The examined life is worth living

Published early December 2009

Each Monday evening at Las Positas College, about 20 students file into their usual seats in my classroom. Their faces are diverse, but their love of learning is singular.

This semester we’ve read Hemingway, Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, and other well-known authors. A few weeks ago we finished up Hamlet, reading together and aloud key scenes from the play.

In addition to these great authors, I recently introduced my class to Socrates, the Greek philosopher famous for saying “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

We learned that Socrates was reportedly ugly, that his parents were not rich, and that he fought in the Peloponnesian War and saved the life of a fellow solider. We also learned that he never wrote down a single sentence describing his philosophy because his principles precluded him from expressing any one set of views.

In fact, if it weren’t for an ambitious student of Socrates named Plato, we’d likely have no record of Socrates’ perspectives, which included taking nothing for granted about life and using inductive reasoning to get to the heart of life’s greatest questions.

This form of reasoning dovetails with a technique known in academic circles as the Socratic method of inquiry in which we ask question after question to dig beneath our assumptions and attempt to arrive at answers about life.

After my short lecture in class about Socrates, I asked students to pull their desks into a circle to participate in a Socratic inquiry. Then I asked someone to volunteer a question worth exploring.

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“How about what is virtue?” asked Crystal, who plays for the college basketball team.
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“That’s a great question,” I said, asking her, “What do you think virtue is?”

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Crystal and other students offered synonyms such as honesty and always being truthful, and from there we debated whether human nature is inherently good or if we have to be taught such values.

And if we’re inherently good, one student asked, why do people say that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”? And is that statement always true?

Soon we were inquiring and offering ideas about why some members of otherwise successful families turn out to be black sheep—a term we had to define for one student whose first language is Korean.

“I thought sheep were sort of yellow,” he said to our amusement.

As I drove home after class, I was excited that more than 2,400 years after Socrates was sentenced to death in Athens for encouraging youth to question authority, we sat in a circle and pondered the same questions that he and his students wondered about centuries ago.

Class that evening was a reminder that we often take for granted our freedom to speak and think openly about any subject in this country. In Germany in the 1940s, even questioning Hitler’s leadership to a neighbor could be disastrous. In Iran in the 1970s, suggesting that the government was oppressive might result in arrest by the secret police force. And of course today in many countries free speech is restricted.

As I always share with my students, what makes the United States free and keeps us free is recognizing the responsibility we have as citizens to participate in the democratic process. And this means thinking objectively, staying informed about issues from a wide range of sources, and—like Socrates—asking questions and setting priorities about what matters in life.

A lucky knife, a drunken monkey, and other war stories

A shorter version of this column appeared in the Bay Area Newsgroup newspapers in August 2009. In the first photo below, taken in Vietnam, Sally Trautwein is on the left with Pam, her roommmate at the time

HERE'S A STORY about a lucky pocket knife, a drunken monkey and how war can change you forever.

When Livermore's Sally Trautwein graduated from college in 1962, she went to work for the American Red Cross at an evacuation hospital in South Korea. Her experience was similar to the movie "MASH," she said, "without the war part."

Although Trautwein avoided war in both Korea and in her next assignment in Japan, she was about to encounter the perils of war in Vietnam when she was asked to help set up a Red Cross program in a new field hospital.

"It was early in the war, and I was young and fearless," she said. "I agreed to go."

Trautwein recalls taking a cab to retrieve mail in Saigon. "I was daydreaming," she said, "when I suddenly noticed we were headed away from Saigon toward the Cholon district."

Remembering that a week earlier an American had been kidnapped and held for ransom in the district, Trautwein asked the driver to turn around. He refused and started driving faster. Realizing she was being kidnapped, Trautwein pulled out a pocket knife a sergeant had given her in Japan. Still, the driver ignored her, even as she held the knife to his throat.

"In that moment, I had an epiphany," she said. "I was capable of doing bodily harm to another human being if my life were threatened. I nicked his neck."

At the sight of his blood, the driver slammed on the brakes. Trautwein jumped out and "ran like the wind."

Another brush with death came in the backyard of the villa where she lived with nurses and doctors next to the hospital. Helicopter pilots lived next door, and because the pilots were at risk of attack, an armed American sentry always stood watch.

Trautwein acquired a pet spider monkey that was an alcoholic.

"If we had evening cocktails, the monkey would grab our glasses and finish off our drinks," she said. "It didn't take long for him to get drunk."

One night after the monkey passed out, Trautwein carried him out back to put him to bed in his banana tree. Wearing a very visible white blouse, she heard the sentry yell, "Halt!" She also heard him cock his rifle.

"Instinctively, I ran and dove through the screen door and across the tile floor," she said. Sure enough, he fired, just missing Trautwein and putting a bullet in the building.

"These young kids were scared to death and would shoot before finding out who was there," she said. "We saw many soldiers wounded or killed by friendly fire."

Trautwein nearly encountered death a third time in Vietnam when traveling on a helicopter, which she took a picture of (see below). Here is the story in her own words:

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"The third incident came when the commanding officer of the hospital where I was working came to me and said I'd been working too hard and he had arranged for me to have a weekend in Dalat, which was a former French resort in the mountains.

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The commanding officer told me to go to the airport where a plane would take me to the Dalat.

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The plane turned out to be Air America, the CIA airline. The two bush pilots were drinking out of paper cups and it wasn't coffee. These guys took incredible risks and were all crazy. We took off, stopping once to land on a dirt runway where we picked up fleeing Vietnamese peasants with chickens in tow.

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After a nice weekend in Dalat, I hitched a ride back with a helicopter pilot I knew from the group who lived behind us. He had a reputation as the worse pilot around. It was me, the pilot, the flight surgeon who had never flown before, an old seargent and some kid with a machine gun. .

I sat in the back on a wooden box with ear phones on. It was a cloudy, damp day. We weren't in the air more than 45 minutes when over the phones I heard a jet pilot screaming obscenities and announcing that we were in the middle of his mission. Down on the ground were some Viet Cong troops he was trying to drop napalm on. Of course the people on the ground couldn't touch the jet with anti-aircraft fire because it was too high up. But we were at just the right altitude. .

The Viet Cong started firing. I heard a shot ping on the under belly of the chopper. .

'What am I sitting on?' I asked the seargent. .

'The ammunition, Ma'am' -- he replied. .

Oh great, I thought, my butt is going to be blown to Tokyo! We managed to make it back in one piece, but I asked the commanding officer to never again send me on a vacation!
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There were lots of frightening moments. The Viet Cong were always bombing restaurants that the Americans frequented. To this day I still don't like sitting with my back to a door. Little old ladies with Viet Cong sympathies would walk up and hand you a loaf of bread with a hand grenande in it. After all these years, I still don't like loud noices. I still occasionally have a flash back, although not nearly as often as when I first came back. The night we invaded Iraq I wanted to put a pillow over my head. "
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Trautwein, who today makes her living as a real estate agent in Livermore, says her experience in Vietnam changed her.

"I don't take things for granted," she said. "When I was there I promised that if I survived, I would give back to others and appreciate every day of freedom I have."

In fact, Trautwein has given back, having served 10 years on a school board and now as a volunteer with Wardrobe for Opportunity and Operation Dignity.

Today's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan bring back memories.

"I still remember all those young boys whose hands I held, whose brows I wiped," she said. "I still pray that it won't be necessary to send any more."

Student writers learn to tell the truth

This column was published in the Tri-Valley Herald and Valley Times in February 2009


Although I’ve enjoyed a long career in banking, I’ve also been teaching English in the evening at Las Positas College since 1997. Teaching allows me to share with young people the importance of good writing in one’s career and in the workplace.


But teaching also provides a chance for me to foster an appreciation for all types of writing, including journalism, poetry, and fiction.


One of my favorite assignments is when my students read a personal essay whose narrator, I tell them, is a young woman who was a student in my class some years ago. The narrator, Celia, was born in 1969 in Vietnam to a Vietnamese mother and an American father.


Celia’s story is compelling. She begins with her memory of “two things about Vietnam, two sounds actually.” The first sound is the upright piano in a bar in Saigon where her mother worked. The second sound is the beating of helicopter blades, “an overpowering sound of fear and salvation,” she writes.

Celia writes in the first person, and we soon discover she is writing not to us as readers, but to the father she never knew. She writes that when she watches movies about Vietnam, she imagines catching a glimpse of her father “in the sunglasses, laughing. There you are.”

The essay explores both the emptiness a young girl can feel growing up when she doesn’t know her father, and the issue of mixed race and identity. She asks, “Am I an American here? Am I Vietnamese? These are not easy questions.”

At one point she expresses what it’s like to inherit the eyes of her father, but the features of her mother. She sees herself as “beautiful, perhaps, sort of Asian. I'm a little white, but not enough. The mind loops and repeats and seeks to make me Caucasian or Asian, like a slide projector automatically adjusting and re-adjusting to bring into focus a multi-dimensional image.”

In another passage, we find Celia looking into a mirror to “respectfully subtract my mother, piece by piece, distilling my face down to what is only white, only you, so that I can picture you.”


As we read, we encounter the horrors of the Vietnam War and realize through subtle language that Celia’s mother, who at 16 fled her village after her parents’ death, became a prostitute in Saigon in the final years of the war. Celia came along before her mother started using contraceptives.

We encounter as well Celia’s realization that in spite of years of a mother’s reassurance, it is unlikely her mother ever knew the “handsome and considerate” young man who was Celia’s father.

“All my life you have been just on the edge of my world,” she writes, “in the shadow of the yard in the snapshot where I ride my first bicycle, just beyond the tree at Christmas where you’ve thrown torn and crumpled paper to make room for new toys.”

I ask my students to write a few paragraphs in response to the essay, to share their feelings about Celia and any parallels or differences to their own lives, as well as what we might learn about writing from the well-crafted prose.

Invariably, the students are moved by the narrator’s story. And when I finally tell them that I am the author of the essay, they are stunned.

Yes, the story about Celia is fiction. Her father? Well, he’s me. After all, as I tell my students, I gave her life.

Why the charade? Because Celia’s story illustrates more powerfully than hours of lecture that as writers we have the privilege and duty to tell the truth about life. The joy of being a writer means we are not limited to the confines of our own tiny lives. In fact, we’re not doing our job unless we explore and portray the collective experience of what it means to be human.

This is what bestselling author Tim O’Brien talks about in The Things They Carried, his 1990 masterpiece about serving as a soldier in Vietnam. He writes that “story-truth is sometimes truer than happening-truth.”

Good fiction is about telling that truth, and as my students learn through the words of Celia, our own circumstances as writers should never get in the way of that mission.

One boy's miracle

This column was published in the Tri-Valley Herald and the Valley Times in early August, 2009.

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Danville’s Jacque Blair calls it both a tragedy and a miracle.
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Seated in a waiting area overlooking a lush patio garden at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, Blair and her husband, Rick, described the series of incidents surrounding the failing heart of their 14-year-old son, Nolan.

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“He first had difficulty breathing and an elevated heart rate in late May,” Jacque said. “He’d never shown any signs of heart trouble, but tests showed he had an enlarged heart and an abnormal rhythm.” By mid-June, Nolan’s heart rate was over 100 beats per minute.

First treated at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, Nolan was transferred to Stanford on July 11 after 19 days of medication failed to resolve the issues.

“His heart continued to struggle,” Rick said, “and he couldn’t keep down any food or liquids.” Complicating matters, Nolan’s kidneys and liver showed signs of inadequate blood flow.

So on July 13, surgeons at Stanford operated and decided to implant a temporary left ventricle device to help Nolan’s heart pump blood.

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Awaking the next day, the teenager was unable to talk due to a breathing tube inserted down his throat, so he used a small white board to write out questions about the surgery. When he learned the ventricle device was temporary and that he would need a heart transplant, his eyes grew big.

“Will it be a real heart?” he wrote. Yes, his father answered. A human heart.

“From who?” Nolan asked.

As Rick told his son that the donor would probably be someone about his age and blood type, and would be someone who had just died, a tear formed in Nolan’s eye as he realized he would never be able to thank the donor.

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About a week later, on July 24, the Blair family learned that a donor heart had just become available.
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“The doctors said it was a good match,” said Jacque. “Unfortunately, Nolan had a fever during the night and had developed antibodies to heparin,” a medicine that reduces the chance of blood clots after surgery.

The doctors weighed the high risks and decided to go ahead and prepare for the transplant while the heart was in transit. Then, as if the risks weren’t already high enough, the surgeons discovered that the left ventricle device had become infected with staphylococcus.

“They immediately packed the area with antibiotics,” Rick said. The donor heart arrived around 6:30 in the evening.

By 12:30 a.m. on July 25, Nolan’s new heart was in place and pumping. Within a few days, the teen was eating ice cream and taking his first tentative steps up and down the hall.

Doctors have since told the Blairs that if the donor heart had not become available that day, the growing staph infection within Nolan’s heart would have precluded him from ever getting a heart transplant and a second chance at life.

“The timing was amazing. We don’t know the tragedy that occurred to make this donor heart available,” said Jacque. “But we celebrate the life of the donor and the miracle of life this heart brings.”

To create similar miracles in case of tragedy, readers are encouraged to sign up to donate organs at www.donatelifecalifornia.org or by calling 866-797-2366.

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Half Dome offers life...and death

This shorter version of this column appeared in the Tri-Valley Herald in June 2009

One week before Manoj Kumar ascended Yosemite’s Half Dome, my 17-year-old daughter grasped the same cables from which the San Ramon resident slipped and fell to his death.
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“I can see how easily a person could fall,” said Melissa Ott. “I would’ve been too scared to climb if this accident happened before our hike.”
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Even before last month’s tragic news, my daughter experienced dread as she began to scale the steep incline of slippery granite. I know this because her stepmom and I were with her. We saw her tears on that foggy June afternoon.
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Each year thousands of hikers make the 17-mile round trip hike to the top of Half Dome. I’ve made the trip four times, including as a teen when, prompted by a youthful drive for accomplishment, I ran the distance, climbed the cables, stood atop the summit long enough to take in the view, then scrambled down to run back to Curry Village to my parents.
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For my daughter, this was her first trip. In spite of the fatal accident, I'm hopeful it’s not her last since she gained much from the experience. In fact, she’s written about the hike in her blog.
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Here she describes the thunderous Vernal Falls encountered along the route to Half Dome:

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The falls reminded me of something Siddhartha realizes in Hesse’s novel: that water continually moves, but is continually there. That it is transient and always changing, but constantly filling the space. That we are always changing, never the same, always becoming something else, both physically and mentally. It was nice to have an enormous model of the concept right in front of me.
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Later, she writes about the daunting final approach to the summit and innocently foreshadows the tragic death that will happen only seven days later:

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That image of the people on the side of the mountain, the open spaces beside the rock where the ground drops out and you’d die a terribly wind-swept death is forever seared into my memory.
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I’ll never forget her bravery as we clung to the cables, pulling ourselves one step at a time up the boards attached to the poles that hold the cables. Though her fear and the difficulty of the climb tempted her to turn back, she also knew “if I wanted to be able to say I’d made it to the top of Half Dome, I’d have to become one of those climbing up the mountain for no reason other than bragging rights and a view.”

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As Melissa reached the top, her achievement was, I believe, why Manoj Kumar climbed to the summit that day. Her words reflect what he experienced upon reaching the top--what all hikers experience up there.

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For both Melissa and Kumar, achievements such as climbing Half-Dome have real value and real meaning. Such experiences give us life.

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Or do they?

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Kumar lost his life pursuing an experience that only comes when we are willing to face our fears and achieve what many people will never try. Yes, his death is tragic and very sad. I feel most sad for his family.

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But it's also true that as a frequent hiker who went out with his friends on many occasions, he was doing what he loved.

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Those of us who made it to the top that day will never forget our triumph. And in that accomplishment, we honor the life and memory of fellow hiker Manoj Kumar.

A favorite picture on Father's Day

A shorter version of this column appeared in the Tri-Valley Herald and Valley Times just after Father's Day in June 2009.

FOR FATHER'S DAY, I pulled out a favorite black-and-white photograph of my dad giving me a haircut when I was 6 years old. I was curious what I might see through the eyes of a son who recently said goodbye to his father forever.

In the picture, taken by my mom in 1962, I'm looking straight into the lens as my dad, Bill, stands behind me, guiding electric clippers above my right ear.

Old photos are like magic, a way to keep the past present. So peering at the picture, I searched for some kind of message about my father.

And, in fact, I did discover something. But first let me tell you about my dad.

Born in 1930, he spent his early years in Buffalo, New York, where his father worked in a steel mill. His mother died when he was 3, though he didn't find this out until he was 12 or 13 when his father divorced a woman who my dad thought all those years was his mother.

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Not long after my grandfather and his two sons moved to Venice, Calif., my dad, then 15, met a pretty 12-year-old at school named Janet. In time they fell in love and were married the night she graduated from high school.

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Billy and his twin brother Bobby enlisted in the Air Force. While my uncle stayed on in the service, my dad became the first in our family to go to college, earning a master's degree. He became an English and history teacher and later a guidance counselor at a community college.

Fast forward through raising three children, touching the lives of thousands of students, seeing the birth of grandchildren and enjoying retirement.

And then one day he didn't feel quite right, and before we knew it, despite intervention and surgery, melanoma reached its fingers deep into my father's body.

On his final day, he waited for me to drive home to Los Gatos. I'd gotten a call that morning from my mom, her voice upbeat, leaving a message on my cell, saying something I don't remember now about my Dad, but something that let me know I needed to come home. This is a gift my parents have, an ability see and express the positive in all things. And given my dad's rough upbringing, it's amazing he didn't view life from a perspective of at least some bitterness.

My brother and sister were already home with our mom when I arrived. My dad's eldest granddaughter was also there, and in fact just a few days earlier all of his grandchilden had come from many miles to gather for a birthday party and to say what we silently knew were final goodbyes. On that day he lay on a hospital bed in my parent's bedroom. He perked up once or twice and smiled a little, and said a few words. But only a faint few.

Now my dad's breathing was labored. His eyes were half-closed, his jaw relaxed. He wasn't asleep, but he wasn't awake.

I sat alone beside his bed and thanked him for being a great dad and for all he'd done for us. And I said to him what he'd said to me so often over the years: "I love you."

Then I stepped away for just a moment, and alone in his room, in a move that would have impressed Houdini, he escaped the vicious grip of cancer.

What I discovered in the photo is the magic that comes from saying what needs to be said to those we love. And so instead of a black and white grief, I experienced peace. Instead of regret, I found strength.

Sure, I'm sad my dad is gone. I miss him. I wish I could call him up right now and say Happy Father's Day. I know he'd respond with a light laugh and a good word.

Yet even now I can hear his voice, and as the photo reveals, he's standing behind me, helping me to look and be my best.

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When doubts linger

This column appeared in the Tri-Valley Herald on May 26, 2009.

When Kevin Kojimi was a baby and breastfeeding, he never looked into his mother’s eyes.

“Even as a new mom, I knew something was wrong,” said Pleasanton’s Julie Kojimi. “When I lowered him into the bathtub, his back would arch so much his toes would almost touch his head in fear.”

Though several healthcare professionals reassured Kojimi and her husband that their boy was healthy, doubts lingered.

When her son turned two, Kojimi asked the guests to whisper the Happy Birthday song to Kevin, but even the whispers were too loud for him.

“Every instinct in my body said something wasn’t right,” Kojimi said.

Then, soon after turning two, Kevin was diagnosed with autism.

Kojimi went into “research mode” to explore every option to help her son, and discovered Happy Talkers and the School of Imagination.

“They taught Kevin there was a cause and effect to language,” said Kojimi, something many children with autism don’t intuitively understand. “The individual attention provided by the school far exceeds the services of your typical preschool,” she said.

Today, Kevin is 8 and has mainstreamed into the Pleasanton school district. His mom has a message for parents who wonder if their children are suffering from a developmental disability: trust your instinct and seek assistance from experts.

In fact, on Saturday, May 30, the School of Imagination and Child Care Links are bringing together over 50 specialists in child development, pediatrics, speech pathology, occupational therapy, audiology and psychology to offer free screening, assistance, and immediate referrals to agencies to any Bay Area parents who are concerned that their children may be suffering from autism or similar disabilities.

Called the “Happy Talkers Community Outreach Fair,” the event is the most comprehensive workshop in the history of the Bay Area addressing developmental delay and autism early intervention.

Founded in 2000 by Charlene and Mitch Sigman, Happy Talkers has served more than 3,000 children with speech delays, developmental disabilities and autism. The program provides individualized or classroom speech and occupational therapies for any student.

Charlene Sigman notes that studies by the Centers for Disease Control show autism is detectable in one out of 150 children, yet many children are not diagnosed and opportunities for early intervention are often missed. In California alone, the number of children diagnosed with autism has increased by 400 percent since 1994.

According to Sigman, early screening and diagnosis for children between 18 months and three years are critical because intervention therapies during this brief window of time can help kids achieve key developmental milestones.

“The diagnosis is the beginning,” said Kojimi. “Early intervention opens up all kinds of possibilities for the future.”

The free screenings offered on May 30 will take place between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 7625 Ridgeline Drive at the Schaefer Ranch Model Homes in Dublin, near the future site of the School of Imagination.

To register or learn more about this event, call (877) 543-7852 or visit www.schoolofimagination.org/outreach.

Lessons on the Lam

This column was published in the Tri-Valley Herald and Valley Times in March 2009.

When David Lair was 16, he felt angry and misunderstood. So he ran away from home.

“I started from my house one evening in San Ramon on a bike with a flat tire,” said Lair, who is now 21 and smiled as he reminisced about the almost amusing mishaps of his three-day adventure.

Lair rode toward Pleasanton, though he didn't really know what direction he was riding. When he arrived in Dublin after 10 p.m, Lair spotted a bus and decided this would make for an easier getaway, so he rode hard to try to catch it.

“It drove off and didn’t think twice about stopping for me,” he said.

When another bus finally came along, Lair hitched a ride to Livermore, but only because the driver took pity on the boy since the bus was going out of service.

Soon a tired and hungry Lair was sitting at the corner of Jack London and Kitty Hawk in Livermore. He called his ex-girlfriend to come get him. As he waited, two friendly fellows about 19 years old came along.

They robbed him at knifepoint.

“I pulled out the $8 and odd cents I had, and proved I had nothing more by emptying my pockets,” he said.

The robbers walked away with Lair’s money and his cell phone to deter a call to the police.

Soon Lair’s ex-girlfriend (we’ll call her Betsy) picked up the boy in her dad’s Mercedes, which she took without her dad’s knowledge. “She was technically my ex-girlfriend at that moment, but she would become my girlfriend in a few days,” Lair said.

When the two got to Betsy’s house, she snuck him into her room where they looked at pictures and talked about old times. In the morning, as Lair hid in the attic, his mother called to ask if the family had seen her son.

“Betsy covered for me,” he said, “and her sister also helped my escape.”

Betsy’s sister told Lair about a garage in Livermore that housed an old car with a dead engine where he could sleep for a few days until he determined the next leg of his journey.

"My knowledge of Livermore was almost non-existent,” Lair said, “so I ended up walking for three hours in the blazing sun before I reached my destination.”

Lair slept successfully that night in the car, but woke up starving and still without money. In lieu of food, he accepted a cigarette from a friend of Betsy’s sister who knew Lair was in the garage.
An infrequent smoker, the 16-year-old Lair passed out after a few puffs and cut the top of his head as he fell to the ground.

“I must have tried to get up because on the way down for the second time, I cut open my eyebrow,” he said.

Eventually, Lair was given $20 for food, which he purchased at a gas station where he met a man of Asian decent who spoke in broken English. The man noted Lair’s condition, shared a story about being beaten up once, and offered the boy a bandaid.

Lair’s adventure then took him to a school where he blended in with students and hung out with a friend. He also made a call and managed to get back together with Betsy.

After three days, Lair had enough. He called home. “My mother picked me up within 30 minutes,” he said.

Today, Lair is content with his life and is nothing like the confused and aimless boy he was back then. “It seems we all go through rebellious periods in our adolescent life,” he said. “That experience taught me several lessons and helped shape the person I am today.”

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Pet the Goat and other cycling adventures

This column was published in the Tri-Valley Herald on April 28, 2009 and a few days later in the Valley Times.

Somewhere ahead of me a couple Saturdays ago, my cycling buddy Bryan Gillette was pedaling his bicycle toward the summit of Mt. Hamilton in 90 degree weather.
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I had dropped back.

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I knew he would finish the 206 mile Devil Mountain Double, but the question was, would I?
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I had an excuse for not keeping up. Two weeks earlier I’d run 50 miles mostly uphill along the American River from Sacramento to Auburn. My legs hadn’t fully recovered, I told myself, and the heat wasn’t helping.

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As I pedaled in pursuit of my friend and a distant finish line that would somehow accomplish something, I wondered how it is I manage to sign up for these ultra endurance events.

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After all, I'm an old guy at 52.

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And yet I’ve been running marathons for decades and going on long bikes rides since I was in high school. There’s something I enjoy in the physical and mental challenge, the often stunning views along marathon and bike routes, the absence of phones and email, the joy of having just one goal instead of the day-to-day multitasking that is my life.

Bryan Gillette (left) with me at the Mines Road aid station, approx 90 miles into the ride. Shortly after this rest stop, Bryan pulled ahead of me and I never caught up to him. Byan is an amazing cyclist, and on the day of this ride, he was feeling symptoms similar to the flu.

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Speaking of physical challenges, the Devil Mountain Double includes 20,000 feet of elevation gain. Approximately 200 riders from as far away as England signed up for this annual event that took place on April 18. The route starts in San Ramon and makes a giant circle, going up and over Mt. Diablo, over Morgan Territory Road, out to Tracy, back up Patterson Pass, out Tesla Road in Livermore to Mines Road, up to the top of Mt. Hamilton, down into San Jose and then back up into the foothills via Sierra Road, down Calaveras Road to Sunol, out Niles Canyon and up and over Palomares to Crow Canyon and Norris Canyon, and then to the finish at the San Ramon Marriott.

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Yes, it’s a long way to ride a bike in one day.

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The first place finisher, in 12 hours and 12 minutes, was Kevin Metcalf of Pleasant Hill.

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Along the route, Bryan and I were joined by fellow cyclists Steve and Jan Sherman and Jerry Pentin, who came out to ride with us for portions of the ride. Their moral support and companionship were invaluable, as was the support provided by more than 80 volunteers.

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As I rode, often alone for hour upon hour and mile after mile, I made mental notes of the various creatures I encountered. I knew I’d be spending the following day with my two teenaged daughters, and I wanted to recount for my 13-year-old the many animals I came upon.

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These included lizards, a snake, a bull in the road, horses, deer, birds, sheep, dogs, and cats.

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And then there was the goat. Our route maps showed a rest stop at mile 160 called “Pet the Goat.” I was never sure during the ride if the stop actually included a goat, let alone whether I would get to pet it.

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As I made my way up Sierra Road, as evening turned to night, I pulled into the rest stop, greeted by volunteers and a hot cup of cocoa. And there he was: the goat.

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“Welcome,” said a volunteer. “Congratulations on getting this far. You may pet the goat.”

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So I did. I petted the goat, took its picture, thanked the volunteers, mentioned that I was almost certain I wouldn’t finish the whole ride, and set off into the chilly darkness.

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Five miles later at 10 p.m., at the top of what we cyclists call the “wall” on Calaveras Road, the most wonderful woman in the world pulled up alongside me in her black Honda Pilot.

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As I climbed into the warm embrace of my wife’s car, I learned that Bryan was certain to finish the entire 206 miles, which he did 47 minutes later.

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For me, 17 hours and 165 miles in one day was enough.
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Then again, maybe next year I’ll make it the whole way.

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To learn more about the Devil Mountain Double, visit http://www.quackcyclists.com/.

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American River 50

The American River 50 Mile Endurance Run on April 4, 2009 took place under awesome skies and perfect weather. Vistas of the river were spectacular. I joined 600 + runners at 6 a.m. in the dark to participate for the second time in this ultramarathon. Last year I finished in 10:39. My goal this year was to beat that time. (My secret goal was to break 10 hours.) But there was one problem: I didn't train anywhere near as much leading up to the race this year. On the other hand, last year I ran the first half with my wife Pam, and we went out very cautiously since we didn't know what to expect.

My initial miles clicked by easily and at mile 18 I was feeling great. By the 26.2 mile mark--the marathon--I was on my way to beating last year's finish time. My marathon split was 4:38, compared to last year's 5:10. I was destined, or so it seemed, to beat my time last year. But remember, I didn't have the endurance miles in my legs this year, and I wasn't sure what was in store in the second half.

Beals Point at 26.77 miles is where last year I ran on ahead of Pam. This year, she met me there and became my pacer to run the second half with me. Pacers are allowed after Beals, and can even take aid at the stations. The second half of the course leaves the paved bike path and heads into rocky trail terrain. So most runners, me included, run the second half slower than the first. Since my split at Beals was 4:45, I figured I had a shot at just under 10 hours if I slowed down only 15 minutes.

As the miles came and went, we both charged the flats, powerwalked with gusto the uphills, passed a lot of people. I continued to take S-caps, eat potatoes dipped in salt, drink coke in the cups at the aid stations, eat handfuls of cheese-its, a few scoops of M&Ms, and drink broth from time to time. I carried one bottle, initially filled with water, then filled with GU20 which they had at the aid stations.

At one point crossing a stream, Pam took a spill and thought she'd sprained her wrist. She got half wet and bruised her hip. Yet she got up and charged on.

In the final 6 miles I started to fade. I really wish I had my secret weapon at that point: an Odwalla. Gels and GU20 weren't doing it, and I was feeling a little queasy. I found myself walking more, even on some flats. My hips and legs felt good (except my left knee), but I was just running out of energy. Soon I realized I wasn't going to break 10 hours.

At mile 47, I paused for a photo. By this point we had embarked on the very steep final hills. These are "in your face" and "kick your butt" miles that are relentlessly uphill. The pay off, though, is the sound of the finish line.

As I neared that final line, I thought about the depths of my own determination I had tapped during this race. I remembered, like last year, that endurance sports are as much about going deep as they are about going long.

As I crossed the line, the clock read 10:14 -- 25 minutes faster than last year.

Thanks to Pam for her support. She was a great pacer and ran an awesome 24 miles herself !

Next endurance event...the Double Mountain Devil on April 18 (206 miles on a bicycle with my buddy Bryan Gillette!)

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An immigrant speaks

When Bosnian-born Izudin Huskic turned three, he watched his father disappear due to his county’s war. Then, at age 11, he woke up one morning to a face he barely remembered.

“My dad was alive,” Huskic said. “We packed and headed to the airport because my dad was taking our family to the United States of America, the land of the free.”

Huskic, who today is 19 and works as a project assistant for a civil engineering firm in Danville, reflected on his years growing up as a child who quickly learned English while his parents and older siblings grappled with America’s odd customs and foreign language.

“Adult immigrants use their children as translators,” Huskic said. “These children have many responsibilities, which can cause missed days at school and soccer games, and a missed childhood.”

Yet Huskic believes that while some immigrant kids aren’t as educated as the rest of American children, immigrant youth are more likely to succeed in life since they are given many responsibilities at a young age.

As an example, Huskic recalls going with his father to Bank of America in Oakland to open an account.

“I was twelve and had to translate the conversation in my broken English between my father and the manager of the bank,” he said. “My dad stood there as if he were deaf until I spoke in our native language.”

As the banking conversation continued, Huskic realized that he was able to understand and translate perfectly what the two men were saying to each other. Being forced that day to speak English built his confidence.

“As soon as I learned English, I started to read all the mail, pay the bills, and accompany my parents everywhere they went,” he said, adding that even when his family watched a movie he had to translate what was going on.

“In other words, I was, and still am, the mouth of the family,” Huskic said.
While Huskic currently still lives with his parents, he’s confident some day he’ll be able to move out on his own, though English is still a struggle for his parents. His father works in construction, and his mother works graveyard for FedEx.

“During the past few years I’ve given my cell phone number to banks and other firms so calls to my parents come to my phone,” he said. “Also, bills are paid every two weeks so I’m not obligated to be home all the time.”

Huskic acknowledges it often seems unfair that he’s had to take on responsibilities while other kids are free to play ball at the park. He also notes that being an immigrant child can mean years of embarrassment and putting up with the laughter of other children.

And yet Huskic chooses to focus on the positive side of what he’s had to endure these past eight years since coming to America: “I am proud to say I have learned the American way,” he said. “I now consider myself as a Bosnian-American with a bright future and a better knowledge of life than an average 19-year old.”

Danville teen stands up to odds

This column appeared in the Tri-Valley Herald in February 2009.

Six years ago, at age 13, Tiffany Breger of Danville called her mom to come pick her up from the gymnastics class she loved so much.

“I wasn't feeling well and we didn't think anything of it,” she said, “but I never returned to gymnastics.”

Breger, who recently received the Sandia National Lab / Las Positas College Student of the Year award, said her doctors were unable to diagnose her ailment, and even a series of specialists couldn’t explain the chronic pain she was feeling.

“The first year, I was completely bedridden,” she said, “and I lost the ability to walk.”

Though Breger was homeschooled, the simple acts of reading, writing, and doing math required more stamina than her body could handle. Eventually, her doctors excused her from school permanently.

“Many times people wish to be free of work and responsibilities,” she said. “But it’s a scary feeling to have no expectations of you, no belief in any potential you have, and no hope for your future.”

Homebound for three years and feeling she’d lost everything that defined who she was, Breger saw life slipping away. So at 16 years old, she made the decision to get her life back. She entered therapy at Children’s Hospital in Oakland where she painfully and slowly regained her ability to walk.

She even became determined to earn the equivalent of a high school diploma.
“I started to re-teach myself math,” she said. “Every day I’d try to read a bit of a chapter and do some problems.”

Though the effort resulted in exhaustion, pain, and fever, Breger was persistent. She steadily built up her endurance. “Much to my surprise, I passed the high school proficiency exam in October 2005,” she said.

She didn’t stop there. Breger began interviewing primary care physicians and took charge of her case, writing down her medical history and making a list of all medications, test results, and the symptoms she’d experienced over the years. “I went in telling my doctors what I felt I needed and what steps I wanted taken.” In time, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

Then in the spring 2006, Breger signed up to take just one class at Chabot College. She wished she could take more units, but she hadn’t been in a classroom setting in years and wasn’t sure how much she could handle.

Then, after looking longingly through the college catalogue, she took a leap of faith.
“I took a full 12 units,” she said, asking for no special accommodations. “I wanted to feel normal. I wanted to know that I could keep up with everyone else.” Sure enough, Breger earned all A’s.

Soon, at the request of a fellow classmate, she joined a new environmental club being formed on campus. Though she didn't think she had the confidence to fulfill the duties, she even took on the role of secretary. “I shocked myself,” she said, referring to how she designed the club website and promotional materials, created a mailing list, and chaired events.

As Breger’s health and confidence grew, she also took classes at Las Positas College, joined the Alpha Gamma Sigma Honor society, and got involved in student government, eventually becoming student body president. She joined other associations and even volunteered in the same unit at Children’s Hospital where she had been a patient.

In fact, Breger’s brown eyes shine when she recounts an experience during a physical therapy session with a 9-year-old patient. The girl was refusing to cooperate, and wouldn’t participate in simple standing exercises.

“Her therapist couldn’t get her to listen.” Breger said. “So I told her what I went through, how frustrating it was, but how the hard work does pay off.”

At first the girl didn't respond. Then she pulled herself up on her own, and she stood.

This fall, Breger hopes to transfer from Las Positas College to U.C. Berkeley to major in psychology and public health. She eventually wants to attend Harvard to earn a doctorate in biological sciences in public health, and then work to address weaknesses in the healthcare industry.

And like her own personal story of triumph and the experience with the girl who Breger inspired to stand on her own, she wants to teach chronically ill teenagers and adults to become their own advocates: “I want people to learn how to stand up for themselves.”