Lambiedog

Westward migration

      There is a significant difference in tone between my morning and evening bluff outings.

     My trip to the bluffs in the morning tends to be solitary and brief, with the sole purpose of excretion before returning home for breakfast.

    ...

    By contrast, my afternoon migration is broadly social and open-ended.  After sometimes stopping off to visit my friend Willy, I fall into what historian Howard Kern calls the 'canine convoy' making its way westward to the bluffs like some great wave of manifest destiny.  

The Berman / Yoshpe bench

 
   This bench is dedicated to the memory of two siblings from a prominent Sacramento Jewish family, the Bermans:  John Alexander Berman and Jessie Antoinette Berman Yoshpe.

    They were the children of William B. and Zetta Berman, who were leaders and founders of such Sacramento Jewish community organizations as the Congregation B'nai Israel, the Sacramento Jewish Federation, and the Sacramento chapters of Bnai Brith, Hadassah and the Zionist Organization of America.

Like her mother and grandmother, Jessie Yoshpe was a leader in the Sacramento Chapter of Hadassah, serving as its president for three years in the early 1980s.  She had two children. A women's book group named in her honor, the Jessie Yoshpe Hadassah Sh'arim Study Group, still meets at the Mosaic Law Synagogue. 

John Alexander Berman was an Oakland doctor and father of six children. 

The memorial bench was erected by Jessie and John's younger sister and brother, Harriet Berman Glaser and Daniel S. Berman, both of whom live in Los Angeles.  Mrs. Glaser lives very near the bluffs park, not far from the Berman/Yoshpe bench.

So here we have a lovely gesture by the siblings of this clearly close-knit family. 

And here, the story would stop, were it not for a curious additional element.  Harriet Berman Glaser's husband, Manny Glaser, this past summer authored a letter to the local paper, which is copied below.  Mr. Glaser's letter, entitled, "Unleashed Dogs Cause Problems on Asilomar," was in response to a letter previously published in the paper entitled, "Yes to Citing Owners with Dogs Off Leash."

Those of us living near the Asilomar bluffs are constantly tormented by people using Asilomar Park as a dog park.  Any day, usually between 4:30 and 7 p.m., these dog owners arrive at the park with perhaps as many as 10 or 12 dogs and proceed to throw them balls or Frisbees and let them race around the park.  All these dogs running about make it impossible for citizens to enjoy the park.

Additionally, homes directly opposite the park also have dogs that bark at the unleashed dogs, making such a racket that the noise is deafening.  The police who infrequently drive by do nothing about these lawbreakers.  These dog owners are oblivious to the signs in the park requiring that dogs be on a leash.

I have to say that Mr. Glaser's criticism seems a bit unfair, as the people who bring their dogs to the bluff are citizens themselves, are bench-appreciators, and are extremely conscientious with regard to their dogs.  The only dog that barks is an elderly dog belonging to one of Mr. Glaser's neighbors.  Yes, this dog does frequently cross the street unaccompanied and bark at anyone on the bluff--whether or not they have a dog with them--to try to get them to throw its ball.  But why would Mr. Glaser tarnish other dog owners with his neighbor's irresponsibility?

    Life is complex.  We're each a mixture of good and bad. Mr. Glaser may not value me or recognize my right to enjoy the bluffs, but his family has created a beautiful memorial to their loved ones.   And, being a dog who turns the other cheek, I appreciate that.

 

Historical reenactment

A dog out doing some routine sniffing....

    

   

shakes his ear...

 

     looks up...

 

...and discovers the bluff.

 

Of all the bluffs in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine

 

Juanito!  

I've just met a dog named Juanito,

And suddenly that name

Will never be the same

To me.

    ...

....

    This dog Juanito appeared at the bluffs tonight.  He had been adopted from the Westside Animal Shelter six days ago, and he's about a year old.   He looks a lot like me, but thinner, and with a big tail that he seems to like to keep tucked under his body.  

    Could Juanito and I be kin?  

Anna Walker Steere

    I was distressed to see cigarette butts and other debris around the bluff memorial to Anna Walker Wilson Steere.  Litter is always offensive but it seems particularly so in the context of this amazing woman.

    Anna "Tony" Walker Wilson was a Lieutenant Colonel and Women's Army Corps (WAC) Staff Director in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.  She commanded 6,500 WACs. In the course of her service she received the Legion of Merit, the French Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor, and the Order of the British Empire.

    She arrived in England in April 1943 as WAC Staff Director, and held that post until July 1945 when she was returned to Washington for duty with the Army Ground Forces.  She had a B.A. from Pomona, and M.A. from Claremont, and had also done post-graduate work at the University of California.  Her mother lived in Studio City, CA.

    Chapter XXI of this history of the WAC has more information about Colonel Wilson's work in the European theater.

    Colonel Wilson is the woman with prematurely white hair pictured in the center of the photo above, taken on August 1, 1944, when she was 34 years old.  In January 1946, a year and a half after the photo was taken, she married Lloyd (or Loyd) Victor Steere, age 47, in Frankfurt, Germany.  Mr. Steere, of Claremont, and a veteran of World War I, was at the time of their marriage the deputy director of the Office of Political Affairs in the Office of Military Government of the United States.  He had previously been acting director of food and agriculture of the United States Group Control Council, and before that Agricultural Commissioner in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Mr. Steere was an alumnus of Pomona, and also had an MBA from Harvard.  He had two adult sons from an earlier marriage.

    After their marriage, the couple lived in Berlin, where both were stationed.  Later, they lived in Washington D.C. and at some point returned to California.  They resided in Pacific Palisades at the time of Lloyd's death at age 86 in 1985.  Anna subsequently moved to Santa Monica, and died at age 89 in 1999. 

    Mrs. Steere's bluff tribute is engraved with an unusual and understated legend -- "In Loving Memory / Anna Walker Steere /Natural and Generous"-- that alludes to her personal qualities rather than her illustrious military career.  Obviously there was much more to this woman than just her impressive recorded accomplishments.  I'm glad there is a memorial to her at the bluffs.

Remembrance of things past

The tea and madeleines took me back....

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me....

And suddenly the memory revealed itself.  The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane.  And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine.  And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

    -From Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Vol. 1: Swann's Way.

Calamaro

    Who was the late Fino Calamaro?  From his bench plaque at the bluffs, we know that Mr. Calamaro was born in 1919 and died in 1996.

   The Blue and Gold Yearbook of the University of California at Berkeley lists a 1949 graduate by the name of Raphael Fino i Calamaro, who graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering.  The yearbook states that he hailed from Eypt,and was a transfer from Ecole Francaise d'Ingenieurs.   

    We also know that Mr. Calamaro an engineer who worked in the aerospace industry at McDonnell Douglas in the 1960s and 1970s, because he is mentioned in the memoirs  of a finite element analysis consultant named Henry Fong.

    There has been and continues to be a Calamaro living in the bluffs area since 1973 -- a relative, perhaps?

    What we know for sure is that Mr. Calamaro was loved and is missed by his family.

Well-stated

There was a terrific piece in yesterday's New York Times by one of the most prominent dogs in America. Read it here . 

Mr. Samulon's bench

Who was Henry Adam Samulon? 

From the plaque, we know that he was a beloved family man, who lived 82 years, from 1915 to 1997.  

He was also an accomplished electrical accoustical engineer who worked at TRW, and a Swiss-Jewish refugee who emigrated to the United States in 1947.  More about Mr. Samulon can be found in this biography of his wife, Fay Samulon. 

I never had the pleasure of knowing Henry Samulon in life, but I have enjoyed many inspiring moments in the shadow of his memorial bench.  

Behind the benches

    I think I will use the calm provided by the squirrels' mysterious summer absence to work on another of my interests:  history. My research will focus on the six benches scattered along the bluffs, each of them dedicated to the memory of a different person or persons.

    Who what when where why -- that's the classic reporter's brief, and it will be mine too.  I've already answered the 'where' -- it's the bluff.  But the rest remains to be discovered.