The Burlingame Voice

Herb Caen: Memorial Day 1949

Herb Caen's column helped introduce me to the Bay Area in 1981.  I loved his daily columns and later his book Baghdad-By-The-Bay from 1949.  Here is a excerpt of Chapter 13 for Memorial Day

You think about things like this today.  About the kids who bought a one-way passage to North Africa and Tinian, Normandy and Attu.  Especially the kids from San Francisco, because you're back and they're not, you were lucky, they weren't--and who knows why it was like that?

You can't help thinking about the guy from the Sunset who stopped a sniper's bullet at Saint Lo, and the paisano from North Beach who cashed in at Guam, and the boy from Pacific Heights whose last C-47 mission over the Hump ended in a question mark.

I was thrilled to read about the C-47 that led the D-Day invasion being found, restored and flown to Normandy for the 75th anniversary.  Check it out here.

Nearly 75 years ago, on June 6, 1944, That’s All, Brother led the main airborne invasion of Normandy. Piloted by Lt. Col John Donalson, the plane led over 800 C-47s that dropped over 13,000 paratroopers into a battle that changed the course of mankind. Our mission is to bring this great airplane back to the skies over Normandy for the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

My Dad flew C-47's during the war and pulled gliders full of paratroopers behind.  Here's remembering all of our vets and the other loved ones who have passed on to the other side.

BNN: Volunteer Appreciation

The many volunteers who helped make last October's Disaster Preparedness drill a success around town were treated to coffee, doughnut holes and reminders of how well Burlingame is doing (compared to many communities) and how much there is still to be done.  The Saturday morning get together at the main fire station featured the chief, the mayor and several BNN leaders celebrating the many neighborhood drills and reminding everyone of additional opportunities like the CERT and ham radio training coming up on June 1st.  It's a word of mouth marketing exercise and some new neighborhood volunteers were in attendance so this year's drill will be even better.

Yours truly was one of three raffle winners of a disaster kit from Earth Shakes which was great.  If you want one too they are found here.  Here's the crowd listening to Mayor Colson.

Spring Brings Fun to B'game

Spring is here and not just going by the calendar.  Flowers are blooming, hummingbirds are humming and pollen is everywhere.  Spring's arrival also heralds more community activities like music, plays and art which we desperately need.  I'll just mention a few that come to mind over the next two weeks.  We will never garner our own section in the Pink Section but it's a start.  Feel free to add a comment with more that you like.

The 33rd annual Silicon Valley Open Studios event returns to Burlingame on May 4th and 5th.  Details of this free event are here that describe the art studio locations in B'game and surrounding areas.  There are three artists participating plus the full Peninsula Museum of Art studios (with 28 artists) at 1777 California Dr.

St. Catherine's annual play is also a lot of fun and this 23rd iteration promises to deliver the same.  It runs May 10-11 and 17-18 at 7:30 pm with Singin' in the Rain as this year's program.  Staying very local, the Burlingame Historical Society's quarterly meeting will be on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 in the Lane Room.  These are always well attended and interesting especially since this meeting will focus on the old Post Office--it's history and some of it potential future.

A great example of entertainment we need more of comes to the Burlingame Womens Club on May 9th when Il Sapore is sponsoring a night of food, wine and Italian opera with Pasquale Esposito.  Given our lack of clubs with space for a larger production, it's great to see the Womens Club be used to assuage the entertainment drought.  You can get tickets here.  One venue that has been quietly ramping up music is the Vinyl Room.  Aside from the salsa and comedy nights, Friday nights (starting early around 6:30 or 7pm) have become a reliable rock 'n roll gig.  The bands are usually local drawing a local crowd that knows them already.  Here is last week's show by Up and to the Right.

Earthquake Warning: 3 Months Without Water

The SF Chronicle is reporting on a USGS study about the impact of a major quake in the Bay Area--something they say is overdue

While nearly 113 years have passed without a major earthquake on the fault from the Peninsula north, the quiet will end. It could happen tomorrow or next week or decades from now. When it does, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people will feel the ground shake like they’ve never felt before.  Based on current understanding of earthquake recurrence, that’s a statistical anomaly, according to a report this month from U.S. Geological Survey scientists.  According to a 1,000-year earthquake history of those fault branches, the chances that not a single site would experience a major temblor in any given 100-year period is about 0.3%, the paper said.

Yep, we are riding on a 0.3% wave of luck.  Burlingame is doing more than most to prepare for this by way of our annual Neighborhood Network disaster drills, supply caches, ham radio courses and the like we discussed here.  The added bit of information from the USGS study is that a major quake on our San Andreas fault would have the probability of causing 3.7 million people to go without water for the following periods of time:

1-3 days has a 60% probability

1 week has a 58% probability

1 month has a 48% probability

3 months with no water has a 30.5% probability

Wow.  It's basically 50/50 that we would have to go a month without running water.  That is one of the reasons I believe we should be strengthening the Hetch Hetchy pipeline, building more reservoirs and limiting further population growth until we have done that.  It is somewhere between sad, ironic and scary that plenty of politicians read the headlines about the IPCC's 100 year climate change model and want immediate action, but this much nearer and more identifiable threat goes unnoticed.  Forewarned is forearmed.  This year's drill is Saturday, October 12th.  Put it on your calendar and if you don't have a group working in your part of B'game, think about volunteering.

Update:  I just got my 33 gallon water barrel with pump and preservatives to last 5 years from our local B'game preparedness experts, Earthshakes.com.  $143 all in and very well worth it.  Here it is

 

Sweating in B'game

The prevailing wisdom is that retail is struggling on the Avenew, on Broadway and elsewhere in town.  Examples include the demise of Books, Inc. and Anthropologie--not exactly Mom and Pop operations that still couldn't cut it here.  But exercise is a booming business in retail areas.  The Comicle touched on this in January as people were thinking about New Year's resolutions and I'm addressing it as bathing suit season approaches.  The Comicle noted

A city retail study in February found that traditional retail growth has slowed but fitness providers and restaurants are still eager to expand. Across the Bay Area, 53 fitness leases were signed in the past three years.  Being near, or even in the same building, as housing and office uses is deliberate. “It’s really about convenience and daily need,” said Weinhaus. “People are coming to us day in and day out.”  Gyms and fitness centers can thrive in upper floors and basements, where traditional retailers might struggle, said Helen Bulwik, a veteran retail consultant and senior partner at the Newport Board Group.  “You can kind of stick a gym anywhere. It’s kind of like Starbucks.”  “We haven’t really been able to find a new location in the city in a long time,” said Frank Napolitano, president of 24 Hour Fitness. “Dense downtown cores tend to have the boutique-type operators. They don’t need as much space.”

Here in B'game we have an ever expanding menu of choices from old school full-service gyms like Primetime on Rollins Rd. or Being Yoga in the B'game Plaza to specialized set-up like Pilates ProWorks on B'way to the very one-on-one approach using a personal trainer such as B-Fit on Park Rd.  I've been a client at B-Fit for two years and can vouch for the one-on-one approach as a great way to get pushed into shape and strength.  In the middle of the spectrum are Basecamp (Dethrone) on California in the old Route 66 building and the newest, Barry's Bootcamp on Howard.  Locals are curious about Barry's after watching a complete renovation of what was just an old Quonset Hut that housed the Bacci Food Center in the 1950's.  I gave Barry's a try and really enjoyed the Red Room where the workout alternates between treadmill and floor/weight/band exercises.  Not so sure about the name in view of the Fifty Shades of Grey reference, but the music and the instructor kept it from being too painful.  The building itself has been completely transformed keeping large skylights and adding showers and a juice bar.  B'gamers have a full range of choices and price points so there really is no excuse for not sweating in Burlingame.  Here's the new Barry's

 

A BART Non-answer

I'm catching up with the January issue of the free San Francisco magazine that magically shows up in the mail every month.  It's often worth a quick read and can venture south of EssEff once in awhile like four years ago when we were deemed Utopia-qualified.  This month has a piece profiling the newly-elected BART board member, Janice Li.  Her claim to fame is as a bicycle advocate.  She also "still thinks it is scary, weird and absurd to be an elected official".   But somehow she has the elected official's non-answer answer down pat as seen here:

Q:  Riders south of San Francisco don't get to vote for BART elected officials, even though there are BART stations there.  Is that a good idea?

A:  There are two sides to the San Mateo problem.  Some people say that the people who live there aren't paying their fair share.  Others say that they are losing out because they have no representation.  I'm not totally sold that BART should even have a voter-elected board.  It's extraordinarily rare.

If you are waiting for the rest of the response, join the club.  I'm not feeling super confident about the future direction of the Caltrain and high-speed rail connections at the intermodal station in Millbrae.  You?

Bad B'game Branding

Here at the Voice we celebrate the good, and call out the bad and the ugly of B'game.  Now that Black Friday is over, let me be the first to hope that NOBODY bought this piece of trash that is for sale on the Avenew.  I won't deign to mention the shop because it doesn't deserve the attention.  If you are a retail enthusiast and happen to go in there, tell them to get their act together and behave like they belong here, not like they are doing now.

Veterans Day 2018

Today is the centennial Veterans Day when major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. That is when the Armistice with Germany went into effect.  Then in 1954, at the urging of major veteran organizations, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day.  It's a day of remembrance as it is called in Europe, so let's do that.

I finally got down to the County Historical museum in Redwood City to see the WWII exhibit and it is highly recommended.  The theme is the war's impact on the Peninsula and there are several mentions of Burlingame residents and local places like Coyote Point.  It has been on display for about two years and is very worthwhile; you have until January or so to see it.  Here is one local airman (Allan Brown's) uniform that is on display.  Remember we shall.

B'game Rating: #38

The wizards at the San Francisco magazine have rated all 101 cities and towns in the Bay Area and we came out at number 38.  By combining scores for Education, Diversity, Health, Transit, Affordability, Public Safety, Culture and their own fudge factor "Editors' Rank", they arrive at Albany being the best place to live in the Bay Area.  Six years ago we were labelled as a sort of Utopia by the same magazine, so let's dig in a bit deeper.  Here are the scores

I get the good scores for Education and Transit.  Our public schools are quite good in spite of occasional issues with administrators at BIS and BHS and there are a lot of residents with bachelor's degrees or higher.  I also get how we land near the bottom in Affordability since we have always been an expensive place to live--it is more a result of the other criteria than an input on its own.  But how is B'game in the bottom half on Health?  They use physicians per capita, air quality scores and percentage of residents without health insurance.  With a major hospital in town and doctor's offices surrounding it, we must rate pretty high on the first one.  I hear at the meetings on the SFO runway noise that some residents also smell jet fuel fumes, but I doubt our air quality is below the median.

The real head-scratchers are Public Safety on the downside and Culture on the upside.  B'game has recently returned to "full strength" with 40 sworn officers and crime rates (aside from car break-ins mostly at Bayfront hotels) are pretty low.  Oakland ranked just ahead of us at 57!  And they do mean Oakland, California!!  There must be some spreadsheet error somewhere at the magazine.

I also cannot fathom how we got to number 15 in the whole Bay Area on Culture when the critieria are artistic venues per capita (we've got none other than the tiny art museum on the north end), the number of residents who list their occupation as "artist" (on Open Studio weekends we have a couple), and liquor licenses per capita.  I guess if one considers drinking with muzak playing "culture" we do OK.  While #38 isn't bad, I can't take much heart in the overall subjective nature of it all.  You won't catch many B'gamers moving to Colma (#18) or Pacifica (#22) or Belmont (#24).  I bet we just stay put.   
 

Pipe Bomb at Rollins Rd. USPS

In the spirit of covering all things Burlingame, I'll just note that we made the national news yesterday when the Postal Service located a pipe bomb in the mail addressed to activist Tom Steyer.  The mail sorting facility on Rollins Rd. went into shutdown and this message went out at 11:50 am

Burlingame Police responded to assist the FBI on a report of a suspicious package located at our mail facility on Rollins Rd. The package is consistent with the mailings throughout the nation. The package has been removed from that facility and the area has been rendered safe. This incident poses no danger to the community of Burlingame.

Later in the day, a guy with a long criminal record was arrested in Florida and accused of being the perp who mailed about a dozen such packages.  If you want the full details, the Daily Journal has it here.