Falconer on the Hill

Deann was eager to share her passion for raptors with me, when I  passed by her condo on this cool day on the Hilltop, where her family has lived for 28 years.

She was standing near the sidewalk, "manning" her newly captured female American Kestrel Nikita, introducing her to her new captive world--getting her used to being around people, preparing her for the day she will go on the hunt for European Starlings, that prolific non-native invading scourge of birdom, imported to New York from England in 1890.

Deann has been working on this for three years, ever since the day she became enthralled by a pair of nesting Coopers Hawks, outside her office window in Huntington Beach.  "It changed my life," she told me.  You can read her story and see some beautiful photos on her Website .

"One of my reasons for this journey is to educate people about raptors," she says. "Raptors are important to the environment and often are thought of as 'mean' by the uninformed.  This is very far from the truth," she says, "as they help control the population of birds and rodents and rid those species of the weak and sick, helping with the process of natural selection."  She goes on to say "They take life to live, not for fun or sport."

She is now licensed by the State of California and the Federal Government, giving her permission to practice the art of falconry; and is completing her two-year apprenticeship, under the supervision of a master falconer.   She recommends the Website Modern Apprentice for anyone who wants to explore becoming a falconer.


Since trapping Nikita near the Chino Airport, she has been on the arduous journey of training the bird to hunt.  One reason she has chosen starlings as the prey is because of their size--larger than a sparrow, not much smaller than the Kestrel itself, making it unlikely Nikita will be able to fly off with the kill.

Watching raptors in flight is a beautiful thing and, adds Deann, "The interaction of bird and human just absolutely intrigues me."

      ---RCH

For more Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill click on "Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill" on labels and scroll down, or check out the slide show at the right.

82-Year-Old Biochemist & Trekker Knows About Exercise

"I like to measure things," says retired scientist Mort Civen, as he describes the benefits of walking on Signal Hill. He can tell you exactly how much his blood pressure is reduced with his time on the Hill.

With a Harvard Ph.D. in Biochemistry and 28 years conducting research on the adrenal gland (A "key to life," he says.) in his lab at the Long Beach Veterans Administration facility, you expect this 82-year-old trekker and fitness advocate to know what he's talking about.

Civen points to the physical, mental and emotional benefits of exercise; just  a little time on the trail, he says, and any hint of depression vanishes.

He's lived in Signal Hill for 25 years and now that he is retired, he walks daily on the Hill, alternating between trails on the north and south sides of the Hill, while listening to classical music on his iPod.  He is very grateful to the City of Signal Hill for making its semi-rustic trails available to all.

He walks with two lightweight, German-made LEKI trekking poles, with built-in shock absorbers, to give himself an upper body workout and to take a little pressure off his legs.

Civen is no newcomer to trekking, however. Several times, he took extended hikes in Nepal, including a visit to the famous Mt. Everest Base Camp.  He has also bagged peaks in Patagonia, Peru, Bolivia, California Sierras, and used to regularly hike up our local Mt. Wilson.

When talking with Civen, you understand its not just about physical health.  It's clear he's considered carefully what's important in this life, and he's willing to share it.  He reads--mostly about science--he walks, he listens to music, he enjoys the beauty of nature, and travels to distant lands and visits exotic cultures.  He's currently planning  his next overseas trip to New Zealand.

"I feel lucky," he says, to be healthy and so fully engaged in life.  He shares all this with his two daughters--a teacher and a medical doctor--living in Southern California, grand children, and his artist partner-companion with whom he lives.

And I feel lucky to have had this Pleasant Encounter with one of Signal Hill's "regulars."

He also wears a cool hat, just laundered.


---  RCH

(For more, click on the Pleasant Encounters label below or the slide show above right.)

Aviator Performs Flying Filagrees Over Signal Hill

"I've tried almost everything," says Dr. Brian Pham, "speed planes, jets, sail-planes, helicopters, war birds, etc., but the thing that gets the adrenaline pumping for me is aerobatics.  It never gets boring."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       This was pretty clear the day we had our Pleasant Encounter on the Hilltop.  

After performing a fantastic filagree of spins and loops and rolls, he brought his plane down to eye level, directed it into the wind, turned the nose up to vertical, and let the breeze gently guide it into his waiting hand.  "Nice landing," I said. 

Brian is an optometrist with his own practice in downtown Long Beach, a business he started five years ago, upon completing his studies.  In addition to his profession, his "passions" in life are aviation (full-scale and radio control), racing cars at a track, and Transcendental Meditation.

The light-weight, styrofoam plane Brian holds in the above picture, he built, and is his "fly anywhere, practice plane," one he can take to small parks, the beach, and Signal Hill.  But what he enjoys most is performing giant-scale aerobatics, flying planes that are typically 25-50% scale replicas of their full-size counterparts, and require a runway.

One of these is Brian's Sbach 342, shown here.  It is 36% of the size of the real thing, having a wingspan of nine feet, a fuselage the length of a minivan, and weighing in at a very light 27 pounds.  It is made primarily of balsa wood and is powered by a 111 cc twin cylinder gas engine, making about 12 horsepower.   (Brian participates in a forum dedicated to these Flying Giants.)

To perform aerobatics with these behemoths of the radio control world--as well as with the smaller planes--takes a lot of hand-eye-brain coordination.  He described these complexities, saying the controls required are each time reversed, depending if the plane is approaching or going away; whether it is ascending or descending.  "You need fast reaction, and most importantly, good visual-spatial skills for higher-level aerobatics," he said.  

Here's a link to a short onboard video of Brian performing aerobatics with one of his smaller balsa planes.  Be sure to turn up the volume.

Our Pleasant Encounter on Signal Hill introduced me to the aviation sub-culture, which seems more inclusive than I had imagined.  Brian told me of meeting many of his fellow enthusiasts who are  pilots of both full-scale, as well as remote control aircraft.  Some have invited him to fly with them on the "real thing."

I'm looking forward to seeing more flying filagrees above the Hill.

    

  

  

8-Month-Old Emily Absorbs the View From Signal Hill ... in Father Felipe's Arms

Here's a brief interlude to the Spain blog series

Infants are totally into the view; without thought, they are the view, absorbed fully by it.  We adults, on the other hand, live mostly in our heads and worry about "our view" when we want to sell our pricey view property.  At least this is what Signal Hill city planning staff tell us.

We met 8-month-old Emily, held high in her father Felipe's arms, briskly climbing the Hill, escaping TV and the seductions of the couch.  "This hill and its trails are a wonderful thing to find in the middle of the city," he said.  "Not as wild as the Whittier Hills" where he used to walk, but a "wonderful resource" nonetheless.  "I've been bringing my children up here for years, he said; the boys complained at first, but now they love it;" absorbed by the view, I'm guessing.

Before we parted, we said we'll see each other on the Hill and online.

Another Pleasant Encounter on Signal Hill.  See more Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill in slide show in the sidebar to the right.

We return to Spain in the next post.

--- RCH

Feeling Adventuresome? Go Fly a Kite.

Karl, a "worker bee" on the Long Beach Boeing C-17 Globemaster III engineering team, keeps a kite in his car, "just in case I come across a breezy hilltop on my lunch hour," he says with a smile.

A long-time Long Beach area resident, he remembers working as a kid at his grandparents' Ray's Shooting Gallery on the old Long Beach Pike.

He told me he is a Vegan and spoke highly of the health and ecological benefits of the dietary regimen. Then we got into Buddhism, for some reason. I suggested he read a little Robert Aitken, the Zen master who died earlier this month and who "... made Zen Buddhism workable for Westerners."

Karl spoke enthusiastically about his passion for bicycling. He suggested I take a look at the work of his friend, photographer and cyclist Russ Roca, who is documenting his grand cycling tour of the States in a blog called The Path Less Pedaled.

And there is another friend, Adrian, who is due to arrive shortly in Costa Rica after cycling through Mexico and much of Central America. It's notable that Adrian is touring using a "fixed-gear" bicycle, meaning there is no freewheel to provide the opportunity to coast; no need for brakes, a simple machine, synchronizing legs and wheels. "What's the purpose of that?," I asked. A moment's hesitation, a quick smile, then: "I suppose it's the challenge," he said.

Meanwhile, there's Karl, taking a break from work to fly his kite on Signal Hill... thinking about pedaling. Another sweet, Pleasant Encounter on Signal Hill.

(For more Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill, scroll down or click on slideshow in sidebar to the right.)

-- RCH

The Poetry of Artist Annie Stromquist

Artist, author and teacher Annie Stromquist, from the Long Beach neighborhood of Bixby Knolls, takes vigorous walks almost daily on the Hill. You see her zest for life on the trail and in her art.

Maria and I had set out for a rare early-morning walk on the Hill to help our niece and nephew--Marcia and Lee-- shake out some of the jet lag cobwebs lingering after their return flight from a vacation in France. Maria and Lee made first contact with Annie up on the Panorama Promenade; later the five of us had this Pleasant Encounter on the Hillside trail.

At age 35, Annie left her job as associate dean of Occidental College to pursue her life-long interest in the arts. After getting a third master's degree--this time in Fine Arts at Cal State Long Beach--she took up the life of an artist.

Now, a print maker, Annie creates mixed media works on paper which she calls "'monoprints', made by pressing a variety of found objects covered with ink into wet paper." What propels her forward, she writes, "is a fascination with process, and how I might push the medium I'm using in new, interesting ways."

She even wrote a book about print making: Simple Screen Printing: Basic Techniques and Creative Projects.

Her work is abstract--neither symbolic nor representational. Much like a Zen master preferring gesture over words to point directly to a thing's essence, Annie lets the materials, and her intimate connection to them, speak for themselves. She writes, "When an eloquent form emerges from a process that is, in equal measures, controlled and fortuitous, it conveys the essence of the revelatory of which art is uniquely expressive."

That's a pretty eloquent use of words, too! No purist, she told us on the trail that she's found that writing her blog, One Artist's Life, is (surprisingly?) helpful to her art.

Take a little time to click on the above links, and tell me, Would you agree that Annie Stromquist is both poet of the visual and the verbal?

(For the full Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill project, scroll down or see slideshow on sidebar to the right.)

--RCH

Four Words of Encouragement

"Good goin'," said I. "You too," said she.

Most Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill are fleeting: no opportunity to take a photo, no chance for a brief caption. Usually it's a friendly smile, a warm greeting, a word or two of encouragement. Today, Liz and I shared these four words of encouragement, and then met up again at the Hilltop for this photo.

I was powering up one of the steeper streets on the Hill when she passed me on her new baby blue road bike, complete with fingernails to match. This brief exchange, a flashing smile, and then it was back to work.

Liz, of nearby Lakewood, has been seriously riding since last October, and is happy to announce she has lost 57 pounds. But, to be able to keep up with her fellow cycling club members, she needs to improve her hill-climbing. So for now it's one day a week on Signal Hill. Tomorrow she's got an even longer hill ride on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Four words of encouragement and a final promise: "We'll be seeing you on the Hill and online."

(Scroll down or click on the slideshow to the right for the entire Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill project.)

-- RCH

Dog Poop: An Adventure, a Business

We had met on the Hill before, each time he was picking up dog poop and each time I thanked him. "I always do it," he said, "and it makes me angry when others don't."

It was during this latest exchange that I noticed he was walking different dogs. It dawned on me: "You're a professional dog walker," I said.

Yes, retired Bellflower resident Harry Ruiterman--seen here with chocolate "curly" lab Coco and mix-breed Chase--and his wife, Evelyn, operate the small business Affordable Pet Sitters, providing dog walking services for just $18 a 45-minute walk for up to two dogs. Add two dollars for an additional dog.

It begins with an interview where dog-human compatibility is determined. They walk some dogs daily and others two or three times a week; and it takes "dog people" like Harry and Evelyn to be successful. Harry takes the larger dogs, while Evelyn walks the smaller ones, since she suffered a health set-back recently.

They also provide overnight pet sitting services and plan to expand soon into poop scooping--a technical term of the trade.

Business is good. Harry and Evelyn have their hands full, working mostly in Signal Hill and Long Beach, and relying on word of mouth to bring in new clientele to accommodate turnover. In fact, Harry resists pressures to expand the business, decrying the unwanted complexities that would come with hiring others.

For Harry, picking up dog poop is not only the right thing to do, it also makes good business sense.

(Scroll down for more Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill or click on slideshow to the right for the complete project.)

---- RCH

Endorphines Prompt Lively Discussion

A good workout brings out the best in us. Some say it is the increased blood to the brain, others claim its the higher levels of endorphins. It's probably both.

I stopped to view the plume coming off a Wilmington oil refinery fire, seen in the distance, after my 45 minute vigorous walk on the Hill. Bryan, of Long Beach, did the same after running up the Hill's steepest street-- four times!

As we watched the plume grow, we started commenting on the parallels with the British Petroleum disaster currently playing out in the Gulf. I asked his opinion about how well President Obama is handling the disaster, and he gave me a nuanced response. "The situation is far too complex to pin blame," he said. He then went on to discuss the multiple agencies, jurisdictions and historic considerations involved, unwilling to join the large numbers of Americans who say Obama is not responding well.

"Complexity" kept cropping up, as Bryan ranged from problems confronted by developing nations; to his documentary video project in Guyana, (formerly British Guyana in South America) where he was born; to the challenges of living a life of principle, exemplified by the just deceased coach John Wooden.

Finally, we discussed the political complexities of preserving open public space, pointing to the Hilltop Park and the trails nearby.

Bryan, owner of an IT company in Long Beach found at Shuffler.com, runs daily on the Hill. "I love those trails," he said.

We shook hands twice before we parted, and said we'd be seeing each other on line and on the Hill.

-- See slide show to the right for the entire Pleasant Encounters project

-- RCH

Signal Hill Water Workers--Our "Boys in Orange"

We don't give them much thought, unless they block off our street, make all that racket, or cut off our water for repairs. No, we seldom give much thought to our "Boys in Orange." We take them--and the water they deliver to us--for granted.

I recently spent a week getting to know what they do there, digging in our streets, as they replaced 60-year-old galvanized service lines to our, and our neighbor's residences, with 1-inch copper pipes. I learned to appreciate these unsung workers of ours.

You can see photos of the process, with explanatory captions, by clicking on project.

There were several things that impressed me by this team of workers that I would otherwise not have experienced, had I not approached them with an appeal to let me document their work. Among these impressions are:

1. How, despite their cool and tough street-smart veneer, they were pleased to have someone take an interest in what they do on a daily basis; and how eager they were to show off their talents, and to share the complexities of their trade. They appreciate fully the intricacies of our vast water delivery system, and their own roles in that.

2. How they operated as a team, efficiently and methodically going about their business. Basically, a non-verbal group, relying heavily on hand signs, often midst noisy operations, to guide and protect fellow team members in their work. Without apparent direction, team members would share the work, digging or lifting a heavy piece of equipment, with an intuitive sense of what was needed. I saw a brute strength mixed with a delicate operation, to get the job done.

3. How each member of the team is able to do all project functions, and how the team does it all--from designation and notification of the work site to the final topping off of the trench with temporary patch and finished concrete work around the meter boxes. We discussed how working for a small city like Signal Hill allows them to be generalists, keeping the job interesting, and providing a good training ground for the young guys. The downside is the specialist, working in a big city, probably makes a bit more money.

4. How convivial the group is, and how each person is protective of the others. On the one hand, I saw good-natured ribbing--as when the dump truck inadvertently dumped its entire load; while on the other, I saw heartfelt concern, as they recounted a significant burn accident experienced by one of their team--Hector--that laid him up for two years.

5. I sensed a little frustrations over the increasing complexity and number of regulations that they must always be adapting to. Safety to the the worker and to the environment is a constant concern, and training on these matters is continual. During my week of observation, team leader Senior Water Worker, Rick, pointing to the large water jug attached to their truck, said he had just learned that they are out of compliance with the amount of drinking water they must carry: at least two gallons of water per worker per day.

6. How each project is unique, especially in older neighborhoods where there is a history of extensive oil drilling and operations. Despite the sophisticated Underground Service Alert system (USA), whereby all utilities are informed of proposed digging projects, and underground pipes are indicated by color-coded lines sprayed on pavement, there are most always surprises. I watched as they conferred among themselves, and also with their supervisor back in the office, to resolve unexpected challenges.

Take a look at the accompanying photo album, with captions, if you want to learn a little more about our "Boys in Orange" and the work they do. Further, it is instructive to consider that for each trade and for each system we rely upon--electrical, sewer, trash removal, gas, telephone, etc.--there are equivalents of our "Boys in Orange," who spend their professional lives training for, maintaining and repairing the infrastructure we rely upon daily.

Finally below see a very brief and poorly filmed video of Eric demonstrating one of the labor-saving skills he and the others have developed.

A Beautiful Little Girl, a Dog Story and a Baseball Story--Irresistible

A friendly foursome meets up on the Panorama Promenade. Camryn, right, is a dog lover; she has her own small dog back at home in the Wrigley neighborhood of Long Beach, and is smitten by this "Wrigley," a dog named after the venerable Chicago Cubs ballpark, with its loyal and long-suffering fans. She and her dad, Fritz, walk occasionally on the Hill.

Chicagoan Margaret left, walks Wrigley--sporting a Cubbies collar-- daily on the Hill. She and her husband are recent residents of a townhouse on the Hill's north side. They love the neighborhood, its amenities and central location--She works in Orange County, he in L.A.

The Cubbies collar will come off after baseball season. "Wrigley can endure only so much," Margaret says.

(See other Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill in slide show to the right.)

--RCH

Another Pleasant Encounter on Signal Hill

Glen and Mary pose in front of a stone pillar manufactured to look like old stone walls of the Denny Mansion, on the hill before oil was discovered in the early 1920s.

Mary--a terrier-chihuahua mix--gets her way; taken out daily for a walk on the Hilltop. Glen is very patient with her.

(Click on slide show at right for entire project to date.)

--- RCH

Another Pleasant Encounter on Signal Hill

Lori & Lance are 11-year residents of Signal Hill, and neighbors from around the corner.

After peeking over the railing to the street below, "Richard, is that you?" "Lori?" ...It turns out we worked together 17 years ago, in Orange County.

We had a long conversation on our front deck, and learned of their four children, their home schooling, sailing adventures on the high seas, and discussed the possibility of forming a Signal Hill Beta Club to promote civic engagement by local teens. -- RCH

(Click on Side Show @ rt. for more encounters.)

Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill

Our first post to Signal Hill Views is a photo project called Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill.

Building community and delighting in the great mosaic of life on the hill.

Click on Come Walk With Me to see my route

To see more, click on the "Pleasant Encounters on Signal Hill" label below or go to the slide show, at the column to the right; click on a photo for a short caption.

-- RCH