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

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.

Nature’s Other Green

Posted on May 12, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Money, and where to find it, may occupy the human mind more than any other topic. Although everyone realizes that it is the means to an end, not an end in itself, it has become the first argument in many of life’s equations. These days money buys goods; it buys power; it buys time–and it buys summer camps for kids.

This year YSI has sought and received grant money from the Sierra Club for summer camps for children who normally would not be able to attend them. The Sierra Club is often in the forefront of controversial issues concerning the earth and its uses. But it has a softer side. One of its primary missions is to help connect people with the earth so that they will want to care for it wisely. They reason that people need to know the earth in order to want to care for it.

In the for-profit world money creates a bottom line that drives decisions. It is the force that creates or destroys jobs, that causes a business to prosper or to fail, that attracts or denies investment dollars.

In the non-profit world money plays a similar role. The major difference is that the bottom line is not measured in dollars returned to the individual investor, but in services, like summer camps and school programs, returned to the community as a whole.

Even though YSI–like many non-profits–charges a fee for its services, that fee does not come close to covering the costs of the service. So YSI, like most non-profits, must seek financial “investments” from other sources. Grant money is one of these sources.

The Sierra Club has made grant money available to organizations such as YSI that help young people connect with the world. YSI has received a $28,000 grant to give 120 children who could not otherwise afford it a chance to have a week outdoors in a summer science camp.

YSI summer camps are available for a $5 administrative fee at Alum Rock Park’s Youth Science Institute for children ages 3 through 6th grade who are from families that qualify for the school lunch program. The camps, which run throughout the summer, are for one week starting at 9:00 a.m. and lasting two and a half to four hours, depending on the age of the child. Transportation to and from Alum Rock Park must be provided. If you are aware of children who would qualify for this summer opportunity, please call YSI at (408) 258-4322.

Every year James Lick High School provides a Death Valley trip for its students. They spend a week learning the ways of the earth. One of the participants one year said that the thing she liked most about that trip was that when she was close to the earth, it was the first time she had ever felt safe. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could return the favor? What a great thing for money to buy!

View camp information at http://www.ysi-ca.org or call for a brochure (408) 356-4945.

Something In The Air

Posted on March 31, 2000 by Anne Dunham

I know—or thought I knew—what wind, big wind, is like. Living in the mountains, I have
experienced the full force of a winter storm sweeping in across a broad ocean, no obstacle impairing its progress until it slams into a mountain. The winds, driven upward, gain in momentum wringing the rain from the clouds. It “falls” horizontally. Birds trying to fly in the face of the storm hang momentarily suspended in air, until the effort of trying to
simply hold steady becomes too great and they take shelter to ride out the storm. The wind obliterates all, driving rain and fog across the sky, reducing visibility to inches.

There was some wind, but not big wind, as I headed south, bound for L.A. Trees along the
road tossed about in the breeze. The sky and the air were transparent and bright. No hint
of a storm or even a cloud could be seen in any direction. I took 101, the road less traveled, rather than I-5 so I could stop and visit a friend

As I broke through to the coast at San Luis the ocean sparkled. At Santa Barbara the
islands in the channel loomed out of the sea, distant and hazy but clearly visible in the
noonday sun.

Beyond Ventura I headed southeast, straight for the heart of the city. The palm trees, now
in abundance, tossed and swayed. Occasional palm fronds dropped and sailed through the air. Debris began to litter the sides of the freeway.

In the bright alleys downtown created by buildings that tower like palms in an orange
grove, life continued as usual. Men in suits, even ties, hurried along. Women of fashion
emerged from cars that had never been driven in mud or had crackers ground into their
carpets. Wind was not part of their lives.

But leaving these canyons of shadow, I turned down a street crowded with vendors and
commerce. And there at the end of the block where wares and humanity jostled each other for attention I could see them—mountains, gorgeous mountains. Snow covered, the ones in the backdrop–as bright and white as a mountain could be. So this was the work of the wind! It made mountains while no one was looking.

I left and headed straight for them. By now evening was falling. Always at home with
mountains, I grabbed a quick supper near their base. The restaurant had been thirty years
in the area and had tales of the town and its mountain. But all the while I was eating, the
wind carried on. It created below me a city with lights sparkling brightly as far as the
eye could see. To the west a blackness of ocean, to the east a silver moon, the full moon
of the equinox rising over the shape of the mountains, playing black palms on a navy sky.

And then I heard. These were the Santa Anas, the great winds of legend. And they were not done with me yet. At three in the morning I woke. A roar filled the night. I opened the
curtain. Trees twisted and writhed, branches flew through the air, something on the roof
broke lose, bounced across the surface and fell to the pavement below. The Santa Anas were signing their work, and I looked forward to reading their script in the morning.

Birds of A Feather

Posted on March 24, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Cormorant with outspread wings on a rock in the lake

All nature takes the plunge into Spring

I felt like a cat stretching out in the sunlight as I walked along the creek on a brilliant March day. When fall turns to winter my whole being curls inward for warmth. Both mind and body contract, protecting the soft inner core of my being against an increasingly alien environment. I am content to stay with the cat not far from the fire. The months of cool–sometimes cold–damp days had narrowed my vision. But this first burst of spring erupting from the cold pool of days made me unfold more rapidly than a snowflake melts in a sunbeam.

I was not the only one on this balmy Sunday to come alive, throw open the doors and the windows, head for the sunlight. There were hikers, bikers, roller-bladers, shoppers, gardeners, runners, and lovers everywhere. Nine and ten-year olds played softball in the park. Volleyball nets were raised. Smoke from a few backyard barbecues curled skyward.

These early days of first spring distill the sometimes subtle, but delicious, flavors the season offers. Spring is a time to relax the body and unfurl the spirit. As daylight and warmth beckons, anything seems possible. I can believe I will have time to plant the garden, paint the house, take weekend trips to the city and the country, wash the car, go to the park, visit oft-neglected friends, hang up the hammock, nap in the sun. The list is endless.

Everywhere the impossible seemed possible. A poppy had taken root in a crack in the concrete of the bridge spanning the creek. It grew more vigorously than it might in a well-tended garden. The creek, funneling the most recent rains along its rocky bed, was alive with aerial displays of birds and insects intoxicated by the sunlight. On a large rock a cormorant perched putting on a show that clearly mirrored my feeling.

The bird, obviously a regular (I could tell by the wash of white on the large boulder it claimed) dove into the torrent, popped up a few yards downstream and flew back to the sunny rock. A shimmy traveled down its body from head to tail sending droplets of water flying in all directions. Two or three more shakes and a waggle loosened its feathers. As it stood soaking up sun, it slowly turned from sleek to plump, gradually settling on the rock until it stood without twitching a feather. After several minutes this reverie ended. With a shift in position it turned toward the sun and lifted its wings. And there it stood, fully outstretched, motionless, sharing a day we all understood.

Spring may be my favorite season. But I know I am fickle. Give me some months and I’ll trade it for summer. And maybe, in time, I’ll yet long for winter. But cats, cormorants, poppies, lovers, children and I know when days grow long and sun shines bright, the time has come to stretch out for the light.

Seeing Green

Posted on March 17, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Soon to be on the beaten path?

The Irish know a thing or two about marketing. First there is green. It appears even in food–like cabbage and beer. There are evocative logos–leprechauns, shamrocks, harps. At this time of the year wearin’ o’ the green becomes obligatory even for those whose roots are far removed from the “old sod”.

All of this ballyhoo comes at an appropriate time of the year. Our very own hills wear Irish green for a few brief months. Since many of us have willfully chosen to join our Irish friends in their celebration of all things green, why not extend this clever marketing to a celebration our own “new sod”?

Wherever you are in the South Bay, if you raise your eyes slightly, you will see voluptuous green hills–hills that, for the most part, remain unaltered by human hands. This is partly because it is more difficult to build on a slope than flat land. But it is largely due to the vision of many who have sought for years to preserve this lovely sight for anyone who wishes to gaze on it.

The recent acquisition of the Kirk Ranch, adjacent to Alum Rock Park, by the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority and the Trust for Public Lands adds another piece to the jigsaw puzzle of hillside properties, in hands both public and private, that ring the Bay.

A Bay Area Ridge Trail encompassing four hundred miles, nine counties, seventy-five parks, that completely circles San Francisco Bay has been in the works for many years. In earlier years the Department of the Interior provided startup money for this ambitious dream. More recently many local groups have collaborated in continuing the project. Two hundred twenty miles of trails have been completed so far.

What a gigantic endeavor this is! Some of the land has been purchased at fair market value by private donation. Some is public land, parks and open space. Some of the trail is on right-of-way agreed to by private owners. And the trail itself, sometimes wrested from seemingly impassable terrain, has been built or maintained by a cross-section of humanity that defies demographic definition.

Clark Smith, a former YSI Board member, currently serves on the Ridge Trail Council. As one of those committed to preserving the green for all to enjoy, he serves as vice-chair of the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority. He is but one of hundreds who have spent years bringing the hills to the people and this Saturday he will take the people to the hills. At noon on Saturday, March 18th, anyone who wishes can take a hike with him along Penitencia Creek on a part of the Trail that will eventually link Alum Rock Park to Coyote Hellyer Park along Coyote Creek.

Even if you aren’t a Bailey or a Walsh, even if you never have and never will quaff a green brew or wear a shamrock, consider the green, green hills of home. They are yours. Wearin’ o’ the green never looked as good as it does on our very own Bay Area hills.

To hike the hills this Saturday, meet at the Visitors’ Center in Alum Rock Park at noon for a moderate hike. Bring lunch, water, and comfortable walking shoes. Rain cancels. For more information call Clark Smith (408) 294-6008.

Spring Starts Small

Posted on March 10, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Two round spots of lichen growing on a rock

If you blink, you might miss them—lichens show a sign of Spring

Sometime in January a hint of green appeared on the brown plastic doormat leading into the house. The moisture and cool air had started something growing in this otherwise inhospitable environment. The mat covered a concrete porch several steps above the ground. Kept dry by a roof and on the sheltered side of the house, it hardly seemed a fertile spot for abundant plant life.

A few weeks later visible but miniscule plants began punctuating the now-bright green film with tiny first leaves barely clearing the surface of the mat. This rectangle began to take on the appearance of a well-tended garden albeit on a tiny scale.

My curiosity piqued, I turned to other specimens in the miniature world I rarely notice and would never know without my glasses. I began to notice lichens and mushrooms, insects and algae. There are mildews and mosses, tadpoles and larvae everywhere. Some of this life will grow to become recognizable plants and animals–frogs, dragonflies, chanterelles, or poppies. But some will remain small–even microscopic–in a part of the world where I rarely venture.

For many years I have been watching the slow growth of a lichen colony on a sheer rock wall along the road I travel daily. I first noticed it as a gray-white quarter-sized patch that glowed with eerie fluorescence at night at exactly the spot where my headlights landed as I rounded a bend in the road. I have heard that lichens can be used as an indicator of the presence or absence of air pollution. They disappear totally in areas of heavy pollution. So I have adopted this colony as my own personal monitor of the quality of the air I breathe.

It always heartens me when I spy it. And, I am happy to report it has been growing, although at such a rate I would never know if I hadn’t been monitoring it for decades. It has achieved a diameter of almost four inches in the course of twenty years. During cool moist winter it plumps up, swells ever so slightly, and ends up a little larger in the spring than it was in the fall, somehow binding itself firmly to this uncompromising surface. In summer it dries out and looks like a scaly scab on the iron-red rock.

Other mosses and lichens, some orange and chartreuse, decorate the brown skeletal frames of the trees that are dripping with rain. The tree on the patio is now clad in mossy elegance on the side away from the sun. This velvet robe in rich green points north as clearly as a compass. The regal raiment turns shabby and brown in the summer, more burlap than velvet, waiting to be revived with the first rains of winter.

These tiny life forms are as distant as the stars from my world in both size and conception. They too speak of space imagined but not understood. But in them the richness of spring is apparent. Ephemeral or enduring, their size only hints at the changes to come.

Deer Friends

Posted on March 3, 2000 by Anne Dunham

I first noticed it about three years ago—the horse down the road had company. The horse belonged to neighbors who kept it in a meadow which occupied a flat at the top of the ridge. A young deer stood munching contently in a far corner having its fill of the tender spring grass. The meadow was partially ringed with four courses of sagging barbed wire, a fence that sufficed to keep the horse from wandering but was hardly a barrier to a nimble deer.

Making friends and just horsing around.

The house faced into the meadow and secured one side of the enclosure. There was no doubt that the horse was part of the family. In the early morning I would see it, its two front hooves resting on the stoop, waiting quietly for the door to open. I was into this familiar setting that the young deer wandered.

This singular sight was repeated many times in the next few months when I happened by at the right hour. That hour seemed to be when full sunlight warmed the glade. Normally the deer of the mountain come out in late twilight and bolt at the sight of a car. But this deer, fully exposed in the daylight, scarcely raised its head as I sailed by. Was the protection of the fence—or the horse—enough to overcome the inborn caution of a skittish deer?

Day by day the deer inched closer to the horse. Eventually the doe, now full grown and about half the size of the horse, could be seen grazing head to head with it, each apparently fully at ease in the other’s company.

The following year the horse was joined by more deer, some not yet fully grown. Were these the offspring of the doe who first took liberties in the meadow? By the third year the place was alive with deer—and the single horse. A sense of peace pervaded the meadow. No longer did the horse stand impatiently on the stoop waiting for company.

History is filled with such tales of unlikely alliances and in congruent pictures. It seems we animals share more than we sometimes realize. Was there a bond or simply a tolerance that developed between the horse and the deer? Or was there indifference in the face of abundance?

And then there is the aquatic tank at YSI in Vasona Park where the Western pond turtle frequently perches on top of the bullfrog for hours on end. The bullfrog, faster, larger and with powerful leg muscles, could certainly avoid this subservient posture or even hurl the turtle off if it chose. What is there in it for the turtle to ride atop the frog in this fashion? Why does the bullfrog comply? What force creates such cozy familiarity?

There is a lot that goes on in this world we know very little about. As for teaching tolerance, maybe there is a thing or two we could learn from others in our kingdom. A little horse sense never hurt anyone.

And The Rains Came

Posted on February 25, 2000 by Anne Dunham

It seemed like it had been raining forever. The rain dripped off my nose. My shoes slurped with each step. Like most people I welcomed the rain. I know what it means to have too little. During the seven-year drought, our well ran dry. But after more than six inches in as many days the ground was saturated. What came down was now running off as fast as it fell taking whatever it could with it.

Each drop in the bucket carries us downstream

A trickle ran down from the trail beyond the house and into the driveway. It knifed its way through the gravel exposing the soft rock below. It collected creating an ever-deepening puddle. The puddle spilled over becoming a rivulet that cut into the lower edge of the drive carving a jagged notch before it ran down through the chaparral below.

Down the hill other freshets emerged. They joined becoming a stream that splashed out through small trees gushing into the gully alongside the road. I watched as buck brush washed down from the hillside onto the pavement afloat in red-brown muck blocking one lane. The water, following the hill, swerved out over the road around the slide. Now brown with mud it continued, cutting a deep gash along the edge of the pavement undermining the asphalt. An occasional culvert relieved the flow and diverted it down the hill on the other side of the road. But more often it spilled over covering the road in a wash that left rock and gravel, turning the pavement to creek.

Eventually a thousand rivulets, a hundred thousand trickles, joined together to plunge down vertical rock once bone-dry in summer heat. The falls, frothy white during lulls in the storm now mud-brown in the downpour, carried the mountain down to the sea. What part of my driveway now colored this torrent?

Around the bend the road slumped, the weight of water and underground springs causing the surface to drift ever lower. The paving showed cracks. It was close to the spot where three stories of mud had closed the road for three days in 1984.

Trees above road cuts were starting to tilt. A few on slopes slowly skidded with root balls intact, open mud wounds marking their progress.

Would the rain never stop?

But this surfeit of moisture could neither dampen my spirit nor depress my soul. I am grateful for rain. I have only respect for its effect on my life. Too much can reek havoc, produce devastation, destroy; too little can do the same. It can tear down mountains and flatten valleys. It can spark life and drown it. I long for it in summer, welcome it in fall. It is beyond my control.

At last the downpour lightened. A patch of blue appeared. A faint rainbow arched across the sky. But no pot of gold appeared. Only a sky darkening to charcoal followed in its wake.

It was time to get out of wet clothes and into a nice hot shower.

The Way of the Dragon

Posted on February 18, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Reminders if the Dragon are all around us.

The year is 4697, or possibly 4698, the Year of the Dragon. On February 5 the dragon, oblivious to Y2K, issued in a new lunar year with fifteen days of celebration and revelry heralding yet another spring.

And spring it is once again. Buds are swelling, frogs are croaking, the hills are turning green as life on Earth responds to the renewal spring represents. The constellations are moving in the heavens. It is time to do spring cleaning, time to refresh both body and soul, time to take stock.

For much of history we humans have looked with wonder at the life forms around us taking note of both similarities and differences. We have learned from and learned to live amidst a dazzling array of other creatures. It is not surprising that we have “adopted” some special animals to guide us.

The dragon–and we still do have dragons–symbolizes power, tension, endurance, and auspicious beginnings. It rights wrongs, champions justice; it commands vigilance, but not terror.

A fascination with dragons has inspired art, literature, and philosophy. Yet the real message of the dragon lies not in the reality or mythology of its existence, but in what it tells us about the human mind. Now, no less than in the past, there is a need to interpret the world around us, a world that that both anchors us on the earth and transports us beyond it.

We need only look around to see the representatives of the dragon living in our midst. The fence lizards, the blue-tailed skink, the gecko, the Komodo dragon are modern day versions of the dragons of old. The forked tongue, sampling its surroundings like a flame exploring a forest, the scales glistening like sequins on a brocaded frock, have been transformed by the facile mind of man to a larger-than-life legend in the dragon.

A lizard slowly stalks a cricket or grasshopper, the tension mounts. The wary insect jumps, taking it out of range just before the lizard makes its move; the complacent insect waits too long. The lesson is clear.

Nor has the endurance of the reptile in harsh surroundings escaped our notice. In the dragon it has come to signify hope and strength. This stamina beckons to us from a realm beyond our understanding, a realm of raw realty, of courage, a realm many of us have not traveled.

Lizards, salamanders, serpents share with man a complexity of form–a backbone, ribs, organs–that mark them as kin. Yet such a distant relative are they that a chasm exists between their lives and ours, one that leads to speculation and discovery, both scientific and personal.

In this Year of the Dragon you may wish to “adopt” your own animal. Let it take you on a journey of discovery of your inner world or lead you to the outer world around you. It is the spirit of the dragon you seek, not its conquest.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

If you missed San Jose’s Vietnamese Spring Festival and Parade February 6th, you can still see San Francisco’s dragon in the Chinatown Parade February 19.

Deep Freeze

Posted on February 11, 2000 by Anne Dunham

A long-ago journey that still inspires us today.

The sun didn’t rise for 125 days. Forty-two men, ninety-nine dogs, and three planes lay buried under the snow waiting for the dawn. This was life in Little America, Antarctica, in the winter–May, June, July, August–of 1929.

I watched in fascination as this saga unfolded. I was seated comfortably in the spacious community room of a retirement home in Los Altos. Around me were those who remembered the momentous occasion when Admiral Richard E. Byrd first flew over the South Pole, dropping an American flag weighted with a small memorial stone honoring Amundsen, the man who had first stood upon that most desolate spot seventeen years earlier. The drama was no less gripping seventy years later.

Setting out on two ships from New York on August 25, 1928, the expedition that finally conquered the Pole was entirely made up of volunteers except for two ace cameramen. One of these two, Joseph T. Rucker, was the father of Joy Morin, the woman who had graciously consented to show me the amazing footage that had been put together decades ago by Paramount Pictures from thirty miles of film shot by the pair.

Men and supplies had been deposited on the Ross Barrier, an ice shelf over water two miles deep, just in time for the ships to depart before being locked in for the winter. Everything needed for a two-year stay had been loaded on the supply ship. This included dogs, food, and three airplanes. Before the sun set and winter plunged this “white, silent, dead” continent into impenetrable darkness, two permanent huts were sunk deep into the snow, cloth covering their walls. A tunnel built from crates of food connected the two main houses.

After enduring the monotony of the long winter, both men and dogs greeted the first glimpse of the sun with wild abandon, leaping jubilantly in the snow. Now the rush was on. Amidst sudden unpredictable blizzards, unforeseen obstacles, and necessary daily routines, the expedition prepared for the final push for the Pole.

An emergency landing station, established at the base of the Queen Maude Range, came upon the cairn left by Amundsen seventeen years earlier. The plane for the final flight, able to carry no more than five thousand pounds, was readied. At last Byrd and his crew left for the sixteen hundred mile, eighteen hour flight to the Pole.

Dodging storms and fighting for altitude to climb up the giant glaciers to reach the Antarctic Plateau required lightening the load. Two hundred pounds of emergency rations were sacrificed as an offering to this demanding land.

At 1:55 a.m. on November 29, 1929, the mission was accomplished.

Life is much different now seventy years later. But it is also much the same. Joy Morin was nine years old in 1930 when her father won an Oscar for his role in bringing this drama of conquest and courage to the world. His vision illustrates in the black and white, x-ray-like images of Antarctica the bones of our lives in a world grown complex. Strip away the trivial and there still remains in each of us a longing for both conquest and courage.

A Little Luna-See

Posted on January 21, 2000 by Anne Dunham

We all have a chance to do some moonlighting

Always with us, always changing, almost within reach, yet distantly elusive, the moon—our moon—just can’t be ignored. It is celebrated by lunatics and lovers, mystics and scientists, poets and painters. It is predictable yet fascinating as it hangs between a vast incomprehensible universe and tempestuous world.

Has it always been there? Did it form in the swirling mass of gas that magically collected in what we poetically call the Milky Way? Is it a piece of our own Earth that broke loose and almost escaped from us?

There are other planets with moons. Some have features far stranger than ours. Take the moons of Saturn, for example. There are eighteen of them ranging in diameter from twelve to over three thousand miles. Or Europa, the moon of Jupiter, that has recently bee found to have a molten core under its icy surface that constantly reverses the magnetic field it creates. Wonderful stuff for scientific study and speculation.

But who would trade these distant moons for our wondrously luminescent orb that can appear as a cold and distant crescent in the inky winter darkness or a gigantic glowing globe in the autumn twilight?

About a dozen of us have been to our moon, have walked on it, have touched it through the thin garment that carries Earth with us. The rest of us have watched in wonder, each having private thoughts about our place, our space, our dream. It is our very personal moon.

Yet is is also our shared moon. Not a tourist destination or vacation spot—not yet. But wherever we are on Earth, we can bathe in its soft light and marvel at is prisinte features. We all still own the moon. It connects us. My moon is your moon, whether you are by my side or far away.

Tomorrow, Friday, January 21, 2000, those in the right place—and we are in the right place—will be treated to the amazing spectacle of watching our own shadow travel across the full moon. Not since 1996 has this sight been visible to us.

The full moon will rise Friday just in time to start vanishing. Slowly more and more of it will disappear until, at 8:00 p.m., it will be totally gone, leaving only a haunting glow as a placeholder of where it once shone. For almost an hour and a half the shadow of all of us spinning around on Earth will blot out the moon. Then, once again,arc by arc, it will slowly return.

At the moment our shadow eats into the moon’s light, it becomes clear in the darkness that we’re all traveling this route across the skies together. This is not a shadow cast by a single country, a dominant species, or a lone rock. This is not a shadow any one of us can create. And as the moon reappears once again, its reflection reassures us that we are in the right place in space.

Numbers Game

Posted on January 14, 2000 by Anne Dunham

How many are too many? How few are too few? Everyone has an opinion. While numbers may not lie, they don’t necessarily tell the whole story—especially in the biological world.

When it comes to extinct species, the numbers won’t change. Endangered and vanishing species have advocates who seek their increase. Some species, maybe our own, increase so rapidly that dire consequences are feared. When is enough enough?

Right now, for example, I tend to think there are just too many sub-microscopic flu viruses floating around. Many of us, against our will, are harboring and even breeding these invisible creatures.

All life is thought to have arisen from the primordial mixture of elements that came together and formed Earth. The first life as we have come to know it took the form of one-celled organisms that were comprised mostly of water, as all life still is today.

Life developed down the two paths we call plants and animals. Gradually larger and larger collections of cells gathered together and specialized to become larger and more complex organisms. Larger animals came to dominate smaller ones, but longer life-times were needed to grow creatures so complicated. Gains in size meant losses in rapid reproduction.

As animals grew larger and larger, they evolved many adaptations to deal with their size. The fins on the backs of some dinosaurs, like the fins of a radiator, provided a large surface area designed to cool a large animal quickly. Closer to home, the human body with its array of plumbing, heating, and electrical systems offers a pretty amazing array of highly specialized adaptations. It serves us well—when everything is working right.

But then there are those little guys—the bacteria, the fungi, the viruses—so simple yet so complicated. They grow, and the grow fast. And in some ways, they are smarter than we are. They find ways to get around our best defenses., our flu shots, our vitamin C, our cleanliness, our healthy ways. They can produce millions of generations to our one. And with each generation the ones that flourish are the ones that fine ways to get round our latest vaccine, our best research. They multiply to give us the flu or a cold or HIV. They mess up our well-designed systems in ever more creative ways. Will the microbes prevail? Is the course of biological life on Earth circular—starting small, reaching a maximum size and then declining back to infinitesimal again? Or is there a way to find a balance, an equilibrium somewhere in the middle where the gigantic, the middle-sized and the tiny life can all exist?

While science works on this problem, stay well–or at least try to.

Charting the Course

Posted on January 7, 2000 by Anne Dunham

Smooth sailing, that’s what we all seek. But there are sometimes rocks, sometimes fogs, sometimes heavy undertows. What a relief to spot a lighthouse, to hear a foghorn sounding its warning, to know we have help charting our course. How encouraging it is to know we are not adrift alone.

The Point Arena light station north of Bodega Bay stands tall on a spit of land along a desolate, sometimes treacherous coast. This land arising from the sea protrudes into the shipping lanes that follow the coast; it points like a finger to the offshore rocks and hidden reefs, seemingly unmovable, that have spelled disaster to seafaring men for at least two centuries. It, like lighthouses everywhere, unites those on land with those at sea.

Living on land, living at sea, both have their perils. Originally built in 1870 the 100-foot masonry tower provided a measure of safety for ships that brought goods and materials to build the California we know. But it was a hard life for those who lived on this lonely stretch. Keeping oil lamps lighted atop a tower in gale force winds, living with only occasional contact with the rest of humanity, working grueling shifts of endless monotony made this an outpost of frontier living with hardships as harsh as any.

The seeming solidity of this point of land proved to be false. In 1906 the San Andreas Fault, which lies just offshore, lurched, reducing the lighthouse and its surrounding buildings to rubble and irreparable ruins. But ships were needed more than ever to bring supplies to a crippled coast. Within less than a year the tower was rebuilt, this time of reinforced concrete by a smokestack builder. A magnificent lens, 666 pieces of hand-ground glass mounted precisely in a six-foot diameter each tilted just so, sent the light from an oil lamp placed in the center out twenty-five miles piercing the night, the fog, the mist.

As I gaze out to sea from atop this tower still used to guide ships, I can only imagine what life was then, not that long ago. The sun gleams off the waves as whales swim by spraying seawater skyward. The tranquility of the moment belies former hardships. I marvel at the craftsmanship of the huge lens, operable although no longer in daily use, and the clockwork and crank that raised pendulums that made it turn, its great weight floating effortlessly in a pool of mercury, sending out brilliance through the darkness.

The light was automated in 1977. But there are still keepers of this light. Joe Church, a docent, lives in Point Arena. Although there is no longer a need to light the lamps, trim the wicks, polish the 666 glass prisms to crystal clarity, or hoist the pendulum every four hours to make the light revolve, he, and others like him, still do from time to time.

And the light still shines, a beacon of both the past and the present that still warns of dangers, still connects those on land with those at sea, still holds the promise that there will be patches of smooth sailing ahead.

Across the Great Divide

Posted on December 31, 1999 by Anne Dunham

The time has come to clean house. For those so inclined every new year is a time to start fresh. And even though I am not so inclined, I can hardly ignore the end of a century and, what’s more, a millennium.

I would like to weigh in with those who are waiting for next year to celebrate–to be absolutely pure and scientific about it. If I did, I could postpone cleaning out the cobwebs for another year. After all, logic calls for a year zero, the first year of the first thousand. The months and years can be calculated on a rational basis using the moon and the stars; but for the centuries and millennia, hemmed in by zeros and nines, we have only ourselves to blame. These are arbitrary divisions based on our mutual agreement to use tens for our numbering system.

However, it hasn’t turned out so bad. The century mark comes only once in anyone’s lifetime. What if we had chosen four for our numbering system? We would face a new century every forty year, two per lifetime. One seems enough; two seems excessive.

But a millennium! Everyone waits for that digit to change, rolling, with its three zeros, into the future. Not again for a thousand years! Even I am caught up in the current excitement and flurry in spite of myself. So much for science.

It’s a time to sort through the past and clear room for the future. I have spent a little time the last few weeks examining my worldly goods to see what should go and what should stay to see the next century. I last did a good job of this ten years ago. The, October 17, 1989, 5:04 p.m., to be precis, the forces of nature dumped all my possessions on the floor in less than a minute. I was forced into taking stock whether I wanted to or not. Now, I do it again on my on terms and perhaps a little more gently. A decade from now, maybe I’ll do it again. These “tens” are really not bad at all.

But ridding myself of physical baggage is only a small part of the battle. It is time to take stock of my mental luggage as well. What, from the past, must I take with me to make sense of the future? What must I dump? Open any newspaper or magazine to be dazzled by the changes that have occurred in the past month or year, not to mention decade or century. These changes open new territory as clearly as Marco Polo, Lewis and Clark, or John Glenn once did. What will I need to go there? What shall I leave behind? Can I travel farther if I travel light?

The future is thrilling and scary. I am sure I will bring to it things I don’t need and leave behind things that I do. Come to think of it, I’m glad next year is the true millennial mark. I am sure I will need that long. But even then my house may never be clean.

Holiday Cheer

Posted on December 24, 1999 by Anne Dunham

Holidays can be the best of times or the worst of times. But there’s no doubt that ’tis the season for parties. And the office holiday party has often suffered bad press. YSI had its holiday party last Friday night and it was testimony that “office” parties can represent the “best of times”.

Our annual party is a little quaint and old-fashioned in glitzy, modern terms. It is traditionally held at Sanborn Park in the gloriously-rustic stone house that is home to YSI. This house has probably witnessed many a party over the years. On the broad, covered porch the wide rails and deep windowsills were festooned with evergreens, pine cones and red-berried toyon. A bowl of persimmons from the garden stood spotlighted on a glass case just inside the door of the two-story main room. The fire in the gigantic fireplace with its cozy glass-doored stove blazed merrily warming every nook and cranny. On the mantle pine cones and fresh redwood boughs from the surrounding woods glittered with miniature lights.

Platters of heavenly cheeses, quiche and stuffed mushrooms–pre-dinner snacks–began to appear on exhibit cases. New faces, familiar faces, from Alum Rock, Vasona, Sanborn arrived. Staff members, volunteers, children. The kids disappeared into the reptile room or the insect zoo, great built-in party entertainment! Friends, fiancés, spouses, were introduced and pleasant chatter soared to the rafters.

In the kitchen, party-goers unpacked their baskets of dinnerware and put finishing touches on heavenly potluck creations for the buffet. A homemade bay wreath decorated the door, echoing trees in the park. Cider and beer, wine and water arrived and landed in jumbled array on a kitchen counter.

In the geology wing off the main room frosted bell-shaped pendant lights cast a soft glow much as they did when the house was built seventy-five years ago. It was there on a table in the middle of the room that, one by one, platters, bowls, tureens, and casseroles began to appear. Little by little they were pushed closer together until every inch was filled.

Dinner was a repast with unparalleled variety. Spectacular casseroles, spicy dal, soothing mashed potatoes and gravy, succulent sushi, poached salmon, salads, breads, soups–foods representing dozens of regions and nations–left everyone with only just enough room for the sweets that glowed on a case along side.

The evening flowed like water in a gentle stream. A few ventured out for a hike following trails made familiar in daylight. Not even the crescent of a moon diminished the brilliance of the stars in the crisp winter night. The park, sheltered from city lights by a shadowy ridge, lay quiet except for the rustle of deer and hoot of an owl.

Finally all was packed away. We headed home knowing we will return, either singly or together. And we invite you to join us.

YSI and the parks they are in are yours too. Visit them. They have a way of tempering the worst of times and providing the best.

YSI’s staff at all three sites welcomes you over the holidays. Call for hours.

YSI Alum Rock Park, (408) 258-4322
YSI Sanborn Park, (408) 867-6940
YSI Vasona Park, (408) 356-4945

Thanksgiving Day, Phoenix, Arizona

Posted on December 16, 1999 by Anne Dunham

(I have not yet located the photo that accompanied this article.)

Someone else was tending the turkey, setting the table, and fixing the feast. So I set out on Thanksgiving morning with camera in hand.

Thunderbird Park stood out on the map at the northern boundary of Phoenix as a destination close enough to permit me time to get back for dinner at 2:30. I knew nothing about the park so wasn’t sure what to expect, but it looked large enough to ensure plenty of photographic possibilities.

I have never been one to take a lot of pictures preferring the images imprinted in my memory to the ones recorded on film. But recently I have been lured to try my hand at recording scenes that reach beyond the “trip to Phoenix” shots—ones that capture the rhythm, the beauty, the essence of a place and distill it into a few shapes, colors, or faces that reflect an inner pulse. I have found this is not easy.

The Park turned out to be a perfect example of the low desert peaks that punctuate Phoenix and radiate out from it in all directions. I parked the car and set out on foot across the desert toward the base of a rocky compound ridge dotted with cholla, sage, and stunted palo verde. The slope sported an occasional saguaro, the unwavering symbol of the low Arizona-Sonora desert. Jumbled outcroppings of blackened lava, a few splotched with vivid orange and chartreuse lichens, testified to volcanic disturbances in former times.

I stopped, considered photographic possibilities, clicked, chronicled, clicked some more and lost myself in time and space.

A few people materialized hiking down a well-camouflaged trail on the rocky slope. Never having been able to resist a trail leading out of sight, I began climbing.

The going was rough. This cone materializing from the desert floor was a gigantic pile of mid-size rocks. Without watching every step even a mountain goat would trip and fall. Back and forth the rough path led up the slope with the ridge always beckoning, always just a little farther away than it looked. I climbed and climbed up the north side of this heap, one eye on my watch wondering if I would reach the top before I needed to turn back to meet the dinner deadline.

At last the path leveled. I had reached the ridge. There to the south beneath me Phoenix stretched for miles, the air as clear as it was when it lured the first immigrants to its stunning vastness.

The trail continued, promising even more if I followed it; but I turned back knowing I would try to return. What is there about a path that compels me to follow it? Whether it’s a path up a mountain or into a forest, or a path to learning a camera’s magic or how to make words say exactly what I mean, I am always seduced by the promise that there is more just beyond the bend, just behind the lense, in the blank page ahead.

The trick is to get back in time for Thanksgiving.

Dino-might

Posted on December 9, 1999 by Anne Dunham

They’re big, they’re old, and they’re awesome. Everything a kid is not. They can hold the attention of twenty high-energy first graders for twenty minutes or more. No person alive can accomplish this feat no matter how big, how old, or how awesome they are. But dinosaurs can do it. What is it about dinosaurs that makes them so appealing to kids?

Is it their size? Maybe. But not all dinosaurs were huge. Archaeopteryx resembled a lizard with wings and feathers and was about the size of a crow. Of course, Apatosaurus was fifteen feet high and sixty feet long and probably weighed in at forty tons. And the great horned monster, T. rex, was no small fry. When you’re only three feet tall and you consider a creature that’s as long as a sixty foot tape measure laid out on the lawn, there’s more than a little to think about.

Is it their age? Probably not. I am impressed by the fact that dinosaurs lived over 200 million years ago and continued to roam the earth for more than another 100 million years. But this concept of time is hard enough for me to imagine. When you are five years old, you couldn’t care less.

Is it their variety? Maybe. Dinosaurs come in many shapes and sizes. Who doesn’t find the giant fins on the backs of ferocious meat-eaters curious or downright bizarre? And how about the long snouts or giant heads with dagger-like teeth, or amazing wingspans sported by creatures that look like something from another planet?

Dinosaurs appeal to the imagination. Almost all children love drawing pictures of them. You can’t make a mistake. Any size, shape or color will do. Last summer some YSI campers made a video featuring dinosaurs against a backdrop of “real” erupting volcanoes (fashioned from vinegar and baking soda), engaged in bitter fights and fanciful flights. Why not?

But my favorite theory of why dinosaurs appeal to kids is that kids—and I—like their big long names. Ichthyostega, Dimorphodon, Lufengosaurus—these are fun, and even possible, to say. They follow the rules for English pronunciation. Kids capture dinosaurs when they learn their names. Once captured, a dino can be controlled and it becomes a friend—a big, old, awesome friend. Parents don’t know this dinosaur!

Kids learn about their dinosaur and maybe invent a few things about it. Who’s to say they’re wrong? (Well, maybe another kid who knows the real “truth”.) They can tell their parents everything about their dinosaur. They know more than their mom or dad!

Never mind that by next year they may not know a Segisaurus from a Maslodonsaurus. They’ve had their moment of glory—their first taste of what it’s like to know something other people don’t. Dinosaurs live on to this day helping legions of children learn the thrill of knowing.

Technical information for this article came from the experts—the kids. For five- and six-year olds, dinosaurs are the power players.

YSI has a school and group program called Dinosaurs and Fossil Fun and a summer camp called Jurassic Giants.

A Natural Thanksgiving

Posted on December 2, 1999 by Anne Dunham

You may think I have the best job in the world. I do. Thanksgiving happens every day.

For one thing there is the YSI Thrift and Gift Shop staffed by the YSI Guild, always eager to thank their customers and contributors.

Partly as a result of their efforts, we at YSI are surrounded daily by:

* Kids with eyes wide open seeing things for the first time, learning about creeks and animals, light and music, rocks and stars.
* Young teachers learning how to teach kids about creeks and animals, light and music, rocks and stars.
* Master teachers teaching young teachers how to teach.
* Animal curators carefully caring for animals used to teach children.
* Junior curators learning how to care for those animals.
* Classroom teachers seeking new opportunities for their students.
* Donors contributing so that others can learn.
* Parents lovingly nurturing their children and encouraging their freedom.
* Staff members devoting themselves to tirelessly serving others.
* Board members donating their time and talents.
* Volunteers helping with anything and everything.

All of us at YSI are grateful for the chance to be part of the community. We join with the Guild in wishing everyone the best of holiday seasons.

Here is a Thanksgiving message from the YSI Guild written by a Guild member.

The all volunteer staff at YSI’s Thrift and Gift Store at 3151 Alum Rock Avenue would like to thank our many customers and donors.

You have made possible another successful year. In the month of September the store’s sales grossed $11,363. Our three YSI locations at Sanborn Park, Vasona Park, and our own Alum Rock Park benefit from these sales. The Wildlife Festival held in October at Alum Rock Park welcomed over 2200 people. The many animals at YSI are fed well and cared for lovingly. The birds will be enjoying new aviaries. The school programs continue to introduce and enthrall students with their natural surroundings. The programs in our three YSI Nature Centers for children in K-6th have been a huge success.

Your donations of items, paper and plastic bags, and “goodies” lovingly made for us, keep us busy, happy, and focused on the needs of YSI.Our monthly sale days have proven profitable and we will continue them.

We will be closed December 21st through January 3rd for the holidays. We will re-open on Tuesday, January 4th with many “new” things on our shelves and hangars.

Again, our thanks and appreciation to our customers, many of whom we know by name. You continue to make great things happen with YSI.

May your holidays be full of friends and family. We’ll see you in 2000.

Sandy Floersch, Guild Member

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