100 miles of endurance

This column was published in the Tri-Valley Herald and Valley Times in June 2010


On Saturday, June 26, 2010, Marianne Paulson will join more than 450 other athletes in her third attempt to run 100 miles in the Western States Endurance Run.

Paulson, who grew up in Norway and now lives in Pleasanton, has finished nine other 100-mile races. She's extremely fit for a 46-year-old mother of three boys who is celebrating 20 years of marriage this July.
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As she toes the line at this year's race, Paulson hopes to avoid the encounter that delayed her last effort in 2007 when, after she'd run 97 miles, a large bear blocked the trail and refused to move. This caused Paulson and another runner to miss a crucial time cut-off by 13 minutes, dashing their chances for an official finish under 30 hours.
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The annual Western States run starts in Squaw Valley and climbs 2,550 vertical feet in the first 4½ miles. The route then follows the original trails used by the gold and silver miners of the 1850s. Traveling west, runners climb another 15,540 feet and descend 22,970 feet before reaching Auburn.
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In other words, it's one heck of a run that takes two days with no sleep. Rivers are crossed, joys are beheld, hopes are smashed, sleep-deprived hallucinations emerge, tears are shed, and many runners don't finish. But not a single runner would trade being anywhere else.
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Three other Pleasanton runners--all in their mid 40s--will also compete this year, including Ron Rel, a 44-year-old software executive who only recently began running ultra distances after becoming internationally ranked in XTERRA races, which are rugged-terrain triathlons.
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Rel said running Western States is the equivalent of “stepping off into an abyss” since he's never before run 100 miles.
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For Harris Goodman, a pathologist who works at Alameda County Medical Center and Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, running Western States is the next step in what started as a way to get out of the house about 10 years ago.

“I was a bookworm,” said Goodman, 46. “I didn’t like running at first.” But at the suggestion of his wife, he took one of his children for a long run in a jogger stroller, and Goodman got hooked. Since those days, he's finished 22 ultra-marathons, including two 100-mile races.
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Also at the start line in Squaw Valley will be Dan Boyle, who ran Western States in 2007. Boyle and his wife Diann, who is also an ultra distance runner, are pilots for Southwest Airlines. (Because runners are largely selected by lottery to get into Western States, Diann was not chosen this year.)
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“I was an overweight chess geek in school,” said Dan Boyle, 46. “I run ultras because they’re on trails instead of roads. The camaraderie, atmosphere and scenery are awesome.”
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[Dan Boyle, left, with Ron Rel]
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All of the runners from Pleasanton are married and have children, ranging in ages from 6 months to 16 years. Finding the time to train for 100 miles is often as challenging as the run itself.
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Along with morning and evening runs during the week, typical long training runs begin at 3 in the morning on Saturday or Sunday and end five hours later, in time to get home to spend time with family. Each runner credits his or her spouse with essential support.
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A favorite training area is the Pleasanton ridge, where the steep trails are similar to those along the Western States route. Such training comes with its share of risks, and not just from injuries. On a recent ridge run, Paulson saw a mountain lion crossing the trail 100 yards ahead of her. Similarly, Goodman encountered a bear on a training run along the Western States trail itself.
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Along with the Pleasanton competitors, other local Western States runners this year include James Richards and Elizabeth Vitalis from Livermore; Marc Dube, Suzie Lister, and David Rhodes from San Ramon; and Mark Overhoff and Dan Burke from Danville.
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So why run 100 miles? What's the appeal? The responses are many.
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Marianne Paulson has this to say: "I love life outdoors and to challenge myself--and I guess I am a bit adventurous. I like the excitement of not knowing what is ahead, like a burst of energy, a low point, or a beautiful waterfall. Training for and completing a 100 miler is very strategic and you have to execute the plan and make changes along the way to make it to the finish. The race itself is extremely interesting and you find out a lot about yourself. I find out something new every time and I guess that is what causes me to want to do it again. It is also a great feeling to be very physical fit. You have to be or you won't be able to make it to the finish line."
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Dan Boyle said running long distances challenges his limits to see what he can accomplish. “It's just me, the trail, and the clock, and no one else to blame if I fail. When I succeed, it’s extremely gratifying,” he said.
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For Harris Goodman, running ultra distances is fun. "Yes, it really is fun and relaxing," he says. "And the support from other ultrarunners is incredible. The100 mile events are not you against other runners, but you against the course, so everyone is so supportive and helpful. Also, you can't believe what you can accomplish until you try."
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Ron Rel sums it up well when he says he will attempt 100 miles "because I don't know if I can do it. I’m going to find out what I’m made of.”
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Harris Goodman with world-known ultra marathoner Dean Karnazes

Bringing Teddy Roosevelt to life

This column was published in the Contra Costa Times newspapers on May 27, 2010.

A man will grow a mustache for many reasons, but to look like a dead president? That’s what Orinda’s Fred Rutledge did last week to bring to life Theodore Roosevelt in an evening lecture series sponsored by Pleasanton’s Museum on Main.

Dressed as Roosevelt and standing at a lectern draped with an American flag, Rutledge told about 100 attendees at a Pleasanton church earlier this month that he’d just returned from spending four days with John Muir.

Working from historical documents, Rutledge took the audience back to May 1903, some two years into Roosevelt's presidency and the day he emerged from his historic Yosemite trip where the president and Muir eluded secret service and the press corps: “Just the two of us,” said Rutledge as Roosevelt, “by the campfire underneath the oldest living trees stretching high above into the starry night sky, talking, laughing, story-telling.”

Employing a mid-Atlantic accent, Rutledge filled his talk with historical tidbits, including the revelation that Roosevelt’s often-quoted “Speak softly and carry a big stick” comes from an African proverb.

Rutledge also illuminated Roosevelt’s shifting view of nature as a source of national raw materials to a source of beauty in need of protection: “I am still sort of a hunter,” said Rutledge as Roosevelt, “although a lover of nature first. When I hear of the destruction of a species I feel as if all the works of some great writer had perished.”

Rutledge, 53, fell in love with history thanks to his parents who often sat around the kitchen table in their Piedmont home talking about historical topics. He attended San Francisco State University and St. Mary’s College. Having served as an Army Reservist, he’s now in the California State Military Reserve.

“Like Roosevelt, I’m a full colonel,” said Rutledge, who is also the Chief of Staff of the California Center for Military History.

His first portrayal of Roosevelt occurred in April 1999 after meeting Muir impersonator Steve Pauley at the Muir House in Martinez. Pauley had been looking for someone to portray Roosevelt to recreate scenes from that 1903 Yosemite camping trip. At the time, Rutledge had been participating in an educational program for schools where he would dress in Civil War and other uniforms to share what it was like to be a soldier in times past, so it was a natural step for Rutledge to portray Roosevelt.

The 1903 camping trip presentation was such a success that the two were invited to do the same dialogue for the Contra Costa County Mayors' Dinner a few months later in July 1999.

“I remember saying to the group after they applauded how nice it was to see such a large group of Republicans,” said Rutledge, referring to Roosevelt’s political party. “That almost got a universal laugh,” he said.

Rutledge has since gone on to appear several times as Roosevelt, including as the keynote speaker a few years ago at a July 4 picnic in Pleasanton. His efforts earned him an Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal by the Army in 2004.

In his professional life, Rutledge oversees educational programs at Santa Rita Jail for the Tri-Valley Regional Occupational Program. He said he enjoys portraying Roosevelt because it offers others a glimpse of the past, just as holding a book or historic postcard connects us to those who came before us.

“I love history,” said Rutledge. “It keeps us in touch with our ancestors and gives us a sense of direction.”

For more about the Pleasanton lecture series and upcoming speakers and events, visit

www.museumonmain.org.

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A shorter version of this column and this photo appeared in the Valley Times and the Tri-Valley Herald in May 2010.

This is a story of two inspiring people whose lives connected 12 years ago in an elementary school in Pleasanton, California.

Josh Burger is a senior at Pleasanton’s Amador Valley High School, and Patricia Poor has been his aide since he was in first grade.

“I only expected to work with Josh for a year because doctors predicted he wouldn’t live very long,” said Poor, who lives in San Ramon. “But Josh surprised us all.”

In fact, Burger was expected to live only a few minutes after an ultrasound showed a disfigured 20-week fetus.

“The doctors recommended abortion,” said Burger, who weighs just 32 pounds. “But my parents believed God created me for a reason and it wasn’t their right to end my short life.”

Called Atelosteogenesis Syndrome Type III, Burger’s condition is so rare that fewer than 10 people in the world have it, and he’s the oldest-known survivor. Every bone in his body is misshapen. He has only one functional lung and an enlarged heart. He’s missing bones in his legs and can’t walk. He can’t bend the fingers in his right hand. He is deaf without hearing aids, didn’t speak until age 5, and was born with a cleft palate.

Yet Burger beat the odds and survived his first years of life. Determined to have her son experience life to the fullest, Burger's mother enrolled him in first grade. There they both met Patricia Poor.

Born in England, Poor moved to southern California in 1970 in her early twenties. She eventually moved to the Tri-Valley where she earned her associate of arts degree in Special Education at Chabot and Las Positas Colleges. With this training, she applied to become a special aide for a special boy, and she got the job.

“I’ve enjoyed assisting Josh,” said Poor, who has the distinction of being one of the only adults to attend every single grade all over again as the boy became a young man. “Josh has a positive outlook and every day says something to make me laugh.”

For Burger, his outlook on life has not always been so positive.

“In second grade I realized I was different from everyone else,” he said. “I was frustrated when I couldn’t ride a bike or hold a pencil right or wear shoes.”

Burger’s frustration turned into tears and anger. “I was mad at God,” he said.

But after several months, his anger ebbed as Burger realized that “maybe my little body was God’s gift to me and what I did with it, and with my life, was my gift back to Him.”

According to Frank Burger, Josh’s father, Poor played a vital role 7 hours a day, 180 days a year for 12 years encouraging and protecting his son. “Josh has learned to be more independent through her nudging,” he said. “We’ve never worried about him because of her guiding care and how she taught other children to show respect for him.”

Today, Josh Burger gets around lying on his stomach on a motorized wheelchair he controls. His accomplishments include meeting George Bush and helping raise money for Paul Newman’s Painted Turtle Camp for disabled kids where he met celebrities such as Tom Hanks.

After Hurricane Katrina, Burger raised relief funds by getting a Mohawk haircut, wearing wrap-around sunglasses and having a Chihuahua stand on his back as he patrolled the Pleasanton Farmer’s Market for donations. He and his friends raised $30,000.

In June, Burger and Poor will say their goodbyes as he graduates and she retires. Like his aide, he plans to attend Las Positas College. Although his prognosis and life expectancy is unknown, Burger looks forward to discovering what’s next after graduation.

“Like everyone, I want to do something with my life," he said. "Something great.”

Seeking redemption and the edges of our limits

Last year I participated in a one-day 206-mile bike ride called the Devil Mountain Double Century. I got as far as 165 miles and dropped out.

My excuse?

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I’d run a 50-mile race just two weeks before and was still feeling the effects of that ultra-marathon.

Not to mention I’d never ridden a “double century,” which by definition is two 100-mile rides combined into one long day. In fact, the Devil Mountain Double registration form states “This should not be your first double! This is a very tough ride.” And later, “You have been warned!”

For a 50-something baby boomer like me who heard the call of endurance sports when Frank Shorter won the Olympic marathon in 1972, placing a warning about the difficulty of an event makes the appeal that much stronger.

The moment I dropped out of last year’s ride, I started planning my revenge for 2010. My diabolical plan was to skip the 50-mile run, cycle many miles, add weight training to strengthen my core and legs, and ride, at least once, every section of the route--especially the toughest climbs--to gain course knowledge.

Keep in mind, the DMD course includes 20,000 feet of elevation gain. Some 200 riders from as far away as England signed up for the event that took place on April 24. And this year we were joined by ultra-marathon legend Ann Trason who won the Western States 100-Mile Endurance run 14 times.
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The DMD starts in San Ramon and goes 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 into the foothills via Sierra Road, down Calaveras Road to Sunol, out Niles Canyon and up Palomares to Crow Canyon and Norris Canyon, and finishes back in San Ramon.
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Since misery loves company, I was joined this year by Steve Sherman, a local attorney who has finished two Ironman competitions and yet, like me, had never ridden a double century. We trained together, not just cycling on Saturdays but often running with our spouses and friends Jerry Pentin and Tom Hall usually 12 miles over mountain trails along the Pleasanton ridge on Sundays.

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In keeping with my not-so-secret plan to beat the devil, Steve and I rode every part of the course, sometimes several times. This was no small feat since we both lead extremely busy professional lives. But such commitment in the workplace is why these weekend rides are so vital to our physical and mental health. Cycling and running keeps us fit and, frankly, sane.

One of our favorite weekend training rides was Sierra Road in San Jose, an incredibly steep hill that is part of the Amgen Tour of California route that bites cyclists at approximately 150 miles during DMD. We knew that on the day of ride, we'd want to know exactly where we were and how far we had to go to the top of that monster.

For our training rides, we were often joined by several friends, including Bryan Gillette who is such an amazing cyclist that this year he set a goal to ride the DMD and then continue on to 300 miles in 24 hours “because I’ve never tested my limits,” he said. This 300-mile idea to push his outer limits prompted Jerry Pentin to re-title Bryan's ride "DMT," or Devil Mountain Triple.

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Jerry is also credited with redefining DMD to mean Dumb Means Dumb, since he refuses on principle to ride any farther than 100 miles at one time.
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Yes, I know. I probably do need to find a new group of friends. Though I can't think of better people to hang with on weekends. Plus, I'd easily trust my life in their hands.
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When the big day arrived, we awoke early to drive to the San Ramon Marriott where everyone saddled up to ride at 5 a.m.
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Steve and I set out on our odyssey, accompanied by Jerry who rode with us 9 miles to the base of Mt. Diablo. (See photo above with Jerry, me, and Steve.)

The ride was supported by 99 incredible volunteers who worked the rest stops, patrolled the roads to assist cyclists with flat tires and other needs, and offered rides for those who opted out along the way. We can't thank these volunteers enough for their energy and enthusiasm.

Somewhere around 80 miles Jan Sherman (Steve's wife) joined us to ride a long stretch to the 90-mile mark. Jan is a strong rider and trained with us during most of the rides. Seeing her friendly face helped boost our spirits.

As the miles ticked by, Steve and I often felt as if we could ride forever. But other times factors conspired to have us question whether we’d be able to finish. Keeping the right amount of calories and electrolytes and fluids in balance is essential to success in long runs and rides.

Like life itself, every endurance event has its high and low points. My low point came as I climbed the hot and difficult miles up Mt. Hamilton. Steve had ridden ahead and as I found myself coming around a certain turn in the road I stopped and got off my bike. I was breathing hard and wanted to quit. I wondered if I just wasn't cut out for such distances. My mind went into survival mode and quickly concluded that I'd never be able to train enough to finish the DMD.

I didn't realize it at the time, but where I'd stopped was only yards from a sad scene.
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While I was aware that several police and paramedic vehicles were blocking the road, I assumed someone had crashed his or her bike and was being assisted. I also assumed it was a cyclist coming downhill, and not a DMD rider.

I later learned that the cyclist was Tom Milton, age 56. He was a DMD rider, and had suffered a heart attack. Efforts to provide CPR were unsuccessful.

I simply had no idea.

As I stood on the edge of this tragedy, a volunteer named Katy came over and asked if I was okay. Another cyclist who looked to be in his 30s walked over as well. I decribed how I felt.

"Nibble on this," he said, as he pulled a quarter-sized tablet from a small plastic case. "It has a sweet taste and will make you feel better."

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Neither of their faces showed any sign that a fellow cyclist had lost his life just yards away.

I thanked them, nibbled the tablet, and started to walk with my bike. I passed by the vehicles and never thought to look to see what had happened.
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Within five minutes, my stomach settled and I climbed back on the bike.
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I knew Steve would be at the next rest stop waiting for me, and since he'd been there a while, I stopped only long enough to top off my bottles and guzzle most a Sierra Mist soda, a foreshadowing, perhaps, for the next major hill.

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Sure enough, we soon found ourselves encountering Sierra Road. I was surprised the climb was not as gruesome as I thought it would be. Last year I'd had to walk my bike up most of this beast. This year, I rode.

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As day turned to night we came to the rest stop titled Pet the Goat. I’d reached this stop last year and, yes, petted a goat named Aldo. Sadly, Steve never got to meet Aldo, who recently hoofed his way into goat heaven (his owner said he'd led a happy life), but Aldo 2.0 was on hand, along with the little goat’s mommy.

Trust me, after cycling 160 miles along a dark country road, it’s a joy to greet goats, chat with friendly volunteers, and slurp soup.

Of course, not even goats can top the warm embrace of family, friends and spouses who greeted us at the next stop. After meeting up with Jerry (again under cover of darkness), we cycled together to reach 181 miles in the small town of Sunol where so many friendly faces cheered us on.

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Seeing my wife Pam was especially wonderful. Getting a hug and kiss from her boosted my resolve to finish.

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So, did we make it? Did I find redemption among the beautiful vistas and desolate roads?
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Yes. We did it.
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Finishing ahead of us were friends Gary Boal and Barry Schwartz.
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And yes, Bryan Gillette accomplished his 300-mile trek to test his limits.
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Of course, only one of us that day truly reached our limit: To Tom Milton's family, please know how sad we are for your loss.
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To my wife and family and friends, thank you for this opportunity to redeem myself.
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And to Steve Sherman, my cycling companion these many months and for over 20 hours on the day of DMD, thanks for listening to my jokes, for your expertise about nutrition, for your moral support, for doing all the math before the ride and during the ride after my capacity to think had shut down, for waiting for me at the top of every hill, and for a day I will never forget. We said we'd do it, and we did, and I'd be honored to ride again with you any time.
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So, how about 60 miles this weekend?
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Local college celebrates Native American experience

How far back does your family go in California?

Dr. Amber Machamer of Las Positas College has ancestors that date back before the birth of Genghis Khan and Plato. In fact, Machamer’s relatives go back 10,000 years.

“I am Chumash from San Luis Obispo,” she said, referring to her Native American heritage.



Later this month on the evening of April 12, Machamer, who oversees institutional research and planning for the college, will present a documentary and speak about stereotypes, the use of American Indians as mascots, and the culture, history, and beliefs of her tribe to give people a sense of what real American Indian cultures are all about.

“The talk will be more of a question-and-answer session to build understanding with non-Native peoples,” she said. “It's appropriate for all ages.”

Machamer’s presentation is just one of the events to celebrate Native American culture that will occur April 12 to April 17, all of which culminate in the second-annual Pow Wow that last year brought hundreds of people to the campus. This year the Pow Wow will be held on Saturday, April 17 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. in the college gymnasium.

Mario Jaramillo, this year’s student chairperson for the Native American Pow Wow and Exposition, said that last year’s event drew spectators and participants from all over California and even from other states.

“This is a living, breathing example of Native American culture as it is today,” he said. “The Pow Wow gives everyone a chance to immerse themselves into a world within the United States that has been thousands of years in the making.”

Some readers may remember that the Pow Wow was held for many years in Livermore before being moved to the campus. The event always includes music, dancing, arts and crafts, native food, and other activities and displays.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our students and community members to learn about native culture outside of the classroom setting,” Jaramillo said.

According to Jane McCoy, a history professor at the college, the purpose of the exposition is to encourage a higher sense of cultural awareness within the college and the surrounding communities.

“Last year we had great reviews by the participants,” she said, “and we’re excited to bring the experience back to Las Positas College a second year.”

Other programs include a film festival featuring Native American films that will be shown all day and into the evenings in the Student Center on April 13 and 14.
On the evening of April 15, students will serve Native American food, free of charge, and provide dancers for entertainment including Aztec and California native dancers and a hoop dancer. Food will be served beginning at 6 p.m. and dancing will start at 6:45 p.m.

For Machamer, the week-long events are an opportunity for education about Native American cultures.



“As the original peoples of California,” she said, “we were created here. Spanish mission records trace my family back to the 1770s and primary source documents trace us back even further.”

Machamer explained that when the first Spanish ships came to California shores, her family was there to greet them. Her family’s village, what is today called Avila Beach, is known among Chumash as Tpaxtu, or “place of the whales.”

Many Chumash people were content to live at the new mission established in San Luis Obispo. In fact, with the help of the Chumash, this was the first mission to build its roof with clay tiles made from local adobe.

For details about the Native American Expo and Pow Wow, visit http://nacc.weebly.com/lpc-exposition.html.

Adopted son looks for birth mother

Published in the Valley Times in December 2009

Tod Pohlmann had always known he was adopted, but it wasn’t until he began his own family that he got serious about finding his birth mother.

Although his adoption records were sealed, Pohlmann, who manages the Starbucks on Santa Rita Road in Pleasanton, knew his mother’s date of birth and her first and middle name.

In fact, over the years he’d tried a few times to find this mystery woman, including a trip to Florida to visit what he believed was his mother’s high school. “The school secretary was very helpful,” Pohlmann said, explaining that she let him look through yearbooks for a girl named Virginia. “When I couldn’t find her, the secretary guessed my mom was a military brat and went to school on the nearby base.”

In his late twenties Pohlmann tried again, visiting a three-storey house on Post Street in San Francisco where he knew his mother had lived in the 1960s. The house was owned by a woman who rented out the second and third floors. “She was so nice to me,” Pohlmann said. “She said she remembered my mom as a tall redhead, but I’m not sure she really remembered her.”

Pohlmann was born in 1967 after his mother had traveled across the country with her cousin and her cousin’s boyfriend to be part of the San Francisco scene. “My dad was in the Navy,” he said. “I was a USO baby.”

Growing up in Milpitas with kind adoptive parents, Pohlmann never felt desperate about finding his birth mother. Still, once married and ready to have a child, he wanted to learn where he’d come from.

So in 1999, with assistance from a search consultant, Pohlmann got the phone number of a woman who matched the facts he knew. Taking a deep breath, he dialed.

“The phone rang a few times and a woman answered,” Pohlmann said. “I told her I was doing genealogical research and had a few questions.”

As the woman confirmed her birth day, year, and place of birth, she paused and asked for his name again. When he told her, her voice cracked.

"When I said she might know what this call was about, she asked for a moment and put the phone down,” he said.

“When she came back she was crying. We talked for more than two hours.”

Pohlmann said his mother, who goes by Vickie, felt a lot of guilt and apologized for giving him up for adoption. He assured her that his parents, who passed away in the early 1990s, had been wonderful and that he had a good life.
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Within weeks of the call, Vickie was on a plane to California to meet her son. The meeting was emotional, and today Pohlmann’s10-year-old daughter Kiley has a grandmother she might otherwise never have met.
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Asked if he would advise adopted children to seek out their birth parents, Pohlmann hesitated, then said he would. “But you never know if you’re going to find the Rockefellers or people who’ll want to move in with you the next day,” he said. “You need to realize the commitment you’re about to make.”
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Next for Pohlmann is whether to find his biological father. With the internet these days, it shouldn’t be difficult. Family members are uncertain, and Pohlmann, who is undecided, wonders whether he'll take this next step.

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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