Sophomore Elane Roepke passes to a teammate during the Palisades girls’ varsity basketball team’s victory over St. Bernard last week. Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
Before he learned he wouldn’t be back this season, former Palisades High girls basketball coach Kevin Hall filed the necessary paperwork through the Los Angeles Unified School District for Pali to host a pre-league tournament. The first annual ‘Palisades Beach Invitational’ was a successful debut for new head coach Ronda Crowley and her team, which wound up 2-2 against stiff competition from the Southern Section. Palisades won its first two pool play games, beating St. Bernard, 52-39, and holding off New Roads in overtime, 44-43. In its third game, Palisades lost to Inglewood and in its last game, for third place, it lost to Santa Monica. Leuzinger finished undefeated to win the tournament. Megan Coulter, Elane Roepke, Zedra Slaton and Jasmine English led the Dolphins, who hosted Washington on Tuesday and travel to Taft for a nonleague game today. Boys Basketball After an easy victory over Narbonne in the first round, the Dolphins were matched against Long Beach Jordan. Palisades led at halftime, 31-27, but Jordan opened the third quarter with a 22-0 run to take control of the game. The Dolphins went scoreless for the first 6:04 of the second half and never got closer than four points in the 65-58 loss. Senior point guard Corey Counts took a hard fall while driving to the basket in the first quarter but finished the game. After falling to Price, 60-47, in the third round, Palisades beat Bishop Montgomery, 54-39, to finish in seventh place. Carl Robertson led the way with 16 points for the Dolphins (2-2), who played at Washington yesterday. Girls Tennis Several Palisades doubles teams are still alive in the All-City Individuals Tournament at Balboa Sports Complex in Encino. Leading the way is the Dolphins’ top tandem of Krista Slocum and Lauren Pugatch, which advanced to the third round with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over a team from Van Nuys. Seeded second, Slocum and Pugatch have yet to lose a set. Also advancing to the third round was Pali’s No. 3 tandem of Lotte Kiepe and Mary Logan, who defeated a Carson duo, 6-4, 6-1, in the second round. The Dolphins’ No. 2 tandem of Brittany O’Neil and Yasmir Navas, seeded fourth, won its first round match but lost in three sets to Kiri Inouye and Jenna Yoshikana of Venice in the second round. Pali’s No. 4 team of Lisa Mesrop and Sarah Jurick fell was eliminated in the first round by a team from Sylmar.. Palisades’ lone singles entrant, Sara Yankelevitz, lost to Monroe’s Sarah de la Cruz in the first round. Play resumes tomorrow. Girls Soccer Palisades lost its season opener, 4-1, at Marymount last Thursday. The Sailors’ roster includes several local players, including Jane Alt, Kelsey Bjelejac, Lauren Hardgrove, Molly McRoskey and sisters Ali and Liza Pisano. The Dolphins traveled to Chatsworth for a nonleague game on Tuesday.
Steeped in World Series frenzy, few are focusing on baseball’s greater lessons such as its metaphors of life: ‘step up to the plate’ and ‘three strikes, you’re out..’ But Palisades High junior varsity baseball coach David Kloser, author of ‘Stepping Up to the Plate: Inspiring Interviews with Major Leaguers,’ is a man who emphasizes lessons the game teaches and those lessons can be applied to life ooff of the baseball diamond. ‘I’m sure I’m no different from any other coach who feels that sports are a great character builder for kids,’ Kloser says. ‘I played at UC Berkeley, so I have somewhat of an understanding of the pressures of the game. Because I’ve always wondered how Big Leaguers overcome adversity, heckling, dealing with the different personalities of their teammates and so on, I decided to write a book about it. I wanted it to be something that adults, parents and kids can share to learn about the intrinsic values of baseball.’ Starting in Spring Training of 2003 and into part of the 2004 season, Kloser, who interviewed more than 300 current and former Major League players from all 30 Major League teams (and some Hall of Famers), created his book, ‘Stepping Up to the Plate: Inspiring Interviews with Major Leaguers.’ Without the expertise of having a background in writing or journalism, it took vision, passion, and persistence to make his dream a reality. Among the players Kloser interviewed are Alex Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Albert Pujols and Jeff Bagwell. He also has quotes and stories from other notables including Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr.and Hideo Nomo, as well as such former players as Fernando Valenzuela and recent Hall of Fame inductee Paul Molitor. ‘These Major League ballplayers have probably been playing baseball since Little League, which, in my opinion, makes them experts in their field,’ Kloser says. ‘I wanted to make their wisdom available to anyone.’ This quote, from Yankee outfielder Bernie Williams, opens the book and encapsulates its overall theme, ‘I believe every individual is born with a talent. The secret in life is to find out what it is, and once you find it, give it 100 percent.’ To learn more about Kloser or purchase the book, visit www.SteppingUpToThePlate.com.
With competition fierce to even gain entry to national level tournaments, winning a gold medal at a United States Tennis Association (USTA) National Open Championship’held four times yearly in cities across the United States’is one of the toughest challenges in junior tennis. Winning back-to-back USTA National Open gold medals is even harder. Winning three straight is a rare accomplishment. Yet that’s exactly what 14-year-old Palisadian Walker Kehrer just did. He and doubles partner Michael Lin of San Diego claimed their third successive victory in a National Open doubles final, winning gold last Wednesday in the Boys’ 14 Division at the USTA National Open in Newport Beach. The pair of eighth-graders also took gold in their age division at USTA National Open tournaments in May and July to begin their perfect 12-0 run. If the first event of the year had not been rained out, the duo might have completed the ‘grand slam”winning all four National Open events in the same calendar year. Though he is not yet old enough to play high school tennis, Kehrer looks forward to playing next year at Brentwood School. And while much of his success has come in doubles, Kehrer is also an accomplished singles player. In singles, he reached the finals at Newport Beach and also netted back-to-back silver medals in the Boys’14s division, raising his USTA singles ranking into the Top 25 for the first time in his blossoming career. And with nearly a year left in his age group, Kehrer has his sights set on moving even higher. As one of America’s top junior players, Kehrer maintains a tournament schedule that rivals that of many professional players. In one six-week stretch last summer, he played five national events in four states, taking two first-place, two second-place and a third-place in singles, doubles and team competition. Along the way, he compiled a 34-9 record (singles and doubles) over 42 days against the best players in the nation. Kehrer credits the doubles ‘live-ball’ program at Palisades Tennis Center, which he has played since he was 7, with helping him develop quick hands and a feel for the doubles game. Kehrer and Lin have played doubles together since age 11 on the national stage. Although they live 120 miles apart and rarely meet outside of tournaments, they’ve joined forces at National Open and National Championship events coast to coast. They were also quarterfinalists at the summer National Hard Court Championships in San Antonio, Texas and semifinalists in the Southern California Doubles Championships in November. With a full slate of National Championship tournaments ahead of them in the 14-and-under age division next year, Kehrer and Lin team will try to become the No. 1-ranked doubles team in the country.
When Victoria Francis retired as the Palisades High School drama teacher last spring, she made sure the well-regarded program she had developed for 27 years was in good hands. She hand-picked as her successor Monica Iannessa to continue the beloved program. Iannessa has been leading the school’s drama program this school year to both a first-place victory in the fall drama festival and to the debut tonight of ‘Fools,’ a Neil Simon comedy that will be the drama students’ first performance under her direction. ”Iannessa most recently started and developed the drama program at Chaparral High School in Temecula, where she was honored with the Temecula Valley High School District’s Teacher of the Year in 2003. Prior to that, she taught at Escondido High School and Saint John Bosco High School in her 16-year career. ”Francis and Iannessa worked together through the Drama Teachers Association of Southern California, where they both were involved in the Fall Festival and Spring Shakespeare Festival. Iannessa also brought her Chaparral students on Francis’ Broadway Melody Tours of New York. ”’I was honored for her to consider me,’ Iannessa says of Francis. ‘She’d been here for 27 years; it was like handing over a child.’ ”But when Francis first asked her two years ago, Iannessa was hesitant, having just bought a house in Temecula and running a program she had started with a state-of-the-art 300-seat theater. ”Last year, Francis approached her again. At that time, Iannessa decided to make the move to Pali, sold her house and bought a condo in West Hollywood, and is thrilled to be in L.A. at a high-performing high school. ”Drama has been a lifelong passion for Iannessa, ever since she played a wind-up doll in her kindergarten pageant, and continuing all through her school years in Cerritos. She was a theater major at Cal State Long Beach. ”Iannessa was a member of the improv troupe the Cadre, and has done radio voiceovers, but her primary career since college has been teaching. ”Although she’d like to get back to community theater someday, she is devoted full-time to the Palisades High School theater department, where her day stretches from 6:45 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. ‘It never drags on, it’s never the same day,’ says Iannessa, who is passionate about teaching drama. ‘You get to know the students really well over all four years. You’re a combination of educator, camp counselor and mentor.’ ”Sixty students in her A.M. theater program meet at 7 a.m. daily for a class in improvisation and comedy sports. Later in the day, she teaches three ninth grade drama classes, part of a cross-curricular program with English and social studies. She also teaches a junior drama class and the play production class, where students work on sets, publicity, costumes and acting. There are 130 students in the Thespian Club. ”After school, it’s time to rehearse ‘Fools,’ which opens tonight. ‘It’s about a schoolteacher in a remote village in Russia, who is hired to tutor the doctor’s daughter in a town that is cursed with stupidity,’ she says. ‘He vows to break the curse by educating the daughter. ”’There’s a little bit of social commentary in it that I enjoy,’ Iannessa says. Her favorite play to stage is the 1930’s comedy ‘You Can’t Take It with You’ by George Kaufman and Moss Hart. ”The comedies are a change of pace, since Francis focused on dramas over the last several years. Iannessa hopes to give equal importance to all three productions’the fall play, winter one-acts and spring musical. Her goal is to have more people in the community attend the fall show. She has created a new look in the staging by extending the stage out into the audience, and having the cast members at times use the aisles. She also rearranged the audience seating to make it a more intimate setting with 200 seats and increased the run to two weeks. ‘It’s more fun to do it several nights.’ ”As for long-term goals, Iannessa would like to make some changes in the performance venue or, ideally, a brand-new theater. ‘I would like it to reflect the community, which supports theater and has a lot of people in the business.’ ”Her philosophy of teaching is to create an ensemble. ‘Everybody is working together, acting together. Nobody’s treated as a star’every part is important, everyone has something to contribute, and they rely on one another to perform.’ ”She likes to take time for the students to reflect on each performance: ‘What we’ve done, what we can do to get better next time.’ ”Iannessa also believes that theater teaches life skills. ‘You learn how to handle disappointment, accept responsibility, overcome conflict, solve problems, organize your time’these all come into play in real life.’ ”’I am thankful to Victoria Francis,’ says Iannessa. ‘I feel grateful to her that she felt confident to hand her excellent program over to me. I respect her and I want her to know she left it in good hands.’ ”’Fools’ premieres tonight at Mercer Hall at 7:30 and continues Friday and Saturday, and next Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $8.
For Emmy award-winning music composer Dean Grinsfelder, the sound of success comes by combining his background in business with his lifelong passion for music. ”Grinsfelder holds an M.B.A. from UCLA and has worked as a musician from the studio in his Palisades Highlands home since 2000. His client list includes Disney, Fox/Marvel Films, Miramax Films, Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures. ”Perhaps Grinsfelder’s most recognizable work is the movie lead-in music he wrote for AMC Theaters. His music supplements a film reel-shaped cartoon character named Flick who jumps around on-screen and introduces the movie. ”In 2002, Grinsfelder scored the music for actor (and his Highlands’ neighbor) Steve Guttenberg, who made his directorial debut with ‘P.S. Your Cat is Dead.’ ‘That was a great experience, working with Steve,’ Grinsfelder says. In September, Grinsfelder, along with eight other team members, was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Sound Editing For Nonfiction Programming (Single or Multi-Camera) for the Discovery Channel’s ‘Dinosaur Planet.’ The program, produced by Palisades-based Evergreen Films, was a four-part computer-animated docudrama that followed the lives of several groups of dinosaurs in their struggle to survive a harsh environment. ”As a result of a ‘very tight timetable’ to write the music, Grinsfelder enlisted the assistance of various other composers. ‘It took a lot of coordinating on my part and a lot of shepherding to make sure that the score served the picture,’ he says. ”Born and raised in Ross, just north of San Francisco, Grinsfelder began improvising on the piano at the age of 5. ‘I resisted taking piano lessons because I always wanted to play what I heard rather than what someone else wanted to hear,’ he says. ”Growing up, Grinsfelder admired the music of Chicago, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter and Peter Gabriel. Following junior high’where he discovered his passion for jazz after hearing Henry Mancini’s ‘Pink Panther’ theme’he played piano in the high school band.” ”He then attended UC Berkeley, where he participated in various jazz, rock, and R&B ensembles. ”In 1982, after earning a degree in music composition with a business minor, Grinsfelder played music professionally while simultaneously working for his father in real estate. When his passion for music temporarily subsided, he decided to attend business school. ‘I realized I did not enjoy music the industry, even though I loved music the art,’ he says. ”After earning an M.B.A. from UCLA, Grinsfelder went on to work in real estate investment banking in New York and Los Angeles for eight years until he turned 34 and had a change of heart. ”’I was looking ahead at my career and asking myself if I wanted to be a managing director of real estate investment banking when I grew up or if I would be happier doing something else,’ he recalls. ”Soon after, he enrolled in various seminars, workshops and film scoring programs at UCLA Extension and subsequently realized that film and TV music was the combination he’d been searching for. ‘It combined my music skills with my business skills. It allowed me to have clients, responsibilities and deadlines, but at the same time, it gave me an area that I could compete in and express myself creatively.’ ”In 1995, Grinsfelder set his professional sights on the film and television industry and created Highland Music Productions (HMC). As president, Grinsfelder has two assistants and several partners with whom he collaborates on what he refers to as ‘short-form’ projects (commercials, film trailers, interactive media and promos). On ‘long-form’ projects (films, TV shows and documentaries), he works alone. ”Most of Grinsfelder’s work occurs right in his studio, a spacious space with smashing views of the Santa Monica mountains. ”Grinsfelder says he especially appreciates having an ability to help a story unfold. ‘The most enjoyment I get out of the music I write is partly related to the quality of the music when it’s finished, but mostly related to the overall impact that the music with the picture has on the viewer,’ he says. ‘If the story can be told musically, then I’ve done my job.’ ”His current projects include the orchestration and music production of the ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ series for UPN; ‘Lost Fleets of the Pacific’ for the Discovery Channel; ‘The Machinist’ film trailer for Paramount Classics, and a USC Alumni Tribute promo to be televised during USC’s athletic coverage. Soon he’ll be at work on ‘Alien Planet’ and ‘The Science of Star Wars,’ both multi-part specials for the Discovery Channel. ”When Grinsfelder isn’t scoring music, he enjoys playing tennis (he’s a USTA Level 5.0 player) and trail running in the Highlands, where he’s lived since 1989 with his wife Victoria and their two sons, David, 7, and Matthew, 4-1/2. Both boys attend Calvary Christian School.
Kurdish artist Tahir Fatah and Palisadian Nahid Massoud felt an immediate connection owing to their bicultural identity and upbringing in the part of the world known as Sharq, or “the East” in Farsi. Photo: Robert Rosenstone
Nahid Massoud’s warm embrace greets guests walking up her Palisades driveway on an early October afternoon. Dressed elegantly in a black two-piece pants suit of traditional Afghan burka design and embroidery, Massoud points people down the stone path to her newly completed backyard gallery. ”This is the first art opening reception at Sharq, an art space created for the work of bicultural artists with roots in the East (Sharq means ‘the East’ in Farsi). About 200 people turn out to see the paintings of Kurdish artist Tahir Fatah. ”’There is no place devoted to Sharqi artists in Los Angeles,’ says Massoud, a Muslim woman born in Kabul, Afghanistan. The pants suit she is wearing for only the second time was a gift given to her in 1977, when she left her native country to come to the United States on a student visa. While she was in the States, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and she has never returned to her homeland. ”Having seen occasional exhibits of contemporary artists from Sharq at places such as Bergamot Station’s Schomburg Gallery, Massoud wanted to create a space dedicated to bicultural Sharqi artists ‘with the aim of showing the diversity and creativity in that little-known and often misunderstood region.’ ”The idea for Sharq was born soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks, when Massoud realized the crucial need for intercultural exchange and felt encouraged to share the memories of her experiences in her native country with the public. Having grown up in a privileged diplomatic household, Massoud has childhood memories that include living and studying in Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt, Turkey and Iran. ”’I wanted to share the beauty of other parts of the Sharqi world,’ she says. ‘The more exchanges you have, the more understanding [you have].’ ”Massoud, who became a United States citizen on May 13, 1991, adds that the Sharq project is also personally satisfying for her as Afghan-American woman because ‘it’s satisfying my personal sense of belonging.’ ”Prior to the development of Sharq, Massoud co-taught a class on the history and culture of Afghanistan with her husband, Robert Rosenstone, a history professor at Caltech, and has lectured at Palisades venues such as St. Matthew’s and Villa Aurora. She is currently on staff at the Neuropyschiatric Institute at UCLA, where she is a nurse specializing in eating disorders. ”One may wonder how Massoud has made time to cultivate such an important undertaking, and the answer lies in her passion for sharing her culture and learning about other cultures. ”When she initially told artists and people working in the art world about her idea for Sharq, they were ‘excited about a bicultural niche,’ she says. ‘Whether it will be accepted by [other] people, I don’t know.’ ”Yet judging from the first reception, which drew a multicultural crowd with Egyptian, Algerian, Moroccan, Palestinian, Iranian, Lebanese and American backgrounds, she and Rosenstone are hopeful. ”The 900-square-foot art space has bamboo flooring, which Massoud chose because she wanted ‘something soothing’ that could also be used for dance or yoga. She also thought the bamboo would complement the ‘natural, even light’ of the gallery, which has high ceilings and five skylights. ”Soon after beginning renovations on the guest house space a year ago, Massoud met artist Tahir, who was born in Sulymanih, Kurdistan (the part of Kurdistan which is currently Northern Iraq). She had heard about him from a friend, and felt an immediate connection to Tahir in terms of ‘the Sharq part of us,’ she says. ‘We share this world, its symbols and metaphors, as well as in our upbringing with the Koran and the history of our civilizations.’ ”Massoud had ‘an intuitive feeling’ that he was the right artist to exhibit at Sharq but says, ‘I didn’t know if Tahir, as an accomplished artist, would allow his art to be here, in a small space behind our house in the Palisades.’ ”Fortunately, Tahir, who attended the Baghdad Institute of Art before winning a four-year scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1966, also felt a sentimental connection to Massoud based on their cultural similarities. ”’We hold a certain romantic notion of where we come from, but it does not represent who we are there,’ Tahir says, explaining that ‘we would still be there [in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively] if we had the openness to evolve there.’ ”He believed that showing his paintings at Sharq in October was important in terms of ‘uniting ourselves as bicultural people in a universal setting, and establishing a connection to American culture.’ Like Massoud, Tahir appreciates America because it’s connected to freedom of choice. ‘America has the natural ingredients and richness of potential to be engaged,’ he says. ‘It’s a fertile land in terms of human potentiality. I came here without a language and I was able to achieve a scholarship.’ ”Tahir was only 21 years old in 1964 when he came to the United States with $400 in his pocket. He worked as a dishwasher in Washington, D.C., before going first to California and then to Chicago to study art. Since earning his MFA, he has had exhibitions in Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. ”From a gallery point of view, Tahir says that there are not many places to show his art because it doesn’t fit into a category in terms of art history, such as Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism or Cubism. Galleries find his art ‘harder to accept because they can’t place me,’ he says, though he finds strange joy in this since ‘I don’t feel like I can place myself.’ ”At the same time, Tahir does feel a sense of collectiveness because ‘I have studied classical painting and live in the modern world.’ During the day, he works as a scenic artist for NBC’s TV series ‘Passions,’ and often produces copy paintings of classical works to hang on sets. ”’Scenic painting has been liberating,’ he says, explaining that it’s made him comfortable working on a large scale. ”Tahir sees his work as related to the struggle of the Kurdish people in their search for liberty and freedom, but he says that ‘it is not frozen in the boundaries of nationalism.’ The lights and darks of his large acrylic paintings represent the Kurdish struggle, or what he considers his ‘romantic belief and trust that you can end free. [Hope] is around the corner, but never there.’ ”The dark colors, particularly the blacks, are in one sense a reflection of his childhood in Kurdistan because, as Tahir explains, in the Islamic world adults would often ‘scare and discipline kids through underground spirits of the night.’ For example, as a boy he was told ‘If you go out at night, you will step on the ghost spirits of children.’ ”But Tahir is no longer afraid of the spirits. ‘I’ve learned to live with this through painting.’ ”On the other hand, the holes of black space in his painting also reflect a possible collapse of gravity, an idea he relates to an American image he has of when Apollo went to the moon and there was the image of Earth rising from the moon, full of light and surrounded by black. ”Tahir often uses nature as a metaphor for his own feelings and thought processes, painting just a glance of sky to reveal tension and vulnerability, or an image of water to represent ‘where you can go’ off land. ”’The absence of things has more psychological impact,’ he says, adding that the psychological aspects of his paintings link all of his work. ”’Kurdistan, to me, is very present here,’ Massoud says, standing in the middle of the sky-lit, bamboo-floored gallery and pointing out the dominant red-oxide soil color and fragmented bits of blue sky in Tahir’s dramatic natural landscapes. One guest who came to see the art called the parts where the sky peeks out ‘windows of hope.’ ”’People have been very affected by his art,’ she says. ”In the future, Massoud and Rosenstone say they would like to have events that involve the visual arts, crafts, music and the spoken word. They have not yet set a date for the next event, though they are planning to have a particular Iranian artist show his work sometime early next year. ”’You have to work from what you know, and Nahid knows Sharq,’ Rosenstone says.
Carol Hurley and Bill Bruns will receive Community Service Awards at the Community Council meeting on December 9. Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
Hurley: Alert to Seniors’ Needs By LIBBY MOTIKA, Senior Editor Carol Hurley, the indomitable advocate for seniors in the Palisades, is being honored by the Community Council with its Community Service Award on Thursday, December 9. ” ”A resident of Pacific Palisades for 35 years, Hurley has quietly been working on behalf of seniors for decades, but in her favorite light, which is behind the scenes. She spearheaded the founding of the Palisades chapter of AARP and promises affordable transportation and a senior center sooner than later. ”’I think my belief in volunteering especially with older folks came from my family and the church,’ Hurley told the Palisadian-Post. ‘My brother and I were brought up to volunteer. I also spent a lot of time in the Methodist Youth Fellowship and learned so much from Pastor ‘Pop’ Orley, who was liberal and worked directly with the us kids. He took us to the old folks’ home in Danbury, where I still remember one lady in her 90s, who always remembered me.’ ”Hurley’s ‘Swedish’ grandmother lived with her family, in Glenbrook, a suburb of Stamford, Connecticut, and her New England grandmother lived two doors down the street, so Carol spent a lot of time with each and learned at an early age the exigencies of getting older. ”As a longtime member of the Palisades Methodist Church, Hurley has participated in the church’s social fellowship, which has spawned much of her work with seniors. It was there that she met the late Dr. Margaret Jones, a renowned specialist in cerebral palsy and founder of the Jones-Kanaar Foundation, which supports people with cerebral palsy and gives scholarships for high school seniors who excel in volunteerism. ”Hurley helped Jones, on the occasion of her 90th birthday, honor other 90-year-olds in the Palisades. This celebration has become an annual event hosted by the Junior Women’s Club in June. ”Perhaps it’s Hurley’s problem-solving expertise, efficiency and positive attitude that sets her apart. A typical 24-hour period best describes what she does. ”’First thing this morning, I got a call from a woman who was looking for transportation for a senior over 90,’ Hurley said. ‘So I called her back and gave her the name of a gentleman who is a reliable driver. Then I went to the home of another senior, who is in the hospital, to check up on her cat. Another lady wanted to know how she could cancel a newspaper that she hadn’t wanted in the first place. ”’When the phone rings, I answer it. I talked to a doctor and made an appointment with another to go over one woman’s medications. Meals on Wheels called and wanted me to help find volunteers who would be more of a friendly visitor than just a meal deliverer. So I will call on this senior and then try to recruit more companions.’ ”Hurley, who works mostly pro bono, is the go-to person, often referred by the Chamber of Commerce or the Palisadian-Post, although she got an email from her niece in the same 24-hour period asking her how to get seniors to quit driving, when they become a danger. ”Her answer”tact/respect, facts and tough love”could be applied to many challenges in dealing with older people, who are often set in their ways and frightened, but always worthy of respect. ”’In a town of 23,000, there are more than 5,000 seniors 65 and over,’ Hurley said. ‘That’s more than the number of Palisades kids in school.’ In the aftermath of the 1994 earthquake Hurley sent a survey to all 9,500 Palisades households to figure out what kinds of amenities seniors needed and wanted. ”More than anything, the survey results indicated that the seniors wanted social and cultural activities and transportation alternatives. Hurley’s first effort was getting the AARP chapter started. In 1997, she held a meeting to discuss ideas on transportation. ‘We investigated a number of alternatives, including a van service, volunteer and or low-cost drivers, and while we should have solved this by now, we are still working. Dial-A-Ride in Malibu has approached me for the second time, and the transportation committee will meet with the people from the Beverly Foundation, which specializes in community transportation and has set up a system in Pasadena.’ ” ”A senior herself, Hurley was born a little over 70 years ago in Connecticut. Her parents, with whom she says she never had issues, worked hard’her father was a salesman with a paper company, and her mom worked in a small electronics factory during the war. Hurley commuted to Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School in New York, and worked in business in Chicago until marrying her late husband Ed and moving to Pacific Palisades in 1969. ”She worked in many areas’law, insurance’and finally with Intercole, a housing manufacturer and speciality paint firm with an office in the Palisades. After Ed became ill, Carol ‘retired,’ but was already building a consulting firm which primarily helps people (mainly seniors) ‘take the hassle out of life.’ ”Still living in her home on Monument, she values the importance of neighborhood cohesion by being available when necessary for her neighbors, and counting on her neighbors to do the same. ‘I am in the process of putting together a list, running up and down the street to update names, names of dogs, car license numbers, so we all know who is our neighbor and can contact them if necessary.’ ”Communication is the key, she says, especially as the town grows and people come and go with more frequency. ‘Milt Weiner, chairman of Senior Transportation Action Group would like to divide the Palisades into sectors, so we could be more alert to the seniors and what they may need.’ ”Alert to the seniors and what they need is what Hurley is all about. Bruns: 25 Years in Youth Sports ”’Bill Bruns and Carol Hurley will be honored with the Community Service Award at the Community Council Christmas party December 9 at 7 p.m. at Stewart Hall in Temescal Canyon. ”Council chairman Norman Kulla said Bruns, managing editor of the Palisadian-Post since 1993, was chosen ‘for his 25 years as an active Palisadian devoted to local youth sports programs.’ ”Bruns served as an AYSO coach and yearbook editor for his own childrens’ teams and reported game highlights to the Post, his future employer. Bruns joined the Palisades Baseball Association (PPBA) in 1980 and coached teams at all three levels’the Reds, Expos and Cardinals’in addition to serving as Commissioner in 1983. ”’That was the year the city hired a lowest-bid contractor to install new irrigation for the playing fields,’ Bruns remembers. ‘They ripped up the fields in the fall and promised that we’d be playing on nice new grass in the spring. Construction was still going on in the spring, so we were forced to play our games on the soccer/softball fields at Paul Revere. But we felt it was important to keep the league going and not let kids drift off to West L.A. and Santa Monica.’ ”Meanwhile, Bruns’ daughter, Allison, wanted to play softball in the Palisades Rec Center league when she was in fourth grade, but nobody wanted to organize teams for the upcoming season. Bruns volunteered to keep the league going, and Allison played for four years; she loved the sport so much that she went on to play all four years at Palisades High. ”After the PPBA, Bruns’ son, Alan, became an All-Western League pitcher for Russ Howard’s baseball team at Palisades High and received a partial scholarship to the University of Washington, where he pitched for three years. Alan is a middle school history teacher in the Seattle area and this past summer became head baseball coach at Shorecrest High. ”Allison is a social worker in the South Bay area and will marry Long Island native Mike Minisky in April. ”While Bruns was involved in youth sports, his wife, Pam, was an active leader in Palisades public schools. She and Bill started a school newspaper at Palisades Elementary and she later served as advisor for The Tideline at PaliHi. Pam currently teaches a class entitled ‘Documentary Film and Social Justice’ at Mt. St. Mary’s College. ”Bill and Pam both grew up in Southern California, married in 1968, and have lived in the Palisades since 1972.
Holiday Ho!Ho!Ho! will be held for 55th year tomorrow, December 3, from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., sponsored by the Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce. Santa will begin his VIP ride, escorted by the LAPD, from Fire Station 69 (Sunset and Carey) to Swarthmore at 5 p.m. He’ll be joined by Mrs. Claus, this year’s Miss Palisades Gilli Messer, Mr. Palisades Riley Karp and Buddy the Dalmatian. Children can visit with Santa on his sled on Swarthmore (north of Sunset) and receive a holiday toy compliments of the Palisades Chamber of Commerce. Please note: Santa must leave Swarthmore at 8 p.m. sharp in order to return to the North Pole. There will be festive entertainment for the entire family provided by the Oom PaPa Band (4:30 p.m.), D&T Studio (5:30 p.m.), the Methodist Church Children’s Choir (6 p.m.), Fancy Feet (6:30 p.m.) and the Marquez School Jazz Band, which will make its debut appearance at 7 p.m. Led by bandleader Dane Calcote, the crossing guard at Marquez, the Marquez band will perform Christmas tunes with a jazzy touch. The six student members include Casey on drums, Leo on bass, Louis and Stedman on trumpet, and Myles and Teddy on clarinet. Their sponsor is A2Z Educational Advocates. Remember how successful Movies in the Park was this past summer? That same big screen will be set up on Swarthmore and will show cartoons continuously until 8 p.m., thanks to Bob Sharka at Friends of Film. Sponsoring the cartoons are Boca Man and Boca Woman; Brentwood Art Center; Ivy Greene for Kids; A Rental Connection; and Swarthmore Merchants. Other attractions and sponsors: Balloon Lady (Michael Edlen of Coldwell Banker and Modo Mio Restaurante) and Face Painter (Coldwell Banker and June Sebree of Prudential California Realty/John Aaroe). Palisades- Malibu YMCA will supply and coordinate the Christmas trees that surround Santa. Helping to pay for the tree and sleigh decorations: Teraine; Mila Skin Care; Milestones; Kay n’ Dave’s Cantina; The Nest Egg; Pepperdine University Athletics; Imperial Awards; and Marcella Jennings. Paying for Santa’s traveling expenses are Sharon & Victoria Schammel and John Wild, all three from Coldwell Banker. For the eighth consecutive year, Tim Marschall and his team at TMC General Contractors will assemble the sleigh. Tim and his construction management team constructed the sleigh years ago and store it each year. Free hot chocolate will again be offered courtesy of Bobbie Farberow of Mort’s Palisades Deli. Danny of Village Photo & Digital Imaging will set-up a photo booth to take old-fashioned pictures of the children. Publicity pictures will be taken by Marianne Ullerich of Photography by Marianne. Santa needs helpers. Please call the Elf Hotline at 459-7963.
Ram and Carolyn Miller with their “fire station” daughter, Gigi. Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
By BILL HOBIN Special to the Palisadian-Post My good friend Ram Miller, a Palisades resident and happy father of two young boys, Jake and Cole, was sound asleep early Monday morning, November 22, when Carolyn, his past-due pregnant wife, awoke to find her water had broken. Casually and calmly, she tapped her husband on the shoulder and mentioned that she would gather her things and take a shower, while he should call her doctor and notify her that the couple would be coming to the hospital in a few hours for a delivery. Since Carolyn was previously scheduled for an early Monday morning epidural and inducement, the Miller family thought they were well ready for the arrival of their new child. Little did they know that all hell would soon break loose when ‘Baby Gigi’ decided she was coming out, and coming out now. Only three minutes after Carolyn told Ram that she would start getting her things ready, she suddenly cried out, ‘It’s coming! It’s coming!’ Ram sprung from his bed and raced around the house, threw on his clothes and tried to help his pregnant wife to the car. Now bent over and screaming, Carolyn could barely walk. Ram did his best to carry her without adding further pain and hoisted her into the front seat of his Suburban, all the while she was screeching out at the top of her lungs. They raced down Via de la Paz from the home they are renting, towards the hospital. Like many other homes in Pacific Palisades, their permanent house on Embury Street is under construction, being built by Ram’s construction company, Miller Construction. They turned right on Sunset at approximately 1:35 a.m. and Ram gunned the car eastbound, headed for the hospital. Frantically, Ram tried to dial the doctor on his cell phone, while Carolyn screamed ‘Ram! Ram, the baby is here NOW!’ Knowing he would not make it all the way to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, Ram decided to pull into Fire Station 69 for emergency help. With the horn blowing he raced into the alley and came to a screeching stop behind the fire station. He jumped out of the car and screamed for help: ‘Firemen! Firemen!’ He banged on the back door and yelled ‘Help’my wife is having a baby!’ The station was dark. No light could be seen or any movement within the station. Carolyn was in full labor. No doctor. No warm hospital bed. No medications to help with the pain. It was the middle of the night, in the alley behind the station and alone, with her husband running around trying to awake those inside. Her screams became louder as the pain intensified. Ram ran around the station to the front door, where he found the red house phone and dialed 911. When someone came on the line, Ram yelled ‘We’re having a baby in your driveway!’ A half-asleep respondent set off the internal alarms that woke the firemen, while Ram ran back to rejoin his wife. In what seemed like an hour, he had been gone all of two minutes. When he returned to the car, the back door to the station rolled up and three men were dressed for action and ready to deal with the commotion that pulled them from their bunks. Paramedic John Keys stepped forth, and upon investigation was staring face to face with baby Gigi’s head. He calmly told Carolyn to relax as he proceeded to untangle the umbilical cord from around the baby’s neck and delivered the baby girl in the front seat of Ram’s car. Within one minute the baby was out naked in the 55-degree weather. Like ‘The Old Man and the Sea,’ Keys pulled out his pocket knife, cut the umbilical cord and handed the baby off to one of his assistants. The other firemen quickly wrapped her in blankets and raced new mom and child off to the hospital with proud papa following behind in what was known as the family car and now the birthplace of their daughter, Gigi Miller. About 15 minutes after their arrival, the beautiful 8-lb. baby girl was washed, warmed up, and happily cuddling in a hospital bed next to her mother. This week, Carolyn and Ram Miller met the firemen of Station 69 and gave them all a big hug for their heroic efforts and calming nature in what was a very traumatic moment. (Editor’s note: The fireman in charge of the evening shift was Capt. Robert Espinosa. Those playing assistant nursing roles to paramedic John Keys were firemen Mark Tostado and Bill Hertz and paramedic Gary Johnson. Ram Miller held his wife’s head up as she was lying across the front seat of their Suburban. Author Bill Hobin is president of The William Warren Group, a Santa Monica based self-storage development and operations company. After living in Pacific Palisades for seven years, he now resides in Malibu with his wife and three children. The family members are close personal friends of the Miller family.)
Residents need not panic that oil drilling might one day come to Temescal Canyon, Joe Edmiston assured Temescal Canyon Association members Monday night at their annual meeting in the canyon’s historic dining hall. ‘People have been going around town saying, ‘They’re going to put oil wells in Temescal,’ Edmiston said, referring to critics of the Palisades-Malibu YMCA’s efforts to acquire the 3.9-acre parcel they currently lease at the corner of Sunset and Temescal Canyon Rd. ‘Well, the YMCA doesn’t own mineral rights. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy owns the mineral rights. So there will never be an oil well there, okay?’ Edmiston, a resident of Pacific Palisades, is executive director of the Conservancy. When TCA board member Maria Bane asked him how the community can be assured that these mineral rights are granted to the Conservancy and will never wind up with the YMCA or an oil company, he said: ‘Find yourself a good title lawyer. It’s in the title report [for Temescal Gateway Park]. Reading the title report is a challenging endeavor, so appoint somebody you trust and they’ll find that the mineral rights are specifically reserved to the Conservancy. In fact, that’s a policy throughout the state.’ Edmiston added, ‘The SMC board specifically made it a condition that mineral rights will be reserved’ in negotiating the YMCA’s lot-split application with the City of Los Angeles. This application to acquire the Pumpkin Patch/Christmas tree property is currently under appeal by opponents within the Palisades (including members of the Temescal Canyon Association) and must also work its way through the Coastal Commission. ‘The YMCA doesn’t want the mineral rights; they want to stay as far away from that issue as possible,’ Edmiston said. ‘So let’s put that issue to bed.’ He also praised Mark Elswick, the local Y’s executive director. ‘I have to say, I like Mark Elswick a lot; he’s a straight-shooting kind of guy and he wants to get along with the community. I think he also understands what it takes for the Y to get along with the community.’ Referring to the YMCA’s 10-year, no-build agreement on the option property (once it has been acquired), Edmiston said: ‘I hope that if there is a need to improve the swimming facility, that they don’t consider moving it anywhere else. Just leave it where it is. Don’t threaten a giant commotion in the community by saying we’re going to build a new swimming facility or athletic facility. Moving on to other Temescal issues, Edmiston praised the work of Joyce Whitehead, the Conference Center Coordinator, who he deemed ‘the brightest part of our vision for where the Conservancy is going with our property.’ He continued: ‘Our vision has been to restore, historically as much as we can, the feeling of this wonderful canyon, and to have it be used as much as possible, consistent with the idea that we are custodians of a wonderful natural resource. The restorations that we’ve done here’the dining hall, the dormitory buildings, various other things’have been consistent with that theme. But one thing that we have not done is take a look at the restoration of the natural environment here as opposed to the historical environment. ‘So our major new initiative for Temescal Canyon is going to be an Urban Streams Restoration Grant from the Department of Water Resources, added to by Prop 40 and Prop 50 money which the Conservancy already has, in order to have this be a natural gem of the mountains. This will mean (1) gradually taking away some of the eucalyptus’not of all it, since eucalyptus has historically been here’and introducing more sycamores, (2) making the stream more of a natural channel, and (3) removing the arundo and cape ivy.’ Edmiston also called on TCA members to spread the word and use peer pressure to bring about better enforcement of the regulations within Temescal Canyon. ‘We’ve done a safety study here and the bad news is that this canyon was never designed to have the number of people that are here, and never designed to have the kinds of vehicles that we now have, speeding along the canyon. The good news is, if we can keep everybody at 15 miles an hour, if they stop at the stop signs and don’t think because they’re in a park area that the vehicle code doesn’t apply’we may be able to make it without killing somebody in this canyon.’ The second major issue revolved, of course, around dogs’especially dogs that are allowed to run off-leash along the trails, which is illegal. ‘When a dog jumps up on an elderly couple, they don’t know if the dog is friendly or not. So what we need are trail users who warn people: ‘Keep your dog down low in the canyon; don’t have your dog up on top of the trails.”
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