impossible and behavior could never be changed. If distinctions between the sexes were merely environmental, our children could be more easily Stepfordized but what's the joy in that?

Back to the blue and pink color-coding, Claudia Brush Kidwell and Valerie Steele in "Men and Women: Dressing the Part" report, "The current pink for girls and blue for boys wasn't uniform until the 1950s."

Indeed, the June 1918 issue of Ladies' Home Journal observed, "There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

The bad news is that gender stereotypes continue to persist. The good news is that most are not carved in granite. Today, women are doing better in college than men, glass ceilings are being smashed and panty hose are becoming an endangered species. Women are wearing pants — even as they campaign for the highest office in the land.

I just wish Hillary would stay away from the color pink.

© 2011 Ventura County Star. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

PARKING LOT PROBLEMS? THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT TOO!

Published in the May 25, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

My favorite scene from “Fried Green Tomatoes” (1991) has Evelyn (Kathy Bates) circling the Winn Dixie parking lot for what seems like forever.  Finally she eyes an elderly shopper preparing to leave. As she waits patiently for his ‘56 Caddie to pull out, a couple of big-haired girls in a lipstick-red Volkswagen sneak in from the opposite direction and poach her parking place.  

 

When Evelyn points out the lapse in etiquette as politely as a menopausal Southern belle can, they blow her off with a “Face it lady, we are younger and faster.”
  
The technical term, I believe, for the emotional maelstrom that subsequently engulfs Evelyn is “parking lot rage,” which manifests with Bates repeatedly ramming the VW while screeching an enigmatic battle cry.

When asked, “What are you doing?,” Evelyn smirks, “Face it girls. I’m older and have more insurance.”
 
We all can relate to the frustration Evelyn feels, but what can be done?

Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, reported to the New York Times that drivers in his study, who were searching for parking in a 15-block district in Los Angeles, drove an estimated 950,000 miles a year---equivalent to four trips to the moon. That’s a whole lot of $4 gasoline.

Further, exhaust emitted while prowling for parking may not seem like much but I strongly suspect its toxic chemicals may significantly intensify the irritated state in which we find ourselves while in pursuit of the parking lot pot-o-gold.

Finally, while we may resent a paucity of parking, we resent paying for it even more.  
I don’t suppose you celebrated at your house, but folks in Oklahoma City recently marked the 75th anniversary of the parking meter and its inventor, Carl C. McGee.

As a newspaper publisher, McGee observed that the shortage of downtown parking seemed to equal the number of selfish proprietors leaving personal vehicles in front of other shops in order to free up spaces for their own patrons. The city legislated time limits on parking, but enforcement proved costly and inefficient.

McGee came up with a manufacturable model in 1935 and the coin-operated parking meter was subsequently adopted by cities across the fruited plain.

According to Jeff Brieley of the Oklahoma History Center, even though the device made its appearance during the depths of the Depression, customers didn’t kick up much of a fuss over a nickel an hour---the equivalent today (with inflation) of $1.

Flash forward to the city of Ventura, and, based on newspaper accounts, letters to the editor and a Ventura County Tea Party leader, you might believe that the 318 parking meters recently installed downtown are threatening to shutter dozens of Main Street enterprises.  

Yet the city website claims downtown Ventura boasts more than 2,500 free public parking spaces located just down the street from the most popular shops and restaurants. The point, in addition to raising revenue for the cash-strapped city, is the same as it was in 1935 Oklahoma City---to free up as much conveniently located parking as possible. If you are determined to walk only a few steps; you pay for the privilege.  

Parking lot rage, on the other hand, is like the weather. We all talk about it but nobody---save those who routinely pray to the parking gods---ever do anything about it. But this is the 21st Century, dear readers, and, it should come as no surprise---there’s an app for that.

As of April, the system in San Francisco which relies on wireless sensors buried in streets and floors of city garages, can, within seconds, tell the owner of an iPhone which one of 7,000 metered parking spaces or 12,250 spots in city garages is open for business.

Bear in mind that San Francisco is a metropolis in which all parking is paid parking and the city simply can’t create new places to park. The Transportation Department and the Federal Highway Administration is backing the $20 million SFpark project.
 
Los Angeles has likewise partnered with a company called Streetline---which introduced similar projects on New York’s Roosevelt Island, in Fort Worth and at the University of Maryland---to set up an SFpark-like system in West Hollywood.
 
Perhaps if the Kathy Bates character had owned a smart phone, she wouldn’t have been forced to take out her fury on a vulnerable vehicle. Can’t you just see a future “Fried Green Tomatoes” remake? As Evelyn speeds toward the parking spot located by her iPhone, she finds herself rear-ended by a multi-tasking teenager in a Prius. The young lady may have been inching up the aisle, old school, but she was distracted---updating her Facebook status.  
 
Face it people, technology, no matter how hip and happening, does have its limits.

Power Point for California League of Women Voters Convention Speech

For a copy of the Power Point entitled "100th Anniversary of the Women's Vote in the Golden State," that was delivered to the California League of Women Voters Convention at a luncheon on May 13, 2011, click below.

Download 100thAnnspeech

CIVIC ALTRUISM LINKS THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

Published in the May 11, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

"Words mean more than what is set down on paper," contended Maya Angelou. "It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning."

This weekend, the California League of Women Voters will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the two dozen or so words granting the vote to California women at their annual convention in Ventura.

In 1876, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, contemplating the Great Seal of the State of California, remarked that while the Roman goddess of wisdom dominated the symbol, "the position of real women" in the Golden State "inspires no corresponding admiration or respect."

Three little words — "votes for women" — may not seem like much, but in January 1911, according to the Sacramento Congressional Record, they constituted "the biggest question of the political world today."

Despite statewide sweeps by Susan B. Anthony and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the California women's suffrage referendum of 1896 went down by a staggering 13,000 votes. While some blamed the 1890s depression and others, the liquor industry, Sarah Severance fingered Sacramento for the thrashing.

According to the suffragette from San Jose, "California ought to teach women better than to put faith in politicians. Our work should be with the voters, each woman making a few unbelievers her special mission."

When a second opportunity arrived 15 years later, Severance's strategy proved a winner.

California women had been grass-roots organizing themselves for decades — not politically, they would insist, but rather under the umbrella of "civic altruism."

Such issues as temperance, good government, school reform, the eight-hour workday, white slavery and juvenile courts were discussed over tea and homemade cookies by white middle-class women's clubs, university or professional women's associations, women's unions or church groups.

These brave bands of sisters, mobilized via the technology of the day, got the word out in ways as individual as the microclimates interspersed throughout the 750-mile-long state.

The "each-woman-making-a-few-unbelievers-her-special-mission" tactic was so successful that despite 3,000 fraudulent votes cast, California women wrested suffrage from an all-male electorate in 1911.

Speaking of "civic altruism," there are literally thousands of volunteers laboring at hundreds of nonprofits in Ventura County these days. "Nonprofits," notes the Ventura County Foundation, "are on the front line of an ongoing debate in our society — between the role of private and public wealth." Each nonprofit isolates a need unmet by government and, depending on the talents and expertise of its volunteers, tailors a unique plan of attack.

One such group is the California Literary Arts Society. The grandiose-sounding name might suggest a bevy of eccentric-looking females clucking over the value of the written word between sips of Earl Grey. That image, however, is nowhere close to reality.

While these ladies, who prefer champagne, do bring book festivals and authors' workshops to Ventura County, they also share a passion for young people — especially those who find themselves on the wrong side of the law.

Last year, the California Arts Society published "Voices from Behind the Wall," the memoirs of 14 teenagers residing at Juvenile Hall.

The book was a collaborative effort that not only capitalized on the literary expertise of CLAS project director Mary Embree and her volunteers Anne Escobedo and Jill Forman, but also depended on 1) the staff manning the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Oxnard and Port Hueneme Clubhouse at Juvenile Hall, and 2) the employees of the Ventura County Juvenile Facilities. Both were required to buy into the healing potential provided by writing.

As Chief Deputy Alan Hammerand observed: "An amazing level of insight and talent are revealed in these stories. Through this project, these minors, who are often misunderstood and ignored, have given voice to their thoughts and feelings."

Hammerand also noted in the book's foreword that the various contributors were ultimately able to correct course with respect to self-destructive attitudes and behaviors. Finding a safe place to articulate their emotions played no small part in their turnaround as well.

While "life-changing" has become a cliché these days, no other adjective as accurately describes the transformation this modest 118-page tome exacted on both the authors and writing gurus who helped stimulate and shape (grammar only) messages ranging from recounting horrific childhoods to sharing hard-won life lessons.

Flashing back to the 20th century, early suffragettes in California grasped that juveniles differed from adults regarding cognition, analysis and decision-making abilities.

They hadn't yet collected a stack of modern scientific studies speaking to "impulse control," yet they knew, perhaps intuitively, that young people should be held to a legal standard separate from adults.

In 1903, due to their exhaustive efforts, these ladies made California the seventh state to enact a juvenile court act — even before they, themselves, could vote on such a matter.

And that is essentially the way change — deep and meaningful change — comes. One voice at a time — until every voice is heard.

BRIAN BRENNAN: GREAT CHOICE TO REPRESENT VENTURA COUNTY ON COASTAL COMMISSION

Published in the April 27, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

It's safe to say that Brian Brennan is the only member of the California Coastal Commission who owns a vacation home in the Bahamas. It's also safe to say that he won't be flying to his "Rastafarian surf shack" on the island of Eleuthera as often as he'd like.

When I asked him why Eleuthera, he just chuckled. Apparently, this lush tropical isle, located 50 miles east of Nassau, is blessed with wide, pink-sand beaches, ancient coral reefs and multihued flora and fish. The water near the shore remains spa-warm and, according to an American astronaut, the crystal-clearest in the Caribbean.

Brennan, 59, comes by his love of islands honestly. Galway, on the Emerald Isle, is the birthplace of this congenial soul. If you look closely, you can see the map of Ireland on his face. Brennan became an American citizen in 1966 and always finds a way to reside within surfboard-hauling distance of an ocean.

I'm still reeling from the one and only time I glimpsed the Ventura City Council member (1997 to present) and senior executive aide to Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett (2008 to present) in a suit and tie. Brennan's usual year-round attire consists of an Aloha shirt, sandals and shorts.

On April 14, Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Jr. gave Brennan the nod to occupy the Coastal Commission elected official slot representing the South Central Coast. A Ventura County resident has not held the seat since Port Hueneme Mayor and City Councilman Dorill B. Wright retired in 1994.

Initially, Wright took the post in 1976 and served until Gov. Brown replaced him with county Supervisor John Flynn in 1981. When Gov. George Deukmejian took office in 1982, he bid Flynn adieu, and brought back Wright, who served for a dozen more years.

When I asked Brennan what he would say if a cocktail party guest wanted to know what a coastal commissioner does — his response was short and sweet. Brennan sees himself as one of 12 coastal planners.

The California Coastal Commission was established by voter initiative in 1972 (Proposition 20) and later chiseled in granite via the California Coastal Act of 1976. Interestingly, Brennan spent an entire month collecting signatures from residents of Cardiff-by-the-Sea for the landmark legislation.

Having a representative on the Coastal Commission is particularly critical to Ventura County. While we don't have Hollywood hotshots wanting to restrict access to the beach, we do have 43 miles of shoreline to steward.

In addition, Ventura County boasts two recreational craft harbors, the fourth largest deep-water port on the West Coast and Naval Base Ventura County as well as two aging power plants, constant sand erosion, threats to marine habitat and water quality issues.

While not exactly beachfront property, the Coastal Commission also signs off on the removal of Matilija Dam, which would both improve fish habitat and renew sand deposits on local beaches.

Brennan's vetting process was grueling. First, not-so-easily-impressed Sacramento staff grilled Brennan, which seems odd given his extraordinary environmental credentials and the fact that Gov. Christie Todd Whitman appointed him to the Environmental Protection Agency's national advisory council on environmental policy.

Next, Brennan met with the new, improved version of Jerry Brown. Apparently, since his 1975-to-1983 stint as governor, Brown has managed to hack away the armor that once safeguarded his Moonbeam idealism.

Brennan found it easy to relate to the current hands-on problem-solver (who finally mastered governance after eight years as mayor of Oakland) and who, like Brennan, now values balancing private-property rights with environmental concerns. Still, the hour Brown and Brennan spent brainstorming topics ranging from German philosophers to Catholic popes to Linda Ronstadt must have been pretty trippy all the same.

Brennan is a singularly modest man in a line of work fueled by ego and ambition. When asked about his greatest political accomplishment, the founder of the local chapter of the Surf Rider Foundation and the director of BEACON (Beach Erosion Authority for Clean Oceans and Nourishment) contends that no politico does the job all by himself.

Officials on a power trip often forget that without majority backing, even the best of ideas can end up circling the drain. Brennan, who possesses a seemingly effortless ability to build consensus, can count to seven.

Supposedly, no human being strode the beaches of Brennan's island until Europeans seeking religious independence arrived in 1648. "The Eleutherian Adventurers," as they called themselves, named their little corner of paradise after the Greek word for "free."

Brennan's schedule will be too jam-packed to do anything more than daydream about his tropical getaway for now. Wish him well. Like the first inhabitants of Eleuthera, Brennan has definitely set out on an adventure. Let's also hope he keeps our little corner of paradise just as free.

IT'S WHAT'S MISSING THAT MATTERS IN PRESIDENTIAL BIOS

Published in the April 13, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

A recent Andrew Johnson biography published by Annette Gordon-Reed, who brought home a Pulitzer for her ground-breaking research on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, argues that the 17th president actually advocated restoring white dominance to the South and envisioned (his words) "a white man's government."

Yet, the White House website,  which offers one-page summaries of all 44 chief executives, paints President Johnson, "an honest and honorable man," as a hapless victim.

"Arrayed against him," reads the narrative, "were the radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was no match for them."

It would seem that these official biographies more closely resemble the barefaced presidential boosterism served up in pre-1950 Tinsel Town biopics rather than the "warts-and-all" exposés we have come to expect these days.

While such modern-day historians as Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss contend that the 350-word accounts on the White House site aren't blatant lies, they do hold that some narratives fail the sniff test because selected facts are omitted.

For example, George Washington, who is introduced by the White House as a precedent-setter of the first order, is not identified as the owner of 316 slaves. In fact, any indication that, of the first 12 presidents, all, save John Adams and John Quincy Adams, were slave-owners, is conspicuously absent.

Andrew Jackson's page says virtually nothing about his harsh treatment of native Americans. Lyndon Johnson's story does not include his ill-fated decision to send ground troops into Vietnam. Ronald Reagan's narrative makes no mention of the Iran-Contra scandal. William Jefferson Clinton's bio doesn't name Monica Lewinsky. George W. Bush's entry fails to include a reference to Hurricane Katrina.

While Barack H. Obama's account boasts that "his story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others," there is not one word about the detrimental effect of his presidential candidacy shattering all previous fund-raising records.

Obama's $750 million overwhelmed John McCain's finance efforts by more than two to one. Furthermore, not only did Obama manage to amass a war chest exceeding George Bush's 2000 total by a factor of four but compared to Clinton in both 1992 and 1996, Obama's advantage rose to a factor of nearly eight.

Experts are predicting now, 20 months out from the election, that the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will end up raising-then-spending an unprecedented $1 billion each.

Everett Dirksen supposedly said, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."

One billion dollars will buy you approximately 714 spanking new Tomahawk missiles. If you are willing to fritter away your kid's inheritance on a yacht, you can take home the 536-foot Eclipse that boasts two helicopter pads, 11 guest cabins and two swimming pools. You could also choose to foot the bill for yourself and 39 of your closest friends onboard the Soyuz as you journey to and from the International Space Station.

On a more humanitarian note, however, $1 billion would pay the salaries of 20,000 teachers, feed nearly 1 million Americans for a year, or buy health care insurance for 2 million children.

As long as the Supreme Court equates campaign funding with free speech and/or recognizes corporations as citizens, no campaign finance reform is possible.

Yet, some of us still recall that Sen. Obama's official website (before it was removed) read: "Obama supports public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests."

Yet, six months before the election, Obama made the fateful decision not to participate in the federal public presidential campaign finance plan — the fund created by taxpayers checking off the optional $3 donation box on their tax returns. The soon-to-be 44th president, even though he had given his word, looked at the odds and found himself bowing to the bang of big bucks instead of standing to support his precious principles.

In the introduction to "Andrew Johnson," Annette Gordon-Reed wrote, "History is not just about the things we like or the people we want to love and admire... it is about the events in the past that have mattered greatly to a given society and its culture."

Moneyed special interests currently control politics — there is no doubt of that. As Gordon-Reed spelled out in her book, "It is a useful, though often maddening, thing to see the choices that were available to people in the past and why they chose one route over another."

Could Obama have changed the landscape with respect to campaign finance reform? Unfortunately, he never gave it a chance.


"NUCLEAR BOY" DRAWS ON HUMOR TO EASE KIDS' FEARS

 Published in the March 30, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

Mention the name "Mr. Rogers," and most folks just smile.

While Fred McFeely Rogers' halting speech pattern, lace-up sneakers and closet of wool cardigans became fodder for skits on "Saturday Night Live," the Presbyterian minister-cum-indelible American icon (March 20, 1928 – Feb. 27, 2003) was best known for teaching patience, tolerance and compassion to American kids.

Based on child development and early education principles, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" — the longest-running children's program on PBS — racked up 895 episodes. In a typical program, after warbling "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", Rogers might interact with live guests, take a field trip to a neighborhood business, converse with puppets or conduct an earnest conversation with his preschool viewers.

Big on expressing emotions, Rogers didn't shy away from addressing the frightening images of a carnage-heavy Vietnam War, raucous student protests or bewildering assassinations (Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy) bombarding American living rooms in 1968 when "Mr. Rogers" first aired. He believed that the feelings of small children were being overlooked as their parents struggled to grapple with an increasingly violent world on the boob tube.

Various attempts by newscasters to make the complicated catastrophes dogging the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan comprehensible to John Q. Public — ranging from soliciting the "in-my-humble" opinions of such scientific rock stars as Cham Dallas, Richard Lester and Michio Kaku to the Internet site "A Layman's Intro to Radiation" to Jeremy Bogaisky's suggestion in Forbes Magazine that viewers catch episode No. 144 of "The West Wing" — crowded the airwaves.

Parents, who already face the thorny task of sifting through a 24/7 stream of news stories competing for their undivided attention, seem unaware of the palpable fears that are presently plaguing their young children. American television likewise remains clueless.

Yet, just two weeks ago, some of us stumbled upon "Nuclear Boy," a crudely drawn animated clip from Japan that explains the nuclear reactor predicament. The author serves up flatulence — time-tested to appeal to the sniggerer in all of us — as an impertinent metaphor for radiation.

The short (4:34) children's video introduces a square-headed stick figure who complains he has been suffering from a nasty stomach ache ever since the big earthquake. Nuclear Boy or Genpatsu-kun doesn't mean to make any trouble, but the buildup of gas in his tummy is wreaking havoc on his immediate neighbors as he subjects them to frequent farts. So far, he has managed to "hold in his poo" (preventing a nuclear meltdown) but if he fails to remain constipated he "would surely ruin everyone's day!"

"We measured the stinky-level around Nuclear Boy," the subtitles read. "Thankfully, it wasn't that stinky, so we figured he had just passed some gas."

Courageous technicians attempting to contain the disaster are depicted as Nuclear Boy's doctors, laboring around the clock to provide enough medication (seawater and boric acid) to get him healthy again.

"Since he passed gas a few more times, there are some smelly neighborhoods," the video continues, "but don't worry, the odor won't last long and people living farther away won't even notice the smell."

The film also refers to "Three-mile Island Boy" and describes the disaster at Chernobyl as "diarrhea" that "went all over the place."

"Nuclear Boy" ends with a plea for prayer that peace will soon return to the people of Fukushima prefecture. "That's the least we can do," the video admonishes, "for receiving Nuclear Boy's energy for all these years."

The cartoon was based on dozens of tweets by Tokyo resident and artist Hachiya Kazuhiko. While his home was untouched by the earthquake and the tsunami, he realized that his offspring were dazed and confused by media accounts of the potentially calamitous situation to the north.

He tried to explain — in bursts of 140 characters each — the series of events that, in the future, would become the defining moment in his youngsters' lives.

Another Twitter account holder screen-named ChiiChoco turned the tweets into a script for a manga (Japanese comic book). Other collaborators, who chose to remain nameless, added the animation, spoken lines of dialogue and lively banjo music. The finished product was shown on Japanese television as a way to ease dread in the youngest segment of the population. Currently, more than 1.2 million people have viewed the video on You Tube.

"When I was a boy," Fred Rogers once confessed, "and I would see scary things in the news, my mother (who hand-knitted each of her son's signature sweaters) would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'"

What would Mr. Rogers have to say about "Nuclear Boy?" Even given the scattering of scatology, I am confident it would receive his unqualified blessing — and a smile.

REMEMBERING THE REV. PROFESSOR PETER J. GOMES

Published in the March 16, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

Many of us have stumbled across a book that either changed our minds or our hearts.  Few of us, however, get the chance to spend an hour with the author. For me, the book was "The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart" by Peter J. Gomes.

Hearing that Gomes, the pastor to Harvard University for the past 41 years, met his maker two weeks ago, prompted me to retrieve the tape of our radio interview in 1997.

I couldn't agree more with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who wrote for The New Yorker that Gomes "was a large, warm and mischievous soul, who contained a multitude of identities, each worn with a certain roguish sense of irony."

To say that the Rev. Professor Gomes, born May 22, 1942, was a complex and complicated individual is a glaringly obvious understatement.

He was a 68-year-old African-American whose mother came from genteel wealth, an ordained Baptist minister who sounded a great deal like a Lutheran, a card-carrying Republican, a celibate homosexual and a charismatic preacher who wrote academically about Elizabethan Puritanism as well as popularly about the Bible.

His "The Good Life: Truths That Last" and "The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?" were also best sellers.

When I posed the question, "If you had five minutes with God and could ask Him (or Her) anything you want, especially something that troubles you about the Bible, what would you ask?," Gomes didn't hesitate. "Does the Bible," pronounced Gomes in his booming basso profundo, "represent your very best effort at communicating with us?"

Then he added, tongue firmly planted in cheek, "If it is, then I am worried. Because if a human being sat down and wrote the Bible, it would come out a much more efficient and rational and tidy book."

I'd like to believe that when Gomes went home on Feb. 28, God said, "You know that question you asked me back in 1997? You didn't listen hard enough for my answer. I said, 'Keep reading, son.'"

Back then, however, Gomes employed his hypothetical query to underline the serious mistake we make when we attempt to limit God to the literal content of 66 books. As one of the leading national voices against intolerance, Gomes continued to make the case that almost any interpretation of morality, no matter how irresponsible, can be read into the pages of the Bible.

"The Bible alone is the most dangerous thing I can think of," he told me. "You need an ongoing context and a community of interpretation to keep yourself honest."

Gomes' "The Good Book" flew off the shelves during the "Needy Nineties" (his nickname) when the hunger for spirituality in America was far less marked than today as the world finds calamities of biblical proportion rapidly becoming the norm.

Currently, many feel the need to swap the 10-minutes-after-eating emptiness that accompanies the incessant acquisition of possessions for the spiritual fulfillment resulting from reaching out to others. They are opting to exchange the so-called "good life" (in the materialistic sense) for a life that is good.

Gomes' experience with privileged Harvard students attending a secular institution of higher education taught him, firsthand, that America's young people, then and now, "are literally hungering and thirsting for righteousness."

Even though today's millennials have been described as narcissists — coddled by doting parents and self-absorbed by social networking — this generation, even as teens, volunteer in their communities at rates unprecedented by previous peer groups, including the World War II cohort that epitomized self-sacrifice.

Possessing a terrific sense of humor, Gomes was invited to trade quips with Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert on Sept. 15, 2008.  I suspect that anybody who spent any time with Gomes remembers laughing a lot.

My last question, "So how does somebody, who knows better than to take himself seriously, end up at Harvard?" got the heartiest guffaw of the night from my guest — yet his comeback was particularly telling about the man himself.

"That's the ultimate paradox, it seems to me," replied Gomes. "For me to end up at Harvard and to be here for so long is proof, in my view at any rate, that God has a sense of humor. God puts us in very strange places to do very strange and unexpected things."

Gomes, who prayed at the presidential inaugurations of both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, changed his registration to Democrat to vote for Deval Patrick during the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial primary. When he learned of Gomes' death, Gov. Patrick observed, "He taught so many that faith is not just what you say you believe, but how you live."

Gomes' books changed my mind. Meeting him changed my heart.

IT’S ELEMENTARY, DEAR WATSON, YOU ARE JUST THE NEXT KILLER APP

Published in the March 2, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

Robert Metcalfe was still a computer science Ph.D. student at Harvard when he was asked to prepare an introductory booklet about the fledgling Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) for an October 1972 conference in the nation’s capitol.

The 26-year-old wasn’t yet aware that a BBN Technologies programmer named Raymond Tomlinson was not only writing, on his own time, the code for the first “killer app,” namely e-mail, but would also turn the @ sign into a global icon.

The red-bearded Metcalfe’s brochure, however, did include 19 other cool applications.

While Metcalfe was taking 10 executives from AT&T on a virtual tour of the ARPANET demonstrating the aforementioned apps, his interface message processor unceremoniously crashed. The smug smirks on the faces of the Ma Bell suits, who considered this forerunner to the net in America merely an unreliable toy that would never impact the commercial world, angers Metcalfe to this day.

Fast-forward to February 14-16, 2011, when a different machine captured America’s attention. A three-day “Jeopardy!” challenge pitted past champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter against a supercomputer named for IBM’s first president, Thomas J. Watson.

The size of 10 Sub-Zero freezers, Watson was programmed to question answers in the classic “Jeopardy!” manner. A task force of IBM engineers based in Westchester County, New York, over four years, scanned a cosmos of data into its vast 15 trillion-byte memory including encyclopedias, literary classics, mathematical or scientific formulae, as well as the names of every historical figure and Hollywood luminary.

Finally, Watson, unlike his opposable-thumbed opponents, was not only advantaged by the ability to process 500 gigabytes of information (equivalent to 1 million books) each second but its machine learning process likewise allowed the computer to profit from incorrect responses or learn from its mistakes.

“Any seasoned horse handicapper,” according to a St. Petersburg Times editorial, “easily could have predicted the outcome of the race.” Worries about a “takeover of human society,” it added, are “premature.”

In fact, Watson doesn’t even come close to passing the Turing test for artificial intelligence. I knew 2001’s Hal, and Watson is certainly no malevolent Hal.

Although Watson erred more often than his rivals---when asked what grasshoppers eat, it confidently answered, “What is kosher?” and claimed that the Russian word for “goodbye” was “cholesterol”---its speed compensated for its slip-ups.

The answer royally flubbed by Watson---which hardly caused his human competitors to break a sweat---occurred in Final Jeopardy. The category was U.S. cities and the clue was “Its largest airport is named for a World War II hero; its second largest, for a World War II battle.” The correct response was “What is Chicago?,” yet Watson offered, “What is Toronto?”

You have to wonder how many viewers actually groaned out loud at such a glaring gaffe. Okay, maybe not those who are employed as baggage handlers at airports across the fruited plain.

The contestant with the plasma screen visage and sing-song voice may have wiped up the floor with “Jeopardy!’s” (human) finest, yet Watson will never be able to dish up such nerdy witticisms as Jennings’ homage to “The Simpsons,”---”I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords”---jotted under his Final Jeopardy response.

So should folks who get paid big money for their expertise, fear being replaced by a Watson-type computer?

Instead of thinking “either/or,” perhaps the best course to consider is “human-plus-machine.” IBM is currently partnering with eight universities to explore possible applications. Potential seems highest in such spheres as technical or customer support, online searches, law, medicine, and investments, but any field that requires data-based decisions could benefit.

For example, a medical center might use Watson to better diagnose disease. Since a patient’s symptoms may suggest a myriad of possibilities, the advantage would be its ability to scan the medical literature faster than Gregory House, M.D.---who takes 60 minutes, minus commercials, to cycle through at least four incorrect diagnoses. Since the supercomputer possesses a voting algorithm, it can suggest the best possible answer, but a human, after evaluating the computer’s findings, would ultimately be “the decider.”

In Time Magazine, Robert Weber, a vice president at IBM, reported that even though Watson’s technology is a “boon” for the legal profession, “it won’t ever replace attorneys; after all, the essence of good lawyering is mature and sound reasoning.”

Let’s turn back to Metcalfe, who, these days, is enjoying considerable renown as a distinguished Internet pioneer. He must be laughing up his cashmere sleeve as 21st Century (smart) phone companies battle tooth and nail to get our business---a business that wouldn’t even exist if the ARPANET had failed as miserably as their AT&T predecessors predicted nearly four decades ago.

As to anger, Dr. Metcalfe, isn’t success totally the best revenge?

Unseen Hand at Work in Fluoride Flap

Published in the February 16, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

According to Calvin Trillin, "In modern America, anyone who attempts to write satirically about the events of the day finds it difficult to concoct a situation so bizarre that it may not actually come to pass while his article is still on the presses."

When it came to "Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," released in 1964, Trillin was proved right — in spades.

As Peter Sellers conjured up the signature touches that defined his portrayal of the title character — the black glove that paid homage to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1926) or the heavily-accented German voice mimicking Stanley Kubrick's real-life photographer friend Arthur Fellig — he suddenly realized that Dr. Strangelove, as a former Nazi, might have adopted America as the new fatherland but at least a part of him — particularly the arm that saluted "Mein Fuhrer" — might possess a fascist mind of its own.

It should come as no surprise that the neurological disorder typified by an appendage that refuses to behave would became known as the "Dr. Strangelove" or "alien hand" syndrome. As reported by the London Times, "The sufferers find that, despite their best intentions, the hand will pick up objects such as scalding cups of coffee or steal ice cream and other food from friends." Of course, it was only a matter of time before the TV scriptwriters for "House, M.D." would feature the exceedingly rare affliction.

The other satiric target in "Dr. Strangelove" proved more controversial. The fluoridation of water, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named as one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century, has, for more than five decades, been credited with the "Look, Ma — no cavities" smiles on American school children.

Fluoridation began in 1945, when a Newburgh, N.Y., study reporting significantly fewer cavities in residents of communities with higher levels of fluoride occurring naturally in the water was employed along with some heavy-duty lobbying by well-intentioned dentists. Yet, a number of holdouts, especially in rural areas, adamantly opposed any sort of "collective" (read communist) government action that might bring about unintended consequences.

The water supply was chosen as the delivery system in order to level the playing field for those who couldn't afford dental care and who, courtesy of cavities, might suffer, in the words of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from "pain, poor nutrition and dysfunctional speech, as well as a lack of concentration, poor appearance, low self- esteem and absenteeism."

The Gen. Ripper character in "Dr. Strangelove," however, wasn't exaggerating the opposition view when he said, "A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice."

Choice was, indeed, important to foes of fluoridation. Since 1966, such activists as Citizens for Safe Drinking Water, Fluoride Action Network and Farmers Against Fluoride have successfully reversed mandatory water-fluoridation laws in hundreds of communities across the nation.

The film also made reference to a possible multiplier effect when Gen. Ripper adds, "Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies under way to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk ... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream."

Just last month, in a nearly unprecedented about-face, U.S. federal health officials were forced to admit that Americans have been getting too much of a good thing. Not only has fluoride been unintentionally introduced into hundreds of food products via processing, but it's also been added to such dental products as toothpaste and mouthwash as well as being prescribed as a supplement and/or applied to children's teeth by dental professionals.

Dental fluorosis, or spots on children's teeth that clearly signify fluoride overexposure, has skyrocketed. Dental fluorosis is now present, according to government studies, in 41 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds. On Jan. 7, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to lower the recommended level of fluoride by as much as 50 percent.

This unanticipated change in policy was propelled by a fresh review of the science by the Environmental Protection Agency, which now contends that "the prolonged, high intake of fluoride may increase the risk of brittle bones, fractures and crippling bone abnormalities" — in addition to mottled choppers.

Irony is the use of words to convey the direct opposite of their literal meaning. For example, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) in "Dr. Strangelove" says, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room!"

Trillin weighed in on irony as well: "Math was my worst subject because I could never persuade the teacher that my answers were meant ironically."

On the other hand (perhaps the alien hand?), those who continue to defend universal fluoridation might just be dealing in irony.

EQUAL TREATMENT FOR BRAIN TRAUMA INJURY VICTIMS

Published in the February 2, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

His hand is muscular and bronzed. Her hand looks almost jaundiced; It's so sallow. There are tubes snaking around her wrist and a ribbon of gauze guards an intravenous line. The grainy cell phone photograph documenting the ten lovingly intertwined digits of astronaut Mark Kelly and U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was snapped on Jan. 9, 2011, the day after she was shot point blank in the head at a Tucson constituent event that ended up slaughtering six and injuring 12.

As Claire O'Neill of National Public Radio so eloquently pointed out at the time, "Over the past few days we've been inundated with crime scenes, memorials and mugshots. But this is the first photo of Giffords' family. A very large, national issue suddenly becomes more human; conversely, at the snap of a shutter, an intensely personal moment goes public. A small detail, the right gesture, suddenly represents something more universal."

On Jan. 24, 2011, not only did most members of Congress and other political leaders sport black and white ribbons, but the Arizona congressional delegation left an empty seat to honor their fallen colleague.

Further, President Barack Obama paid tribute to Rep. Giffords at the beginning of his State of the Union remarks and urged Americans to let the recent tragedy in Tucson stand as a reminder that "each of us is a part of something greater — something more consequential than party or political preference."

Less than three weeks later, Giffords' prognosis was upgraded from "serious" to "good" and the plucky politician was transferred to the Memorial Hermann TIRR facility to begin a meticulously tailored program that includes cognitive rehabilitation therapy — a long, expensive process in which the patient essentially rewires her brain so that she can again conduct basic life tasks such as reading books, following instructions, and recalling information.

While traumatic brain injuries have been labeled the "signature wounds" of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, ProPublica and National Public Radio report in their "Brain Wars" series hundreds of thousands (the Pentagon reports 188,000 service members with brain injuries since 2000) are being denied the same treatment as currently being afforded Rep. Giffords.

Tricare, which is essentially a private-sector healthcare company contracted by the Pentagon to cover nearly 4 million active-duty military and retirees, is just saying "no." Despite pressure from Congress and recommendations by top military/civilian brain specialists, medical researchers and respected physicians' associations, Tricare refuses to pay, claiming a lack of scientific justification for the treatment.

To make its case, Tricare is relying on a recent study conducted by the Pennsylvania-based ECRI Institute that found insufficient evidence to support the therapy and which, according to NPR News and ProPublica, directly contradicts extensive research conducted by both the Pentagon and the National Institutes of Health.

Now Tricare had a pretty good idea of what ERCI was going to say about cognitive rehabilitation therapy — the second time around. Three years ago, ECRI conducted a similar assessment for Tricare that likewise cast serious doubts on the support for therapy's effectiveness.

Although Tricare heatedly denies cost as a factor, it seems obvious that the company's overriding concern is the high price tag — $50,000 per patient.

While 100 percent of the 400,000 troops estimated to have suffered traumatic brain injuries in war zones would not need a full-scale program, even 25 percent could set Tricare back a cool $5 billion.

No wonder the company is trying to distract critics by blurring the distinction between mild and severe brain injuries when it comes to assessing the treatment's benefits. Tricare seems to contend that if cognitive rehabilitation therapy isn't necessary for everybody with a brain injury; then it is not necessary for anybody.

On Jan. 21, 2011, Sen. Clair McCaskill, the chair of the Committee on Contracting Oversight, announced a full-scale investigation into Tricare's decision to deny cognitive rehabilitation treatment of traumatic brain injuries to troops. In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, she wrote, "We owe it to our brave service members to find the truth so that all returning service personnel can benefit from the best brain injury care this country has to offer."

As you read the "Brain Wars" series, concentrate on the photos. Look for the upraised palms of service members who are simply seeking a helping hand from those for whom they laid their lives on the line without hesitation. Nobody is wearing ribbons on their behalf. Nobody extols their virtues in a political address. Nobody, save immediate family members, is actually paying attention at all.

Do this and perhaps you can cause a very large, national issue to suddenly become much more human. Our compassion for victims of brain injuries shouldn't just stop with a member of Congress — no matter how plucky.


TREE PEOPLE AT HOME IN GREAT FALLS, MONTANA

 Published on January 19, 2011 in the Ventura County Star

Great Falls, Mont., should not hesitate to toot its own horn. In 1805, the five waterfalls from which the city takes its name figured prominently in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. From 1950 to 1970, the city held the distinction of being the most populous in Montana.

Furthermore, not only is Great Falls the location of the world’s shortest river (Roe) but it plays home sweet home to a university, the C.M. Russell Museum Complex, and the Great Falls Voyagers minor league baseball team, which underwent a name-change from the White Sox to honor general manager Nick Mariana’s historic filming of a UFO floating eerily over third base in August 1950.

Yet, despite all the abovementioned allure, the primary reason we made the 1,000-mile trip (each way) earlier this month was to spend time with our one-and-only grandkid. When we arrived, a couple of feet of snow blanketed the ground, the temp hovered around zero and a Christmas tree, surrounded by mounds of glittering paper-wrapped presents, twinkled in the living room. While we both received dozens of very thoughtful gifts, our favorite came from Max, who insisted, much to our surprise, we accompany him to the Paris Gibson Square Museum as his guest.

Now Max adores all things science (“MythBusters” being his favorite TV show) and we’ve escorted him, here in Southern California, to a natural history museum, an aquarium, an auto museum and even a rock-and-minerals exhibit, but we never dreamed art would be a turn on for a 9-year-old in love with Hot Wheels and the iPod Touch.

It seems last year Max was enchanted by the field trip his class took to the Paris Gibson, an impressive sandstone structure in the center of town that previously served as a public school for more than eight decades. While he paid perfunctory attention to the oil paintings, watercolors and drawings in the museum, what seemed to impress him most and what he strove to share with us were Lee Steen’s “tree people.”

Fortunately for Max, we got in for free. Farmers Union Insurance underwrote the cost of admission so that no art lover would be turned away. While Max paid proper respect to headliner Theodore Waddell, a nationally regarded painter who captured the flora and fauna of the Rocky Mountain region with modernist sophistication, the Steen collection kept calling his name.

Lee Steen, a native of Horse Cave, Ky., was clearly self-taught and his work would be catalogued under the heading “Outsider Art” — much like Grandma Prisbey’s Bottle Village in Simi Valley or the primitive paintings of Grandma Moses. According to his biography, in 1942, Lee and twin brother Dee, relocated to Roundup, Mont., where they lived on property populated by Lee’s tree sculptures, odd mechanical assemblies and outlandish animal figures.

While Steen didn’t “sculpt” his statues in the traditional sense, the curve of a branch or the knot in a tree trunk seemed to suggest a specific subject to which Steen would add “found materials” (or what you and I would call “trash”) to complete the effect. According to the exhibit’s signage, “inverted coffee cans and flowerpots became hats; beer tabs and bottle caps formed eyes; and twigs sprouted magically into handlebar moustaches.”

Steen’s creations not only provided a popular roadside tourist attraction during the next 30 years, but Lee persuaded the folks driving by to stop and give him five or ten dollars for one of the so-called “cowboys” he constructed. Apparently, he subscribed to the Frank Zappa school of creativity. Zappa, who with the Mothers of Invention released 60 highly profitable albums, wrote, “Art is making something out of nothing and then selling it.” Steen didn’t die a millionaire, but then he never fretted about his next meal either.

With Steen’s death in 1972 and the subsequent sale of his property, the unique environment that set off his work ceased to exist. Fortunately, the fundraising of John Armstrong and Jim Poor preserved Steen’s constructions for future generations in a permanent attraction that now wows such grade-schoolers as our grandson.

Just a few decades ago, the public school system here in the Golden State was the envy of the nation but today, budget cuts deny our school kids much more than field trips or art programs. Currently, we can’t do much about teacher layoffs, shortened semesters and crowded classes, but we can schlep our kids to a local museum or two — Ventura County boasts 26 of them. Who knows, parents might even enjoy the experience as much as their offspring do.

So, when it comes to horn-tooting, Great Falls should feel free to give it its all — especially as residents huff and puff their shovels through the never-ending snow.

Oops, did I say that aloud?

STARRETT KREISSMAN: A DEDICATED ADVOCATE FOR FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES

 
Published in the January 5, 2011 edition of the Ventura County Star

This was a week of red-letter days for Starrett Kreissman. Not only did her birthday fall on the 4th and daughter Sonja’s birthday on the 6th, but five years ago, on Jan. 3, Kreissman, a nonsmoker who religiously avoided secondhand smoke, was diagnosed with lung cancer and given 22 months to live.

According to the American Cancer Society, active cigarette smoking causes approximately 85 to 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths. Yet, every year, an estimated 15,000 lifelong nonsmokers likewise succumb.

Kreissman, however, was a high- responder to Tarceva, a drug specifically designed to treat her cancer demographic. While many of her remaining 1,796 days were dedicated to medical matters, the rest were reserved for visits abroad, time with friends, an ambitious house remodel and tending to her garden — a luxuriant sanctuary planted to attract the birds she loved.

The three-decade marriage of Starrett Kreissman and David Dolan began with an introduction by a mutual friend in Modesto. Dolan, an architect, was bowled over by her massive mane of dark curly hair, and she found herself lost in his unbelievably blue eyes. Yet, it was her unrelenting lust for travel and taste for foreign food that Dolan considers her greatest gifts.

Dolan, who never owned a suitcase before encountering Kreissman, soon found himself globe-hopping with a spouse who would instill a hunger to see the world in their daughter as well. Starrett, who visited Paris with Sonja last May, booked every restaurant in advance, much to the delight and further education of her daughter’s adventurous palate.

For much of her life, Starrett was actually known as Jane. Early on, her parents, Bern and Shirley, simply got sick and tired of explaining themselves regarding the name Starrett and chose a variation of her middle name instead. It wasn’t until Dolan made the case for giving her uncommon moniker a second chance, that she became the namesake of Vincent Starrett once again.

Not only was Vincent Starrett born over a bookstore but he also gained renown as an author, bibliographer, Sherlock Holmes scholar and bibliophile who wrote, “When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness.” What could be a more appropriate name for a woman who would head up the library systems in both Stanislaus and Ventura counties?

When Kreissman took over the Stanislaus system in 1993, budget cuts were threatening closures. She took a page from her mother, a zealous activist for mental health, and opted to fight. Her plan to secure funding via a 1/8-cent sales tax, a first in California, proved a tough sell.

Yet, not only did she persuade Sacramento but also the voters. Her moment of triumph in the accompanying photo says it all. In 2011, her tax is projected to fund 84 percent of the Stanislaus County libraries’ budget. It is hardly surprising that the California Library Association honored Kreissman as Librarian of the Year in 1998.

She was hired by Ventura County to oversee its $6 million-a-year, 15-branch library system in March 1999. She was tasked with the construction of a 10,000-square-foot library in Oak Park and a $2 million renovation of Foster Library in Ventura as well as being expected to smooth communication among a veritable hornet’s nest of contentious factions.

During the next seven years, the creation of a library commission and the careful cultivation of Friends of the Library groups countywide went a long way to check the incessant squabbling. Kreissman, according to Supervisor Kathy Long, “was the right woman at the right time to bring the library system together.” Kreissman was also instrumental in the construction of the new (2007) California Mission-style library in Camarillo.

In June 2002, the city partnered with the Ventura County Library System and the Pleasant Valley School District to submit a $15,621,743 grant application, courtesy of the Library Bond Act of 2000. Long remembers Kreissman personally driving the one-foot high sheaf of paperwork to Sacramento to ensure that it would arrive on time.

Gail Doi, former deputy city manager of Camarillo, first met the 5-foot 2-inch dynamo during the Camarillo Library planning process. What she recalls is Kreissman not only knowing everything there was to know about libraries but being able to read architectural blueprints to boot.

Doi was also impressed with Kreissman’s voracious appetite for reading — consuming nearly a book a day and freely sharing her wealth of knowledge and signature sense of style with other close friends such as Ventura County Harbor Director Lyn Krieger, who will be assisting the family with plans for a memorial service in the spring.

Dec. 2 was her last red-letter day. It was a clear, sunny day in Ventura and I’d like to believe that as she glimpsed her garden one last time, her feathered friends warbled a farewell song — from all of us.

SHEPHERDING NATIVITY PLAY NOT FOR THE MEEK

Published in the December 22, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

Sister M. Lucy Ann, my first- grade teacher, has been on my mind of late. Last month, I delivered a conference paper in Milwaukee, Wis., the burg we departed about a half-century ago. Since I was back in town, I thought I’d take a leisurely stroll down memory lane.

I can report that our former two-bedroom homestead in Wauwatosa is the same size (cracker box) I remember, that the lady next door still resides next door, and that the walk to St. Jude the Apostle School — a mile each way and across a four-lane highway — is probably beyond today’s elementary school scholar.

As for trudging through snow, check the Wisconsin State Climatology Office for yourself — plenty of white stuff still blankets Milwaukee on a regular basis.

Those were the days when nobody lost sleep over “stranger danger.” Few moms possessed cars but they possessed front porches strategically located along the route to St. Jude’s. Even better, each sported a sharp set of eyeballs and an even sharper tongue — if a kid was found dawdling on the sidewalk instead of transporting him or herself home as promptly as possible. General rule: all mothers were imbued with the authority of one’s own mother.

As far as I knew, Sister M. Lucy Ann had always directed the annual Nativity play. She decided to retire the year after I played Mary. That being said, I’d like to take this opportunity to pay homage to all of the stout-hearted souls (mostly women) who enjoyed enough persistence and patience to tease Luke 2:1-20 out of a group of 5- or 6-year-olds. My Santa cap is off to you!

While older performers have the ability to memorize scripts, little kids must rely on their own words. And there is nothing more winsome than a wee one-— often missing one or two front teeth — mouthing an ad-lib, that, theologically, says it all.

Sister M. Lucy Ann could never forget one Mary who was so involved in dishing up her make- believe dinner that she barely raised her eyes when Joseph (Ralph Spooner) announced their upcoming sojourn to Bethlehem. “Anything you say, Joseph,” she responded — a line that, according to my mother, brought down the house.

In “Seven Stories of Christmas Love,” Leo Buscaglia recounts a spontaneous performance served up by his second-grade class. Not only did they select a hyperactive little boy named Matthew to play Joseph but they also opted, on opening night, to begin Act III in a totally unexpected manner.

Buscaglia asks us to picture his Mary and Joseph asleep on a log. The Angel of the Lord places a plastic doll at Mary’s feet. “They had never done it this way before,” reports Buscaliga. Joseph then delivers a wide yawn, flexes his minuscule muscles and shakes his startled spouse awake with the words, “Mary, Mary, wake up and see what you had during the night!” The entire audience, he recalls, howled.

Sister M. Lucy Ann would be the first to admit that it takes a village to put on a proper pageant. In fact, as she was coaxing her charges into acting out the Gospel story, sewing machines throughout Wauwatosa were whirring out shepherd’s robes, angel’s wings and various get-ups for the animals surrounding the “No Room At the Inn” manger.

As to the logistics involved in mounting a major production — I actually counted 41 freshly-scrubbed faces in our first-grade class picture — somebody had to keep the rest of the cast occupied while the director led the principals through their paces.

While we all knew full well that sister’s knuckle-rapping ruler was secreted away somewhere in the folds of her habit, it was the Mother’s Guild who kept the peace. Not only could they bake Toll House cookies, but they also seemed to know exactly how to make each child feel like he or she was just as valuable as the leads.

That year, a rumor floated around Wauwatosa that Ralph Spooner’s father had captured our Nativity play on 16-mm film but no invitation to see it ever surfaced and being modest Midwesterners, our parents never asked. I do remember Sister M. Lucy Ann cautioning that any child who mugged for the camera would be chalking up a mortal sin for her efforts. I’ll probably spend a couple of years in purgatory for the single photo my mother snapped.

I don’t know who is directing the annual Christmas performance at St. Jude’s now but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear this year’s Joseph, when confronted with the “just say no” innkeeper, impulsively whipping out his cell phone and requesting that Motel 6 “keep the light on” for him.

That would have never happened on Sister M. Lucy Ann’s watch. Amen to that, dear teacher, wherever you are.

Christmas Letter 2010

Holiday Greetings to Friends and Family,                                             Christmas 2010

We busied ourselves this year squandering our children’s inheritance. The electronic equivalent of a vacation journal is available @ http://beverlykelley.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Jon and I have always loved messing about in boats. In fact, we pictured ourselves as volunteers on the voyage of some tall ship--until we discovered that experience entailed scaling the rigging. Still, one should never jettison a dream. This January, when we were invited to join three other couples in a bare-boat charter of a 43-foot catamaran (based in St. Martin), we jumped at the chance.

What we relished the most was the way this adventure changed us--not just the new tan lines and extra poundage--but internally as well. There’s something about ocean sailing that is unlike any other experience. The mind tends to totally focus when the world, as you once knew it, is radically reduced to just three components, namely, wind, water and sky. While many aspects of shipboard life were beyond our comfort zones, we were rewarded for opening up to the experience---from schools of flying fish seemingly levitating before the bow to getting up close and personal with a green vervet monkey to being allowed to share a reef with hundreds of black and yellow-striped angelfish.

This summer, we crossed another dream off the “bucket list.” Chloe joined us as we embarked on a month-long exploration of Route 66. While we did consider renting a powder-blue Corvette for about 30 seconds, since Chevrolet isn’t making its bucket seats any bigger, we decided to rent a Mercury Grand Marquis to give a whole new meaning to the term “Easy Rider.” Remember when Reader’s Digest published stories entitled “The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met?” On this trip we made the acquaintance of a dozen or more, but Raven Digitalis, who read Beverly’s Tarot cards, remains “most memorable.”

We also took a couple of detours. We visited Nathan, Naomi and Maxwell in Great Falls, Montana as well as Brendan in Fort Worth, Texas. We are pleased to report that our favorite grandson absolutely adores science and looks forward to the weekly experiments he conducts with his father. He also played the piano for Grandpa and the buttons literally popped off Jon’s shirt--he was so filled with pride.

Brendan showed us around his adopted hometown—especially Clark Gardens, which proved to be a veritable oasis with both mercury and humidity hitting the high 90s. He’s still toiling away for Bank of America (formerly Countrywide) and a special project netted him oodles of overtime for many months He’s now within spitting distance of purchasing his own “home-sweet-home.” We look forward to his two week visit here in December.

Lots of upheaval for Angie and Trevor: first, they confronted, with great grace, Angie’s diagnosis of diabetes; next, they relocated to bigger and brighter (courtesy of several skylights) digs in Silver Lake; and just last week, both traded positions at MySpace and Urban Outfitters, respectively, for greener (emphasis on green) pastures at Disney Digital (music division) and Forever 21.

We spent our first Thanksgiving at their home this year. The three-generation crowd included vegans, vegetarians and BYOB (bring your own bird) carnivores, but nobody left the table-groaning potluck hungry.

May your appetite for life be as heartily satisfied during the coming year.

With Love, Jonathan, Beverly, Nathan, Naomi, Max, Brendan, Angie, Trevor and Chloe

A SIP OF HUMAN KINDNESS FOR THOSE IN NEED

Published in the Wednesday, December 8, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

I don’t know what it is about Canton, Ohio. Maybe it’s because Canton’s roots run deep. Incorporation occurred back in 1854. Maybe it’s because Canton sports an exotic moniker. The name originated from what is now Guangzhou, China. Or maybe it’s just something in the water.

Notable natives include a slew of professional football players (Canton is home to the Pro Football Hall of Fame) as well as the 25th President of the United States, talk show hosts as diverse as Jack Parr and Mother Angelica, a raft of musicians and two former Playboy Playmates.

But the Canton resident that interests me the most is Sam Stone. In early December of 1933, however, he surreptitiously passed himself off as Mr. B. Virdot — at least in a newspaper advertisement published in the Canton Repository.

Readers in need — 1933 saw unemployment in Canton spiraling up to 50 percent — were invited by Virdot to wrap up their troubles in a one-page letter. In return, 150 correspondents received a crisp $5 bill (the equivalent of $100 today) which, for many, constituted a life-changing gift.

We know this because Stone’s grandson Ted Gup, a former investigative journalist with the Washington Post and professor at Emerson College, discovered, in 2008, a trunk containing yellowed letters addressed to “Mr. B. Virdot” in his mother’s attic in Kennebunk, Maine.

Gup was not only moved by tales of misery written in perfect Palmer penmanship but was simultaneously buoyed by their expressions of hope. He tasked himself with tracking down the petitioners to uncover, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.”

A missive from Helen Palm Kintz Grant read: “I am writing this because I need clothing. And sometimes we run out of food.” The 14-year-old whose shoes were so badly worn that she cut cardboard from a cereal box to line them, continued, “My father does not want to ask for charity. But us children would like to have some clothing for Christmas.”

Gup’s quest took him across the fruited plain in search of census data, newspaper obituaries, birth, marriage and death records as well as the 500 interviews he conducted to flesh out the family sagas contained in those Depression-era missives.

Grant, the last living letter-writer and now 90, recalled the boost to her family’s spirit Mr. B. Virdot’s (derived from Stone’s sisters’ names (Barbara, Virginia and Dot) five dollars provided. “I took my family out to dinner,” Grant confessed. “And we came here to the Palace to see a show. Then I went next door and bought a pair of shoes. With what was left, I bought some candy.

“For one moment in one forgotten town,” wrote Gup in his recently published “The Secret Gift,” “one man managed to shrink the vastness of the Depression to a human scale.”

This was also a time, according to Gup’s sources, “when people were kinder,” “when the less poor helped the poor,” and “when we were made of better stuff.”

So what really motivated Stone to extend assistance to his neighbors? Gup had known a fun-loving businessman from Pittsburgh as Grandpa. In reality, however, Stone (whose real name was Sam Finkelstein) and his family had managed to flee the persecution and poverty that plagued their native Romania in 1902.

Fifteen years later, bored with rolling tobacco into cigars in Pittsburgh’s Hill District with his father and brothers, the 30-year-old relocated to Canton, changed his name and reinvented himself as a middle-class haberdashery owner in Middle America.

In fact, by the winter of 1933, Stone had survived a 1929 bankruptcy and his chain of men’s clothing stores swelled to nine. His rollercoaster economic experience allowed him to empathize with Depression-stricken strangers in Canton.

Today, some Cantonians don’t have to imagine what life was like in 1933 — they are living it. According to census records, about 15.4 percent of families and 19.2 percent of the population are struggling below the poverty line, including 27.4 percent of those under age 18 and 11.3 percent of those over 65.

This Thanksgiving, however, three anonymous donors stepped forward, offering $100 grants to each of 150 needy families. “We’re thrilled at The Repository to help again,” Jeff Gauger, the paper’s executive editor, told The Associated Press. “Mr. Stone’s gift keeps on giving.”

Stone’s gift, contended Gup in an Associated Press interview, “shows the incredible power of a genuine selfless act.”

Gup believes the renewal of his grandfather’s charity is especially significant during the current fiscal downturn. “In a period in which we are throwing billions of dollars at the economy — the TARP, the bailouts, etc. — the notion that a human-size gift can still carry such potency goes to the heart of this story.”

That’s Canton for you. We should all sample a glass of that water.

AT LEAST PORT HUENEME AVOIDED BEING INVADED

Published in the November 24, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

Question: Where can you report Google Map errors?
Answer: You can’t. Google doesn’t make mistakes.

For the past five years, the Ventura Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) website homepage featured a map of Ventura County that situated Port Hueneme about 10 miles southeast of its actual location. On this map, the sleepy little beach town/bustling port city and its approximately 23,000 residents could be found north of Highway 1 and inside the boundaries of Point Mugu State Park.

When I called to inquire about the obvious cartographical error, I was expecting somebody at the agency, which deals primarily in boundary changes for cities and special districts, to respond sympathetically. I thought the voice at the other end of the phone might say something like, “Oh, boy, is this embarrassing—we will look into it immediately.”

Instead, Deputy Executive Officer Kai Luoma got all huffy and defensive as he rattled off a list of “nots”—as in “this map is not official,” “this map is not to scale,” “this map has not been adopted by the County” and “this map is obviously a caricature—look at the smiling dolphin.”

Now bear in mind that that the LAFCO website---tongue in cheek, of course---cautions visitors against confusing the agency with a “hot new comedy club.” No problem with that---not only would I not mistake Luoma for a stand-up comic but I got the idea, in no uncertain terms, that my call was definitely no laughing matter.

If Luoma regularly read the Star, however, he would have been aware that some of the powers-that-be in Port Hueneme are so distressed about the city being known as “the best kept secret in Ventura County,” they are considering rebranding “Port Hueneme” as “Hueneme Beach.”

While it’s obviously not the function of the LAFCO website to promote Port Hueneme’s uncrowded stretch of golden sand, picturesque pier and well-lighted promenade, the agency might have been a tad bit more sensitive to thin skins, deeply tanned or otherwise.

I am happy to report that after a few emails from Dave Norman, Port Hueneme’s City Manager, the offensive visual has been permanently removed from the LAFCO website. If only the folks at Google Maps could prove to be as cooperative with their critics.

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that hostilities have intensified between Nicaragua and Costa Rica over a boundary brouhaha that evolved when, in early November, Eden Pastora, a Nicaraguan military commander, crossed over the border into Costa Rica and ordered his troops to take down the Costa Rican flag on Calero Island and replace it with the blue and white Nicaraguan colors.

Pastora told La Nacion, Costa Rica’s largest newspaper, that the incursion was not his fault because Google Maps depicted the territory as belonging to Nicaragua. According to Google Earth and Maps team members, the Costa Rica-Nicaraguan border, as shown on the Google map, could have been up to 2.7 kilometers off the mark. Of course, Google, which considers itself infallible, blamed the blunder on materials and maps provided by the U.S. State Department.

This is the same blame game employed by Google only last February in response to a request from Cambodia to correct a Google Earth map that Phnom Penh claimed was “devoid of truth and reality, and professionally irresponsible, if not pretentious.”

Google, in a letter provided to ABC news, said the internet giant was “carefully reviewing” the Cambodian government’s objection but also suggested that officials contact Tele Atlas, a mapping company that provided the border data to Google.

“We understand that the governments of both Thailand and Cambodia are pursuing bilateral negotiations to clarify the existing borders between the two countries,” wrote Ross LaJeunesse, Google’s head of public policy and government affairs for Asia Pacific, “and we would be happy to review any authoritative border data which the government of Cambodia can provide.”

Back to the Costa Rica-Nicaragua clash, the Organization of American States and UN Security Council, invited to prevail as well-modulated voices of reason, advised Nicaragua to remove its troops. When Nicaragua refused, Costa Rica countered by filing a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague—hence the heat and heightened tension November 20.

Bing Maps, on the other hand, which managed to get the Costa Rica-Nicaraguan boundary right, could have stumbled upon a spanking-new marketing strategy, courtesy of Google’s ghastly gaffes: “Bing is the search engine that doesn’t get you into international hot water.”

Question: Where can you report Google Map errors?
Answer: Just make a large sign and stake it out in the middle of the questioned territory. It might take a couple of years, but Google will eventually get the message.

LAFCO, to their credit, got it much sooner.

Carnegie: America's First Friend of the Library

Published in the November 10, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

On this very day in 1911, Andrew Carnegie established a corporation for scholarly and charitable works. He chose, as his mission statement, the lofty goal: “The advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.”

Carnegie made a fortune, estimated at 60 percent of the total American economy, during the 19th century so-called “Age of the Robber Barons,” when income tax didn’t exist and government policy toward business was strictly laissez-faire.

The alleged “second richest man in the world” caused quite a stir in June 1889, however, when his article, “Wealth,” appeared in the North American Review. His provocative essay argued that so long as leaders of industry stimulated financial growth, they were a valuable, if not indispensible, national asset. But if these folks just piled up money for their own selfish pursuits, they were stealing from those to whom their capital actually belonged.

Carnegie further contended that not only had society as a whole created the wealth found concentrated in individual hands but those individual hands shared a moral obligation to return said wealth to society. The prosperous, he maintained, merely served as “trustees,” obliged to allocate their assets to benefit others.

A decade after he sold his steel company to J. P. Morgan, Carnegie, feeling each of his 76 years, and already having drained his bank account of $153 million in charitable donations, discovered, to his chagrin, not only had he merely reached the halfway point, but getting rid of sky-high piles of dollars was proving to be an exhausting chore.

To that end, Carnegie consulted his friend, Elihu Root, who would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. Root suggested Carnegie transfer the bulk of his estate and the arduous philanthropic decision making that accompanied giving it away, to a trust. And that’s how the Carnegie Corporation of New York, with an original endowment of $3 billion, was signed into existence on Nov. 10, 1911.

Today, $3 billion, adjusted for inflation, comes to more than $67 billion, the same amount as the ill-gotten gains realized by Bernard Madoff via his notorious Ponzi scheme.

Carnegie’s scheme, however, appears to be a Ponzi in reverse.

During the last third of his life, Carnegie was all about giving, and he targeted the “industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve and will be benefited by help from others.”

Even prior to 1911, Carnegie had busied himself setting up various trust funds “for the improvement of mankind.” The first of these “get (Carnegie) poor quick” proposals would eventually establish thousands of free public libraries across the English-speaking world.

Books impacted Carnegie’s life in a positive way, beginning with the Tradesman’s Subscription Library founded by his father (William) in their Scottish hometown. Later, after immigrating to the United States and while working for the Allegheny Telegraph Company, Carnegie borrowed various edifying volumes from the personal library of Col. James Anderson, who, every Saturday, opened his collection to interested employees.

Carnegie, who preferred the label “distributor of wealth” rather than “philanthropist,” funded his first library in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1883. It’s quite telling that rather than his name, he had the motto “Let there be light” carved within its Gothic-arched entrance.

Between 1883 and 1929, very few municipalities requesting a construction grant and agreeing to Carnegie’s terms were refused. Of the 3, 500 American public libraries in existence by 1919, nearly half were constructed with Carnegie funds.

One such library, whose Doric columns suggest a Greek temple, graces South C Street in Oxnard. Presently known as the Carnegie Art Museum, in July 1971, the iconic structure became the first building in Ventura County to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

When the white neo-classic edifice first opened on May 15, 1907, it housed not only a first-class book collection but also Oxnard’s municipal offices and City Hall as well.

While hundreds of former Carnegie library buildings in the United States have been converted into museums, community centers, office buildings and residences, more than 50 percent still serve their communities as free public libraries. Many are located in middle- to low-income neighborhoods and have “become a force,” especially during this prolonged recession, as Pittsburg Library Director Herb Elis told the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, “to help bring these neighborhoods back.”

At a time when billions have been wasted stuffing our mailboxes with slick political advertisements, cluttering up the airwaves with nasty, mud-slinging spots and interrupting our peace and privacy with robocalls, don’t you wish the Carnegie “gospel” might get some traction with politicos?

I don’t know about you, but any candidate truly working toward “the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding” will get my vote, every time.

FAMILY TREE LOADED DOWN WITH FACTS AND MYTHS

Published in the October 27, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

You know it’s an election year by the number of politically motivated “forwards” clogging your e-mail.

According to a doozy that landed in my inbox, Judy Wallman, a professional genealogist from Southern California, allegedly stumbled across a snapshot purported to be the only extant portrait of Remus Reid, an ancestor common to both Wallman and Sen. Harry Reid.

The back of the picture was supposedly inscribed with “Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.”

When Wallman requested more information about their mutual great-great uncle from Sen. Reid, she received what appears to be a staggering example of historic revisionism from one of Sen. Reid’s uber-inventive staff members.

The spin-meister wannabe claimed that Remus Reid achieved celebrity in Montana for an economic empire built from amassing “equestrian assets.” The memo went on to insist that Remus “passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.”

A quick check with Snopes.com indicated that this particular hoax first started making the rounds in 2000 when Hillary Rodham Clinton was paired with Remus Rodham and Tipper Gore with Gunther Gore. A year later, another adaptation popped up featuring George W. Bush’s great-great uncle Chadsworth being unearthed by Laura Bush.

The subject of the photograph, however, was, in actuality, a train-robbing outlaw named Tom “Black Jack” Ketchum, who is undoubtedly a distant relative of some American citizen but, apparently, none of the politicos previously mentioned.

Earlier this month, Ancestry.com, an online family history resource with a database of five billion accessible records, was tickled silly to announce that Sarah Palin and President Obama appear to be 10th cousins — both finding a common ancestor in a Massachusetts pioneer named John Smith, whose claim to fame during the mid-1600s was earned defending Quakers against persecution. Furthermore, Rush Limbaugh and Obama also seem to qualify as 10th cousins, once removed. Richmond Terrell, a well-heeled landowner who arrived in this country during the 1650s, is the common kin. But wait, there’s more.

Not only does the former governor of Alaska share a family member with the Senate Majority Leader that Republicans love to hate but also both Palin and Reid boast ancestral ties to the best-selling conservative author Ann Coulter via Congregationalist minister John Lathrop, celebrated for his stirring 1770 sermon, “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston.”

According to The New York Times, “We are glad to note that so many societies and orders of to-day are searching historical genealogy, not to find that the average American’s veins contain a minute drop of royal or noble blood transmitted from England, but in the spirit of preserving the memory of the great though humbly worked out deeds of our ancestors in the gloomy obscurities of the colonies in their forest-shadowed days.”

You won’t be surprised to learn that the previous purple prose initially appeared in the March 15, 1896, edition. The first surge of American interest in ancestry is dated to that year, as the nation witnessed a mushrooming of historical societies, pioneer associations, family reunions, and hereditary organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution or the Society of Mayflower Descendants.

Since then, fascination with genealogy seems to spike every 30 to 40 years as folks focus on heritage as sustenance in times of challenge, as the result of generational curiosity and/or as a concern about the future of the family as an institution.

Alex Haley’s landmark ABC series, “Roots,” which first aired in 1977, and reached a record-breaking 130 million viewers, sparked unprecedented attention to lineage even though experts have continued to dispute the accuracy of Haley’s research. A plagiarism suit brought by African-American novelist and anthropologist Harold Courlander likewise clouded Haley’s legacy.

Just last year, an estimated 50 million Americans busied themselves assembling family trees.

FamilySearch.org, which is a service provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reports receiving 10 million hits per day on its Internet site.

Last March, Utah-based Ancestry.com teamed up with NBC for the “Who Do You Think You Are?” series that traced the family ties of Lisa Kudrow, Sarah Jessica Parker, Emmitt Smith, Matthew Broderick, Brooke Shields, Susan Sarandon and Spike Lee. Each episode attracted between 6 and 7 million viewers. While there wasn’t a single horse thief among the distant relatives of the aforementioned celebrities, what if there had been?

The author of “Invisible Man,” Ralph Ellison once observed: “Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.” Right, Sen. Reid?

BEACH CITY BY ANY OTHER NAME STILL DRAWS CROWDS

Published in the Ventura County Star on Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Barack Hussein Obama once noted, “My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or ‘blessed,’ believing that in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success.”

Indeed, even given his middle name, Obama was elected our 44th president. Unfortunately, however, today, 24 percent of Americans insist on believing he’s a Muslim.

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter attributes the public’s misperception of Obama’s religious beliefs not to his name, but rather to the fact that “more and more voters don’t like him personally and so are increasingly ready to believe anything critical (and to them, being Muslim is a negative).”

So what should Obama do? Stephen Colbert thinks the president “needs to go to church harder.” Actually, Obama’s advisers are quietly reminding reporters that he prays daily devotionals, regularly phones pastors and attends church services at Camp David. Nobody is suggesting that Obama change his name.

Rebranding, however, is all the rage, these days, on Madison Avenue. According to the American Marketing Association, a brand is a name, logo, slogan or combination thereof that not only identifies but also differentiates. The brand is not just about getting your buyers to choose you over the competition, but rather about getting your buyers to perceive you as providing the best solution to their problem.

In terms of politics, being chosen over the competition is what happens before an election; being perceived as the best solution-provider is what happens during the following four years.

A successful brand, according to marketing experts, delivers a clear message, cements credibility, and emotionally connects the product with the intended target. In other words, the new brand accomplishes all of the above more effectively than the former brand.

The respective elected leadership in Port Hueneme and Oxnard are flirting with the possibility of city name change. The rationale behind proposals to turn Port Hueneme into Hueneme Beach or Oxnard into Oxnard Shores: The International City is that tourists and wallets fat with tourist dollars will flock to these two locales because of their proximity to sun, sand and surf.

Roger Brooks, founder and CEO of a Seattle firm that specializes in community branding, development, marketing and tourism was hired by the Oxnard Convention and Visitors Bureau to the tune of $125,000 in order to recast California’s 21st largest metropolis into a “destination city.”

Mayor Norm Griffaw piloted the less cost-intensive Port Hueneme branding committee with Councilwoman Sylvia Muñoz Schnopp as well as a cross section of city residents, including Bill Hoover, Sharon Osborne, Orvene Carpenter, Arlene Fraser and Ed Cristal.

Branding experts hold out the welcome promise that not only would a post-rebranding spike in taxes flood coffers depleted by a flaccid economy but the initial dollar cost of replacing city seal and name-carrying materials would, in no time, be returned in full.

Of course, any promise by a branding expert, no matter how welcome, is never accompanied by a money-back guarantee. In addition to outcome uncertainty is the expected furor aroused by change in general and identity change in particular.

Mayor Griffaw acknowledged that swapping Port Hueneme for Hueneme Beach, even though three major name changes (Wynema to Hueneme to Port Hueneme) have punctuated its 154-year history, is a passion-inducing issue that deserves an up-or-down vote by residents.

On the other hand, while Brooks expected controversy over the switch to Oxnard Shores, the branding expert claims more than 90 percent of Oxnard citizens are in support of the change.

Port Hueneme might have been named after Henry T. Oxnard, who, with his brothers Benjamin, James and Robert, initially sought to set up a sugar beet operation next to the wharf in Hueneme. Negotiations with Thomas Bard went south, however, and in 1897, the brothers were enticed to build the $2 million redbrick factory with its landmark twin smokestacks farther up the road. Henry originally planned to christen the town Zachari, the Greek word for “sugar.” Ironically, none of the Oxnard brothers ever resided in their namesake city.

Only two other Ventura County cities have formally changed their names. During the early 1900s, the U.S. Postal Service officially recognized Simiopolis, the former moniker of Simi Valley. In 1874, real estate developer R.G. Surdam christened his project in honor of “Mutiny on the Bounty” co-author Charles Nordhoff. During World War I, however, when anti-German sentiment swept the fruited plain, Nordhoff was jettisoned in favor of Ojai — Chumash for “Valley of the Moon.”

Forget the name game. Once the economy perks up, not only will Obama regain his “committed Christian” status but Port Hueneme and Oxnard will cheerfully make do with the same old stationery. Tourists can always find a beach.

THELMA HANSEN'S DREAM BEING PLOWED UNDER

Published in the September 29, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

If you watched Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution,” a six-week ABC reality show that aired March-April of this year, you were probably shocked to see elementary schoolchildren who can’t identify a tomato, cauliflower, beet or eggplant but can readily distinguish a chicken nugget, piece of pizza or order of fries.

Children don’t recognize what they don’t eat and they don’t eat what they don’t recognize.

Faulkner Farm is trying to change all that in Ventura County. Last year, according to the Hansen Trust annual report, 24,000 people participated in educational programs or attended the annual Rotary Club of Santa Paula-sponsored pumpkin patch — a 35-year Ventura County tradition that nets nearly $100,000 per annum for local nonprofits.

Not only did Thelma Hansen dream big, but she also donated a fortune to the University of California to make her dream come true. When she passed away in 1993, her $12 million legacy became the Hansen Trust, which is charged with the mission “to sustain agriculture in Ventura County through research and education to benefit the community as a whole.”

To that end, in 1997, the historic 27-acre Faulkner Farm in Santa Paula was purchased for $1.5 million. The deal included a landmark red barn erected in 1886 as well as a stately two-story 1894 Victorian house listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

However, two months ago, a majority of the Hansen Trust advisory board recommended placing Faulkner Farm on the market.

Chris Sayer, Edgar Terry and John Krist provided the rationale behind this injudicious judgment in a Star op-ed. “Far from advancing agricultural education and preservation,” they argued, “ownership of the property has saddled the organization with crippling financial and logistical burdens. As a result, the UC Hansen Trust finds itself unable to carry out the wishes of Thelma Hansen.”

If you detect a whiff of manure while reading this statement, you are not alone.

First, let’s take a gander at the so-called “crippling financial and logistical burden” by consulting the most recent Hansen Trust annual report.

Oops — nothing more recent than 2008-2009 budget figures have been posted online. Guess Krist et al can claim just about anything they wish if they don’t have to provide a cost-benefit analysis.

What can be gleaned from earlier budgets, however, is that there is a state budget category that provides about $50,000 per year for historic preservation. A reserve of $120,000 exists as well. Best advice? Amortize.

Krist et al insist, “Only 10 percent of the trust’s annual budget of approximately $1 million is now available for direct support of activities benefiting local agriculture.” That can’t possibly mean farm subsidies, can it?

According to the annual report from last year, no single line item benefits local agriculture, yet $415,103, which is nearly 40 percent of the budget, did go to such mission-friendly programs as “research and extension,” “education outreach” and “agriculture literacy and issues.”

The trio further alleged, “this year, the trust was able to fund only about a quarter of the grant proposals it received for research and education.” The 2008-2009 report lists $14,603 in “unused grant funds.” That’s right, “unused.” By the way, funding one in four proposals is considered quite generous in academia.

Salaries and benefits invariably take the biggest budget bite. Supposedly, 13 full-time equivalent employees labor at Faulkner Farm but how many hours are spent maintaining the house and barn? Furthermore, what is the specific staffing plan if the trust decides to purchase land elsewhere?

It’s time for full disclosure. Laurence Peter, when asked about lying with numbers, quipped, “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are much more pliable.”

Mike Mobley, spokesman for the freshly constituted “Save Faulkner Farm” and member of the Santa Paula Rotary told the Santa Paula Times, “We just can’t believe they’ve made this decision without any community input, and elected to ignore 20 years of decisions by previous board members, their own staff and the community.”

That’s right. Where was the transparency in this process? If the board actually has nothing to hide — why scheme in secret, why gag employees and why not invite stakeholders to the table, especially “the community as a whole” addressed in their mission statement?

When confronted with the concealment charge, chairman of the advisory board Chris Sayer told the Santa Paula Times, “These discussions were part of regularly scheduled meetings. It’s the difference,” he added, “between hiding something and not advertising something.” Yes, indeed — subtle distinction duly noted.

In his Star op-ed piece, Larry Yee, co-founder of the UC Hansen Trust, believes Ms. Hansen “would be outraged” to learn that the current board is attempting to destroy her dream.

I invite all FOTs (Friends of Thelma) to fire off a mad-as-hell e-mail

Do it for our kids — even if you still hate eggplant.

SOCIAL SECURITY QUIP RANKLES WOMEN'S GROUPS

Published in the September 15, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

Will somebody please explain to me why I, as an older woman, am supposed to be ticked off at former Sen. Alan Simpson?

Sept. 5, Dan K. Thomasson charged — in my favorite newspaper, no less, “a huge number of women will call into question Simpson’s dedication to their causes.”

So what did this alleged prairie home misogynist do?

Simpson, the co-chair of President Barack Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Commission, inserted his size 15 loafer into his uber-acerbic mouth, when, in an e-mail to National Older Women’s League’s Ashley Carson, he linked Social Security and a milk cow with 310 million teats — only Simpson didn’t type “teats.”

Simpson was, for the second time, channeling H. L. Mencken, who, during the 1930s, compared Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” to “a milk cow with 25 million teats.”

The first time the Wyoming Republican channeled Mencken, he was speaking to the 1992 National Conference of State Legislatures about Social Security, veterans benefits and other programs rendering America “a milk cow with 250 million tits.”

So why, now, did everybody from the National Older Women’s League to Social Security Works to the National Organization for Women have a cow? Why were special-interest lobbyists calling for Simpson’s ouster from the commission as well as calling him such derisive names as “sexist” and “ageist”?

Not only are these folks udderly serious about labeling one of the Senate’s funniest men “politically incorrect” — they are also claiming to speak for me.

Simpson didn’t insult yours truly. My advice: lighten up, embrace the First Amendment and speak for yourselves.

I actually took a gander at the column that propelled Simpson into an apoplectic cyberdiatribe. What I discovered in the piece the executive director of OWL pounded out for the Huffington Post is that bloggers, unhappily, aren’t held to the same professional standard as journalists.

Apparently, Carson is unaware that generalizations should be backed up by facts, that quotations must not be cherry-picked out of context and that ad hominem attacks, no matter how stridently delivered, fail to advance an argument at any time. The elevation of Simpson’s ire as he poured over Carson’s piece, “Enough with the Pink Panthers Bit,” should have been no surprise.

Yet, the senator served up a speedy plea for forgiveness: “I apologize for what I wrote. I can see that my remarks have caused you anguish, and that was not my intention. I certainly did not intend to diminish your hard work for the Older Women’s League. I know you care deeply about strengthening Social Security, and so do I, just as deeply.”

Detractors claim that Social Security, the third rail of politics, remains outside the purview of the National Commission of Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Yet, Obama’s board is not only tasked with cracking the deficit in the short-term but also with tackling “the growth of entitlement spending” in the long run. Social Security unquestionably qualifies for scrutiny under the commission’s mission statement.

The 79-year-old Simpson’s position on Social Security is simple: America must confront Social Security’s insolvency issues sooner rather than later. Not only is Simpson’s view held by most economists but his recommended methodology — making minor adjustments over the next 25 years — better protects the most vulnerable oldsters than playing ostrich.

In his nasty-gram to Carson, the salty Simpson asked, “If you have some better suggestions about how to stabilize Social Security instead of just babbling into the vapors, let me know.”

She has yet to do so.

Most attorneys are aware that when you have the facts on your side, you argue the facts; when you have the law on your side, you argue the law and when you don’t have facts or the law on your side, you pound the table. Carson et al excel at table-pounding.

While Social Security isn’t responsible for America’s current fiscal difficulties — it will be when the Social Security Trust Fund reserves, which make up the difference between payroll taxes and benefit claims, dry up. In his e-missive to Carson, Simpson points out that Stephen C. Goss, the program’s chief actuary, projects in 27 short years that Social Security will pay only 76 percent of scheduled benefits.

If the commission does its job properly, it will recommend tax increases as well as across-the-board cuts to the Pentagon, social programs, entitlements and veterans’ benefits. Otherwise, we end up impoverishing the future of our children and our children’s children.

As to the finger-pointers from OWL, Social Security Works and NOW — stop looking for reasons to take offense and start listening to what Simpson is actually saying. Methinks not only doth thou protest too much — but thou art making a mountain out of a molehill. And, in case you forgot — Wyoming is home to the Grand Tetons.

TODAY'S LEARNERS TAKE NOT OF OLD-SCHOOL WAYS

Published in the August 31, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

Finished your back-to-school shopping yet? As I gird my loins for yet another year, the only school supplies I purchased were a couple of Pilot G-2 red pens and three sturdy file folders. The most important item I needed was free — the latest edition of the Beloit College Mindset list.

A catalog assembled by Tom McBride and Ron Nief, the Beloit College Mindset list is supposed to help university faculty avoid making out-of-date references. The inventory discloses what the current freshman class knows and doesn’t know about the world. When you have been teaching as long as I have, you are abundantly aware that your cultural references are not necessarily those of the Class of 2014.

In fact, these days, instead of merely rolling their eyeballs to indicate that I have soared to unparalleled heights of corniness, my students freeze their faces in a “What’s that you say?” grimace if I am foolish enough to attempt my Dirty Harry impression.

But I worry not. My popularity gets a mega-boost every time I reveal, off-handedly and with uncharacteristic modesty, that I actually attended Woodstock — back in the day.

Born when Bill Clinton was apologizing for causing pain in his marriage, my young scholars were never forced to master cursive penmanship, yet, according to McBride and Nief, are superfluent in “caramel macchiato” and “venti half-caf vanilla latte.”

The Class of 2014 will never experience the calming effect produced by mindlessly twisting the coiled handset cord on a wall phone — especially when the object of your affection is on the other end. For kids born in 1992, in fact, phones never had cords. Furthermore, their cells have always doubled as cameras and remain the primary reason millennials eschew wristwatches.

For this freshman class, Czechoslovakia has never existed but HIV-positive athletes have always competed in the Olympics. They first met Michelangelo as a computer virus, consider Beethoven a good name for a dog, and believe Al Gore is an animated character on “The Simpsons.”

When I was dispatched to college during the ’60s, my instructors would scrawl illegible words on dusty chalkboards. I pounded out multiple drafts of assignments on a nonelectric typewriter. My exams and supplementary reading materials were produced by ditto masters that turned hands, face and clothes — purple. Professors, available by appointment only, met undergraduates in intimidating, smoke-filled offices.

My students, however, insist on being entertained via media-rich PowerPoint presentations that embed video, colorful graphics and flying text. They want to be able to rent textbooks or have them delivered to their e-readers. They demand daily electronic reminders of due dates and upcoming assignment announcements. Since they are all for saving trees, they require that materials, including the course syllabus, be paperless. Professors now make themselves available 24/7, via e-mail, text or cell phone.

A couple of years ago, I noticed that students taking notes were no longer clacking away on keyboards but employing time-consuming longhand instead. Talk about old school! When I polled my freshmen about this technological step backward, I gleaned two hypotheses.

The first had to do with the elimination of typing classes in high school. It wasn’t that these kids were unfamiliar with QWERTY — they could text at mind-numbing speeds. In fact, they had grown jaw-droppingly efficient with just two thumbs. The problem was that you can’t really summarize lectures on a cell phone. Touch-typing, which is simple and speedy, does require the use of all 10 digits.

The second explanation held that ever since junior high, computers had been banned from classrooms. No, their teachers weren’t Luddites — they were just sick and tired of competing for their students’ attention with the World Wide Web and social networking sites.

Instead of figuring out a way for pupils and Wi-Fi-enabled computers to co-exist, administrators, in a lockstep, zero-tolerance response, ruled that laptops must remain at home. Note-taking became the laborious process it had been in my day. It also forced the lecturer to either accommodate the slowest writer in class or to provide pupils with photocopies of PowerPoints.

Unfortunately, the latter seriously cheats learners because they never acquire the ability to organize, evaluate and retain what they’re being told. Without taking their own notes, not only are they unprepared to think critically about the material, but numerous studies, conducted since 1925, report that note-taking itself is an integral part of the learning process.

McBride and Nief note that the Class of 2014 “will now be awash with a computerized technology that will not distinguish information (from) knowledge.”

No, information and knowledge are not synonymous. Hopefully, bona- fide teachers, even if not as hip and happening as we’d like to be, will possess the wisdom to clarify the difference.

We’d all shop for that.

JAMES BROWN WAS RIGHT! THIS IS A MAN'S WORLD, BUT IT WOULDN'T BE NOTHING WITHOUT A WOMAN OR A GIRL

Published in the August 18, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

With these startling statistics hitting the headlines, how can it still be a man’s world?

For the first time in American history, the majority of breadwinners are women. For every two males who receive a bachelor’s degree this year, three women will do the same. Of the 15 job categories projected to experience the highest growth during the next decade, all occupations, except janitorial work and computer engineering, will be flooded by females.

Perhaps it’s time to discard the outdated “adaptive imperatives” proposed by evolutionary psychologists who claim that men are, by nature, endowed with brawn and testosterone-fueled aggression in order to successfully compete for meager resources — whether it be on the Serengeti or Wall Street — while women, who bear the offspring, seem to have domesticity and care-taking hardwired into their DNA.

“This kind of thinking frames our sense of the natural order,” argues Hanna Rosin in her “The End of Men” Atlantic Monthly article published this month. “But what if,” she asks, “men and women were fulfilling not biological imperatives but social roles, based on what was more efficient throughout a long era of human history?

“What if that era has now come to an end,” she postulates. “More to the point, what if the economics of the new era are better suited to women?”

A whole raft of studies report that verbal skills, self-discipline, and the ability to work well with others — traditionally considered feminine attributes — have proven much more valuable in our post-industrial economy than physical strength, forcefulness and the ability to take risks.

Consider this: what if, in the immediate future, a global recession might achieve more in the struggle for equality than centuries of feminist protest have in the past?

The economy, contended Reihan Salam in an article for Foreign Policy, has not only done away with “the macho men’s club called finance capitalism,” but has — with 80 percent of domestic job losses sustained by males, and, at the end of 2009, 28 million men out of work worldwide — resulted in “a collective crisis for millions of working men across the globe.”

Indeed, construction, manufacturing and high finance, which bore the brunt of the Great Recession, are overwhelmingly identified as male-dominated fields. While some of these jobs will invariably return, the overall pattern of displacement neither appears short-term nor accidental.

Will this “he-session,” (a word coined by David Zincenko in USA Today to describe the recession’s greater negative impact on men) actually result in an unprecedented paradigm shift in clout?

“As women start to gain more of the social, economic and political power they have long been denied,” Salam predicted in “The Death of Macho,” “it will be nothing less than a full-scale revolution the likes of which human civilization has never experienced.”

Hyperbole aside, have American men actually rolled over without a fight? Susan Faludi made the case for the so-called “masculinity crisis” in her 1999 best-seller “Stiffed, the Betrayal of the American Man” while Stephen L. DeFelice is taking up the gauntlet 11 years later in “The Attack on the White Male and the Weakening of America.”

Once upon a time, little boys (unlike little girls) grew up being told they could become anything they dreamed. Today, they can’t seem to grow up, they don’t become much of anything, and all they do is dream.

Jessica Grose, in her eponymous Slate magazine article, calls them “Omega Men,” who are “tragically unable to retool. The image of the American woman has gone through several upheavals since the 1950s,” Grose observes, “but the masculine ideal seems fixed in cultural aspic: Think slick ad executive Don Draper in ‘Mad Men’ and the WWII heroes in the Tom Hanks-produced HBO series ‘The Pacific.’”

Furthermore, if the revolution has already started, it’s doubtful that women will feel compelled to drag “need to nurture” baggage with them as they occupy the majority of seats in Congress, the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies or even, gasp, the Oval Office.

They will probably call upon the same gutsy leadership qualities (overlooked by evolutionary psychologists) that have served Margaret Thatcher, Dalia Grybauskaité or Hillary Clinton so well.

So what are the odds that the gender paradigm is going to shift? Let’s examine those startling statistics again.

Although more women are bringing home university sheepskins, men still dominate the highly lucrative fields of science, math, engineering and information technology. Add to that mix, salary inequities — women still earn 20 to 30 percent less than men in nearly every occupation from administrator to zoologist — and that means, today, it is still necessary for a female to hold a college degree in order to earn as much as a man with a high school diploma.

Yup, it’s a man’s world — at least for now.

SPOTLIGHTING PORT HUENEME ONE GRAIN OF SAND AT A TIME

Published in the August 4, 2010 edition of Ventura County Star

There is a wall-size mural at the airport in Christchurch, New Zealand. It’s a no-fuss map of the entire world. The only two cities punctuating the west coast of North America, however, are San Francisco and Port Hueneme.

Christchurch, of course, was the last stopover before Antarctica for Port Hueneme Seabees who had orders to participate in various construction projects from 1957 to 1993 — collectively designated Operation Deep Freeze.

Ten years before that, however, Seabees built an operating base at Little America IV — on the Ross Ice Shelf about 890 miles from the South Pole — as part of Operation Highjump. Their efforts paved the way for numerous Antarctic explorations to come. T’was ever thus.

We can see further by standing on the shoulders of those who come before us. Yet, said shoulders do not have to belong, as Isaac Newton once insisted, to “giants.” They can be attached to quite ordinary folks, who, for one reason or another, are unable to propel an undertaking forward.

In addition, Newton also wrote, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Speaking of seashores, in my humble opinion there is no better way to learn about Newton’s law of gravity, falling apples aside, than trying to construct a sand castle at the beach.

This year, the Toni Young Hueneme Beach Festival will feature the Second annual Sand Sculpting Contest on Saturday, Aug. 21 — giving out-of-towners something to do in addition to visiting the vendors, grooving to the bands and touring the lighthouse or the Port of Hueneme.

The contest is the brainchild of Donna Breeze, who is passionate about keeping Hueneme Beach Park from remaining “the best kept secret in Ventura County.” Since her family has always enjoyed digging in the sand, she figured that a castle competition might provide the perfect introduction to “The Friendly City by the Sea.”

Profiting from a critical analysis of last year’s event, Breeze gently twisted committee members’ arms to start planning this year’s contest 12 months in advance.

As part of her research, Marietta King unearthed photos and documents belonging to Sheryl Malone, 69, and Marian Foster, 87, who labored on sand sculpture contests during 1984, 1985 and 1986 in conjunction with Port Hueneme Harbor Days.

Happily, their efforts now pave the way for numerous sand sculpture contests to come.The genesis for the mid-1980s digs was a group of art, culture and merriment-minded residents of the Anacapa Condo Owners Association in Port Hueneme.

In 1986, cash prizes totaling $295 — arduously raised via $3 entry fees, advertising, bumper stickers and doughnut sales — drew 20 teams. Breeze is confident that this year’s whopping $1,000 top prize for open division and $1,000 cash prize pool and trophies for amateur division will attract even more.

When asked why there was never a Fourth annual Sand Sculpture Contest in 1987, Malone acknowledged that volunteers tend to vanish when the workload proves too great or the payoff proves too small.

Even nonprofits that endure for decades are at risk — dying off as their members do the same. The last production of Port Hueneme Harbor Days, a class act that ran for 51 years, occurred in 2005.

While 94-year old Penny Wolcott still remains active with her Port Hueneme theater group, she’s outlived most of her colleagues on the Harbor Days board of directors. What happened to younger volunteers who could have replaced the aging leadership? Sadly, demanding employment schedules, family obligations and/or children’s sports so exhaust working parents that they have little time to devote to such events.

Finally, interested newcomers may come along but veteran do-gooders who mouth the mantra “but we’ve always done it this way” tend to drive them away.United Way’s online network lists 200 organizations in Ventura County alone that are seeking volunteers. Competition is stiff, yet the key to getting unpaid workers onboard is simple. Folks agree to sign up because somebody took the time to personally invite and, more importantly, mentor them.

Last year, the merman sand sculpture that incorporated Jared Mengenhausen — a living, breathing Seabee — won the People’s Choice Award.

While the South Dakotan’s actual intent may have been to woo either Victoria Breeze or Jennifer Young (daughter of the festival’s namesake) after they personally requested his assistance, his above-the-call-of-duty-in-the-blistering-sun service to two distressed damsels illustrates, one more time, that indefatigable Seabee spirit — a staying power which will hopefully infect all volunteers some day.

Donna Breeze is optimistic that sand sculptures will put Port Hueneme on the map. So am I. Stop by Aug. 21 if you want to see what the fuss is about.

BUT DON'T CALL THEM WAITRESSES--THEY'RE HARVEY GIRLS

Published in the July 21, 2010 edition of Ventura County Star

Who took the wild out of the wild, wild West? Would you believe 100,000 waitresses? But don’t call them “waitresses”---they’re Harvey Girls.

Unless you’ve viewed the eponymous 1946 film starring Judy Garland or spent time on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe prior to 1957, you’ve probably never heard of Harvey Girls.

Neither had Fred Harvey. After the transcontinental railroad made passenger travel feasible in 1869, it fell to Harvey to make it fabulous. Before his lunch counters, dining rooms and hotels started popping up every 100 miles, railway riders who weren’t savvy enough to pack their own victuals or who did not possess cast-iron stomachs, were forced to fast.

Not only was the fare offered by middle-of-nowhere eateries often unsafe for human consumption but some unscrupulous proprietors, in league with railroad employees, deliberately failed to deliver already-paid-for meals before the “All Aboard” whistle blew---”cheating,” writes University of New Mexico historian Richard Melzer, “passengers of both their nourishment and their cash.”

Harvey, a Kansas restaurateur and victimized train traveler, vowed to bring white linen tablecloths, fresh meat and produce courtesy of icebox cars, signature coffee made with pure spring water and four courses of gourmet cuisine served in just under 30 minutes (75 cents) to every Santa Fe stop from Chicago through the Southwest to California and, at its northwestern terminus, San Francisco. At its peak, the Fred Harvey empire included 100 restaurants and 25 hotels. Only a few Harvey Houses remain—hubby and I stayed at La Posada in Winslow, Arizona.

In his book “Appetite for America,” Stephen Fried describes Harvey as “Ray Kroc before McDonalds, J.W. Marriott before Marriott Hotels and Howard Schultz before Starbucks.”

Given the impossibly high standards that constituted “the Fred Harvey Way,” the food and lodging end of the business usually ran in the red but the railroad was more than happy to subsidize Harvey—via the immense profits made due to the increased popularity of Santa Fe passenger tickets.

In 1883, after a midnight brawl involving Harvey’s “likkered up” waiters in Raton, New Mexico, Harvey’s manager suggested hiring females, who would be '”less likely to go on tears.'” The ladies proved so popular with customers that Harvey decided to replace all his waiters, advertising in newspapers for '”young women 18 to 30 years of age, of good character, attractive and intelligent, to waitress in Harvey Eating Houses on the Santa Fe in the West. Wages: $17.50 per month with room and board. Liberal tips customary. Experience not necessary.”

Even though salary plus tips was commensurate with the average school marm’s paycheck---without the requisite education---few fathers would allow their daughters to answer the ad. Harvey had to overcome a daunting attitudinal barrier---”nice” girls didn’t work as waitresses.

He tried image management. Not only was a Harvey Girl forbidden to wear makeup or jewelry but, not coincidentally, her uniform (long-sleeved black dress, black hose and white starched apron) resembled the garb of a Catholic nun.

Harvey also took his “in loco parentis” obligation quite literally. Not only did he institute draconian dating policies and hire housemothers to strictly enforce curfews but he kept the girls very busy----ten hours a day; six days a week—and still managed to boost their poise, people skills and personal growth.

While about half the Harvey Girls returned home after the first contract period, the other half appreciated the security and family atmosphere that Harvey created as well as the generous wages that could be banked, invested in property, business or education or sent back home.

What was probably the biggest draw for Harvey Girls, however, was the prospect of matrimony. American Weekly writer Nina Wilcox Putnam estimated that during the first 22 years (1883-1905), 8,260 Harvey Girls found themselves at the altar. The groom could be a railroad man, rancher, miner or (despite the rules) fellow employee or well-heeled customer. Rumor has it, by the turn of the 20th Century. some 4,000 babies were named Fred, Harvey or both. These unions, however, supplied the founding fathers---and mothers---of municipalities, great and small, that mushroomed during the Westward Expansion.

According to the film, “A Harvey Girl is more than a waitress. Wherever a Harvey House appears, civilization is not far behind. You girls are the symbol and the promise of the order that is to come.”

While the real-life Harvey Girls interviewed by author and documentarian Lesley Poling-Kempers two decades ago were flattered by the attention and importance given their profession by the movie, most scoffed at the cinematic depiction of their lives. Not only weren’t “the realities of hard work sufficiently represented” but “there wasn’t all that much singing and dancing” they could recall.

Apparently taking the wild out of the wild, wild West was a full-time job.

ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT THRIVES IN TOUGH TIMES

Published in the Wednesday July 7, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

Willie Nelson, who defines a country song as “three chords and the truth,” believes most art arises out of hard times.

Entrepreneurs also emerge from hard times — at least they did during 2009, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, released in May. “Rather than making history for its deep recession and record unemployment,” the foundation reports, “2009 might instead be remembered as the year business startups reached their highest level in 14 years — even exceeding the number of startups during the peak 1999-2000 technology boom.”

As we motored through 16 states this summer, we didn’t find a single municipality without its share of empty storefronts or boarded-up residences. On the other hand, we made the acquaintance of dozens of entrepreneurs who managed to kick start a business of their own during challenging financial times.

In the most general sense of the word, an “entrepreneur” is someone who organizes a business venture and assumes the risk for it — for most of you, however, “entrepreneur” is a synonym for “self-employed.” French economist Jean-Baptiste Say is believed to have coined the term in 1800.

When you think of entrepreneurs, names such as Mary Kay Ash, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (Ben & Jerry’s), Debbi Fields, Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA), and Oprah Winfrey may spring to mind but, let’s face it, most of America’s 12 million sole proprietors do not share the same tax bracket as the aforementioned.

While there’s no single entrepreneurial archetype, the need to succeed (because of a hardscrabble youth or adolescent social difficulties) is often found in an entrepreneur’s autobiography.

Tally, now 79, hails from Box Elder, S.D., where there were so few job prospects; all 40 of his male high school classmates joined the Army after graduation. When I asked Tally what he ended up doing for a living, he quipped, “I take crap from everyone.”

Apparently, what he meant by that remark is that he is the sole proprietor of his own portable toilet business. While he handmade the first 100 transportable johns from wood, after the federal government became a major client, he invested in prefabricated polyurethane.

“There’s plenty of loot in poop,” according to Tally.

As the business bromide goes, “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.” Seligman, Ariz., is home to the Roadkill Cafe (“You Kill It; We Grill It”) where the grandchildren of Jim and Jean Pope spend summer vacations dishing up such exotic fare as “Long Gone Fawn,” “Whippoorwill Off the Grill,” “Rigor Mortis Tortoise,” and “The Chicken that Almost Crossed the Road” to sojourners who are seduced off the interstate by Historic Route 66.

Actually, all the dishes are merely clever names for traditional roadhouse grub. The only thing exotic is the seemingly limitless imagination of the Pope family itself.

In addition, contrary to popular belief, entrepreneurs shy away from being heavy risk-takers, especially when they aren’t able to predict the outcome. The secret to the success of 30-something Raven Digitalis is that he provides an extensive range of professional services.

Not only is he a neopagan priest who reads Tarot cards at the local farmer’s market, but this anthropology-degree holder from the University of Montana is also an author (“Planetary Spells & Rituals,” “Shadow Magick Compendium,” and “Goth Craft”), a radio and club DJ (Goth/Industrial music) as well as the co-owner of Twigs & Brews Herbs (bath salts, herbal blends, essential oils and incense).

With still other entrepreneurs, bucks are merely a byproduct — it’s realizing a heart’s desire that is the overarching motivation. Max and Billie Clark spent their early marriage residing in a trailer because their livelihood, installing telephone wires, required them to be mobile.

Yet, they continued to visualize their future in a house perched high on a hill — with plenty of room for a garden. In time, they purchased 200 acres near Weatherford, Texas — largely incapable of growing anything but scrub and mesquite. Yet with a designated savings account and the assistance of friends from the construction industry, they were able to transform 35 acres into a botanical paradise. Clark Gardens currently serves as a sanctuary to swans, butterflies and thousands of tourists each year.

The commonality among these entrepreneurs is that they opted to cheer instead of curse the darkness. Moreover, they set their own talents and gifts ablaze in order to jettison the gloom.

Willie Nelson, who has been on the road again for six decades, claims, “There are more serious problems in life than financial ones, and I’ve had a lot of those. I’ve been broke before, and will be again” but his life didn’t turn around until the country singer-songwriter, author, actor and activist started counting his blessings.

Count your blessings. There’s nothing crazy about that.

— Beverly Kelley, Ph.D., who writes every other week for The Star, is an author (“Reelpolitic” and “Reelpolitic II”) and professor in the Communication Department at California Lutheran University. Visit http://beverlykelley.typepad.com/my_weblog/. Her e-mail address is Kelley@callutheran.edu.
Scripps Lighthouse

© 2010 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online

CAN-DO SPIRIT PAVES THE WAY ON 'MOTHER ROAD'

Published in the Wednesday, June 23, 2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

He was slight, scrawny and his closely cropped strawberry-blond hair not only framed his forehead, but also continued on down under his nose and over his chin — with a great deal more promise than panache, I might add.

Daniel Burkholder drove from Dallas to Amarillo in order to take on the Big Texan Steak Ranch challenge on his 21st birthday. If he consumed a 72-ounce steak along with a crisp salad, buttered roll, baked potato and three shrimp in one hour, his meal would be on the house.

When I asked Burkholder why he would attempt such a feat, he shot back, “Why not?”

At the 30-minute mark, he had devoured all the side dishes and half the steak. Burkholder was holding his own.

According to Bob Lee, a Kansas City native who opened the Big Texan in 1963 on Route 66, it’s not usually some extra-large dude who prevails in the “clean-your-plate” contest — it’s a skinny college kid or diminutive truck driver.

I don’t believe Burkholder was motivated by greed, gluttony or even glory. If anything, he typifies the sense of adventure that infuses Route 66.

Willingness to tackle a job despite impossible odds is the operational definition of the American “can-do” spirit. It’s the same confident courage that a bride donning something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue exhibits, even though she is fully aware of the depressing statistics concerning divorce.

Route 66, these days, is that bride. Never mind the time-saving speed of the interstate and/or the comfort level provided by the predictable chain hotel or restaurant located on the next offramp, folks choose to travel Route 66 because they realize that a renaissance has come to the Mother Road and they want in on it.

The something old is still there. You can sleep in a 1930 Harvey House in Winslow, Ariz. You can pick up a bottle of Illinois “maple sirup” (sic) in Funk’s Grove — a family business since 1890. You can chow down on a Lindy’s (1929) chicken-fried steak in Albuquerque or lap up a Drewes (1929) frozen custard in St. Louis so thick you can turn the container upside down without spilling a drop.

Finally, you can pray for protection at the shrine of Our Lady of the Highways, created in 1959 by a Raymond, Ill., farm girl. She also hand-lettered Burma Shave-type “Hail Mary” signs now being stubbornly protected by her father and the First Amendment.

The something old is also something new. Elk City, along with 25 other repositories of Route 66 memorabilia — gleaned from the closets and garages of local residents — are attracting well-heeled tourists to a variety of burgs once on the verge of death by bypass, back when the interstate threatened America’s Main Street with extinction.

The something borrowed is taking the form of ambitious restorations, often accomplished with only volunteer elbow grease, including the Chain of Rocks Pedestrian Bridge, the Round Barn in Arcadia, Okla., the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Ariz., and an 1898 schoolhouse in Goffs, Calif.

The something blue describes the emotions of Route 66 aficionados who mourn ghost towns that couldn’t be saved, America’s Main Street icons demolished in the name of progress, and the anecdotes about American highway history dying out with the Route 66 pioneers — who started out in 1926 right along with the Mother Road.

Next year, Route 66 will be 85 and the first wave of baby boomers will be 65 — ready, willing and able to travel the Mother Road via bus, motorcycle, rental car or family automobile. They won’t proceed, however, until they’ve studied the relevant and expensive magazines, books, videos and maps.

Furthermore, the number of domestic “road warriors” is being swelled by hordes of international tourists seeking the “authentic” America.

The federal government managed to pony up $10.5 million for preservation, local 66 associations are investing heavily in signage and information centers, events are scheduled monthly nationwide, icons are being saved by historic place registry, and teachers are employing their travel experiences to jazz up their power points.

So what ever happened to Burkholder? Remember him?

Well, apparently his eyes were far bigger than his stomach. When I asked him if he knew the penalty for failing to finish his mouth-watering rib eye, he said, “Yeah, I am going to have to pay a lot of money.” He paid one dollar per ounce — $72 in all.

Burkholder joins a staggering 87,000 eager eaters who are estimated to have taken on the Big Texan challenge. Did he realize his chances were only one in six?

Try again next birthday, Daniel. And as you make your way to Amarillo, try a stretch along Route 66. Maybe you can catch a little bit of the can-do spirit from the Mother Road.

NO CHANCE FOR A FIFTH FACE ON MOUNT RUSHMORE

Published in the June 9,2010 edition of the Ventura County Star

The Mount Rushmore National Monument is
last-century.

While Teddy Roosevelt was an astounding leader of the free world (winning the Nobel Peace Prize and all) he was only president No. 26 — not even the historical halfway point. Isn’t it time to update?

Surely, there’s room to insert another “rock” star among George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Roosevelt. How difficult would that be?

Very difficult. Just ask proponents of a congressional bill to add Susan B. Anthony. In 1937, just two years before the final dedication, an appropriations bill rider effectively squelched their bid.

You can’t blame critics who balk at the idea of allowing anything man-made to replace the magnificence of nature — who could possibly improve on God’s handiwork? Yet, if we would agree to add another visage or two, I can guarantee we could never agree on who that person should be. That’s the first difficulty.

When, in 1923, South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson first proffered the notion of a mammoth monument to promote Black Hills tourism, no presidents made the cut. Had Robinson gotten his way, there would have been a likeness of Wild Bill Hickok or Buffalo Bill Cody carved into the granite pillars known as Needles.

When Needles proved too porous to work as a sculpting medium, Robinson had to turn to Plan B — the southeast-facing, tallest mountain in the region (5,725 feet) known by the Lakota as “Six Grandfathers” and Keystone residents as “Mount Rushmore.”

Robinson, who was bowled over by Gutzon Borglum’s work on Stone Mountain in Georgia, couldn’t be dissuaded that Borglum was the only sculptor up to the task.

Originally, George Washington was supposed to crown the site all by his lonesome, but President Calvin Coolidge insisted that a Democrat and two Republicans be portrayed as well. Borglum came up with 60-foot figures of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt, which, he maintained, ultimately commemorated “the founding, growth, preservation and development of this nation.”

Yet, would Honest Abe and the Rough Rider have received the nod, had there not been a personal relationship between Borglum and the Square Dealer? Is it merely a coincidence that Borglum presented Roosevelt with a Lincoln bust carved from a six-ton block of marble as a little gift? I think not.

Finally, Thomas Jefferson could have, literally, bit the dust. His image was initially intended to appear in the area to Washington’s right, but that portion of granite proved unacceptable for carving, so Jefferson was blasted off, courtesy of a crate of dynamite.

The second difficulty would be money. The Mount Rushmore Preservation Fund poster insists: “If they were dictators, they wouldn’t ask for your support — they’d demand it.” While Borglum did a fair amount of fundraising, American taxpayers picked up most of the $989,992.32 tab ($15.7 million in today’s dollars).

If you compare the actual monument to Borglum’s sculptor’s studio model, you will note some missing minutiae. According to Don “Nick” Clifford, the last living Mount Rushmore worker, “(The monument) was never finished for two reasons. First, Mr. Borglum passed away unexpectedly on March 6, 1941. Second, World War II was coming on and the United States Congress would no longer make appropriations for the mountain carving.”

Contrast Borglum’s work with the largely incomplete statue of Crazy Horse a few miles away. Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear persuaded sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to attempt a project easily 10 times the size of Mount Rushmore.

Ziolkowski’s major problem had always been funding. The stubborn sculptor refused to take state or federal assistance — believing fiercely in the free-enterprise system and the eventual accumulation of charitable donations. Couple his laudable philosophy with his unanticipated demise in 1982 and dreaming the impossible dream takes on a whole new meaning.

The third difficulty would be additional red tape costs. Can you imagine the scope of the environmental impact statement required? The prospect boggles the mind.

Then there’s the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. According to Clifford, workers on Mount Rushmore were not required to wear hard hats, earplugs or steel-toed boots. To Borglum’s credit — he did issue his men respirator masks, outfitted the transport bucket with an emergency handbrake and made safety his highest priority — there was not a single death during the 14 years the project took to complete.

Additionally, Borglum didn’t have to bother with minimum wage, workers’ compensation, health plans, pensions and unemployment insurance, despite having to lay off all workers during the winter months. Finally, the 395 employees on his payroll at one time or another earned a whopping 50 cents to $1.25 an hour.

Should we add to Mount Rushmore? No — new century; new problems. Best to take the advice of the Beatles (rock stars without a monument) and just let it be.

THE 2010 GET YOUR KICKS ON ROUTE 66 TOUR (Part II)

Chicago at last--we are staying at Candlewood Suites out at O'Hare for economic reasons--where else can you find lodging for $74 a night in the Windy City? Since we have a car this time, we will be getting a different perspective than our usual visits where we only see the inside of a meeting room at a downtown hotel with the rare taxi ride to a museum or a restaurant.

We also wanted to focus on "The Devil in the White City, Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America" by Erik Larson on this jaunt. The novel is a mash-up of the biography of the mass murderer, Dr. H.H. Holmes, and the history of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. We also purchased the PBS video called "Magic of the White City Expo" which is filled with vintage photos as well as, unfortunately, cutesy re-enactments of Little Egypt and the assassination of Carter Harrison.

While the 200 buildings at the fair were temporary (wood frames covered with white stucco material called "staff"), the Fine Arts Building was not only constructed well enough to meet requirements for insuring the artwork but was also meant to be permanent---it now houses the Museum of Science and Industry. The work of Daniel Bernham, chief architect of the exposition, can be found all over Chicago. We hope to see his buildings on an architectural tour via boat on Wednesday.

The only two structures remaining from 1893 were the bridge in the Japanese Garden (located on a wooded island in the middle of the large lagoon) and the refaced and relocated World's Congress Auxiliary Building, which is now the Art Institute of Chicago. Frederick Law Olmsted designed the landscaping that proved such a significant factor at the fair. He, of course, is best known for Central Park in New York.

<
The Midway Plaisance (the black and white photo is from 1893), a park-like boulevard which extends west from Jackson Park and which, during the fair, featured the Buffalo Bill Cody Wild West Show, various exotic ethnic villages, the Ferris Wheel and the belly-dancing Little Egypt, is now part of the University of Chicago campus. Chloe enjoyed walking the length of the now beautifully landscaped green rectangles that flank the road which is still called Midway Plaisance.

Larson sums up the significance of this exposition to the history of Chicago with these words, "The thing that entranced me about Chicago in the Gilded Age was the city's willingness to take on the impossible in the name of civic honor, a concept so removed from the modern psyche that two wise readers of early drafts of this book wondered why Chicago was so avid to win the world's fair in the first place."

A city that had been a genuine transportation hub suffered from a bad rep---most Americans in the 1890s thought of Chicago as a city of stockyards and speculators. During and after the fair, thousands, particularly young women, flocked to Chicago to find jobs and husbands. This is where Holmes made the most of the opportunity to fulfill his dream---mass murder.

The Columbian Exposition, which covered a staggering 600 acres, is also known for introducing America to the modern aquarium, Cracker Jack, Aunt Jemima pancakes, new breakfast cereals (Quaker Oats, Cream of Wheat, Shredded Wheat) neon lights, Juicy Fruit gum, electricity (both Tesla and Edison were there), and Eadweard Muybridge's zoopraxiscope. Just driving around the various sites gave us a much more realistic view of the size and scope of the fair.

It boggles the mind to consider that over 27 million people (equivalent to about half the U.S. population) attended the exposition during its six-month run. The White City also inspired the reference to "alabaster cities" in "America the Beautiful" anthem by a Wellesley College English teacher named Katharine Lee Bates.

After our tour of the former exposition site, we drove downtown to have dinner at one of Jon's favorite restaurants, Pizano's--which makes the best pizza, according to Jon, in the world. We were also treated to a Memorial Day concert by Hum, a post-punk group, who were performing across the street. When we checked with Trevor via Blackberry, he said he had bee impressed by this group when hit it big during the 90s.

June 1, 2010

This day was dedicated to exploring our Lithuanian heritage. We drove to the south side of Chicago and visited the Lithuanian National Cemetery. We found a Sharkunas headstone, which was Jon's family name before it was changed. There wasn't a Gernis or a Petrosvsky family--in fact, I am not entirely sure that was my grandfather or grandmother's last name before they landed in America. I wish I had questioned my mother more about my ethnic roots. My mother had saved inscribed snapshots from relatives located in Kaunas so those photos might be a clue.

Next stop was the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture. Stanley Balzekas, Jr. was in Lithuania that week so we were shown a 2005 film on the history of Lithuania. Chloe, who was sitting quietly in her bag, sprang to life and started growling when she spotted horses galloping across the screen. She hates horses.We were then invited to look at the main exhibit which was called "Lithuania through the Ages," which also included a stunning collection of amber, Lithuanian Christmas straw ornaments and Lithuanian decorated Easter eggs as well as some of the products produced by a free Lithuania that included one of my favorites, Krupnikas--a "warm-the-cockles-of-your-cockles" liquor made of honey.

Another section housed the Children's Museum which featured whimsical murals on the walls and a strictly fun approach to learning about Lithuanian life. The exhibit housed a completely furnished thatched cottage, a plethora of swords, a number of beautifully dressed dolls, and, to encourage learning during the chilly winters, comfortable couches arranged around a cozy fireplace.

The Pioneer section helped me understand my grandparents' immigration to America and what drove them to leave their homeland to start over in a new country. In all, there were three waves of Lithuanian immigrants--my relatives arrived prior to WW I and, in fact, my great uncle, whose pocket watch I was bequeathed, fought and died in WW I. Since Jessie Daraska, the head of genealogical research was not at her desk, I couldn't ask her how to get started but I did get an email address which I plan to use when I get home.

We saw bookshelves filled with reference tomes that make up the Resource Center for East European Studies. We guessed a scholar must have been hard at work with the stack of books piled up on a study corral.

The Fine Arts were also well represented by a number of paintings in various media on the second and third floors and a stunning example of stained glass on the top floor. All of the works were accomplished by creative and competent Lithuanian American artists.

We continued on to Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in the Marquette Park district which was largely settled by Lithuanians in 1929. A gold-encrusted copy of the image of Our Lady of Šiluva hangs over its main altar. A mural near one of the side altars, also depicting the Blessed Virgin of Šiluva, was painted by Sister Mercedes of the Sisters of St. Casmir, whose convent in located nearby. The architect was J. Mulokas. the father of a friend of ours. We could not locate the Lithuanian Youth Center which we were told was a collaboration by both father and son architects.

We had hoped to eat at a Lithuanian restaurant that was supposedly located near the museum but alas, it was not at the address we were given and we didn't have access to the internet at that point. Apparently there is an eatery called Seklycia on West 71st Street so that might have been it. We also found a Healthy Food Lithuanian Restaurant at ‎3236 South Halsted Street which we might try tomorrow if we can get from the North Side to the South Side before 4:00PM.

By the way, Lithuanian food is anything but healthy. Perhaps the owners meant "Hearty Food"--the only reason the people in the old country didn't find their arteries instantly clogged arteries with all the butter, bacon, lard, etc is that they went out and plowed the fields after a meal of klatskies. Carbo-loading is definitely not for sedentary folks like us.

June 2, 2010

I got up at the crack of dawn to write my column and got most of it laid out by 10:30AM. We made oatmeal for breakfast and then got on the road. We didn't get to the Michigan Ave Bridge in time for the 1:00PM Chicago's First Lady Architectural Foundation cruise, so we bought our tickets for the next one and then stopped at the Corner Bakery for a sandwich.

We were back the requisite 30 minutes early and talked to a young woman who had a couple of hours to kill before she flew home after attending a conference. As we were chatting, Jon noticed a sign that said "all bags will be searched." OMG, Chloe was in her purse as usual. Then I spotted a guy in a tee-shirt that said "Security." He was pulling on blue rubber gloves. Well, what could I do? I opened up the side flap where I keep my credit card holder, my glasses, my camera and my phone for him to search. He patted down the sides of the case and then looked in at the end where Chloe must have been silently staring at him. "Do you have an animal in here?." he asked. I put my finger to my lips and said in my best schoolmarm voice "shhhhh!" He said "OK" and let me on board. Not a peep from my purse during the entire 90-minute cruise either.

We learned a great deal about the Chicago architects who designed high rises--recognized the names John Root and Daniel Bernham, as well as Ludwig Mies van der Rho. The docent was superb and did a great job of pointing out signature features of each of the architectural styles, including my favorite--art deco as well as beaux arts, gothic revival, neoclassical, modern, high tech and my least favorite--post modern. Humidity must have been around 80 percent and it kept threatening to rain but never delivered. What struck me the most about this tour was the way each architect tried to design his or her building to fit the space--not only with respect to the size of the lot and the height but also to include features that either paid homage to neighboring buildings or geographic features. For example, an urn found on the top of one building looked like it could have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Apparently the architect wanted to remind viewers of Chicago's most famous citizen.

In addition, the buildings created after WW II literally turned their backs on the river because of the stink and the unattractiveness of filthy water at that time. By the 70s, however, Chicago cleaned up its act and started "re-purposing" abandoned warehouses as residential property. With a clean river to look at, the real estate guys now had a new selling point---"great view." That was also about the time that beautification projects bloomed and sidewalks with public access were installed along the river to encourage walking and, ultimately, much more healthy living for Chicagoans. There are a number of rental properties where you can keep your boat, car and live 60 stories above the now scenic waterway. Architecture turned the Chicago River section of the Windy City around.

Chicago's history began where the river meets the lake--the city became a transportation hub and a center of trade. Railroads just added to the advantage. Because Chicago's sewer system was inadequate, early residents began dumping waste in the Chicago River and eventually, because the river flowed into Lake Michigan, they polluted their own fresh water supply. Bouts with cholera were frequent and deadly. Chicago's solution was to reverse the river's flow in 1900. This impressive engineering feat was accomplished by a 28-mile canal dug deeper than the river, which subsequently caused the river to flow toward St. Louis instead of into Lake Michigan. There were, of course, law suits threatened by the good people of St. Louis but apparently Mayor Daly and his crew, as only they could do, prevailed by convincing the judge that the water quality, by the time it got to St. Louis, was perfectly acceptable.

An old abandoned warehouse was pointed out as occupying the same site as where, in 1871, Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern and started the great Chicago fire---a three-day conflagration which took 300 lives and destroyed four square miles of private property.

After we docked, Chloe, Jon and I took a long stroll along the Riverwalk, looking for a place to get a drink and eventually dinner. We came upon Morton Steakhouse and that was it. Being an unapologetic carnivore, I have always wanted to try this five-star restaurant. Our waiter was named Brendan---a good omen and he proved to be most attentive--not a difficult job since there was nobody else in the restaurant at 4:00PM. Money was no object and we had a most memorable gastronomic experience ala carte.

Rick, a Morton's manager from San Francisco (dressed in a tux) stopped by to chat. Apparently the owner of Morton's is totally old school. Management at their 78 establishments have to train from six to twelve weeks in all aspects of the business from ordering food to fixing a dishwasher. Rick had nothing but good things to say about his experience but he was looking forward to returning to "Cali," nonetheless. Rick said the number of new franchises in Singapore and Japan are exploding right now. We wished him well and then proceeded to bail out our rental car, which had been occupying some expensive real estate in a nearby parking garage. Of course Jon took surface streets home--no freeways for us. Going through a Polish neighborhood reminded us of Trevor and Angie's digs in Brooklyn.

June 3, 2010
Today was the day we started the official Route 66 tour and to do that properly, we had to start at the intersection of Lake Shore and Jackson Drive. We thought before setting out, we would take Chloe on a little walk around Buckingham Fountain, which was built in 1927.

She found a cheeky squirrel right in the middle of her path and, of course, she had to give chase. When she ran out of leash, she started in on her howling routine. It's really embarrassing--sounds like she is being blunt object traumatized.

Well Jon took her in hand and walked her to the water which she found quite interesting. There were a number of oldsters in wheel chairs and one of their caretakers asked if Chloe could meet the seniors. Not only does Chloe love to be petted and held but she's quite used to giving and receiving lots of Yorkie kisses. One of the ladies pretended she wasn't going to give Chloe back. In my opinion, she was only half-kidding. When I retire, one of the activities on my to do list will be to get Chloe certified as a therapy dog and take her regularly to convalescent centers.

We drove down Michigan Avenue and found the historic Santa Fe Building and the Art Institute, which got its start at the 1893 Columbian Exposition as the World's Congress Auxiliary Building. It would have been part of our White City Tour a few days earlier had we known to where it had been relocated. Note the hockey helmet on the lion sculpture--those Chicagoans are major Blackhawk fans, aren't they?

We also found the Sears Tower (which opened in 1973), Union Station and Lou Mitchell's Restaurant, a Route 66 landmark which we opted not to visit for breakfast since we had already enjoyed my leftover steak and onion bread from Morton's.

In Cicero, which during the time of Al Capone and other bootleggers, was riddled with tunnels, most of the Route 66 attractions listed in our guidebooks have been demolished, but we did see Henry's Drive-In and the Robin Hood Muffler Shop best known for their colorful neon signs.

There wasn't much to see in the next few towns but we did stop in Willowbrook for lunch at Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket, which is a must-stop attraction according to the guidebook. We lucked out and were able to get the buffet which provided a sample of all their special dishes including mouth-watering fried chicken, corn fitters, to-die-for coleslaw, cajon chicken and dumplings, and homemade apple turnovers--all for $8.99. We could barely walk when we left. Chloe was most pleased with her nibbles from heaven as well. A nap would have been much appreciated but we had to press on.

We could see that if we explored the attractions in every little town, we would never make it back to California, so we only veered off of Historic Route 66 to visit towns that had something very special to offer. For example, we didn't want to miss the Gemini giant mascot at the Launching Pad Drive-In in Wilmington or the Polk-a-Dot Drive-In in Braidwood.

Outside of Dwight, we knew it was time to do a little walking around. This little village of 4,363 souls was the home of three impressive attractions. Not only is the former Keeley Institute for treating alcoholics and drug addicts with gold chloride (which played a big role in "The Devil and the White City"---Dr. Holmes sent his assistant there to dry out---located on Main Street but so is The First National Bank Building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The beige block doesn't say Wright but the Japanese-inspired lanterns on either side of the entrance sure did. We also got to see the Ambler-Becker Texaco Gas Station, which was lovingly restored by the community in 2003. The best remembered event in the early history of Dwight was the visit by England’s Prince Albert, son of Queen Victoria and heir to the British throne.

We have been following turn-by-turn directions written by the Historic 66 Association. What is really helpful is that you are given a choice between various alignments. Sometimes we saw an abandoned Route 66 running right next to the road we were on. We wondered if it was just more economical to start on new road then to fill in ditches, etc, in order to pave over an old road.

We thought Normal, IL looked a great deal like the cinematic Pleasantville. Apparently normal there is being madly in love with the color beige, which, in my humble opinion is no color at all.

We also drove around Funk's Grove. This place isn't even big enough to qualify as a village. Isaac Funk founded the town in 1825 but in its entire history, the population has never topped 50. A sign advertising maple "sirup" (sic) tempted us to purchase a bottle, but since it was after 5PM, the store was closed. Besides, we did have a tiny qualm or two about buying a product whose name was so badly misspelled.

We finally arrived at the outskirts of Springfield around 6:30PM. Not only is this the state capital, but Abraham Lincoln was a resident until he departed in 1861 for the White House. We would have loved to have poked around the Lincoln Museum and various other attractions around the capitol building, but knew we would run out of daylight before we reached the Super 8 and the Cozy Drive In.

Ah, the Cozy Drive In! When Ed Waldmire Jr.was stationed in Amarillo TX, he invented a deep fried, battered hot dog on a stick that sold at the USO. His wife Virginia thought that "Crusty Curs" was a terrible name so she started calling them "Cozy Dogs" and came up with a logo that showed two corn dogs in a loving embrace. BTW, never call the specialty of the house "corn dogs." They are "Cozy Dogs" and unbelievably delicious. The family pack, which we ordered, included a ton of non-greasy, potatoes- with-the-jacket-on fries, four Cozy dogs and a soft drink---not just any soft drink but a real cherry Coke. One sip took me back to my junior high years when there was a drug store soda fountain in Allied Gardens that dispensed cherry and vanilla Cokes. To think that my folks were aghast when they found out that they had to pay a whopping $19,500 for a four-bedroom, two bath house in those days.

The Super 8 was inexpensive, allowed dogs, and even included free Wi Fi. We were also treated to a light show by the fireflies. What could be better!

June 4, 2010
We noticed a big difference between the corn growing in the fields in Illinois compared to the corn in Iowa. It's much taller by far. Apparently the further south, the earlier seeds can be planted. We included a visual aid, so readers can see the difference with their own eyes.

Just outside Raymond we spotted the Catholic prayer "Hail Mary" done as a series of Burma Shave signs. Back in 1959, a young girl name Loretta Marten organized her friends from the local Catholic Church to raise money for a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They collected $400 for a Carrara marble statue from Italy and an additional $500 for the construction and lighting of the shrine. Our Lady of the Highways ("Mary, Loving Mother of Jesus, protect us on the highway") is still watching over travelers even today. When Interstate 55 was built, the government tried to get Francis Marten (Loretta's father) to take down the Hail Mary signs but he refused---the signs were 4 inches inside his property line and "there wasn't a damn thing" the government could do about it.

In Livingston, we found an antique shop that was surrounded by giants and spaceships. We were sorely tempted by the snack stand, shaped like a giant ice cream cone, but it wasn't open that day.
We were supposed to look for something called a "Mustang Corral" in Edwardsville--we expected to see a herd of horses inside a fence. What we found was 200 used Ford Mustangs, rusting in a field on Chain of Rocks Road.

In Mitchell, the Luna Cafe, the oldest establishment on Route 66, was closed but we stopped long enough to take a photo of the classic neon sign.

We continued on to Chain of Rocks Bridge which, with its 22 degree turn in the middle, is a respected icon now on the Mother Road. It is closed to vehicular traffic but restored enough to allow for pedestrians. Jon, Chloe and I walked most of it--the sight of the mighty Mississippi is worth braving the heat and the ubiquitous fuzz from cottonwood trees that likes to infiltrate nostrils and cause sneezing attacks.

For most people, you say "St. Louis" and they immediately think of the Gateway Arch, also known as "the Gateway to the West." It's a part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and was constructed as a monument to the westward movement of pioneers in wagon trains. Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen and structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel came up with a plan for the structure in 1947 and their design beat out 146 other entries in a national l competition.

Elevators that travel along a diagonal take visitors up 630 feet to the observation windows. Since I had already gone to the top in 1987, the plan was for Jon, my favorite achrophobic, to go while Chloe and I would wait at the base. In 2010, Congress required the National Park Service to establish a counter-terrorism program, so they installed metal detectors and x-ray equipment. Chloe would have been discovered in my purse and unceremoniously ejected had I tried to enter. After about 15 minutes, Jon returned. He "claimed" that the lines were too long and he didn't want us waiting in 96 degree heat. We let the "doth thou protest too much" scaredy-cat off the hook.

St. Louis is the largest of the Route 66 cities between Chicago and Los Angeles. The usual entry point used to be the Chain of Rocks Bridge. Since that route is closed--we arrived over the McKinley Bridge. St. Louis was founded in 1763 and its citizens are terribly proud of their Cardinals--the downtown fountain pumps red water. We spied a Gothic cathedral and mourned the loss of the now defunct Route 66 attraction, the Coral Court, an art deco motor court with gold tile walls, glass block windows, and red parapets on the outskirts of St Louis. Although no longer in existence, one cabin was supposedly saved and now adorns the Transportation Museum.

For me, St. Louis means Ted Drewes' Frozen Custard. The parking lot was filled to overflowing and people were queued up, a block long, to order. We decided on a "concrete." What is a concrete, you ask? It is a beverage cup of ice cream so thick that you can turn the cup upsidedown (which the counter girls are trained to do) and not a drop will spill out. There are no fillers, emulsifiers or thickeners in Drewes Frozen Custard--just 100 percent cold, creamy heaven. Jon opted for Terra Mizzou and I had classic vanilla along with Chloe. There is no place to sit--folks return to their cars. The long building must be filled with elves who churn out this delightful product in hundreds of gallons per day. We know that the building must be very cold because there are icicles on the roof even when the mercury in the thermometer reaches 100 degrees. Jon cracked up to see all these folks licking ice cream cones with their car AC units cranked to the max.

When we arrived at Eureka there was nothing there. The area was once known as Times Beach because lots were given away with subscriptions to the St. Louis Times in 1925. The oil that was used to keep the dust down on the roads contained dioxin (related to Agent Orange). In 1982 the residents were told to leave and every structure was torn down by the EPA. On the other hand, Pacific, the little burg right down the road, suffered from death by bypass. As we drove by, we glimpsed a for sale sign in the window of the famous icon, Monroe's Diner.

Doolittle was another little town we just had to see. It seems that the powers-that-be decided to name the town after the famous WW II flying ace. When they informed Jimmy Doolittle, he agreed to come to the dedication ceremonies--by flying in and landing on the portion of Route 66 with the fewest number of trees flanking the road. We would have paid good money to see that.

Springfield is known for inventing the first drive-in hamburger stand--the owner was Red Chaney and in addition to variously sized burgers, he also sold breaded pork, fish, beans, onion rings and shakes.
Jon can remember the fleet of Campbell 66 Express trucks headquartered in Springfield that hauled goods up and down Route 66. Their mascot was a camel named Snortin Nortin and their motto was "Humpin to Please." He also recalls his mother Lillian being out of sorts on a Route 66 trip to Arizona and flinging a piece of chicken across the table at some restaurant.

We decided to push on to Joplin before stopping for the night. Established in 1840, this center for lead and zinc mining was christened "Gateway to the Ozarks" but townspeople would rather the city be known as the "Crossroads of America." What Joplin was really known for was its saloons. Since Kansas was dry, travelers had one last chance to drink up in Joplin before they crossed the border.

When Jon was here 40 years ago, Joplin was a tiny little backwater town. Today the population is 45,500. Unfortunately the bridge was out outside town so we had to take a detour. It was pretty late before we pulled into the Super 8 but there was a king-sized bed available and we knew we would be dining at Jim Bobs Steak and Ribs where the servers all wear tee-shirts that say, "Every butt needs a good rubbing." The guidebook had deemed this restaurant "exceptional" and that was the God's honest truth. We shared a huge rack of ribs with all the trimmings for $15. Gas was at an all-time low in Joplin. At the Kum & Go, we paid a paltry $2.36 a gallon.

It’s been a long time since Motel 6 actually charged six bucks a room. Jon feels that Super 8 offers a better value with complimentary breakfast, comfortable beds, refrigerators and microwaves and the now requisite high speed internet access. Motel 6 is bare bones but is also not that much lower in price to make big claims about economy. One thing we have noticed in our travels is that folks from India or Mexico are investing in Super 8 motels and providing full employment for dozens of relatives. That’s what is so great about America—-land of opportunity but there are some Americans who resent foreign investment and you see signs like this one at the Guest Inn.

June 5, 2010

There are only 13 miles of Route 66 in Kansas. In fact, in the early 60s a new alignment would completely bypass the Sunflower state.
West of Joplin, you can still see the slag heaps of chert or chat leftover from the Eagle Picher Lead Processing Plant. The first of the two Kansas towns was called Galena after the type of lead that usually shows up in ore with silver. Route 66 goes down Main Street but the thoroughfare was closed for Galena Days—-a celebration of the town’s history. We did learn that the past was not always positive in Galena, however. A CIO union riot in the early part of the 20th Century massacred nine men and the once prosperous town with more than 15,000 residents is no more. The population has currenlty dwindled to less than 2,000. Galena, however, is very proud of Howard Litch who saved a 17-year old boy named Gene McCamber after he fell down a mineshaft known as Pigeon Cave in 1951.

Baxter Springs, the “First Cow town in Kansas,” (1868) was also the site of a massacre although nowadays it could stand in as the poster child for "Small Town, USA." The village was named for John J. Baxter, who stood 6’7” and always carried two Colt 45s strapped to his waist. Confederate thugs led by William Quantrill attacked General Blunt’s Union forces at Baxter Springs. In addition, the Baxter Spring Bank was robbed by Jesse James, who, although pursued, stopped at the next town to get his horse shod. When the posse that was dispatched to follow him arrived—--James and his gang deftly disarmed them and went cheerfully on their way with close to $3,000 of the Bank’s money.

Across the Oklahoma, Commerce, is best known as the birthplace of Mickey Mantle, who actually started out playing for the Baxter Springs baseball team. The residents of Commerce have recently restored a vintage Conoco gas station. Note the “Gas Wars” sign in front.

After Commerce, the little Oklahoma towns situated on America’s Main Street all seem to blend together. Some, however, are memorable, if only for a single turn-of-the-century building or some oddity.

Miami(pronounced my am muh’) is proud of the restored 1929 Coleman Theater, which is a perfect example of a Spanish Colonial Revival building with its distinctive terra cotta gargoyles and the boast that Will Rogers once performed there.

In Afton, sadly, the Red House Motel is a shell of its former self and the iconic Buffalo Ranch is now a Subway.
We got a chance to travel on an original 1926 8’ wide, single-lane piece of Route 66 between Afton and Venita. Venita is named after the famous sculptor Vinnie Ream whose life-sized statue of Abraham Lincoln can be found in the nation’s capital. Venita also brags about having the biggest McDonald’s in the world but what really impressed us was a trompe l’oriel mural on the side of an animal health supply store.

We stopped at Foyl to see the memorial dedicated to Andy Floyd—-the winner of the so-called "Bunion Derby" in 1928, which was a footrace from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York City, staged in order to raise awareness about Route 66.
Since we had read a Route 66 story about an old man who claimed he always picked wildflowers along the road to bring home to his wife, we gathered a few daisies and placed them in a water bottle which brought a little class to the cup-holder of our Grand Marquis.

In Claremore, named after an Osage Indian chief and the birthplace of Will Rogers, we took a picture of the Will Rogers Museum sign because we did not have time to visit there.
We are both familiar with his biography and needed to push on to get to Haltom City in order to spend Sunday with Brendan--—his one and only day off. We passed by Patti Page Blvd—--hadn’t realized she was from Claremore but we were aware that Lynn Riggs, the author of Green Grow the Lilacs, the book on which the musical Oklahoma was based, had been born there as well.

We couldn’t miss Cartoose, which comes from the Indian word for “People of the Light.” Cartoose is the home of the Blue Whale which graces a swimming hole that was very popular in the 70s and was, in fact, a wedding anniversary gift from the creator to his wife. The exhibit was restored in 1997 but has since reverted to a non-operational status although that fact does not deter tourists from taking a few photos.

Entering Tulsa, you can’t help but notice the graceful Art Deco spires on the Boston Avenue Methodist Church (1929) since it dominates the cityscape.

Tulsa, for me, however will always be associated with Tally’s, an exceptional roadside diner that not only provided the most memorable food on the trip (don’t miss the cinnamon roll and homemade onion rings) but also provided drama and suspense. We were both impressed by the hard-working waitresses who seemed to be cross-trained and incapable of standing still for more than a second or two. Well, that’s not entirely true. There was an eighty-year old silver-haired trainee, who seemed perpetually confused but the other girls cheerfully covered for her and all went well on her first day.

Our waitress was particularly adept carrying dishes. I saw her juggle five along the length of her left arm alone. She was also tickled by the fact that I had no idea how large the cinnamon roll was going to be. Honestly, it was the size of a large dinner plate and slathered in butter. It was way too big for one person, so Jonathan gleefully tucked in his napkin and raised his knife and fork to help me out. It was so unbelievably delicious that we ordered one "to go" for Brendan. The entertainment portion of the meal was a kitchen fire, which I could observe perfectly well from my seat. Most patrons weren’t even aware of the potential catastrophe, as it was out in seconds. The black smoke, however, took a few minutes to dissipate.

Sepalpa is the home to Frankoma Pottery—-the invention of an ceramics professor that is a very popular native ware and is manufactured in a factory that welcomes visitors. We would have stopped in but it was Saturday and the site was closed. We had hoped to grab a drink at Norma’s Café. She uses Frankoma pottery exclusively but her establishment was also closed. I love her comment about Sepalpa, "We have everything here--McDonalds, Burger King, Arbys, Hardees--everything except good food."

On the road from Stroud to Haltom City (this is where we deviated from Route 66) I kept finding so many Kodak moments I had to take myself in hand. “Step away from the Canon Power Shot, Beverly.”
I did let myself go, however, when it came to the Court House in Denton. What a beautiful building! And of course I couldn’t resist snapping a shot of the feeble Kellyville sign. Not only did Interstate 40 sound the death knell for this little burg but decades before somebody thought it would be a good idea to make this site a ski resort. The only problem was that he had to truck in artificial snow and ski enthusiasts were simply not okay with that.

After three, count ‘em, three “location malfunctions” (that’s what we call it when Jon gets lost and blames it on the signage, map-maker or me) we finally arrived in Haltom City. Brendan waited patiently for us, even though it was after 9PM. We dined at Chili’s.

June 6, 2010

Brendan came up to our room about 11:30A and we discussed options for the day. The Ft. Worth Art Museum was no longer hosting the Andy Warhol collection so we consulted with the brochure rack and came up with Clark Botanical Park in Weatherford, which was about 45 minutes away.

What a great decision that was, despite the 100-degree heat and 85 percent humidity. According to the information in their "History House," Max and Billie Clark spent their early marriage in a trailer because their business, which was installing telephone poles, required them to be mobile. Later they would adapt when telephone wires went underground and they started a trenching business. I suspect during the mobile home years, they dreamed of a house perched high on a hill---with room for a beautiful garden. How dreams can grow!

They purchased 200 plus acres nearby Lake Mineral Wells State Park Trailway—--land that was mostly covered with scrub and mesquite. It is indeed awe-inspiring that they were able to transform 35 of the acres into a series of 20 gardens. Many native plants and trees are represented but they have also adapted a number of ground covers that are widely used in California backyards.

Max, who loved to experiment with hybrids developed two different Iris varieties that he was allowed to name. He was quite the romantic--he gave Billie 41 azalea plants for the 41st wedding anniversary. Billie gave Max, who is usually accompanied by his chocolate lab Brownie, a pair of bronze sculptures that captured man and dog digging in the garden. The girl that took our admission told us that all ten staff members are big-time dog lovers and “well behaved” canines were welcome.

Both Brendan and Jon were very excited about the G-scale model garden trains and the 1,200 feet of track. Tiny versions of the towns of Weatherford and Mineral Wells were replicated as well. In fact, they were so accurate that when we drove to Mineral Wells, we were able to locate both hotels that we had seen in miniature inside the Clark Round House.

My favorite place in the garden was the little cave behind the big waterfall—-it reminded me of the Fern Grotto on Kauai where Jon and I were married. Most of the water features were also home-sweet-home to ducks, swans, peacocks and the blooming flowers attracted butterflies, moths, hummingbirds and very vocal songbirds.

There was no general plan by the Clarks--—the gardens grew like Topsy as Billy Max and their general manager sat around the table and sketched out ideas for different horticultural treatments including a number of rose gardens, a small forest of conifers, a section with exclusively white blooms including magnolias, dahlias, and primroses. The herb garden was laid out in a labyrinth, a chapel complete with stained glass welcomes meditation or weddings, cute little bridges pop up everywhere, a reflecting pond reminiscent of the Getty Museum in Malibu is one of the first features visitors view, and a large lagoon is planted entirely in water lilies.

We were thankful we could visit in late spring but this garden with its rotating plantings would be attractive at any time of year. We spent four hours walking around and probably didn’t see everything
(Jon and Brendan refused to miss the Civil War cannon) but all three of us remarked that what kept us going was the prospect of a new surprise around every turn in the path.

We dined on well aged steaks at Saltgrass—--one of Brendan’s all-time favorite restaurants. Beverly was introduced to Lynchburg Lemonade and became a big fan. Chloe has been in heaven—--every restaurant brings manna of some sort into her case.

June 7, 2010

The big job for today is to get back on Route 66. We made our way up I-35 to what the locals call OKC or what the rest of the nation calls Oklahoma City. I was reminded of the television show "Saving Grace," which is takes place there.

The little towns along the way from OKC to Elk City were largely unremarkable. Bethany was dominated by the Church of the Nazarine---from elementary school to college.

Yukon (1891), which was primarily a bedroom community filled with commuters to/from Oklahoma City, is the hometown of Garth Brooks and marks a Chisholm Trail crossing.

El Reno has a “there’s a moral in there”-type history. Originally, the town was located further north and on the other side of the Canadian River but when the community leaders demanded extra compensation from the railroad, the railroad owners decided to locate further south and on the opposite side of the river. Isolated, the good citizens of El Reno were forced to move, lock, stock and barrel, to the railroad's new location.

We found out, firsthand, that the portion of Route 66 that makes its way to Calumet is what we used to call a "washboard road." Shiver me timbers, indeed.

Bridgeport was a bit of a disappointment—-only two little bridges and no port. Furthermore, currently Bridgeport is a ghost town.

Hydro is best known for Lucille’s gas station, which is now closed---Lucille is dispensing fuel and advice on the big Route 66 in the sky.

Right before you arrive in Hinton’s Junction, there is a pony bridge over the South Canadian River that is a golden wonder. Built in the 1930s, its 38 trusses span 4,000 feet.

Weatherford is known as a truck stop that houses a number of shops which sells everything from Route 66 memorabilia to western wear and is the hometown of the astronaut Thomas P. Stafford.

We decided to press on to Elk City, which is home to a national Route 66 museum as well as a wonderful community park with an expansive lagoon, all sorts of domestic and Canadian geese, a miniature golf course, a small gauge train, a 100-year old carousel, ball fields, playground equipment, picnic areas and a walking path badly in need of a fire hose to high-pressure clean off the poop.

We were chased away from the merry-go-round perimeter by a trio of quite nasty (aggressively hissing and honking) geese guards. Elk City is also known for its brick streets. The omnipresent red clay must end up being mined by some local brick company. We are staying at an old Route 66 icon--the Flamingo Inn. The bathroom is done up in classic 40s pink and black tile and walls are a lighter shade of Pepto Bismal. Too cool for school.

Here is where I have to confess that the guidebook we have been using is flawed, badly flawed. The restaurant recommended for lunch, Vito’s, is located in a strip mall—--certainly not a Route 66 locale; and the restaurant recommended for dinner, Country Dove, turned out to be a Christian Book Store that did serve tea but closed at 5PM. The Route 66 Association will be receiving a sternly written rebuke from yours truly. We did find exceptional substitutes using our time-tested method, which is highly intuitive and depends on the vibes we receive as we read the name of the eatery. This guess is then is corroborated by the number of vehicles in the parking lot. Zorba’s in Oklahoma City served up a mean gyro on pita with either a Persian or Greek salad. Pedros, a Mexican treasure, was located right next to our motel, the (very Pink) Flamingo, a classic Route 66 motor lodge with a pink and black tiled bathroom and bedroom painted in various shades of rose or peach.

June 8, 2010

Before we bid farewell to Elk City’s oil workers, brick makers, agricultural workers and entrepreneurs, we stopped by the National Route 66 Museum Complex which was a heck of a deal for $4. The National Route 66 exhibit invited the visitor to walk from state to state on Route 66 as the history of the Mother Road was revealed by archival photos, vintage vehicles, recorded interviews and antique artifacts. This museum is considered the best of the 26 on Route 66.

The National Transportation Museum was also impressive. Jon sat in a 1959 pink Cadillac and watched the same view of the roller coaster alignment (with all the thunka, thunka, thuka sounds of a concrete slab roadway) that we had seen on the way to Elk City. There was also an interesting film narrated by the editor of American Road Magazine as well.

We were then treated to the history of Elk City, which was originally named Busch after the St. Louis beer baron Adolphus Busch. Visitors were invited to peek through the windows of all the usual buildings on the “town square” (Doctor/Dentist Offices, Rock Bluff School, Opera House, Attorney, General Store, Drug Store complete with soda fountain and old fashioned candies, Newspaper office).

These Elk City folks found a way to bring back traffic lost to the interstate with their museum and park. During the weekend before, devotees flocked to Elk City's Route 66 Days from all over the country. Out in front of the museum was a facsimile of the Kachina totem that was created by a Delaware Indian who worked at the local Queenan Trading Post. His building materials, of all things, were discarded auto and oil industry machinery parts.

We found it interesting that the City Hall in Sayre City, the next little burg down the line, which is supposedly the “Cradle of Quarterhorses,” is a 1905 National Bank building. Jon had a difficult time hiding his city hall envy.

Question: Why is a river in Oklahoma called the Canadian River?

The next few towns flew by in a blur: Erik, of course, is the birthplace of Roger Miller, Texola (on the Oklahoma side of the border) is a ghost town with a sense of humor. On one boarded-up window, somebody had painted a window with drapes and a little vase of flowers. There was also a speed limit sign that had been changed to 66 MPH and a banner on shuttered restaurant read “there’s no place like Texola.”

Shamrock, founded in 1890, was obviously the brainchild of somebody from the Old Sod—--his name was actually George Nickel. Every year, there is a ripshortin’ St. Paddy Day parade in Shamrock. The first Shamrock gas station is said to have been located there as well.
We also located the U Drop In, a restaurant and gas station noted for its Art Deco tower.

McClean (1903) is the site of the first Phillips 66 station.
When a couple of Phillips execs were looking for a name for their gasoline, they tested their product out on Route 66. One supposedly said to the other—-“see, we can go 60 on this gas!” The other replied, “Hell, we are going 66. We are going 66 on 66.” 66 was also the specific gravity of the gas but that’s not a plus most folks are aware of. McClean also boasts the Avalon movie theater (closed) that was the inspiration for "The Last Picture Show" and the town also houses a Devil’s Rope (barbed wire) Museum to boot.

Groom, named for a British rancher, Col. B.B. Groom was incorporated in 1902. It’s known as the site of biggest metal cross in North America. It's 19 stories high and was erected in July of 1995.

Alanreed, named for two contractors with the last names of Alan and Reed, gets the award for the most number of previous names. At various times in its history, the town incorporated in 1902 was known as Spring Tank, Springtown, Prairie Dog and Gouge Eye---the last because of a brawl between a Groom’s citizen and an Alanreed resident that resulted in a serious eye injury to the Groom's man.

In Alanreed, I got a call from my editor and found out that he hadn’t received the column that I had emailed last Thursday from Chicago. The nearest WiFi was in Amarillo, 64 miles away. We speeded there as quickly as possible and searched the length of Amarillo Route 66 for a WiFi-engabled facility without reward. We had planned to visit the Big Texas Steak Ranch for lunch that day but hadn’t looked up its particulars. The restaurant was at the other end of town but it was, thank God, a WiFi hotspot so we were able to send in the column as well as enjoy a delicious steak dinner.

The manager announced that Daniel Burkholder, who was celebrating his 21st birthday that day, was going to attempt the Big Texas Steak Ranch challenge. If you can devour a 72 oz steak along with a salad, a buttered roll, a baked potato and three shrimp in one hour—--your meal is free. When I asked Burkholder why he would attempt such a feat, he replied “why not?” He was going strong during his first half hour—-he had cleaned up all the side dishes but he was only half-way through the steak. We waited until the final bell 30 minutes later and unfortunately he didn’t make it. I asked him if he knew the penalty for losing, and he said, “Yeah, I am going to have to pay a lot of money.” The charge for failing to meet the challenge is $72—--one dollar for every ounce of rib eye steak. The waitress told me that every year between 86,000 and 87,000 people try but only about one in six are successful.

Amarillo is quite a city! Originally the name was Oneida (like the silverware) but was changed because so many houses were painted yellow. Amarillo, of course, is the Spanish word for "yellow." The city was founded in 1887 as a center for oil and gas but the manufacture and storage of helium as well as the raising of cattle, as we can personally attest, was also big business. The temperature as we headed out of town was 101 degrees but a big nimbus cloudbank was building up in the west.

That direction was exactly where we were headed after we made the pilgrimage to Cadillac Ranch. Stanley Marsh III was the man behind the notion of burying the front ends of 8 vintage Caddies in a row—-as if the American Dream could be planted in some sort of garden.
Visitors are encouraged to spray paint pictures, etch their initials, or pen messages on the surfaces of the planted cars. The site is a short walk from the road to the middle of a wheat field where the head-scratching example of public art is permanently on display.

As we returned to our car and headed west, the rain descended in huge drops. There were radio warnings of possible soft ball-sized hail but we lucked out, as we have done on this entire trip, weather-wise. We quietly snacked on Necco wafers and visualized Tucumcari Tonight!

In the ghost town of Glenrio, right before Tucumcari, we spotted two brown mixed-breed puppies playing in the middle of the road. They scooted into the bushes when we tried to take their picture. We did snap a photo of the abandoned gas station behind a rusting Willys pickup truck.

There were once 50 motels in Tucumcari--now the number is less than half. You can tell which motor lodges are still in operation by the lit neon signs. The Relax Inn must have gone out of business years ago---the price of gas posted was an unbelievable $1.75! We pulled into the Travelodge during a downpour that flooded the entire parking lot. The interesting aspect was that the sun was shining for the entire hour that the rain descended. The storm clouds, however, held a silver lining--A 20 degree drop in temperature and a glorious red, gold, purple and pink sunset.

Both Jon and I wondered about the derivation of the name Tucumcari. Apparently this wasn't the first name that city leaders came up with. Early on, the town was known as Liberty. During the railroad era, it was called Six-Shooter Siding. As to the Tucumcari--in all probability the town took the name of a nearby mountain derived from the Comanche word "Tukamukaru," which means "to lie in wait." I, however, like the Apache myth that speaks of a love affair between a brave named Tocum and a maiden named Cari. As the story goes, a jealous man kills Tocum so that he can have Cari all to himself. She stabs the murderer and then stabs herself. After finding his daughter and her intended dead, her desolate father takes the bloody knife and kills himself, but not before looking heavenward and crying "Tocum. Cari."

We couldn't afford to stay at the Blue Swallow Motel, which has become a Route 66 icon, courtesy of Michael Wallis 75th Anniversary book on Route 66. Owner Lillian Redman, who would be 101 years old now if she were still alive (she passed away in 1999), got the 1940s motel as an engagement present from hubby-to-be Floyd in 1958. She was a big believer in the notion that she might be entertaining angels unaware so she treated every guest with the kind of hospitality she'd offer a messenger of God. No wonder she stayed in business so long even after the interstate killed half the business in Tucumcari! I thought it was interesting that she learned the guest services business as a Harvey Girl before she met and married Floyd.

June 9, 2010

It is not surprising that the designers of Route 66 decided to cut off Santa Fe as early as 1937—--to include that city would tack on an additional four hours.

Today we are basically traveling from Tucumcari through Santa Rosa, Clines Corners, Santa Fe and ending up in Albuquerque for the night. We were really looking forward to Santa Rosa—-not only are there billboards advertising 20 motels and just as many restaurants---but Santa Rosa is supposed to be home to Club Café—-an amazing enterprise on Route 66 that has been around since 1935. Billboards in past years talked about “honest to goodness, authentic sourdough biscuits, hamburgers made with 100 percent ground beef, homemade chili and chicken-fried steams made with tender, fresh meat and served with old fashioned, iron skillet gravy.” The description made my mouth water as I was reading it. Even more important is the success story of Ron Chavez as told in Michael Wallis' book. Chavez used to shine shoes in front of the Club Café in 1973 but it was his dream to own the place—-which he eventually did--adding his own touches to the menu such as the green chiles that come from the village where he was born.

We should have known something was wrong when we didn’t spot any billboards with the signature fat man boasting about the culinary delights available at Club Café. When we finally arrived at the right address—-the building was in disrepair and the paint on the neon sign was peeling away. All the cars in the parking lot actually belonged to court house patrons next store.

Clines Corners (1935) is now on its fifth owner and he is not from the United States. Furthermore, he hasn’t kept up the Route 66 standard—--the cinnamon rolls are now served with Country Crock instead of butter. The thousands of trinkets and tourist trap collectibles remain the main attraction. The complex has been greatly expanded, now boasting two filling stations and counter after counter filled with mementos ranging from Prickly Pear Cactus jelly to Roswell Alien coffee cups. People were, however, lined up at the fudge counter. We picked up a lb of the sugar-free kind for ASL. Hopefully we can make it through the Mohave without it turning to hot chocolate syrup.

In Santa Fe we took some time to walk around the downtown plaza where we were treated to two musical performances: one by a country duo offering bass fiddle, banjo and some bonafide yodeling and the other a solo trumpeter who was playing a poignant blues melody. There were lots of venders—-a whole section is reserved exclusively for Native American artists.

We peeked into the courtyard of the Modern Art Museum to see some sculptures and then browsed through the History Museum gift shop. Security is tight at both and we weren’t about to check Chloe into a locker.

We walked over to see the St. Francis Basilica, which had at least two statues of the city’s patron saint in front. There was also an interesting display of cutthroat trout that people used for seating in the park across from the Palace of Governors.

We did note that Santa Fe is a very artsy-fartsy city with loads of artists, especially sculptors, who display their work in their own front yards.

The actual name of the capital city of New Mexico is La Villa Real de la Santa Fe (Holy Faith) de San Francisco de Asís. Its nickname is “the City Different” and 72,000 very different souls live there. The fourth largest city in New Mexico is also the highest (7,199 ft.). With a 400-year old history, there is a great deal to learn about Santa Fe. The original settlers were Pueblo Indians. The "Kingdom of New Mexico" was first claimed for the Spanish Crown in 1540 during the expedition of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado almost 70 years before the founding of Santa Fe.

The Spanish laid out the city around a central plaza. On its north side was the Palace of the Governors, while on the East was the church that later became the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi. Many of the streets radiating from the plaza were narrow and included small alley-ways. As the city grew throughout the 19th century, the building styles evolved too, so that by statehood in 1912, the eclectic nature of the buildings caused it to look like “Anywhere USA”.

The city government decided that the economic decline, which had started more than twenty years before, with the railway moving west and the Federal government closing down Fort Marcy, might be reversed by the promotion of tourism. To achieve that goal, the city created the idea of imposing a unified building style--Spanish Pueblo Revival--everything had to be constructed of reddish-brown adobe walls. As a consequence—-the architecture is not only boring but sometimes ludicrous when businesses such as fast food restaurants that have established a certain architectural signature to define themselves are forced to abandon their unique look in order to operate in Santa Fe.

The next stop was Albuquerque—-the largest city in New Mexico and established in 1706. It is generally believed that the town was named by the provincial governor Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdes in honour of Don Francisco Fernandea de la Cueva, whose title was Duke of Alburquerque. Western folklore offers a different explanation, tracing the name Alburquerque to the Galician word "albaricoque" or "apricot". As the story goes, the settlement of La Ciudad de Albaricoque was established near an apricot tree and the "r" in Albaricoque eventually disappeared via mispronunciation.

Both Jon and I had visited Albuquerque previously but we were quite impressed with how much town had grown in the thirty-odd years since we had been there. Jon played a show in 1986 with the Zoogz Rift Tour and I was coaching the UCLA Debate team at a University of New Mexico Forensic Tournament, My colleague Michelle thought she had lost the car keys—--the last place she remembered having them was in the woman’s restroom. Unfortunately there was an overflow problem with one of the toilets but she diligently returned to the so-called scene of the crime and fished around in the excrement to avail. Turned out one of the debaters had the key in his pocket. We decided to take the guidebook recommendation for the pet-friendly Ambassador Inn. Well, the new owners were from India and not a friend of the canine so we had to smuggle Chloe in and out. There wasn’t even a blade of grass on the property so Jon drove her to a nearby park for her evening and morning constitutionals. Although the motel marquee had advertised a continental breakfast, by 8:00AM when Jon got there, only two muffins remained.

We can’t complain about food, however, having treated ourselves to Scalo that evening. We were not in the mood for typical Route 66 fare that night and Northern Italian food seemed exactly right. Jon had a fettucini al pollo and I had the ricotta-filled ravioli with a delicate seafood sauce. The local pinot noir was surprisingly good as well---who'd have dreamed New Mexico grew grapes. The restaurant was located in the historic 1947 Nob Hill Shopping Center which is presently on the National Register of Historic Places.

June 10, 2010

For breakfast, we decided to try Lindy’s, a downtown diner that, frankly, exceeded our expectations—--the chicken fried steak with the green chili and cheddar cheese sauce was simply incredible. Jon also enjoyed his “pileup” which stacked cheese, over-easy eggs, pinto beans and bacon. The tortillas were homemade.

Our waitress Dawn was friendly and talkative. When I asked how a New England girl ended up in Albuquerque she confessed that she blindly waved her finger over a map and that’s where it landed. She eventually met her husband Steve, who is Lindy’s chef. His father had been a busboy and a bouncer at the original restaurant whose name escapes me. He eventually worked his way up to partner and then sole owner and renamed the eatery after the New York purveyor of cheesecake. When the father got ill, Steve and his family took over---even their three kids work during summers. There are photos all around the room with Steve and various celebrities but I was most impressed with the snapshot of Mary McCormack who plays Mary Shannon in “In Plain Sight,” one of my favorite shows. Dawn says Mary was very nice and brought her two daughters into the restaurant with her. She insisted that she have her picture taken with Steven since all the other subjects were “just amateurs.”

We drove to the Old Town Plaza—--Albuquerque (population 522,000) was laid out similarly to Santa Fe with a town square in front of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. The benches, made of wrought iron and painted white were very special. The four panels along the back represented the four seasons of agriculture. Even the trash containers were artistically rendered. The little gazebo was sweet and Jon loved the two canon that apparently had been buried for something like 28 years during the Civil War.

The scenery started to change at Mesita (Little Mesa), outside of Albuquerque. The red rocks dominated the landscape.

One of the local landmarks was supposedly called Owl Rock but we had trouble figuring out which rock it really was. Jon was all excited to see black lava rock but there was only a modest pile of "bad land" metamorphized rock. I remarked that the black lava rock in New Mexico must have been the disappearing variety.

The next big town was Gallup (1884). If you wanted to get paid, you went to Gallup to visit the railroad paymaster David L. Gallup. Also known as the "Indian Capital of the World" (being surrounded by the Navajo Reservation), much of the economy seems to revolve around turquoise and the creation of turquoise jewelry. We saw a "Help Wanted" sign for a silversmith in case any might be reading this blog.

The other Gallup enterprises seems to involve “trading posts” where said jewelry is hawked. We were looking for a park but there didn’t seem to be the tree-shaded variety in this haven of xeriscaping. Gallup used to have a bad rep when alcoholism, drunk driving and domestic abuse by the Native American residents got to be such a problem that Mother Theresa placed Gallup just under Calcutta on her list of "forsaken places." Still it wasn't only Native Americans that hit the bottle in Gallup--there is a story about Errol Flynn getting so drunk that he rode his horse into the lobby of the El Rancho Hotel. Celebrities from Hollywood liked to hang out and drink away from the public eye there. The civic leadership, however, has made great strides in trying to clean up the town. Outdooor ads seem to be the prominent propaganda medium--you see gruesome billboards warning against driving under the influence as well as countering domestic abuse.

Just outside Gallup is the home of the infamous Jackalope, a strange hybrid creature that can imitate the voice of a cowboy singing to his herd in the dark of night. We also stopped at the world famous Ortega Indian Trading Post with the iconic eight giant arrows stuck in the ground--apparently they ripped off the idea of from Two Arrows, located further along the road, or else there are more arrows due to inflation. Found a couple of 2 for $20 Route 66 tees for Jonathan and Brendan. I treated myself to a hand-made Route 66 tile. It will be quite the conversation-starter at dinner parties.

The best part of the day was the decision to tour Petrified Forest National Park. Of course we got in free with my pass. Each turn around the bend seemed to offer a new vista or a new geological phenomenon. A series of five “points” gave us different panoramic views of the Painted Desert which was remarkable enough. Then we were introduced to “Newspaper Rock” which is the cutesy name for hundreds of petroglyphs etched into stone. All were realistic, stick-like figures of men, animals and “gods.” The Teepees were layered cones that range in color from blue to purple to gray to brown depending on the minerals (iron, carbon, manganese) contained in the formations.
The Jasper and Crystal Forests were sites of hundreds of petrified logs—--there was one especially long trunk that had been used as a bridge by the people that built the Puerco Pueblo.

We took a look at the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook (where the slogan is "sleep in a wigwam" and then headed for Winslow where there is a memorial to the Eagles song "Take It Easy" lyric—-"standing on the corner in Winslow AZ."
first with a statue of an unnamed guitar players and second with a flatbed Ford parked right at the corner.

We read about La Posada Resort but with only 37 rooms we thought our chance of securing a place without reservations was slim to none. Yet low and behold Jon was able to swing it and we were assigned the Wallace Beery---with a big king-sized bed and a jacuzzi bath. Chloe was perfectly legal and invited to roam the grounds on a leash.

What is so great about this hotel? It’s a restored Harvey House. During the late 19th Century, Fred Harvey opened 84 restaurants, hotels and lunchrooms at every stop of the Santa Fe Railroad--his Harvey Houses were immortalized by the 1946 film starring Judy Garland called "Harvey Girls." This hotel was designed by architect Mary Jane Colter who not only drew up the plans for the two-wing hacienda but also created the furniture and the light fixtures.

a>We also were able to get reservations for dinner at the Turquoise Room. The chef is John Sharpe, who advocates using locally grown foods from the Flagstaff Farmers Market (whenever possible) which means really fresh meat and produce. He also likes to include a sampling of Native American dishes such as the Piki bread (made by Hopi) we enjoyed with a hummus made of pit roasted corn, Tepary beans and the secret ingredient that I wormed out of him—--a very hot mustard that tastes a great deal like wasabi. Jon and I are still trying to figure out how the Chef was able to serve up the corn and bean soups as two separate halfmoons in the same bowl. For the entrée, I loved the fresh Pink Grouper baked with Jalapeno Bacon, Sunchokes Gratin, and a mixture of fresh veggies sauted in Abalone and Oyster mushrooms. Jon tasted three different lamb dishes, which ranged from a green chili, red pasole and grilled chop. Before dinner we enjoyed margaritas—-mine a turquoise and Jon’s a Route 66 Cadillac. This was truly a 5-star restaurant and one of the best meals we have ever eaten. After dinner we had a chance to try out the jacuzzi in our room--washed away all the fatigue built up after putting in 8 to 10 hour driving days.

June 11, 2010

The next day we discovered that the La Posada also serves breakfast. Well we couldn't pass that up. Jon enjoyed a baked egg dish that would have been quite popular in 1930. I opted for a spinach and cheese omlette that simply melted in my mouth. This time we had a view of the trains coming and going right outside our window. The big culinary surprise (there is always something out of the ordinary with Chef John Sharpe) was the potato dish spiced up with jalapeno peppers and three kinds of cheese.

After packing, we toured the grounds which included an enchanting sunken garden with a fountain playing into a stump of petrified wood, a sculpture hall and a gift shop with unique art works for sale.

We met a fellow Route 66er named Del Williams who is a Mira Costa College history professor. He and his wife were forced to do the trip twice--from San Diego to Chicago and from Chicago to San Diego since it had been prohibitively costly to rent a car without returning it to the same city. He most enjoyed Illinois and Missouri --these are two states in which Route 66 associations are going great guns in reviving the tourist trade. He was most disappointed in New Mexico---especially the folks in Santa Fe but who can blame them--Santa Fe was bypassed as early as 1937.

Jon and I discussed future plans for flying to Winslow and spending a weekend at La Posada. There is something spiritual and healing about this place. Maybe the feeling evolves from Colter's fantasy. Each of her buildings has an imagined back story and La Posada is no exception. When she was designing the structure she wanted it to appear as if four generations had added their own construction to a main structure that miraculously appeared in the middle of the high desert as an oasis for the wealthy Basque family. The de los Pajaros family supposedly occupied the hacienda for 120 years but the last owner was forced, because of the Depression, to sell the family home to the Santa Fe railroad complete with all the caged birds, ancient trees, handmade furniture and collected artworks.

In actuality, La Posada, as a Harvey House, went out of business in 1957. In 1961, the structure was gutted and the museum quality furnishing were auctioned off or carted to the dump. Partitions divided the complex into offices for the Santa Fe Railroad. Fortunately, Allan Affeldt and Tina Mion, along with various artists, rescued what they could and restored or recreated the rest. You can feel all of the negative energy leaving you the minute you walk into the back door (the front faces the railroad tracks).

On the road again, past Leupp Corner and Meteor City (essentially a trading post), we headed off 66 for the Meteor Crater which is touted as a "natural" landmark. Apparently the property is in private hands and the owners want an arm and leg to view the 1 mile deep hole in the ground (2.5 mile circumference) that appeared 22,000 years ago We found a free vanatage point near the old observatory (in ruins) founded by D.M.Barringer who used to charge 25 cents for the use of his telescope.

We could see what was left of Two Guns from the road. Apparently the town was the site of an Indian massacre between the Apache (losers) and the Navajos (winners) as well as a gunfight between two gambling saloon robbers and the local posse. The iconic Two Arrows Trading Post had also been shuttered long ago.

We didn't forget Winona, founded in 1886 (previously known as Walnut) and the home to about 100 good people.

The last time I was in Flagstaff (1987), the heavens parted and rain was descended in buckets. This day was sunny and clear and snow on the San Francisco Mountains was clearly visible in the distance. You almost immediately noticed the change in flora---scrub giving way to conifers with the uptick in altitude. The name Flagstaff comes from an early event in which civic leaders in need of r a flagpole, fashioned one by stripping a lodge pole pine tree of its limbs.

Flagstaff is the birthplace of Andy Devine and is known for the Lowell Observatory (1894) where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. Thank God, Clyde died in 1997 and didn't have to see his achievement disappear with the International Astronomical Union's downgrading of Pluto to a dwarf planet. Flagstaff is one of those Route 66 cities that has all other sorts of appealing sightseeing attractions going for it (various museums, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, and Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness) in addition to the Mother Road.

As you continue west of Flagstaff, you will see Bellemont (ghost town), Parks (Deer Farm) and Williams (elevation 6,700 feet and founded in 1881). Williams, home to the Bill Williams Mountain Men and supported by lumbering and livestock, is where tourists pick up the train to the Grand Canyon and bikers love to gather. There has been a concerted effort on the stretch of Route 66 between Williams and Kingman to play up the Mother Road connection including Burma Shave signs. Our favorites included "If daisies are your favorite flower, keep pushin' up those miles per hour" and "Cattle crossing, must go slow--that old bull is some cow's beau."

The next big city is Seligman (1886). It was known as Prescott Junction until it was renamed after Jesse Seligman, a prominent New York banker responsible for financing railroad construction. The big 66 hangout is Snow Cap Drive where the owner Juan Delgadillo gives full vent to his sense of humor including installing two door knobs on one side of the door and posting a sign reading "Sorry, we are open" He and his brother Angel, who used to run the barber shop, founded the Arizona Route 66 Association and is responsible for making Seligman a must-stop.

Seligman is home to a Historic Harvey House as well as the Road Kill Cafe ("You Kill It; We Grill It") where the granddaughters and grandsons of Jim and Jean Pope still serve such appetizing fare as "Long Gone Fawn," "Rack of Raccoon," "Whippoorwill Off the Grill,""Highway Hash," "Rigor Mortis Tortoise," "Rocky the Low Flying Squirrel," and "The Chicken that Almost Crossed the Road." Actually all the dishes are merely clever names for the usual beef, chicken, and pork dishes. The only exotic fare is buffalo burgers.

REAL ROUTE 66 ROAD KILL TALLY

4 deer, 3 possum, 3 raccoon, 4 birds (one flew into our windshield), 5 squirrels, 0 armadillo (Beverly's always wanted one for the living room), And too many bugs to count

Between Seligman and Kingman are Chino, Pica Deer Lodge, Hype Park, Grand Canyon Caverns Village (21-story elevator takes you to a cave which is always 56 degrees), Nelson, Peach Springs (road to floor of Grand Canyon which we took part-way), Truxton, Cozier, Valentine, Hackberry, Antares, and Valle Vista.

Route 66 through Kingman, named for Lewis Kingman an engineer for the Santa Fe Railraod and established in 1883, includes Andy Devine Blvd (he was born in Flagstaff but grew up here since his father managed the historic Beale Hotel) and a couple of Route 66 Museum/memorabilia collections (Quality Inn Motel and The Powerhouse).

Oatman Road a winding mountain route with steep drops and tight curves to avoid touching various gold mines in the area. It's a time-consuming passage that culminates in Stigraves Pass where cars used to drive up the road in reverse to keep the gas flowing toward the engine. It's a real nail-biter but oh, what an incredible view!

Jon, Chloe and I had visited Oatman in 2008 where we were introduceed to the wild burros and a man, about 6'9" ("a long drink of water") who bent at the middle in order to scratch our little Yorkie behind the ears. We found out this time that he owns and operates a panning-for-gold venture near the public restrooms. It would have been nice to stop and spend the night there but the Oatman Hotel, where Clark Gable and Carol Lombard spent their honeymoon, no longer rents out rooms. We then passed through Old Trails, Golden Shores and Topock where there are no buildings, just bridges.

We ended up spending the night in Needles, which is nowhere close to the rocky spines of the mountains that gave the city it's name. We stayed at the America's Best Value Motel, which was an incredible value--40 bucks including breakfast. The cleaning crew at the motel was having a barbeque at the pool, so we threw our bags in the room and went off in search of dinner. We ended up at the Juicy River Cafe (named for the family dog) and feasted on more All-You-Can-Fish than we actually ordered.

There is also a Harvey House in Needles called El Garces, a 1908 Santa Fe Railway Hotel which is currently being renovated by the same folks who did La Posada, namely Allan Affeldt, Tina Mion and Daniel Lutzick. June 12, 2010

After Needles, we barreled through the Mohave towns of Arrowhead Junction, Goffs (1898 school house), Fenner, Essex (where somebody changed the population from 100 to 10), Danby, Summit, Chambles (Cadiz) and Amboy where we stopped to see Roy's Cafe and the Amboy Crater (extinct volcano). Amboy has the distinction of once being offered for sale on eBay.

Right before Amboy comes into view, there is a little surprise for the wide-awake driver. Off in the distance on the left, it appears there is a motorcycle cop lying in wait for a lead-footed driver. However as you get closer, it becomes clear that there is nobody lurking just off the shoulder--the motorcycle is actually a couple of shrubs and an old tree trunk that has been liberally laden with cast-off foot apparel--a shoe tree, as it were--a visual joke at a time when the relentless sun gives a weary traveler no reason to smile.

Bagdad no longer exists but the cult film "Bagdad Café" (also known as "Out of Rosenheim"), a 1987 German movie directed by Percy Adlon, was actually shot in Newberry Springs further on down the road after Siberia, Klondike and Ludlow, where the old Ludlow Cafe still serves home-cooked meals.

Jon and I once stopped at the Daggett Airport to get fuel for ourselves and the plane. I wasn't impressed. All day yesterday, Jon kept threatening to make me stay in Daggett overnight (which was impossible since there were no motels in Daggett). This desert area used to be dreaded by motorists who, back in the day, lacked air conditioning and feared car trouble out in the hot desert sun with zero repair shops. We also found this section of road had about 20 squash plants growing in the gravel shoulder. How did they get there? Did a squash or two fall off a truck and did the seeds get disbursed by birds? It's a desert mystery.

Barstow (1886) was once a busy supply center for silver miners and prospectors heading to Death Valley but now it's a base to visit old mines, desert ghost towns and Indian ruins. The town was named for a president of the Santa Fe Railroad, William Barstow Strong. Barstow boasts another restored Harvey House across the railroad bridge called Casa del Desierto. There is a Route 66 museum located next door.

Between Barstow and Victorville are Lenwood, Hodge, Helendale (where we searched in vain for the Exotic World Museum of Burlesque), Bryman, La Delta, and Oro Grande. Victorville used to be the site of the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum where you could see Trigger, stuffed and rearing up on his hind legs, but all their memorabilia is now housed in Branson, MO.

Once associated with orange blossoms, San Bernandino is currently best known as the location of the original McDonalds (14th and E) operated by Maurice and Richard McDonald and eventually sold to Ray Croc, a milkshake machine salesman who opened the first franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, near the beginning of Route 66. Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers in 1961, after 1M 15-cent burgers and 20-cent malts had been sold---subsequently stubbing out many little mom and pop restaurants peppering Route 66 in its heyday.

Between San Bernandino and Pasadena---along Foothill Blvd--there has been a resurgence in Route 66 interest as symbolized by the proliferation of 66 shields. All the cities along the way tend to run togethe. Rialto to Fontana to Rancho Cucamonga is a blur but two exceptional restaurants should be noted in Rancho Cucamonga:

The Sycamore Inn, the oldest eatery on the Mother Road---e a stagecoach stop in 1848 and the Magic Lamp Inn, one of the few remaining examples of the true California roadhouse of the 1940s are spots we would both like to return to.

If we had it to do all over again, we would have found a motel and spent the night in Upland or Claremont--but not before dining in one of the two aforementioned restaurants. The timing for dinner was three hours off and we were anxious to sleep in our own bed at last. Jon guess-timated it would only take another three hours to get home but he couldn't have been more wrong.
Traffic was a nightmare and even a couple of margaritas at Pomona's La Paloma (formerly Wilson's Restaurant from the 1930a) didn't make being stuck in a car for six more hours any more palatable.

The subsequent towns and the blooming jacaranda trees (a most glorious shade of lavender-blue) just flew by---La Verne, San Dimas (where I was once took my kids water-sliding), Glendora, Azusa (site of the now defunct Foothill Drive-in), Irwindale, Duarte, Monrovia, Arcadia and finally Padsadena, home of the Rose Bowl, and where, every New Years Day, elaborate floats, made entirely of flowers and/or vegetable materials, process down the Colorado Blvd portion of Route 66 and manage to lure even more tourists and prospective residents to sunny Southern California.

As the route winds through Los Angeles, there's not much romance to be found on Route 66. Most of America's Main Street has disappeared under concrete octopus-like freeway on and off ramps, graffitti-covered overpasses and choking smog. We had hoped to stop off in Silverlake to drop off a couple of souvenirs for Trevor and Angie but the former was out of town (Bonarroo in Tennessee) and the latter was too busy packing for a two-week trip to San Francisco.

When we finally arrived at Lincoln and Olympic, the official end of Route 66 in Santa Monica, we were just too tired and cranky to appreciate the completion of our 2,449 mile drive down the Mother Road (not to mention all the times we got lost). We failed to take some very pertinent advice from our good friends, the Eagles--we simply didn't, especially right at the very end, "take it easy."

As the mists of memory cover over our mistakes, perhaps the ending to this tale will be radically rewritten. In its Greek origins, "historia" means "inquiry," and from Thucydides to the Eagles, the past has to be studied in order to understand its connection with the present.

Perhaps the words of G. K. Chesterton will be an appropriate way to end this journal. "The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living."

We climbed to the top of so many hills during this month-long adventure--surely our vision has expanded to include so much more of America's Mainstreet--from its humble beginnings in 1926 to its glorious renaissance in 2010--than we had previously held.

WHAT I LEARNED DURING MY SUMMER VACATION IN TEN LESSONS

1) A short thermometer, while it may be boring, is far better than extremes which confine you indoors all the time.

2). While they don't share his boyish blond looks, all the male anchors in the Midwest seem to sound like Kent Shocknek.

3). We could have left half the clothes and all of the extra reading material at home.

4). Every locality through which Route 66 winds can literally claim a piece of the road---local gravel is added to either asphalt or concrete--supplying its own unique and distinctive hue.

5). Cameras that don't need recharging because they run on AA batteries do need lots of batteries.

6). There are no fireflies in the Western States because fireflies only live east of the Mississippi. My question is: "Who tells the fireflies where the dividing line is?"

7). Waking up in a strange bed is not so strange when the person laying next to you is your best friend.

8). When you run out of Prylosec, it's time to go home.

9). Car rental agents can be shocked and awed--especially when "unlimited mileage," in our case, turns out to be 6,707 miles!

10). The best part of a trip is the anticipation brought about by planning. The worst part of a trip is the dread that there simply won't be enough time. There never is.

GETTING OUR ROUTE 66 KICKS IN A GRAND MARQUIS

Published in the May 26 edition of the Ventura County Star

Mention “Route 66” to people born between 1946 and 1964, and one of two melodies will rattle around in their brains. It will be either Bobby Troup’s “Get Your Kicks”-version as definitively served up by the smoky baritone of Nat King Cole or the catchy Nelson Riddle instrumental introducing the CBS hit series starring Martin Milner and George Maharis — a syncopated upper register-piano riff juxtaposed against a smooth string line — uncannily simulating the ultimate top-down, open road ride.

The four seasons of “Route 66,” which sprang from the lush vision of Stirling Silliphant from 1960 to 1964, not only present a vivid sense of place but also the best in boomers — their idealistic insistence on an awareness of purpose, a willingness to champion the powerless despite the risk, and a rebellious streak that may have snubbed the materialism of the Greatest Generation but stopped short of rejecting the sexy symbolism of a Corvette convertible.

Commissioned in 1926, Route 66, which runs from Chicago to Santa Monica, started as a string of gravel or clay country roads that snaked from the northern tip of Illinois down through Missouri, across the southeast corner of Kansas and through Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California.

While Route 66 connects eight states, it also represents a transcendental state of mind. John Steinbeck, in his novel “The Grapes of Wrath,” dubbed it “The Mother Road.” In the ’30s, Route 66 served as a historic migratory corridor conveying Depression-era and Dust Bowl refugees to California by the tens of thousands.

Fully paved by 1938, “The Great Diagonal Way” next became a major artery for troops and materials headed for the Pacific theatre as America entered World War II. In 1946, Bobby Troup, like thousands of returning GIs, employed Route 66 as he made his way to the so-called paradise he first encountered when billeted at one of the military training camps peppering the West Coast.

To Troup, as the tires of his vehicle thunked over pavement seams, Route 66 seemed to supply its own soundtrack. He confessed in a number of interviews that the singsong lyrics, derived from major stops along the highway, veritably wrote themselves.

With the passage of the Interstate Highway Act in 1956, however, prosperity took a powder. By 1970, nearly all segments of “America’s Main Street” were bypassed by modern four-lane highways.

Nostalgia, a term originally coined by 1678 medical student Johannes Hofer, is “the pain a sick person feels because he wishes to return to his native land, and fears never to see it again.” Boomers feel that way about Route 66. No highway has been more thoroughly gift-wrapped in nostalgia. When Erma Bombeck once cautioned, “Never have more children than you have car windows,” she was remembering road trips along Route 66.

Boomer family histories abound with anecdotes about Dad and his failure to pull the station wagon into some billboard-touted tourist trap. I don’t know about your father but mine was not moved by our passionate pleas.

He didn’t care that he might miss viewing a two-headed snake or enjoying a mouth-watering “cozy dog.” He continued to sit with shoulders squared back, ears deafened to the incessant whining and at least one eye on the ultimate prize —”Making 600 miles a day!”

Boomers, who, according to Third Age, (http://www.thirdage.com/about_us) pony up $500 million on vacations per year and constitute more than 80 percent of all leisure travel, can’t seem to get enough of the shield-shaped logo that still marks sections of Route 66. In fact, all manner of T-shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers so adorned, along with 60,000 other items of Route 66 memorabilia, are flying off shelves as the Mother Road enjoys a renaissance.

In 2000, Congress, which boasts a substantial share of boomers these days, passed a bill guaranteeing $10 million over the next 10 years to help rehabilitate Route 66.

When it comes to boomer nostalgia for Route 66, my husband and I are no exceptions. We are presently embarking on a month-long exploration of the “Colossus of Roads” and blogging our progress on http://beverlykelley.typepad.com/my_weblog/

While we did consider renting a powder-blue Corvette for about 30 seconds, since Chevrolet isn’t making its bucket seats any bigger, we decided to rent a Mercury Grand Marquis and give a whole new meaning to the term “Easy Rider.”

The whole point of this trip is not to rack up miles but rather smiles. Think about how many remarkable characters we could encounter if we just stop and ask who planted the roses as we smell them. We won’t be throwing punches or righting wrongs or even riding with the top down — but we will be humming our favorite Route 66 song.

I wonder if I can find a bumper sticker that says “Riddle Rules”?