Rebane's Ruminations

Sixty Years Ago Today – 4 May 1949

George Rebane

 

At first light on 4 May 1949 the USS General Harry Taylor (above) had already slipped through the Verrazano Narrows by the time my father and I joined the other men and boys on the deck of the troopship.  We all wanted to see the Statue of Liberty and the lights of New York that still defined its skyline in the hour before sunrise.  Today we would finally set foot in our new chosen homeland after spending more than four eventful and uncertain years as refugees in the displaced persons camps of post-war Germany.

The port side-rails of the ship were packed as the big troop transport slowly made its way toward the waiting berth at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Soon it would be joined by two tugs to help nudge us gently into the dock.  But that was still a good hour away and now everyone was looking at the biggest harbor, city, and everything else that they had ever seen.  I remember the conversations were all carried in quiet awe of the passing scenery and anxious anticipation of the momentous events awaiting each family on this most mutually auspicious of days.

The Statue of Liberty was at first hard to make out from the lights of New Jersey.  Everyone, of course, wanted to catch a glimpse because they knew this moment would be remembered forever.  Finally, I saw it for sure when she came abeam of us across the harbor in the west.  In the dim light it looked majestic and exactly like in the pictures I had seen on posters and pamphlets that were handed out to refugees in the camps.  Now her torch seemed very bright.  For me, seeing the monument meant that my mother, father, and I would no longer have to crowd into small single rooms that had been home since Christmas of 1945.  On that May morning we didn’t know that that promise would be delayed for almost a year, but that’s another story. 

Ruminations – 21dec2008

George Rebane

Happy Winter Solstice to everyone.  At 4:04 AM PST this morning the sun was exactly overhead somewhere at the Tropic of Capricorn latitude in the southern hemisphere.  For Jews everywhere Hanukkah, the festival of the lights, starts this evening at sunset.  Christians have today lit the fourth candle of Advent and await the annual celebration of the Incarnation.  I haven’t a clue what the secular humanists are doing this season besides monitoring that the odd crèche or menorah is not found anywhere on public property.  All in all, we should take maximum advantage of these holy days and stock up on all the goodness and mercy we can because 2009 is going to be a duuzy.

Saw on TV where some Indians are being insulted again.  It seems that a ski area has been making snow with recycled sewer water.  Now this water is clean enough to drink, but the Indians don’t want to have the stuff sprayed on yet another piece of recently discovered sacred ground.  For those of you of a scientific bent, consider that things disperse pretty thoroughly over time.  For instance, every breath you take today contains about 43 atoms of the last breath exhaled by Julius Caesar or Jesus Christ when they were executed two thousand years ago.  I also recall that the palefaces did beat the redskins, but then taught them how to dial up the local office of the ACLU.  Fortunately none of the Red Man’s Revenge casinos are located on holy ground – or, come to think of it, maybe they are. (Imagine how many H2O molecules formerly in the urine of infidels rains down on Muslim holy places annually.  Everyone can really get worked up about that.)

We Miss You Harry

George Rebane

Old Harry got more than he bargained for in April 1945 when they handed him the schnitzel, told him FDR had died, and that he had the watch now.  The Allies in Europe were closing in on Berlin, and Okinawa - one of the greatest battles of the war - was starting in the Pacific, and no one at home really paid any attention.  This ex-artillery officer from WW1 had no idea what he was getting into because, since they were sworn in three months before, FDR had used him mostly as stand-in for a potted plant in the old Executive Office building.

A correspondent sent me some Harry Truman vignettes that brought back my own memories of that Democrat president when I was much younger.  Reflecting on it now, I believe he was the only Democrat president in modern times worth his office, right-hand-of-God FDR included.  But then, you probably knew that.

“It doesn't matter how big a ranch ya' own, or how many cows ya' brand, the size of your funeral is still gonna to depend on the weather.”  HST

 

Ruminations -7may08

George Rebane

* VE Day remembrance
* Ethanol realities come home to roost
* Vallejo’s Bankruptcy
* Some Left-wing Views on Illegal Aliens
* Repairing the family washing machine

VE Day.  Sixty-three years ago my mother, father, and I watched elements of Patton's Third Army roll into a small farming village near Monheim, Germany.  We had walked into this village a couple of weeks before carrying our suitcases.  My father was an electrician and was able to trade his talents for room and board. This night we spent huddled with other villagers in a basement on the gun-target line listening to incoming shells that were annihilating the remnants of an SS unit - holed up in a patch of forest about 200 yards from us - and shaking hell out of the village.  One of the SS troopers was wounded early in the shelling, and for most of the night we could hear his screams between explosions.  The screaming stopped before sunrise not long before the barrage was halted.  As we went back upstairs we saw two lines of soldiers with rifles at the ready on its only street slowly walk into the village while hugging the houses.  After that, the GIs started going through each house which created many a tense moment as they burst into one room after another.  We were very scared when our single room in the attic was assaulted and three very dirty and tired GIs came in with their M-1s at high port.  Then more drama and comedy as the main force came into town.  Soon thereafter the Rebanes were sitting in the back of a 3/4 ton truck being taken to the refugee camp in Augsburg that was set up as the collection point for east Europeans.  We were to be interned in such camps for the next four years.

Road Ruminations – 27apr2008

George Rebane

Las Cruces is a city of about 70,000 in southern New Mexico.  It is a modest bedroom community for the various government facilities (White Sands Missile Range, Holloman AFB, …) hereabouts and is also within commuting distance of El Paso, Texas.  For us it is a rest stop on the way to visit friends in Tucson.  The town is located in the Rio Grande valley which is to New Mexico as the Nile is to Egypt – all the major cities are located and all economic activity apparently takes place within about twenty miles of this vigorous and life giving river. (Click on photos to enlarge)

As the home of the southern campus of the State University of New Mexico (‘The Aggies’), Las Cruces is also a college town.  The large student population gives the community a definitely young appearance.  However, Jo Ann pointed out that many of the older men here display some kind of orthopedic injury that they collected from their hard working lives.  The city itself seems to be in a state of becoming and suffers from some neglect in how things work.  Yesterday we were directed to the worst Mexican restaurant in the world, and filled up at a Chevron station that needed a lot of love. 

In the evening we decided to take no more chances and selected an IHOP near the movie we would later attend.  Visions of the Grass Valley IHOP danced in our heads as we walked in.  Along every dimension (including promised deliveries from its food distributor) we quickly discovered that not all IHOPs are created equal.  Ours is a gem.  Oh yes, and in the theater their new digital (DLP) movie projector broke down three times before it finally relented to play the entire movie.

The Great Western motel where we are staying was selected by the New Mexico British sports car club which made its parking lot look like something out of an old movie.  I met an engineer who works at the Los Alamos lab; he gave me a thorough rundown on his TR4.  Lucky for me it was parked in the shade.

This morning we visited the White Sands Missile Range about 40 miles to the east on the other side of the Sacramento Mountains.  Since I worked on a number of missile weapon systems in a former life, I wanted to see their museum of this country’s missile development history.  WSMR is an active facility, so in order to take our car on base we had to have it “inspected” for explosives, etc.  That done, we drove to the museum and were well rewarded for the effort.  The exhibits, while a bit weather worn, were still impressive.

Ruminations - 15mar2008

George Rebane

Blog does not have to register.  Blogger Art Segal (letorovalleyexcel.blogspot.com) of Oro Valley, Arizona had a brief but illuminating go-around with the town council.  Since he was vocal about which politicians he backed and opposed, the town leaders tried to stifle him by telling him he had to register as a “political committee”.  When the dust settled, the town was advised by outside counsel to leave Mr. Segal alone because “the blog does not raise or accept funds on behalf of candidates, it did not have to register.” Nevada County bloggers and governments take note as the election season heats up.

Grass Valley’s Press Release is Delayed.  Answering my question about emergency responder and staff layoffs and bankruptcy rumors last Tuesday, Mayor Mark Johnson stated that the City would issue a press release in the next few days to clear up such rumors and set the record straight on how the current “financial stresses” would be handled.  Apparently this is a more complicated matter than it then appeared to the leadership of the county’s premier city.  To follow up I called City Administrator Jeff Foltz’s office a couple of days ago.  He has been too busy to return that call so I presume there’s a whole lot of wordsmithing going on to get the promised press release out.  Then again, since even The Union didn’t pick up on the Mayor’s words, perhaps there is nothing to be concerned about and we should all just forget about it.

15mar08-2045 ... and here developing next door in Auburn

Max Hasting’s long-awaited Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45  has just been published.  Students of WW2 and 20th century history have been waiting for this revealing history of the war’s last year in the Pacific since Hasting’s Armageddon appeared four years ago.  In the latter work the celebrated historian gave an account of the European war from D-Day through the summer of 1945 (after VE-Day) revealing a view of what really happened that was not previously available in one coherent and tightly written volume.  It is a treatment definitely not recommended for those in whom that conflict has lain comfortably buried under a tombstone of three or four slogans learned in state-run public schools.  For the rest of us, the long wait is now over.   

15mar08 - 2100 ... Help the Nevada County Library.  Go to Martin Light's Light on Nevada County for details.

Ruminations – 2feb2008

George Rebane

• SuperBowl Analytics – we were a mite early
• More on the DA space issue in the Union
• How closely do the candidates match your views?

SuperBowl Analytics – On this SuperBowl weekend Jo Ann and I will watch one of our few sporting events during the year.  We only get excited when season-long competitions come to an end – i.e. World Series, NBA Finals, …, and when on the off-chance that UCLA athletes do something notable.  Anyway, I ran across an interesting article on how rocket science (aka analytics) has become embedded in athletic decision making both on and off the field.  In the 70s when friend Gary Irving and I were doing ‘black studies’ in the defense of our country, Gary (a former world-class sprinter) suggested that what we did for Uncle Sam could be of great profit to sports like football.  We were two hotshot systems engineers and there wasn’t a technical problem in the world we couldn’t solve. 

So after some fun noodling we had a portfolio of ideas and specific methods on applying high-falootin’ math and science to sports.  With colored pictures and graphs under our arms Gary got us appointments with a number of coaches on both sides of the country.  One, I remember, was with George Allen of the Washington Redskins.  All were genuinely interested, but all assured us sports was such an intuitive and complex field that analytics would be of little use.  Well, it turns out we were either too early or too easily turned away (we did have day jobs and families to feed).  Twenty years passed and analytics entered sports on a full time basis.  For tomorrow’s SuperBowl in this article you can read how analytics are used today in high-powered athletics.

Good article on the new DA office space issue in today’s Union here.  The writer satisfactorily answers most people on the ‘need to move’ question.  The matter that The Union considers yet unresolved is the Supes’ choice of the new Union Street Building.  The implication by the paper and many of its correspondents is that there are better digs available and the selection job was not properly carried out, or worse, that it was done in an underhanded way to reward cronies.  The Union asked three questions to illuminate the matter (see my post on this), which, until they explain themselves,in reality posited an accusation of impropriety that still stands.  The final resolution of this will be to identify over-looked alternatives that point-by-point satisfy the county’s and DA’s specifications for new office space.  We will try to help to resolve this shortly, stay tuned.

Finally, in this election season my daughter pointed me to a site where you can answer a few questions on issues and then be shown the candidates ranked in the order in which you agree with their positions.  Revealing and lots of fun.

It's been snowing all day and all week here in Nevada County, and we're happy to be staying home huddled around a warm fire.  I'm ready to make a bigger carbon footprint if it'll help things get warmer.

Southern California Fires – Part III: Lessons Learned

George Rebane

This concludes the series on wildfires that started with Part I: Our House Burns and continued in Part II: Our House is Still There!.

During the hours we spent with the fire crews who were sheltered in our house, we learned a lot about the nature of wild fires and how they could and could not be successfully defended against.  Jo Ann and I were the only civilians within a circle of ten or twelve firefighters gathered around the breakfast table and adjoining family room.  There were no reporters, everyone could talk freely, political considerations were the furthest from everyone’s mind.  Our main concerns at this point were 1) had we prepared properly, and 2) what else could we have done or now do to prepare for the future?

We were told straight out that the ‘future’ we were concerned about was about eight years away given how thoroughly the vegetation around our neighborhood and nearby mountains had burned.  But there were some important insights which the fire fighters led by their captains laid down for us.  These formed our lessons learned – some corroborated our thirty-plus years of experience watching and studying southern California wildfires; and some points made came as a complete surprise.  I will list them with comments as appropriate.

Southern California Fires – Part II: Our House is Still There!

George Rebane

(continued from Part I: Our House Burns, concluded in Part III: Lessons Learned)

The morning after in Simi Valley found us at our friends Chuck and Lois’ house eating breakfast and talking about what we would find when we returned to Saddle Peak Road and how we would rebuild.  The Malibu fire was still raging and would do so for two more days.  The TV was on and several stations were carrying ongoing coverage of the devastation.  Then we saw that one station was broadcasting live shots of the burning mountains from a helicopter and doing actual close-ups of charred remains of burned houses most of which were still smoldering.  The ruins seemed oddly alone, the sweeping close-ups showed no humans and the reporter explained that no attempt was made to save these houses because of the sheer intensity of the firestorms in which they were engulfed during the night.  Jo Ann and I were sitting on the floor with eyes glued to the tube waiting for a familiar shape or scene to appear from the panning camera.  Again, the reporter had no idea what area he was covering; to him it was just “in the mountains above Malibu”.  To us it was maddening. 

Suddenly we saw a familiar bend in a paved road and the camera stabilized for a moment on two charred foundations the outlines of which we instantly recognized – they were the remnants of the ‘A-Frame’ and the ‘Ugly Dome’ diagonally across from our house.  (In the sparsely populated mountains every family gave their own names to the houses in their neighborhood.)  I remember going into a kind of numb state where the voices in the room sounded as if from a distance; we were ready to see the camera sweep across the road and show the remains of our house.  Instead the view went directly across the road to the huge, almost finished ‘Bailey house’, our next door neighbor to the west.  The Bailey house was gone, the rubble piles didn’t even reach more than a couple of feet above the foundation.  The concrete walls on one side of the ground level garages had crumbled from the intense heat, the reporter was babbling something in the background about the “complete devastation” he was seeing.  We were holding our breath not knowing how we would react as our property came into view.

Southern California Fires – Part I: Our House Burns

George Rebane

We lived our entire adult lives in SoCal; Jo Ann was born in Los Angeles where I arrived as a teenager.  The 25 years before we moved here in 2002 were spent on Saddle Peak Road on the crest line of the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu.  With sweeping one hundred-plus mile views of the ocean, islands, the city, and mountains it was the most scenic of places to live in that metropolitan madness.  But there was a price to be paid for all that natural beauty and wonderful wilderness so close to everything.