Generations of men have enjoyed the variety of Playboy's "Girls of..." series. Girls of this or that college, profession, or region. When I was a teenager I liked "Girls of Scandinavia." At The Spot the other night, on my way from the cat food to the cash register, I thought I saw a new one: "Girls of al Qaeda." When I caught my breath I realized my media-addled brain had just combined two headlines.
Come and make peace signs Wednesday afternoon at Shannon McGowan's house. Sign making starts at 5 p.m.--followed by an optional yoga lesson at 6:30.
She's got marking pens and some poster board. But if you can, please bring poster board and sticks to hold the signs.
To take part, call Shannon at 510-235-2952. She'll sign you up and give you her address and directions.
As of this afternoon, she predicts that the march will attract at least 30 people, she said. "That's even more than I expected."
MORE INFOThe annual Turkey Shoot will have a new section this year: a peace march.
This may be the smallest peace march in the world--not to mention the only one with goats and absolutely the only one named "shoot."
Organizer Shannon McGowan said that while this may be tiny compared with the big marches elsewhere, "This way, our community makes the statement. The little people need to realize that our voice is important." She has survived cancer of the lung, liver and brain. "I've fought hard to live, so peace is very important to me," she said.
The Turkey Shoot has been Point tradition ever since the Hotel Mac kitchen crew took a break one Thanksgiving morning years ago. Since then, it has grown. Among other things, goat farmer, architect and city councilman Tom Butt herds his goats.
No reservations necessary. Just show up at by 11 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning in front of the Richmond Plunge (on West Richmond Avenue just east of the wigwag crossing). Bring your own sign (no need to be elaborate) or try to pick up one McGowan and friends may have made ahead of time.
The parade and march goes west on West Richmond, right on Park Place, right on Washington and ends at The Spot bar. There, tradition is to knock back a shot of Wild Turkey.
What kind of a landowner would cut all his trees down? The Point Richmond Collective Newsletter's November 1 issue asked that question but offered no facts. TOTP investigated.
In the article, writer and former attorney Fred H. Arm argues that the trees were community assets and that the community should have been consulted before they were cut down. I agree with that in principle, but sometimes one has to act fast.
Landowner Jay Fenton said he faced an immediate threat. Five of his 40 monterey pines on the hillside near 19 Stairley Street were near death from bark beetle infestation--the same condition that has struck most of the Point's pines. The five trees were so weak, he said, that they endangered adjacent houses. The other trees also showed signs of infestation.
The loggers he employed asked $10,000 for cutting down the five weak trees or--in the economy size-- $24,000 for taking care of the lot of them.
David Wager, director of forest management certification at Scientific Certification Systems in Emeryville, said the mortality rate of trees stricken with pitch canker and then infested with bark beetles is almost 100 percent. So far, there is no cure or effective treatment. However, some trees have shown natural resistance to pitch canker.
If Fenton really has been the Johnny Appleseed of local pine trees he claims to be--he says he's planted hundreds over the years--he winces along with the rest of us at the sight of men taking a tree apart.
I don't know Jay Fenton. But if I were put in the same pickle, I might have done the same thing. Whether he did the right thing or not, he deserves to have his side of the story heard.
Stay tuned. We're only in round one of beetles vs. landowners vs. community assets.
Correspondent Andrew Butt writes in response to last week's item noting a Chronicle story about East Brother Light Station.
Regarding your post about the film "Blood Alley" being filmed on East Brother Island, the Chronicle article actually says that it was filmed (or part of it was filmed) at the Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor, which is accurate. At the Galley Cafe, located at the Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor, where guests board a boat to the Island, they have posters of the movie on the wall, as well as a clipping that describes the filming. If my recollection is correct, there was a scene where a ship was razed and sunk in the waters just off the harbor shoreline. At low tide, remnants of the old wooden hull can still be seen protruding from the water.
Additionally, the article gave the wrong name of the harbor. The name is Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor, not Point San Pedro Yacht Harbor.
Back in 1994 Katherine Branstetter kept the names of oil tankers at the Chevron wharf, which she still looks at every day out her living room window. These days she reads about the Bush administration's ties to the oil industry and thinks of one boat in particular: the Condoleeza Rice.
Rice, now Bush's national security advisor, was on the Chevron board of directors.
No surprise here. On November 5, the Point voted with San Francisco for governor and other state officers. We voted with the rest of Contra Costa voters when it came to BART and AC Transit taxes: against them.
| Point | County | State | San Francisco |
|
| Gov. | ||||
|
64% | 53% | 47% | 66% |
|
15% | 36% | 42% | 15% |
|
17% | 6% | 5% | 16% |
| Lt. Gov. | ||||
|
66% | 54% | 50% | 66% |
|
16% | 38% | 42% | 16% |
| BART tax | ||||
|
61% | 54% | 73% | |
|
39% | 46% | 27% | |
| AC Transit tax | /Radio%20UserLand/www/images/clear.gif){kind=spacer} |
|||
|
61% | 66% | ||
|
39% | 34% |
(Total Point votes for governor totaled 973; votes for lieutenant governor also totaled 973; votes for or against the BART tax totaled 596; votes for or against the AC Transit tax totaled 592.)
The Point's East Brother Light Station got good press in Sunday's Chronicle.
One question: The story says that the movie Blood Alley was filmed on the island in 1952. But according to the Internet Movie Database, that movie was released in 1955 and filmed not on East Brother but on Belvedere Island, San Francisco and San Rafael. Does anyone know for sure? Click on the envelope to send email to TOTP: <%radio.macros.mailTo ()%>
REFERENCE
Last night in the storm, Bob DeSmet and wife Marsha nearly lost their french doors. At their house on Water St. at the top of the ridge, they pushed on their french doors for 45 minutes as 72 mph wind pushed against them.
Do you have a story about the storm? Click on the envelope and in the new page please provide your full name, address (or nearest intersection), phone number and story. <%radio.macros.mailTo ()%>
When the Point cried "save the wigwags," I don't think this is what they meant. The good news is that the wigwags will probably remain in place, said David Dohlberg, who represented the Point with Tom Butt in a recent mediation with the railroad. The bad news is that the familiar ding-ding will probably go silent and the old warning lights will be as dead as eyes in a stuffed moosehead.
The California Public Utilities Commission appears adamant, said Dohlberg: The wigwags' "cone of vision" is too narrow to adequately warn all drivers on the two streets that converge at the crossing. Drivers are fine who approach on a path that's perpendicular to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks, such as on Richmond Avenue. The trouble is that drivers may not be warned who approach at an angle, such as on Cutting.
The railroad wants to replace the wigwag warning with three gates and cantilevers. Crossing gates are the arms that swing down as a train approaches. Cantilevers are overhead structures fitted with lights and bells.
Also dead is a possible deal Dohlberg discussed at last week's Point Richmond Neighborhood Council monthly meeting. He hoped that the city could make a deal to buy the railroad's vacant triangle of land adjacent to the crossing in exchange for street realignments that would improve the railroad's safety. However, the railroad has indicated that it prefers dealing with that land in a wider, more complex discussion, said Dohlberg.
RESOURCES
Tom Butt's E-Forum
California Public Utility Commission's pages on the wigwag process
Images of gates and cantilevers (Images pop up in a new window. Close the window to return to this page.)
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway
Columbia Encyclopedia on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway
Microsoft's Train Simulator for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Says Microsoft, "Microsoft Train Simulator brings the power and excitement of some of the world's most famous trains to your PC, placing you in the role of engineer with unprecedented realism, exciting real-world rail challenges, and the tools to recreate almost any railroad experience in the world." Even the Richmond Avenue crossing?
Yesterday's 7.9 quake in Alaska is reported to have sent tremors around the continent. In fact, it gave me a brain tremor as I thought about what the Upper Hayward Fault could do to the Point.
Maps by the Association of Bay Area Govenments indicate that our hills should be OK; everything's built on rock. But the town square will be much different; everything's built on mud. So is much of the city east and north of the Point.
Are we prepared? Kathryn Gerk, an emergency services manager in the Richmond Fire Department Office of Emergency Services, estimates that the Point has just 15 or 20 volunteers trained for action after a major quake (or chemical release, major fire, etc). A more adequate number, she says, would be about half of the community.
Well, where are the firemen? They might be called away to other areas harder hit. In fact, the Point might not see response from emergency response professionals for 72 hours. Point volunteers may be the only ones available to rescue trapped neighbors, bandage wounds, fight fires, and signal high priority needs to the overwhelmed pros.
Consider the probabilities of survival for any trapped neighbor: He has a 99 percent chance of survival if he's rescued in the first half hour and an 81 percent chance if in the first day. If trained rescuers are spread so thin that they can't reach him for 72 hours, his likelihood of survival drops to 34 percent.
So sign up now for R.E.A.C.T classes. (R.E.A.C.T stands for Richmond Emergency Action Community Teams.) We need heroes and non-heroes alike. You attend four two-hour classes plus a four-hour hands-on disaster drill.