America the Great and not So Great: Saturday reflections

Ah, what a sweet, errand-running Saturday morning, from dropping off dry-cleaning to picking up kitchen floor tile samples at Carpet One in San Ramon! Then a visit to the Target off Bollinger Canyon Road in San Ramon -- which is not just your ordinary Target. It's a Super Target! It's very very big! Super-sized! Such a selection of low-priced Target shoes!

However, I wasn't shoe shopping, just picking up printer cartridges. But, my, what a selection of printer cartridges.

I know, my life is so exciting, but, you know, life's simple pleasures and all that!

At the end of the morning, we queued up in the car for burgers at In-N-Out.  How American is that? Oh, but on the way we pass some high school boys volleyball team holding a car wash at a corner Chevron. The boys are fresh-faced and happy, scrubbing down cars, shooting each other with squirt guns.  Similar smiling and fresh-faced young men politely and efficiently take our In-N-Out order, our payment and then, in the glorious, clock-work assembly line that is In-N-Out (Henry Ford, the inventor of the assembly line would be so proud), the young men deliver up our burgers and drinks.

Mmm. I pull out of the In-N-Out, heading up San Ramon Valley Boulevard, drive past those imposing  I-680 sound walls and new a new housing development, and I think, wow, this is America, and sometimes it can be kind of great in this strange, even banal way -- when tasks on a to-do list get checked off, products are displayed with all that clean Target sparkle, and the reward are burgers from In-N-Out.

But then I come home from my excursion, pick up the newspaper and encounter the latest incarnation of America's dark side.

This time it's in the form local Boy Scout leaders, including a father from my neighborhood, who are grasping at outmoded ideas about how to drum gay members out of the organization. These local leaders and parents, according to the Contra Costa Times today, are urging their national organization, voting in Texas on Thursday, to continue the ban on openly gay members. (The above AP photo shows Scout members carrying boxes filled with petitions to end the ban on gay scouts.)

Bruce McIntosh, Scoutmaster of Walnut Creek Troop No. 818, tells the Times he supports maintaining the ban on gay members. For one thing, he said, the Scouts' current membership policy is akin to military's former "don't ask, don't tell" approach to gay service members.

Bruce, the operative words here are "former approach."  Even the military doesn't go along with this backward thinking crap anymore. Oh, but Bruce -- you always seemed like such a nice, reasonable guy -- says more, enough to make me think, I am so glad my son never did Scouts, at least with people hold such bigoted and paranoid viewpoints.

"A policy of inclusion is actually going to lead to an infusion of sex and sexuality into a children's leadership, program," he said. He added that it would lead to conversations about sexuality that should take place at home with parents, he added, not around a campfire or in a tent in the middle of the night.  

Yes, that's right, we need to ward off all that campfire sex talk and middle-of-the-night tent buggery.

Oh, I hope that others in the Scouts, like those pictured above -- and it seems the numbers are growing -- have a much more enlightened take on all this.

Get your car washed Saturday by Las Lomas' championship wrestling team

Get your car washed Saturday morning by members of Las Lomas High’s championship wrestling team! These DFAL champs and 9th place winners at the NCS competition will apply their strong team work ethic to making sure your car gets the championship car wash treatment. 

Where: Saturday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Ideal Miles Plus Gas Station, corner of Ygnacio Valley Road and Civic Drive 

Sales of donuts, homemade baked goods, and refreshing drinks sweetens the experience.

All proceeds benefit the up and coming Las Lomas High wrestling program.

Walnut Creek woman raises money for breast cancer survivors to attend Yosemite wellness retreat

Back in May 2011, Laura Milstead, a woman I got to knew during my time as editor Walnut Creek Patch, heard some pretty devastating news. 

A mammogram revealed two small lumps in her right breast, signaling she had Stage 1 cancer.  “I've never known such fear,” said the wife, mother and elementary school teacher. “I found it a living hell for awhile, with periods of optimism, followed by crushing fear.”

After surgery to remove the lumps and four lymph nodes, she underwent four rounds of chemotherapy, then radiation and will continue to take medication for the next five years. The news now is positive: “I’m now in excellent health and am happy!”

Understanding the shock, sadness and terror that comes with a breast cancer diagnosis, Milstead has created a weekend retreat in Yosemite May 17–19 for women like her who are recovering from breast cancer treatment. “There is nothing like being with others that have suffered as you have,” she says. “There is a serious lack of mental help for cancer patients—especially post-treatment.”

The retreat will take place over three days and in the powerful and majestic surroundings of Yosemite, a setting that can inspire an appreciation of health, wellness, physical exercise and a desire to let go of fears and the past and start fresh. “If you don’t find inspiration in the great outdoors, you aren’t alive!” Milstead said.

The retreat, organized through the nonprofit, Boarding For Breast Cancer (B4BC), will feature yoga, hikes around Yosemite, including Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, sunset walks and the companionship of other women. Accommodations will be at Evergreen Lodge, an historic hotel nestled in the woods bordering Yosemite National Park.

Given that not all women with cancer can afford such a wellness getaway, Milstead is raising funds to grant 14 breast cancer survivors the chance to attend.  She’s halfway to raising the $7000 needed.

“The outdoors just promotes movement and exercise,” she says. “It just makes you want to move! I don’t think true healing happens without the comfort of nature.  That’s whant happened to me.  I can’t wait to share it!”

For more information at the retreat or to donate so that other breast cancer survivors can attend, visit the Board for Breast Cancer website.  

There is only the trying

Early Sunday morning, I woke up from one of those very yucky dreams. In it, I was crying out to someone, maybe to my husband: “I’m unhappy! I hate my life! I hate myself!”

Yes, yuck. Because I don’t want to be unhappy, hate my life or hate myself. In fact, I’ve been feeling this rather strongly lately, this will to live welling up inside me at very surprising moments, but also in reaction to recent ruminations on death and the possibility of my own.  I understand such ruminations are normal around the time one turns 50. I also wonder if they hit me more than they would otherwise because of my irregular heartbeat, diagnosed in October 2011 when my heart Just. Stopped. Beating. Diagnosed suddenly, quickly, I went into surgery to get a pacemaker, which seems to keep everything ticking along just fine. But, yes, I’ve been thinking about my heart lately.

And, I’ve been very sad this past week that the CineArts Dome movie theater is closing. I can’t entirely explain why, but I feel this loss pretty deeply. Well, so do a lot of people around here. I’m angry about it, which is why I’ve gotten involved in efforts to question the process by which Pleasant Hill city officials approved its destruction and replacement with a chain sporting goods store.

And, then on Monday, the day after my bad dream, comes the tragic bombings at the Boston marathon, another national horror—following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the much more recent December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary—that we need to get our collective minds around. Reading about the death of 8-year-old Martin Richard, and how his sister mother suffered serious injuries in the blast—well, my own concerns about personal or local issues pale in comparison. 

At the same time, we all have things we’re muddling over and through, challenging us to various degrees. And, we’ve heard the past few days about the resilience of the people of Boston, rushing in to help the injured right after the blast, opening their homes to relatives of the injured, going back to work yesterday and not letting the attack upset their daily routines.

As I’ve been contemplating this notion of resilience, even before the Boston terrorist attack, I happened to come across a line from Quartets, a famous set of poems by T.S. Eliot: “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”

Eliot began writing the set in 1936 and struggled to finish the work as World War II was raging in Britain.  Quartets is described as a meditation on our relationship with time, the universe and the divine, mixing philosophical and spiritual ideas from both Western and East religions.

In the poem “Coker,” which starts with the line, “In my beginning is my end,” there is a lot about how the world is a complicated, uncertain place. The future is uncertain, the past is behind us, time is mysterious, elusive, and there is so much in our lives that is outside our control.

“As we grow older, the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated … 

"Not the intense moment/Isolated, with no before and after/But a lifetime burning in every moment.”

There is only the moment. The now, I interpret Eliot as saying.  And if we ultimately can’t control the future or the actions of others, what do we have left? We can’t give up and throw up our hands. We have this moment, now, and we have to keep going. 

"There is only the trying."

The Dome is the Dome: Appeal filed in effort to save local landmark

Over the weekend, some others with Save the Pleasant Hill Dome and I finalized an appeal of the Pleasant Hill Planning Commission's March 26, 2013 decision to approve a developer's proposal to demolish the 46-year-old CineArts Dome Theater in the Crossroads Shopping Center, and replace it with a big box-style chain retail store.

We filed the appeal with the city's planning department on Monday but SyWest Development received a demolition permit (right) and, technically, could start knocking down the theater before then, public information officer Martin Nelis told Pleasant Hill Patch.

The appeal basically says that SyWest Development's proposal to replace the Dome Theater with a Dick's Sporting Goods is inconsistent with the city's own laws, policies and goals on historical and cultural preservation, promoting the arts and quality of life in Pleasant Hill, providing services for seniors, and creating an economically vibrant
community.

Here is the appeal's introduction:

As it states in its 2003 General Plan, Pleasant Hill is a vital, progressive, suburban community. The many admirable goals stated in this plan, drafted with the consensus of a citizens’ task force, express a desire to promote an image of a city that offers a high quality of life, nurtures a thriving economy, promotes diverse cultural offerings, supports the arts, cares for its seniors and honors and celebrates its past.
 We of Save the Pleasant Hill Dome believe that the historically rich, culturally vibrant and iconic 46-year-old CineArts Dome Theater satisfies a number of these General Plan goals and policies. 

On the other hand, the proposed SyWest Development to demolish the Dome Theater and replace it with a big box-style retail store is inconsistent with many of these goals, programs, strategies and objectives. A Dick’s Sporting Goods is simply the wrong project for that location. We also raise serious questions about whether the city violated its own General Plan and Municipal Code in its process for determining whether the Dome merits designation as a historical resource. We also show that numerous relevant General Plan goals, policies, and programs, including some with which the project is inconsistent, were not considered as part of the Planning Decision’s March 26, 2013 approval of the project. For these reasons, we contend that the commission’s approval should be overturned. 

As we consider the many ways the Dome enriches the community, as it approaches its half-century mark, we can consider the General Plan’s concept of the Gateway. 

Gateways, the General Plan states, are important to establishing the image of this 8.2-square-mile suburban town. Gateways “give people a sense that they have left one place and come into another,” the Plan reads. 

There is no more visible gateway for Pleasant Hill than the CineArts Dome Theater. The dome rises nearly 50 feet on the eastern side of town, above Interstate 680. It is at the confluence of the two main freeway entrances to Pleasant Hill’s downtown, Contra Costa and Monument boulevards. Pleasant Hill’s other great landmark, the World War I Monument, rises on the left as you enter the city from the south. 

The Dome is the Dome. Among residents of Pleasant Hill and surrounding communities, it has a singular identity, whether they only saw big-blockbuster movies in its 895-seat stadium Theater or they are among the growing number of educated and discerning film-goers and arts lovers who are making Pleasant Hill and surrounding communities their home. 

Like any notable feature of a landscape, such Mount Diablo, the Dome helps people situate themselves in place. You often hear people around Pleasant Hill using the Dome in conversations as a guidepost, or to give directions: “I live in the neighborhood behind the Dome,” “Meet me at the Starbucks at the Dome,” “City Hall is across the freeway from the Dome.” 

We who care about saving the CineArts Dome Theater agree it could use a makeover. Yes, it’s looking a little funky and it’s not quite at the peak of its style, as it was when a champagne gala was held on Feb. 21, 1967, to commemorate its opening, with a screening of the screen epic Dr. Zhivago. But architectural consultants hired by the city say the building possesses physical integrity and merits serious consideration as a local landmark. 

And, it could be a state-of-the-art beauty again – a retro chic Mad Men-esque homage to the aesthetics of an age that was guided by Apollo space travel, the post-World War II suburbanization of the American dream, and the figurative and pop art visions of artists as varied as David Hockney, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. 

Of the goals outlined in the General Plan, the building can satisfy a fair number of them, as we describe in the following document. The Dome could be the answer to several of Pleasant Hill’s concerns about creating a culturally and economically vibrant community. 

Meanwhile, Dick’s Sporting Goods may be a fine addition to the city, but not in that location and not at the cost of the Dome Theater. 

We also have genuine concerns about the number of ways that the SyWest development proposal is inconsistent with the General Plan, and how the process for considering this development and the Dome’s historical value was not carried out in accordance with the city’s Municipal Code. 

We are submitting this appeal not just because we want to save a venue where we can see our favorite foreign movies or documentaries that only show during Academy Award season. We believe Pleasant Hill and its neighbors are losing an incredible opportunity to embrace a true treasure in their midst, a treasure that has long-term cultural and economic value to the community. 

The Dome is a landmark of culture and cool, and it can continue to put Pleasant Hill on the map and make it a destination for people who live and work here, or visit, wanting to enjoy a kind of cinematic and cultural experience they can’t get anywhere else in the East Bay suburbs.  

The full text of the appeal is about 22 pages long, but cites numerous General Plan goals, programs, policies and strategies and city Municipal Code sections that, we believe, were insufficiently considered by city leaders in considering this development proposal.

Among issues we cite: the Planning Commissioners commissioners failed to engage in any thoughtful discussion regarding the city-commissioned architectural study, which concluded that the theater “retains a good degree of physical integrity" and is eligible for consideration as a historical resource.

The architectural study states:

… the Dome theater is associated with an important period of development in Pleasant Hill’s history, and is one of a diminishing number of buildings that serve as visible reminders of that period. With few alterations, the functioning theater is also the best remaining example of the distinctive domed movie theater building type in the East Bay. For these reasons, the Dome Theater at Pleasant Hill appears potentially eligible for local listing.