From A Bird's Eye View

Posted in opinion

UN-FUN MONEY

March 23, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:3 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Tahiti – where I hoped to write this blog

I think it’s fairly safe to assume we all like to spend money. Come on, admit it, when you think about things to buy you rarely think about a new vacuum cleaner or getting that pesky crown replaced on your back molar. Nope, in general we all fantasize about how we can spend money on “fun” stuff. Last fall on our long car trip home from our summer travels my husband and I dreamed about some of the fun things we’d like to purchase over the winter. My husband mentioned some ridiculous items – among them a Shelby Cobra. I’ve heard him ask for that car so often that I’m now like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon – his lips move but all I hear is “wonk,wonk, wonk”. I, on the other hand, came up with some practical items – new furniture, season tickets to the theater, perhaps even a trip to Tahiti where I could ensconce myself in one of those swim-up bars and spend weeks writing a travel blog through the lens of too many Pina Coladas. Then reality set in and the spending of “un-fun” money began.

First up was a new washer and dryer. We had noticed over the summer that our clothes came out a lot less wrinkled when we were using someone else’s appliances. I hate it when my off-hand attitude toward domesticity rears up. How could I not have noticed that our washer and dryer were so obviously sub-par? Clearly there is some “housework gene” that I am missing. But since I’ve never liked being on the working end of an iron, I was all for buying a new “laundry suite”. That’s a term I learned at the appliance store, where I was faced with an overwhelming array of choices. It is astounding to learn the tasks these hunks of metal can perform – remove spots, steam clean, sanitize! I kept looking for a dryer that would fold and put the clothes away but I guess that’s a bit down the road. In any event, a couple thousand dollars later we were the proud parents of a new washer and dryer. Sad to say…I’m not sure that our clothes are any less wrinkled but I’m pretending that they are so I don’t feel like we wasted our money.

The next month my husband was doing a walk-around of the house and determined that we really couldn’t go one more winter without painting it. So we got a couple of estimates from painters. Clearly they assumed we wanted to paint the whole neighborhood. Wow – I know they have to caulk and power wash before they slap some paint on, but really, you could feed a small nation for what they charge. Four days and several thousand dollars later, more “un-fun” money had been spent. Unfortunately, once the house looked so snappy it became evident that much of our landscaping had given up the ghost during the blazing hot summer so more “un-fun” money was forked over to the landscapers.

In January one of my front tires mysteriously had a rather large piece of rubber torn out (I’m taking the Fifth). A trip down to those friendly people at Discount Tire resulted in an inspection that necessitated purchasing FOUR new tires. Tires, or generally anything having to do with car maintenance, is the height of “un-fun” money.

Finally, this week our dishwasher decided that nine years was long enough to do dishes. Jeez – I was “the dishwasher” growing up and I lasted 18 years. (Isn’t it funny how our parents “suddenly” decided to get dishwashers when we moved out?). Anyway, we found ourselves on another trip down to the appliance store – I’m thinking we may have to put their address in the “Frequently Visited” category on our nav system. I asked the salesman if that super-duper washing machine he sold us four months ago might also be put into service doing dishes. He was not amused. Thirty minutes later we were separated from more of our hard-earned “un-fun” money.

So, to summarize, we have a new washer, dryer, paint job, landscaping, tires and a dishwasher. Not a pina colada in sight. Oh well, my brother is better at writing about tropical bars anyway. I’ll just sit home and wait for the next thing to break down. Hopefully it won’t be me.

Posted in travel

King of the Cowboys

March 16, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:3 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

Route 66

I had the occasion to travel to Apple Valley, CA for work last week; no, it was nothing like having to travel to the island of Kaua’i for work as I did a few years ago, but it was not without some redeeming qualities. An hour and a half’s drive away, bucolic-sounding Apple Valley is located at the southern end of the Mojave Desert at an elevation of nearly 3,000 feet and is considered ‘high desert’ – apples are no longer grown there. The historic ‘Route 66’ winds through the area, but the quiet, pot-holed streets and boarded up shops would indicate that very few are still ‘getting their kicks on Route 66’.

Interstate 15 now runs adjacent to Apple Valley and I rarely traverse it without thinking of Roy Rogers (It’s on the way to Vegas, so I’ve made the trip a few times!). In the late 40s and through out the 50s Roy was a staple in the movies and on TV and helped popularize the musical Western. Roy and wife, Dale Evans, who had long careers in movies and on TV, retired in the mid-80s to their ranch in Apple Valley, which was home to the first Roy Rogers Museum, which contained artifacts from his movies and TV show, including Roy’s horse, Trigger, who was stuffed and placed in the museum.

Andy Devine

Gabby Hayes

Most everyone in my generation idolized Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and got to know his many sidekicks who provided comic relief; Pat Brady, who drove a Jeep named ‘Nellybelle’, Andy Devine and George ‘Gabby’ Hayes, who both had voices that made you wince and faces for radio. We also became acquainted with Roy’s faithful German Shepard, Bullet. Rogers and his entourage appeared in over 100 films and had top rated radio and TV shows in the 40s and 50s.

Roy was born Leonard Slye (a name Hollywood had to change!) in Ohio and quit high school at 15 to work in the family shoe factory. The family moved to California during the Great Depression where Roy worked driving truck and picking fruit. He was always interested in singing and yodeling and worked with several bands over the years until he and a friend formed a group that became the ‘Sons of the Pioneers’ and ultimately signed a record deal. In 1935, Roy’s good looks landed him his first bit part in a Gene Autry movie. Three years later, when Autry was demanding more money (probably saving up to buy the California Angels!) the lead part was offered to Roy and he was on his way to becoming a matinee idol.

Roy always wore a white hat that never came off during a fight while he was knocking out the bad guys, in black hats, with one punch. Towards the end of each movie or tv/radio episode, after he’d righted all the wrongs, he would pick up his guitar and sing a song, often accompanied by Dale and his back-up group, The Sons of the Pioneers, whose songs can still be purchased on iTunes.

Dale was a story unto herself; born Francis Smith in Texas, she was married at 14 and divorced with a child at 16, yet continued to pursue her singing career. Her marriage to Roy, his second and her fourth, lasted 51 years, until his death. She wrote their theme song, Happy Trails.

He was dubbed, ‘King of the Cowboys’, she, ‘Queen of the West’.

Roy Rogers & Dale Evans

Roy died in 1998 and Dale three years later. They are now both interned at the Sunset Hills Memorial Park . . . in Apple Valley.

If you’re ever passing by Apple Valley and want to visit the museum . . . the original Roy Rogers museum was erected in 1967 in an old bowling alley in Apple Valley, it moved to a bigger building in neighboring Victorville in 1976. To draw more people it moved again to Branson, Missouri in 2003, but eventually shut down for good, due to lack of interest, in 2009.

The passing of an era . . . a very good era indeed for those of us who were fortunate enough to have lived in it. Thank you Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, for all the Happy Trails.

Posted in opinion

THE EDUCATION OF AN “ICE BUCKET” SKEPTIC

March 9, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:6 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Brother Bob – In full Ice Bucket Challenge Regalia

Last August the world was taken captive by seemingly reasonable people everywhere dumping buckets of ice over their heads. The cause, of course, was the “Ice Bucket Challenge”, a fund-raising effort for ALS, sometimes referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”. The “challenge” was that people either dumped a bucket of ice over their heads or donate $100 to the ALS Association. Once the bucket was overturned the participant then challenged three friends to the task. It was impossible to go on any social media account or turn on the TV without seeing someone dumping ice – from former Presidents to Oprah. You know it’s serious when Oprah does something. Not to mention that my brother and co-blogger, Bob, participated in the challenge and coerced his kids to take part as well. I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical of the whole endeavor. My feeling is that when something becomes “the thing to do” it generally loses all serious intent. Plus, we’ve all read about charity fund-raisers that don’t result in many funds actually going to the charity. I figured that it was AUGUST, for Heaven’s sake, so people in most parts of the country were more than happy to bathe themselves in ice. I was not one of them.

And then something happened that hit very close to home – the husband of a dear friend was diagnosed with ALS in January. It has been devastating to them and to all of us that care about them. They are coming to grips with the effects of the disease and learning all they can about it. As it turns out, the ALS Association is a wonderful resource, providing not only guidance and support, but actually supplying wheelchairs and any other equipment that a family needs to accommodate the manifestations of the disease. So my friend was telling me the other day that the ALS Association volunteer mentioned that they had been able to purchase a lot of equipment to lend out because of money they got from the “Ice Bucket Challenge”. Suddenly, I felt a bit embarrassed that I had not dumped ice on my head. So being the nerd that I am, I set off to research whether the Phoenix Chapter of the ALS Association was unusual or whether “the Challenge” had done as much in other areas of the country as well.

As it turns out, those intrepid people at CNBC were thinking the same thing. Last month one of their reporters, Meg Tirrell, investigated whether the “Ice Bucket Challenge” had been a social media phenomenon or an effective fund-raiser. Turns out, it was both. The “Ice Bucket Challenge” actually raised $115 million for the ALS Association, compared to their annual budget of $60 million. How did they raise that much when so many people chose to dump ice? Because people both dumped and donated. Which should help to restore your faith in human kindness this Monday morning. And to cheer you up even further, it turns out that Phoenix was not the only area to benefit – it helped ALS Associations all over the country buy equipment, provide respite care programs, and maybe most importantly, it funded four research projects aimed at better understanding , and thus finding a cure, for what causes ALS. All four projects had been stopped due to a lack of research money.

There is no word yet as to whether the “Ice Bucket Challenge” is going to be an annual event or whether it was just a one-time phenomenon. Hopefully it will take place again in August and I can assure you, I will be dumping ice and donating with the best of them. And I’m also taking part in the “Defeat ALS” walk in October. Family and friends be warned – I’m going to hit you up for some of your hard-earned money when I strap on my walking shoes. And just to add a degree of difficulty to the walk, I’ll dump a bucket of frozen Margaritas over my head as I pass the finish line. I think that could catch on.

Posted in travel

Best Place to Live – A Day in the Life

March 2, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:15 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

A couple of recent ‘Best Place to Live’ surveys reminded me of my business travel days when I crisscrossed the country and would often be asked where I was from. When I responded, “Southern California, Orange County”, I would hear things like, “Oh, a surfer dude”, (I’ve never surfed), or “Oh, is that why you wear those cool shades?” (I wear sunglasses BECAUSE IT’S SUNNY THERE!), or, “Aren’t you afraid that an earthquake is going to cast California into the Pacific Ocean?” (No). If the conversation continues, people feel compelled to remind me that, 1) there are too many people in southern California, 2) the traffic is unbearable, and 3) the air is unbreathable. Then, feeling the need to ‘throw me a bone’, they’d say, “But the weather’s nice” and then they’d remind me of the earthquakes again.

Last week in a California survey done by Movato Real Estate, I discovered that my city of residence for the last 38 years, Orange, was selected as California’s best city to live in. In fact, Orange County had seven of the top ten cities. If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the cities, here’s the link to the survey:

http://www.movoto.com/ca/best-places-in-california/

I hope everyone feels that they live in the ‘Best Place to Live’, but I wanted to confirm and perhaps help justify this elevated status for Orange County, so last Friday, February 27, I set out to help prove that it is, in fact, one of the very best places to live, in part due to its proximity to such a diversity of environments. Thus my journey began . . .

The Desert

pre-dawn at Desert Willow Golf Resort

Sunrise for a perfect day of golf

I woke up at 3:45 a.m. (The things I do for you readers!) and with an assortment of wardrobes in tow, I’m out the door at 4:05. It takes me 95 minutes to drive the 103 miles from Orange to the beautiful Desert Willows Golf Resort in Palm Desert – golf’s winter mecca. It feels like I’m in a whole different world, because I am. It’s 50 degree at 6:18 when the first sliver of sunlight appears over the Little San Bernardino Mountain range and softly lightens the Coachella Valley below. It will get to 77 degrees here today. I’m envious of the golfers that are teeing off at first light in perfect weather, but I have a full day ahead of me, so I order breakfast, read the paper, write some of this blog and then head to my next destination.

The Mountains

Photo taken from the sun deck

I cover the next 85 miles to Big Bear Mountain in 115 minutes and arrive at Snow Valley Ski Resort where the cloudless sky is deep azure blue. I’ve gone from an elevation of around 200 feet to around 7,000 feet in less than two hours. It will get down to 21 degrees here this evening. Bear Big Mountain provides great local skiing and snowboarding in the winter and great hiking trails in the summer. There was a storm last week and another one coming in this weekend, but I am fortunate to find a window where chains are not required to negotiate the assent on this winding mountain road. Once at Snow Valley, I step out of my car and take a deep breath and feel immediately exhilarated by a blast of fresh mountain air – this is air that no one has breathed before! I enjoy a cup of coffee as I hang out on the upper sun deck of the lodge watching the skiers on the mountain and wishing I were amongst them. I make a snowball, because I haven’t done that in years, and throw it at a nearby tree . . . and miss. While I’m in the neighborhood, I decide to head over to picturesque Lake Arrowhead – another 25 minutes and 14 miles. Back in ‘the day’, Lake Arrowhead was the mountain retreat for many Hollywood stars including, Shirley Temple, Tom Selleck, Patrick Swayze and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys (photo at right is one I took of Wilson’s former lake house) to name a few. Today Arrowhead Village it’s fairly quiet; it’s off season – no boats on the lake, no stars in sight! Time to head down off the mountain.

The Beach

Huntington Beach sunset

Huntington Beach pier

I drop from 7,000 feet to . . . zero – sea level, as I drive 87 miles in just under two hours from Lake Arrowhead to Huntington Beach. I could have gone to any number of great beaches in Orange County from Seal Beach to San Clemente, including tony Newport Beach or artsy Laguna Beach, but I wanted to visit my favorite beach restaurant, Dukes at Huntington Beach – ‘Surf City’. I find a place at the bar and watch surfers and street entertainers as the sun disappears slowly and beautifully into the Pacific Ocean. My day is complete – sunrise to sunset.

I do understand that proximity to the desert, mountains and beach is not everything, but it just adds to all the other factors that make Orange County a ‘best place to live’.

I make the 23-mile trek back home exhausted, but feeling great about completing the ‘trifecta’ – desert, mountains and ocean all in one day. Next time I’m thinking it should be the ‘Trifecta Triathlon’ – same venues only I play golf, ski and swim. Maybe not.

PS: For those wondering – 312 miles

Posted in Blog Info / Up-dates

DEDUCING DEDUCTIONS

February 23, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:4 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

The dreaded 1040

Well, it’s that time of year again where I get out my green eyeshades and sharpen my pencil in order to calculate our taxes. I’m actually one of the few people I know who like to prepare taxes – it’s the paying of them I’m not so crazy about. A few years ago a friend told me about a head-to-head competition he ran between his CPA and TurboTax. Turns out that TurboTax actually found more deductions. That was enough for a geek like me; I began using it the following year. It’s very simple – I input our income, figure out some of the major deduction categories, insert them when prompted and they magically calculate what we owe. Unfortunately this year, it was a LOT more fun inserting the numbers than it was to read what we owed. Yikes! We’re not personally trying to settle the national debt, although the wizards at the IRS and TurboTax evidently think we are. So there was only one solution – find more deductions.

Dash, the Dependent

I began by reviewing our charitable contributions. I thought about all the times I carelessly tossed spare change into whatever charity container sits at the checkout counter at the grocery store. Certainly I must have thrown at least $1000 in there over the course of a year Or maybe not. I perused the list of clothing that we give to the local animal shelter thrift store. If I actually added in my time to the hand-knit sweaters I donated I’m sure the value of them would skyrocket. Of course, I’m not sure that the IRS values my time in quite the same way I do. On closer review of our annual expenses, it became apparent that we spend an awful lot of money on Dash, The Wonder Dog. So I began to look more closely at the questions that TurboTax was asking me. “Do you have children or other people you financially support?” Well, Dash may not technically qualify as people, per se, but those of you who own a pet will certainly testify (perhaps at my IRS hearing) that our pets are just like people. Better, in some cases. “Do you pay child or dependent care?” Dash cannot be left alone for hours on end, which leaves us no choice but to take him to the dog sitter. And although he may not be a child, there is no question but that he is very dependent on us. “Do you have any higher education costs?” YES! Last year we paid to have Dash go through the Canine Good Citizen program which cost us a pretty penny, I assure you. And I’m willing to bet that he got more out of that than those kids who are drinking their way through Chico State.

A Dog with a JOB

Finally I decided that I should consult the IRS guidelines on the issue. Turns out, that in some cases you CAN deduct expenses for your dog. First, if you’re blind or otherwise handicapped, you can deduct all of the costs associated with a service dog. There is a lot of paperwork involved to certify that the dog is actually medically necessary. The IRS does not take the same slap-dash attitude toward this as the airlines, who seem pretty gullible by comparison with all the passengers claiming their dog is necessary for “emotional support” when all they’re really trying to do is avoid the $75 pet fee. Going blind so that I can claim Dash as a service dog seemed like it was taking things a bit too far. I moved on. The other way you can deduct your dog is if he has a job. Aha! I can definitely make a case that Dash has a job – he keeps quite busy every day following me around scooping up any food I happen to drop. But of course it’s always the fine print that gets you and as I read further, apparently the dog actually has to have regular work hours at a place of business. Like those snarling dogs at the local lumber yard. And a sign must be posted “Beware – Guard Dog on Duty”. Hmmmmm, we are so far from that. We have a front door mat that says “Beware – Our Dog Can’t Hold Its Licker”.

Finally, I gave up on the “Dash deduction” and resigned myself to paying the taxes owed. Our dad used to say that he never minded paying taxes because it was a privilege to live in this country. I admire his spirit but I’m not sure if he were alive today he would say the same thing, given budget excesses for $100,000 hammers and million dollar boondoggles by – of all people – IRS employees. I’m going to send a suggestion in with my tax forms stating how I’d like my tax payment to be appropriated. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Posted in Family

A Taste of the High Life at Desert Highlands

February 16, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:10 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

Suzanne & Bob at Desert Highlands

Suzanne and Alan had their turn in the barrel last weekend – it was their turn to host Alan’s golf group. It was also a good excuse to celebrate our father’s 101^st birthday (although he’s been gone for 14 years) as well as Valentine’s Day. As it happened Linda and I were looking to go to Arizona to see her sister and mine. It was a chance for us to get out of this blustery winter in Southern California (the temperature had dropped below 70 for two straight days!) After a short visit with Linda’s sister, Starlet and husband, Donnie in Apache Junction (I’m sure the visit didn’t seem short to them, they fed us dinner, gave up their bed for the evening and fixed us breakfast the next morning), we headed off to see Suzanne and Al in Desert Highlands. Thank you Donnie and Starlet!

Desert Highlands is a very exclusive gate-guarded golf community in northern Scottsdale, where they’ve lived for the past 15 years. We’ve been there a number of times before and it’s always been great to get together with them, but this time it seemed particularly up-scale.

My view from the ‘transition’

The party on Saturday was exquisite – Suzanne and Al have a beautiful home on the 5^th hole of the golf course with an expansive view of the surrounding mountains. They had enough food to feed an army and enough booze to sink a navy. But the highlight, as it should be with any party, was the attendees. If I was expecting a bunch of snooty multi-millionaires, who had little time for interloping relatives (which of course I wasn’t . . . OK, maybe a little), I couldn’t have been more wrong. Really, what should I have expected from classy people like Suzanne and Al? To the person, every one of the guests was genuinely friendly, interesting and engaging. I almost felt like I belonged there, which I had learned the day before that I didn’t.

The day before was one of those very memorable days – one that you’d love to live over and over. We arrived at Desert Highlands golf clubhouse and were met by the golf attendants. They took our clubs and then they took our car! Before I could run after them yelling “Hey, my car’s being stolen”, Al let me know that the club offers a free valet service and that my car would be returned upon completion of the round of golf . . . and no tipping! I knew that!

The manicured golf course, nestled around Pinnacle Peak, is a visual spectacle; even the rough was like fairway, which is a good thing as I spent plenty of time there. I also spent a good deal of time in what they call the ‘transition’ area and quickly discovered that getting through the transition area was a kin to crawling with the French Foreign Legion through the Sahara Desert. Suffice it say that my game allowed me to see the entire golf course and way too much of the ‘transition’ area. It was nonetheless a beautiful golf course, the weather was perfect and I was with good company – I kept telling myself that the score really didn’t matter.

I did managed to play the 19^th hole well – the Desert Highlands clubhouse, which was very posh to begin with, had recently been remodeled and was now nothing short of spectacular, with new boulder-framed sitting areas and fire pits around a new, outside ‘Sunset Bar’ over-looking the pool and the city of Scottsdale beyond. Add a cold beer and it doesn’t get much better than this. But it did!

The Gett’s backyard

Friday evening after golf, we were invited to dinner at the home of a very fun couple, Bob & Liz Gett (pronounced jet), friends of Suzanne and Al. The Gett’s home should be called the Grand Desert Highlands Resort – comparing it to a luxurious Ritz-Carlton would be selling their home short! The 8,500 square foot, elegantly decorated home actually is only out done their beautifully appointed outside living area, with landscape lighting, pool, spa, multiple fire places, giant TV screen, covered barbecue area and . . .and . . . and . . .

Bob & Bob having a Cuban cigar

After a delicious dinner and engaging conversation about the Patriots’ recent Super Bowl victory (Bob & Liz are from the Boston open and they attended the game), we sat outside with after-dinner drinks and watched the city lights of Scottsdale come alive following one of those spectacular Arizona sunsets. Just when I thought the evening couldn’t get any better, Bob asked, “Would you like a Cuban cigar?” Heaven.

Thank you Suzanne and Al for a weekend that our father would have really enjoyed, even at 101!

Posted in opinion

WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND WINE WAS CHEAP

February 9, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:8 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

The Time Capsule

I pride myself in being someone who doesn’t hang on to “things”. My philosophy is that if I don’t use something in a year or so, OUT it goes! So it was with some embarrassment that as I was cleaning closets the other day I found a box full of “things”. From the 60’s. Not my age – the decade. It was like opening a window to the past, a rather ridiculous past, but past none the less. Most of the “treasures” were found in scrapbooks from high school. It was a virtual time capsule from those years, so what should have taken 10 minutes morphed into three hours. Mostly, I wondered why I had kept some of these things to begin with. After all, raffle tickets to unnamed events, Greyhound bus passes and newspaper clippings from an Easter hat competition really shouldn’t have been that noteworthy. Clearly, my “throw everything out” philosophy came long after high school.

The Junior MIss trophy

I decided that I would only keep the most sentimental items so I started discarding the low hanging fruit – photos of people whom I no longer remember. Heck, these days I might not recognize people I met just last month so people from high school are clearly beyond my recall abilities. Next, I went through some of my sports memorabilia. There wasn’t much of note. I got rid of ski lift passes (although it was amazing to see that at one time you could buy a full day pass as Squaw Valley for $6) and the one blue ribbon I won on the swim team. That pretty much took care of the sports section. Next I threw out all the dance cards, cheerleading campaign buttons and programs from my choir and piano concerts. Nothing makes me cringe faster that to think of all the poor people who suffered through me pounding on the piano, desperately searching for the right key. Which brings me to the next thing I found in the box – my Junior Miss trophy from 1968. For the “talent” portion of the program I played Clair de Lune. I thought I did a fairly decent job until a boy came up to me at school the following Monday and told me that his dad (a musician) had said I played it like a fourth year piano student, at which point I crowed, “Great! I only took two years of lessons!”

Next, it was on to all of the miscellaneous items I’d thrown in the box. These were mostly mementos from places I had visited. A coaster from the old Hippo restaurant in San Francisco, an autograph from Matty Alou of the SF Giants and a menu from the high school graduation trip I took to Hawaii on Pan American airlines. Yep – that’s right – they used to give you a full color brochure of your dining choices – in coach. Better yet, drinks were fifty cents, beer and cigarettes just a quarter. No wonder so many people got drunk on planes! Most of my fun came in looking at a couple of old menus I had from two classic dining houses – Sabella’s of Marin and #9 Fisherman’s Grotto in San Francisco. The menu I had from Sabella’s is actually the wine menu (God only knows how I got my hands on that!). It’s fun to see that in the heart of what is now known as “wine country” there were only three California wineries listed and the wines were Sauterne, Chablis, Rhine, Burgundy, Chianti and Rose. Not a Merlot, Chardonnay or Cabernet to be found. And the prices averaged $3.00 per bottle. The dinner menu from Fisherman’s Grotto was equally depressing – entrees ran from $2.50 for fresh Monterey Abalone to the outrageous charge of $4.00 for Lobster Tail. Best of all, ice cream was only 30 cents.

It was three hours well spent. Not only did I get to go down my own personal Memory Lane, but I got to go back in time for a while. When things were simpler, a bit more elegant, and wine was cheap.

Posted in travel

Those Damn National Geographic Expeditions

February 2, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:6 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

It’s that damn National Geographic Expeditions issue! It arrives at the end of the year with pages of colorful photos that only National Geographic can take, and details of exotic expeditions to places only National Geographic would go and only the very wealthy can afford. I read through it with recognition of some places that I’ve been, but mostly with frustration for the many places I haven’t been and will never get to. So many destinations, so little time. Note to kids: start traveling early!

Expeditions is arranged geographically: North America, South America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Oceania, Australia and Polar Regions. Polar Regions? Only National Geographic would plan a trek to Santa’s workshop. I start to peruse the North America section, and an idea comes to me; rather than sit at home and get frustrated while reading about all the places I’m not going, I decide to take this issue to the local Yard House, a pub known for it’s multiple foreign beers, belly up to the bar and travel to these exotic destinations . . . in beer. Not wanting to ‘drink, dream and drive’, I call Uber, which drops me off at my local Yard House – so many beers, so little time. Note to kids: Don’t live close to a Yard House.

As I survey the plethora of beers proffered by the Yard House, it occurs to me that were I to follow the National Geographic Expeditions page-by-page and beer-by-beer, I’d need a liver transplant by the time I got to the end of my driveway, so I take a measured approach and commit to drink only sample-sized beers that I’ve never had before, hoping to both quench my thirst and my travel lust simultaneously.

Expeditions’ first destination in the North America section is Costa Rica; now I haven’t had any beer yet, but I’m already confused. All this time I thought Costa Rica was in Central America, but who am I to argue with National Geographic? I break the rule about only tasting beers that I’ve never tasted before as I see an Imperial, Costa Rica’s most popular beer. The flavor takes me back a few years to when I was in Costa Rica golfing and zip lining through the rainforest; not at the same time, although my golf score might indicate otherwise. It’s a good start as I turn the page and find myself in Cuba. I ask for a Bucanero, Cuba’s most popular beer, but while the US-Cuba trade agreements are starting to relax, there is still no importing of Cuban products to the US. I say, “What about an Hatuey” (“Gesundheit!”). Hatuey was once the pride of Havana, but is now brewed in Baltimore, which is at least still on the North American continent, I think. They don’t have that either. They have a Puerto Rico beer, Old Harbor; I try it – close but no cigar.

I turn the page and find myself in Cabo San Lucas – the site of my ill-fated fishing trip in 2012. Click on this link to revisit if you’d like – I can’t! https://fromabirdseyeview.com/?p=712. My favorite Mexican beer is Modelo, I decide that the rule about only drinking sample-sized beers is a bad rule and down a Modelo to help erase the memory of the fishing trip. I quickly turn the page and find myself in Alaska asking about a beer called the Double Bastard Ale. It’s quite good and remember that the rule about only drinking sample-sized beers is no longer in force so I order a pint of the Bouble Dastard. I’m starting to feel a little jet-lagged or something, and ask Ron, the tar bender, to tell me what other erotic beers he’s got. He says “Einstock, a beer from Iceland”. I ask if that’s on the North American condiment; he tells me that I left North America several hours ago. Wow, that was quick, this traveling by beer could really catch on.

I decide that I’m having only one more beer today (OK, maybe Ron decided), but I’m not making it a rule, as I don’t do too well with those, and ask Ron to make the incision about what beer that should be. He says, “Let’s end at the beginning,” which at this point sounds completely logical to me, so he pours me a Weihenstephan, and says, “This beer is from a little town in Bavaria, considered to be the oldest existing brewery in the world.” He continues, “ 1040 is when they started brewing beer there.” I look at my watch and see that it is now 2:40 and am confused, but I guess travel will do that to you. It seems I’ve had enough ‘beer travel’ for one day and call Uber.

Note to kids: Do NOT book your travel through Yard House.

Posted in opinion

THE RESCUE OF SANTO TOMAS

January 26, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:13 Comments

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

My husband and his mother, 1941

Seventy years ago next week, on February 3, 1945, members of the First Cavalry burst through the gates of the prison camp of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philipines to rescue over 3700 Allied civilians held captive by the Japanese. I am very familiar with this story, as my husband and his family were among those rescued. My mother-in-law, Kathleen, kept a diary during their years of imprisonment that became the basis for my book, “In The Enemy’s Camp”. Most of the internees were British and American businessmen and their families who were caught up in the war, unable to repatriate back to their home countries before Manila was bombed on December 8, 1941. But this blog is not about them, it is about the brave soldiers who risked their lives, racing 100 miles to Manila to liberate the camp. But first, a bit of background.

Men in Santo Tomas, 1945

The First Cavalry had already taken part in the liberation of Cabanatuan, the prison camp containing the survivors of the Bataan Death March. Once the military POW’s were safely in American protection, General Douglas MacArthur ordered his troops to do whatever was necessary to get to Manila quickly and save the civilian prisoners. The Japanese had made their intentions clear in August 1944 that all prisoners, military and civilian, were to be eradicated before the territory was overtaken by the Allies. On Peleliu Island, Allied POW’s had been herded into an underground bunker and burned to death. So no time was to be wasted in getting to Santo Tomas. The prisoners were already dying at alarming rates from malnutrition and tropical diseases. Each internee was allocated just 900 calories a day of rotting and insect-infested food. Their fortitude was at a breaking point. When the First Cavalry broke through the gates of the camp on the night of February 3, many of them fainted purely from mental and physical exhaustion.

Bob Holland – 2003

There are many great source materials from and about the internees’ experience. Several people wrote books after the war and my in-laws owned most of them. When I set about writing my book I was interested in learning about the rescue from the perspective of the men who did the rescuing. So I placed an ad in “The Saber”, the newsletter of the First Cavalry Division, seeking anyone who had either participated in the rescue or knew something about it. I was lucky enough to find five men who took part in the mission – Chelly Mendoza, Claude Walker, John Yunker, Walter Pike and Bob Holland. In a twist of fate, Bob Holland was also in the process of writing a book about the rescue and lived just 10 miles from me. We were able to meet often and had the privilege of introducing him to my mother-in-law in 2003, their first meeting since he had crashed through the gates 58 years prior!

1st Cav tanks inside Santo Tomas

To a man they were typical of the WWII generation – none of them had spoken about the rescue since it occurred, not even to their families. But in their letters to me it was evident that they were very proud of their mission and the happy end result. Most said that the rescue was the first time the war had made sense for them since they had begun serving in the Pacific Theater. They had rescued Allied prisoners who, without their efforts, would surely have succumbed to either disease, starvation or worse. In the movie, “The Great Raid”, Lt. Col. Henry Mucci, told his men that the pride they would feel if it was successful would not be just for that day, but something they would carry inside them for the rest of their lives. I don’t know whether he really said that or it was the result of a screenwriter’s imagination. But I do know that the sentiment was certainly evident in the five men I interviewed. Regardless of what happened the rest of their lives, they all said that rescuing the prisoners at Santo Tomas was one of the proudest moments of their lives.

So next Tuesday, please raise a glass to the wonderful men, most now departed, who were the saviors of so many people. I can say from first-hand experience that they were heroes in every sense of the word.

Posted in travel

The Fate of B-17 ‘Break A Leg’ – December 13, 1943

January 21, 2015By Sparrow/WatsonComments:4 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

The sky was full of Messerschmitts and he’d been hit – multiple times. Billows of smoke were pouring out of both cowlings on the right wing; the steady hum from the four, 1,200 horsepower engines had turned to sputters and chokes. He struggled to level the plane, which was losing altitude. It was pure chaos in the rear of ‘Break A Leg’, his B-17 Flying Fortress, named for the good luck term that actors use before going on stage to perform – he needed some good luck now! The waist gunner had been hit and was slumped over his .50 caliber machine gun; the ball turret gunner laid in a pool of his own blood at the bottom of the turret. He struggled to steady the plane as best he could given the severe damage done to his right leg, which had been hit by shrapnel. He turned and yelled for the remaining crew members to take off their flack jackets, put on their chutes and get the hell out of the airplane – “Now!” He literally had to hank his co-pilot out of his seat and ordered him to organize the evacuation of the surviving crew members.

He grimaced in pain as he tried to head the aircraft south towards friendly territory. The co-pilot asked about the condition of the pilot’s blood-soaked right leg as he looked at his shredded flight suit pant leg. The pilot said, “Get moving – that’s an order”. The co-pilot hesitated, took a last look at him, said, “Yes sir” and ducked through the hatch out of the cockpit. The rear of plane was in flames as the tail gunner crawled out from his battle position, dazed and bleeding. The chin turret hatch swung opened and the gunner pulled himself onto the main deck, dirty and sweaty, but unharmed. Yelling above the cacophony of the deafening noise engulfing the plane, the co-pilot orchestrated the evacuation of the crew.

The cockpit was filling with smoke as visibility diminished, but an eerie calm came over the pilot, in spite of his dire situation. His mind flashed back over the last few days. Earlier that morning he had taken off from his base outside of London on a mission to bomb industrial sites in southern Germany. It was to be his last bombing mission before he was scheduled to rotate back to the States for Christmas. He had spoken on the phone to his wife and twin girls just two days earlier and could not wait to get home to see them.

He was disoriented and weak from loss of blood, but struggled to turn the plane southward towards Switzerland. As he tried to clear his head and orient himself in hopes of finding an open landing area, his plane crashed into a snow-covered hillside and exploded into a ball of fire.

That story came from my eerie experience during a visit last month to the March Field Air Museum in Riverside, CA, as I sat in the pilot’s seat of a B-17 and simultaneously felt a chill and that déjà vu feeling, like I’d been there . . . many times before. That’s when the above story played like a movie in my mind. I’ve never been a big fan of reincarnation, but that experience gave me pause. I was born on Dec. 14, 1943 . . . with a broken right leg.

I’m back!