Following government orders, we are all trying to get back to normal, which for this column means a temporary respite from a month of commentary on Osama bin Laden and terrorism. Other things have been going on in the world since Sept. 11, of course, and here are a few items you may have overlooked;
• In Iran’s western Lorestan province, reported Earth Environment Service on Oct. 6, "a 16-month-old baby...was found safe and slumbering in the den of a mother bear after being missing for three days." The search party who found the baby "said the child had been breast-fed by the bear; doctors reported the baby was in good health."
• My lawyer, Ladd Bedford of McQuaid Metzler Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco, sends along a couple of answers to a Washington Post contest, which asked readers to slightly vary a commonplace word and give it a new meaning. For example, the "Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly." Or, "Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of ‘Sarcastic wit and the reader who doesn’t get it.’"
• A flyer circulating in Point Reyes Station two weeks ago seemed to have caused a few cases of sarchasm: "DRIVERS WANTED: Street racers and cruisers wanted to scare and harass citizens of Point Reyes, Inverness and Olema. Must be able to ignore all street signs, especially 25 mph school zones and downtown pedestrian areas. Must be able to drive fast enough around corners to make noise and leave tire marks. Must be available for cruising Monday thru Friday at 4 p.m. thru midnight and all hours of the weekends. Having a sound system louder than your muffler is a bonus. Park on sidewalks anytime. Open to all ages. EOE. Motorcyclists too. Law enforcement is unavailable so come any time."
As someone who frequently works evenings in downtown Point Reyes Station, I can attest the recruitment effort is working. And, indeed, law enforcement always seems to be unavailable – at least at dinnertime.
• I’ll admit it took a doubletake before I grasped what a June 7 headline in The Marin Independent Journal really meant: "Novato man shot in Petaluma stable and improving." Be careful with improving stables; you may get shot.
• When the narrowgauge Pacific Coast Railroad operated (from 1875 to 1930), the first whistlestop north of Point Reyes Station was Bivalve, that promontory where northbound Highway 1 first overlooks Tomales Bay. Every oldtimer here knows that.
However, as curator Lois Parks of the Tomales Regional History Center wrote me a week ago, Bivalve was originally named Wharf Point. Not many people know that, and Parks doesn’t know what year the whistlestop was renamed, only that the change occurred when oyster growing began just offshore of the whistlestop. Through the end of the year, the History Center is offering a highly informative exhibit on West Marin train. Don’t miss it.
• The National Low Income Housing Coalition earlier this month rated "Marin and three other Bay Area counties as the four most unaffordable places in the country for minimum-wage workers to live," Bay City News reported on Oct. 3 The nonprofit coalition found that people must earn $33.60 per hour to afford a two-bedroom home here.
To some extent, it’s all a matter of demographics. At 57, I earn just a bit more than half that amount, but I was able to build a home here 25 years ago thanks to the perverse "luck" of having older parents who died when I was in my 20s and 30s. The small inheritance they left me allowed me to buy West Marin land when it was still cheap. Friends who are "unfortunate" enough to have healthy, living parents are generally out of luck. No inheritance means no home, and there goes West Marin’s workforce.