Jim Ott's Blog

This blog is a collection of columns I've written for Bay Area News Group newspapers serving the East San Francisco Bay region.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Death of a snail

Early this morning, I did a cursory check for slugs and snails in the front yard on my way back from retrieving the newspapers. I found a rather large snail who had been munching on my prized alyssum, and with no regard for life, I tossed him (or her?) into the street.

After my 10-year-old daughter woke up, I made the mistake of mentioning the incident.

See below the funeral in the middle of the street we held for the snail (which had been subsequently crushed by a car tire) as well as my daughter's message for me in her expression about killing animals.

Boy, do I love that kid.








Thursday, April 27, 2006

Photographs, Return Creek

by Jim Ott


Spring 1974
Here water flows from rain
from snows packed alongside
granite, beneath lodgepole pines
water sometimes placid
here
cascading
past rushes whose roots drink amply
from this creek.

Here we fished at dawn.
At noon you swam
and I read Sherlock Holmes
glancing up
from darkened London rooms
to bright azure silence, squinting
and to meadows young
with possibilities.


Summer 1977
Here I watched your cousin
weave a fragile braid of wildflowers.
Your uncle stitched
the bleeding brow of his wife.
We fished Return Creek
casting hopeful lines
clear and strong as sutures
pulling trout from
vigorous waters
flowing
from Sierra snows
to distant rivers, unseen.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

The Foos Family

This column appeared in several ANG Newspapers in August 2005. Since then, the documentary referenced in the article was completed and has aired several times on the Discovery Health Channel. An interesting footnote: Alex Foos attends school with my oldest daughter, and Ginny Foos has been a substitute teacher in my daughter's classroom. Sometimes I don't need to look very far to find interesting and wonderful people to write about.


When Joe Foos was growing up, big kids would sometimes pick him up, just to be mean.

Why? Because he is a little person. A dwarf.

In fact, he and his wife Ginny and their three children were all born with a genetic condition called achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism.

But while they’re short-statured, they’re as normal as everyone else—if you don’t count being filmed for a documentary on the Discovery Health Channel.

“Ginny and I love the opportunity to tell our story to educate people, especially kids,” said Foos. “The film crew followed us to baseball games, school, and to film Ginny as she was substitute teaching.”

The production company found the Foos family, who live in Pleasanton, after doing a Google search, said Ginny Foos. “They found a Tri-Valley Herald article written four years ago and contacted us in April. They were here filming in early June and even joined our family in July in Orlando as we attended the annual conference of Little People of America.”

Little People of America is a nonprofit organization founded in 1957 to support dwarfs through education and other opportunities.

The crew returns to Pleasanton this week to gather additional footage, including filming Joe in his role as sales director for Livermore-based Lanlogic.

Filming for the documentary, which currently does not have an airdate, is expected to wrap up in December.

“This isn’t reality television,” said Joe. “They don't stick a camera in our faces without asking.”

Rather, Joe and Ginny are working with the production team to ensure an accurate portrayal of the life of a family of little people. As president of the Bay Area chapter of LPA, Joe will distribute 500 copies of the production to the 50 LPA chapters across the United States.

“We hope the project will lead to production of other dwarf stories around the country to educate people about little people,” said Joe.

Central to that message is that dwarfs enjoy relatively good health, have normal life spans, are as intelligent, funny, spiritual, and, yes, as normal as everyone else.

The only difference is their size.

According to LPA’s website, people with achondroplasia have short arms and legs, but an average-sized trunk. The condition affects one in every 26,000 to 40,000 people, and occurs equally in men and women and within all races. Experts estimate that 10,000 little people live in the United States, with 150,000 to 230,000 worldwide.

“We can count on two hands all the dwarfs in the Tri-Valley, and that includes the five of us,” said Joe.

Limited contact with other little people is one reason the family is active in the local LPA chapter. The three Foos children get to interact with other youngsters who share the challenges of growing up smaller than almost everyone else.

“When you get a handful of dwarf kids together,” Joe said, “all of a sudden they are not the only ones being stared at or teased. They can play sports or ride bikes together without always having to catch up with everyone else. This raises their confidence and self-esteem tremendously.”

Similarly, dwarf children benefit from role models, Joe said. “Kids need to see themselves five or ten years down the road so they can feel happy with themselves instead of depressed about being the only one in the town or the only one at school.”

While Joe had few role models growing up, his parents--though average-sized--instilled in him strong self-confidence, he said.

Born in Los Angeles in 1966, Joe was 2 when his family moved to Lebanon. He lived in Beirut during the country’s civil war and eventually moved back with his family to the United States to enroll at the University of Santa Barbara.

He completed his degree at the University of San Francisco, which brought him to the Bay Area, where one day in 1987 he was approached by an attractive 22-year-old woman at a BART station in Oakland.

“I was looking at a map,” Joe said, “when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I looked into the face of a cute gal who asked if I was lost. We spoke for only a moment because our trains were arriving, and then she handed me her business card. It was pretty much love at first sight.”

Like Joe, Ginny moved to the Bay Area because of college. Born to average-sized parents, and with a brother over 6 feet tall, she grew up in a small town near Boston and found her way to Mills College where she first earned a degree in communications, and later obtained her teaching credential.

Joe and Ginny had their first child, Alex, 13 years ago. Two years later, in 1994, they adopted then 3-year-old Dasha, who is mildly autistic, from Russia. Ben, now 7, followed a few years later.

The Foos children are fortunate to have two dwarf parents, said Joe, because mom and dad understand the challenges the kids face everyday. “Parents who have a dwarf child without having dwarfism themselves will never know what it’s like to be teased in school or chosen last on a team on the playground, or to have to spend 15 minutes using the restroom when everyone else is finished in a couple of minutes.”

Fortunately, LPA can teach average-sized parents what they need to know about raising a dwarf child, said Joe. And LPA connects new parents with those who have already been through the experience.

Yet in spite of the challenges growing up little, the Tri-Valley is a good place to raise dwarf children.

“People's responses to our situation vary based on educational and socioeconomic factors,” said Ginny. “How the public reacts to us here in Pleasanton is very different to how it is in the inner cities.”

Joe agrees. “In this country, and especially in the Bay Area, our kids have more doors open to them than I ever did. Part of that is because society is more accepting and the Bay Area is open-minded.”

Much of that open-mindedness comes with education, which is one reason Ginny enjoys substitute teaching. “In any given week I am in front of 300 kids, indirectly teaching them not to judge a book by its cover,” she said.

Sometimes, however, the education is more direct. “It’s okay to ask questions,” Ginny said. “We often see a child in a grocery store ask their mom ‘How come she's so short?’ Often the parent will yank the pointing arm nearly out of its socket, and run away hoping they won’t run into us ever again.”

Ginny encourages parents to use such moments to acknowledge that the little person does look different, but then point out how the person is the same as everyone else because he or she is shopping or going to school or walking downtown.

"The parent should then make eye contact with the little person,” Ginny said, “and see if the person has time to answer any questions.”

Over the years, Ginny and Joe have answered many questions: Can dwarf couples become the parents of average-size children? Is dwarfism a disability? Has the gene that causes dwarfism been discovered? What do dwarfs think about such films as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?”

For readers interested in answers, the Fooses recommend going online to LPA’s website at www.lpaonline.org

One question that often comes up is whether “midget” is an appropriate term for a dwarf: “Back in the days of vaudeville, midget was synonymous with clown,” said Ginny. “Today the term is considered derogatory since little people work in all segments of society, including as doctors, lawyers, sports announcers, teachers, business people—really in every walk of life.”











13-year-old Alex Foos showed me several magic tricks. Notice his t-shirt. The caption reads: "Annoying My Parents: Just one more service I provide."

Friday, April 14, 2006

One Little Girl's Pilgrimage

I wrote this column for the Herald for Thanksgiving 2005.

As we welcomed in the holidays with Thanksgiving last week, I was reminded of a story about a little Pleasanton girl.

Though her birth was healthy, neither her parents nor her doctor could know that something inside her would take the little girl on a pilgrimage toward death.

"It wasn’t until she was two that we had any indication anything was wrong," her mother said.

What was wrong was the girl had a leaky heart valve, a condition called mitral insufficiency that causes the heart to enlarge over time as it battles the leak with every beat.


But the weak valve was just one challenge the girl faced. The two-year-old was also diagnosed with a condition that made the circumference of her chest much smaller than that of other kids her age. Coupled with her enlarged heart, this left little room for her lungs.

To assist her breathing, a tank was brought into the home, and a clear plastic tube—long enough for the girl to play anywhere in the house—provided oxygen 24 hours a day.

"She got used to the tube," her father said. "Nothing got her down. She was always smiling and loved being funny."

For several months, even as doctors monitored the girl and deliberated over the timing of eventual heart surgery, the family was much like any other on the block. The girl and her six-year-old sister played with Barbies and made forts, and the family would laugh if a pea accidentally shot across the table during dinner.

But one day a specialist at Children’s Hospital in Oakland showed x-rays of the girl’s chest to her parents. Her bronchial tube was being crushed by her heart, and most of her lungs had become filled with fluid.

"We learned this just before flu season," her mother said, "and if she were to catch the flu, her lungs almost certainly could not have handled it."

So the decision was made.

The girl would undergo open-heart surgery in late October, the day after her third birthday.

The operation took many hours, and as the parents and grandparents began their wait by forming a prayer circle in the hospital waiting room, the surgeon unlocked the brave little girl’s heart and peered inside.

Then he went to work.

Today, the girl is ten and, though smaller than kids her age, is healthy. She is loved by her mother, Helen; her sister, Melissa; her stepmother, Pamela; and me, her father.

Yes, this story is about my daughter, Kelsey.

As we begin this holiday season, I want to share a poem I came across last week that reminded me of Kelsey’s pilgrimage. It’s a poem I wrote on Thanksgiving in 1998, one month after her surgery.

Thanksgiving Pilgrimage

This morning as I sipped early coffee
in the quiet rustle of newspaper
I studied a photo of elementary students
dressed like pilgrims.

Then, as I raked backyard leaves,
my three-year-old thumped
her hand at me against the pane,
blue eyes, smiling turkey teeth.

Last Thanksgiving,
we barely knew she was sick,
didn’t know she had begun to diminish,
her heart wishing to keep up with life.

But this morning, she thumped her hand solid
as a heart repaired to health,
a wonder inconceivable
at the first Thanksgiving in 1619.

Yet not unlike those pilgrims
we are humbled by survival,
and today I imagine her in grade-school,
a pilgrim,
tasting the miracle of pumpkin pie.
















Saturday, April 08, 2006

Remembering Hemingway


This interview appeared in the The Oakland Tribune, the Tri-Valley Herald, and other ANG newspapers in October 2005. Though I'd met Mr. Capestany a few times and heard that when he was a boy he'd met Hemingway, I had a chance to play several games of dominoes with him and hear his stories--which I encouraged him to tell--during a summer barbecue at his daughter's home in Pleasanton. (His daughter, Frances Hewitt, and my wife Pam used to work together.) About seven seconds after Mr. Capestany started talking about being a boy in Cuba, I knew I'd write about him, so I pulled out a pad and started taking notes.


On a summer day in 1946, 12-year-old Adolfo Capestany went fishing with his two brothers behind La Terraza, a restaurant built on a giant rock in Cojimar, Cuba.

“We didn’t have poles,” said Capestany, his accent as strong as the cigars he enjoys. “We had just cast our lines by hand when someone tapped me on the shoulder.”

Capestany said he looked up to find an American offering to share tips about fishing. The man spoke perfect Spanish, and, after chatting for a few minutes, pointed out his black and green fishing yacht, Pilar, anchored in the harbor.

“I didn’t know it at the time,” said Capestany, “and even when I learned his name a few days later, I didn’t really care, but the man was Ernest Hemingway.”

Capestany, who lives in Seattle and regularly visits his daughter and her husband in Pleasanton, said he and his brothers asked Hemingway if they could dive from Pilar since Cojimar’s beaches were too rocky for swimming. Hemingway agreed, and arranged for the captain of the yacht, Gregorio Fuentes, to row the boys to Pilar.

“My mother paid Gregorio 25 cents to row us out and another 25 cents to row us back,” Capestany said. “We visited Pilar probably 15 or 20 times over the course of two summers.”

Hemingway aficionados will recognize Gregorio Fuentes as the man often credited as the inspiration for Santiago of “The Old Man and The Sea.” The novella, written after most of Hemingway’s other novels, earned him the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature in 1954.

“Gregorio—we called him Goyo—never wore shoes and always smoked a cigar,” Capestany said. Fuentes would have been 49 in 1946, and, according to Capestany, always wore a straw hat. His face was weathered from years of exposure to the sun and sea, much like the old man in Hemingway’s story.

Capestany said Hemingway became a favorite among the locals, who called him Papa, adding that he often stayed overnight in an apartment in the back of La Terazza, rather than drive home when he had too much to drink.

The Capestanys knew Hemingway well enough to visit his home, La Finca Vigia, located in a small village just outside Havana. The home, which still exists, was purchased by Hemingway in 1940.

“We visited about three times,” said Capestany, who remembers the mounted heads of big game animals killed on safari in Africa.

On one visit, the boys walked into a bathroom with a scale. When they asked about numbers written on the wall, Hemingway said he recorded his weight every morning.

Capestany also remembers the kindness of Mary, Hemingway’s fourth (and final) wife. Hemingway and Mary had recently wed in 1946, the year Capestany met the author. The Hemingways made their home in Cuba until 1960 when political pressures caused them to move back to the United States.

Hemingway’s Cuban years came after he gained international recognition as an author. By then in his mid-40s, he had already published such works as The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls. His work ushered in the modern era in literature, and shapes even today what we consider good writing. Eliminating the flowery prose of the late nineteenth century, Hemingway wrote instead with a honed, journalistic style.

Along with his literature, Hemingway became and remains a cultural icon, the classic American author with a passion for world travel, women, bullfighting, big game hunting, and deep sea fishing. Adding to the Hemingway mystic are the tales of his drinking and bouts of depression, along with his suicide in 1961 when, like his father, he shot himself with a favorite gun.

For Adolfo Capestany, though, Hemingway was a man with kind eyes who cared about the children of Cojimar. A man who played marbles with the village boys, and who once secretly paid for the Capestany boys’ haircuts before their mother asked the barber what she owed.

“We looked over and saw him sitting, waiting for a haircut,” Capestany said, “and he gave us a friendly wave.”


Hemingway with fishermen in Cojimar





Playing dominoes with Cubans isn't for the faint of heart.




Friday, April 07, 2006

A Paris Roller Coaster 1977


Not long ago several friends and I were sharing memories of past vacations.

“I was 20 when I traveled to France on a summer exchange program,” I said. “That was the summer
I met two American girls and learned a tough lesson about romance.”

“Romance?” asked one friend.

“Oui,” I said.

In 1977 I joined a French family for a month as they vacationed on the Normandy coast. My travel plans called for a short stay in Paris before meeting up with my host family.

“And that’s when you met the girls?” asked another friend.

“Yep,” I said.

I was walking along the Champs-Elysees when I heard the clear and familiar sound of English. I turned to see two American women in their twenties, accompanied by an Asian fellow who was about 19 and dressed in a dark narrow tie and white shirt.

“You sound like Californians,” I said.

The women--Debbie and Ginny--were vacationing schoolteachers from California. The young gentleman, Peter, had met the teachers that morning on the hovercraft from England. He was a Chinese student studying at Oxford and spoke with an impeccable English accent.

“Do you know where we might find a hotel?” he asked.

We made arrangements at my hotel. Debbie and Ginny would have a room, and I offered to share mine with Peter.

Then we set out to explore Paris.

As afternoon turned to evening, I noticed that Debbie was a subtle blend of danger and the girl next door, the kind of girl you’ve been in love with since fifth grade but didn’t get it until just now.

As the four of us jammed into a taxi, Debbie settled in next to me. I asked the driver to take us to a nightclub.

On the way, with her perfume tugging at my lapel and the glamour of Paris all around us, I discovered we were holding hands.

“Is this for real?” asked a friend.

“It’s for real,” I said.

Within minutes of arriving at the nightclub, we were served a bottle of champagne. The waiter handed me a bill, expecting payment.

Imagine a dark club, loud music, and I’m looking at a bill for 1200 francs. This seemed like a lot of money, and was far more than the 700 francs I had in my pocket. I panicked, then asked Peter for the difference. He pulled out a fistful of bills and we paid the tab.

At the time, 1200 francs was only about $60 dollars, a fair price. But at the time it seemed like a lot of money, and to Peter, as I would learn, it seemed like robbery.

The next morning I awoke to find Peter asleep. I slipped out the door and went downstairs to Debbie and Ginny’s room.

As I knocked, they asked who was there, and when the door swung open, they said, “Thank goodness you’re alive!”

The girls told me that Peter had come to their door in the night and was convinced I was a con-artist in cahoots with the taxi driver and nightclub. The bill for 1200 francs, he said, was proof of my scheme to rob them. He insisted the three of them leave right away.

The girls tried to calm Peter down, and when he finally left their room, their imaginations flared and they feared for my life.

They then told me it would be best if Peter did not travel with them anymore. They asked me to break the news to him.

As I went upstairs, I wondered what I’d say to my would-be murderer, to this young man from China, in France, studying in England, being dismissed by me, an American.

He took the news quietly, and said little as we walked to the hotel door. “I’m off to Spain, then,” he said.

After breakfast, Debbie, Ginny and I resumed our tour of Paris. Ginny thought it was cute that Debbie and I had become, as she said, sweet on each other.

“But somehow you messed it up?” asked a friend.

“Yes,” I said. “I uttered one sentence that would snuff out my Paris romance.”

It happened at dusk as we took an escalator down into the Metro. Debbie stood beside me, and Ginny was one step in front of us. Our conversation turned to what women find attractive in men. Ginny said something about a good build or leather jackets, and I joined in to say what I found attractive in women were good fitting jeans, like the way Ginny’s jeans fit…

“You didn’t,” a friend said.

“I did,” I said.

Yes, in one thoughtless moment, I violated the most basic rule of courtship to never ever admit, acknowledge, or imply that you are the least bit attracted to another women. It doesn’t matter how astoundingly beautiful a woman may be, if a man is standing next to his girlfriend, he should just shut up.

Further, if a girlfriend points out that a beautiful woman is in the vicinity—and we all know this happens—a man is authorized to say only the following: “Oh, I didn’t notice.”

After my foolish remark the girls resumed talking as if everything were the same, but everything wasn’t the same.

In the taxi that evening on our way to dinner, Debbie listened as I apologized. She even placed her hand on mine.

But we both knew I had burst the bubble of romance.

During dinner, Debbie talked about The Velveteen Rabbit, a book she often read to her students. She talked about how important it is to be real, and how real love takes time.

As she spoke I realized I didn’t need forgiveness from Debbie; I needed to forgive myself so I could enjoy the remaining hours with my new friends.

The following morning, we said our goodbyes. As Debbie and Ginny boarded a train for Italy, I waved and smiled, then turned and set off for the Normandy coast.




Thursday, April 06, 2006

Grading an essay

From the stack I pull one more:
Chris’s.

He writes about an aircraft carrier, describes
a cliché sea and sky

I airlift my red pen
it hovers over phrases I wish I could change

I hesitate, add one comma
then stop pretending I can grade this essay

suddenly it’s 1968
I am twelve and listening to the Beatles
and Chris is fighting in Vietnam



By Jim Ott

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Quote from my 13-year-old:

but dad, you've negated the whole point of a blog by using proper english!

Irma Slage

This column was published in the Tri-Valley Herald in November 2005, and features one of the nicest and most caring women I've ever met. I first met Irma on my TV show some years ago when we discussed The Lovely Bones for our book club selection.

I took this photo at the Ripon Library. Irma is on the right, with Melinda Kopp, Ripon's branch librarian.


On a January day in 1977, Irma Slage was cleaning her upstairs bathroom when her friend and neighbor Rose was suddenly standing in front of her.

“I couldn’t understand why Rose was there,” Slage said. “Then she told me I needed to call Charlie, her husband.”

Slage, who at the time was in her late 20s, walked into her bedroom, picked up the phone and started to dial, but then hung up.

“I wondered how Rose could be standing next to me,” Slage said, adding that Rose told her again she needed to call Charlie. “I wondered if I was crazy.”

Two weeks later, she finally called Charlie, and learned that Rose had died from breast cancer the day Slage had been cleaning her bathroom.

“That day in 1977 was a turning point,” said Slage, author of Phases of Life After Death and a Livermore resident. “I finally realized that the voices I had been speaking with all my life were spirits. Until then, I’d thought everyone could hear voices in their minds.”

Slage initially told only her parents and husband. Her mother was accepting, but her father told her to keep it to herself. Her husband, Ted said “I believe you believe,” which Slage says was a nice way of saying “You’re losing it.”

Today Ted has no doubt that his wife can communicate with spirits, who are drawn to her to relay messages to family or friends. Over the years, he has often witnessed her recount details about a departed person she never met.

Rachel Smith of Oakdale and her sister Brenda Eardley of Ceres recently experienced just this when they spoke with Slage by phone in October.

“Our mother passed away in April 2003,” said Smith, who had read about Slage and hoped she might be able to make contact with their mother.

Smith said she and her sister revealed nothing about their mother to Slage and, in spite of being hopeful, were initially dubious. When Slage correctly relayed that Smith’s husband had a “near miss” in August 2003, Smith became less skeptical since her husband had, in fact, fallen asleep while driving and narrowly missed hitting two trees.

Similarly, Eardley said Slage relayed a familiar message from her mother. “She told me I needed to speak up for myself, to be more assertive. These were exactly the same words I’d been hearing from my mother my entire life.”

Both women found the “psychic reading” experience to be a pleasant encounter in which they learned that their mother has met a lot of people since passing and is looking out for her daughters. “Irma Slage is a caring and sweet soul,” Eardley said. “Speaking with her was a gratifying experience.”

Though Slage hopes her gift brings comfort to people who are both living and “on the other side,” news of her planned September appearance to speak at the county library in Ripon created controversy when Mayor Chuck Winn publicly contemplated making a motion to withdraw library funding if Slage was allowed to speak.

Winn had received several complaints from Christian conservatives who objected to the spiritual nature of the program.

Caught in the middle, Natalie Rencher, the newly-hired executive director of the Stockton-San Joaquin County Library system, canceled the talk two days before the event. One woman didn’t realize the program had been called off, and stood in front of the library passing out fliers that referred to the presentation as “demonic.”

The controversy prompted several residents to attend Ripon’s October 4 city council meeting. According to the city’s minutes of the meeting, one resident said “it is the strong Christian background that made Ripon what it is,” and suggested that the library “exercised poor judgment when they invited Slage to speak.”

Not all attendees agreed.

“One gentleman called for the resignation of the mayor,” said council member Mike Restuccia. “He even suggested we bring a few troops back from Iraq to protect people like him from people like the mayor.”

Eventually, after capturing brief national media attention in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and after many library patrons expressed disappointment that Slage’s talk had been cancelled, the library agreed to let Slage speak, but asked if she would not conduct any psychic readings as she normally does with such presentations.

She agreed, and the talk took place November 10, 2005.

“I’m thrilled to have Irma Slage here in Ripon,” said Melinda Kopp, branch librarian, as more than 145 people packed into the small library on Main Street. Kopp said she had never seen so many adult patrons for a single program in her years with the library.

As Slage stepped in front of the audience, she thanked everyone for their support of freedom of speech. “Looks like we made it,” she said, adding “Ripon rocks!” and pumping her fist in the air as the library erupted into applause.

During Slage’s presentation, she answered questions about her abilities. No, she doesn’t always see spirits, but can hear them. Yes, she provides counseling and does believe in rebirth. No, she can’t read people’s minds. Yes, she can often help find missing people, and works with several police agencies.

Many guests stayed to ask questions and to view photographs of Slage giving presentations where “orbs,” or circular images of spirits, were clearly visible.

Among the attendees was council member Restuccia, who came to show his support for free speech and to hear what Slage had to say.

“I wish she had done a few psychic readings,” he said. “Maybe we need to invite her back.”

For more about Slage and a schedule of her appearances, visit www.irmaslage.com.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Gabriel Paull

This is a column I wrote about a young man named Gabriel Paull. The column was published in March 2006 in the Tri-Valley Herald. Gabe is the soldier in the middle of this photo, and the casket you see is that of Ronald Reagan.


While most of us will never forget where we were on the morning of September 11, 2001, Gabriel Paull will never forget what he saw.

“I was stationed at Fort Myer, Virginia, and I saw a plane coming in very low near Reagan National Airport,” said Paull, 26.

Looking away for just a moment, Paull heard the impact of the airplane as it plunged into the Pentagon just across the street from his base.

“When I looked back, the sky was thick with smoke as black as midnight.”

Within several hours, he and fellow soldiers were assembled in their riot gear on the grass at the Pentagon, preparing to search for human remains.

“I’ve seen mass grave sites in Bosnia,” said Paull, his eyes deepening, “but this was the worst experience ever.”

Particularly disturbing was seeing personal items on the desks of victims, such as a card that read “Number 1 Dad,” Paull said.

Of the 125 who died in the attack, Paull isn’t sure how many bodies his team recovered, but he is certain he’ll never forget several specific encounters: “I saw a woman’s handprint on a wall covered with soot. The print slid down to where we found her in a stairwell, dead from smoke inhalation.”

He also recalled a man found sitting at his desk who died from heart failure when the plane smashed into the building.

Fortunately for Paull, who lives in Manteca and works as a realtor for Keller Williams in Livermore, most military memories are not so gruesome.

“I had a friend who was a Marine who couldn’t add one plus one,” Paull said, “but could play the piano beautifully.”

Paull discovered the Marine’s talent when they served together in 2004 on the prestigious Joint Armed Services Casket Team that accompanied and carried the body of Ronald Reagan from California to Washington D.C. and back to Simi Valley for burial.

“We were staying at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley,” Paull said, “and I remember waking up to find my team member playing a piano that had been a gift to Reagan.”

The casket team—which consisted of two servicemen from the Army, two from the Marines, two from the Navy, one from the Air Force, and one from the Coast Guard—was led by Paull, who, as a sergeant, called cadence at the former president’s funeral.

I was very proud to be part of history,” said Paull, who explained that Reagan’s death came when he and his team had succeeded in beating out 15 other teams to gain the assignment of participating in up to 36 funerals every day at Arlington National Cemetery.

“I’d been watching the movie Conan the Barbarian,” Paull said, “and when I took out the DVD, the image on the television was Ronald Reagan and 1911 to 2004. I knew we’d be getting a call to fly to California.”

Paull’s interest in military service began in 1997 when as a senior at Manteca’s East Union High School he signed up to join the Army. “I’d been a rebel in high school, then two weeks after graduation I was at Fort Benning getting yelled at,” he said, smiling. “I grew up real quick.”

After basic training, Paull was stationed at Fort Drum in upstate New York, 20 miles south of the Canadian border where night temperatures reached minus 61 degrees.

“Fifteen seconds of exposure meant frostbite,” said Paull, who said the soldiers kept warm by sleeping “three guys to a sleeping bag, and I was mad because I wasn’t the guy in the middle.”

After Fort Drum, Paull was sent to Bosnia in 1998 for six months. “We drove through a village whose houses had just been run over by tanks,” Paull said. “From our Humvee, I saw a lady kneeling, and then I saw a little hand from beneath rubble.”

Paull told the driver to stop and jumped from the Humvee, approaching the woman, though endangering himself and his fellow soldiers.

“A little boy was trapped under a collapsed cement wall,” said Paull, who pushed the wall back, injuring his back, but freeing the boy.

Some days later the boy’s mother, whom Paull had first seen kneeling, walked 20 miles to the base, hoping to meet the young soldier who had saved her son.

“She was searching through the crowd,” said Paull, who recognized the woman and stepped forward. “She thanked me over and over in her language and was crying, and gave me a ring and many kisses on the cheek.”

After Bosnia, Paull returned to the United States and took specialized courses to enhance his military skills, including air assault, close combat, and cold weather training where he got a mild case of frostbite on his toes and fingers.

Then came September 11, which led to classified assignments in both Afghanistan and Iraq, assignments Paull cannot speak about. “All I can say is that I was there,” he said.

Paull was honorably discharged in December 2004, opting to end his seven years of service to return home to care for his mother, who had become ill.

His first job back home was driving a forklift. After considering a position with the Department of Corrections, he settled on becoming a realtor.

Still, he misses serving his country, where at Dover Air Force Base he lifted and carried from cavernous C-130s the remains of soldiers killed in Iraq, and where in Washington D.C. he stood with aging veterans at the dedication of the World War II memorial, and where at Arlington he reverently buried those he calls “American heroes.”

Paull said his mother’s health is better, and that he still reads military manuals and goes to the gym every day. “In fact,” he said, “not a day goes by that I don’t think about going back in.”


Picture this...



With former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins








Monday, April 03, 2006

Newspaper columnist steps into blogosphere

Okay so I write a column in a newspaper called the Tri-Valley Herald and I have finally succumbed to the enchanting lure of all things possible via the blog. Why today? I was simply going to post a reply to a blog I was reading (by Sandra Kay, at http://www.shesayswithasmile.blogspot.com) and I had to create a user name and sign up before I could post the reply. Next thing I know I'm selecting a name for my blog and a URL.

So I chose "In A Word" as the blog title because that's the name of a literary TV show I host with Kathy Cordova. The show broadcasts to several cities in our region (visit www.tv30.org) and has been on the air about six years. While I was the original host and the show's creator, Kathy joined me after a few years and we have a wonderful time interviewing authors and conducting a book club and generally promoting all things literary. Since I came up with the title "In A Word" for the show, I figured why not call my blog by the same name. It seems to have staying power.

Blogosphere, here I come.

. . .

Jim Ott is the CEO of UNCLE Credit Union, a mid-sized credit union with 90 employees and five offices primarily serving the Tri-Valley region of San Francisco's East Bay Area. He also has taught English since 1996 at Las Positas College in Livermore, and has written for the Tri-Valley Herald since 1999. He served as Pleasanton's Poet Laureate from 2001-2003. He is a trustee with the Pleasanton Unified School District, the Chairman and a founding board member of the Las Positas College Foundation, a past Chairman of the Livermore Chamber of Commerce, a charter member of the Rotary Club of Pleasanton-North, and he has volunteered with many non-profit organizations. He has appeared on KQED FM radio and in the Wall Street Journal. His poetry has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle and small literary presses. He is married to Pamela Ott, Economic Development Director for the City of Pleasanton.