EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN Kate’s Journal

Episode 35 Fremont, CA 1974

Welcome to our house!

We had no great welcoming home party when we returned, and probably some people were unaware we had ever left. In the five years we lived in the Northwest, we forged a well worn path to family and friends between Kirkland and Fremont, so that technically we almost lived in both places.

What we needed to find first was someplace to put our stuff, which having lost Mrs. Peel, Tuffy and Rudy,now included Liza, a large German Shepherd Dog. I had thought perhaps to buy someplace where we could live and have a shop. I could work while customers dropped in and shopped. We would also have homemade soup and breads and maybe a cricket or two!

This did not work out so we bought with the idea of staying a couple of years while we looked for the ideal spot. Those couple of years have now stretched to forty-two!

Family Room

The DIY strain was strong in us after our building projects in Kirkland, so we built this very large room in which the grandchildren and I roller skated until we laid the tile.

Teaching at the City and shortly thereafter at the new College which had been built while we were gone, plus watching grandchildren were pleasant occupations while exposing two active boys to camping and fishing.

I began feeling tired. It was a tiredness which seeped into my bones, and which no amount of sleeping could alleviate. Finally seeing the doctor I learned that I had lupus and Sjogrens’s. Going to the library on the way home from the doctor and reading up on both diseases was not encouraging. There was no cure and I began feeling sorry for myself. I told my sister-in-law my tale of woe, and her suggestion was perhaps we ought to hold Christmas early. That snapped me out of it and I settled into a more pragmatic attitude. This was 40 years ago and against all odds I’m still here.

The only reason I am sharing this with you is to show you that you gain another perspective. As Gilda Radner of NSL famously said, “There’s always something.” As things turned out, this diagnosis was the first of many, and you begin to realize that everyone has something. You just keep going forward and hope you don’t trip.

Luckily, while teaching students marketing techniques, I formed relationships with several galleries to handle my artwork. We had always loved Carmel, and I found a delightful gallery which handled my work for years. It gave us a purpose to visit this lovely town often. The small folly in our garden, with its whimsical paintings and built by our late brother-in-law, is my small Carmel.

Maus Haus

The City owned Olive Hyde building where I taught for so many years had become a fine small art gallery, and it was thrilling to bring in so many talented artists from all over California.

You never know what the world has in store for you.

Living Room

LIFE CHANGES Kate’s Journal

Episode 30 1969–1974

Moving can enable the powers of uncertainty. The act of transporting oneself from one place to another is exciting because you don’t know what awaits on the other side. It’s like going through a door, or climbing a stairway you hadn’t noticed before.

“Ascent” watercolor painting by kayti sweetland rasmussen

Once we had decided to make the move to Seattle, the job of making it happen began. We were both active in the community, my display business had to be disposed of and I needed to quit my teaching job. And we needed to find a place to live. My partner Joan, wanted no part of JoKay Display, so we simply went out of business, the City shed no tears at my departure which left a quick visit to the Northwest to househunt.

Dr. Advice was in the best shape. The Company was moving us, he would take over the Seattle office plus have as his territory all of Alaska, and all of the northern states. Fish and the Great Outdoors were calling and he was ecstatic. Though he had traveled to the Pacific, to China and to the Philippines during the War, he had gone to very few other places, and I think he rather imagined himself as a self-sufficient Mountain Man.

Though moving from Oakland to Fremont had been tinged with regret, the death of the son of our close friends by suicide and the poison pen letters I had received plus the presence of a perverted flasher made it easier.

Our oldest daughter was living in the Sorority house at San Jose and engaged to be married, our youngest would join us at the end of summer before the start of the Fall session.

We had lost Hilda, the dachshund with abnormally long legs, at a ripe old age, and Mrs. Emma Peel came to live with us. Mrs. Peel was a sweet cuddly brown dachshund who spent a lot of time being groomed by Rudy, an independent grey and white cat who had arrived in my Christmas stocking. The small tan chihuahua with the unlikely name of Tuffy, made up the menagerie we would be transporting with us.

In clearing out one bedroom, I discovered all sorts of junk still under the bed of Janet, the friend who had lived with us during her last year of high school, when her parents moved to Jacksonville, Oregon. Janet had come equipped with a large Mercedes Benz and a flute, and a penchant for living in her coat. Now in my later years, I can see with more compassion how lonely she must have been. Janet stuffed all sorts of stuff under her bed including candy with wrappers, Coke cans, etc. I had respected her privacy and had never looked. As for the coat, I can understand that it was for protection from outside interference rather than from the cold. Much like me having changed my name at each school I went to. Taking yourself away from an unwanted situation.

In January, 1969, knowing absolutely nothing about the area, we drove to Seattle looking for a place to live. For those who are unfamiliar with the area it can be confusing, because there are so many wonderful choices other than the city itself and they are all beautiful and green. We eliminated Seattle as a possibility and decided a semi-rural location would be best. Someone from the Company kindly drove us around for a look-see. He lived on Mercer Island, which as it turned out, would have been perfect, but for some reason, he never showed it to us. Our youngest daughter after her marriage lived and raised her family there.

We drove through Kirkland, which is a small and delightful town on Lake Washington. I could see lots of small shops, a couple of galleries and restaurants though not as many as now that the town has become yuppie/gourmet. It is just across the bridge from Seattle giving us the feeling of the Bay Area only smaller.

Driving down the road we spotted a FOR SALE sign by a small red and white farmhouse with a white fence around it. It was located on a small lane and had trees–lots of them. It seemed perfect and they were willing to wait until June till we could move in. In fact, the realtors were glad it would be awhile because they were busy harvesting the raspberries and other fruit coming into season! As we flew home I felt that we too, were coming into a new season.

THE OAKLAND YEARS Kate’s Journal

Episode 20 Oakland, CA

“Watercolor” by kayti sweetland rasmussen Iris from my first real garden.

Living in a semi-rural and hilly part of Oakland in the 50’s was quite different from our flat island of Alameda. With Sam traveling from Monday to Friday and me without a car, there were adjustments to be made. One of them was Al Cook’s small corner grocery store which not only delivered, but also let you run a tab. The girls walked to school, I walked to the bus for school, and we all walked 2 miles to Jan’s piano lessons.

We acquired Hilda, a small black and tan dachshund with strange long legs, who stayed with our family for many years. She actually became part of the neighborhood pack which included a large furry collie who was repeatedly attacked by a small chihuahua who buried himself in her thick neck fur to hide from his parents.

I joined a women’s singing group and we sang at women’s clubs, churches, etc. One of our members was a woman from Centerville, before it became Fremont, whose husband owned a nice steak restaurant there. She became ill with tuberculosis and had to be in an institution for a year and a half. When she returned in good health, she found that her husband had found other means of entertainment while she was gone, so she divorced him. The restaurant has changed hands several times since then.

We had a very active Campfire Girls group, and though it I met a very inspirational woman in her 80’s from Fremont who had been a real mover and shaker in the organization for many years. I will write later about her when we move to Fremont. In trying to find an interesting theme for our girls group, I had chosen Japanese children’s holidays which morphed into much more a few years later when they moved into high school.

I found returning to school to be harder than I had realized. Math and chemistry were not my strong points, but glaze calculation required a certain knowledge of.. them. I met a lovely old Japanese potter who was horrified that I could not retain the right information. When I begged for a simple calculation, he exclaimed “But that’s fourth grade math!” I told him I knew that and that’s what I wanted to know. I also began to be interested in a class about window dressing and display to see if it was different from what i had done for J.C. Penney in Alameda.

Sam’s parents had moved to Centerville which was just emerging from rural farmland, with a couple of very nice neighborhoods being built. Sam’s sister’s family followed a year or so later into a new home. At that time there was perhaps 6,000 population. There was bus transportation to Oakland, and there was a train to Sacramento. Our weekends were often spent together at the cabin at the Russian River, where the whole family gathered.

Our little neighborhood was safe and we had good neighbors. A creek ran behind our house at the bottom of a hill. Bishop O’Doud high School was on the other side of the hill. Neighborhood children played in the shallow creek, and the mothers all felt quite safe.

One morning I received a terrible ill-written note in the mail, accusing me of trying to steal someone’s husband. No name or return address. It was disturbing and I threw it in the fireplace. A few days later I received a package in the mail containing another note a pair of dirty men’s socks. I called the police, and in today’s world, I’m sure they would not bother to come. I was frightened to think that someone even knew that we were there and alone. Later we heard that a man had exposed himself to the kids walking the long distance to school. We were mentally gearing up to move when I looked out my upstairs window to see someone obviously proud of his manly equipment looking directly at me.

We had been happy in our first little home, but it was time to move on, and we chose to join the rest of the family in the little town of Centerville.

A BALLET OF HANDS

Bilinguism at Carlos Cano Secondary School

The happy chatter of families, an occasional shriek from a child, and over it all, the ballet of hands celebrating the occasion.

The California School For the Deaf high school class of 2014 graduated 42 happy young students ready to take on the world. As friends of the family of one young lady, we were privileged to attend the event, where many scholarships and honors were awarded.

The school for deaf and blind was originally in Berkeley, located quite near the campus of the University and was moved to Fremont in 1979. Since then we have become accustomed to seeing blind and hearing-impaired people going about their business throughout town. The school provides home and education for children throughout Northern California from the ages of 3-22.
We talked with the mother of a 20 year old graduate yesterday who has lived at the school for 10 years.

I first became aware of the graceful beauty of sign language while following a car with several non-hearing people conversing, and realized it is like a ballet of hands. In my teaching life, I occasionally had a deaf person, with an interpreter handy to translate my garbled lesson. (grin) At a celebratory party after the graduation, several interpreters were present to help those of us who were limited by our “mono-lingual” condition.

Marc Petrocci “Simply Sammy”

During our meandering through the campus, we came upon a large bronze sculpture by Douglas Tilden, a scion of an early California family. Tilden became deaf at the age of four, and attended CSD in Berkeley where he taught at the school after graduation. He began doing sculpture while attending the school, and then went to France where he studied with another deaf sculptor. His monumental pieces can be seen all over the world.

“Bear Hunt” by Douglas Tilden

Sculpture seems to be an appropriate medium for a deaf person, since their words are expressed with their hands.

“If my hands could speak they would say something profound.”

SILVER BELLS AND COCKLE SHELLS

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Watercolor painting by kayti sweetland rasmussen

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How does it happen that all the trees are bare skeletal armatures one day, and the very next day they burst out into full leaf? Two weeks ago the entire town was blooming with flowering pear and redbud trees, and now that has given way to a beautiful green avenue on both sides of the downtown street. Now and then there is a Chinese magnolia finishing its seasonal bloom. Fremont was planned to be a “City of Trees” years ago, and it still lives up to that name in certain areas. It is difficult to maintain, since there are five separate districts, much like New York city, and covers a very large area.

My tulips and early crocus are only remembered by this painting, but the new apple and two new figs are showing promise, the kadota fig even has tiny fruit along some branches. There will be plenty to share this year, and I’m already sorting out ways to use them. The old fig which Dr. Advice whacked nearly in half, has forgiven him and sports small bunches of green at the tips of each branch.

The early plantings of primrose have given way to coriopsis and blue salvia. The perennial color scheme of blue and gold in tribute to Dr. Advice’s beloved University of Calif. But when the blue tends to purple, the University of Washington gets a nod.

My old bones mumble and grumble louder each year as I crawl around pulling winter weeds and now and then yell for a little help with a tough job , but every year we seem to make numerous visits to the nursery for more planting mix and seed, and come home with new azaleas, or just ‘one more’ something to tuck in the corner. Dr.Advice labors in another part of the yard stopping now and then to bring us a cup of tea or a cookie to eat under the old orange tree, before we begin our jobs again. His bones are older than mine, but they don’t seem to creak as loudly, which doesn’t seem fair does it?

My friend Judy helps tend one of the City-owned public gardens, and has been generous with things from her own garden such as brilliant orange clivia, which she has planted in a shady spot along with fern, and other things only known to her alongside a tiny old-looking bridge over a rock stream. I must get some of the clivia for one of my own shady spots. I had some years ago, and just as it looked as if it might bloom, my fellow-gardener chopped it out of the ground, thinking it was a weed! You can’t trust these old guys!

“I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly, give them fruit for their songs.” Joseph Addison

THE SECOND OLDEST PROFESSION

One of the world’s least traveled roads brought about the greatest global transformation. The Silk Road changed history, bringing not only the exchange of goods, but also the exchange of religions, art, languages and new technologies. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a single “road”, but rather many different overland routes leading west out of China through Central Asia to Syria and beyond. In essence, it became the world’s first trucking route. This modest non-road became one of the most transformative super highways in human history. The first reference to a ‘Silk Road’ was used on a map in 1877.

In 1907 two brothers and a brother-in-law in San Francisco began an ambitious endeavor which in turn became a small local ‘Silk Road’. Fulfilling the need of residents living atop Nob Hill for cigars, whiskey, food and other necessities, they transported goods by horseback, referring to their newly formed business as “The Mustang Express”. As business grew they purchased wagons, and took in a younger brother recently graduated from school. The ‘younger brother’ was my father-in-law. The newly formed company was named RB&S Trucking, for Rasmussen brothers and Svane, Svane being their brother-in-law. The purchase of trucks came next and the name changed again to the “Inter-urban Express Company”, which conveyed merchandise throughout the Bay Area. Their familiar green and yellow trucks could be seen from San Francisco to Oakland for many years. Later Svane’s son, Peter Victor, formed his own small trucking company carrying goods in San Francisco.

Though the principals of the company did no driving of trucks, each of the sons and sons-in-law and a grandson took their turn at not only knowing how to drive the large semi trucks, but also what went on inside them. Many years after the Inter-urban was defunct, I watched Dr. Advice in a business suit help a young truck driver get straightened out when he had managed to jack-knife his truck. The boy was about 20 years old, and panic-stricken, with traffic built up behind him, and he looked about to cry. Seeing the boy needed help, Dr. Advice stopped, climbed into the boy’s truck and set it straight. Getting back into our car, he remembered how someone had helped him at age 16 when he had been in the same fix. I haven’t a doubt that he could still do it today. Some things you don’t forget.

Some years later my father-in-law left his brothers and started his own company named the East Oakland Drayage Company on 10 acres of land in east Oakland. His father had told him that if you took a silver dollar and threw it as far as you could, you should buy it. The trucking company would make a good living, but the real value is in the land not the business on it.

Ten years later my father-in-law retired and sold the company and the land to where the BART station is now located in east Oakland.

As to what the ‘oldest profession’ is, I’ll leave that to you.