Category: Berkeley

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Cars: A Life List

One of our cars–a red 1993 Honda Civic hatchback–was stolen earlier this week in Oakland. The police there called today to tell us it had been found and towed to an impound yard. The only word on its condition was the note that an officer read from the report: “damaged and stripped.” We’ll go see what’s left tomorrow. The incident made me think of the family cars I have known, from birth to today. Here goes (not listing my siblings’ vehicles; just ones that I remember having ridden in as a kid ones that I’ve owned):

Early ’50s Plymouth sedan. A big ugly gray thing. Mom and Dad owned this when we still lived in Hyde Park, and it came out to the south suburbs with us in 1956. In my dad’s life, it was preceded by a couple of earlier Plymouths, a Hudson, and a Studebaker. For whatever reason, he seemed to really detest this car.

1958 Ford station wagon. A two-toned red-and-white job. It had a three-speed manual transmission. I remember Dad taking Mom (and assorted toddlers and post-toddlers) out to a remote-seeming stretch of gravel road to try to teach her to drive it. I remember she let up on the clutch when Dad was walking in front of the car. Mom never learned to drive that car.

1963 Ford station wagon. A pale metallic green number that Dad bought used at Van Drunen in Homewood. It had an automatic, and this is the car Mom learned to drive and got her license in (November 1965 at the age of 36). Eventually the reverse gear failed and my parents managed for awhile without it–which required some planning when they were parking, etc.

1967 Chevy Impala wagon. It was gold and had a 327-cubic-inch V8 with dual carburetors. My dad still speaks fondly of this car, which sometime later wound up driven into a tree at the end of our driveway.

1970 (?) Chevy Kingswood Estate wagon. An unwieldy metallic blue beast with faux wood trim and a 450-cubic-inch gas-guzzling power plant. My brother John, newly licensed and driving in the snow for one of the first times, slid it into a light pole in Park Forest. Then a few months later he was at the wheel after school when another kid plowed into the rear end. The Kingswood was so heavy and sturdy that the other car took nearly all the damage. I think that accident marked its end as a family member, though.

1972 (?) Chrysler wagon. Metallic brown. All I remember about it was that it had very efficient air conditioning that my dad liked to keep on whenever the outside temperature was above about 62. Also, I got the car stuck in a bottomless mudhole on a local in the middle of the night and managed to ruin the transmission.

1966 Ford Custom 500 sedan. I’ll defer to my brothers about the exact model. This was a tan sedan with Ford’s small-block 289 V8. It was our first “second car” and the three of us drove it hard. Or maybe “into the ground” is more accurate. I totaled the car on Governor’s Highway in Homewood on a slushy day when I was cut off by a van with a “Hear the Reverend Moon” bumper sticker; I skidded into a car stopped to make a left turn into a high school parking lot, a collision which prevented me from drifting into two lanes of fast oncoming traffic or into groups of kids lined up to catch their school buses.

1960-something Oldsmobile sedan. Or maybe it was a Buick. It was horrible and dark green. It was the second card that replaced the wrecked Ford. It should have been vaporized by the Death Star instead of Princess Leia’s beloved Alderaan.

1974 (?) Volkswagen Dasher. A nifty, nimble little navy-blue thing that acquainted us (but especially Dad, who paid the bills) with the manifold mechanical frailties of the VW products of the era.

1975 (?) Volkswagen Beetle. A clumsy, loud little Miami-blue thing that further acquainted us with VW’s shoddy approach to assembling vehicles. The Fuehrer would never have tolerated such goings on.

1970-something Volkswagen Rabbit. Another light blue car, but actually much sturdier and more reliable than its stablemates. I really shouldn’t count this one because it came along after I moved away to California.

Next time: Cars–The Berkeley Years

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Special Election

As you Californians know, and as you non-Golden Staters may have heard, we have a statewide special election today. “Special election” is a misnomer of sorts, since we’re deciding not on any candidate but on a series of ballot initiatives that putatively address the state’s fiscal crisis. The state’s finances are in a royal mess thanks largely to the housing bust. The budget process has been subjected to a galaxy of special conditions thanks to decades of initiatives and ballot-box constitutional amendments. So the Legislature and governor are reduced to, and have let themselves be reduced to, the role of managers of the voters’ contrary and self-contradictory whims.

Expression of these whims may seem like a form of democracy. But it’s a twisted and extremely limited form of democratic expression. The simple arithmetic of our electoral process — about two-thirds of eligible voters register, and about two-thirds of the registered voters go to the polls in a good year, and decisions are usually rendered by a simple majority of those who cast ballots — guarantees a form of minority rule. And it’s a minority with an identifiable character: the active electorate tends to be older, whiter, more affluent, and more conservative than the population in general. Today’s vote will be even more skewed than usual. The guesses out there are that just 25 percent of registered voters will go to the polls. That means that the agreement of just one-eighth of those registered, and less than one-tenth of those eligible, will be enough to set state policy for years to come.

Not that I blame voters entirely. The propositions before them are singularly unattractive. The people are confronted with a palette of taxes, theoretical spending limits, special set-asides for education, and changes in the operation of the California lottery. They’ve been told that whatever the outcome, the state is about to undergo another round of deep budget cuts. To vote yes on most of these initiatives is to opt into a dim future; to vote no is to invite a dreadful one. The only measure people seem to really comprehend and support is one that will prevent state officials from taking a pay raise when the state is running a deficit.

California is one of those enterprises that is too big to let fail. It’ll be here tomorrow, next week, and next year, 38 million strong. It’ll have all its problems and its promise. But it’s stuck with a hell of an inefficient way of running things. It makes you think that some time soon it might be a good idea to consider tearing up the rule book we have and starting from scratch.

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The Privateer Lynx

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At Jack London Square in Oakland: The Lynx, an “interpretation” of an 1812 Baltimore clipper-type schooner built in Maryland near the outset of the War of 1812. We saw it while on the Oakland ferry and went over to its berth to check it out. It was commissioned by a Baltimore merchant syndicate and was intended to be a raider of British shipping (remember “letters of marque and reprisal“?). The Lynx was captured in April 1813, despite having fled up the Rappahannock River from Chesapeake Bay to escape larger British warships. The British were so bent on taking the Lynx they sent boats to follow it upriver where they did indeed capture it. The Brits took the boat to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and pressed it into service for the duration of the war. They were so impressed with the boats speed and maneuverability that they brought it to England after the war and studied and recorded every detail of its design and construction so that it could be reproduced (a process that today we call “reverse engineering”).

The current Lynx was built in Maine and completed in 2001 and is used by a private foundation as a sort of floating classroom. It’s staffed by professional sailors who teach schoolkids the basics of how sailing gear works, how the ship’s guns work, and what role the boat and similar ones played in U.S. history. I went out on the Lynx on Sunday afternoon for a cruise out past Alcatraz. Great trip, and one that I’m doing a radio story on. Oh, the ship’s motto: “Be excellent to each other and to your ship.”

(The mini-narrative above is from Craig Chipman, captain of the Lynx, and Richard Conlan, a crew member).

More here: Lynx, America’s Privateer.

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Berkeleyana: The Kenney Cottage

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Last Sunday, we walked a little farther down University Avenue than usual (in search of a mailbox to drop a Netflix disc into; seems like we have many fewer mailboxes than in olden times, and the ones that have survived here are covered with grafitti and in general so trashy-looking that make you wonder whether they’re in use anymore). I’ve probably been by this spot at least 100 times in the last five years, and never noticed this building. The banner is a plea from the Berkeley Archtectural Heritage Association for someone to give this house a home. As my dad would say, all it needs is a little TLC. The association had the structure, which apparently dates back to the 1880s and is of a unique (and patented) portable design, moved to this lot in 2004 from a spot about five blocks up University; prior to that, it had been a further five blocks east and south. Now, nature and the neighborhood are having their way with the place.

Read more about the house on the BAHA site (which includes some cool pictures of the cottage’s earlier moves and what the place looked like when it was first planted on this lot):

Berkeley Observed: Kenney cottage serves as rare example of early prefabricated architecture

Kenney cottage needs a home!

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Shootout at the Blog-Post Corral

It’s been a slow week here at the blog corral, at least when it comes to posts. My friend Pete has been in town from Portland, and though I’m not offering his visit as an excuse to neglect blog kith and Web kin, I’d hardly feel right sitting here with my face in the ancient iBook screen when I have an old comrade on the premises. Pete, though, has made some sort of commitment to blog every day leading up to his next Ironman triathlon, in Idaho next month, and he’s blogged something like 146 days in a row. Quality stuff, too. You can read his training tales here.

And for me, tonight, that’s -30-

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News from the Road: Grants, New Mexico

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We stopped overnight in Grants, New Mexico, our third night on the road from Chicago to Berkeley last month. I have vague recollections of the place from a hitchhiking trip in December 1974 (I was headed to Berkeley that time, too). I got dropped off on I-40 on the west end of town about 7 in the morning, and it was very cold; about 10 below zero is how I remember it. But I had only been out on the highway for a few minutes when a new-looking Chevy pull ed over. I noticed the car had California plates, and I was thinking that at the worst I’d get a ride all the way across Arizona, anyway. As we pulled back onto the highway, the driver asked where I was going. When he heard where I was going, he said I was in luck because he was headed to Oakland. He dropped me right at my friends’ house near College and Ashby avenues. I remember the driver stopping for gas soon after he picked me up, in Gallup, at a point where I believe the interstate still might have been under construction and you had to take the old Route 66 through town. The morning was still intensely cold, but I remember seeing several men–Navajo, I guessed, since we were very close to the Navajo Nation–stumbling very drunk along the street; farther on, a couple more were lying on a sidewalk passed out. It was a little scary and disturbing, and I was glad not to hang around.

On this trip, we got to town right at sunset and pulled into the first motel we saw, which happened to be a Comfort Inn. My brother Chris went out and found trunks for us at Wal-mart, and we all went swimming. We ate Domino’s Pizza, then crashed for the night. Next morning we stopped at cafe on the other side of town and picked up the local paper, the Cibola Beacon The cafe wasn’t great–the milk my nephew Liam ordered was curdled and the food was just sort of thrown at us. The paper wasn’t terrific, either (here’s a sample from a more recent issue, under the headline, “Wildlife Found Near Residence:”

“A bobcat was seen at a home in Grants near Mount Taylor Elementary School on Monday. Ida Ortiz, wife of former mayor Ronald Ortiz, was gardening at her home and noticed a small cat in the yard, which at the time, didn’t realize it was a bobcat. Ortiz called her husband and described the animal to him and he called public safety officials. Officials found bobcat foot prints in the yard and took all safety precautions from there especially considering a elementary school was right across the street. The bobcat was never found.”

In fact, the only thing in the paper that made much of an impression was the ad above, featuring the future rifle-toting toddler. I can’t think of anything to add to that at all.

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Boat Ride

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Walked from KQED over to the Ferry Building and met Kate, who had ridden the 7:55 ferry from Oakland. We got right back on and rode back as the dusk deepened. This was the view from the Alameda ferry terminal, before we made the short hop back to Jack London Square. Calm, nearly warm night. Beautiful on the water.   

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Former Bike Rider Reminisces

As a former bike rider, I still remember how to balance a two-wheeler and sometimes venture out into the world to remind myself what it feels like to roll along the local pavements.

This morning I had an appointment over on Solano Avenue, a couple miles from home. I rode over. Then afterward, I rode up Solano and wound my way into the hills. Just to remind myself what that uphill trudge feels like.

I got to the top of Los Angeles Avenue, which is short and no big deal though it has a semi-steep pitch at the end. I was taking it very easy and riding in my lowest low gear.

Turning uphill on Spruce, perhaps the most popular way into the hills on the north end of Berkeley, another rider appeared alongside me. He was going faster than I and was visibly fitter, too. We said hi and wished each other a good ride, and within a few seconds he was pulling away. As I got ready to turn uphill on Keith Avenue, a quiet and steepish side street, the Other Cyclist was maybe 100 feet ahead of me.

I stayed in my low gear up Keith and crossed Euclid Avenue. Then I started a sort of side-step up the ridge toward Grizzly Peak Boulevard. From Keith, which has a gentle grade east of Euclid, I turned on to Bret Harte Way, which probably has a 16 or 17 percent grade (and grade is a measure of a road’s slope: 10 percent means a 10-unit vertical change for every 100 linear units; 10 feet in 100 feet, or 10 meters in 100 meters. Given my out-of-shape linebacker physique, which my legs have to carry up these hills, I regard 10 percent as pretty steep. In Berkeley, Marin Avenue climbs into the hills with gradients of roughly 20 to 30 percent, and the steepest street I’ve heard of in town is said to be 31 percent. That’s another way of saying darn near impossible for mere mortals and former bike riders).

At each corner, I tried to turn uphill. The way it worked out, I alternated between steep eastbound pitches like Bret Harte Way and flatter south-trending pieces like Cragmont. And so it went, up Bret Harte Road (steep again, and different from B.H. Way), Keeler Avenue (flattish), Twain Avenue (steep), Sterling (gentle), Whitaker (steep), Miller (easy), and Stevenson, a short street that I knew topped out at Grizzly Peak. And that was as far up as I intended to go.

I finished the climb and turned left on Grizzly Peak. As it happened, I was about 100 feet or so in front of the guy who had just passed me down below. We waved at each other, and I called out that he could have taken the short cut, and he laughed. It was a lovely piece of symmetry in a short ride into the hills, but the neatness of the coincidence made me want to try to account for it.

So here’s some arithmetic. The corner of Keith Avenue, roughly where the Other Cyclist passed me, is at an elevation of 499 feet if online sources are to be believed. The corner where we met again is at 1,082 feet. So both of us climbed 583 feet. Now, how far did we ride in linear distance? Again using an online tool–Gmaps Pedometer, which you ought to try if you haven’t already–my ride was 1.21 miles. His: 2.47. That’s another neat coincidence: His route being twice as long and the net climb being the same, his net grade (4.5 percent) is half of mine (9.2 percent). He also had to maintain an average speed roughly double mine, which would have been no problem since I was probably poking along at about 5 mph or less when the road got steep.

So those are the numbers. Interesting, but they don’t quite sum up that moment of delight when I saw the Other Rider again.

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Watching Water

I’ve become preoccupied the last two or three months with the level of water in California’s reservoirs. If you’re inclined to, here’s where you can join in the fun: The state Department of Water Resources’ California Data Exchange Center. The cliche to describe a collection of information like this is “treasure trove.” For example, here’s one report that I’ve taken to taking a look at just about every morning: The Sacramento/San Joaquin Daily Reservoir Storage Summary. It’s a quick look at about three dozen state’s biggest storage facilities: how much water they’re holding, how many acre feet have flowed in or out in the past day, and–especially interesting–how much water they hold compared both to the average for this date and to the amount held a year ago.

There’s a story in the numbers, though I’m still puzzling out what it is. For instance, the state’s current drought is not a drought everywhere. Although rainfall and the mountain snowpack are generally below average, some reservoirs hold more than average for this time of year and much more than they did a year ago (which was an even worse year, precipitation-wise). But the numbers are just one dimension of a complicated picture. All that water has a lot of work to do. We count on it not just for irrigating the Central Valley farms and bringing drinking and lawn water to the citiies and suburbs, but for providing electricity, too. And in recent decades, the state and federal water managers have even been made conscious of another function the water might perform: preserving wildlife–especially the once-magnificent salmon runs in the Sacramento and San Joaquin watersheds.

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The I-5 Trivia Files: Self-Interview

Q. So what’s the topic?

A. I was thinking about driving up Interstate 5 and all those passes you cross.

Q. Yeah?

A. It’s a flat valley drive until you get to Redding. That’s 200 miles from the front door. Then there’s some climbing and lots of twisty parts around Lake Shasta. And then you go up some more, past Dunsmuir.

Q. Dunsmuir?

A. Dunsmuir’s about 50, 55 miles north of Redding. LIttle town on the upper part of the Sacramento River. Popular place during trout season. Elevation up there is about 2,500 feet.

Q. What then?

A. Mount Shasta. You can see the mountain way down in the Valley. Once we saw it clear down by Dunnigan, which is 180 miles down the road from the peak. But when you get into the hilly country around Redding, you lose sight of the mountain until you’re much closer. And then, bang, there it is.

Q. Big.

A. Very big. Very impressive. A 14,000-foot peak standing out there pretty much by itself. Anyway, the highway goes up past the town of Mount Shasta, which sits on the eastern base of the mountain. At about 3,500 feet. Then I-5 goes up crosses Black Butte Summit. About 3,900 feet. That’s the first real pass, maybe 50 miles south of the Oregon border.

Q. Black Butte?

A. It’s a volcanic cone of some kind. Next to Mount Shasta, it’s the most remarkable sight along that part of the road.

Q. OK. You’re still going north. What’s the next pass?

A. Well, the road loses some elevation first. You go through Weed, which is mentioned in passing in “Of Mice and Men,” the Steinbeck story. It’s a place Lenny and George had to leave before they landed in the Salinas Valley, where the story takes place. Then you go through Yreka, which ought to have a bakery because it it did you’d have a good palindrome. The road goes right up after you pass Yreka, up Anderson Grade. There’s a nice view of Shasta to the south, and somebody put a dragon sculpture along the highway there. You climb up to Anderson Grade Summit. Maybe 3,100 feet.

Q. Not a big deal?

A. Well, it’s steep coming up from Yreka, and the road winds, and there are plenty of slower trucks up there, and then the road plunges down toward the Klamath River. There’s an exit right along the Klamath with a rest area. Good place to stop, though I only remember doing it once.

Q. Still in California.

A. For a little while, maybe 10-15 miles. The road goes up and down for a while, you pass a weigh station, and then you start climbing again. The last town in California is called Hilt. Milepost 796, I think. And then you’re on the Oregon border.

Q. How far from home?

A. About 320 miles. That climb that starts in California is the Siskiyou Summit climb. That’s two syllables — SISK-you.The summit is the highest point on I-5, 4,300-some feet. Doesn’t sound that high — all the well-known passes in the Sierra Nevada are in the low 7,000 to 10,000-foot range. But Siskiyou is far enough north and gets enough wet weather in the winter to make it a barrier. I know plenty of people who’ve gotten stopped there during snowstorms. Or at least a couple.

Q. How about you?

A. Never. We always had great luck driving through there in winter. The road always seemed to be dry and clear when we went through on our way up to Eugene.

Q. Where’s the road go next.

A. There’s a steep drop with a couple runaway-truck ramps down to the town of Ashland, where the Shakespeare Festival is. Elevation there is probably 1,500 or 1,800 feet. Then you’re in a valley through Medford, the big town in the region. Then you noodle around through Grants Pass before you come to the three summits.

Q. Three summits?

A. Well, you hit them one right after another. I always tried to keep the order straight. Northbound, I think you hit Sexton Mountain first. Then … Stage Road, I think. And last … Smith Hill. I think the last is the highest, about 2,000 feet. Then there’s a little break crossing a valley, and then you hit a fourth pass, Canyon Creek, which is also not very high but has a long, long descent to Canyonville and then the Seven Feathers Casino.

Q. How many times have you done this drive?

A. Over the last four or five years maybe 20, 25 times. Enough to get to know it. That’s the last named pass that I know of, Canyon Creek. Though there are rivers.

Q. That’s a different species of geographic phenomenon. Which ones?

A. Well, from the south, you’ve got the Sacramento, which you cross and recross half a dozen times from Red Bluff up to Dunsmuir. Then the Shasta, which is a tiny thing, and maybe the Little Shasta. The Klamath. Bear Creek between Ashland and Medford; has enough water running to be called a river. The Rogue. The South Umpqua and the North Umpqua. The Coast Fork of the Willamette, and the southern end of the mainstem Willamette just as you get into Eugene. Maybe other rivers. But a whole bunch of creeks, too. One name that comes to mind: Jumpoff Joe Creek, north of Grants Pass before you go up Sexton Mountain.

Q. Creek names are a whole other subject.

A. True. We’ll get to them later.