The Mac behind Steve Jobs

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Anne Dunham

The Steves were kids at Homestead High School in the early 70s when I left Fremont High School in Sunnyvale to teach at the new Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, a time that still embraced the total student. Academic classes existed happily alongside wide ranging electives in art and music, home economics and industrial arts. My friend and fellow weaver, Helen McCullough, taught home ec at Cupertino High School and her husband Mac, industrial arts at Homestead.

It was not unusual to have students find their way safely through the intricacies of adolescence due to the so-called non-academic classes. It was in shop and electronics classes that the two Steves met at Homestead — and met Mac.

I met Mac only a couple of times but had heard of his teaching brilliance through colleagues and, of course, his wife. The first time I met Mac was when he came to our mountain top house to see if our shed would be a good place for a CB transmitter. He was involved in a radio network that communicated with distant lands in times of disaster. I do not remember him mentioning his two young students until later after they started achieving local notoriety. He then recounted their tinkering in his classes and their obvious joy in exploring new ideas.

I have often wondered if there would have been the same outcome without Mac. I would like to think he was the catalyst that triggered the super-dynamic reaction that resulted from combining two Steves to create a Mac.

I live at the intersection of technology and liberal arts.
–Steve Jobs

Skyland Mountain Run

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Anne Dunham

Today, one of the warmest so far, was the Skyland Mountain Run. I have done this run for many years, at least since 1998 (the year of my favorite T-shirt). Sponsored by a community church in the Santa Cruz mountains, it is one of the best! All of the proceeds go to nonprofits, both local and international.

Imagine starting at a hundred-old-ranch in a rural mountain area and running along a ridge with views of row upon row of mountains running to the ocean. A local band is playing hot rock and blue grass while the church members are cooking up eggs, sausages, pancakes, and cutting up fruit and bagels to greet you on your return. Kids are gearing up for a fun run, and raffle prizes await that include wines from great local vineyards. Picnic tables surround a lake where three hundred runners/walkers of all ages relax, their cars parked in a neighboring field at the ranch.

This year my friend, Phyllis Karsten, came with me. Last year, at 85, Phyllis started walking and used an iPhone app to show her distance and time on her walks. She posted this information on her Facebook page. She was good! So I asked her if she would like to start doing 5Ks with me. Of course she was game. She now comes close to showing me up!

We both did well and had a great time. She is saying we should try a 10K sometime. I think she has lost her mind.

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Anne Dunham

The dust has settled from the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes last Wednesday and here is an update with pictures.

The weather was perfect. There was a good crowd and, thanks to the support of many friends, our team raised $1703.08! for the Rape Crisis Center of the YWCA Silicon Valley. There are some great pictures below, but there were also some sobering, eye-opening moments for me.

Before the walk, law enforcement and victims vividly described what this event supports. The police chiefs of several local communities explained the vital role YW rape crisis counselors play in helping victims through a horrible ordeal. Not only have they been assaulted and violated, they have become “evidence” for the crime that has been committed and must undergo intensive investigation at a hospital in order to obtain clues about the perpetrator.

A women who was the victim of assault vividly portrayed the support role the YW played for her, both when she was raped and now, twenty years later, as her assailant was let out of jail. The YWCA provides advocates, 24/7, for victims at the hospital, in meetings with police, during trials, and in subsequent emotional healing. The initial assault trauma is followed by court appearances where victims must confront their assailant. The YW staff supports victims’ courageous decisions to find justice and prevent further assaults on others and offers support to see them through.

This event is a light-hearted way to focus on a serious problem that is too easily swept out of sight. And it was definitely a good time null ! See for yourself.

San Jose Mayor and Fire Chief

San Jose Fire Chief and Police Chief

The YW also has programs on two local high school campuses to help empower young men to speak out against sexual violence. They have a chance to discuss and examine negative stereotypes of masculinity and the connection to violence against women. Some of these guys participated and didn’t mind showing off their fancy shoes.

Students from My Strength program

Although the event is over, the problem is not solved. If you would still like to contribute, our team website will be up and accepting support until July 27. And if this is not your first choice, I would encourage you to give what you can to something—earthquake, tornado victims, education, research, arts—all need our help. As I have learned, a little bit from a lot of people makes a huge difference.

Many thanks to all.

Intelligent Life on Earth?

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Anne Dunham

As I watched this, a small, annoying fly walked across my computer screen. Its only faults are that it is not exquisite and it is in my way. We seek the gorgeous and the elusive in nature and despise those creatures that seek our company and need our presence to survive. Is this true on a human level too?

Worms

Posted on December 14, 2000 by Anne Dunham

The spade cut into dirt that in summer was rock hard. But it had softened a little after months of rainy, drippy, fog-filled days. I lifted out a chunk of compacted earth and turned it over revealing long taproots of weeds now pointing skyward. As I crumbled it apart with my gloved hand, a giant earthworm fell free and back into the hole.

Another shovelful of dirt revealed more earthworms. Some big and fat, pink or gray, almost five inches long; some tiny, like bright coral wire twisted into switchbacks making their length impossible to determine. How did these damp creatures shining with moisture stay so clean crawling through dirt? And how did they stay moist through a summer so dry it turned the earth to stone? In this compacted earth were worms–many worms–living in dirt but looking cleaner than the most fastidious among us.

I took all these worms as a good sign. I was digging a new garden bed in an area that had long held only weeds and a path leading out into the wild. Earthworms indicate healthy soil–or at least that’s what I have come to believe. But how did they manage, these soft-bodied creatures, to get through this dirt that was so hard it took a fair amount of effort for me to break it apart? As each clod broke off in my gloved hand, worms appeared. (I have always been a little squeamish about these slimy creatures and only recently have I been willing to pick one up even with a glove on.)

I began to take notice. I started watching for them, noticing different kinds, looking at their movements, trying to figure out what pleases them and what does not. I found I had more questions than answers. They seemed to move forward never satisfied with being left where I found them. Or were they backing up? Their pointy ends tested the ground. Were they looking for an opening? Their bodies rippled along behind them, first long and thin, then short and fat as they flowed forth after I had so abruptly revealed them. They wiggled and stretched and finally disappeared back down into the soil. Had this hard packed earth swallowed them or were they swallowing it?

When they fall, do they all land right side up like a cat? I watched to see if they tried to turn over, if they spiraled around from their head to their tail trying to right themselves. As worm after worm, large and small, fell, I watched. And not once did I see any indication of turning over. Do worms know which way is up? So many questions! I was sure I would find answers.

But then it became clear. There was really only one question that mattered and the answer was not so easy. Why do I care?

Night Moves

Posted on September 1, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Off in the distance I catch the baritone “Whoo, who-who-whoo” of a Great-horned owl emerging from the dark silence of the night. In reality the night is neither dark nor silent. Insects drone, stars twinkle and a moon is rapidly appearing through the lace edging of the chaparral. It is the time of night when most people are thinking of pulling the blinds, closing the doors and turning on the lights.

They are not alone in their retreat when the sun goes down. The quail, now mostly adolescents replacing the tiny chicks of early summer, come down for a final drink from the pond before disappearing until dawn. Other birds take their turn too. In the bird world only the owl and the poor-will (that flies up in alarm from the road when danger threatens its young) seem to relish—or tolerate—the night, flying up in alarm from the road when danger appears and threatens their young.

After a decorous pause the owl is treated to an answer to its question. A pitch or two higher and several trees closer, a similar quartet of “who-whoos” is clearly sounded in response. A conversation ensues, each owl answering from a slightly different angle as they scout out the territory. Coming closer and closer, at last a shadow passes noiselessly above in the now-risen moon and perches atop a telephone pole. The pair will be back for a night or two and then vanish. But they will return in a month or six weeks after touring the territory they claim as their own. And who among us would say it is not?

A shape emerges from the bushes. It is large and round and dark and seems to roll along the ground. Behind comes another, and then a third. Clearly they know where they are going and head for the garbage can, securely fastened with a bungee cord. The largest shape rises up and the can goes down. Another climbs on and, like a lumberjack in a river full of logs, rolls it into the drive. At last, frustrated at their failure to reveal the treasures inside, this raccoon trio, the bandits of the night, gives up and heads for the pond. They slosh and they splash in the moonlight knocking down cattails and churning up mud until it’s time to move on. With one last hope at finding a meal they climb the porch steps and peer in through the screen. Leaving muddy footprints for dawn to discover, they melt back into the shadows with scarcely a sound.

Deer move fearlessly through the meadow. Some of my flowers that bloomed during daylight will be decapitated before the stars go out. A lone bat scoops up insects along an erratic path through the sky.

There are nights when coyotes howl in the distance, mornings when I find leaves of lettuce or cabbage in the garden with holes in them that were not there the night before.

Lights go on in a few houses down the valley. Down the trail in the moonlight I see the shadow of a couple walking slowly, holding hands. The night is has a little something for everyone.

Here’s To You

Posted on August 25, 2000 by Anne Dunham

I turned into the driveway. A red and white car, early ’80s vintage, blocked the one-lane dirt road that runs about an eighth of a mile from the road to the house. Finally the car’s four young occupants saw me. I backed out so they could clear the drive, and I waved as they passed, asking through our open car windows if everything was alright. They looked sheepish and one of them grinned and said, “Yah.”

There are occasional visitors on the long winding drive. The house, nothing grand, cannot be seen from the road, and the drive looks temptingly like a dirt road to nowhere. But I know where it goes. It leads to views of mountains and valleys and an ocean beyond, a scene that remains much as it has been for hundreds of years. The view never fails to intoxicate me.

I rounded the bend in the drive. What was that I saw on the post? It was red. A plastic cup. And there on the ground the unmistakable reflection of sun on aluminum caught my eye. I parked my car and walked down the drive to the edge of a slope that runs almost straight down more than a thousand feet to the San Andreas Fault.

There was another can tossed on the side of the drive, another in a bush, two or three down the slope and another in the lower limb of a tree. Bud Lite. Looked like the quartet in the drive had demolished a twelve pack. And it became clear I had come across them at the moment they were relieving themselves on their way out the drive.

Across the valley the pines cascaded down the opposite ridge interrupted by occasional steep meadows and rock outcroppings. The sun hung in the west barely touching the horizon, low enough to illuminate the hillsides but leave the valleys and lower slopes in deep shadow. Opposite an almost full moon began peeking through the chaparral.

The sun dropped below the far hill and the moon rose, the two painting the sky and few clouds in sliding colors that changed with each moment. The shadows this pair produced had more hues than I knew dark could paint. I will never drink in enough of this scene.

In the morning I found cans and cups decorating the hill. I gathered them up and took them out with the trash to the end of the drive. There in the bushes was the box–a twenty-four pack–waiting to be added to the lot.

When I was young, I first learned what it meant to be intoxicated. It is a heady feeling. You feel as if you are in charge of the world. And although I soon learned this was far from the truth, I have been glad to find that euphoria exists beyond Bud Lite.

I hope my young friends had a sip of my brew along with their own and will acquire the taste. It’s one I am happy to share with good company.

Humans in the Mist

Posted on August 18, 2000 by Anne Dunham

In winter I wonder if it will ever stop; in summer I wonder when it will start. I’d like a little rain about now. It’s not that there isn’t plenty of water in the air. For the past several days the fog has come in at night, settled in valleys and over the Bay, keeping things cool and comfortable. But I know there are still weeks and months ahead when no rain will fall and even the fog will depart to the open ocean.

During these long hot days of summer, as streams run dry, a longing for water leads many of us to seek out the nearest pool. Just at the time no rains fall to settle in these gigantic holes we have so painstakingly dug, we need more and more water to fill them up. And we need more and more to keep our lawns green, keep our flowers blooming, wash off our perspiration, and keep our cars shiny.

Cleverly, we have devised many ways to capture the rain when it does fall, and we’ve learned to move it to where we want it. We build dams across rivers, fill reservoirs and perc ponds, and dig canals that go through mountains. So far–at least most of the time–things are working well–at least in California.

There’s no doubt that a few things have changed. Fish have departed from rivers now dammed to form artificial lakes. But we farm fish and restock lakes. Underground water levels have dropped and wells have run dry. But most of us no longer rely on wells for our water.

When faced with a challenge, we humans are resourceful at finding a solution. It will be interesting to see what we come up with next as more and more of us need more and more water. Will we learn to extract water from the briny deep or from the fog? Who needs fog anyway?

Well, redwood forests do. And so do banana slugs that live there. Ever notice how the redwood forests grow only where daily fog is common? Redwoods flourish and grow to proportions that astound us because they get plenty of water from fog drip, the water loss from their leaves reduced by misty shade.

But what if we transformed that fog into water? Couldn’t we use that water to put redwood trees wherever we wanted? I remember an article in a Sunset Magazine some years back about homeowners who had established a redwood grove in their backyard in the heart of Sacramento. Pipes ran up the trees and were automated to turn on a mist at night. We could each have our own private forest in our backyard and not have to worry about driving for an hour to Big Basin to picnic in the woods. What an idea!

So what have we got to lose? There would be no more dangerous night driving, no more mornings when you wish you had a sweater, no more misty moonlight, and no more really bizarre looking slugs. Who would miss the fog?

Flocking Together

Posted on August 11, 2000 by Anne Dunham

I have always taken birds for granted. They all looked pretty much the same to me as I was growing up. My grandmother once had a canary, but except for being very colorful, it seemed just like an ordinary bird. Of course, some birds were big than others. In the Midwest there were pheasants in fall. Chickens and turkeys were so domesticated they didn’t really seem like birds at all. On vacations I sometimes saw birds that were unique. They were either in zoos or near oceans. Pelicans and egrets come to mind.

So I was little prepared for the extreme birding I found when I started working for YSI. Early on I learned of a trip a few folks were planning to Marin County. The intent was to see birds, especially hawks, sailing on the updrafts created by the Golden Gate in the stark and beautiful headlands of Marin just above and beyond the Bridge. Thinking this would be a good opportunity to learn a little, I joined the group. I was prepared to walk and talk, look at birds casually, eat lunch, and have a good time with good company.

We arrived at a spot high above the Gate that could only be accessed through prior arrangement. The rest of the crew broke out binoculars that they used as easily as I use the spectacles perched on my nose. They scanned the skies. One of them unloaded a chalkboard on which was written the names of several species of hawk. To me a hawk was a hawk, and I was lucky to know that.

They spotted hawks all right. And they knew their names. Soon they were gleefully tallying their “prey” on the chalkboard. There was good-natured banter as the group tried to keep from counting the same bird twice and tried to identify some of the trickier ones as they soared hundreds of feet above.

An hour passed, and another. I had been discovered as an interloper early on. While this sport continued, I sat on a bench conveniently placed so it looked out to sea and across the strait. It was early afternoon.

Suddenly ships came into sight–many ships. They formed a line steaming straight for the Gate. There passing beneath me were sailing ships from the pages of history books, gray navy ships conjured up in World War II, ships of all shapes and sizes. It was Fleet Week and I had the prize grandstand seat.

As the afternoon wore on, the avian specialists yearned to pursue their sport farther up the peninsula. A spot known to some as a keen one was our destination, and we loaded up to seek it out. What they had not considered was Fleet Week. Traffic was pouring into the City. In order to head the opposite direction, we needed first to cross it. This proved difficult–no, impossible.

We found ourselves in Sausalito, unable to get out. There was nothing to do but stop. We could not go north, and we certainly would get nowhere going south. We ended up on the water’s edge just north of the Bridge. Sitting on the bulkhead, our feet dangling over the Bay, we settled in just as the Blue Angels arrived flying a few feet above the water directly in front of us–under the Bridge.

Now this was some kind of extreme bird watching!

On the Run

Posted on August 4, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Fourteen thousand people lined up at the wharf in Santa Cruz Sunday before last at 8:30 a.m. Within an hour, give or take a little, they would all be in Capitola jamming the streets, crowding the once empty beach, laughing, sweating, jostling for water, listening to the band as they queued up to board buses back to Santa Cruz. What form of midsummer madness was this? This was the Wharf to Wharf, a run billed as “The best little road race in California”. The first fourteen thousand to sign up got a chance to run along the edge of the mighty Pacific from Santa Cruz to Capitola on a gorgeous Sunday in summer. The event had been sold out for more than a month.

Almost every Sunday, and sometimes Saturday, no matter where you are in the country, you will find similar goings on, although usually on a smaller scale. Runners, legs twitching, rise early and hit the road. They run in the sun and in the rain, in the cold and in the heat. They run on beaches, in mountains, and on streets. They run alone or together. Some run for health, or for personal challenge, or for charity, or for pure joy.

I was in Capitola, but not as a runner. I was there to pass out flyers for Ron’s Wildlife Run that takes place at YSI’s Vasona site in September. Talk about targeting your market! There is no better way to find people willing to run than in a crowd of thousands who have just crossed a finish line. Once they cross that line, they know they can and will do it again.

A dozen, or more, boats bobbed off shore. The fog flirted with the sun as the front-runners came through. These elite fleet-of-foot athletes were followed by groups of pursuers and then wave upon wave of ordinary mortals out celebrating the day. Soon my companions and I were passing out flyers as fast as we could to outstretched hands of triumphant runners who were already dreaming of future mornings running, carefree as children, under sunny blue skies.

Putting on a run is not a simple matter, as I have come to find out. YSI has been doing its run in the fall as a fund-raiser for seventeen years, seven of those years before I came to YSI. The success of a run lies largely with the Race Director, and YSI has had some champions at this. Ron Becker, a runner and YSI board member, started the Run in 1984. When he died at far-too-young an age, his friend and fellow runner, Jack Hubby, joined the board and took over as race director.

What is involved in putting on event that attracts eight hundred runners? Well, there are permits and sponsors, publicity and porta-potties, shuttle buses and volunteers, food and drink, emergency services and public address systems, traffic cones and police, registration forms and timers, course measurements and banners, just to name a few things. And every year in the weeks before the run, Jack, who coordinates all this as a volunteer, threatens never to do it again.

But like the runners in Capitola on Sunday, when he reaches the finish line, Jack always knows he can and will do it again.

Ron’s Wildlife Run, a timed 10K run, 5K run/walk, and 2K for kids will be Sunday, September 17, at Vasona Park in Los Gatos. For registration forms or information: (408) 356-4945 or www.ysi-ca.org

Meltdown

Posted on July 30, 2000 by Anne Dunham

It is one hundred in the shade and the world is melting down at least, I am. The power is down. There is no air-conditioning, no phone system, no computer network and no lights. This happens–and frequently–when the temperature makes things sizzle and everyone everywhere turns the air-conditioning to high cool. The power system simply says, “No more.” Today the outage, not the heat wave, has been planned. PG&E is systematically turning off power for a few hours here, then a few hours there, in an organized way rather than letting it crash on its own.

Through my open office door I can hear the voices of children engaged in a dinosaur program. The windows are closed to let in the light and keep out the heat as long as possible. The students are learning about the lives of that diverse group of creatures who lived at a time when sea plants and animals started turning into the power supply that is so obviously absent today.

The remains of those creatures, minute to gigantic, that lived long ago shoulder the power supply we have come to take for granted. Here we are millions of years later relying on animals and plants that lived so long ago we can hardly imagine it. Those animals have become beasts of burden carrying our power needs on their backs. It is only when that power suddenly vanishes that we realize our reliance on things past.

I think of the fish in their tanks in the other room with the kids. The pumps that supply air to the water that makes their lives possible have ceased. The “lakes” or “ponds” their aquaria provide for them are small. They can heat up as fast as an ice cube can melt in a glass of water on a warm day. In weather this hot, the water may warm up so much in an afternoon it will spell death for the fish.

If they die, the fish in our aquaria will not fall and decay on the bottom of the ocean. They will not be buried and pressed under layers of sediment. They will not be baked by the heat deep beneath the earth’s mantle. They will not turn into petroleum. If they die, they will end up in the dump. Deposited in the garbage, taken to the landfill, they will be unceremoniously plowed under.

But what of that dump with its amazing remains of our population gone wild? Will it not, in a time period equal to that since the dinosaurs, go down under? Be buried and pressed? Be heated and baked? Be trapped in a layer and transformed far beneath the new earth? What will it become, the old sofas and lampshades, computers and cars, diapers and license plates, toilets and tires–and fish–melted and mixed? Will this amalgam some millions of years from now form a substance to power mighty cities?

The lights are back on. The children are gone, the fish still alive. The temperature is dropping. But still I know the melt down continues.

Out of This World

Posted on July 28, 2000 by Anne Dunham

The stars are out, and it is a good thing. Sixty people, adults and children, have gathered on the lawn to consider things that are out of this world. Telescopes stand sentinel in the parking lot. In the twilight the group sits on blankets and tarps to listen to Ralph Libby, YSI’s astronomer extraordinaire, speak of space, of stars, of stories and time beyond imagining.

Four telescopes, as well as a pair of gigantic binoculars on a tripod, each a little different from the next, point skyward. There are the refractors, the long skinny tubes that most of us think of when we hear the word “telescope”. And there are short stout reflectors gathering and reflecting light with large parabolic mirrors. One has a built in computer that can be set to track points of light as they–or more accurately we–move across the night sky.

How extraordinary these scientific gadgets are that let us see back into time. They are fascinating to fool with, to understand, to look through. They transform the heavens.

We eat watermelon and wait for the stars.

Daylight fades. Points of light pierce the gathering darkness. First one, then five, then many, until the eastern sky is covered. A few bats fly erratically in the space between the fading light and us. We begin to fall silent, even the kids. The stars are working their magic.

A line forms at each scope. There is talk of constellations, of planets, of comets and asteroids. On this moonless night the Milky Way washes across the sky in a broad fuzzy band. A satellite moves quickly through the stars. What seemed like an incomprehensible sky full of stars begins to take form and shape. Patterns are discovered, colors discerned. The heavens have come alive.

Stars are as individual as the members of this group watching them.

There is the cluster. At some point in space thousands of stars, or maybe more, are grouped together. So dim any one would never be noticed, as a group they glow like an misty ball.

There is Alberio, the double star. Two stars rotate around each other in a spatial embrace–an elegant and precise ballet. One is truly red and the other blue.

Even stars are not forever. The Ring Nebula is sighted. This star exploded many light years ago leaving a dying core to live on. The explosion sent gasses far out into space. The layer of expanding gas was illuminated from within by the dying core and glows with eerie beauty forming a green halo around its fading source. Has this star burned out yet? Who will see its end, years hence, when the last light reaches Earth?

A few have not moved from their blankets. They lie on their backs looking up, lost in a realm beyond science. All of the stars belong to each of us–on this planet. They are part of our music, our dance, our architecture, our history, our stories, our science, our lives on this Earth. Do they belong to others on other planets as well?

The stars are out, and it is a good thing.

Playing with Fire

Posted on July 21, 2000 by Anne Dunham

From May to July the hills of California change from yellow-green to shadowy gold. Leaves toughen sealing in moisture. Chaparral turns to dusty green. The beauty of these sere hillsides is an acquired taste for those from lands more lush. But beautiful they are–and treacherous. Dry as kindling, they can ignite in an instant.

I have lived in these hills for several decades. It is hard to imagine living anywhere else. But in living thus one learns to live with fire, or at least its possibility. On four occasions over the years fires have started in spots close enough to home to make me wonder. What would I take? What would I leave if I had to flee?

Three times the fires were extinguished before they grew too large. They were ridge fires. From them I learned that fires burn uphill.

The fourth time a fire started halfway down the mountain. It had plenty of fuel above it. That fire, on an incline so steep and rocky that footholds were scarce, came within a few feet of a house on the ledge above. It was still more than a mile away from me, but that time I started to pack my car.

Last Sunday was one of those days that make you wish summer would last forever, the kind of day that defines “leisure”. I spent the day catching up on odds and ends of unfinished projects–planting beans, watching tadpoles, reading magazines, touching up some of the paint on a newly built studio.

It was about four o’clock when I embarked on this last project. The studio, located in the garden, is next to the fence and on the property line. Beyond it, outside the fence, is chaparral that climbs a small hill on which sit county communication towers relaying important messages far and wide. This is where information about cops and robbers, accidents and ambulances, floods and, yes, fire streams endlessly.

I was in the studio with the windows open thinking about heaven-only-knows-what or maybe nothing at all. A sound started slowly washing in on me. Was it a crackling sound? It was too early to be barbecuing. I was confused. I heard shouting. I went outside and looked up at the house. I saw nothing. I turned around. There it was. Fire! No more than a hundred yards away on top of the hill. Flames more than three stories high danced in the air. So, this was to be it.

Years of living with the thought had prepared me well. I called 911 and found help was on the way. I went to the house and announced the fire and we started loading up. A few clothes, the file drawer with insurance records, my laptop, the cat carrier ready to scoop up the cat at the last minute. I looked around. That was it. The rest was replaceable.

With that done I went out to watch the fire. A helicopter circled overhead. The first of four fire trucks had arrived. The flames went straight up. There was not a breath of wind.

Gradually the flames subsided. I walked up to see the smoking embers as fire crews wet down the last embers of the blaze.

Time to go home and unpack the car.

Lazy Days of Summer

Posted on July 14, 2000 by Anne Dunham

The pace softens by the Fourth of July. Days are warm. The sun has sung the world to life. It is time to sit and watch.

A scrub jay has discovered a treasure. What it is I am not quite sure. It looks like a nut or an oak gall. Whatever it is, he is determined to crack it open. He stands on a board by the driveway and hammers the thing against it. He attracts the attention of five other jays and of me, but the object remains unbroken. The other jays look on with interest, appearing to covet his treasure. One hops up to him on the ground close enough to grab the thing should he drop it. The others hover above in the tree, advising and scolding, or maybe taunting and teasing. He puts it down with a foot on it and repeatedly rams his beak against it in skull-shaking attempts to break it open. Finally, failing thus far, he flies away with it.

Within less than a minute a rabbit appears to take his place. She jumps a few feet down the drive, turns and jumps back. She turns again and retraces her path. Another rabbit appears. It too hops about at leisurely pace seeming to have nothing particular in mind.

Quail appear one by one out of the brush. The first, a male, takes up a watch. He looks nervously in all directions. Finally, when all seems clear, another quail appears, and then another and another. Adult quail lead the way, eight or ten in all, headed for our small pond. Then a mad scramble begins. Chicks covered with fluff and no larger than a tablespoon tumble down the hill. Surely on their first outing, they are carefully herded and ringed by their elders, each taking a vantage point in the outer circle around their small charges. They take turns drinking, fussing all the while.

At the end of the drive a small deer ambles by. No more than four feet at its head, it has two furry numbs where antlers will be. It strolls down the dirt drive and effortlessly springs up an almost sheer cut.

On the surface of the pond water striders dart about. A few weeks ago there were many not yet fully grown. Now there are a few large striders and dozens of miniatures.

Beneath the surface bloated tadpoles gulp down particles so minute they can hardly be seen. Here and there a few of them are beginning to sprout legs.

Yesterday evening I saw a rattlesnake coiled in the sun at the end of the drive. He startled me as much as I startled him. But he has vanished. I hope we have mutely decided to stay out of each other’s territory.

I wonder, as I watch these animals, if they are watching me as I watch them. Can they hope that I will live peacefully in their space as I hope they will live peacefully in mine?

For now I only know it is July. It is time to sit and watch.

Hot Spot

Posted on July 7, 2000 by Anne Dunham

It was an early morning in summer. The sun was only a few degrees above the horizon. The fog that had settled in the valleys during the night was beginning to fray at the edges. Mountains pushed through the fog into a bright blue dawn. It would be a warm summer day.

The sun appeared and disappeared, a round moon-sized disk in the fog. In this light the sun appeared benign, it’s fire tempered by the morning mists. But this ethereal specter would not last for long.

My travels that morning took me to a middle school in the Almaden Valley. School was out for the summer, but in the common space at the heart of the school the bulletin boards, display cases, and glass office windows still carried the remnants of the year’s end. I wandered around looking at the lists of scholars, pictures of cheerleaders, photos of parties, artwork of talented young sculptors, and menus served up in the final days of the school year.

The faces of the students who had recently hung out in these halls peered out in photos of triumphs and pranks captured for all to see. I thought of the first two years I taught school. It was in a middle school, then called a junior high, in the Midwest. I thought of my own junior high years. I would never want to live them again, but what exciting and challenging years they were.

Middle schoolers are fearless. They are in the process of becoming, and to do this they must try on many things. It is not easy. I saw the sun outside, coming and going in the fog, finally emerging in a brilliance not matched by anything else in our solar system. It is this kind of radiance that teenagers seek, a unique and personal brilliance that marks them as one of a kind.

Like the sun with its spots and solar flares, there may be eruptions in the process of becoming that are unpredictable and difficult to explain. Sometimes these eruptions are monumental. They may wreak havoc and have effects that are far reaching like solar storms that send a hail of magnetic energy showering down on Earth and planets far beyond. Names like Jonesboro, Springfield and Columbine come to mind. But these are rare.

More often the storms that mark these volatile years are like the spots that travel across the face of the sun. Cool and dark they indicate something that is going on beneath the surface–something not easily understood. But they pass. And the child we once knew emerges, changed but not different, ready to shine and to orbit the earth.

The fog outside had vanished leaving only a few white puffs drifting across the sky casting an occasional shadow. A cat, stretched out in the sunshine, awakened, licked its paw and moved into the shade of a tree. A boy of about fourteen rode a skateboard across the parking lot, off the curb, and jumped high in the air while whirling around, his skateboard seeming to be glued to his feet. How did he do that?

Common Ground

Posted on June 23, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Splashes of bright, even garish, yellow punctuated the chaparral on the hillside. The color was an anomaly. It was from a completely different palette than that of the chamise, buck brush, and manzanita. French broom provided this brilliant jolt. Broom is not a California native. It has not learned how to fit in, to relax California-style and blend comfortably with the lives of the plants and animals that surround it. It is fierce, vigorous, rampant and raucous. Nothing can stop it.

Pampas grass bursts up in fountains of foamy seed heads along shores and inland valleys. It washes in waves up coastal hills shaping the land. It replaces the plants once blanketing the slopes leaving little to eat for those creatures whose larders it has overrun. Its name declares its place of origin.

Star thistle covers hillsides where cattle graze, outlines back roads, fills lots left vacant. Thorns bristle like spikes on a mace around flowers of bright clear yellow. This nomad from Europe is foreign and friendless. It cannot be approached or trod upon lightly.

These waywards have their animal counterparts, creatures from a distant soil—bullfrogs, starlings, the red fox. They disrupt the natural order of things as have all intruders since time began. They devour land and destroy forage providing nothing in return. They have no predators and can move swiftly, and so the upstarts thrive.

But what is a native? To be a California native, and brag about it, for humankind means simply to have been born here. Most California natives these days are not Native Americans even though they are native to America by birth. To be a Native American one’s ancestors had to have been part of the human migration that came from Asia when it was connected, or nearly so, to Alaska by a bridge of land.

Native or not, we are all here to stay. There is no way to get rid of any of us–the thistle, the bull frog–or me, the native Iowan with ancestors from Scotland and Wales. Surely time will have its way with all of us, and we will settle into middle age. No longer the aggressive newcomer, we will have found, or been put in, our place.

The eucalypts, those adaptable Australians so favored a century ago, have come on such times. Having been here for decades, they have lived in our midst long enough to have become tolerated, if not comfortable, neighbors living peacefully like fugitives in a foreign land. But they could not hide out here forever. At last Australian psyllids, small bugs that fly from tree to tree and suck eucalyptus sap for refreshment, have found them. What happenstance reunited these Americanized eucalypts with their now-foreign foe? A chance reunion, no doubt.

Life is aggressive, not passive. It looks out for its own. Native–the word itself–permits an opposite, an intruder, a foreigner, or foe. Will a time come when we, as native Earthlings, find we have more common ground than we know?

One More Time

Posted on June 16, 2000 by Anne Dunham

The day was hot, unseasonably so. I was downtown and had another appointment in two hours. There was enough time to grab a bite to eat after the noon rush. But that left me with about an hour to kill. Not time to do much, but too much time to do nothing.

I walked toward Caesar Chavez Plaza mulling over several options I could choose to pass the time. Easily within walking distance were the Tech, the Children’s Discovery Museum, the Quilt Museum, and the San Jose Art Museum. Each offered unique, intriguing, and unstructured possibilities.

I have been to each and at last decided on the Art Museum. The Whitney Landscapes Collection was still there but would be leaving soon. Although I had seen it, I knew there would be new exhibits in the other galleries.

I entered the museum and decided to stroll quickly through the Whitney one more time. My brisk gait slowed as I walked through the galleries. Paintings that I recognized halted me as I reconsidered them. Details not remembered suddenly caught my eye. Others less familiar began to take on meaning. A few–notably the striking landscapes of New Mexico by Georgia O’Keefe and Marsden Hartley–stopped me in my tracks. Since last I saw them, I had visited this land of enchantment and the shapes and colors in these paintings resonated strongly in my memory.

My quick stroll turned into leisurely meandering. I, once again, wandered through the galleries entranced. Time stood still. Visions drifted through my head. I left having easily consumed my extra hour.

Across the street, the fountain in the Plaza–that magnificently accessible collection of columns of water erupting right out of the earth–perfectly punctuated the heat of the day. The water shot up from the pavement to about the height of a fifth-grader. I sat on a bench at the edge of the park and watched as children, teenagers, adults splashed in the spray, ran through the geysers, laughed, screeched, and screamed in delight.

The columns increased, shooting high in the air. This re-creation of the sprinklers I had run through in my youth tempted me. The day was hot enough that had I been at my leisure, I would have joined in. I knew what it felt like to get soaked in such heat, to have water dripping off your nose and your ears, to have your soggy clothes cling to your body. I was ready to do it again.

Two ordinary events in an ordinary day, but far removed from commonplace. For these occurrences the modern phrase “been there, done that” with its implication of “Nevermore” did not apply.

There are many things I have not done. I am always ready for a new experience. But taking pleasure in repeated events and travelling familiar territory with a mental road map already in place is itself a fresh experience. Most of the time to “Been there, done that”, I would add “…and would do it again”.

Happy Birthday to You

Posted on June 2, 2000 by Anne Dunham

MIKE LOVES BRENDA was emblazoned in bright pink and purple letters across a board that dangled from a power pole as I drove to work in the morning. Then on the stop sign another: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRENDA. Another mile down the road and Mike once again declared his love, and yet one more time on the freeway on-ramp where she would be sure to see it.

The annual outpouring of sentiment that falls on the date of one’s birth attracts attention to the all too short span of human life. We have ticked off another percentage point in our allotted years. Even when there are only cards or good wishes to mark our milestones, we often protest any attention we receive while secretly loving it, or we may be genuinely dismayed to, once again, have it brought to our attention that our time is limited. Our reaction to the passing of the year may depend on what we have accomplished, or failed to, in the intervening time.

In youth, a year is a long time. Years are almost always filled with growth and change. Lessons are learned; new doors are opened. We rejoice that the young have lived through another year with all its perils and hazards. Life, we know, is precarious. Birthdays are a chance to celebrate endurance.

As with individuals, the first year of a business is a precarious one too. Many do not survive, even those with the most promise. But when they do, it is, indeed, cause for celebration.

One such business has not only survived its first year, it has emerged alive and well, vigorous and growing. East, The Neighborhood Voice, put out its first issue on June 3, 1999. How exciting it has been to watch it grow. And what fun it has been to be part of it.

Jason Rodriguez, the publisher, and Jeff Butler, the editor, embarked on a great adventure just a year ago with the first edition of the East. Neither had undertaken such a project before. What a bold move to venture forth into territory that is open to so much public scrutiny.

But they have captured the spirit of the Eastside. They, and those of you who read and contribute to the East, have created a weekly chronicle of what it’s like to be part of a fully alive, rollicking, frolicking, neighborhood where diversity and discussion is not just tolerated, but encouraged. This anniversary is a time to consider all that has been accomplished.

Whether you celebrate birthdays with ice cream and cake or kung pao chicken and Diet Coke, have some, and raise a glass in tribute to the East this week. Salute those who have taken the risk to bring you the good news from the neighborhood; those who have celebrated the businesses, the students, the land, the issues, and the people that surround you.

And, if you seem so inclined, hang up a card for them in front of your house, on the nearest telephone pole, on your car, or in your window.

From all of us at YSI

HAPPY BIRTHDAY. YSI LOVES the EAST!

What’s Bugging You?

Posted on May 19, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Many people feel the only good bug is a dead bug. My mother is one of those. She will shriek if she spots a cricket. And indeed, it is difficult to find much good press for some bugs. Take mosquitoes, for example. Even the scientific literature can find only secondary value for these pests. (They are at least food for other species.)

But life in the insect world, as everywhere, is not that simple. Bugs–scientifically known as arthropods–have roles that, while not conspicuous, are vital. Consider the vast number of plants and animals that have lived and died before we got here. Where are they now? What if their bones, carcasses, and substance were still lying around? Where has all this gone? Decomposers are an important group of the animal kingdom. Insects can achieve overwhelming feats that would be difficult for any of us to tackle. They move silently and unnoticed much of the time undertaking the job of cleaning up the dead plants and animals that litter the planet, often consuming the parts left behind by larger animals.

I witnessed the amazing job some tiny dermestid beetles were doing on the skeleton of a fox at the Youth Science Institute (YSI). The role of these beetles is to clean up old bones. Eggs laid on the skeleton had hatched into larvae that were feeding on the seemingly inert and unyielding bones. Right before my eyes a specimen that seemed to be impervious to the ravages of time was being consumed mouthful by tiny mouthful. Moth holes in favorite sweaters and termite weakened houses give ample testimony to the diversity of dietary needs among the more that 700,000 kinds of insects in world.

The role of insects as pollinators is widely known. Probably not a day goes by that you don’t eat something that has required the services of an industrious bee or other insect. And, of course, there are the silk blouses and ties that come to you compliments of the world of arthropods.

But not all bugs are good bugs either. And this good-bug, bad-bug business is, after all, just a human notion. Plagues of locusts and medflys, mosquitoes carrying malaria and ticks spreading Lyme disease, tomato horn worms and cabbage beetles all set about their business, and at times their business interferes with people’s lives.

So what should you do about the bug dilemma? There are poisons that can kill the “bad” bugs. Sometimes they work, at least temporarily. Often they backfire and kill or poison more than the “bad” bugs. Sometimes the “bad” bugs resist and become stronger bugs. And, very occasionally, the “bad” bugs can kill you. Who told you the world has easy answers?

The Youth Science Institute’s annual Insect Fair will be held at Sanborn Park, May 20, 10-4. Admission free to YSI members; non-members, adults $3, children $1; county parking fee $4/vehicle. Sanborn Park is located on Sanborn Road off Highway 9, just 3 miles from downtown Saratoga. For more information call (408) 867-6940 or (408) 356-4945.

Blue-mers

Posted on May 5, 2000 by Anne Dunham

They’re everywhere–on teenagers, farmers, middle-aged women, dockworkers, and even on business folk. They’re the symbol of America. Hardly a closet in the nation is without at least one pair of blue jeans.

If there is anywhere a uniform that establishes firmly that all women and men are created equal, it is the one made out of indigo-dyed denim. This hard-working cotton twill garment is hardly a fad, although it has had its moments. Like the sturdy folk who settled in this land sometimes far from the soil on which they were raised, jeans endure.

They are made from simple ingredients. And while no one these days gives half a thought to the jeans in their wardrobe, life has not always been thus.

Cotton, grown in cheap abundance for centuries, spun fine is the basis for this humble apparel. The journey this plant makes from the field to the form once required many hands.

Fields were tilled with mule and plow. Seeds were planted by hand. When the plant’s wide yellow flowers faded and seeds developed surrounded by a fluffy white boll, the seed heads were gathered in sacks dragged by the slaves of the land. The seeds buried deep and clinging to fluff were removed one by one in the dusk of an evening. Drop spindles twirled or spinning wheels whirred as endless threads were spun to make cloth.

Such efforts demanded long-lasting results. The weavers in Neims, a medieval town in France, made a cloth that was sturdy. Each fine strand crossed over two allowing threads to be packed tightly together. Easily identified by its distinct sloping line, it became known far and wide as the cloth “de Neims”. And so it remains; our “denim” was born.

For thousands of years plants have been used to produce colors for dyes. Indigo, found in plants from China to Africa, produces a blue that is both economical and beautiful. For the hardworking sailors of Genoa, from a time when Italy did not exist except as a collection of regions, denim was woven with the two threads of the warp dyed with indigo blue. For time and economy the threads that they crossed remained undyed white. Pants from this cloth with the dark surface up soaked up the sun, which allowed sailors trousers made wet by the sea to dry faster. From these Genoese seamen comes the name we have adopted for this tough apparel. Jeans.

Jeans, now a symbol of America, of equality, of democracy, of hard work and endurance, have roots far beyond the boundaries of our land. Take a fresh look at those jeans as you put your legs in one by one, the white side in, the blue side out. In a world where little remains of the past and little is passed on to the future, they represent a link to our ancestors and a legacy to our heirs, a common ground where the rich and poor, the native and the emigrant have no quarrel. While nothing is forever or for everyone, jeans come close.

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