Tag Archives: San Jose

October 30, 2010 · 12:18 pm

Trick-or-Treat Trail Crossing Guard

Yesterday, I was one of the Willow Glen Lions who were volunteer crossing guards for the Trick-or-Treat Trail put on by the Willow Glen Business Association. This is our Lions Club’s second year serving our community through this school-day-before-Halloween safety project. It was fun but I have much increased respect for the difficult job of a crossing guard. I was last a crossing guard when I was in 6th grade. As John Plocher wrote:

What’s scarier than vampires, ghosts and dragons? Drivers on cell phones making left turns and jockeying for parking spots as thousands of kids and their parents descend on downtown Willow Glen for the WGBA’s annual Halloween trick-or-treat event!

The children and families and school groups paraded around Lincoln Avenue in two two-hour shifts (10 am – 12 pm for little kids, 2 pm – 4 pm for bigger kids), collecting candy from businesses. There were clear categories of costumes:

Super heroes (Iron Man, Buzz Lightyear, Spider Man, Superman and Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Mario Brothers, Batman, ninjas, Star Wars)
Fantasy characters (Dragons, fairies, elves, wizards or sorceresses, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Tigger, jack-o-lanterns, clowns, cowboys and cowgirls, pirates, knights and medieval ladies, Roman soldiers and ladies, aliens, robots, devils, Disney princesses)
Storybook characters (Dorothy and the Witch from Oz, Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty, Thomas the Tank Engine, The Cat in the Hat with Thing One and Thing Two, kings and queens and princesses, Alice in Wonderland with the Queen of Hearts and Mad Hatter)
TV characters (Sponge Bob, Rust-eze Cars, Power Rangers, Sesame Street)
Animals (Cats, Dogs, Dinosaurs, Tigers, Zebras, Giraffes, Lions, Bugs, Cows, Skunks, Monkeys, Rabbits, and one small elephant)
Food and plants (pumpkins, grapes, bananas, hot dogs, flowers)
Horror (ghosts, witches, vampires, murderers, zombies, skeletons, werewolves, Munch’s Scream, Death)
Unique costumes (a marionette puppet, outfits on real dogs, hippies, a Lego block, Mustard, a mime)
Sports costumes (Giants, Raiders, Sharks)
Work costumes (police, firefighters, army and navy, ballerinas, prisoners)

Some costumes were store-bought, some were home-made, many were a combination. My favorite pair costume was a big sister with ghastly bloody-looking makeup on her neck and face walking with a smaller boy all in black. When I asked what they were, she pointed and said: “He murdered me!” at which he smiled happily.

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October 30, 2010 · 10:50 am

Our Own Personal Flood

After my several blogs about not wanting flood insurance, it would be ironic if my home were flooded now that I finally don’t have to buy it. Our “flood” was only in the back yard, fortunately, and resulted from a cracked garden pipe. This was not the flood of Gilgamesh…

Like pieces of a broken pot lay the pieces of land among the spreading water.
So high did the water go that even the gods scrambled for mountain so high
And cringed like rain whipped dogs in the storm.

This was not the flood of Noah…

The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
And the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered;
the waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.

But it did make a big mess and cost us $500 to fix. What you see in the photo at the left above are the roots and pipe that caused the problem. We think a root from one of our big ash trees cracked the PVC pipe which connects to the hose bib or water spigot. I noticed that there was mud for several days in the walkway near WP 668, our backyard caboose where I have my office. My husband looked at it, dug a hole from which shot up a spout of water, found he could not turn it off, then called Polo’s Landscaping (408-597-5214) to come help.

It turns out that a previous owner of our Willow Glen house had put in a garden water line upstream of the house and garden water shut off valves. So, the only way we could turn off that particular pipe was to turn off the water service to the whole property. We ended up with two large muddy holes – one near the caboose, and the other near the valves in the front yard. After much digging around in my (former) iris bed, Polo found the pipe that should have had the shut off valve on it, buried two feet down. He and his team did a good job. By the end of the day, we had a new shut off valve and a fixed water pipe. The brick walkway sank a little but once the ground dries out some, I will lift the bricks and add some more sand.

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October 27, 2010 · 8:45 pm

Willow Glen Lions Visit San Jose City Hall

Five officers of the Willow Glen Lions Club went to visit Council Member for District 6, Pierluigi Oliverio, this afternoon at City Hall. Willow Glen’s representative was a judge in our High School Speakers’ Contest last year and has sometimes visited our booth at the Farmer’s Market. Club President Rick Loek, with Sami Asfour, Robert Cortez, Katy Dickinson, and Myra Talavera wanted to ask Pierluigi’s advice on what more our new club could do for our community.

The Mayor and City Council offices are on the 18th floor at the top of the impressive City Hall tower. Our conference room had distractingly interesting wrap around views of the Silicon Valley. Pierluigi said how much he appreciated the community work done by San Jose’s service clubs. We had a good meeting and hope that Pierluigi will again be a judge in next year’s Willow Glen Lions speaking contest.

In the lobby on the way out, I saw the controversial Christopher Columbus statue which was smashed in 2001 by a Native American activist. Despite all of the discussion, the 1958 statue has been repaired and seems to be generally ignored.

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October 24, 2010 · 2:53 pm

Dead Elvis Stolen

Halloween is a big celebration here in Willow Glen, California. A month in advance, otherwise stylish houses start growing nasty encrustations of orange and purple lights, plastic bats, black birds, and hairy spiders. Formerly well-kept lawns sprout tombstones and coffins, and spooky sounds drift from artfully concealed loudspeakers behind the well-trimmed bushes.

The Trick or Treat Trail is hosted by the Willow Glen Business Association (with the Willow Glen Lions among the volunteer safety monitors). Thousands of kids show off their costumes parading up and down Lincoln Avenue while collecting treats from local businesses. This event will be 10 am – noon and 2 pm – 4 pm on Friday, 29 October. Many of the costumes and decorations are shown off as-bought but some of the scariest are home made.

But there is a dark side to Halloween in Willow Glen… Someone has been collecting other people’s scary displays from unattended lawns. One of the protest signs in a temporary graveyard reads

TO THE THIEVING LOSERS
WHO STOLE OUR ZOMBIE
AND DEAD ELVIS….
RETURN THEM OR
BE FOREVER
CURSED BY
THE UNDEAD!

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October 20, 2010 · 4:09 pm

Willow Glen Lions Projects

I am in my second year as the Secretary to the Willow Glen Lions Club in San Jose, California. A Lions Club Secretary is the administrative officer – making monthly membership and program reports to Lions Clubs International, managing the club roster, keeping minutes of meetings, serving on the Board, etc.

Our club was chartered just over a year ago and we have made good progress. Willow Glen Lions is now in our second year of community service projects which include:

Backpacks for Kids (for Grammar School – working with the Almaden Super Lions Club)
Blanket Drive (working with the Almaden Super Lions Club)
High School Speakers’ Contest
Hot San Jose Nights – Pancake Breakfast and other activities (our club’s signature charity fundraising project). In 2010, we used our charity funds to sponsor scholarships for kids going to the Diabetes Society camps.
Peace Poster Contest (for Middle School artists)
Trick or Treat Trail monitors and crossing guards (29 October, Lincoln Avenue in Willow Glen, working with the Willow Glen Business Association)
Used Eyeglasses Recycling (for distribution to the needy in Mexico and elsewhere)

Last night, the Club Board voted funding to begin a new Leos Club for teens in Willow Glen. My husband John and I just created the club’s first business card – preparing for our club’s second Fall Mixer (at Chase Bank on Lincoln Avenue at Minnesota in Willow Glen, 6:30-8 pm on 10 November), and other upcoming activities. It arrived today!

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October 16, 2010 · 11:34 pm

Soybeans from China

My brother Peter has been studying the Mandarin language for several years and, when he heard that I am now working for Huawei, he strongly recommended The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence (1999, 2nd edition). I love history books and this is one of the best I have ever read. I am still working my way through and enjoying every page.

I was particularly interested in the story of James Flint, a trader who in 1759 tried to do business with Imperial China. The Spence passage which intrigued me was:

The East India Company tried to enlarge the scope for China trade and negotiation in 1759 by sending James Flint, a company trader who had learned Chinese, to present complaints to the Qing court concerning the restrictions on trade in Canton and the rampant corruption there. By dint of tenacity and a certain amount of bribery, Flint, sailing first to Ningbo and then to Tianjin in a small 70-ton vessel, the Success, was able to have his complaints carried to Peking. The emperor initially seemed to show flexibility, and agreed to send a commission of investigation to the south. But after the Success, sailing back to Canton, was lost at sea with all hands except for Flint (he had traveled south independently), the emperor changed his mind. Flint was arrested and imprisioned for three years for breaking Qing regulations against sailing to northern ports, for improperly presenting petitions, and for having learned Chinese.

This is the first I have heard that learning Chinese was historically illegal. I searched the net to learn more about James Flint and found
“History of Soy – Introduction of Soybeans to North America by Samuel Bowen in 1765” by Theodore Hymowitz and J.R. Harlan.

According to the “History of Soy”, Samuel Bowen was a seaman aboard the Success who was also imprisoned in China and, like Flint, returned to London by 1763 to claim compensation from the Court of Directors of the East India Company. In 1764 Samuel Bowen turned up in Savannah, in The Colony of Georgia, where he planted seeds which he had brought to America from China. The seeds were from soybeans – which Samuel Bowen is credited with introducing as an American crop.

Samuel Bowen and James Flint seemed to have continued to have business dealings with each other. Samuel Bowen’s two sons were named James Flint and Samuel Flint. The older James Flint was also connected with the ever-curious Benjamin Franklin who wrote a letter in 1770 about the food we now call tofu. In the letter, he refers to Mr. Flint.

I was thinking about all of this when I saw the billboard pictured below near where I live in Willow Glen (San Jose, California). We Americans are taught from a very young age about foods from the Americas which now feed the world: potatoes, tomatoes, and corn. I was interested to learn that one of our own staple food crops originated in China.

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October 13, 2010 · 9:15 pm

Autumn in the Silicon Valley

We are having a hot Autumn here in the Silicon Valley. It hit 92 degrees Fahrenheit in San Jose today. We had a tiny rain last week but it may be months before the first real storms blow in. As always, the plants are confused as to whether to bloom or turn colors for Winter – so, we get both together. Right now, it is a balmy evening and the crickets are chirping outside.