How Tweet It Was!

(Gabe, James and Eli. Photo by Jose Carlos Fajardo, Bay Area News Group)

They squawked. They chirped. They cackled. And when the feathers finished flying Gabe Bolio, James Clifford and Eli Nash walked away with the Leondard J. Waxdeck Trophy on Friday night as the winners of the 48^th Piedmont High School Bird Calling Contest.

Gabe, James and Eli, all juniors, wowed the judges with their rendition of Tympanuchis cupido, the Greater Prairie Chicken. Senior Dina Zangwill placed second with her call of Gavia stellata, the Red Throated Loon. And sophomores Becca Havian, Jo Ireland and Amy Kelleher finished third with a spirited mating call of Falco rusticolus, the Gyrfalcon.

All three acts will fly New York later this month to appear on "The Late Show With David Letterman," continuing a tradition dating back to 1997 on the Letterman show and another 16 years before that on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson."

The evening was a double triumph for Eli, who also served as co-host for the event with his friend, Alec Sieben, who competed as well with fellow juniors Zane Haney and Brian Lee, peforming the call of Grus Americana, the Laughing Gull.

Before the curtain went up Eli and Alec were asked how it felt to be both co-hosts and rivals at the same time.

"We respect and admire each other as hosts," said Eli, "but we despise each other as competitors."

The evening also featured a singing quartet of Lucy Faust, Sofia Gotch, Apryl Hsu and Nako Narter, who diverted the standing-room-only audience with a do-wop rendition of "Rockin' Robin" while the judges – author Kelly Corrigan, retiring Piedmont Middle School principal Jeanne Donovan and retiring Piedmont High School English and Public Speaking teacher Janet Labberton – reached their decision.

The crowd also viewed a rare video of the Piedmont bird ballers' very first appearance on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson" in 1976, followed by a surprise appearance by Carson's nephew, Jeff Sotzing, who presented principal Richard Kitchens with a framed poster from the 1990 contest, which Waxdeck, the contest's founder, gave to Carson.

"It hung on the wall in Johnny's office until he retired, then it hung in his home until he died," said Sotzing. "Then it passed to me. But I think it's time it came back to where it came from."

Kitchens promised it will hang in a place of honor at the school, right next to the Waxdeck Trophy itself.

The bird calling contest began in 1963 as a class project in Waxdeck's biology class after one of his students asked him, "Wax, can we do something to liven things up here?"

The first competition, held in Waxdeck's classroom at lunchtime, drew only a handful of spectators. But its popularity mushroomed, and it had to be moved to the school's Alan J. Harvey Theater, where it quickly became the hottest ticket in town.

In 1976 Johnny Carson began hosting the bird callers on his show for the next 16 years.

"It was huge," said history teacher Ken Brown, who has been the contest's faculty advisor for the past four years. "I remember being a teenager back in the '70s and watching the bird callers every year on 'The Tonight Show.' When I finally got hired to teach here, I thought, 'This is the place!'

Carson retired in 1992, and Waxdeck died suddenly from a heart attack two years later. It looked like the bird calling contest had run its course.

But the students refused to let it die. They resurrected the competition in 1995 and asked Carson's successor, Jay Leno, to host the bird callers on "The Tonight Show."

Leno, who was still trying to get out from under Carson's shadow, turned them down. But Letterman, who adored Carson, was glad to have them on his show. And there they have appeared ever since.

The students will fly to New York on May 20 and appear on "The Late Show" the next night, May 21.

And the contest's future is assured. Sitting in the second row and having the time of their lives were Eli's sister Emily and her friends Molly Szczech, Addie Christensen and Amelia Eldridge, all eighth graders at Piedmont Middle School who will enter Piedmont High next year.

"We're going to enter the contest together!" said Amelia. "We've already started practicing!"

Go For Broke

(Above: Lawson Sakai at the American cemetery in Epinal, France, visiting the graves of his friends who never came back.)

Next Monday, May 6, the Giants will celebrate their annual Japanese Heritage Night at AT&T Park by having Lawson Sakai throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Sakai, 89, is a veteran of E Company, Second Battalion, 442^nd Regimental Combat Team, the Japanese American World War II regiment that was awarded more medals, man for man, than any other military unit in American history.

"We are proud to recognize and honor America’s Nisei veterans of World War II," says Shana Daum, Giants vice president of public affairs and community relations. "Mr. Sakai represents the members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team who made incredible sacrifices to protect our freedoms."

Four of those medals – all Purple Hearts – went to Sakai, for grievous injuries suffered in combat. He was actually wounded a fifth time, but he refused to let his name be put up for another medal because he didn't think his wound was serious enough.

This will be the first pitch he has thrown since Dec. 7, 1941, when he played third base for Compton Junior College. On that day he was listening to a pro football game on the radio when the broadcast was interrupted by a breathless announcement that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

Irate, he marched down to the local Army recruiting office the next day to enlist. To his shock, he was told that he was no longer an American. He was now classified 4-C – "Enemy Alien," even though he was born right here in the USA.

The next thing he knew, he and his family were rounded up, along with more than 110,000 other Japanese Americans, and sent to euphemistically-named "relocation camps" out in the boondocks of Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Arizona, where they spent the war behind barbed wire, where guards with machine guns were ready to shoot anyone who tried to escape.

Despite this, he and thousands of other Japanese Americans volunteered to fight for the country that did this to them.

During another time of national crisis - the Revolutionary War - Thomas Paine wrote, "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country. But he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Lawson Sakai and his band of brothers in the 442 were winter soldiers. Their country may have betrayed them, but when their country needed them most, they kept the faith. And they deserve our love and thanks.

Every year on Armed Forces Day - the third Saturday in May – the men of E Company meet at Roberts Park in Oakland for a memorial service honoring their comrades who never came back. And, once again, they invite you to join them.

Roberts Park is easy to find. Just take Skyline Boulevard and follow the signs for the Chabot Space & Science Center. About a mile before you get to the Center, you'll see a turnoff to Roberts Park on your right.

Go though the first parking lot to the second parking lot beyond it, and you'll spot me and a bunch of other people. We'll gather there and then walk about a hundred yards or so into the park to the site of the service.

The ceremony will start at Noon. See you there.

It All Started With Eliza

If you've been reading this column for a while, you know that I'm an animal lover, especially cats.

But what you probably don't know is that I used to hate cats.

No kidding. They're aloof and unfriendly, right?

Wrong, of course. That's the telltale sign of somebody who's never met a cat.

But that all changed 35 years ago when I fell in love with a woman who had a cat. It was a pretty little black and white female named K.C. (short for kitty cat).

For the first six months we lived together, I refused to let the cat into our bedroom.

But one day K.C. decided enough was enough, and she proceeded to seduce me.

Wham! It didn't take her 24 hours to have me wrapped around her little paw. By the time my girlfriend and I broke up a few months later, K.C. and I were so tight, she offered to give her to me.

But by then I had learned enough about cats to know that K.C. would be happier with her, so I declined. But the damage was done: I was hooked.

Moral: There's no zealot like a converted sinner.

Two weeks after I moved into a new place, there was a knock on my door. Standing on the front step were four little urchins from the elementary school across the street, holding a tiny gray female tabby kitten they had found abandoned on their schoolyard.

"Mister, did you lose this kitty?" they asked.

"No," I said, "but I'll take her."

That happened on this day in 1979. I named her Eliza Doolittle because the first thing she said to me was "Aaoowwww!" We were together for almost 17 years, and she made every day a joy. She was the love of my life (four-footed-version).

After Eliza died I adopted a gray female kitten, whom I named Nelly.

She was as sweet as can be, but it became quickly obvious that she needed a playmate. So I adopted another kitten and named her Phoebe.

The two of them got along well enough, but about five months later Nelly got outside and was killed.

Phoebe mourned bitterly for about 20 seconds, and then suddenly I could see the light bulb go "click!" above her head.

"Hey, this is great!" I could see her thinking. "All this to myself!"

Phoebe and I were together for 15 years until I finally had to put her to sleep last spring, and I cried many bitter tears.

Then last August I adopted my Pizza Girls, Sally and Pepe (named after the two iconic pizzerias in New Haven, Connecticut, where I went to college). I love them a lot, and they love me, too, and we couldn't be happier.

But it all started with Eliza. As much as I love my Pizza Girls, I still think of her every day, and I still miss her.

The only reason I hope Heaven is real is because I'd like to see Eliza and my other cats again.

But I'm not holding my breath. As Mark Twain said, "If you go to Heaven, leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, the dog would go in and you would stay out."

And that goes for cats, too.

Cat Video Festival Comes To Oaktown

(Above: Dusty the Klepto Kitty. Photo by Jean Chu)

More than 5,000 cat lovers are expected to descend on Oakland's Uptown district on May 11, when the city hosts the Bay Area premiere of the Internet Cat Video Festival.

Eighty videos of cats doing what they do best - being cute – will be projected in high definition by a 15,000-lumen projector onto the Great Wall of Oakland, a giant100-foot-by-100-foot wall on West Grand Avenue between Broadway and Valley Street.

"There's something going on in our culture were cats are really hot right now," says Issabella Shields, the Great Wall's Executive Director. "Instead of watching cat videos secretly in your cubicle by yourself and feeling guilty for wasting time at work, this is your chance to watch them outdoors with your friends."

Shields expects the festival to draw a diverse audience, including "Internet addicts, families who have cats of their own, and hipsters who think cat videos are ironic."

The festival, which began last year at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, will feature 80 of the most popular felines on the Web, including the Surprised Kitten, Henri the Existential Cat, and Dusty the Klepto Kitty, whose larcenous ways earned him an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman.

"They flew us back to New York for the show," says Dusty's owner, Jean Chu of San Mateo. "Dusty flew business class; I flew coach."

Dusty will make a personal appearance at the festival together with some of his ill-gotten gains, which include 16 car wash mitts, seven sponges, 213 dish towels, seven wash cloths, five towels, 18 shoes, 73 socks, 100 gloves, one pair of mittens, three aprons, 40 balls, four pairs of underwear, one dog collar, six rubber toys, one blanket, three leg warmers, two Frisbees, one golf club head cover, one safety mask, two mesh bags, one bag of water balloons, one pair of pajama pants and eight bathing suits.

The videos, which begin at sundown, will be preceded by a festival starting at 3 p.m. that will include live bands playing cat-themed music, an "arts and cats" area featuring cat-themed works by local artisans, local food trucks, and animal rescue groups with cats and kittens available for adoption.

As the sun sets, the Great Wall's artist-in-residence group, Bandaloop, will perform a cat-themed aerial duet on the Great Wall, followed by the videos themselves.

Tickets to the festival are available at oaklandvidfest.eventbrite.com. Admission is $10 for adults; $5 for youths 16 and under. A limited number of VIP tickets, entitling the bearer to a beach chair in the front row, will be sold for $75.

In addition, the Oakland Museum – renamed Mew-seum for the occasion - will preview the videos on May 10, the night before the festival. Tickets are $25 and can be obtained at omcacatvidscreening.eventbrite.com. The preview will include a panel headed by Scott Stulen, Project Director of the Walker Art Center, the man who came up with the idea of a cat video festival in the first place.

"We put a press release on our blog with a call for nominations," he says. "Within two hours it had gone viral, and we ended up with more than 10,000 videos, which we narrowed down to 80."

They were inundated by requests for media credentials from all over the world, but Stulin was still unprepared for the number of peoples who turned out.

"We thought maybe a couple of dozen people would come out, get a case of beer, and watch some cat videos. But they just kept coming and coming and coming, to the point where it shut down the freeways. People were spilling out on the streets and onto the neighbors' lawns. It was the most attended, most media-covered event in the 75 years of the Walker Art Center."

Any downside?

"Only one: having to deal with the cats' agents. Yes, several of the videos have agents."

My Girls

It's been 11 months since my kittens Pepe and Sally were born and eight months since I adopted them, and my life has been turned upside down in the happiest possible way.

This is the first time I've had littermates, and the dynamic is different from anything I've ever known before. For the first time in my life, I am not the most important relationship in my cats' lives. Their most important relationship is with each other.

It warms my heart to see how much they love each other. They eat together, they sleep together, they play together, and they patrol my home together, sashaying through the room side-by-side as if they own the place, which, of course, they do.

Don't get me wrong: They have plenty of love left over for me. It's just that they're not dependent on me for emotional security, as my other cats were. They're dependent on each other.

The love they give me is purely because they feel like it, not because they have to. It's the highest possible compliment.

I see now that I was crazy not to adopt two at a time before. Believe it or not, two cats are less work than one.

I don't have to worry about entertaining them; they're happy entertaining each other. I don't have to feel guilty about leaving them at home because they're perfectly content with each other's company.

And I don't have to let them outside for exercise, as I did with my previous cats, because they get plenty of exercise chasing each other around the apartment. They're blissfully happy, and they'll live a lot longer.

So why am I telling you this now, instead of waiting a month until they're a year old? Because I'm so grateful to the rescue group that saved their lives and socialized them before they came to me, Island Cat Resources and Adoption in Alameda, and I want to give them a plug for their fundraising auction on May 4.

ICRA specializes in rescuing homeless cats. If they're young enough to be socialized for adoption, like Pepe and Sally, they're placed in a foster home for intensive TLC before going to their forever home – which, in this case, turned out to be mine.

If they're too old to be tamed, they're vaccinated and spayed or neutered and then returned to their original feral colonies, where they'll live out their lives under the watchful eyes of ICRA volunteers.

It's really the only solution to the massive cat overpopulation problem in this country, which forces animal shelters to euthanize cats by the millions every year.

ICRA has no paid staff, no shelter, no overhead of any kind. All its funds come from private donations, and all of it goes to the cats.

Its big fundraising effort of the year is the annual Champagne Silent Auction, which will take place at 7 p.m. next Saturday, May 4^th, at the Elks' Lodge in Alameda, featuring great food, great wine, one-of-a-kind items (including a football signed by Raider running back Darren McFadden) and the jazz stylings of guitarist Terrence Brewer. It's a lot of fun and for a great cause.

For more information, or to donate to ICRA's lifesaving mission, go to icraeastbay.org or call 510-869-2584.

Tell 'em Pepe and Sally sent you.

Happy Birthday, Habitot!

Who are the smartest people in the world? Toddlers.

They have to be. They face the daunting task of programming their own brains to create order out of chaos.

They have to learn cause and effect, up and down, in and out, hot and cold, light and dark, and thousands of other abstract concepts.

These are the make-or-break years. If they don't learn all they need to learn, they'll be playing catch-up for the rest of their lives.

Sadly, there are precious few resources for children under five – the age when child development experts say you learn more than you'll learn the whole rest of your life.

One shining exception is the Habitot Children's Museum in downtown Berkeley, where little ones can play at their own pace in a variety of stimulating environments. Among them:

·                     Finger painting and sculpture making in the Art Studio.

·                     Learning about gravity, motion and the power of falling water at the Waterworks.

·                     Learning where food comes from at the Back To The Farm exhibit, featuring a chicken coop, fishing pond, hay bales and child-size John Deere tractors.

And all this for a modest admission fee: $8 for kids, $10 for grownups. But Habitot also has free programs for the families who need them the most – the poorest of the poor.

They include families in homeless shelters, recently incarcerated mothers trying to regain custody of their kids, teenage parents who are still children themselves, and special needs kids who never go outside because they people stare at them and make them feel uncomfortable.

"More importantly, while the parent see their kids playing in the museum in a social way with other kids, they get tears in their eyes because they didn't realize what was possible for their children," says founder and executive director Gina Moreland.

"One mother with a 13-month-old baby carried it around 24/7 because there was no safe place to put it down, which meant the baby was missing out on crawling, which in turn is crucial in developing hand/eye coordination. She was thrilled to be in our infant/toddler area with clean mats for the baby to crawl on."

Habitot will celebrate its 15^th anniversary on April 20 with a birthday party featuring a giant birthday cake, children's songs in both Spanish and English, and a dance party. Admission for the day is free, thanks to a donation from ScholarShare.

There is no way Habitot could provide all these desperately needed services without our help. Yes, it could raise admission fees, but that would price it out of the reach of the very people it is trying to serve.

Government and foundation donations are both down. That leaves you and me. You can donate online at habitot@lmi.net or mail a check to Habitot Children's Museum, 1563 Solano Ave., Berkeley 94707.

Get creative! If your service club, church group, fraternal organization or just plain friends want to invent your own fundraising project, call Moreland at 510-647-1111 ext 11.

"We even take tiny BART tickets," she says. "Last year we raised more than $1,000 that way. There are so many ways to support us, even if you don't have a lot of money."

It's up to us, folks. So what if you don't have any small children of your own? These kids are the only future we have.

Santayana Was Right

                                                 (Above: Nell Gwynn)

With all due respect to President Obama, I think he's forgetting something when he calls for more emphasis on math and science in the schools.

Yes, they're important. They will be crucial to our kids competing successfully in the global market.

But will it also make them better citizens? Not necessarily. For that, they'll need to be well grounded in another subject, one that is getting almost no resources at all: history.

How can they tell where our country is going if they don't know where it's been? How will they be able to see through demagogues' lies if they don't know the real story?

George Orwell's Big Brother said, "He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past." That was true while I was growing up in the 1950s, when the textbooks taught us the "Gone With The Wind" version of the Civil War: namely, that the slaves were happy with their lot, and the Ku Klux Klan were the good guys.

That myth made it much harder for everyone to face the truth about race relations in this country, and it delayed the march of justice for many generations.

The only protection against politicians' lies is a well-informed public. That means citizens who understand that the United States is NOT a "Christian country," as some claim; it's a country that was founded by Christians who were deeply skeptical of allowing any church, even their own, to dictate how everyone should act.

The Founding Fathers had read their history, and they knew all too well what had happened in Europe, where religious wars devastated the population.

They also knew their ancient history, and they knew that the Roman republic was destroyed when it abandoned the rule of law, leaving Rome at the mercy of competing generals.

That's why they created three different branches of government and balanced them carefully so that none of them could overpower the other two.

But when a society forgets its past, it's forced to reinvent the wheel, re-fighting battles that everyone assumed were won decades ago.

Don't believe me? Look at the current efforts to undermine abortion rights, access to contraception, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Pernicious special interests are trying to undo these dearly won freedoms, and the greatest weapon they have going for them is our collective historical amnesia.

But apart from such practical considerations, there's one more reason to study history, which was best expressed by one of my college professors, John Morton Blum. He said, "When you come down to it, the best reason to is that it's so much fun!"

And he was right. What human mind, even Shakespeare's, could come up with stories that are as fascinating as those that happened in real life?

Take Nell Gwynn, the mistress of King Charles II, who balanced the rival interests in his kingdom by having two official mistresses: one Catholic and one Protestant.

An angry Protestant mob surrounded Nell's coach as it was entering the palace, howling, "Hang the King's Catholic whore!"

"Wait, good people!" cried Nell. "I am the King's Protestant whore!"

And they carried her into the palace on their shoulders, cheering all the way.

You can't make stuff like this up.