Brennan's is here to stay

For the last few weeks, I've been getting calls and e-mails from anxious customers of Brennan's Restaurant, who are hearing rumors that their favorite eatery is about to close.
Relax, folks. Brennan's isn't going anywhere.
Actually, that's not quite true. It is going somewhere - next door, into the historic Santa Fe depot.
The last day in the old place was Monday. Brennan's will re-open on the new site this weekend, barring a last-minute glitch.
"In a perfect world, we'd stay right here for another 50 years," said Margaret Wade, granddaughter of founder Jack Brennan. "But it was a choice between moving now or waiting until our lease expires in 2012 and taking our chances that we'd be able to find someplace suitable."
Architecturally, the Mission-style Santa Fe depot is a big step up from the old building, a rectangular box that Brennan, a retired contractor, built with his own hands in 1959.
But the exterior doesn’t' really matter. The essence of Brennan's is the interior - the pictures on the walls, the menu board over the serving counter, the tables and chairs. They're all moving to the new place. And the food will still be served cafeteria-style.
The only major icon that isn't going is the bar.
"It's mostly old, bad fake wood and plastic laminate," said Wade. "But we will be taking the brass foot rail and the bar stools."
But what really makes Brennan's special is the people, and they're all going to the new place, too, including Jim "Float" Agrusa, who has been tending bar at Brennan's since 1975 and knows what every regular wants to drink the moment they walk in the door and has it ready for them by the time they get to the bar.
"There's always hell to pay whenever he goes on vacation," said Wade. "People ask in a somewhat grumpy voice, 'Where's Float?'"
Wade's grandfather founded Brennan's so he could have a place to eat that served the simple meat-and-potatoes fare he loved. The menu hasn't changed much since then, and that's just the way the regulars like it.
"It's nice to know you can go in and get exactly what you expect," said Jerry Figone of El Cerrito, a customer since the day Brennan's opened in 1959, when he was in high school. "The roast beef is always going to be great, and so is the turkey and corned beef."
Brennan located his restaurant at the foot of University Avenue, partly to take advantage of the spillover business from nearby Spenger's Fish Grotto. From the beginning, it has been a hangout for people from all different walks of life, and each group had its own territory.
When I discovered it back in the '70s, the cops sat near the entrance, next to the now long-gone cigarette machine. The politicos, including Jerry Brown, sat in the northwest corner. Next to them sat deputy coroner Michael King, known to his fellow regulars as "The Grateful Dead."
From the start, Brennan's has been a place where everyone knows your name. It's also a piece of living, breathing Berkeley history. I'm glad reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated.
* * *
Speaking of Berkeley history, did you play football for Cal in 1957 or 1959? The guys on the '58 team invite you to join them at their 50th reunion Oct. 24-26, the weekend of the UCLA game.
The guest of honor will be your old coach, Pete Elliott. Assistant coach John Ralston, who later went on to great coaching success at (gasp!) Stanford, will also be there. On Saturday, you'll sit in a special section at the game.
I'm going to write more about the '58 team next week, but in the meantime they wanted me to get the word out to '57 and '59 players as early as possible.
So if you're one of Pete's Boys (the successors to Pappy's Boys), call Andy Segale at 925-934-8168 or Pete Domoto at 360-387990.

Debate prediction: McCain will channel Carter, Obama will channel Reagan

I think tomorrow is make or break night, and here's how I think it's going to shape up: McCain will go negative to the max.
I think he believes it's his only shot at getting everyone's attention off the economy. Besides, he's a risk-taker by nature, and his default impulse when under stress is to double down on his bet.
His problem, of course, is that while his favorite game is craps, Obama's favorite game is poker. Obama is lying in wait for him.
To switch images, Obama will be the matador and McCain will be the bull. Whenever McCain brings up Ayers or Rev. Wright, Obama will say, "There you go again," as Ronald Reagan did when debating Jimmy Carter, and then turn the conversation back to the economy.
After tomorrow, Obama's lead will be in the double digits.

Paul Newman R.I.P.

I don't know about you, but I was taken aback by the depth of my sorrow this morning when I heard that Paul Newman had died.
He was the coolest guy of our time - an unpretentious man who lived as far away as he could from Hollywood, stayed married to the same woman for 50 years, and was most comfortable hanging out with people who didn't have the slightest idea he was somebody famous, such as the cancer-stricken little kids at his Hole In The Wall Camp.
When I was growing up in L.A. during the late '50s and early '60s, he was a common sight zipping around town in his Porsche 550 Spyder - except it didn't look like one.
He removed the body and substituted one from a beat-up old Volkswagen Beetle. On the outside, it looked just like a VW. But inside, it was still a racetrack-ready Porsche.
It gave him a huge kick to watch the stunned look on the faces of other drivers when he passed them on steep hills.
Newman wasn't the best actor of his generation. That distinction goes to Marlon Brando.
But he was something better: the actor who embodied his generation's fondest ideal of what American men are really like deep down - world-weary anti-heroes who end up doing the right thing in the last reel.
He was a part of a line that runs directly from Clark Gable through Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Newman, Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks.
Without exception, they tended to under-act. And their work still feels natural, even today.
Compare them to the parallel line of "best actors," which runs from Paul Muni through Spencer Tracy, Brando, Jack Nicholson and Sean Penn.
Except for Tracy, they tended to over-act. They wanted you to see what great actors they were. As a result, much of their work looks over-the-top to our 21st Century tastes.
Sure, you admire the virtuosity when you watch Brando or Nicholson melting down. But you're still thinking, "What terrific acting," not "Aw, the poor guy." You're watching the actor, not the character.
But in Newman's movies, whether he was Fast Eddie Felson in "The Hustler," Rocky Graziano in "Somebody Up There Likes Me," Ari Ben Canaan in "Exodus" or Butch Cassidy to Robert Redford's Sundance Kid, you always rooted for the character, not the actor who was playing him.
And his salad dressing wasn't bad, either.
Newman was a steadfast Democrat, long before liberalism became the flavor du jour in Hollywood. An avid supporter of the civil rights and anti-war movements, he claimed his proudest achievement was making Richard Nixon's "enemies list."
And he had a rare quality in Hollywood, then and now: humility.
After his first movie, "The Silver Chalice," was released, he took out a full-page ad in Variety apologizing for the movie and his performance in it.
Back in 1968, when he was campaigning for anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire, one of the officers in his police escort pointed to his partner and told Newman that the man had received word the night before that his son had been killed in Vietnam.
Saddened by the news, Newman offered the grieving father his condolences and added thoughtfully, "What do you think about some creep, some Hollywood peacenik, coming in here and telling you about the war?"
"I don't resent you," the father replied. "Even if a war takes your boy, that doesn't make it right."
Last month, Newman's doctors told him he had only a few days to live. So he checked himself out of the hospital and died at home, surrounded by his family.
But what do you want to bet that he filled out an absentee ballot for Obama and mailed it in before he died?

Making a joyful noise unto The Lord

Happy Rosh Hashanah to the happiest man I know. His name is Yehuda Ferris, and he's the rabbi at Chabad House in Berkeley.
Like other Jews all over the world, he's busy cleaning his house and stocking up on sweets in anticipation of the holiday, which begins next Monday at sundown.
"No vinegar, green apples, pickles or herring," he says. "We'll only eat sweet things, to express our wish for a sweet year."
Rosh Hashanah is the start of the High Holy Days, which culminate 10 days later on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Jews believe that during this period God decides the fate of the world.
"He's taking inventory," says Ferris. "Running the world is a business, like any other. If there's a profit, he'll keep the world going for another year. If not, goodbye world."
But God doesn't measure profit by dollars and cents. He measures it by good deeds, called mitzvahs. There are 613 mitzvahs in all. (Remember that number. It'll pop up again.)
Some mitzvahs are about our relationship with each other, such as caring for widows and orphans. Others are about our relationship with God, such as observing the dietary laws.
"Our job is to do as many mitzvahs as we can in this 10-day period. But they must be performed with a joyous heart, not out of duty," says Ferris.
So what makes him so happy?
He belongs to a branch of Judaism called Hassidism, which was founded about 280 years ago by Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, better known as the Ba'al Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name).
The Ba'al Shem Tov came along at a time when Judaism was in the doldrums, after suffering a series of brutal pogroms in Eastern Europe. Many Jews responded to the outside pressure by turning inward and devoting their lives to studying the Talmud. But the Ba'al Shem Tov went the other way.
Though an eminent Talmudic scholar himself, he said a personal relationship with God is more important than book learning, and even a simple, illiterate person can have one.
He called that relationship "cleaving to God;" and for his followers, it's an ecstatic experience.
"Even something as simple as tying your shoelaces or changing your baby's diaper can bring you closer to God, if it's done in the right spirit," says Ferris. "If you stop and think about all the blessings The Lord has given us, it's just overwhelming. All you can do is laugh and sing and dance with gratitude and joy."
To Ferris, all the wonders of the universe can be seen in a single flower petal. It's the same epiphany that the hippies were trying to achieve by taking LSD back in the '60s. But Ferris doesn't need any drugs, and the high doesn't wear off after a few hours.
Rosh Hashanah will kick off at exactly 6:13 p.m. Monday with a joyful - even raucous - celebration at the Bancroft Hotel. The festivities will include prayers, jokes, singing, dancing and symbolic foods such as pomegranates, which are sweet to the taste and contain exactly 613 seeds. The partying will go on until the wee small hours of the morning.
Not everyone thinks such enthusiasm is seemly. Even in his own lifetime, the Ba'al Shem Tov was criticized by the rabbinical establishment, who said carrying on like this is undignified, even crazy. This is what he replied:
"Once, in a house, there was a wedding festival. The musicians sat in a corner and played their instruments, the guests danced to the music and were merry, and the house was filled with joy.
"But a deaf man passed outside the house. He looked in the window and saw people whirling around the room, leaping and throwing their arms.
"'See how they fling themselves about!' he cried. 'It is a house filled with madmen!' For he could not hear the music to which they danced."

End of an era

Sunday was a bittersweet day on Solano Avenue.
It was sweet because the annual Solano Stroll was as great as ever.
But it was also sad because Walker's Pie Shop closed its doors on Sunday, after 44 years of providing Albany, Berkeley and El Cerrito residents with a welcome throwback to a kinder, gentler time.
Eating at Walker's was like going to Grandma's for dinner, with homemade popovers instead of bread, old-fashioned rib-sticking entrees, and those incredible pies made from the Walker family's secret flaky piecrust recipe.
Fresh-faced Albany High grads waited tables, Walker family pictures adorned the walls, and the waitresses threw surprise birthday parties for elderly customers who otherwise wouldn't have anyone to celebrate with.
The restaurant was founded by Doug Walker and his sister Dolly, who learned the food business from their dad, Scotty, proprietor of the old Heather & Thistle in Berkeley. The son of immigrants, Scotty taught his children the traditional immigrant values: work hard, give good value and treasure your family.
When Doug and Dolly were little, they would go to the restaurant after school and sit in the back, doing their homework. As they got older they began helping out, starting as dishwashers and working their way up.
After their father's death they founded Walker's Pie Shop in 1964. When they decided to retire in 1999, they had to decide whom to sell the restaurant to.
Many lucrative offers rolled in, but they turned them all down and sold to their chef, Jorge Sandoval, instead.
Jorge came to this country from his native Guatemala in 1982 and got an entry-level job at Walker's as a dishwasher. By 1989 he was running the kitchen. Ten years after that, he and his wife, Emma, owned the place.
Their daughter, Emmeli, now 11, came there every day after school and sat in back, doing her homework - just as Doug and Dolly used to do when they were her age.
When they sold the restaurant to Jorge, I asked Doug, "Why him?"
"Because," Doug replied, "he reminds me of my father."
For the last nine years, Jorge and Emma did their best to keep Walker's afloat. Jorge worked second and third jobs, and Emmeli even offered to contribute the money she's saving up for her college education. (Her parents turned her down.) But it was not to be.
On Sunday, many customers stopped by for the final goodbye. Everyone hugged, and everyone was crying.
We reminisced about the old days, when the staff would close the shutters after work, so nobody could see them from the street, and have huge pie fights with the day's leftover pies. (Tip: Use cream pies. The stains are easier to get out of your clothes than berry pies.)
And the 1995 wedding of Walker's waitress Melinda Potts and Fatapple's waiter Matt McCormick. Longtime customers of both eateries attended the ceremony, feasting on ham by Walker's and wedding cake by Fatapples.
We drank a toast to my favorite waitress, Gina Niemeier, who died in 2002 of mesothelioma. I will always remember the big smile she had for everyone who walked in the door and her infallible memory for which customers liked extra popovers and which ones liked extra ice cream on their pies.
And we remembered waiter Remo Reggi, the nicest young man you'd ever want to meet, who was murdered at age 20 on Sept. 11, 2005, by a gang of carjackers who have never been caught.
Walker's closing has affected Emmeli most of all. She was only three when her parents bought the place, and it's been her second home ever since.
But she's holding her head high. Last week she wrote this letter to her hero:
"Dear Barack Obama,
"Next time we will send you money. Right now we lost our jobs and we can't afford to give you any, we are all sorry. But to let you know we are going to vote for you always. By the way, this is an 11 year old talking to you I am in 6 grade.
"Thank you for understanding us.
"Always,
"Emmeli Sandoval
"California."

McCain's gamble

The pundits are fond of saying that the vice presidential candidates don't make much difference in presidential elections, but this time could be different.
To put it crassly, the odds of a president dying in office are getting shorter and shorter.
For almost 150 years, we had presidents dying every 20 years: Harrison in 1841, Taylor in 1850, Lincoln in 1865, Garfield in 1886, McKinley in 1901, Harding in 1923, Roosevelt in 1945 and Kennedy in 1963.
But it's been 45 years since the last time. And this year both presidential candidates are at risk: Obama because of the ever-present threat of assassination, and McCain because of his age. At 72, he would be the oldest president ever elected; and because of the torture he suffered during the Vietnam war he's probably older, medically speaking, than his chronological age.
So it behooves the electorate to take a closer look than usual at the vice presidential candidates this time because one of them very well could end up in the White House.
On one hand, you have Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which gives him great expertise in two of our most urgent problems: America's isolation in the world community and the politicization of the justice system. Whatever you think of him, he clearly has the gravitas to step into the top spot if, God forbid, it becomes necessary.
And Sarah Palin? Someone who has been in office for only two years? With zero experience in national or foreign affairs? Does anyone really think she'd be ready for that 3 a.m. phone call?
It's clearly a cynical attempt to appeal to disgruntled Hillary voters. But I think even Republican women will be offended by McCain's implicit assumption that any female candidate, no matter how lightweight, will do.

Two new arrivals at Fairyland

Children's Fairyland in Oakland is celebrating the arrival of two new four-footed residents: Twinkle the lamb and Dori the Shetland pony.
Twinkle, who is only five months old, was slated for the slaughterhouse until Fairyland offered her a home. And she's already fitting in like an old-timer.
"She's as sweet as can be," said Yvonne Backman, Fairyland's animal caregiver. "Her mother rejected her at birth, so she was bottle fed, which means she really connects with humans."
Twinkle is so people-friendly, Fairyland is featuring her as the "Animal of the Day" on weekends, taking her out of the corral to the grassy area in front of the duck pond, where children can come up and pet her, up close and personal.
"She's so good with them," said Backman. "For her, it's a chance to do two of her favorite things at the same time - munch grass and get petted."
Dori, who is 13, is also wonderful with the little tykes.
"That's no surprise because she was the children's pony at the Chabot Equestrian Center for the last three years," Backman said. "And before that, her job was giving rides to disabled kids."
Despite her gentleness with children, Dori has a mind of her own when it comes to other animals.
"We call her 'the diva' because she likes to have things her way," said Backman. "For instance, Juan the alpaca always used to have his special 'pacing zone,' where he could have a clear view of the goats, whom he loves.
"But Dori likes that spot, too, because that's the main thoroughfare where people walk by the corral, and she loves to get petted. Needless to say, Dori has won that disagreement."
The only downside for Dori is that she's been put on a diet.
"She has a huge appetite, which is typical of Shetland ponies. But the vet says she needs to lose 50 pounds," Backman said.
Meanwhile, Dori and Twinkle's predecessors, Coco the pony and her totally devoted friend, Bobo the sheep, who delighted Fairyland's pint-sized visitors for 20 and 11 years, respectively, are enjoying their retirement at Goats 'R' Us in Briones.
"They've been sleeping outdoors from the day they got there, and loving every minute of it," said Backman. "They're not on a schedule; they come and go as they please. I think they're as happy in their new home as Twinkle and Dori are in theirs."
The best news for Coco is that she's made friends with three young stallions in the neighboring pasture.
"They only have eyes for her, and vice versa," Backman. "She spends a lot of time at the fence flirting with them - swishing her tail, strutting back and forth and calling to them. It's a real May-December romance."
This is Coco's first chance to bond with other equines since 2006, when the Oakland Police Department eliminated its mounted patrol unit, whose stables were located next to Fairyland in Lakeside Park. For years, Coco's best friend was a huge - 17 hands - thoroughbred named Sanchez.
"Every morning before the park opened, I'd let her out of her paddock, and she'd run over to the chain link fence separating us from the OPD stable," said Backman. "She and Sanchez would just stand there for hours, nuzzling noses through the fence. I'm glad to know she's going to have that kind of friendship again."
And how's Bobo doing?
"He doesn't care where he is, as long as he's with Coco. "