Category: Berkeley

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All Class/No Class Crete-Monee Reunion, 2009

The big event of the late weekend was a small gathering, at our house in Berkeley, of folks from Crete-Monee High School, from which I graduated in 1972. This was sort of an informal reprise of an actual “all-class” reunion held a couple weeks ago in Crete, a town about 30 miles straight south of downtown Chicago. About 700 people showed up for a catered event at the racetrack on the edge of town. The Crete-Monee diaspora includes at least a handful who have landed in Northern California. A few of us who have stayed in touch or who have happened upon each other on Facebook began talking about a West Coast version of the Crete event. And so this weekend’s All Class/No Class Crete-Monee High School Reunion, 2009 was born.

Who showed up? Anne Kaufman, ’74, right off the plane from Chicago. Mike Rodgers — ’74, too, I think, and Wendy Seehausen Rodgers (not sure what class). Jimmy O’Donnell, who blasted down from his creekside paradise near Mount Lassen in Shasta County; he’s an honorary graduate of the Class of ’74 because his family moved after his sophomore year and he was forced to complete school in the snowless suburban sprawl of Contra Costa County. His sister Laurie O’Donnell, who was in my class (’72) but who I never really talked to much until yesterday. Linda Stewart, who as a German teacher to many of the assembled was in all our classes; she came down from Truckee, the town just across Donner Pass on Interstate 80 in the Sierra. And then there was Kate, my wife, who grew up Crete-less (she’s from the northern Jersey shore, sort of) and me.

So eight in all. More would have been fun, and if we could teleport people I can name several friends (Randy, Ron, Mike, Dan–you listening?) I would have beamed in in a second. But yesterday eight was enough, to coin a phrase. Linda remarked that everyone talked to everyone else, the group kept forming into small groups, breaking up, and reassembling itself into twos and threes of engaged conversation. The food was good. The weather was beautiful. There were some funny memories, some warm recollections, some scary and sad stories about classmates and friends. Most of us ended up taking a walk through our neighborhood just after sunset, and that was the way I imagined the day ending.

I’ve never once gone to one of my class reunions. It’s been 10 or 12 years at least since I’ve been part of a high-school-centered gathering; the last one was at Linda’s when she lived in San Francisco. People are talking about it happening again next year. We’ll see what comes. Meantime I’ll work on my teleportation skills.

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‘Please Help Me Find Him’: The Resolution

A couple of days ago, I wrote about seeing a particularly eye-catching missing persons poster in the Mission. It appeared to involve a promising young science student from San Diego. So: I did call the numbers on the poster. The home phone had an answering machine in Spanish — the only thing I understood was the family name, Trujillo.

The listed cellphone was answered in Spanish by a man. I asked whether he spoke English. “Yes — who’s this?” He asked. I explained I was calling from San Francisco and had seen the poster. He said, “I already found my son. Everything’s OK. He’s back home and back in school — everything’s OK.” I was tempted to press him for the circumstances that led to him posting the flyer. I did manage to ask whether anyone else had called with information after seeing the poster. But he was clearly a little uncomfortable–speaking English and talking to a stranger–and I let it go. Anyway, that’s the outcome. A happy one, I’d say, and I’m all for happy endings.

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Bay Area Storm Numbers

The storm came, and now it has gone, mostly. It was advertised as the marriage of a Gulf of Alaska storm and some typhoon remnants. Watching the rain pour down here, and seeing the totals mount on the National Weather Service statistics pages, I believe the typhoon part. It was the heaviest mid-October rain for most locations since 1962, when the World Series–Giants and Yankees, at the still-new Candlestick Park–was washed out by rain.

Some of the more amazing 24-hour totals, midnight Monday to midnight Tuesday: Mount Umunhum in the Santa Cruz Mountains, 13.07 inches. Ben Lomond, Santa Cruz Mountains: 10.58 inches. Mining Ridge, a remote recording station at an elevation of 4760 feet in the Santa Lucia range above Big Sur: 20 inches even. The totals of 5-plus inches at lowland locales in the central Bay Area seem semi-arid by comparison–even though they represent anywhere from 15 to 25 percent of what those locations get in an average rain year.

It’s not easy to get apples/apples numbers just casually browsing the Weather Service sites. But the service did publish a record report for 24-hour rainfall (the standard here is from 5 p.m. to 5 p.m., I think).

Location New Record Old Record
Kentfield 6.14 4.20, set in 1957
Oakland Museum 3.86 0.37, set in 1988
Richmond 3.38 2.47, set in 1962
San Francisco Airport 2.64 2.62, set in 1962
San Francisco Downtown 2.49* 1.80, set in 1962
Santa Rosa 2.74 (tied) 2.74, set in 1962
King City 1.65 0.30, set in 2007
Monterey Climate Station 2.66* 1.14, set in 1962
Salinas 1.05 0.39, set in 1992
Santa Cruz 3.16* 2.49, set in 1957

*New unofficial record for 24-hour rainfall in October.

For several days before yesterday’s storm, the Weather Service office in Monterey was highlighting some of the highest October rainfall totals for stations in its forecast area. Here they are:

Location One-Day Record Two-Day Record
Santa Rosa 4.67 (10/12/1962) 7.41 (10/12-13/1962)
Napa 4.66 (10/13/1962) 9.32 (10/12-13/1962)
San Francisco Downtown 2.29 (10/15/1969) 3.72 (10/12-13/1962)
San Francisco Airport 2.62 (10/13/1962) 4.56 (10/12-13/1962)
Oakland Airport 4.53 (10/13/1962) 5.85 (10/12-13/1962)
Livermore 2.17 (10/13/1962) 3.45 (10/13-14/1962)
San Jose 3.22 (10/13/1962) 4.56 (10/12-13/1962)
Santa Cruz 3.15 (10/20/1899) 3.35 (10/20-21/1899)
Monterey 1.80 (10/26/1907) 2.09 (10/26-27/1907)
Salinas 1.50 (10/30/1982) 1.50 (10/30-31/1982)
King City 1.88 (10/29/1996) 2.18 (10/29-30/1996)

Source: National Weather Service, Monterey, California

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Storm

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That’s the National Weather Service radar map for the Bay Area right now. That area of yellow and orange is heavy rain, and its moving pretty much straight east from the Pacific.  

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‘Please Help Me Find Him’

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I try to make the 15-minute walk to work from the 16th and Mission BART station a little different every day. Change the walking route, maybe, or leave the station from an alternate entrance every once in a while. Just to avoid falling into too blindly regular.

Here’s what disrupted the routine today. A handmade flyer for a missing person. It was the message that made me stop and take a second look: “Please help me find him.” I didn’t study the rest of it. Just took a picture and figured I’d post this later as a little memento of the walk to work.

Then I downloaded the picture and studied it. In the BART station, I thought I was looking at a picture of a man standing in a kitchen. But no: This is clearly a young man, a kid maybe, in a laboratory of some kind. I recognized the area code as being in Southern California, the San Diego area. I looked up the name on the posted, which seems to have been added in ballpoint pen as an after-thought, Edgar Trujillo.

I did find mention of an Edgar Trujillo from San Diego. This past summer, a San Diego paper mentioned him as one of 35 students from around North America chosen to participate in a summer biology program put on by American Fisheries Society. He was working for the summer at NOAA’s regional fisheries center and getting ready to go to UC-San Diego in the fall. Well, the science program would fit with the lab in the picture.

I’ll call the number on the poster tomorrow to find out what the story is. Or maybe I’ll have one of our reporters do it. In the meantime, there’s something a little troubling to me in the brevity and directness of that request: “Please help me find him.” Of course, you never know. Maybe there’s nothing darker about this than a girlfriend looking for the guy who ditched her or a bill collector tracking down a deadbeat. Here’s hoping, anyway.

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Ten Ten

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I could spin a yarn about October 10, 1979. Eamon–the guy on the left here–has heard all about it and probably has more interest in the story than just about anyone, since it concerns his arrival in the world. Today was his 30th birthday, and he and his wife, Sakura, and our other son, Thom (the lad on the right) spent the day here. No reminiscing, really–we just hung out together and enjoyed the spread Kate put together for lunch. Then Thom went off to see Bob Dylan at the Greek Theatre and the rest of us went over to San Francisco to eat some more. It was a pretty special day for the parents. Happy birthday, Eamon!

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Your Autumn Forecast

We bump along from summer, into late summer, into fall.

We hear the usual complaints about June, and July, and August: too cold! too cloudy! When’s it going to be summer?

Then we have a nice run of clear, warm, dry days. Clear evenings. Brilliant twilights, some crowded with unusual shoals of clouds. It’s never been more beautiful, ever.

Just for a change, it rains in September, and everyone thinks about when’s the last time that happened.

The days get shorter, and then overnight summer’s not lingering any more. It’s dark early at night, late in the morning. And cool suddenly–the heat’s going to kick on any day now.

October. One thought holds off the chill: We’re due for one more good run of hot, dry days, maybe windy ones, that will remind you of fire in the hills.

Those days might be a week or two away or could appear right on the edge of November. Just wait.

And while you look for signs the wind’s about to shift and start coming down warm from the ridges, something else happens. Someone breaks into that slow turn of autumn. Someone breaks the mood as only an official government forecaster can:

...WET AND WINDY WEATHER EXPECTED MONDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY...
THE WEATHER PATTERN IS EXPECTED TO CHANGE ON MONDAY AS A POTENT
STORM SYSTEM MOVES TO THE WEST COAST. THIS STORM SYSTEM IS THE
REMNANT OF FORMER WESTERN PACIFIC TYPHOON MELOR.
RAIN AND INCREASING WIND WILL BEGIN IN THE NORTH BAY MONDAY
AFTERNOON...SPREADING SOUTH MONDAY NIGHT. TUESDAY AND TUESDAY
NIGHT SHOULD SEE THE HEAVIEST RAINFALL AND THE STRONGEST WINDS.
RAINFALL AMOUNTS COULD REACH 1 TO 3 INCHES ALONG THE COAST AND IN
THE VALLEYS...WITH LOCAL AMOUNTS POSSIBLY REACHING 5 INCHES. IN
THE HILLS...RAINFALL AMOUNTS WILL RANGE FROM 3 TO 6 INCHES...WITH
LOCAL AMOUNTS UP TO 8 INCHES. AS OF NOW...THE HEAVIEST RAIN LOOKS
TO BE IN THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS. WINDS TUESDAY AND TUESDAY NIGHT
WILL INCREASE TO 20 TO 40 MPH ALONG THE COAST AND IN THE HILLS.
GUSTS TO 60 MPH ARE POSSIBLE IN THOSE AREAS.

Rain? Wind? You could swear someone said "typhoon."
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Ageless Stranger

I’ve lived in Berkeley long enough–more than 30 years, more than half my life–that I’ve become familiar with a whole cast of characters who are actually total, or nearly total, strangers. Store clerks, panhandlers, fellow passengers on the train, commuters who stroll through the neighborhood. There have always been a few of these unknown ones who don’t fit into any of those predictable slots. Just people I’ve seen over and over during my walks. Most memorable is a man with whom I happened to ride to San Francisco one day in the casual carpool from North Berkeley BART. I had seen this guy before and never had any occasion to interact. But on this particular morning, we wound up in the same car with a man driving over the Bay Bridge into the city. Somehow, the driver’s occupation came up. He was a doctor at San Francisco General Hospital. That information prompted my fellow passenger to disclose that he was on the way to see a doctor. He was being examined for prostate trouble, which he proceeded to describe in generous detail. Quite a performance, and for years afterward, whenever I chanced to pass this guy on the street, I’d ask, “How’s your prostate?” Coming from a complete stranger, the query always got a startled look.

There’s another guy I’ve been seeing on the street for decades. The reason I first noticed him was his hair: blond, waist length, and very lank and straight. He walks with an almost unnaturally erect posture and always seems to have a serious expression and to keep his eyes straight ahead. He walks a lot, I think, and walks a little faster than I do. I’ve encountered him dozens of times in different neighborhoods and even up in the hills. We’ve lived in our neighborhood since the late ’80s, which is probably when I started seeing this guy. I know I’ve aged in those years. He hasn’t aged much. We’ve never spoken in all those times we’ve passed each other, and I’ve wondered who this severe-looking hard-walking stranger is.

A few months ago, Kate and I were out on a Saturday morning walking The Dog. We made one of our regular turns, and up ahead I saw the long-haired stranger. He was wearing a white bathrobe and was picking up something from his lawn; I think he was dealing with a leaky sprinkler or something. We said something as we passed–“Good morning,” I guess–and he responded with a friendly “good morning” of his own. That’s all that happened. But it was enough to make me feel like I had some connection to this stranger after all these years. And for all I know, he (and how many others?) have been wondering about me, too.

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Berkeley Crime Notes

We in our little middle-class Berkeley enclave do not feel we live in a big, bad, dangerous city. Yeah, we see stuff happens. Our house was broken into seven years ago, and we’ve had a car vandalized on the street in front of our place. Offhand, I can think of more than a half-dozen burglaries on our block since we moved here 20-some years ago, including a couple that happened within the last six months. Unbeknownst to anyone here, last week there were several burglaries on the street just west of us. As it happened, one of the homes that was broken into had security cameras installed. According to the Berkeley police, here are the images captured:

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burglar2.png If nothing else, these two look prepared: the bags. The baggy, anonymous white T-shirts that can be taken off and thrown away (“Officer, I saw someone wearing a white shirt. …”). I’d also note that the blocks where the burglaries occurred are within a four-minute walk of the BART station. Lots of students go in and out of there, and a couple of young people carrying big bags would attract no attention at all.

Wish I had a picture of the people who got away with my two laptops back in 2002.

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‘Fight the Anti-Worker Capitalist Agenda’

socialism1.jpgsocialism2.jpg A couple of days ago, a young woman came down the aisle of my car on BART as we neared the Civic Center station. She was dropping postcards on empty seats. Strangely, she wasn’t handing them to any passengers. Maybe this is why: One of my fellow passengers picked up one of the cards, scanned it, and started to laugh. His companion said, “What’s so funny?” “Nothing,” he said. “Crap.” Then he tore up the card and discarded the scraps on the floor. Even here, the region some people would unhesitatingly dub the furthest left in all America, it’s hard to win people over to the fight against the anti-worker capitalist agenda.