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Adventure to History (Part 2)

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

After Cousin Liza and I left the Steinbeck Center, we went to the Historic Harvey House, the oldest house in Salinas, which is 150 years old. Since it was the first Saturday of the month, it was open, and we could go inside!

The Harvey House was built in 1868 for Isaac J. Harvey, the first mayor of the city of Salinas. He was a businessman and traveler, always on the lookout for new places and opportunities. He saw the wealth of Salinas’s rich soil and good location and decided to settle here for a while. He helped build the town and bring the railroad here, and had his own business, a mercantile store where folks could buy anything they needed.

I. J. had this house built for his wife Sarah and his three daughters, Saphronia, Josephine and Mabel. After a few years of working and being the mayor, Isaac’s business went bankrupt. He moved away to find other work for a while, but Sarah and the girls were tired of moving, and stayed here. The girls got married and had their own kids. The house stayed in the family until Isaac’s grand daughters got too old to stay by themselves and it is now open as a museum once a month, and for school field trips.

Liza at Harvey House 1.jpg — **Larry Showing Liza all of Sarah Harvey’s things**

My friend Larry Smith was at the House, and he showed us around. He showed Liza things that had belonged to Mabel and Sarah. Some things, like the hairbrushes, were pretty familiar, but a shoe button hook was pretty strange to see.

Liza and carpet sweeper.jpg — **Running the carpet sweeper**

Larry took us out to the cottage, which is used as a classroom when students come to visit. It is a great place to learn more about the history of Salinas and to see old tools people used. Larry showed Liza how to bang on a triangle to call folks in for supper, clean carpets with a carpet sweeper (no electricity!) and even use a boot jack. Outside, she got to pump some water with a real hand pump and run around the garden.

Finished with our tour of the House, (Thanks, Larry!) we wandered to the Model Railroad Museum and saw the whole Salinas Valley in miniature. Trees, farms, stores, with trains hooking it all together. We got to climb up into a big old caboose and see how a telegraph works.

Liza and tiny trains.jpg — **Model trains, model valley!**

Almost ready to crash, we said goodbye to all the history and walked to see Adrian at Blue Aces Bakery. We chatted and got some cookie dough to nibble on, then asked Uncle David to come fetch us.

Liza at caboose.jpg — **In the caboose**

What a long, wonderful day!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Adventure to History (Part 1)

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

Our adventure yesterday covered some familiar ground also some new adventures. Uncle David gave Liza and me a ride downtown so we could have more energy and time to spend there. It was a very chilly, bright day.

Bright winter sky.jpg — **Bright winter sun**

Our first stop was the National Steinbeck Center, which Liza had asked to go visit again. She calls it “Mr. Steinbeck’s Newseum”, which I love! We found another one of the big boulders carved with a quote from Mr. Steinbeck. It says, “I think I would like to write the story of this whole valley, of all the little towns and all the farms and the ranches in the wilder hills. I can see how I would like to do it so that it would be the valley of the world.” This what John Steinbeck did, really. He wrote about this place as a metaphor for all places, all people, all struggles, all opportunity. His writings were always true to the spirit of the people.

Liza with cutout steinbeck.jpg — **Liza and John**

Steinbeck stone at center.jpg — **Climbing a Steinbeck Boulder**

We took some silly pictures of Liza posing with a life sized cut out of John Steinbeck, then pretended to drive a 1915 model A that is inside the exhibit. I got to be the driver, and this was my view:

There is another section of the museum that has the bed John Steinbeck slept in as a child. There are photographs of his school days and his classmates, a box of books you can read and comfy chairs to sit on. It was so much fun to read, feeling like we were visiting with such a good writer.

Liza reading at Steinbeck.jpg — **Reading with John’s school**

Liza spent some quality time with her old friend The Red Pony, combing his mane and climbing on and (carefully) off. She visited the poor children in the Grapes of Wrath exhibit, and spent some time watching the captioning on the filmed reading of the novel, picking out words she recognized. She is becoming such a good reader!

She used to magnifying glass to look at the collection of sea animals from Doc Rickett’s Lab, reading the words “Crab” and “Sea Star” but stumbling a bit over “Anemone”. We took a pretend trip to the Sea of Cortez in the little rowboat in the exhibit, looking at the map of Mr. Steinbeck’s and Doc’s trip.

Since it was getting close to lunchtime, we stepped onto the patio and had some cheese, apples and crackers. The sun was bright but chilly, so we had our coats on, but it was delightful. After we ate, we took another quick walk through the exhibits to say goodbye to everyone, then Liza was anxious to go to our next destination: The Harvey House, the oldest house in Salinas.

Student Art

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

Karens little guy.jpg — **Karen’s Little Dude**

One of the things I love doing with my fourth graders is art. I love and appreciate art, but I am not trained in it. So my students and I are on more of a level playing field. I love seeing what they can do!

Last week we played with Impressionism. We looked at paintings by Monet and Renoir, seeing how they blurred their colors and played with light. This was hard to do. Kids who are used to drawing with hard pencil lines don’t like fuzzy lines. The most successful work was from Ramon, who did a picture of his uncle’s jeeps.

Ramon impressionist jeeps — **Off Road Evo by Ramon**

This week we watched a video about Henri Matisse and his papercuts, which he called “Painting with scissors”. My students took the idea and ran with it!

We got very Matisse-like abstracts, as well as original cartoon characters, cowboys, and even an aquarium which was a collaboration between three boys. The art and the working together was beautiful to see.

Afterwards, of course, we spent quite a while putting away scissors and glue, and getting millions of tiny its of paper off the floor. But it was worth it! I wonder what kind of art we will do next week?

Love,

Grandma Judy

Missing Portland

K and J at night .jpg — **You two goofballs!**

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

The weather here in Salinas has been rainy and cool, making me miss dear Portland even more. This is nothing against my family here, my school or my colleagues. Everyone and everything is lovely. It’s just not my home anymore.

I miss, of course, Auntie Bridgett and Grandpa Nelson. They are buying our new home in our favorite neighborhood, and even looking at new furniture to go in it. They have promised not to buy anything until I get home, but still… I am here and they are there.

I miss you and your mommy. I have just started to get to know you, and now I am here, and you are there.

I miss the trees. Seeing the old trees cut down on Central Avenue in Salinas last weekend drove this home. Central Park has also lost many of its big trees, either to wind or disease. It feels naked. Laurelhurst Park in Portland, with its gigantic 100 year old maples and Douglas firs, is a peaceful forest right in the neighborhood. I miss its calm and cool spaces and the friendly folks and dogs you find there.

mossy stepping stone.jpg — **Mossy stone**

I miss the moss. Without the constant moisture, Salinas sidewalks, garden walls and garages are lacking the soft green and are painfully clean scrubbed. There seems to be no history, no built-up memories. Everything seems too new, even being 150 years old this year.

I miss the variety. Within blocks in Portland you can find a vegan bakery, organic ice cream, sushi, Spanish, and Hawaiian food, as well as three different art galleries, a museum, four micro-brew pubs, pinball, and small live and movie theaters. Salinas is too small, and too familiar, to be intriguing anymore.

I guess this is my melancholy love letter to Portland.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Bird Wars

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

It is spring, and all the birds are getting ready. Here at Uncle David’s house, there are two different groups of birds, and it gets interesting.

Over the back patio and the front porch are small areas of roof that are totally sheltered from the wind and rain. Each isn’t much bigger than a loaf of bread, but every spring they become home to several nests of birds….bluejays in the front, robins in the back. Uncle David calls it the Bird Wars.

The wars start in late February, when the birds start collecting twigs and grass for their nests. The blue jays will be in a bush collecting bits, and a robin will fly in. Whoosh! All the jays fly out in a blue cloud. When the robins are done, a jay flies in and the robins create a reddish-brown flurry as they fly away. The birds never seem to fight each other, but there is a lot of bird-language yelling going on. I have no idea what they are saying to each other.

Once the nests get built, the baby birds come, peeping all day long, front and back. I look forward to the noise! Baby birds sound like spring, hope, and life.

In addition to the jays and robins, there is a flock of sparrows that flies around. They fly to a bush and then hop around on the ground underneath, eating bugs and tiny seeds. The blue jays and robins ignore them, as though the sparrows were too small to be part of the bird wars.

There is also a crow who is making a nest in the tall eucalyptus tree behind an apartment building. The other day I saw her (or him, I can’t tell with crows) snipping little bits of branches from a curly willow and letting them fall to the sidewalk. There was quite a patch by the time I noticed. I am guessing the crow will come back later and collect the twigs to make her nest.

This is a good neighborhood for birds. The lawns all have lovely worms, the schoolyard has leftover sandwiches and chips, and the eucalyptus and palm trees are like bird condominiums. In the morning and evening, the trees seem to be shouting at each other.

crows twigs on sideak — **Crow’s collection of twigs**

Love,

Grandma Judy

Pink Shirt Day Irony

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

This past week we had Pink Shirt Day at school. Pink Shirt Day is a day where we wear pink shirts and have programs and lessons about not bullying other kids. It was started years ago when a boy wore a pink soccer shirt to school and some other boys bullied him about it. Some of his friends went out about bought a bunch of pink tee shirts and they all wore them. The bullies had to give up because they were out numbered and bullies only like to pick on one person at a time.

So, on Pink Shirt Day, I borrowed a pink shirt from Auntie Olga and wore it to school. The Student Leadership group brought small paper shirts to the classes and showed us a video about working against bullying. It was good to see my students come up with so many ways to stop bullying! “Stand with kids who are being bullied.” “Ask new kids to play with you.” “Tell a grown-up.” Kids who defend those being bullied are called “upstanders”, because they stand up for the kids. It is good to be an upstander!

The irony is that in the middle of all this focus on not bullying, two of my boys were teased very cruelly by their friends…. and their friends were in Student Leadership. Apparently, knowing how to stop someone else from bullying doesn’t keep you from being a bully.

It started when a friend thought of something clever, but mean, to say to my student. He said it, and his friends laughed. My student didn’t like it, but these were his friends, so he laughed, too. Then everyone was saying it, because it made them laugh, and all of a sudden my student had half a dozen kids saying the mean thing over and over, and laughing. It felt awful. He came back to class crying.

Fortunately, we have good grownups at our school who saw what was happening. They called the kids aside and talked to them, and had the kids talk to each other. The kids who had been mean saw that they hadn’t been playing, but bullying. Playing is when everyone is having fun. Bullying isn’t. Apologies were made and friends, mostly, were forgiven.

By the next day, it seemed that everyone was friends again, but it was a real lesson about human nature. We need to practice kindness everyday until it becomes our natural response. We need to practice on our children, teachers, parents, pets and house plants. We need to nurture and care for each other, not say things that will hurt others, and hold on to the connections between us.

It’s always been true, but more than ever, that teaching is less about curriculum and more about growing good people. It’s hard work.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Return to the Library

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

If it’s Sunday, there’s an adventure. Today Auntie Olga, Cousin Liza and I had our walk to the Steinbeck Library, to return our due books and get some new ones. Cousin Liza had read through “No, No, Word Bird!” and was ready for a new story with words she could read (mostly) on her own.

We packed cheese, fruit, and granola bars for our snacks along the way. It was warm and sunny after being chilly in the morning, so I just took my light jacket. Auntie Olga loaded her backpack with fleeces and hats I was sure we wouldn’t need.

off to adventure.jpg — **Off to Adventure!!**

We were just a few blocks from home when Cousin Liza stopped and stared at a flower in the parkway. “Let’s leave the flower here, Liza,” her mommy said. “It will grow and stay for everyone to enjoy.” Liza just stared at the flower. Olga and I walked away, and Liza picked the flower! I was upset and Liza could see it on my face. I held out my hand, she gave me the flower, and I set it down on a nearby tree stump.

Liza staring at flower.jpg — **Liza staring at the flower**

We had a talk about being on the same team and needing to cooperate to get where we wanted to go. I gave her the option of going back home with her mommy, but she decided to continue on the adventure, and was fine after that. On our way, we saw our friend Wiley Reeves, a teacher who retired this past year. He has been enjoying traveling.

Liza swing.jpg — **Just keep swinging, just keep swinging…**

We walked east on Acacia and turned to walk on Clay street and found the tiny but pleasant Clay Street Park. It has a bench in the sun and a wonderful play structure that matched Liza’s coat colors of pink, purple and teal. Liza practiced swinging and pumped by herself! It will take lots of practice, but she will learn. Once we had a snack and rested, we continued to the John Steinbeck Library!

On the east side of the library was another of the big boulders with a quote from John Steinbeck. It said, “Books are the best friends you can have, they inform you and entertain you, and don’t talk back.” Very fitting for the lawn of the library, I think. Liza and boulder.jpg

After some playtime with another little girl, we found the books for this week. Happy Birthday, Word Bird!, a few Eric Carle books, and a Russian Folktale book that Auntie Olga wanted, and a science book about water. We saw Mark Vinas, a teacher who retired the year your mommy was 10 years old. He is still charming and just a bit old fashioned, since he is 87 years old! We chatted for a while and headed home.

The Salinas wind had come up and it got cold! I was now grateful for Auntie Olga and all her extra jackets. She loaned me a fleece to wear under my jacket and she found an extra hat to put under her hood. We zipped up Liza’s puffy jacket and pushed through the wind all the way home, and happily took naps.

After dinner Liza and I used some fabric I had, a decoration (made by Auntie Bridgett) from a favorite tee shirt from Grandpa Nelson’s sail boat, and made a pillow for her dolls! It was a quick, fun project. Off to bed now.

Love, Grandma Judy

Goodbye, Old Trees!

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

Salinas is an old city, as I was reminded of yesterday at Salinas History Day. It is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, and some of the houses still standing were built in the 1890s, over 100 years ago. Back then, Central Avenue was a street lined with expensive, fashionable, Victorian style houses; two story wooden houses with pretty gingerbread details and delicate paint jobs. Central Avenue was also home to hundreds of trees, planted when the neighborhood was new.

In recent and not-so-recent years, these trees have gotten too big for their parkways. Their roots have cracked sidewalks and lifted them up to 45 or 50 degree angles, making walking hazardous, especially for the elderly. On walking field trips, when crossing University at Central, I always directed my students to cross the street and continue “until the big tree, you’ll know it when you see it.” And they did.

pile of chips.jpg — **Pile of chips from ancient tree**

But not anymore. As I was walking to Roosevelt School yesterday, my path was blocked by a pile of wood chips on the sidewalk, marked with caution tape, and a BIG place where the tree was NOT. This carnage was recent…I could smell the fresh wood. I stopped and stared. How could it be gone? I took some pictures and continued on my way, thinking about how long that tree had stood there, how many field trips it had seen, how many birds had called it home.

As I continued west on Central, there were more…dozens of trees, some four feet in diameter, no longer there, damaged sidewalks removed, sand laid down for pouring new ones. The destruction was systematic and thorough.

I noticed evidence of the damage the trees had caused…streets and driveways uplifted and distorted, pipes damaged, branches that had grown through power lines, still dangling when their trees were gone. I know why the city arborists needed to remove the trees. I understand, really. But I will miss them, anyway.

I also noticed a pattern. Magnolia trees were mostly left intact, with just their invasive roots trimmed when the sidewalk was removed. Are the magnolia trees younger? Are they more amenable to having their roots trimmed than other trees?

There was a spot where the repairs had been completed and the sidewalk was clear and fresh. I am sure the people who walk down Central everyday to get groceries or to walk their children to school will appreciate the easier path. And I hope they remember the old trees fondly, as I will.

Love,

Grandma Judy

new sidewalk.jpg — **Fresh, safe sidewalk**

History Day in Salinas

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

This morning I woke up and walked to Roosevelt School to attend and help out with the first Local History lecture series. My friend and former Principal, Mary Randall, had organized this group of historians to talk about Salinas of the past, and have some fun, too. There were lots of cookies brought by the Women’s Club, including some celebrating the Claus Oldenberg Statue called Hat in Three Stages of Landing. Delicious!

hat cookies at History.jpg — **Hat Cookies**

Before the lectures started I met old friends Larry Smith, who works as a docent at the First Mayor’s House, and Ruth Muldoon. Ruth taught kindergarten here in Salinas for about 35 years and now reads stories to third graders who visit the House. Liz Hibbard, another retired teacher, was there, and Rosalie, a wonderful lady who has worked with the Women’s Club for most of her many years. My School’s head custodian, Cesar, was there, too! Mary was his first principal and they are old friends, so he came. I also talked with Jeanne Garcia, who I worked with when I started teaching 30 years ago. I met Bingta Frankie, a new Board member at the First Mayor’s House. She looked so beautiful, I had to take her picture!

Bingta Frankie at History.jpg — **The Historic Fashions of Bingta Frankie**

Since we were gathered in the cafeteria of an elementary school, it felt natural to start off with the pledge of allegiance. Then Hannah Levi and Samantha Scattini, two lovely young ladies, sang a beautiful harmonic rendition of “My Country ’tis of Thee”. Patrick Redo was the master of ceremonies, and introduced former Mayor Dennis Donahue, a very nice man. He asked about Auntie Bridgett, because they are old friends. There was a mosaic (you know how I love mosaics) on the back wall that was from when Roosevelt School was very new, in the 1920s. It shows the Horse Parade, part of the Salinas Rodeo.

Sam Pacheco, who is a teacher at Hartnell College, talked about John Steinbeck. Sam is not from Salinas, but was drawn here by reading Mr. Steinbeck’s stories of the area. Rene Astorga played us music from the 1860s like Old Susannah and got us to sing along. We weren’t very loud, but we had fun.

Anita Mason unraveled the historic riddle of why the mighty Southern Pacific Railroad came across the muddy Elkhorn Slough and through tiny Salinas. Santa Rita had flatter, more solid ground, but the Spanish laws of inheritance, which were still in effect in California, made it almost impossible to sell land that had been part of a Spanish Rancho Land Grant. This was most of the land around Santa Rita. By the time the Railroad figured this out, the Salinas Valley was beginning to boom and they decided to come through the Salinas Valley to move all the grain, dairy and fruit growing here to the rest of the country.

Deborah Silguero gave a very interesting talk about women’s fashion of the 1860s, including all the interesting underwear! Very different from our clothing these days. Mary Randall talked about the schools and social life of the time, and Girl Scout Troop 30110 came and showed us all how to do the Virginia Reel, and got about 20 folks up to join the dance. It was fun, having grown ups and kids dancing together, making mistakes and smiling and trying again.

By the time the dancing was over, I was ready to head home again. What a great day of Salinas History!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Disney on Ice (Part 2)

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

Our night at Disney on Ice kept getting better. The hockey arena, which I had expected to be cold, was very comfortable and friendly. The show was introduced by the Big Four: Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck, and Goofy. Belle’s journey into the Beast’s castle was well-told, with a fine dance number performed by flatware and candlesticks.

This was when I realized that my camera was not catching any nuances of the characters. The bright spotlight turned the beautiful costumes into shiny bits moving about on the ice… this was disappointing, as so much of the delight of telling about the show is showing the show. I also realized that videos were more successful… but I can’t yet insert video into this blog. Blog fail, again. Sorry.

There was confusion in my story-telling soul as the show continued, because the writers had felt the need to frame the showcase of Disney characters as a re-telling of the story of another Disney character, Riley from Inside Out. True, this allowed all the different costumes and colors to make sense, but was also jarring… whatever fantasy world each character would take us to, we were pulled back into the very UN-fantasy world of feelings….Joy, Sadness, Fear, and Anger… the least nuanced, most obvious, and, truthfully, most irritating characters of all.

That said, I went along for the ride and was not disappointed. The combination of beautiful lighting and costumes, expert skating, great sound quality and classic stories carried me on a wave of Disney joy. Maleficent and her mirror from Snow White showed us good projection techniques. Ariel and Prince Eric did some amazing high-rope tricks, leading me to think “An Aerial Ariel”?

Jasmin and Aladdin satisfied my need for Olympic skating skills with all sorts of lifts, skips, and flips. Then Rapunzel and Flynn Rider raised the bar. A 60 foot long scarf, representing Rapunzel’s hair, dangled from the ceiling and the two skaters grabbed hold and flew, swirled, and counterbalanced each other in a terrifyingly beautiful routine. As we were still catching our breath, intermission was upon us.

Vendors wandered the aisles, selling plastic, light-up spinny toys starting at $15 and ranging to $30. We still didn’t feel the need. Luckily, the Sharks’ Zamboni provided a distraction.

The second half started with a long re-telling of Finding Dory. The costumes weren’t as successful as some, making the skaters look like fish-human hybrids in a weird way. Also, Hank the octopus seemed to be an oversized, remote-controlled Roomba, with little movement or character. I don’t know how I would have done it better, but it didn’t magic me.

Then came what all the little princesses had been waiting for: Frozen! The story was shortened to focus on the relationship of Anna and Elsa, with enough Olaf for pathos and Hans and Eric for romance.

frozen castle on ceiling.jpg The final number featured a self-driving bridge and an ice castle that unfolded from the ceiling. “Let it Go” rang through the arena as Elsa skated her heart out around the rink and up the staircase, nearly touching the crystal lights dangling from the ceiling. Hundreds of little girls and their mothers sang along. We were riveted.

Love,

Grandma Judy