Two Good Guys

(Above: Mac. Below: Cliff)

First, a pair of sad farewells to two old friends and colleagues - Cliff Pletschet, who died August 8 at age 80, and Dave McElhatton, who died on Monday at age 81.
Cliff, who was born in Saskatchewan, was the longtime business editor and financial columnist for the Oakland Tribune, and a finer gentleman never lived. He was very, very good at what he did, and he never had an unkind word for anyone.
Mac, who was born and raised in Oakland, was the morning drive anchor at KCBC, in tandem with his good friend, Al Hart. Together, they made the show the most popular one in the Bay Area for 25 years.
Then he moved to KPIX, where he worked with Wendy Tokuda and Kate Kelly. And together, they made that show the most popular one in the Bay Area for the next 25 years.
The secret of Mac's success was that he was a great storyteller. It was like listening to the guy sitting next to you at a bar telling you what went down that day.
And the secret of Cliff's success was that he didn't tell his readers how to invest their money; he educated them so they could make wise investment decisions on their own.
They were successful both as journalists and as human beings, and I miss them both already.
On a happier note, here's wishing a happy retirement to Monica Clark, who will step down at the end of the year as editor of the Catholic Voice, the official publication of the Diocese of Oakland (which includes both Alameda and Contra Costa counties).
Under her guidance, the paper has been catholic as well as Catholic, which is no easy task in a diocese that ranges from ultra-liberals in Berkeley and Oakland to ultra-conservatives in Concord and Danville.
No matter how contentious the issue - whether it's abortion or priestly sexual abuse - she always manages to include all sides. As a result, the Catholic Voice, especially its letters-to-the-editor page, has been one of the liveliest reads around.
Anyway, good luck, Monica. You have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you have kept the faith.
Meanwhile, Poulet, the upscale Berkeley deli specializing in (what else?) chickens, is coping with the recession by luring customers with a new gimmick: membership in the "Frequent Fryers Club." The deal: Buy 10 chickens, get one free. And the first winner is Poulet's most loyal customer, Ivan Skolnikoff., who always orders lemon-garlic.
Finally, my apologies to Berkeley Animal Services (aka the city shelter) especially its director, Kate O'Connor.
When I wrote about the disastrous fire that gutted the Berkeley Humane Society's shelter last spring, I said the city shelter doesn't have the time to be a full-time adoption agency. But I didn't mean to imply that O'Connor and her staff don't try their best to find new homes for their animals.
But with all their other responsibilities - including rounding up strays, busting dog-fighting rings, etc. - they need help.
That's where the Humane Society comes in. The two agencies - one private, one public - work hand-in-hand.
And the partnership works both ways. After the fire, the city shelter offered its time and space to house the Humane Society's animals who were evicted by the fire.
Hope I cleared that up.

Remembering the "Good War"

(Above: the USS Hornet, now docked at Alameda, California)

This weekend is the 65th anniversary of V-J Day, the end of World War II.
It's called "The Good War," which is a bitter irony because it was the most horrible war in history. Deaths were estimated at anywhere from 60 million to 100 million. And the overwhelming majority were civilians.So why do we call it The Good War? Because it's one of the few wars in history that, even in hindsight, absolutely had to be fought.
It has been perceived as a case of good vs. evil but even the "good guys" had some skeletons in their closets. The Soviet Union was a brutal dictatorship, Britain had a colonial empire and, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, we imprisoned more than 100,000 of our fellow citizens behind barbed wire because of their ancestry.
But that just shows how truly evil Hitler really was -- he made a monster like Stalin look good by comparison.
As Churchill said when he heard Hitler had invaded Russia: "If Hitler were to invade hell, I would find something favorable to say about the devil the next day in the House of Commons."
The real good guys of World War II, of course, were the men and women who won it, both over there and here at home.
To call them "The Greatest Generation" doesn't even begin to describe the debt we owe them. Hitler predicted his Reich would last a thousand years, and were it not for the heroes who defeated him, it very easily could have happened.
But oh, how they suffered to give us this priceless gift of freedom.
Try to imagine yourself on a B-17 bombing raid over Germany without any fighter planes to protect you from the German fighters, who would attack you all the way to the target and all the way back home.
Or in a foxhole in the Voges mountains of Alsace as German 88 shells shattered the treetops overhead, sending millions of jagged splinters raining down on you.
Or on a Liberty ship in the North Atlantic, a helpless sitting duck for the U-boat wolf packs roaming at will through your convoy. Imagine knowing that if your ship was sunk, the convoy was under strict orders not to stop and pick up survivors.
Imagine yourself on a flattop in the South Pacific, fighting off attacks from kamikazes.
Or as a Marine on Okinawa, waiting for the next Banzai charge from an enemy so tenacious that even even the civilians were killing themselves rather than surrender.
"You assumed you weren't going to make it," says Dr. Gordon Binder of San Francisco, an army field surgeon operating just a few hundred yards behind the front line. "You knew you were going to get killed. It was just a question of when."
Finally, imagine yourself as a Rosie the Riveter at the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, exhausted after another hard day's work but a little reluctant to go home because a telegram might be waiting for you from the War Department beginning with the words "We regret to inform you "..."
They don't think of themselves as heroes because in their eyes, the real heroes are the guys -- and gals, too -- who never came back.
And they're right, of course. But while we still have some of them with us, let's tell them that in our eyes, they are heroes, too.
Bless them all.

Thumbs Up For A Gentle Man

It was with mixed emotions that I watched the final program of "At The Movies," which ended its television run on Sunday after 45 years.
I couldn't help thinking, "I wish Gene Siskel were still here."
Gene was one of the guys who founded the show, and he was my friend. (We were in the same class in college.)
In 1975 he was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune, and a producer at the local PBS station named Thea Flaum got the brilliant idea of pairing him with his rival critic from the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert. For a half hour each week, they'd argue about the movies and give each film a thumbs up or thumbs down.
The show was an instant hit, and no wonder: Gene and Roger were the original odd couple.
I'm hopelessly biased, but I think Gene usually got the better of the argument. He championed films that appealed to the mind and heart, and occasionally other parts of the body.
The most honest review I've ever heard anyone give is the thumb's up he gave to the soft-core French film, "Emmanuelle."
Instead of tiptoeing around the truth by talking about the cinematography or lighting, he looked into the camera, shrugged his shoulders and said sheepishly, "What can I say? It turned me on."
For me, the most memorable review is the one he gave to another French film, "Rififi," which depicts a jewel robbery, moment by moment. He said the reason it's so exciting is that we love to see the behind-the-scenes details of how people in exotic professions do their jobs. And what profession could be more exotic than jewel robber?
It's a lesson I've applied to everything I write. Whenever I interview someone, I always ask them to describe the details of how they do what they do. Thank you, Gene.
I'd run into him whenever he and Roger came into town on a promotional tour, and what most impressed me is that he never thought of himself as The Famous Gene Siskel.
He treated everyone, down to the go-fer who brought him a cup of coffee, with complete respect. He was a true gentleman, and you don't find that very often, especially among celebrities.
Gene died from a brain tumor in 1999, and Roger carried on with a succession of co-hosts until he, too, got sick and had to retire in 2008. For the last few years the show has been hosted by a series of critics who are very good, but not in Gene's league.
At our 25th college reunion, Gene passed on some precious wisdom he received from the master of his residential college, novelist John Hersey, and I'm passing it on to you:
"1. Don't do anything for money. In America if you do anything well, money will follow - if you want it."
"2. Have more than one career. Don't be trapped into working for one company or in one profession for your entire life."
"3. Don't view life as a test on which you can get a perfect score. Life is problems. Therefore, don't be unhappy when you're unhappy. Strive for and appreciate moments of serenity, a much more reasonable goal."
P.S. The last movie Gene reviewed was a romantic comedy called "Simply Irresistible." He gave it a thumbs down.

25 Years of Yum!

From the moment Lalime's opened 25 years ago, it shot to the top tier of Berkeley restaurants, which is really saying something considering that Berkeley is a town where people take their food as seriously as they take their politics.
Its loyal patrons come from all over the Bay Area, and its popularity has spread even farther as Cal professors on sabbatical at other colleges spread the word.
(There's a sign on the bulletin board in the faculty dining room at MIT saying, "When you're in Berkeley, be sure to eat at Lalime's." Ditto for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.)
I hadn't been there in a while, so when Lalime's held a 25th birthday party a couple of weeks ago I went to see if it was as good as I remembered.
Answer: No, it wasn't. It was better.
But don't take my word for it. Ask KCBS food maven Narsai David, who regularly dines there with his wife, Venus.
"We love Lalime's because of the wonderfully mellow environment and the friendly attitude of the staff," he told me. "But, of course, the most important thing is the creative presentation of the best contemporary cuisine."
But Lalime's has always had another role: as a local hangout for the folks who live in Berkeley's Westbrae neighborhood.
"There's this great big picture window, and as you walk by you can see the people dining there," said Marshall Platt, who lives down the street. "And when I dine there, I can see the people walking by. It's part of the fabric of Northwest Berkeley. Plus, it's very affordable, especially for what it is."
So how do owners Haig and Cindy Krikorian - Lalime is Cindy's maiden name - manage to juggle these dual roles?
"The answer is that we don't feel like a Top 10 restaurant, and we never have," said Cindy. "We just want to serve good food to our friends."
It all starts with local food, seasonally produced. That's a staple of California cuisine, but Haig learned this long before it became fashionable, when he was growing up in Lebanon.
"The Bay Area gives you so many food choices, it would be incredibly stupid not to take advantage of that," he said. "If the tomatoes aren't good that day, you don't serve a dish that requires tomatoes."
But the person who really set the standard was Haig's mother, Nevart. Almost up until the day she died last year at 87, she was the restaurant's official napkin folder - she didn't trust anyone else do it precisely enough - garlic peeler and produce buyer.
"She was totally in charge," said general manager Michael Hutchings as his baby daughter, Eloise, played underfoot. "She was like a second mother to me. I called her Nene, which is Armenian for 'grandmother.'"
Eloise is the latest in a long line of employees' children who have grown up at Lalime's, as have Haig and Cindy's own kids.
The extended family also includes patrons such as Chester Zinn, whose regular table, Table 18, has a silver plaque to commemorate his 100th birthday, Raider great Raymond Chester, and the physics department at Cal, who named a new scientific theory "Lalime's Theory."
"Haig has finally found a way to entertain all his friends," said Richard Mazzera, owner of Cesar's restaurant. "And he doesn't have to do the dishes!"

Pillar of the community

(l-r: George Jr., Kristina, George Sr., Sonja)

I was walking down Webster Street in downtown Oakland a few months ago with George Vukasin, the president of Peerless Coffee. He's a second-generation American; his parents came here from Yugoslavia.
He pointed to the Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian restaurants on the street and said, "When I was a kid they all used to be Yugoslavian restaurants. Same people, different faces."
That tells you pretty much everything you need to know about him. He's never forgotten where he came from, and he doesn't think he's better than the people who came after him.
Vukasin, who is known to everyone at Peerless as "George Sr.," took over the business in 1975 from his father, John Vukasin (aka "Mr. V."), who founded the business in 1924.
Last week he announced that he and his wife, Sonja, are turning over the reins to their children, George Jr. and Kristina.
George Jr. will supervise the coffee end of the business, and Kristina, a former Alameda County deputy district attorney, will handle the finances and legal stuff.
It's an old family tradition: Mr. V did the coffee roasting and his wife, Natalie (aka "Mrs. V"), kept the books. Then George Sr. ran the coffee side and Sonja ran the business side.
"We didn't plan it," Kristina laughs. "It's just worked out that way."
Full disclosure: There are very few people in this world whom I admire as much as George Sr. If he had done nothing else but give good value to his customers and treat his employees like human beings, that would have been enough. But he did so much more.
As longtime president of the Pacific Coast Coffee Association and chairman of the National Coffee Association, he worked tirelessly with farmers in Colombia to make it economically profitable for them to grow coffee instead of coca, which is the basic ingredient of cocaine.
For this he received the prestigious Manuel Mejia Award - named after the father of the Colombian coffee industry - from the Colombian government and death threats from the drug lords.
He also convinced the growers to treat their own workers more decently, such as supplying free meals during working hours and free childcare for their children.
His method is as simple as it is effective: The better they treat their workers, the more he pays them for their coffee beans.
He also was president of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Commission back in the good old days, when the Coliseum was one of the most charming of the '60s "cookie cutter" stadiums instead of the dump it has become today.
It was only last week that I was quoting some longtime Raider fans who said the team's return in 1995 turned out to be an anti-climax. They complained that the Coliseum had been taken over by what they called "the thug element."
It was a different crowd in the Vukasin era, believe me. And we have that to thank him for, too.
He and Sonja are leaving some mighty big shoes for George Jr. and Kristina to fill, but I have no doubt they're more than up to it.
"What we learned most from our parents wasn't so much how to run a business," says Kristina. "It was about character and treating people the right way."
See what I mean?

Pride And Poise

Are you a dirtball?
Don't be offended; it's actually a compliment. It's the recognition signal that members of the Bay Area Dirtballs (B.A.D., for short) use to identify each other.
According to the rules, if somebody asks you that question and you can't produce your official Dirtball membership card, you have to buy drinks for the house.
I met them about 25 years ago. The Raiders had just moved to Los Angeles, but that didn't faze the Dirtballs. Ever faithful, they would fly, 40-50 strong, to L.A. for the home games, wearing T-shirts specially made for each trip. I still have my shirt from the 1985 home game against Denver, which reads, "Look out, Elway! Here come the Dirtballs!" (The Raiders won, 31-28.)
Their first headquarters was the Solano Club in Albany. Later, they moved to the M&L Club, then the Little Alaska, and finally to their present home, the Blue Moon Saloon in El Cerrito.
On game days they'd meet at the bar at 8 a.m. and start pounding the beers. A bus would pick them up at 9 and take them to Oakland airport for the flight to LAX, where another bus - stocked with beer and an ice chest, of course - would be waiting to take them to the game.
After the game, they'd repair to their home-away-from-home, the Stick'N'Stein in El Segundo, where they'd celebrate the Raider victory (or mourn the occasional loss) until it was time for their flight home to Oakland.
Once, they were on the bus to LAX when they realized that Vern Silva of Pinole was missing. So they doubled back to the Stick'N'Stein, where they found Vern stretched out under the pool table, fast asleep.
Every trip after that, when they arrived at the Stick'N'Stein they would find a pillow and blanket waiting under the pool table for Vern, in case he wanted to give a repeat performance.
Now, I know this makes them sound like a bunch of rowdy drunks, but that couldn't be further from the truth. These are nice, down-to-earth guys - and gals - who like to have a good time, enjoy each other's company and support worthy local causes, including blood drives and Toys For Tots.
And not all of them are Raider fans. As the years went by, some 49er fans found out about it, and they became Dirtballs, too.
When the Raiders returned to Oakland in 1995, most of them bought season tickets. But, as Gertrude Stein discovered, there was a different there there.
"It was a whole different crowd of fans," longtime Dirtball Gary Manuel (aka "Bear") says sadly. "That's when the thug element came along.
"Before, it used to be a big meeting place. We'd all meet in Section 121 at halftime and have fun. Sure, there was some pot smoking and drinking, but there were no problems, ever. Then the gang element took over, and gradually all of those people I know let their season tickets go."
So now they watch the games on TV at the Blue Moon Saloon. Some of the oldtimers have passed away, but new Dirtballs are joining up all the time.
"We now have grandchildren of Dirtballs who are Dirtballs," says Jerry Johnson (aka "J.J.").
If you want to meet them, just drop by the Blue Moon after any Raider game. They won't be hard to spot.

The Princess Bride

Once upon a time, there was a girl in Pinole named Caroline McCaskey.
Everyone loved her because she was smart and spunky and goodhearted and levelheaded and beautiful - sort of like Elizabeth Bennett in "Pride and Prejudice."
At an early age she discovered that she had not only a great talent but also a great passion for music. Whatever instrument she picked up, she quickly became so good at it that she was soon giving concerts and giving lessons to other people.
She's a fabulous fiddler and a virtuoso violinist. (The difference, she once explained to me, is that fiddle music is meant to be danced to and violin music is meant to be listened to.)
She's also great on the viola, piano and - believe it or not - musical saw. In fact, she's one of the best musical saw players in the world, having won first place at the International Musical Saw Festival at Roaring Camp in 2008.
I'm not making any of this up. Just Google her, and you can watch videos of her playing all these instruments, including the musical saw.
But more than her musicianship, it's her qualities as a person that makes everyone adore her. You can't help being drawn to her open heart and an endearing combination of sweetness and strength.
Naturally, someone who reminds you of Elizabeth Bennett was bound to meet her Mr. D'Arcy, and that's exactly what Caroline did.
When she went away to college, she met a tall, blond and handsome flute player/composer named Cole Ingraham. And they've been making sweet music together ever since.
She decided he was The One when she got really sick one day from an intense allergic reaction. Without hesitating, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her down four flights of stairs and all the way across campus to the infirmary. Then he waited on her hand and foot until she got well.
The guy may look like Apollo, but he acts like a mensch!
Now they're moving to Colorado, where they'll begin master's and doctoral programs in music.
But there was last thing to do before they go. On July 3 they tied the knot in a simple but moving Buddhist wedding ceremony at the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley.
Caroline looked positively regal, and Cole looked like Central Casting's idea of Prince Charming - which, of course, he is.
Not surprisingly, given their musical connections, the music was great - both the gamelan players during the ceremony and The Hot Club of San Francisco, which served up some very swinging standards during the reception.
The toasts were appropriately corny but heartfelt, and the bride and groom had the good taste not to shmoosh wedding cake in each other's face.
It was one of the loveliest weddings I've been to in a long time. At most weddings, half the people in the audience are mentally calculating how long they think the marriage will last.
But not at this one. Caroline and Cole are such great young people, and they're so obviously in love, it gives you hope for the future.
It wasn't a teenage wedding, but the old folks wished them well. You could tell Pierre did truly love the mademoiselle.
C'est la vie. May they live happily ever after.