REMEMBERING LEROY

He was a familiar sight running past our house each day, useless, withered arm swinging at his side. He ran as if it was a challenge to the Almighty in payment for the curse of his loss. I encountered him once or twice at 5:30 a.m. while running with Max, our Dobermann. We would see him later in the day at the other end of town. I heard that he sometimes ran 25 miles in a day. He worked out daily in a lap pool in his small back yard. He and his wife lived around the corner from us with a menagerie of pets, while caring for each of their parents. His father in a wheelchair and her blind mother.

The name “SPRINZ” was written on the back of his t-shirt, reminding my husband of former major league baseball catcher Joe Sprinz, who played for the Cleveland Indians and the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930’s. His claim to fame after he retired, was a publicity stunt attempting to catch a baseball dropped from a blimp in 1939. On the fifth try, the ball landed in his glove at a speed estimated to have been 154 miles per hour. It slammed his glove hand into his face, breaking his jaw in twelve places. He also dropped the ball.

Joe’s son Leroy, our intrepid runner, lived around the corner from us for many years. Though I had not really met him, he knocked on my door one morning asking if he could leave his father here while he finished his run. Not knowing what else to do, I said it would be OK. What led was a fascinating hour while the old man reminisced about stories of his baseball past to us. All the famous names in the years of our youth came back to him. He also recounted the story of Leroy’s withered arm. He had had polio as a youngster, and though the doctors wanted to amputate the arm, the boy fought to keep it, saying he would figure out a way to live with it.

He became a teacher at Newark Memorial High School in Newark, CA, and while teaching tennis and baseball, he played in the school band. Proficient with a variety of instruments, refusing to let an obstacle such as the loss of an arm stop him. Much like his father, he obviously enjoyed overcoming challenges.

After retiring, Leroy and his wife, Lory Ostenkowski, moved to Oakhurst a few years ago, to enjoy their leisure years in the company of tall pine trees and deer in the mountains near Yosemite. Both were prolific writers of poetry and haiku, and were generous with their output. Leroy also found time to play in the local community band while indulging his interest in photography, and running the mountain trails.

Leroy was a trusted critic of my work, approving of my blog, though he hated the word BLOG, thinking it ugly and an embarrassment to the English language. His wife Lory, became a victim of AMD, and he greatly enlarged any artwork I posted on their large TV so that she could share it.

I had not heard from him for several months, and sent an email to see if they were OK. Last night I decided that I would write again this morning. Before I went to my computer, his widow Lory, called to tell us of his passing two months ago. According to her, the polio got him again. Post-polio, which affects many survivors, renews all the original suffering. Their daughter, who lives in Alaska, found the note I sent while clearing out his computer after his death.

Leroy was a quirky, courageous and rare person who will be greatly missed. The legacy he left was that nothing is impossible to those who keep forging through in spite of unforeseen difficulties. RIP Leroy, I’m glad I got to know you.

THE ROAR OF THE CROWD

I like baseball. I know, I said that last year in October during the World Series. I have liked baseball since my father placed a wood bat in my hands and told me to hit the ball he tossed to me, and then run like heck for first base. My father was a Yankee fan, and Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio was his man. Listening to the games on the family Philco, I memorized the stats so I could impress him. I played sandlot ball whenever the neighborhood boys let me in, but I never made the first team. I had frequent dreams of hitting a home run with the bases loaded, but they were only pipe dreams. Living as we did, in many places across the country, we never actually went to a game together, but my Dad often fit one in when he could.

Alameda was a baseball town and turned out a few stars of the game. Joe Kaney, Bob Wuestoff, and Don “Ducky” Pries made baseball their careers, whether in playing, coaching or scouting.

October always gives me a thrill, when the best of the best struggle for supremacy. The crowd’s roar, the steely eyed pitcher working out what his pitch will be with the catcher, who is squatting like a silent toad behind home plate, giving pre-arranged finger signals to the pitcher. The tension builds. The moments during this silent exchange must be agonizing for the batter, wondering what his fate will be. This is a time for confidence, but does he feel confident? The pitch is a slider, and the batter swings and misses. Do that a couple more times and you’re out. There are so many pitches, and so hard to anticipate which one you will get.

Watching a game on TV can be nerve-wracking too. Your team is behind, it’s the top of the ninth, the bases are loaded, two outs, the batter, whom you don’t like very much anyway, has two strikes against him, the pitch is thrown, and he strikes out. It’s like a deflated balloon.

I remember visiting my parents during a World Series game many years ago, and the game was on TV. My mother, who was the least likely to sit and watch a game, was watching intently and making knowledgable remarks. I don’t suppose I should have been surprised, given my Dad’s interest in the game.

THERE’S MAGIC IN A TOWN

Ibecame familiar with Palo Alto, California while my father’s cousin worked at Stanford University. We were occasionally gifted with tickets to art exhibits and concerts there, and made the trip over the bridge from our island of Alameda. Years later, when I had the decorating business, Palo Alto was a source of much of the material I used in store design.

Allied Arts is a lovely group of artist studios and a small tea room where volunteers take your order for lunch, and even sell you the recipes. Shirley Temple Black waited upon us once years ago. I still use their recipe for carrot soup. Our young neighbors were married there in the patio.

The main office for Sunset Magazine was for many years in Palo Alto. The magazine was started after The Southern Pacific Railroad advertised that you could come out to California and buy a lot for fifty bucks. The magazine advertised the ‘good life’ showing how Californians decorated their homes, planted their gardens, and cooked food equal to that of anywhere in the world. Their building was an ideal typically California style, with hand made tile roofs and floors, and a quiet beautiful decor, showing off hand woven pieces, and pottery. It was surrounded by a rough post and rail fence covered with America climbing roses. When we began landscaping our home, we took note of all of it, and planted 125 America roses along the fence. It was a mass of peachy-red color in the spring. Time Magazine bought the magazine and moved their office to Jack London Square in Oakland. The lovely building in Palo Alto has become something else now. I hope they kept the roses.

Dr. A’s cousin worked for the Magazine for many years, and now our next door neighbor works in the testing kitchen a few days a week. She gets first hand knowledge of what goes into a coming issue, and frequently brings us a sample. This Christmas it was a delicious shortbread cookie.

The town itself was charming, filled with lovely old homes and tiny ‘candy box’ cottages, all owned by mega moguls working in San Francisco. As the years have progressed, businesses have begun to fill in the vacant spaces and it has become another busy place to stay away from. The lovely old homes are still there,surrounded by well-groomed gardens, and the tiny cottages sell upward of a million dollars.

Though Dr. A will always support his beloved University of California at Berkeley, we rarely missed a football game at Stanford, Berkeley’s arch rival. It had a lot to do with the country feel of the campus as opposed to ‘middle-of-the city’ feeling of Cal. It didn’t hurt that he took over the insurance for the University years ago. Today it finds itself in the middle of Silicon Valley.

A number of our friends were Stanford graduates and football fans, and we met each morning of a game in the same place for a “tail-gate” party. There were perhaps 10 or 12 people in our group, one who played in the infamous Stanford band, and whose parents and grandparents before him had graduated from the school. Amazingly, though he donated a great deal of money each year to the school, when it became time for his daughter to enroll, she was denied admission because all she had to offer was a 4.0 scholastic score. Stanford wanted someone who also was active in another activity, such as a sport. Stanford, named for Leland Stanford’s son, Leland Stanford Jr., became one of the most prestigious universities in the world and though in the middle of the city it still maintains its over 8,000 acres of tree-shaded beauty.

Football fans can become a bit over the top, and many people set up shop early in the morning with barbeques fired up, and drinks being buzzed in osterizers. Another friend, who was a big football star at Stanford, brought an enormous bus each game day, filled with his friends and fitted out with all the comforts of home, to be partaken of in the few hours before the game. Thankfully, in those sensible days, a game started at about 1 p.m. Today, most games are televised, and begin in the early evening, making it a very late evening before the game ends.
Stanford parking is in the unpaved woods under ancient oak trees. Of course if it rains, the area becomes a giant mudhole. I remember a story my mother-in-law told of being stuck in the mud after a ball game in their youth. Not fun in the mud and in the dark if it were a night game.

Today, our eleven year old great granddaughter has hopes of someday attending Stanford on a soccer scholarship. The dreams of an eleven year old can’t be dismissed. It always begins somewhere.

DO BICYCLES LEAD TO SEDUCTION?

In the late 1800s, the newly invented safety bicycle became all the rage across America. Some people thought they were morally hazardous.

By 1892 Wilbur and Orville Wright had taken up bicycling and had recently taken a long trip down south. They went down the Cincinnati Pike, stopped at the County Fair, and pumped around the track a few times. They continued on to Miamisburg, went up and over numerous steep hills and stopped to see the prehistoric Adena Miamisburg Mound, the largest of Ohio’s famous conical shaped reminders of a vanished Native American civilization. In all they covered thirty-one miles. Astonishing!

Bicycles had become the sensation of the time. Everybody rode a bicycle. These were the newest version with two wheels the same size unlike the ones from the 1870’s and 80’s which tended to tip the rider over. These bicycles were a ‘thing of beauty, good for the spirits, good for health and vitality, and generally improved one’s whole outlook on life. Doctors enthusiastically approved.

One Philadelphia physician wrote in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, that from his observation there was no better physical exercise for both men and women. The bicycle was one of the greatest inventions of the nineteenth century.

However opposing voices were raised in protest. Bicycles were proclaimed to be morally hazardous. Until now children were unable to stray far from home on foot, but on a bicycle, in fifteen minutes they could be miles away. Plus young people were not spending enough time at their studies, and more seriously, that suburban and country tours on bicycles were not ‘infrequently accompanied by seduction.’ Canoodling was taking place in every clump of bushes at the side of the road! Outrageous!

Fortunately such concerns had little effect. Everybody was riding bicycles; men, women of all ages and from all walks of life. Bicycling clubs sprouted up all over the country. In the spring of 1893 Wilbur and Orville Wright opened their own small bicycle business, selling and repairing bicycles, only a short walk from their home. They named the enterprise the Wright Cycle Company.

It was their work on bicycles and all manner of machinery which showed Wilbur and Orville Wright, inventors and aviation pioneers, that an unstable vehicle like an airplane could be controlled and balanced with practice.

The only other word we heard about the hazards of bicycle riding, was the wedding of “Daisy”, after she hopped on the seat of the bicycle built for two.

GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN

It’s strange, but after a certain age people start worrying about who will inherit all the detritus they have accumulated during their life. What they should worry about is who the heck wants it anyway? By the time you are ready to get rid of it, any likely recipients already have a houseful of their own stuff, and none of it is part of the same era as ours. The sad thing is that sometimes the small things which are so important to us get lost in the shuffle.

A case in point is my purse. It is a prototype from Jansport which I have carried everywhere exclusively for twenty years. I carry this purse to the grocery store, to the beach, on vacation, out to dinner; you name it and it has been there. This may not seem amazing to you, but what else fits that description? It is canvas and leather, with pockets holding my life, and though I have a number of expensive designer type handbags in my closet, I opt to use this purse my daughter gave me twenty years ago.

In 1969, while at the University of Washington, our daughter met Skip Yowell, a fun loving and exciting young fellow who with his cousin had started a small backpacking company a couple of years before. People in Washington state are noted for loving the outdoors and finding out what is over the top of all those mountains. Skip Yowell and his cousin Murray Pletz, had an idea that they could make a better backpack than what was being used. Murray’s girlfriend Jan, used her sewing machine to stitch the canvas, and Murray told her if she married him, they would name the company after her. So three hippie kids with a great idea became Jansport, and the company grew into one of the largest outdoor gear companies in the country. Jansport gear has made it to the top of Mount Everest and its sister behemoths for so long now they should put a retail outlet on the top of the mountain.

I was often the lucky recipient of a prototype Jansport had made that year, and that was how I came by my very special purse.

Now that you know the story, you can see why it is important to me to know who will treasure this bit of corporate history. Antique Roadshow may someday feature it to the amazement of its future owner.

1968 SUMMER OLYMPICS

The 1968 Summer Olympics were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City, Mexico, in October 1968.

They were special on two counts; they were the first to be held in Latin America and the first in a Spanish-speaking country. Previously the Games had been held in First World countries. They were also the first to use an all-weather (hard) track for track and field events instead of a cinder track.

Three months after Robert Kennedy’s killing the real world again insinuated itself into sports. Ten days before the Games were to begin, nearly ten thousand people gathered to protest the nation’s expenditures on games when millions of Mexicans lived in poverty. Gunfire from police and soldiers killed more than two hundred protesters.

The 1968 torch relay recreated the route taken by Christopher Columbus to the New World, journeying from Greece through Italy and Spain to San Salvador Island, Bahamas, and then on to Mexico. American sculptor James Metcalf, an expatriate in Mexico, won the commission to forge the Olympic torch for the Summer games.

Though born in New York, Metcalf was an expat for most of his life, living first in London, Paris and finally settling in Mexico where he opened a studio and forge and taught students.

On the morning of 16 October, 1968, US athlete Tommie Smith won the 200 meter race with a world record time of 19.83 seconds. Australia’s Peter Norman finished second with a time of 20.06 seconds, and the US’s John Carlos won third place with a time of 29.10 seconds. After the race was completed, the three went to the podium for their medals to be presented. The two US athletes received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty. Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to represent black pride, Carlos had his track suit top unzipped to show solidarity with all blue collar workers in the US and wore a necklace of beads which he described were for those individuals that were lynched, or killed and that no one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage. All three athletes wore Olympic Project for Human Rights badges after Norman, a critic of Australia’s White Australia Policy, expressed empathy with their ideals.

Both US athletes intended on bringing black gloves to the event, but Carlos forgot his, leaving them in the Olympic Village. Norman suggested than Carlos put Smith’s left hand glove on his hand instead.
During the playing of the Star Spangled Banner both athletes bowed their heads. As they left the podium, they were booed by the crowd.

Smith later said , “If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black, and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight.”

HUDDLE UP

Fremont is the home of the California School For the Deaf, which made this excerpt from How Football Explains America by Sal Paolantonio catch my eye. The football huddle was invented at a college for the deaf–Gallaudet University in Washington DC–as a means of hiding signals from other deaf teams. it was then institutionalized at the University of Chicago as a means of bringing control and Christian fellowship to the game.

“When Gallaudet played nondeaf clubs or schools Hubbard merely used hand signals–American Sign Language–to call a play at the line of scrimmage, imitating what was done in football from Harvard to Michigan. Both teams approached the line of scrimmage. The signal caller–whether it was the left halfback or quarterback–barked out the plays at the line of scrimmage. Nothing was hidden from the defense. There was no huddle.

“Hand signals against nondeaf schools gave Gallaudet an advantage. But other deaf schools could read quarterback Paul Hubbard’s sign language. So, beginning in 1894, Hubbard came up with a plan. He decided to conceal the signals by gathering his offensive players in a huddle prior to the snap of the ball,.–Hubbard’s innovation in 1894 worked brilliantly. ‘From that point on, the huddle became a habit during regular season games.’ states a school history of the football program.

“In 1896, the huddle started showing up on other college campuses, particularly the University of Georgia and the University of Chicago. At Chicago, it was Amos Alonzo Stagg, the man credited with nurturing American football into the modern age and barnstorming across the country to sell the same, who popularized the use of the huddle and made the best case for it.

“At the time, coaches were not permitted to send in plays from the sideline. So, while Stagg clearly understood the benefit of concealing the signals from the opposition, he was more interested in the huddle as a way of introducing far more reaching reforms to the game.

“Before becoming a coach, Stagg wanted to be a minister. At Yale, he was a divinity student from 1885 to 1889. Thoughtful, pious and righteous, Stagg brought innovations to football as an attempt to bring a Christian fellowship to the game. He wanted his players to play under control, to control the pace the course, and the conduct of what had been a game of mass movement that often broke out into fisticuffs. Stagg viewed the huddle as a vital aspect of helping to teach sportsmanship. He viewed the huddle as a kind of religious congregation on the field, a place where the players could, if you will, minister to each other, make a plan, and promise to keep faith in that plan and one another.”
……………………………………………………………

Whether the players of today know the origin of the huddle, or whether they adhere to the precepts that Stagg put forth, on occasion, is a moot point. That “mass movement” that often ended in fisticuffs, is still part of the game.

SOMETHING TO CHEW ON

I have been asked to share some recipes and/or food tips, so until I run out of ideas, I will try to share something foodwise with you on Mondays. Today, it’s what we ate yesterday during the Superbowl game, and the less said about the game, the better. It was a bitter pill to digest, but we win some and we lose some. This Stuffed Foccacia was much easier to make and to digest.

One thing you must remember is that Superbowl Sunday is inviolate. The game is important of course, but the food and drink take top spot in some families. The amount of chips, dips, and chicken wings consumed on that day could probably tilt a battleship, and the amount of beer and or wine bears no discussion. They threatened to run out of chicken wings two years ago. I didn’t hear any suggestions that it might happen again this year. I guess they are raising more chickens.

The second most important thing about the Superbowl game are the commercials on TV. Budweiser Beer wins hands down always with their Clydesdale horses and puppies every year. This year the puppy ran away and the horses found him and brought him home. Adorable. The third thing is the half time entertainment. I can’t speak for it usually because that’s when I’m out in the kitchen whipping up something to to munch on. This year it was Katy Perry, and I only got a glimpse of her flipping her skirts as she was shouting determinedly into her microphone while riding some sort of robotic animal.

Now for the good part: this is a Stuffed Foccacia, which is so easy your 12 year old could make it.

It’s my version of an Umbrian road food sometimes served at outdoor eateries in Italy. It’s the kind of thing you can pack up in a wicker basket with some good Italian olives and a great bottle of wine. Already that can’t be bad.

FOR THE FOCCACIA:
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups flour, plus more for working the dough
1 tsp kosher salt

Two cast iron frying pans, or at least really heavy ones that will take the heat. I use my grandma’s. If you didn’t save your grandma’s I’m sorry for you. The others will work.

Dissolve the yeast with 1/4 cup of warm water in a small bowl. Let it sit for a few minutes, until it starts to bubble. Put the flour and salt in the food processor and pulse a few times.
Combine the dissolved yeast with a cup of warm water and pour it all into the processor over the flour while its running. Process until it clumps up and leaves the side of the bowl, about 20 seconds. Process another 20 or a total of 40 seconds.
Turn out onto floured board and knead for a minute then put into oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour until doubled.
Heat your oven to 450 preheated for 10 minutes. Deflate dough and divide in two. Flatten each piece of dough and press into cast iron skillet. Dimple all over top with fingers and bake for 15 minutes or until light brown on top.

When cool, split in half crosswise and fill with an assortment of your choice. I like to use roasted vegetables, deli turkey or ham, two or three cheeses, a few sauteed greens, and of course a generous drizzle of olive oil. Yesterday I spread a layer of artichoke pesto, then I used some roasted zucchini, and broccolini, and eggplant, havarti cheese, sliced turkey. Put the tops back on and press lightly together. Brush with good olive oil and wrap tightly in a layer of foil and place in a hot oven for about 10-15 minutes.

DIVING IN THE DARK

Moonlight glistening on the quiet water
as I slide noiselessly into its
dark protective environs.

Our headlamps look like
a busy nighttime L.A. freeway.
Everybody going somewhere.

A slender tether keeps me from
drifting off into the Pacific Ocean.
No reef, just open sea another 3,000 ft. down.

Familiar anemones and unpretentious sea cucumbers
have deserted me here with
glittering blue fins whispering quickly past.

A moving galactic sprawl with
Jellies waving their arms to attract the
pelagic horde throbbing like my beating heart.

Do they mind that we have invaded their space?
We don’t belong in this world.
How do you avoid feeling that you are bait on a line?

In this dark and secret place
the largest animal migration on the planet, yet
freeway traffic continues unaware.

I am hauled up like a fish.

The boat is alive with quiet reverence.
And Pink Floyd playing “The Dark Side of the Moon”.

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT

The warm October sun clings to the lost days of summer like the shorts on the long-limbed girls strolling along the bank of a flat calm lake. The two boys rowing ten feet off shore aren’t unmindful of the tanned walkers. One of the boys yells a loud “Hi”, and the girls giggle.

I have just finished reading “The Boys in the Boat” by Daniel James Brown, and was sorry to see it end. It tells the stories of nine boys from the University of Washington who came from poor and sorry circumstances in the Great Depression, yet worked their way through to obtain college degrees and become the finest crew team in the world.

Rowing is an ancient sport, and at both the University of Washington and the University of California they give it deep respect. Crews from both schools have captured gold medals at the Olympics, and Washington’s biggest win was when they did it at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, leaving Hitler red faced and in an especially foul mood, as it had been planned and expected that Germany would grab the gold in all events, and for awhile it looked as if they would. Berlin and the surrounding Olympic venues had been sanitized for the Olympic events, everything depicting a picturesque and sublime Bavarian life, but the terror of the Holocaust had already begun and lurked behind scenes, resuming when the Olympic flag was lowered.

Race rowing was a big sport at Eton College and Westminster School in England, and the elite sport then spread to the east coast of the U.S.A. and from there to the west coast.

The racing shell, unlike the ordinary rowboat, is an extremely narrow, extremely long boat, originally built of wood, and outfitted with long oars and sliding seats. The boat for an eight man crew is sixty feet long and 24″ wide! An eight man crew actually has nine men, eight rowers and a coxswain who is in charge of the steering and navigation of the boat. He sits facing the oarsmen and shouts his orders while the boat ghosts along the water, the long oars dipping in unison and leaving not a ripple. Bobby Moch of the UW team was one of the finest coxswains in that or in any time.

A second generation boat builder whose father built boats for Eton, George Yeomans Pocock came from England to the University of Washington in 1912 and began to build boats used by nearly every college in America.

A champion sculler himself Pocock worked out of a boathouse on the campus of the UW and built his beautiful wood racing shells over the next half century. Shells today are made from reinforced carbon fibre, strong and graceful for sure, but the polished beauty of the wood boat is gone forever. Pocock was a mentor to many of the rowing coaches of the day, including Al Ulbrickson, head coach at Washington, and Ky Ebright, head coach of the University of California, Washington’s rival, for whom Pocock also built boats.

For the four years the boys struggled to stay in college and stay in the boat, Ulbrickson drove them hard and Pocock gave them gentler suggestions steering them toward their biggest victory in Berlin in 1936. During this time, Seattle’s most famous sports writer, Royal Brougham, registered every win and loss of the UW crews, and helped fuel the enthusiasm for crew racing still felt today. Seattle is a big sports town and partly because of the lack of TV coverage in those days, the public swelled with pride at every win heard on the family radio and every word of praise in the local newspaper.

Brougham traveled with the team to Berlin and reported every move of the American teams. His excitement was boundless and on the day of the varsity win over Hitler’s teams, Brougham pounded out probably the greatest column of his 68 year career with the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Unfortunately it was never seen because of a union strike the next day in Seattle.

You might ask why my great interest in the story told in this book? We grew to love Seattle and the University in th years we lived there. One of our daughters and her children graduated from the University, and we attended every sports event for five years. We still fly up for occasional college football games.

Living on the banks of Lake Washington, the vision of rowers, crew or single sculls was an everyday pleasure. Here in California, we of course also root for the Cal boys in their boat since that was Dr. Advice’s school. They row down the Oakland estuary, which lies beside my old home on the island of Alameda. While living in Connecticut in the 30’s I watched the Harvard and Yale crews rowing on the Thames river in New London. The Thames was also the water in which I learned to swim. I don’t seem to be able to get too far from water!

As a final irony in Berlin, Bobby Moch, coxswain from the winning University of Washington, stood on the podium alone to receive his gold medal. Unbeknownst to Hitler and his band of evil, intent on the destruction of an entire race of people, Bobby Moch was a Jew.