CRA News April 2006

Beach Cleanup

Saturday April 22
10 a.m. - noon

* Volunteers meet at foot of Ocean Avenue
* Please bring gloves
* Coffee and cookies served courtesy of Caffe Cardinale and Safeway Stores, Carmel

Tree Talk

Helpful hints on tree care--

Noted Los Gatos arborist Barrie Coate recently spoke at an Arbor Day event sponsored by the Forest and Beach Commission and Friends of Carmel Forest. Here is some of his advice:

• Pruning a tree every year will do more harm than good. Prune only during winter months. Over thinning is dangerous for trees. Never remove more than 30% of the foliage at one time.

• There is no government license for tree pruners but those who belong to the International Society of Arborists are usually competent. Ask to see certificates of insurance and workman's comp, especially if workers are going to climb.

• Don't spray for garden or tree pests unless you see them and only then if they are a problem. The bright green worms on oak trees are not oak moths They are fruit rollers and are harmless to the trees. Oak moths come in cycles, every 13 or 14 years. The white moths flutter and swoop; the caterpillars are black with orange. If oaks are healthy, no spraying is needed.

• Mulch touching the base of a tree trunk can cause rot and fungus.

• Don't water oaks in the summer.

Forest and Beach update--

Dick Dalsemer reported to the CRA Board on the March Forest and Beach Commission meeting:

• The Commission, acting on a request from beach cleanup volunteers, asked staff to place new stickers on Mutt Mitts dispensers asking dog owners to dispose of the bags in a trash container (rather than dropping them on the beach).

• There are close to 100 trees in the city that should be removed but can't be because of budget constraints and the number grows monthly.

A bottom-line benefit of trees--

The US Forest Service recently completed a study evaluating the effects of shade trees on city streets. In their study, shaded asphalt required only 2.5 slurry seals in 30 years compared to unshaded asphalt that required 6 slurry seals, slashing costs for resealing nearly 60%.

CRA PROFILES
by Walter Gourlay

A ZEST FOR LIFE

Jean Grace is an outgoing woman with a zest for life. Scientist, geographer, sailor, mother, teacher, writer, editor, artist, voracious reader, former mayor of Carmel, community volunteer, composer of crossword puzzles -- choose your category.

She was born in Hollywood, where her father, a native of Germany, was in the movie industry and where he met her mother, who was from England. "I attended Hollywood High, then UCLA while I worked on boat maintenance and did as much sailing as I could."

At age eighteen in what she describes as "the biggest life-changing experience of my life," she was hired as cook aboard a 110-foot two-masted schooner owned by amateur scientists, and sailed to Palau on a two-year mollusk-hunting expedition under the auspices of the Philadelphia Museum of Natural History. They started with a crew of twelve, including three women. In addition to being the cook, Jean shared watches. They sailed more than 6,400 miles, including a stop at Honolulu, before arriving at Palau. Storms made the voyage "scary at times," she says.

After diving for mollusks at Palau, she left the ship and painted decks on a freighter that took her to Bikini, Yap, Truk, the Marshall Islands and Guam. At Guam she took another freighter to Japan where she stayed for a while with a Japanese family in Kobe.

After returning to the States on another freighter she went back to Newport Beach where "my own little boat" was moored. "There I met a man who was on a mast looking down at me. We got married." The two of them lived in a trailer while they built a thirty-foot cruising ketch.

"My husband was a professional sailboat rigger but neither of us knew much about celestial navigation. After living abroad for two years we sold it and used the money to move to Hawaii." They had three children, two sons born in Newport, and a daughter born in Hawaii.

Jean enrolled at the University of Hawaii to study anthropology, geography, and philosophy. "Anthropology was a distant third." While raising her children and working at the University, she remarried, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Masters degree in geography. In 1978 she and her daughter moved to Carmel. "Why Carmel?" I asked. "I'd fallen in love with Carmel at the age of twelve when my parents took us on a sightseeing trip and we saw Big Sur, Carmel Valley and Carmel. We stayed in a cabin on the Big Sur River and I knew then that one day I would live here. Shortly afterward, I broke my femur playing football, and spent almost five months in a cast in bed." She laughed. "Another reason why now I don't like to sit still. During my recovery I dreamed of travel and living in Carmel. I'm still in love with this area. It's such a wonderful community, small enough that you can get to know its people."

After 1986, while Clint Eastwood was mayor, Jean worked with him on the construction of temporary stairways to replace those destroyed by the recent El Niño. "We became good friends, although we often argued about issues, such as capital punishment." Eastwood decided not to run for reelection in 1988. "He was too impatient to put up with hearings, etc.," Jean says. "I ran and was elected mayor."

She was mayor for four years. "I was and am a strong believer in freedom of information, sunshine laws, and transparent government. I'm distressed now by what so many of us feel is secrecy. Good government depends on all people being informed. One-on-one conversations between administrators or council members and individuals can leave out the rest of us in decision making."

Jean lives happily in her cozy book-lined cottage that is considerably smaller than the typical Carmel residence. She teaches courses in geography and geology at MPC. "I'm mostly interested in natural history and the way the landscape is shaped." "You find time for all this?" I asked. "I don't watch TV. I don't use e-mail except at work. I hate to sit down staring at a screen."

There's not enough space here to list her various activities and achievements. She's been appointed to or elected to many public and non-profit leadership positions over the last forty years. At present she's on the board of directors of the Point Lobos Association and the Henry Miller Memorial Library and active with several other organizations.

She's proud of her children: Jock, who is a mechanic, Mark, a carpenter, and Trina, an oncology chemotherapy nurse.

Among other activities, Jean lists walking, bicycling, beachcombing, hiking, contemplating, gardening, all the arts including music (listening and making), painting (looking and doing), writing and reading, crafts and carpentry, field trips, driving trips and boat trips. "And always," she says, "friends, family, community."

And learn, learn, learn. In the last few years Jean discovered The Learning Tapes, and owns a wide range of them on such topics as philosophy, Einstein, the quantum revolution, Mozart, and listening to music. She's now studying Buddhism by tape and listens while driving. "Finding out about things," she says, "is one of the excitements of being alive. It adds to my understanding of the meaning of life."

"Life from A to Zen," I thought. That led me to my last question. "And you write crossword puzzles?" "I construct them for my students, using a software program. To teach them geographical terms and concepts. They're a lot of fun."

Fun from A to Zen. I could have talked all day with this woman with such a zest for living.

More from the temporary fire station
Downloaded and abridged from "News Now" on Carmel Fire Department website carmelfiredepartment.com

Since the December 2005 temporary re-location of the fire department to Vista Lobos, Torres between Third and Fourth, we have settled into our new home and it is again, business as usual. The current setup is a change for us, and with any change come challenges. However, challenges present opportunities and the biggest opportunity has been to train more regularly and realistically.

Vista Lobos provides us with enough space to regularly practice the basics needed to remain proficient with our skills, i.e., practice with our hose and ladder and rescue and power tools. Until now, our practical training has had to be performed in the residential district. Unfortunately, this causes some inconvenience to our citizens and forces us to limit the number of times we train.

Most fire departments have training sites built into their jurisdictions, which allow the firefighters to train without having to inconvenience the public by the presence of their apparatus and equipment in neighborhoods.

With our limited opportunities for training prior to the re-location, our daily training exercises consisted largely of simulations, tabletop exercises, training videos and reviewing fire manuals. We put together situations in the firehouse, or at the public works garage after hours, but there was always a large portion of simulation factored into the exercises, with very little, if any, water flow. For a new or inexperienced firefighter, this meant missing out on crucial aspects of the reality of firefighting.

At some point, perhaps in late April or early May, we are scheduled to move back to our real home on Sixth Ave. When this happens we will no longer have our training facility at Vista Lobos, and our daily training will again become limited. However, we have made some strides to partially alleviate this problem.

First, and most importantly, our current administration has been instrumental in providing a variety of training opportunities. Fire Chief Andrew Miller and Assistant Chief David Brown have made it possible for us to participate in several regional training exercises such as live training burns in Marina, roof cutting and smoke ventilation exercises in Pacific Grove, helicopter training in Pacific Grove and high-rise training in Monterey. Secondly, some of our commercial neighbors have granted us permission to use their premises for occasional training for which we are grateful.

With the move back to the fire house, we'll again be forced to do some of our training in the residential district. We'll continue to use discretion and hope you will understand the reasons we need to be out there.

With spring upon us, please log on to carmelfiredepartment.com, click on Public Safety and review the article titled Springtime Safety. The only change to keep in mind has to do with clearing combustible vegetation. Instead of maintaining clearance of 30 feet around a structure, it is now recommended that clearance be at least 100 feet.

Finally, as a friendly reminder, you should have inspected your smoke detectors and replaced the batteries when we changed the clocks to Daylight Savings on April 2.

For more on the Carmel Fire Department, see details of the April 27 Carmel Residents Association meeting featuring Public Safety Directory George Rawson and Fire Chief Andrew Miller.