As its third offering, the inaugural Movies in the Park series will feature ‘Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark’ this Saturday, August 7, on the grass outfield at the Palisades Recreation Center, 861 Alma Real. Admission is free. Under the blue moon, more than 600 people of all ages came to see ‘Grease’ last Saturday night, about 200 more than had seen ‘E.T.’ the week before. ‘It was amazing how many people knew the ‘Grease’ songs,’ said Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Arnie Wishnick. ‘About half the audience sang along and applauded at the end of each song. We’re projecting another happy crowd this week.’ He continued, ‘It was a wonderful feeling; people were arriving quite early this time, having a picnic on the Field of Dreams, kids playing Frisbee, fathers playing baseball with their kids. The Boy Scouts sold candy and soda and David Gadelha, the park’s new senior director, helped hand out 250 free hot dogs.’ ‘We thought it was such a good event, we wanted to lend some support,’ said Gadelha, who barbecued hot dogs along with his staff. ‘We wanted to let people know what activities we have in the fall. Families are coming to the park on a Saturday night who have never been here before. I think it’s a great event, unique in Los Angeles. I think it’s something other parks can emulate in other parts of the city.’ Movies on the 15-by-20-foot screen start at dusk, with seating on the grass beginning at 7 p.m. Bring your own picnic and blankets, but please no chairs with stick legs. And no alcohol. Snacks and drinks will be sold by the Boy Scouts and the park will again provide hot dogs. Wear warm clothing. In ‘Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ renowned archeologist Dr. Indiana Jones is hired by the U. S. government to find the Art of the Covenant, which is believed to hold the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, the Nazis are also after the Ark. There are fist fights, gasoline explosions, runaway trucks, runaway planes and snakes’lots of snakes’in a film that travels from Africa to Nepal to Egypt. It stars Harrison Ford as the fearless Indiana and Karen Allen as tough gal Marian, Indy’s main squeeze. Also look for Alfred Molina (Dr. Octopus in ‘Spider-Man 2’). The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg, with story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and music by John Williams. The last film in the series will be ‘The Wizard of Oz’ on August 14. ”The Wizard of Oz” will be a great singalong,’ Wishnick predicted. ‘We’re expecting a big crowd of 1,000-plus to end this season. ‘We had six speakers this time in order to cut down on the noise, once again trying to please our neighbors,’ Wishnick added. As the evening ended, people left the park under the full moon, carrying blankets, food baskets and sleeping children. ‘It’s all about being under the stars, being with friends and having a good time,’ said Palisadian Corrine Bourdeau, who attended along with her husband Andy Koski, daughters Dominique, 7, and Michaela, 2, and three other couples and their kids. ‘We planned an evening around it. It’s an easy way to get together with people, and the movies have been great.’ Families had already arrived for their picnics when Movies in the Park committee members Bob Sharka, Andy Frew and John Wirth came to set up around 5 p.m. ‘They have been working hard setting up the screen and sound system,’ said Wishnick. ‘Mike Skinner was out there again helping along with David Gadelha from the park.’ Chamber President David Williams is committe chairman. The Chamber bought the screen for $7,000 and the sound system for $5,000; the projector belongs to Friends of Film, a Palisades organization. The event’s major sponsor is Wachovia Securities. Other sponsors are Friends of Film, American Legion Post 283 and the Palisades Junior Women’s Club. Helping to make the evening safe is Palisades Patrol, while Chrysalis cleans the park afterwards. Committemember Roberta Donohue rented ‘Grease’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ through Paramount Pictures, who waived all fees, and only asked the committee to show several trailers for upcoming films. Movies in the Park committee members chose this year’s movies, and community members can contact palisadeschamber@earthlink.net or 459-7963 with ideas for films to see next summer.

Used to be if you wanted to prepare Jamaican Jerk Chicken for dinner, you’d make sure you had all your ingredients at the ready: chicken breasts, spices, onions, an orange, a lime and a nice hot habanero pepper. Making sure you had an hour to marinate the chicken meant you would start this recipe a couple of hours before you planned to sit down to eat. Today, you’d simply run over to Gelson’s and pick up a Classic Entree from the meat department. With the chicken already marinated, all you’d need to do is fire up the grill. Ready-to-go foods distinguish the Gelson’s of 2004 from the store that opened here in the Palisades 25 years ago, and will celebrate the event this Saturday. (See story, page 1.) The service deli, which amounts to between 17 and 20 percent of total store sales, offers a wide selection of hot and cold dishes for the shoppers who are not cooking. ‘More and more we are catering to the consumer who is tired of coming home and preparing a meal,’ says store manager Ray Stockton. He knows his customers pretty well, having worked at the Palisades location for the past nine years. Comparing the typical Palisades customer to others, Stockton, who has 32 years with the company at many different locations, is a committed fan. ‘Palisades customers are genuine, easy to talk to and to help. They are not trying to say ‘look at me’ because they are established, grounded.’ Between 2,000 and 3,000 customer transactions occur daily, according to Stockton, whose main challenge over the years has been accommodating their parking needs. ‘The parking lot is too small for what we need it for,’ says Stockton, adding that he understands that he shares customers with other businesses so he tries to oblige those who park in Gelson’s while they run may an errand at the cleaners or pharmacy across the street. In his tenure, Stockton has seen the store add the Wolfgang Puck Pizza Express, remodel the deli service counter and move the liquor department into a gondola (aisle, in market jargon). Its former niche was replaced with a flower shop that not only sells individual stems and potted plants, but also assembles custom arrangements, which can be seen around the store, especially at the bakery. All but one of the 18 Gelson’s markets contract with Viktor Benes Continental Bakery, which is a very popular service, especially during the holidays. Holidays put the pressure on the meat department too, according to manager Jimmy Crenshaw, who says that Gelson’s sold 4,600 turkeys last Thanksgiving. In 24 years with the company, four in the Palisades, Crenshaw has seen the meat business move to a more customer-oriented operation, with $20,000 worth of packaged meat ready to sell on a daily basis. ‘ I think customers are eating more meat than I thought, especially because it’s all natural, no hormones and grain-fed,’ says Crenshaw. Filet and prime rib are the most popular cuts. Other frequent purchases are organic chicken and fish, especially wild salmon and Chilean seabass. Even though Crenshaw’s department may seem more streamlined than 25 years ago, the trade still follows the historic guild system. There are three categories of meat cutter: the meat clerk, who waits on customers and fills special requests; the apprentice, who is learning the trade; and the journeyman, who is a professional meat cutter. Organics have also swept the produce department, which according to manager Richard Brown continues to occupy more and more display area. ‘Organic fruits and vegetables have grown in the last five to seven years and occupy their own rack as well as being identified by their red labels at other locations,’ says Brown, referring to the lettuces, broccoli, tomatoes, peaches, bananas and apples. This summer has brought a surge of interest in organic heirloom tomatoes, those odd-shaped, tasty specimens that come in colors from yellow to purple. Responding to customer wishes is what Brown and his staff of 20 specialize in. ‘We developed the diamond-shaped display stations, with the prep work done inside, instead of in the back. This way we have more personnel on the floor to help customers.’ Much of the produce these days is packaged for easy storage and to maintain freshness, Brown says. ‘In the early days, most of the fruits and vegetables were stored loosely, like bunched grapes. But, then we started getting too many lawsuits because somebody had slipped and fallen on a squashed grape, so we packed them up.’ One entire section of the produce department is dedicated to individually packed cut fruit and vegetable portions, reflecting the ease and the number of smaller households. Still, the Palisades Gelson’s is located in a bedroom community, says Stockton, and is one of the chain’s top-selling markets.

A two-month project to restore the Clearwater Mural of the Palisades and to add a new section of the mural is under way on the north side of the Sav-on building on Swarthmore. Last Thursday, Palisades artist Terri Bromberg began inspecting and cleaning the mural that she completed in 1999. Assisted by Merry Ealy, the two are removing stickers, graffiti, and rubber and grease deposits left by skateboarders (who used the base of the mural to slide or ‘grind’ along). ‘The grinding scraped off the paint and caused significant damage to the base of the mural,’ said Stuart Muller, who conceived of the paroramic scene to serve as a backdrop to the Village Green, eliminate the urban blight that had been endemic to the area and create an open public space. ‘We installed anti-grinding devices several months ago, and they seem to have eliminated the grinding problem.’ After the mural is cleaned, the damaged areas will be repaired and a new anti-graffiti coating applied. Albertson’s/Sav-on is funding the anti-grinding devices, the paint and coating, supplies and the painter’s lift. In addition, the company will make lighting and other improvements to the area, according to Muller. The new mural section will provide a view towards Santa Monica Canyon, and will include the east end of Santa Monica Bay and the Ysidro Reyes Adobe (formerly near the intersection of Sunset and Chautauqua). This work, which Bromberg began Monday, has been funded by a grant from the Pacific Palisades Junior Women’s Club and an anonymous donor. The estimated cost of the entire project is $16,000 and ‘will totally drain our existing mural maintenance fund,’ said Muller, who represents this area of town on the Community Council. ‘Residents and business people can help insure the healthy future of this magnificent community asset,’ he said, by sending a donation to Palisades PRIDE (with the notation Clearwater Mural Maintenance Fund), 15330 Antioch, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272.

Mara Russell, a 1975 Palisades High School graduate, joined the Land O’Lakes Foundation in Arlington, Virginia, as Title II Institutional Capacity Building Manager in June. Having worked in food aid in the U.S. and overseas in Iraq, Somalia and Moscow, Russell is now managing a grant that supports food aid programs in Zambia. Russell says the objective of the USAID/Food for Peace grant is ‘to improve coping with food insecurity and using dairy as a coping mechanism.’ While Land O’Lakes has been involved in developing food aid programs since the early ’80s, Russell says, ‘this is different from what they’ve done in the past because we’re not just providing technical support, we’re working with people.’ For example, the program will be providing Zambians with dairy cows, or ‘food aid on legs.’ Having recently returned from a four-day trip to Zambia, Russell says ‘many people are caring for relatives and kids who don’t belong to them’ as a result of sickness or death in the family. Therefore, families receiving extra food rations would benefit from the livestock option, which could provide milk and an income for the family. Russell first became interested in Africa while attending UCLA, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology. Specifically intrigued by social organization and political anthropology done by Africanists, she attended a summer volunteer program called Operation Crossroads in Kenya, then went on to earn her master’s in anthropology from Columbia University. ‘Up until age 16, I wanted to be an actress,’ says Russell, but ‘I did a good job in U.S. history and went the social studies route.’ Originially from New York, she grew up in Detroit and Baltimore before moving to the Palisades with parents Claryce and David in 1974. Russell joined CARE (a humanitarian organization fighting global poverty) as an intern in 1986, performing administrative work before negotiating food aid programs. She helped initiate monetization programs with CARE, working in Honduras and the Dominican Republic, then became deputy and acting director in the old Food Unit in New York. Russell’s desire to go back overseas took her to northern Iraq in 1991, after the first Gulf War, where she worked in a three-month food distribution program. Stationed in Zacho, near the Turkish border, she helped provide food rations for people coming over the border into Iraq. She was amazed that some of the food she distributed included pate and Belgian chocolate. ‘We were not recognized by the Iraqi government,’ she says. ‘We didn’t get visas in Baghdad.’ However, in comparison to the recent Iraq war, Russell says, ‘aid came in from all over the place’it was a broad coalition, a joint initiative.’ Another difference Russell sees is that when she was working in Iraq in ’91, ‘there was a real partnership between the NGOs and the military…the military knew when to take their hands off. My concern [now] is that the military is in charge and sometimes their approach is not as appropriate as it could be. We’re draining resources that could be used in more appropriate ways.’ At the end of 1991, Russell went to Mogadishu, Somalia, where there was no social framework and a lot of civil strife. ‘It was the first war zone I’d been in and I was terrified most of the time,’ says Russell, who had to evacuate to Nairobi three or four times in the six weeks she was there. ‘It was a crapshoot whether [food] distribution would be successful on any given day.’ Now, Russell says, ‘work has been done to manage and secure situations [in countries] where aid is required, but it is still a very inexact science.’ Having known aid workers who were killed, she admits that some of the work she has done is ‘not for the faint-hearted and people who have nervous reactions to gunfire.’ Though Russell had never anticipated working in a war zone, she says, ‘I wanted to try it out and see what it was like…I did my best, it just didn’t suit me.’ She chose to go on to Russia in 1992, and worked in Moscow as distributing food manager for a couple years. She also wrote a proposal for food coming into Armenia after visiting the area of the 1988 earthquake. ‘It had been four years [since the earthquake] and nothing had been fixed at the epicenter,’ Russell says. ‘Everything was the same’the housing complex where people had died and the clock still on the time of the earthquake. People were living in big water pipes even in cold weather.’ Russell rejoined CARE in 1999, and worked as coordinator for Food Aid Management (FAM), the 16-member PVO consortium that programs USAID/FFP Title II food resources. FAM is a USAID/FFP-supported project, and CARE has served as the project holder for the consortium since FAM’s inception more than 15 years ago. (The FAM project will end September 15.) As FAM coordinator, Russell and her staff had the responsibility of coordinating/facilitating with FAM consortium members the implementation of strategies and activities related to improving and strengthening the Title II programs. ‘Mara [did] a remarkable job bringing together managers and staff from 17 disparate organizations to accomplish FAM’s work,’ said Bob Bell, Food Resource Director, on June 4, her last day of work. Having worked in food aid for almost two decades, Russell believes people ‘need to recognize more clearly that needs are changing constantly. There’s a growing recognition that there’s no such thing as a steady state’things improve and then get worse again. In some ways, what’s really challenging is the degree of resilience to which we’re able to respond to food emergencies, different kinds of disasters, droughts and civil strife.’ She says the main focus becomes, ‘How can we best develop systems to respond better and provide [these countries needing food aid] with the capacity to deal with these problems themselves.’ Mara Russell currently resides in Bethesda with her 10-year-old daughter, Rebecca.