Invasive Species

The other day I read an interesting story about how the state of Michigan filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to close two shipping locks near Chicago, Illinois. The reason for the suit? To keep Asian carp from entering Lake Michigan.

Asian carp are a non-native invasive species. That is, they aren't native to the area and, as such, have no natural predators, which allows them to multiply unchecked.  They are another example of the unforeseen consequences of humans messing with the so called balance of nature (see my post "Putting the Revolution n Revolution Foods" for the most famous example of this).

The carp were imported from Asia in the 1970's to cleanse fish ponds and sewage lagoons in the Deep South.; They eat algae and; In the 1990's a series of floods allowed the carp to escape into the Mississippi River.  Since then they have worked their way up the Mississippi, into all of its major tributaries and are now on the verge of entering the Great Lakes.

These fish can be up to 4 feet long and weigh up to 100 pounds.

Because they have no natural predators, they multiply very rapidly. They may seem harmless because they only eat algae and plankton but each carp eats 40% of its body weight each day or 40 pounds of algae for each 100 pound carp. They eat so much that the other creatures that eat the same food starve to death. As they die, the predators which eat them starve as well. Some biologists fear that the carp will soon be the only fish living in the Mississippi.

If the carp do make their way into the Great Lakes, one of the many fish that will suffer from their presence is the Northern Pike.

The Northern Pike is regarded as one of the great game fishes of the U.S.. A game fish is a fish that is challenging for fishermen to catch. Northern Pike are mean, voracious predators with a mouthful of teeth. They will eat almost any other fish. Compared to Pike, the trout found in California lakes are considered to be tame.

Back in the 90's it is believed that a sport fisherman from the Great Lakes area decided to do something about this. Tired of catching small trout, he planted some Northern Pike into a beautiful Sierra lake named Lake Davis.

Lake Davis is famous for its trout fishing. The pike, away from its natural enemies, thrived. In order to survive, they fed on the most common local food source. Trout.

Soon, the trout had all but disappeared from Lake Davis. Locals feared that the pike, held into Lake Davis only by an earthen dam, would soon breach the dam and spread throughout the area. The California Department of Fish and Game decided to do something about it. They poisoned the lake. Twice.

Not all non-native invasive species were brought here on purpose. The Chinese Mitten Crab came here in the ballast tanks of ships.

Again, because their natural enemies weren't around, the mitten crabs multiplied extremely rapidly. These freshwater crabs choose to live in places where there are strong currents, such as pumping stations, because the currents bring food with them. At their peak, each pump was clogged with 20,000 to 40,000 crabs per day. It got so bad, that workers had to bury the crabs in ditches dug by backhoes.

It was feared that the crabs would multiply to the point that workers would be clearing 100,000 crabs from the pumps each day. It never happened.

Today, workers are only seeing 1000 to 2500 crabs each day. Nobody knows why.

Around here, you can see two invasive species everyday.

First is the Eucalyptus tree.

These were brought here from Australia in the 1800's to provide trees for a treeless landscape. They were chosen because they grow fast and they grow tall. Problem is they shed leaves and bark and burn quickly. You can see them all over the Bay Area.  Some property owners think they are dangerous and want them chopped down. Others consider them to be beautiful and fight against their removal. The National Park Service has been removing them from GGNRA land.

The second is the English Red Squirrel.

They are, as the name suggests, from Great Britain. Red squirrels are more aggressive, curious and social than their native counterpart, the California Gray Squirrel.

It is thought that the red squirrels band together to force the gray squirrels out of heavily populated areas. The squirrels you see most often around Park School are reds. You can often two or three red squirrels at once. Gray squirrels are only seen alone except during mating season.

Hubris

Hubris [hyoo-bris, hoo-], noun: excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.

The thing I like best about Survivor is that it provides living examples of the many varieties of human behavior. Watching it can show how one person’s behavior can affect the rest of a group, how many people prefer to simply follow someone else’s lead and how others overestimate their own strengths. Most striking though, is how, season after season, so many people fail to understand how their actions are viewed by others.

Those of you who don’t watch Survivor should know that each season, or game, starts with two teams known as “tribes”. The tribes compete against each other in challenges similar to, but more elaborate than, the ones we do in PE. Some challenges are “elimination” challenges. The tribe which loses one of these must vote out, or eliminate, one of its members from the game. Once the eliminations bring the total number of players in the game down to 10 or 12, the tribes merge and become one new tribe.

At the time of the merger, one of the former tribes usually has more members than the other, giving them an advantage for the remainder of the game. If the old tribe mates stick together, it is fairly easy for one of its members to win the game. But, therein lies the problem. Only one person can win.

So, each season of Survivor begins with two tribes working together in order to get to the merge with more surviving members than the other. After that, everybody is playing for him or herself.

This season, Russell Hantz played strictly for himself from the first day.

He went in with a Machiavellian (see the post called “The Prince”) strategy of lying, cheating and stealing his way to the merge and used it very effectively.

The thing is, that strategy will usually only work for as long as people go along with it. Once people figure out that someone is using machinations against them, they will revolt against her/him. It’s usually only a matter of time.


The first part of Russell's strategy was to demoralize his own tribe mates. By stealing water from, burning the clothes of and lying to the members of his own tribe, Foa Foa,

he destroyed the tribe’s confidence. By remaining strong and confident himself, Russell emerged as the tribe's leader.

As I watched Russell’s machinations unfold I wondered if his short term gain, control of his tribe, would hurt his long term chances to win the game because Foa Foa's lack of confidence hurt its ability compete against the other tribe, Galu.

Indeed, Foa Foa came to believe that it was a victim of bad luck. They became very discouraged and worse, very hungry. They lost almost every challenge. At the time of the merge, they had only 4 remaining members. Galu went to the merge with 8.

At that point, it looked like 4 members of Galu would have an easy path to the final four because they had a seemingly insurmountable 4 player advantage. All they had to do was vote together at Tribal Council and they could eliminate Foa Foa one by one. Then a funny thing happened. Over the course of next several episodes, almost all former Galu members were eliminated and one switched sides. The former Galu had completely lost control of the game.

How did this happen?

Two reasons.

First, Galu’s leader, Russell Swan

suffered a medical emergency and had to leave the game. This didn’t seem important at the time because Galu had such a big numbers advantage. But, Russell was a true leader who made every effort to keep the tribe working together. After he left, nobody replaced him effectively.

Second, Galu was overconfident. They went into the merge believing they could do whatever they wanted and that the former Foa Foa people wouldn’t put up much of a fight. There is a word for this. It is Hubris.

Hubris means overconfidence, or arrogance, combined with presumption. Presumption means believing that something is true, even though it might not be. Hubris, especially when one is overconfident based on a presumption that is false, can get one into trouble.

Galu’s hubris lead them to make the following questionable decisions:
• The voted out one of their own former tribe mates at the first Tribal Council. They did this because they presumed that all former Galu members would vote together in future Tribal Councils, so even after eliminating one of their own, they’d still have a 3 player advantage. The problem with that thinking was:
• They’d been completely disrespectful of one of their tribe mates throughout the first part of the game. Yet, despite treating her like dirt, they still believed that she’d vote with her old tribe. She didn’t. Would you?
• In one stroke of good luck, Russell played his Immunity Idol before he needed to. Nobody even knew he had it, because he found it without using any clues. After he played it, nobody on Galu seriously considered that he might find it again. He did. At the next Tribal Council, Galu tried to vote Russell only to find that Russell had found the idol again. Galu lost a former member instead. Galu discovered that their vote advantage was gone, when the tribe mate they treated so badly voted against them.

By the time Galu figured out that one of their former tribemates had switched sides, it was too late. Their hubris had cost them the lead. Now, they were doomed.

Foa Foa, the tribe which never won a single elimination challenge and whose most prominent member, Russell, was using everybody against everybody else, was now in control of the game.

The question now became: would Russell’s Machiavellian tactics win him the game?

An Example for All of Us

Among the PE events that students and I most look forward each year are the tournaments.

The kids like them because at their best, tournaments are fun, friendly competitions in which teams can earn prestige and the right to play for a grade level championship at lunch, in front of a big crowd.

I like them for completely different reasons. I really enjoy watching what begin as random groups of kids learn to trust each other.

As their trust grows, so do the groups’ confidence. This turns the groups into real teams which get stronger as the tournament goes on. Many kids thrive in this atmosphere and achieve things they never have.

Best of all, I get to see what kids have inside them. Tournaments give me a glimpse of want kind of adults the kids will grow up to be.

This year’s soccer tournament was especially gratifying. The 5th grade teams made unusually strong bonds because almost everybody made a point kept each others’ buckets full. As a result, every player did everything they could to help their team succeed. Many kids played the best soccer I’d ever seen them play.

Some of the kids demonstrated responsibility, leadership and sportsmanship skills that transcended a mere soccer tournament.  What they did went well beyond what I normally see in these events.

There was Elise, a 4th grade captain, who, after learning that she was to give awards to two members of her team, talked to me three times about how to do it without hurting people’s feelings.

I later learned that she took this responsibility so seriously that she lost sleep at night and she practiced her presentation speech with her mom in order to make sure that everybody understood the reasoning behind her decisions.

Then there was Tommy, a 5th grade captain.

Tommy is an excellent player who sacrificed his own chances to score goals. Instead, he chose to make sure that all of his teammates got a chance to score. He talked constantly to his team; directing them, encouraging them and keeping them focused. He even took responsibility for the things that didn’t work out. Because of the positive atmosphere Tommy created, nobody on his team was afraid to make a mistake. In fact, a girl who told me that she hated soccer because she was afraid of the ball became an offensive force by tourney’s end. And, a boy who’d never played soccer before scored a game winning goal after a pass from Tommy.

Most of all, there was Sam, a 3rd grader.

When it comes to tournaments, I don’t expect as much from 3rd graders as I do from 5th graders. I expect all 5th grade teams to get along and work hard together. My expectations for 3rd graders are different.

Third grade classes don’t always have tournaments. Sometimes, they don’t play well enough. Sometimes their classes are too small. Usually they don’t know how to compete peacefully. Last year, one 3rd grade class couldn’t even line up without an argument. Needless to say, they didn't get a tournament.

If a 3rd grade class does get a tournament, the best I can usually hope for is that everybody participates and that there aren’t too many arguments. As I started the 3rd grade tournament this year, I held my breath and hoped for the best.

What I saw was one of the greatest displays of sportsmanship I’ve ever seen.

Sam is a highly skilled and very accomplished soccer player. He is a very creative goal scorer who knows how to set up a goalie, then take advantage of her/him. He is also an excellent passer.

The first thing I noticed about Sam was that he never called attention to himself. He scored dozens of goals during the tournament and never bragged about it once. He would simply score then go get ready for the next kickoff.

The next thing I noticed was that, after scoring enough goals to insure that his team would win, Sam would stop shooting. Instead, he would pass to his teammates and let them shoot. Normally, I have to tell teams that are way ahead to do this. Sam chose to do this on his own.

Sam also called penalties and fouls on himself and his team. If a ball made even the slightest contact with his hand, intentionally or not, he’d stop play, declare “hand ball” and give the ball to the other team. If he tripped someone, he’d call the foul on himself and award the ball to the other team. If a teammate committed a penalty or a foul, Sam would make the call, often jogging across the field to help place the ball.

If there was questionable goal, Sam would always make the right decision whether it helped or hurt his team and did it such a way that nobody got upset.

As I watched Sam play, I found myself marveling at Sam’s sense of sportsmanship and fair play.

When I saw him call a handball on himself after a ball he didn’t see coming brushed the back of his hand, I wondered: “how many kids would I have called that on themselves? Would I call it on myself?”

Answers: none and no.

Sam’s team was very good. It often won by very lopsided scores like 5 or 6 to 0. Usually in situations like that, the losing team gets frustrated and angry and the game turns ugly. But Sam and his team never got into a single argument. I believe that this is because everybody knew that Sam’s team was playing fairly, honestly and humbly.

At the end of each game, Sam was always the first person in line to shake the hands of the opposing team.

Sam’s team made it to the lunchtime championship game. As you might expect, their opponent was very strong. It had two players, Kellen and Jason, with ability equal to Sam’s.

The opponents had a very good strategy. Each time Sam had the ball, both Kellen and Jason guarded him. Because of the double team, Sam only shot two or three times, usually losing the ball or passing out of the double team instead.

When the other team had the ball, Kellen and Jason passed it back and forth until one of them had a shot. Together, they took about 10 shots for every 1 that Sam’s team took. Still, because of a great performance by Sam’s team’s goalie, Seaver, neither boy scored. It looked like the game would end in a 0 – 0 tie.

Throughout the game, Sam, despite the importance of the game and number of opposing players surrounding him whenever he had the ball, remained true to himself. There were a couple of moments where a referee’s decision was needed, but no call was made. In each instance, Sam made the correct call himself, awarding the other team the ball on several occasions.

This didn’t go unnoticed.

“Wow,” said one observer, “he’s really fair!”

Then, with about 55 seconds left in the game, Jason, under pressure from Sam, passed to a third teammate, Danny. Danny, who hadn’t done anything the whole game, found himself wide open about 12 feet in front of the goal.

Seaver, as he should, stepped out of the goal to both pressure Danny and limit his shooting angles.

Danny took a big kick in an effort to hit the ball really hard. He almost missed it.

Instead of driving it, Danny popped it up. The ball rose about 10 feet into the air and headed for the goal. Seaver was caught in no man’s land.

All Seaver could do was turn and watch helplessly as ball floated over his head, under the crossbar into the net for a goal.

It was a perfect shot, yet completely accidental.

While Seaver held his head in disbelief, Sam grabbed the ball, kicked off and tried to even the score, but there wasn’t enough time. His team lost, 1 – 0.

Sam’s team was in shock. Sam tried valiantly to hold back tears, but wasn’t quite able to do so. Kellen’s and Jason’s team jumped up and down in jubilation.

It was a fantastic game. Everyone in it should have been proud to be a part of it. I wanted to make sure that everyone realized that. I started to tell the teams to line up to congratulate each other.

Sam beat me to it. Before I could say anything, I saw Sam, wiping his eyes with one sleeve, walk over to the other team and shake all their hands.

Throughout the soccer tournament, Sam exemplified the true meaning of sportsmanship. He set an example that all of us would do well to follow.

The Prince

Sometime during the course of your education, many of you will be asked to read to book called The Prince. This book was written in 1513 by a man named Niccolo Machiavelli.

Machiavelli is thought to be one of the first people to write about what is now known as political science.

The Prince, which was written for a man named Lorenzo de Medici, is about power; how to get it and how to keep it. The methods described in the book are considered by many to be cruel and amoral, yet it is still widely read almost 500 years after it was first written.

Machiavelli’s methods did not include bucket filling. In fact, while he believed that it was best for leaders to be both loved and feared, he also believed that most people could only be one or the other. In such a case, he wrote, it was better to be feared.

Machiavelli wrote his book in a cold, purely objective tone. It contains no emotional content or sentimentality. As a result, while the book contains some good advice, it is known primarily for supporting the belief that “the end justifies the means”.

For Machiavelli, any tool (the means) used to get or keep power (the end) was okay. That’s been interpreted to include lying, cheating, bullying, backstabbing, stealing, spying and even murder. Today, such methods are called “machinations” and people who use them are called “Machiavellian”.


Some Machiavellian historical figures:

Julius Caesar.

Napoleon.

Hitler.

While frowned upon by most people, machinations are used today by people seeking to have a power advantage over others. For example, it is said that Bill Gates,

the founder of Microsoft and one of the richest people in the world, started his company with stolen software. 

In the 1990’s Microsoft, then the biggest software company in the world, bullied other companies into using its products and took over companies which made products better than theirs. They only stopped after they were sued several times in several different countries for unfair business practices. Microsoft lost almost every suit.

If you’ve been watching this season’s Survivor, then you’ve seen machinations in action, for one of the players, Russell, is Machiavellian to the extreme.

In his first couple of days on the show, he emptied everyone’s canteen, burned some of their clothes and made alliances with several players. Making alliances are a normal tactic in this game, except that Russell made the same promise to all of the them: “I’ll take you to the final two with me”. You do the math.

On the first night Russell told all of his teammates a story of how he was in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina struck, got stranded on the roof of his house in the flood that followed and lost his dog in the process. All of his teammates felt sympathy for him.

There was only one problem:

“I’ve never been to Louisiana, let alone New Orleans,” he told the cameraman.

Whenever anyone told Russell that they didn’t trust him, he arranged to have them voted off by saying the other player “wasn’t trustworthy”.

Russell’s Machiavellian strategy has gotten him to the merge and the final 10, but he is now outnumbered by the former members of another tribe. They don’t trust him.

Many historical Machiavellian leaders met unpleasant ends. Julius Caesar was murdered. Napoleon was exiled. Hitler killed himself.

Within the tiny world of Survivor, Russell strives to be Caesar. It will be interesting to see how it plays out, for it will demonstrate how effective machinations can be in the 21st century; some 5 centuries after they were first described.

5th Graders Learn Cotton Eyed Joe for PE

Double Dutch Holiday Classic

Teams from all over the world compete at Double Dutch. This is a contest from 2006

Let's Play Double Dutch

This is an instructional Double Dutch video.

How to Defend the Other Team's Best Scorer

The reason I run soccer and hockey tournaments in P.E. is because it gives me a chance to see how well kids, working with the same group for several days in a row, work together in a competitive situation.

As a teacher, I am looking first to see how well groups get along in the stress of competition and second if the members of the group are able to work more closely together in order to meet the challenges of competition.  This is called teamwork, of course, and I'm happy to say that most teams I see become closer and more effective as a tournament goes on.

Simple teamwork is where everybody is given a job and each player does that job as best s/he can. On the best teams, players grow to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses and figure out how to make the best use of each others’ strengths. Teams like this then develop a plan which puts their players in places and gives them jobs which give their team the best chance of success. This is called strategy. Teams that have a good strategy play better than the players on their roster suggest they can. This goes beyond mere teamwork. This is called synergy.

Example: recently there was a game between two 3rd grade teams.   One team, team A, was scoring about 5 goals per game.  The other, team B was scoring about 2.  Almost everybody in class expected the high scoring team to win.  They didn't.

See, most of team A's goals were being scored by one player.  This player, Bob (not his real name) has exceptionally strong soccer skills for a 3rd grader.  So, team B's strategy was for the whole team to play defense.  Then, as a tactic within the strategy, one player guarded Bob at all times.

Bob is so good that it is very difficult to keep him from scoring.  He still managed to score two goals despite team B's game plan.  But, in the end, team B won, 3-2.  Team B's success was due to their game plan, or strategy, but it was the tactics they used within the plan that made the plan work.

Where strategy is an overall plan for the team, tactics are little tools that make the strategy work. Keeping the whole team on the defensive end of the field to keep the other team from scoring is a strategy. The way a team places those players, and how they do their jobs, are tactics.

Let’s say that your team, like team B, is playing a team on which there is an exceptionally good goal scorer. Let's also say that this player not only has better skills, like to ability to dribble and shoot with either foot and score from almost anywhere, but s/he is also faster than anyone on your team.does.  Tough player to stop, right?

A good strategy against a player like this is to limit the scorer’s shot attempts by keeping most of your team on defense, like team B did.   But, simply keeping your team on defense may not be enough.  The way you use those defenders, or, your tactics, will decide whether or not the strategy works.

The simplest way to use this strategy is to keep all defenders inside or just outside the goal box.

When the other team attacks, have the defenders crowd the area in front of the goal. This makes it hard to get a shot through. The problem with this is that the defenders tend to stand in one place because no single defender is responsible for stopping the scorer. A really good scorer will pick his/her way through the defense or shoot from farther out when a shot is unexpected and score anyway.

A better use of this strategy would be to give two defenders the job of stopping the scorer. This is a tactic called double teaming.

Use one defender to follow the scorer all over the field whether or not s/he has the ball. When the scorer gets the ball have this defender put as much pressure on the scorer as possible. This will force the scorer to dribble, pass or shoot before s/he has a good shot.

The second defender can be used two ways. The first way is simply to help the first defender, by playing behind the first defender.

If the scorer dribbles around the first defender, the second defender can pick the scorer up, while the first defender moves to the helper position. This insures that there is always one defender on the scorer.

The second way would be to use the second defender to trap the scorer. In this situation, the first defender tries to force the scorer to dribble down the sideline. When s/he does, the second defender runs to the sideline ahead of the scorer. Both defenders then guard the scorer as tightly as they can. This makes it very difficult for the scorer to shoot. Doing this may force him/her to pass, dribble back to the middle, or go out of bounds.

These tactics can be used in soccer, hockey and basketball. Try it the next time you are playing against a really good scorer. It works!

Rivals, a Followup

Back in April 2008, I wrote a post called "Rivals".  It was about two boys at Park.  One "Wilson" (names aren't real) was consumed by the idea of outdoing the other, "Caleb".  In Wilson's mind, he and Caleb were rivals.  Caleb, happy go lucky, easy going and a great bucket filler, just did his own thing, completely unconcerned about what Wilson thought.

Well, the boys are seniors now.  Caleb, whose real name is Jonah, was just elected Tam high school's Homecoming King.

As for Wilson?  Who knows.

Oh, and by the way: Tam's homecoming queen, Rachel, went to Park too.

The Piano Stairs - Making Exercise Fun

Getting together with friends for a little jumprope...

Park School's 100th Birthday

Click on a photo to enlarge it

One Day in October

October 17, 1989 was a special day, for it was the occasion of the first World Series game to be played in San Francisco since 1962. To make it even more interesting, the Giants would be playing their cross bay rivals, the Oakland A's. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks.

As I walked to work through the busy streets of the city that afternoon, it seemed like every car I passed had its windows open and its radio on and that every radio was tuned to the game.

The day was hot and dry. There was absolutely no breeze. The heat had a heavy quality particular to fall. As I walked, I heard a woman say, “this feels like earthquake weather.”

We know that there is no connection between earthquakes and the weather, but on that day, that woman proved prophetic. At 5:04 that afternoon, the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck.

Most people will tell you that they were in the midst of their normal routine that day. I know I was. The only unusual thing I did that day was to bring a T.V. to work in order to watch the game.


In those days, I owned my own businesses.


My partners and I owned three stores: two Double Rainbow Ice Cream franchises




and a coffee store called Designer Beans.


That afternoon, I was working at our Double Rainbow store near Union Square in San Francisco.


When I got to work, I put the TV behind the counter so that everyone could see it.

Just before the game started, the earthquake hit.

In the store, we felt one large jolt. A bottle of Italian soda syrup fell off a shelf.


The power went out.

Then, it was over.

I’d been through many earthquakes before, so I didn’t think much of this one. After all, We'd only lost one bottle off of a shelf lined with them.

Not everyone had the same reaction. People came streaming out of the Holiday Inn across the street. Many of them had left in a hurry. They stood, in a daze, on the sidewalk, some in bathrobes and slippers. Soon, the sidewalk was filled with people from other buildings in the neighborhood, all looking worried and confused.

Upon seeing this, one of my employees looked at me and grinned.

“Tourists,” he snickered.

Despite the power outage, the TV continued to work, because it could run on batteries, but the screen was black. No sound either. We suddenly felt cut off.

After a few minutes, TV stations went back on the air. They’d lost power too, but had switched to emergency generators in order to go back on the air.

The first pictures we saw were of fans, players, umpires and police standing together on the playing field at Candlestick Park.


The TV announcer, Al Michaels, lived in the Bay Area. He handled the situation in an calm, relaxed manner, for he too had been through many earthquakes. When the quake hit, he continued broadcasting. He simply changed the subject from baseball to earthquakes.

Johnny Bench, a Hall of Fame catcher who was doing the radio broadcast, had not been through an earthquake before. When it hit, he jumped out of his chair and ran for the nearest steel doorway. Later his broadcast partner, Jack Buck, told him, “If you moved that fast when you played, you wouldn’t have hit into so many double plays.”

Back at the store, our first indication that this earthquake was more serious than we thought was when Al Michaels announced that Candlestick Park was being evacuated due to possible damage to the structure. The channel then switched to a shot of the Bay Bridge, where one section of the roadway collapsed.


My store stayed open. We were one of the few that did. Many of the people milling around on the street came in as if to seek refuge from a storm.

We sold them ice cream, baked goods and rapidly cooling coffee. Some customers tried to hoard food by trying to buy whole loaves of banana bread or lemon cake. We had to impose a two slice per person limit.

One of my workers arrived for her 6 o’clock shift. With wide eyes, she told me that she was at her school, St. Rose Academy, when the quake hit. She was walking across the yard.

“The ground rolled across the blacktop like a wave,” she said.

Customers stayed to watch my 5” TV. It was their only source of information. Everyone crowded into one corner of the store. As it got dark outside, they stayed, attracted to the TV like moths to a flame.

At first, all we saw were shots of the Bay Bridge. Then we saw shots of collapsed or burning buildings in the Marina District.


My sister lived in the Marina. I began to worry.

Then we saw a shot of a collapsed freeway in Oakland.


The crowd let out a collective gasp.

Night fell. The power remained out. Our emergency lights were on, so we stayed open just to let people watch TV.

We ran out of baked goods and coffee.

Nobody was in the mood for ice cream.

After the crowd thinned out we closed the store.

My next challenge was to get home. I lived about 20 miles away in the East Bay and used the Bay Bridge every day. That night, I had to drive through the darkened city into Marin and then over the Richmond Bridge in order to get home. All of the traffic signals were out, but traffic was surprisingly orderly. Still, it took me over an 2 hours to make what was normally a 45 minute drive.

My house had power. I turned to lights on to find my bookshelves toppled and everything that was on them scattered all over the floor. As I surveyed the damage, my cats came out from wherever they were hiding, rubbed against my leg and yowled at me as it to say, “Where the heck have you been?


The ice cream store didn’t get power back for two days. We packed the ice cream in dry ice to try to save it, but eventually had to throw out about 30 gallons of the stuff.

Game 3 of the World Series was postponed for 10 days. The A's won. They also won game 4 the following day to complete a sweep.

My sister wasn't hurt and her building sustained no damage.

The damage at St. Rose Academy was so extensive that it had to close. The building is boarded up to this day. The school eventually reopened at a new location.

Mill Valley Jack in the Box, R.I.P.

Whenever you ride down Miller Ave you may notice a forlorn, out of place little building near Whole Foods that used to be a Jack in the Box fast food restaurant.


In recent years it's always seemed like a lonely place, a throw back to another era being visited by almost nobody. I, however, remember it when it was new. It's where I got my first real job.

When I was a high school junior all of my friends had flashy bikes. One even traveled to Italy to have one custom built for him. I wanted an Italian bike too. I'd even picked one out. It was a lime green Italvega


with a steel Columbus frame and a mix of Campagnolo,


Stronglight and Mafac components.


Very exotic, and for me, very expensive at $200 (today an equivalent bike would cost over $3000). So, in order to buy this bike, I needed to get a job.

One day, I decided to apply for a job at the Jack in the Box. I hopped on my beater bike and rode down from Homestead Valley. When I was about halfway there, it started to rain. I got soaked. I had a choice: continue on and apply for a job while all wet, or go back home and try again another day? I continued on.

When the manager saw me, he shook his head, smiled slightly and gave me an application. After I turned it in he told me that he didn't have any openings but would call me when one came up.

He called me back that night.

Later, he told me he hired me because anyone who was willing to ride his bike in the rain to apply for a job deserved to have one.

Anyway, I soon found myself working on Friday, Saturday and Sundays. Since I was the new guy I got all of the lousy shifts. On Fridays and Saturdays I worked from 6 p.m til 2 in the morning. Sometimes I worked from 7 p.m. til 3.

The store didn't do much business after 9, so I spent most of my shift cleaning up the store and restocking it for the next day by doing such things as slicing tomatoes, onions and lettuce.


For our safety, we locked the dining room at 10 p.m. It's a good thing we did, too, because the later it got, the stranger our customers were.

For one thing, we'd get a rush of customers every night (early morning, really) just after 2 a.m., which is when bars close. These customers were mostly from the nearest bar, the 2 A.M. Club. Let's just say that many of those people shouldn't have been driving.

One night, four high school boys walked up the entrance at around 11. We told them the dining room was closed. They left. A minute later, the bell sounded, indicating that there was a car waiting to place an order. We took the order, then waited for the car to drive up. There was no car. It was the boys.

The boys came up to the window in two rows of two as if they were in a car. They were all in a half crouch and the one closest to the window had his hands up as if he were holding a steering wheel. When we handed him his order, he pretended to roll down his window, handed us his money, reached up to get his food, handed it to the guy next to him, rolled up his window and, with his hands still holding the wheel and with his friends still in formation, "drove" off.

At around midnight each night another worker would show up for his 12 - 8 graveyard shift. His name was Matt. He was the same age as me. He eventually was elected class president at Tam and is now a prominent lawyer. Back then, he was kind of the class clown.

One night while I was in the back slicing tomatoes a customer walked up to the drive through window. I never saw him, for Matt took his order, but I did hear Matt's side of the conversation. It went something like this:

"Hi, can I help you?"

(unintelligible reply)

"Sorry man, I can't do that. How about a nice Jumbo Jack?"

(louder, but still unintelligible reply)

"Look, I'm really busy. Do you want some food or not?"

When I heard that, I came out of the back to see what was going on, but the customer was gone.

"What was that all about?", I asked Matt.

"It was nothing," replied Matt, "just some guy trying to rob us."

All in all, it was a pretty fun job. Learned how to cook real fast, work a cash register and deal with the public. These were all skills that would come in handy as I grew up. Oh, and I got paid, too. My wage? $1.65 per hour.