The Final Flight

The remains of a U.S. soldier arrive at Dover Air Force Base.

I flew so many thousands of flights in my eighteen years as a flight attendant that the majority of them just blend together and fade from memory.  But there were a select few that I can still remember vividly, as if they occurred yesterday.  Having the honor of returning a United States soldier to his final resting place, back home in Hartford, Connecticut, was one of the most memorable.

I was based in Philadelphia for the last ten years of my flying career.  I began and finished every trip in Philadelphia, and often flew back through there on every day of my trip.  I came to learn the airport and its traffic, rhythms and routines like I did my own neighborhood back home in California.

The Philadelphia International Airport is the closest commercial airport to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware - home of the Defense Department's joint services morgue and mortuary - the point of entry for the remains of most U.S. soldiers arriving back home to the United States from overseas - particularly those killed in the line of duty in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Every couple of weeks, after a particularly brutal string of casualties in the Middle East, I would be in the terminal or on a plane looking out over the tarmac, and I could spy several baggage loaders moving around the airport, each carrying a coffin wrapped in an American flag - ready for their final flight home.

With thousands and thousands of American servicemen and women dying in the wars in the Middle East, I guess I knew in the back of my mind I would have one of them on a flight at some point, but I still was stunned and surprised when it occurred.

I was the Senior, or "A," flight attendant on a trip on the Boeing 737.  Everything about the trip had been ordinary until we arrived in Philadelphia, ready to make a quick BDL (the three letter code for the Bradley Airport near Hartford, Connecticut) turn.

It was mid-afternoon during the week and the loads were light.  A gate agent came down to let us know he was going to start boarding, and that we had a Marine honor guard on board who was escorting the remains of a U.S. soldier, killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan, back home to his final resting place in Connecticut.

The Marine came down and introduced himself and we did the same.  We made a little chit-chat and asked him if he had done this assignment very often - he hadn't - and assured him we would do anything possible to accommodate him.  The young Marine, who was very polite, serious and completely focused on his task at hand - probably just like the soldier he was escorting home - seemed a bit nervous. 

I led the Marine out the jetway and down the stairs to the tarmac.  We walked around the front of the plane and I stood with him at the open forward cargo door.  I wanted to make sure the notoriously lazy and surly Philadelphia baggage handlers were aware what was going on here, and when I turned to look at a couple of them coming out of the back cargo bin, they each took a look at the Marine and nodded.  I'm sure they had seen this ceremony many times in the past, and even they were smart enough to do their jobs in this situation.  I told the Marine I had to get back for boarding and I would be at the door when he returned.

We started boarding our 40-50 passengers headed up to Hartford.  There were only a couple of people sitting in First Class, and I was able to keep an eye out on our Marine, standing below on the right side of the plane.  A few minutes passed and finally a baggage loader arrived with the flag-draped coffin, and slowly pulled up to the open cargo door at the front of the plane.  The Marine stood at attention and saluted the coffin as it arrived.  He watched as the baggage handlers scurried around and loaded the precious cargo inside the bin.  They closed and locked the cargo door and pulled the baggage loader back from the plane.  The Marine, satisfied that everything was shipshape on the ground, walked around the front of the plane and back up the jetway.  I saw him leave his spot on the tarmac and walked over to the jetway and held the locked door open as he came up the stairs.  I motioned for him to enter the plane and he walked inside and sat in seat 1F, in the window seat in the first row of First Class, overlooking the cargo door on the right side of the plane.

The other passengers on the plane during this time, slowly becoming aware of what was happening with our special cargo, grew quiet and somber.  The normal chit-chat and ambient sounds during the boarding process fell silent.

It was a rare beautiful, clear day in Philadelphia - and even rarer still - we taxied out to the runway and took off without delay.  It was a brief 40 minute flight up to Hartford and I kept checking in with my Marine, asking if he was alright, and if there was anything I could do for him.  He was quite adamant - in a polite but firm way - that he wanted to be the first one out the door, and get down on the tarmac in Hartford just as soon as we blocked in at Bradley.  I assured him he would be the first one off.  He seemed more nervous as we started our descent.

We arrived at the gate at Hartford and the Marine was standing next to me at the forward door before it had even been opened, and, as promised, I let him out right away.  The gate agent led him down the jetway and back down to the tarmac.

The other passengers started to exit and we gave our normal "have a nice day's" and "thank you's" as they departed.  We had 30 minutes to wait until our return flight started to board, and the two other flight attendants and myself all took window seats in the first three rows on the right side of the plane.

An old, white, stretch Chevy Suburban pulled up with six uniformed Marines.  They came out of the Suburban and saluted the Marine who had escorted the coffin up to Hartford.  They met in a circle and discussed how this ceremony was going to play out.

The baggage handlers on the ramp in Hartford had pulled a baggage loader around to the front cargo bin, but hadn't yet opened the door.  The Marines, straight and stiff, stood at attention just off to the side of the plane.  And then a couple of vehicles, escorted by a police car and an official from the airport, pulled up along side the plane with the surviving family members of our deceased soldier.

There was a set of older couples that came out of each car.  We quickly assumed his parents had divorced and remarried, and it became quite easy by their emotions to discern who was our soldier's actual mother and father.

A black hearse pulled up as the family members continued to get out of the cars and comfort and reassure each other.  The hearse backed up to within a couple of feet of the baggage loader,  The driver of the hearse - expressionless and dressed in a dark suit - came around to the back of the hearse and opened its rear door.

As the family members clutched and held each other for strength and comfort off to the side of the baggage loader, a couple of baggage handlers scurried up the conveyor belt and inside the baggage bin.

My crew was whispering to each other about what was happening as the families first pulled up, but then we all fell quiet.  No one on the tarmac looked up or even seemed to notice that we were watching.

I saw our Marine position himself at attention and salute as the coffin started to slowly move down the conveyor belt, out of the plane and towards the hearse.  As the coffin reached the bottom of the belt, our Marine came around and directed the other Marines  into positions on each side of the casket, to act as pallbearers to move the coffin the last few feet from the bottom of the baggage loader and into the hearse.

The woman we had determined was the mother had remained stoic and motionless up to this point, but she started to lose her composure and broke down in tears as her son's remains were moved into the hearse.

Our Marine came back around to the mother and handed her a couple of envelopes and said something to her and she continued to cry.  The Marine hustled back to the hearse and got inside on the passenger side, carrying out his escort duty, and the family members made their way back into the vehicles sitting next to the plane and then drove off, following the hearse.

The Marine honor guard that had met the plane on the ground in Hartford returned to their vehicle and drove off.  The entire event was over within five minutes.  

All of us in the crew just sat there in silence for a moment, absorbing the emotional impact of the intimate scene we had just seen.  We were witness to a tragic ceremony that was being performed all throughout the country several times a day - and would be for years and years.  What do you say after witnessing an emotional moment like that?  What can you say?

I felt sorrow and empathy for the young soldier and his family.  Another one of thousands of young American men and women who died serving their country, and would never see their loved ones again.  Was it worth it?

I do know that President Bush - even though he initiated our country's two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - never once went to Dover AFB - a mere 100 miles from the White House - to welcome home the remains of the thousands of young soldiers return from his wars.  A gesture that President Obama made within his first year of office.

We fight our wars now with live feeds and drones and precision weapons that make the killing seem so surgical and detached that I'm not sure we fully absorb the results of our actions.  As a Nation, we never collectively mourn the enormous loss of human life.  The U.S. media - until recently - was never allowed to cover the return of the bodies of the fallen at Dover.

It's important to remember war is not a video game and Americans continue to die every single day.  Is it worth it?  If you can witness the powerful scene I did of a mother breaking down over the body of her fallen son, and not reassess or question our government's actions overseas, well, then you are a better man than I.

Godspeed, young Connecticut soldier.  Godspeed.

The End of an Era

A US Air BAe-146 at the gate in San Francisco.

When you work for an airline, one of the events that marks the passage of time is when the company removes an aircraft from the fleet that you were trained on during your new hire training.  The BAC-111, BAe-146, Boeing 727, 737-200 and Douglas DC-9 were all aircraft that US Air owned and operated when I was hired in 1988, and which I worked at some point in my career.  Ten years later, US Air was no longer operating any of those aircraft, making me feel just a bit older.

But I only witnessed the retirement of one of those aircraft types in person, and that was the BAe-146.  Built by British Aerospace in the early 1980's, the planes were a commercial disaster for Pacific Southwest Airlines (P.S.A.) from the start.  They leaked oil, had problems with the cockpit windows, crammed 100 passengers into a fuselage that could only comfortably seat 80 and, most importantly, had four engines that were incredibly unreliable.

The planes were purchased by P.S.A. for their fuel efficiency, low noise rating and ability to serve smaller cities more effectively than its larger MD-80's.  The fuel savings touted by British Aerospace were negated when P.S.A. finally succumbed to passenger complaints and pulled a seat in each row of seats, drastically reducing their seating capacity.

The planes were ordered to serve smaller cities in the route network such as Stockton and Concord, California and Bend, Eugene and Medford, Oregon.  Stuck with planes with poor British engineering and reliability that never remotely lived up to expectations, P.S.A. tried to make the best of a bad situation.

They never could solve the engine reliability problem.  By the time P.S.A. had been purchased and merged with US Air in 1987, and I came on board in 1988, the employees joked the "BAe" in the plane's name stood for "Bring Another Engine."

The trips I flew on the 146 were invariably shorter "commuter" type flights of only an hour or so that would have as many as six "legs," or flights, in a day.  If I picked up a four day trip on the 146, I could just about count on a cancellation due to an  engine malfunction at some point during the trip.

After a couple of years of operation of the 27 BAe-146's that they had acquired in the purchase of P.S.A., US Airways management finally decided to retire the planes and take them offline in 1991.

By pure luck, I was flying a BAe-146 trip on its last day of operation.  By that time, there was a huge culture gap between the laid back former P.S.A. employees who made up the majority of the employees in US Air's West Coast operation and the hapless, button-down East Coast executives from US Air who claimed to know what was best in running an airline, and then proceeded to run the entire West Coast operation into the ground.

Never did I witness this East Coast/West Coast US Air/P.S.A. corporate culture clash more in evidence than working the 146 on its final day of operation.  I worked six flights that day and each flight was from SFO to a smaller city and then back.  Both the pilots working my trip had brought "For Sale" signs with them that they placed in the cockpit windows.

After we flew from SFO to Burbank for the first flight of the day, a group of former P.S.A. employees came out to take one last look at the old bird.  Two mechanics put some tape on it's front nose, made an outline of P.S.A.'s iconic "smile" on the front of its nose, and spray painted the smile back on the front of the plane.  The employees on the ramp all smiled, took pictures and waved as we departed.

A BAe-146 with PSA's trademark smile on the nose.

An hour later we flew back into SFO, and infuriated executives from US Air who were in California for the plane's retirement, ordered the smile removed from the plane's nose before it pushed back from the gate.  Once again, smiling former P.S.A. employees came out onto the ramp and took dozens of pictures before the smile was removed.

We flew down to Orange County and then back up to San Francisco; where we did the same dance all over again.  Former P.S.A employees, as they were doing at all the smaller stations that saw the 146 on her final day of service, came out to take pictures and give her a happy send-off.  A couple of mechanics again came over to the nose, placed some tape on the front to make the outline of the trademark smile, and then spray painted another smile on the nose, right over the one that had been removed in SFO an hour earlier.  The employees and passengers, all of whom preferred the old P.S.A. over the new US Air, loved it.

We took off for SFO once again and the US Air executives in suits and ties came out to meet our plane with frowns and long faces.  Apparently, each 146 on this final day that took off faceless from SFO or LAX returned with a fresh painted smile on the nose:  P.S.A. style.  The straight-laced, humorless suits from corporate in the East Coast were getting hotter and hotter.  They kept ordering the smiles to be removed, only to watch another 146 fly back into SFO or LAX with a new smile.

We did one last Burbank turn, one more painted smile on the nose and many pictures and waves, and then I walked off the plane in San Francisco for my final time.  I can't say I was going to miss the airplane itself.  It was cramped, ugly and mechanically unreliable.  The trips were long and tough to work.  But the pilots and flight attendants who worked the plane were typically young and fun, and the trips never left the Pacific time zone.

I didn't realize it at the time, but it was the end of an era.  The clueless, arrogant US Air executives from the East Coast, who were the first to boast they knew how to run an airline better anyone in California, would close all three crew bases in the largest state in the country, and discontinue every old P.S.A. route within a couple of years.  It was the first day of the good ol' days.

Where do old planes go when they are retired?  They wind up in airplane "graveyards" in the desert, mostly.  Arizona, Nevada and, like the BAe-146's, the Mojave desert in Southern California.  Where they all sit silently and wait.  For those of us old enough to remember the good old days to come back and catch their smile.

US Air's fleet of BAe-146's in the Mojave Desert.

Good Morning, Vietnam!

Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam.

Last week I wrote about my brief assignment working in the Creative Film Services department at The Walt Disney Studios.  It was the in-house ad agency at the studio that produced the lobby posters, print ads, trailers and TV and radio ads for all the releases from Walt Disney and Touchstone Pictures.

As I mentioned last week, Three Men and a Baby was the big blockbuster that got and took everyone's attention in our department in the Fall of 1987; while another small, low-budget film starring a young Robin Williams, as an Air Force deejay on the Armed Forces Radio Network during Vietnam, was flying under everyone's radar.

Robin Williams was not a big box office movie star in 1987.  His starring roles in Popeye, The World According to Garp and Moscow on the Hudson had shown he could act, but not that he had any star power that drew moviegoers to watch his films.  Good Morning, Vietnam was both his critical and commercial break through role.

Like Three Men and a Baby, I had not heard of the film project Good Morning, Vietnam before I started working at Disney.  It was loosely based on the life of Adrian Cronauer, who actually was an irreverent, popular deejay on the Armed Forces Radio Network in Vietnam in 1965.  Cronauer later said the film was about 50% accurate.  In other words, he wasn't any Robin Williams.

Also like Three Men and a Baby, the first time I saw Good Morning Vietnam was when I watched an early "rough" cut - it still needed music, sounds effects, transitions and color correction - on a small TV in an office at work by myself.  We are so bombarded as moviegoers with images, reviews and other people's opinions of  a movie before we see it now, that I can't tell you what a joy it is to see a good movie for the first time without knowing anything about it.  Admittedly, it helped that I was getting paid to watch it.

(The first time I saw E.T. was at an employee screening at Universal a month before its release, and seeing it before all the hype made the film even that much more magical.)

I enjoyed Three Men and a Baby and felt it was a can't miss hit, but the film I really was rooting for was Good Morning, Vietnam.  I had been a fan of director Barry Levinson since Diner - he also directed Tin Men, Avalon, Rain Man and Wag the Dog, among others - and he had done a brilliant job alternating between Williams' hilarious, improvised manic bits and quieter, touching moments of love and loss.  The film was shot in Thailand on a shoestring budget.

Studio honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg was fond of saying in interviews around that time that his management team's movie philosophy was not to go for lots of big budget "home runs," but to try and crank out a series of low risk, low budget, high concept "doubles."  Buy good scripts cheap, cast them with known actors who were at a point in their careers where they could be paid below market rates and get talented directors.  Every emphasis was made on keeping down costs and expensive movie star "perks."

It was really a Moneyball philosophy of Hollywood movie making long before the term Moneyball had been invented.  It also proved to be very profitable.

There are several small moments I remember about working on the marketing of Good Morning, Vietnam before its release.  One was that Robin Williams' box office clout was considered so low that all the early concepts for the movie's posters and print ads didn't even feature Robin Williams!  All the studio's early research had shown that audiences had no interest in seeing a film just because of Williams, so they felt they had to sell the film itself without him.

Around this time, a couple of months before the movie's release, I was in the lobby outside Jeffrey Katzenberg's office, holding a group of large "composite" lobby poster concepts - we called them "comps" - printed on hard poster board.  The door to his office opened as the meeting started to break up, and I could clearly hear him yelling at everyone in the room, "We don't sell movies; we sell the audiences' perception of our movies."

That's how studio executives view their "product."  How can it be sold to the public?  How can they convince audiences to pay their ten bucks to go see the movie?

While Robin Williams was at times hysterical in his role in Good Morning, Vietnam, the film's tone is as much a drama as a comedy.  The studio made the decision to sell the comedy, and that's the impression you would get of the movie if you watched the trailer (below).  The perception of the film as an irreverent, laugh riot was very deliberately crafted.

I shared a large office with a couple of other guys - a copywriter and two artists - and our office was right next to the office where they developed all the trailers.  There were numerous versions of the Good Morning, Vietnam trailers that we heard played loudly over and over again from the other side of the office wall.  You couldn't walk through the hallways without hearing Williams' frenetic voice coming from one of the offices.

From all of Williams' comedic riffs in the trailer, somehow, the line that stuck for us was "Big dogs - landing on my face!"  It seemed to be in every variation of the trailer that we heard.  It was fun to say then and it's still fun to say today.  We would say it constantly around the office.  Even when I hear it today, I am immediately transported back to that office.

As I mentioned earlier, this was a difficult picture to market and the final poster didn't coalesce until the very last minute.  The studio was so sure of the inability of Robin Williams to draw movie goers, that they actually did an initial print run of thousands of movie posters WITHOUT Robin Williams in it.  It was just a picture of an old microphone and the logo from the film.  I thought it was terrible, and having seen the film and how good Williams was in it, I was completely baffled why they weren't pushing his likeness in the ad campaign.  I was just the new guy.  What in the hell did I know?  Plenty, as it turned out.

A few weeks before the film was set to open on just a few screens between Christmas and New Year's in L.A. and New York - a sign the studio didn't really have much faith in the picture or a firm grip on how to market it - the comments and scores started coming back from the preview screenings.  Audiences liked the movie and they LOVED Robin Williams in it.

Williams was unavailable at this late juncture to do another new photo shoot to get a picture of him for the poster.  We were sent scrambling to look at all the publicity photos that had been shot of him on location in Thailand and a long forgotten photo shoot done months ago in Los Angeles.  They poured through hundreds of pictures and finally chose the one that made its way to the final lobby poster (pictured on the left).  Like was so often the case, it was shot early in the process, discarded, and then brought back in at the last minute.


Pouring through the hundreds of pictures of Williams in my boss' office, what amused us both was to discover that in all the pictures Williams wore a small Mickey Mouse ring on his pinkie finger.  We had no idea if he put it on just for the photo shoot or if he always wore it - I still look for the Mickey Mouse ring if he's making an appearance on TV or there's a picture of him in a magazine - and I've seen him wear it many times.  If you look closely in the picture on the poster, you can see the ring - turned around so Mickey isn't visible - on the pinkie finger of Williams' right hand.  His little inside joke.

I watched the film last night for the first time in years.  It's not a landmark film, but I think it holds up well.  It's amazing the look Levinson was able to get on such a low budget.  Every dollar is up on the screen.  It's very well edited.  Williams is incredible in the first act and the film gets a bit dark and maybe slows down towards the end, but it's a terrific performance.  It also has a stellar supporting cast including Forest Whitaker, J.T. Walsh, Robert Wuhl and the late, great Bruno Kirby.  Levinson, as in virtually all his films, has a great touch for what songs to use to highlight - and in the case of Louis Armstrong's version of What a Wonderful World - run counterpoint to what's happening on the screen.

Good Morning, Vietnam opened on only four screens in December, 1987 and went on to earn over $120 million in domestic box office - a huge smash.  A home run.  The film made so much money on such a low budget that even the studio's notoriously creative accountants probably had a difficult time hiding all the money.

Robin Williams earned his first Academy Award nomination for his performance.

As I watched it last night, I couldn't help thinking if a major studio would have the guts to make this film today?  Not a chance.  Everyone in Hollywood today - even Disney - is so obsessed in trying to make a home run picture, or series of pictures, like Iron Man, Twilight or Harry Potter that they would be wasting their time on a small, personal movie like that.  The stakes are now too high to waste your time with "doubles."

"Big dogs!  Big dogs landing on my face!"  It's still fun to say.

Christo Takes Manhattan

Christo's Running Fence ran for 24 miles through Sonoma County in 1976.

I think the first time I was vaguely aware of the artist Christo was when I was a young teenager growing up in the Bay Area.  One of his early, site specific pieces - entitled Running Fence - was installed in Sonoma County in 1976.

More than twenty miles of white, billowing fence - made of white nylon fabric - streaming through the fields and farms of Sonoma County, until it dove right into the Pacific Ocean.  I remember seeing reports on the news and pictures in the paper and being immediately captivated.  This guy was working on one helluva of a big canvas.

I had no idea if Christo was making any sort of comment on Sonoma, California, farmers or American life.  I couldn't conceive of the bureaucratic hoops he must have jumped through to get the installation up and "running," as it were.  All I knew is that it was simple, pointless and cool.

Christo's Running Fence dips into the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County.

My parents never took me up to Sonoma County to see Christo's Running Fence.  I don't recall my parents ever taking me to an Art museum, gallery or exhibit of any kind, although they must have at some point.  I have no idea where I developed my love of paintings and Art museums, but it certainly wasn't actively nurtured by my parents - even though my mother went through her oil painting phase and my Dad's sister was a painter who once had a picture that hung in the White House during the Kennedy administration.

I would keep an eye out for this Christo guy and his latest Art adventures when his projects were shown or discussed in the Media.  He started to wrap things for a while.  Big things.  Buildings and bridges.  He wrapped the Pont Neuf in Paris.  He surrounded islands in South Florida with miles and miles of bright fabric.  Colorful, pointless and cool.

Christo finally returned to California in 1991.  He was going to install 1,340 large, yellow umbrellas (each umbrella was 20 feet high and 26 feet in diameter) along the hillsides of the Tejon Pass - the mountain range 60 miles north of Los Angeles you traverse on the drive between the Bay Area and Southern California.  I have driven on Interstate 5 over the Tejon Pass -  in weather ranging from scorching heat to falling snow - more times than I'd care to count.  Dozens, at least.  So I figured this was my opportunity, at long last, to see this Christo fella's work up close.

Christo's The Umbrellas in the Tejon Pass, just north of Los Angeles.

As a flight attendant, one perk I did have at my disposable was the ability to fly for free - if there was an open seat available - on any route my airline flew.  There were dozens of flights a day between San Francisco and Southern California, so catching a flight down there on a day off during the week would be easy. 

The arid valley where The Umbrellas were on display was over an hour north of the nearest airport, so I reserved a rental car at Burbank.  I figured I would fly down on a Wednesday morning and pick up the rental car, drive the hour north to Christo's Umbrellas, check it out for a couple of hours and then head back to Burbank, return the rental car and catch a flight back up to SFO the same day.  Piece of cake.  I did this kind of stuff all the time back then.

But Christo and me were just not to be.  A couple of days later - just before I was scheduled to head down to L.A. for the day - a freak windstorm swept through the mountain pass, dislodging one of the 500 pound umbrellas and throwing it through the air - killing a spectator.  It was understandable that Christo's Umbrellas were quickly closed to the public and removed.

Christo's The Gates in New York's Central Park. ©2005, V.W. Cleary.

Over a decade a later, having missed Christo's work twice in California, I would finally have my date with an actual Christo installation.  He built The Gates piece in New York's Central Park in February, 2005.  I wasn't going to miss this one.

The Gates flow by the ice rink in Central Park. ©2005 V.W. Cleary

I worked a trip that finished up early in the morning in Philadelphia - only 100 miles from New York City.  I hopped a commuter plane for the short flight to LaGuardia, took a shuttle bus into Manhattan, and finally, FINALLY - nearly 30 years after Running Fence - had a few hours to stroll through a Christo piece.  It was colorful, pointless and cool.  And cold.  It was mid-February in New York and the temperatures were in single digits.   

The Gates were a series of thousands of metal gates that were each 16 feet tall and held bright orange (Christo called it "saffron") fabric banners that dropped down 9 feet from the gates.  They were winding and streaming all over the pathways of Central Park.  I loved it.  It had taken Christo over 26 years of fighting through the various agencies and commissions in New York before he could final realize his conception of The Gates.

Even on a frigid, midweek Winter's day, thousands and thousands of tourists and New Yorkers were out and strolling all over Central Park, through and under thousands of Christo's "gates."  Families with young children were out, couples walked through the Park and skaters were taking advantage of the clear, cold day to skate on the ice rink in the Park.

Christo's The Gates brightens Central Park during February. ©2005 V.W. Cleary

I walked through the Park for an hour or so by myself, met an old friend for lunch, and then he walked through The Gates in Central Park with me.  My friend, who had lived in New York for nearly twenty years, loved them and tried to walk through the Park every day while they were up.   

The Gates in New York's Central Park. ©2005 V.W. Cleary.

The day had flown by and it was time to head back home to California.  I made my way back to the airport and boarded my flight.  On the climb out of LaGuardia, I had a gorgeous view of the Park and the billowing banners of The Gates in Central Park.

Like all of Christo's work, The Gates were temporary and removed from the Park after two weeks.  They live on now only in the memories of people like me who were lucky enough to see them in person in that Winter of 2005.  Colorful, pointless and cool.

Thank You for Not Parking

The official seal of the City of San Francisco.

There are some cities at high altitude, such as Quito, Ecaudor and La Paz, Bolivia, where the more affluent, desirable neighborhoods are those at the lower elevations where it's literally easier to breath.  In other major cities, the desirability and price of housing may be determined by the proximity to the downtown (a shorter commute), public transportation or even the ocean.  One of the major factors residents of San Francisco use in evaluating neighborhoods is the sun.  San Francisco is full of small micro-climates.  One part of the City can be completely socked in by fog while another part - a mere mile away - can experience a beautiful, sunny day.

When my wife and I lived in San Francisco for three years in the early 1990's, we lived right on the Great Highway (a misnomer because it wasn't really a highway and nothing about it was "Great") in the Sunset district - what locals actually referred to as the Outer Sunset - of San Francisco.  I don't know how or why the neighborhood was named the Sunset because it had the least amount of sun of any place in San Francisco.  Maybe it was because on a typical summer day the fog didn't clear until the late afternoon - just in time to watch the sun set into the Pacific ocean.

As the foggiest neighborhood in The City, and also the furthest from downtown, it was one of the least hip and most inexpensive in which to live.  We paid $800 a month for our two bedroom, third floor apartment - with one covered indoor parking space - in the early 1990's (adjusted for inflation, the equivalent of approximately $1,600 today - still a bargain).

Because it was San Francisco, one of the amusing past times the residents were put through by the local politicians and bureaucrats was the constant need to dodge the "No Parking" signs along our street.  The city scheduled a street sweeper to clean one side of the street every Tuesday morning between 8 and 10 a.m. and another side of the street was cleaned every Thursday morning between 8 and 10 a.m.  I felt this was never intended as a way of keeping the streets of San Francisco clean, but merely an excuse to extract more revenue from residents each week as they had no choice but to park their cars in an open space late at night on the side of the street that would be scheduled to be cleaned the following morning.

I, unfortunately, fell for this ruse time after time.  The parking tickets were much cheaper then (even adjusted for inflation) than they are today.  They were more of a nuisance ($15-20) than a budget buster - just another "you're living in San Francisco" tax.

My job often required me to work late and I would regularly return home near midnight, tired and ready for bed, and all the spaces along the side of the road where the parking wasn't prohibited the next morning were taken, leaving the only spaces available those on the other side of the street - where you would be subject to a parking ticket if you didn't move your car by 8 a.m. the next morning.  I was forced to just go ahead and park on the side of the street where spaces were still available, and tell myself that I could get out of bed at 7:30 the next morning, and move my car back to the other side of the street.  A good theory that didn't always pan out in practice.

My wife, who had our one indoor space and never had to bother with the San Francisco street cleaning/no parking dance, would leave our apartment for work at 7:30 in the morning and remind me to get up and move my car.  I would be so exhausted after four days of flying back and forth across the country, that I would roll back over for another fifteen or twenty minutes of sleep and not wake up for 30 or 45 minutes - now past 8 a.m. and into the sacrosanct street sweeping time.  Hearing the street sweeper pass our building,  I would jump out of bed in a panic, quickly throw on a shirt, pants and a pair of shoes, and dart downstairs to move my car, only to find it had already been ticketed by a friendly local meter maid.

The amazing thing is that the street sweepers and the meter maids - even though they had a two hour slot to clean my street - ALWAYS seem to come by our place at 8:01 a.m.  I think every parking ticket I got on the Great Highway was within just 5 or 10 minutes of 8 a.m.  I had always returned late the night before and parked on the only side of the street where open spaces were available, and then got dinged the next morning when I couldn't move my sorry, tired butt out of bed.  Another victim of the San Francisco parking tax.

My wife and I lived in The City for three years.  We enjoyed it, tried to take advantage of all the great things San Francisco had to offer and are still glad we did it.  Over the years, I would meet new people at our next home up in Sonoma County who, like us, had lived in The City for several years, enjoyed it and then moved out to have a family and raise kids - and to be able to park in front of their house at night without worrying about discovering a parking ticket the next morning.  Not one time during those conversations has anyone ever said they wished they still lived in San Francisco.  Not once.

And I think the politicians and powers that be who run San Francisco really want it that way.  Come live there for a few years when you're young and childless (San Francisco has the fewest children per household of any major city in America) and want to enjoy the many cultural amenitites that The City has to offer.  We will use you as a human ATM machine and suck every dime we can from your wallet with a never-ending list of taxes, fees and fines.  You will grow tired of it after a few years and move out, and another new person will move in to take your place, starting the whole process all over again.  The Circle of Life in San Francisco.   The only thing missing is the score by Elton John.

San Francisco is a great city, but if you live there for long, eventually the urban nuisances will wear you down.  The only people I have ever known to use the word "love" and "San Francisco" in the same sentence are people who have never lived there.

Enjoy the sunset.  That will be $55.  $65 if you don't pay it by the end of the month.

"It's Cut Up Really Small"

"Excuse me, Miss, is there any meat in this bean casserole?"

"Yes, there is, honey, but it's cut up really small."

Um...okey-dokey.

As a vegetarian for the past twenty-eight years (I eat dairy so I would be classified as a lacto-ovo - from the Latin for "milk" and "egg" - vegetarian, if you're looking for labels), I have had some variation of this conversation literally hundreds of times.  I find myself at someone's house, an afternoon picnic or a potluck dinner; and I have to play food detective to determine what's on the menu that I am or am not able to eat.

Many times - especially in the South (where my in-laws reside) or the East Coat (where I worked for years) - simply asking if a dish does or does not contain some type of meat is not enough.  I can't tell you how many times - in homes and in restaurants - I have asked if a dish had meat only to have the host or server respond, "Only bacon, but it's cut up really small" or "Only ham, but it's cut up really small." 

I never inquired about the portion sizes of the meat.  When did the size of a piece of food negate its existence?  A small piece of bacon is just as much bacon as a huge piece of bacon.  I am quite certain that if you were dining with cannibals and were trying to avoid their diet, the explanation that the soup does contain human flesh, "But it's cut up really small" wouldn't exactly be comforting.

I then am forced into answering a series of long-winded questions of what the restrictions of my diet are (no animal flesh), the different types of vegetarians, how I get my protein, how long have I been a vegetarian, how do I get enough to eat, and then hear the tedious story of their neighbor or Aunt who is a vegetarian, but she eats fish and chicken, and on and on. 

It's a conversation I've had so often that I am sick and tired of it.  I just don't want to go through it anymore.  I am not evangelical about being a vegetarian and have zero interest in converting or educating anyone else about a vegetarian diet.  I would just like to eat something without meat.  End of story.  I don't ask every carnivore I meet why they eat meat.  I couldn't care less.  Now would you please move your lard ass out of the way so I can have a second helping of the bean casserole?  It's delicious.

But for the record:

"Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat dairy products, but no animal flesh or fat.  Vegans don't eat animal products of any kind."

"There are numerous ways to get plenty of protein without eating meat.  Read a book."

"I have not eaten meat since 1983.  How long have you been a carnivore?  No, I don't miss it.  It's not a struggle.  I am not like a recovering addict."

"Anyone can take one look at me and tell I get plenty to eat.  I have never gone hungry."

"Your Aunt who says she is a vegetarian but eats fish and chicken is, in fact, NOT a vegetarian of any type or kind, but someone who doesn't eat red meat, and frankly, sounds more than a bit annoying."

I started dropping meat from my diet when I was working full time and running distance races.  I would come home late from work and have to go out for a training run.  It was tough to run after a heavy meal of meat, but I could do it if I left out the meat.  I knew several friends in Los Angeles who were vegetarians at the time, and learned how they did it.  It is easy to do in California with a plentiful supply of fresh produce and good vegetarian restaurants, and even most ordinary restaurants offer vegetarians options.  

As someone who was a flight attendant for eighteen years, I used to dread going out to dinner with a new crew because at some point, usually just after ordering our meals, someone would ask me if I was a vegetarian and then I would be forced to go in to my well-rehearsed spiel.  I hated it.  It was tedious and boring.

What was fascinating when I was put in the position of being "outed" as a vegetarian is how quickly it put many people on the defensive.  Two or three people at the table would invariably say something like "I should do that" or "I tried it once for a couple of months and couldn't do it."

Guess what?  I know that I would be healthier and probably live longer if I didn't eat ice cream and chocolate.  You know why I don't drop them from my diet?  Because I LOVE ice cream and chocolate.  Yes, I would gladly marry either one.  Do I worry about it?  Not one bit.  Never occurred to me until I wrote this sentence and it will be forgotten before I finish this paragraph.  What were we talking about?

I have a suggestion for those of you out there who are proud carnivores and love your meat - and this is coming from a longtime vegetarian - have at it!  I couldn't care less.  Do I believe a vegetarian diet is more efficient and less wasteful?  Of course it is!  Is it cheaper?  You bet!  Do I believe it's cruel to kill animals to eat?  In some cases I'm sure animals are cruelly treated to put cheap meat on our tables, but I'm not losing any sleep over it.  I have no problems wearing leather, as any regular visitor of Folsom Street is well aware.  Get over it and leave me alone.

The reaction I received when I was living in Ireland was also interesting.  Even though there are numerous cultures and religions around the world that engage in vegetarian diets, they are usually not in wealthy, industrialized countries.  Eating large portions of meat on a daily basis is a tremendous sign of wealth.  A country like Ireland - which literally was so poor in the 1840's that the era is now referred to as The Great Famine - can't help but hold the opinion anyone who would voluntarily give up meat must be a little nuts.

My Irish Mom, bless her heart, was always going out of her way to cook me something "extra" to replace the meat everyone else was eating.  I was fine with everything but the meat.  She would question why I ate dairy products as a vegetarian, and I would explain because I was a "Pro-choice" vegetarian.  That was not a concept an Irish Catholic mother could easily grasp.

(Each time I would come home from school in Dublin and see the latest dairy delivery sitting out on the front porch - milk, butter, cream and a jar of orange juice - I would ask my Irish family which part of the cow the orange juice came from.)

Pie?

I hope this settles this whole vegetarian thing for a while.  I'm fine and I'm not going to try and push my personal choice on anyone else.  So if it's okay with you, let's drop it and return to our meal.

Now who wants pie?

(Note: Today's post is dedicated to my friend Joe - yes, a vegetarian - and his sister Tina.)

Three Men and a Baby

The entrance to the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, CA.

I worked for Walt Disney Pictures on the the Walt Disney Studios lot (500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA, 91521 - but who's counting?) in Burbank for just under a year from mid-1987 to mid-1988.

The department I worked in was called Creative Film Services.  With a name like that, any idea what the department did or produced?  I'll give you a clue: we were a division of the Marketing department.  You would see our work every time you walked in to a movie theater.  Some of the work we did would go on to become valued by movie memorabilia collectors.  You would hear our work on the radio and see it on television.  If it's any consolation, I had no idea what the department did either until I started working there.  Give up?

Creative Film Services was basically the in-house ad agency for all of the feature films released by Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone Pictures (Touchstone released all the PG and R rated films that might not be considered worthy of the family-friendly Disney name).

The print side - where I toiled - produced the large, glossy "one sheet" or "lobby" posters of films that you see every time you enter the lobby of a movie theater.  The print department also produced the graphics that would make up the print ads that would be placed in newspapers and free weeklies around the country.

Down the hall was the A.V. side of the department that produced the radio and TV ads and "coming attractions" or "preview" trailers.

Walt Disney Pictures had just exited a long period of creative and financial stagnation, and under the new management of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg - both new to Disney after successful runs at Paramount Pictures - would greatly increase the slate of films produced, as well as diversify the subject matter.  Disney was not just going to produce family-friendly, G-rated, kiddie fare anymore.

I was brought in, on a temporary basis through a staffing agency, to be the assistant to the Director of Creative Film Services, basically the Art Director on the print side.  He was a young, brash, temperamental New Yorker who had graduated from a highly regarded Art & Design school in New York and then been recruited from an ad agency in New York to come West and help create this in-house ad agency for Disney.  He was definitely a fish out of water in Hollywood, but he had artistic talent.  Most importantly in that business, he could produce work quickly.

It would be a couple of months before I would learn that he had previously gone through assistants like Bon Jovi goes through hair products.  Everyone was amazed that I stuck.  He was definitely a difficult person to work for, but we got along fine.

I arrived in the summer of 1987 - fresh out of college - and the studio was starting to ramp up the marketing of what management thought would be its big Holiday hit at the end of the year - Three Men and a Baby.

The lobby poster for Three Men and a Baby.

Three Men and a Baby, starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson, was a remake of a French film that followed three working professionals, confirmed bachelors, who found themselves suddenly responsible for a young baby girl.  Comedy hijinks ensued.  None of the stars were "hot" or expensive at the time, and the film was shot in Toronto (less expensive due to the exchange rate).

It was what the new Disney management loved most in a film: low risk, low budget with the possibility of a high reward.

About a month after I started working in the department, when it appeared I was going to stick around for a while, I was told to go into an empty office and watch a videotape of the latest cut of Three Men and a Baby on a small TV.  It was a still a couple of months away from its release date, so the cut was very rough - the music hadn't been scored yet, there was plenty of ADR, Foley and sound mixing work that still needed to be done, the print wasn't color corrected and the transitions (fades, dissolves, wipes, etc.) were still indicated with marks on the film from a grease pencil.  I was familiar with looking at a film in this condition because it looked just like the prints of films I had worked on in college.  It was the first time, however, that I had seen a major studio film under these conditions.

I sat alone in the office, admittedly not the best of conditions to view a comedy, for ninety minutes and watched the movie.  Maybe it was the fact that I was getting paid to watch it, or the thrill of seeing a work print of a major studio picture for the first time - or perhaps the undeniable giddiness of watching the great Steve Guttenberg - but I thoroughly enjoyed the film.  I was definitely on board with everyone else at the studio who seemed to think this would be one of the biggest comedy hits of the Holidays.  Scheduled for release on Thanksgiving weekend, it would be a great date movie for couples of all ages.

Or so I thought.  You never knew for sure in that business.  There were stories of plenty of movies that everyone inside the studio loved before it was released, and tested well for preview audiences, only to die a quiet death once it was released in the open marketplace.  This was going to be the first time I would form my own opinion on the financial viability of a film long before it had been released to the public.  Would my opinion hold up?   In Hollywood, the public is ALWAYS right.

One of my main responsibilities in the office was to catalog and organize the literally thousands and thousands of large, white, hard cardboard composite sketches - internally known as "comps" - that were mock-ups of prospective one sheet posters for a movie.  The sketches and concepts for a movie's poster would start as soon as the movie went into production.  Everyone working on the marketing of the movie would have access to the original script and a rough cut of the film shortly after it finished production.  We would also see hundreds of production stills - photographs from the set of the movie - that would give us an idea of the look and feel of the film.

I would estimate that Disney had about 30 films in various stages of production while I was there - from the most recent "greenlight" picture that would eventually be titled Cocktail and star Tom Cruise (which I read before it was produced and just didn't understand why they were making it), to the carefully calculated re-releases of such Disney animated classics as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella - and each one of these projects had 100 - 200 composite sketches for the final one sheet poster.  It was common for my boss to ask me to gather 15-20 composite sketches of an upcoming release that were first presented to studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg six months earlier, and that he wanted to see again in his office in ten minutes.

The iconic Mickey Mouse water tower on the Disney Studios lot in Burbank,

I found it was quite common that if the perfect concept was presented in the initial marketing meeting for a movie - even if everyone loved it and thought it was perfect - the entire department went through the same steps and machinations and produced hundreds and hundreds of these composite sketches only - always at the last minute - to return to the idea originally presented in the first meeting six months earlier.

If you move to a new town and are looking to buy a new house and the first one you see looks perfect, you're still going to spend a couple of more days looking at homes to see if anything better is out there, right?  It's human nature.  I was amazed how often the first idea out of the box won the day.

As concepts and ideas started to become clearer and details of the artwork and copy came into focus,  in-house copywriters and freelancers on the outside would come up with pages and pages of tag lines - the catchy and clever one or two sentences at the top or bottom of a movie poster that make you interested in seeing the film - from which only one line would be chosen to appear on the finished poster.

My boss encouraged me to have a go at copywriting and I did submit pages and pages of taglines for a couple of movies that were in production, but I didn't have a knack for it and nothing ever stuck.

I was involved with a lot of the accounting (billing, invoices, payments, etc.) on the posters and art work that went through our department, and I saw that our typical budget for a major studio release was about $200,000 (double that in today's dollars).  That included trips to the film location and New York for my boss, paying artists to draw the hundreds of composite sketches along the way, paying the copywriters,  paying a name celebrity/fashion photographer for a photo shoot, or an artist for the final artwork if it was a painting and the cost of the final run of 5,000 or so glossy lobby posters.

If memory serves me correctly, well-known celebrity/fashion  photographer Annie Leibovitz did the photo that would wind up as the artwork for the Three Men and a Baby poster.  My department worked with her and Greg Gorman quite a bit, but I think she did that one.  Their typical rates were $15,000 - 20,000 for a one or two day photo shoot (again, double that to get the equivalent in today's dollars).

(Side note for Trekkies:  Most people probably don't remember that actor Leonard Nimoy directed Three Men and a Baby.  As the director, he had some input to the marketing of the movie.  I never met him in person, but spoke with him several times over the phone, and he was always polite, friendly and intelligent.)

Three Men and a Baby was finally released on November 29, 1987.  It grossed $10 million on its  opening weekend - a smash hit - and would go on to make over $150 million in the U.S. - the highest grossing film released in 1987.  I guess I was able to smell a hit.

At the same time that my department was working overtime on marketing Three Men and a Baby - a film that everyone felt had big, commercial smash hit written all over it - I was rooting for a more serious, sometimes violent, melancholy war film with comic moments starring Robin Williams - who was not a big box office draw at the time - that was directed by one of my favorite Directors: Barry Levinson (Diner, The Natural, Tin Men).

The studio's faith in the film was shown by the fact that they quietly released it on only four screens during the last week of of 1987.  Shot on a low budget of only $13 million dollars (double that for inflation and that would still be a very low budget Hollywood film), it would go on to gross over $100 million and garner Robin Williams an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Come back next week and we'll discuss what I learned about film marketing on Good Morning, Vietnam.

Sonoma Plays the San Jose Card

There are three things that Californians hold most dear above all else in life: their undying devotion to their individual automobiles, their more recent, but just as devoted, relationship with their iPhones and their fervent belief that representative democracy means that every election cycle we must wade our way through dozens and dozens of state and local ballot initiatives or propositions.

As a registered voter in California in the twenty-first century, you are mailed so many pamphlets and voting guides for each election that engaging in what was once the simple civil act of voting now resembles cramming for the S.A.T.

The statewide initiative process in California is outlined and protected in the state constitution.  The initiative process itself in California was a reaction to the corruption and power wielded by the railroads in the state at the beginning of the last century.

Proposition 13, which capped property taxes and was passed in 1978, was the most important and far-reaching ballot initiative during my lifetime, and its success set off a wave of city, county and state ballot initiatives that seem to grow exponentially in number and complexity each election.  If an elected official wants to commit political suicide in California, all one has to do is muse about the mere thought of revising Prop. 13.

I haven't run across many people in the Bay Area who, like myself, have lived in Sonoma County during the past twenty years and notice more than a passing resemblance to rural, agricultural San Jose in the 1970's.  I didn't know anyone else in Sonoma County who had once lived in San Jose and I've yet to encounter anyone in San Jose who has even visited Sonoma County.  They're two places only a hundred miles apart, but they might as well exist in different countries.

A verdant valley with dozens of farms, wineries and open stretches of untouched landscape accompanied by a dry, Mediterranean climate and surrounded by beautiful mountains, San Jose was at a crossroads in the 1970's and chose high tech jobs, unplanned suburban sprawl and growth over preservation of any kind.  It is now, without question, the Los Angeles of the Bay Area.

An affluent city of nearly a million people that sprawls unchecked across the entire floor of the Santa Clara Valley, there isn't a notable cultural attraction - a fine museum, gallery, world-class symphony, ballet or theatre company or a notable restaurant within the city limits.  The majority of the voters in San Jose have never considered any of that important. 

The new billion dollar terminal at San Jose Airport.

The expensive rinky-dink airport, which must be one of the major civic job generators in the county because the thing has been under construction the entire two years I've lived here, only has two international flights - both to Mexico - and two daily flight to the East Coast - one to Boston and one to New York.  San Jose thinks small on a big city scale.

Since we returned to San Jose two years ago, I can't recall a conversation with someone here that even remotely touched on food, a restaurant, a play, a museum or a book.  If it doesn't have a .com at the end, it might as well not exist.  In Sonoma County, it was damn near impossible to walk out to the mail box and not have someone mention their latest meal out or what gourmet goodies were fresh that week at the market.

Sonoma County was far more rural and agricultural than San Jose in the 1970's, and it also had a more extensive wine and tourist industry, and soon would have a far greater appreciation for good, fresh food and fine dining.  But unlike San Jose, Sonoma has also always had an arty, funky and politically active side.   There's a reason Tom Waits lives in Sonoma County, not San Jose.

A flyer announcing another protest.

Let me give a simple example.  Large protests in the small Sonoma County town of Occidental each summer, calling attention to and protesting the presence of the world's power brokers at the Bohemian Grove, are as much an annual rite of Summer as swimming in the Russian River.

You move the Bohemian Grove down to the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains near San Jose, and nobody cares and nobody has ever heard of it.  I'm sure any longtime residents of San Jose reading this are thinking to themselves, "Bohemian Grove?  What in the hell is Bohemian Grove?"

As the inevitable growth of the Bay Area moved north towards Sonoma in the 1970's and 1980's, residents looked to what was happening on the other side of the Bay in San Jose and nearly unanimously agreed they didn't want Sonoma County to become THAT.

A greenbelt movement was born to buy farms and lease them back to farmers, use zoning regulations to try and keep the agricultural areas green and restrict building and growth to the cities.  If you drive north on Highway 101 from San Francisco through Marin and Sonoma Counties, you will notice that there are miles and miles of open space between towns and cities.  The North Bay - despite seeing huge growth in population in the past twenty years - has still retained its unique agricultural and rural feel while moving into the twenty-first century.

The only greenbelt in San Jose would be Interstate 280, which connects the bedroom communities of San Jose with the high paying dot-com and high tech jobs in nearby Palo Alto and Menlo Park.

Sebastopol, California - a Nuclear Free Zone.

Throughout much of the 1990's and up to today, many of the more prominent local countywide ballot initiatives  in Sonoma County dealt with growth and how it should be handled.  Should the freeway be widened from four lanes to six?  No, maybe and eventually yes.  Should Sonoma County have a commuter railroad?  No, maybe, Yes.  Should there be some limits on building on hillsides that surrounded the valley?  Yes.  Should a housing development be permitted in a large, open space that had been the site of a devastating brush fire twenty years earlier?  Yes, it was.  Should a shopping mall be permitted atop a rebuilt hill that suffered a massive mudslide twenty years earlier?  Yes, it could and the hill's still moving.  Should you be able to enter Sebastopol - the scenic and charming town that anchors the West County of Sonoma - with a nuclear warhead?  Build your own reactor?  Sorry, you can't do that.  The voters have spoken.

As growth continued and ballot initiatives were used more and more in Sonoma County to curb and contain growth, one tactic became the final card played in every election that featured a growth or anti-growth proposition: if we do or don't pass this proposition, we will head down the road to becoming San Jose.  Not San Francisco, not Los Angeles, Stockton or Oakland.  San Jose.  The worst possible outcome for most residents of Sonoma County is that one day it will resemble San Jose.  That was the Ace in the Hole.  It was the winning hand every time.  No card-carrying Sonoman wanted Sonoma County to bear any resemblance to Santa Clara County, and especially not San Jose.  Forty years ago they were similar; today they are nothing alike.

I take the right and responsibility to vote seriously, and usually make it a point to study the issues and vote wisely in each election, but the growing ballot initiative industry in California is making that difficult.  There are elections now when the propositions are so convoluted, or the arguments are so convincing from both sides, that as a voter you just are not sure whom to trust.

The vast majority of state government spending in California has been set by voter mandates from piecemeal ballot initiatives, leaving the governor or legislature little room to make discretionary budget decisions.  So much is approved one proposition at a time that the voters approve money for schools and hospitals in one election, jails and highways in the next election and then parks and police and fire protection in the next election.  They are all important and worthy budget expenditures, but they shouldn't be decided one issue at a time from year to year.  They need to be decided as a whole on an annual basis.  That's why we elect a governor and a legislature.

I would love to stay and tell you more about the initiative and proposition process here in California, but the next election is less than a month away and those ballot pamphlets and voting guides are stacking up on the kitchen table.  I gotta' get to work.

Wearing the "C"

The Desperados hockey club in Santa Rosa in 2008.  In this photo, I'm actually wearing the "A" for alternate captain in the center of the first row.

My lovely Louisianian wife, oddly enough, was the first Captain of an ice hockey team in our house.  Being the team captain in any level of ice hockey is a position and honor unmatched in any other team sport.  Some great hockey captains, like Mark Messier, can be forceful and vocal leaders on and off the ice.  Others, like Steve Yzerman, are quieter and just lead by example.  Most hockey captains are usually among the best players on the team at the higher levels, but even in the NHL you may find some captains who are just grind it out "lunch pail" types of guys who give you their best effort every night.

At every level of hockey, each team is permitted to have one captain wearing the "C" on their sweater and up to two alternate captains who wear the  "A's".  They are supposed to be the only players on the ice to speak with the officials during a game.  They are expected by the coaching staff, and their teammates, to be leaders on and off the ice. 

Each season there are a couple of NHL teams without a captain that designate three players to wear "A's" and share the leadership responsibility.  Teams without a captain are usually younger and lacking veteran leadership.  I would argue they also have an idiot for a General Manager (I'm talking to you Colorado and Florida) because you shouldn't ever have an NHL team without a player who isn't capable of being the Captain.

Charles Schulz - the longtime Peanuts cartoonist - owned the ice rink in Santa Rosa and decided in the late 1990's that there should be more women playing hockey in his rink in Santa Rosa.  He recruited a couple of coaches, donated one of his coveted weekly mid-evening ice slots to the women and, for the first time, hired a security guard to patrol the rink's parking lot, so the women would feel safe coming and going from their car to the rink.

Word went out that women of all ages were encouraged to come to these weekly clinics.  After a few months, they built up a core of about 20 hockey playing women and formed a team, the Storm, in the lowest level - "C" league - late night adult league. 

The Storm played a couple of seasons in the lower level adult league and some of the women - especially the younger, athletic ones - took to the game so much and improved so rapidly that they left the women's team - the Storm - and moved up to other teams in the faster, higher skilled "B" league.

Eventually most of the women dispersed among the teams in the adult leagues with a core few remaining with the original Storm.  As the original women of the Storm moved to different teams, my wife was soon chosen as the Captain of the Storm.  She was friendly, had been on the women's team from the beginning and was the only female USA Hockey certified coach at the rink (she helped teach the beginner "Basics" class to youngsters on Saturday mornings).

I helped her out behind the scenes in compiling her roster and making sure everyone had their paperwork filled out correctly and made their payments on time.  She had to order new sweaters, numbers and front logo patches for any new players joining the team.  Before each game she had to make up her lines - groups of three forwards and pairs of defensemen - who would play together during the game.  She would be the designated person to speak with the officials should the need arise during the game.  Even though she was never their best player, she was their leader.

As I helped out as an assistant coach on a couple of my boys' hockey teams, I was witness to the leadership dynamic at an early age.  How it worked and sometimes how it didn't work.  I was also present each time we counted the votes for captains on each team.  The captains were usually voted nearly unanimously and the two assistant captains usually stood above anyone else as well.  And I don't ever recall a team voting themselves inappropriate captains.  It was something they took seriously and did quickly without much thought or reflection.  Everyone knew who their leaders were.

I was assigned to a team when I first joined the adult league in Santa Rosa and stuck around on that same team for years and years.  The roster would always have several changes from season to season - some guys would move up to the "B" league while some would take a season off and come back later - but the basic core group of guys remained from year to year.  Eventually a couple of captains moved on and it was my turn to be the Captain of my team. 

I was an obvious choice at that point.  I had been around for years and was well-known among my teammates and at the rink, I was the only USA Hockey certified coach on my team and I was reasonably organized and responsible.  I asked the guys if anyone objected or if they wanted to take a vote, and everyone just shrugged their shoulders and said, "Sure, yeah, whatever."

I started typing out spreadsheets of the roster with ages, addresses, contact numbers, etc.  I sent out e-mails to make sure I knew who was returning for the next season and tried to recruit new players to fill in open positions.  I ensured everyone had made their hockey payments to the rink.

Prior to every game I would go through my available line-up and determine lines and defense pairings for that night's game.  I begged everyone to call or e-mail me before the game if they weren't going to be there, so I knew what I had to work with, but there were always a couple of guys who wouldn't show up and wouldn't let me know. 

I had a small magnetic board with a series of small 1" magnets with every players name on our team.  I would arrange the names as they would play during the game.  The first forward line to start the game would be the first three magnets at the top.  The left wing would be on the left side, center in the middle and right wing on the right, etc.  Just below the three lines (hopefully) of forwards would be the two or three pairs of defensemen (less people would show up for the later games which started at 10:30 at night) placed in the order they would go out on the ice and which side - left or right - they would play during the game.

I would come to the rink with an idea of my lines and pairs made out and then make a few small adjustments during the warm-up as I sized up who was and wasn't in attendance that evening.  Some players would request a position or linemate before the game, and I always tried to accommodate any reasonable request.  I would call everyone together after the warm-up and announce the lines.  I would then place the magnetic board in front of the forwards, up against the boards of the rink, so they could look down and see where they were supposed to be during the game.

The board thing was pretty anal - most captains just wrote their lineups on a piece of paper and crossed out anyone who hadn't shown up that night - but I found it really easy to adjust and use.  I received a lot of ribbing about it from the guys, but one night I forgot to bring it and told them to just do what they normally do and complete panic ensued.  I believe we received a couple of "too many men on the ice" penalties because of the confusion as well.   Next week, I brought back the lineup board.

Many nights there really was very little difference between the kids and the adults.  Even though I'm not a skilled hockey player or veteran coach, I had enough hockey knowledge to point some things out to the beginner players to help them improve their game. 

I would beg and plead for everyone to take shorter, more intense shifts (a good hockey shift is about a minute - shorter in a higher level game), instruct them on the various ways to cheat on a face-off and give them tips for positioning.

No adult hockey league teams have practices as a part of the league - although I would usually schedule 4 or 5 each summer and bring in various coaches to help us out - so you had to instruct players on the fly. 

One night I noticed a newer player who was really energetic and always around the net getting frustrated because he couldn't buy a goal.  He was always so close to the net that when a rebound came out it went by him so quickly that he couldn't even react.  Plus, he was so close to the goalie that he didn't have too much of an angle to get a puck by the goalie.  I suggested he back out a bit - stop five feet from the goalie instead of right on top of him and that would give him more time to react and shoot.  He tried it and scored a couple of shifts later. 

As a Captain, I never yelled at a referee during a game.  I knew most of our adult league refs off the ice and didn't want to give them a hard time, but I just felt it was counter-productive.  They weren't going to change a call they had just made and you didn't want to tick them off for the rest of the game.  My tact was more to stand next to a ref just before a face-off and quietly say to him, "Might have missed that last call," if I thought they were wrong.  Occasionally they would admit they didn't have a great view or that the other ref who made the call might have blown it.  It's all part of the game.  We would often get a "make-up" call to even things out a few minutes later.  That's hockey.

I prided myself on not taking penalties - I had seen in my years around hockey that good players usually didn't take many penalties - and could get worked up if guys took stupid penalties in close games.  But when I sensed the moment was right, I would occasionally take a dumb penalty to fire the guys up.

One night we were slow and lifeless and went down 3-0 early in the game.  An opposing player shot the puck on our goalie and skated right towards him as the goalie froze the puck.  He sprayed the goalie with ice as he stopped - a common intimidation trick in hockey.  Sensing we needed a change in momentum, I immediately rushed over and just ran right through the guy - knowing I would get a penalty.  What I didn't expect is that the ref called the other player for the spray as well, meaning it didn't cost my team anything.

As I took a rare trip to the penalty box - which was right next to our team's bench - I could hear the guys on my team yelling and getting all fired up because I had played a little feisty and gone after someone trying to run our goalie.  From that moment on, the game completely changed.  Our whole team played with a little more jump and toughness.  We scored a couple of shifts later, tied the score by the middle of the game and went on to win 5-3.  My little penalty was the turning point of the game.  It got the boys fired up.  I never could have hoped for such an instantaneous and potent reaction, but I knew we needed something.

My oldest son, center, holding the championship banner after winning the California 16A State Championship last April.  He was the team's Captain.

My oldest son has been the Captain of his hockey teams the past two seasons here in San Jose.  In past seasons, he has often been an alternate captain, but never worn the "C."  He wasn't the most highly skilled player on either team, but he was friendly, inclusive, smart and tough.  He seemed to get along with everyone and tried his best to keep them together.  Both teams had terrific chemistry on and off the ice and they won the state championship in their 16A bracket last year.  You know everyone is pulling in the same direction when you have a winning team like that. 

I will never forget him telling me a story about their pregame warm-up early in the year his first season as Captain.  The captains in youth hockey usually lead the boys through their off ice pregame warm-up to get them ready for the game.  Boys being boys, many of them resist doing anything too strenuous they don't see as necessary.  The team typically goes out for a little half mile run to get their blood pumping and warm them up.  Every youth team does this at every level, especially in California, and just finds a place to run inside if the weather is inclement outside.

So my son's team is standing outside an opponent's rink after an hour drive from San Jose, ready to start their warm-up run, and one of the kids tells my son he's kind of tired and how about if they don't run all the way around the rink today.  My son - the Captain - thinks on it for a moment and suggests instead of running ALL the way around the rink they just run halfway around - and then come back.  Everyone else ponders that for a moment and agrees that's a good compromise and is happy.  They then proceed to run halfway around the rink and then turn around and come back the same way.  I laughed when I first heard my son tell me that story and I smile every time I think about it. 

And that's what makes a good Captain.