My Mom the Veteran

On Veterans Day in 2010 I changed my facebook picture to one of my mom during World War II. Each year since, I've changed my picture back to this one. Mom died in 2000 at age 81.

After finishing college and the beginning of the war, she enlisted in the Marines as a nurse's aid and was sent to New Guinea. These were huge life changes for a young woman from Kansas. She told tales of the South Pacific - good looking "fly boys" from Australia - and from America; rain forests and deluges; and tropical diseases to avoid. One of those brought her home where she mustered out and took a civilian job in the Manhattan Project.

As a traditional housewife of the 50's, her adventurous life during and after the war was not well known. She was much better known in my home town as the non-Catholic mother of six children.

She loved to dance, and the music of the 30's and 40's was an early soundtrack of my life. Our Dad also loved to dance. They met on a blind date early in 1947, quickly married, and produced my eldest brother before the end of the year.

Dad was one year older than Mom and finished engineering school right before the war. He enlisted as an officer in the Navy after Pearl Harbor and spent years as a drill instructor at Annapolis. He requested active duty and served on a destroyer in the Pacific theater. Before the end of the war he was ordered back to Annapolis. For decades after the war he commanded a US Navy Reserve Seabee unit in our town. Dad's booming voice was either a special talent or result of his years of Navy service.

I always think of the contributions of my parents as Veterans on days like today. The millions who mobilized in the armed forces and on the home front helped keep our nation secure. I'm not sure I understood what that meant as a child, but I'm glad they told their stories so that I would remember when I became an adult.

Tales from the trail

I've been busy. Walking a lot of miles, knocking on about 3,500 doors, wearing out three pairs of shoes. All in the service of running for local office. There have been neighborhood meetings, debates, a direct mail campaign, and the task of raising money to send the mail that one hopes does not go into the recycle bin unread.

From walking in the wind and rain of January to the scorching heat of late May, there have been many lovely interludes on the campaign trail. I'm convinced that most people really put a lot of effort into making a lovely entrance to their homes. I'm posting some photos to show what I mean. We have vineyards in the City of Napa - and photos of vines before bud break.

Campaign events for other candidates such as for Congressman Mike Thompson:

Talking to a group of neighbors about the evils of urban sprawl:

 I found an old "head pruned" vine in north Napa, serving as a landscape feature:

A celebration of 100 years of Girl Scouts, complete with uniforms I remember from my own childhood:

Crabapple trees in bloom, in the rain:

A clever "Burma Shave" sign campaign against that same "Urban Sprawl" project:
 

Pink dogwoods in bloom, reminding me of the "old home place":

California poppies and bearded iris in a vibrant clash in a front dooryard:

 A front yard garden in a forgotten and often overlooked neighborhood:

 

And by the end of the campaign, the bare branches and dripping spring flowering trees have yielded their front yard bounty:

 

My backyard persimmon tree is loaded with tiny green fruits in little frilled and pleated cups. Our cherry trees have jays and mockingbirds yacking over who will eat the first fruits. They test the sweetness then complain that the cherries are not yet ripe. The weeds in our garden are knee high and the peonies are begging to be relieved of the strangling tentacles of blackberries that seem to think the deeply dug flower beds are their own. We missed the iris bloom in our own yard, and the artichokes will be sending out their blue flowers any day. Certainly they are past their tender and youthful stage.

The elections office calls the election "too close to call". So we wait patiently, realizing that we are 87 votes behind, and not likely to surpass the other challenger to the incumbent.

Preservation Blues

An interesting post by far away friend John D. Poole on his preservation picks for this past week got me thinking about how the preservation world changes, and how it remains the same. There are some abiding principles for historic preservation that are embodied in "the Secretary of the Interior Standards and Guidelines" developed by the National Park Service decades ago. About when I started my career in architecture. These have morphed over the years to include Standards for preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, reconstruction, cultural landscapes, and energy efficiency (the newest).


clancytheys.com

A long time ago, and many miles from here, I had the opportunity to work on the North Carolina Governor's Mansion. I wrote a little blog piece on that experience. Some time before that, while still in architecture school, I worked on the North Carolina State University campus. In English vernacular, I caused "a nine days' wonder". The buildings I spent my first summer in construction working on were Berry, Becton and Bagwell dormitories. It appears that they have been rehabilitated again. I find internet links by two firms with photos of the buildings, possibly an architecture and landscape architecture firm.


clhdesignpa.com

After applying for construction labor jobs at 17 companies, including the one my father worked for - I found myself still without a construction job the summer before my senior year of architecture school. I had the rather naive thought that since many of my classmates (all men) worked for higher wages outdoors instead of cooped in a massive underground bunker of a drafting room, that I would do the same thing.  I did not realize that no women had yet broken the gender barrier in construction in North Carolina. With Clancy & Theys Construction Company, I decided to make my stand. I was rejected by the General Superintendent after two visits to the field office. As I departed the office on the second visit, it occurred to me that the administrative office was upstairs. I walked up the drive to the upper level of the building, in the front door, and encountered Linda. I told Linda that I'd like to see Mr. Clancy or Mr. Theys. She smiled and showed me right to Mr. Theys who was discussing labor for the NCSU dormitories project with with job Superintendent, Mr. P. Against his every instinct, compunction or religious belief, Mr. P. ended up with the first woman on his crew. By end of summer he took the newspaper crews and photographers in stride. Clancy & Theys got some good publicity, and I got the kind of experience that a pioneer receives.

I learned a few lessons that summer. One of our best laborers was a man the same age as my father. John A. was illiterate, but could operate any kind of equipment and fix things with tie wire that looked unfixable. He taught me how to do heavy labor all day without killing myself. He worked on all the subsequent projects I worked on, and was one of my mentors in the field.

By 1977 I was the Superintendent, and he worked on my crew.


med.unc.edu

We worked on the rehabilitation of McNider Hall, University of North Carolina School of Medicine. It has probably been renovated again since then. Mr. Theys asked me one day when I was "back at the shop" putting gas in one of the trucks what I wanted to become in the construction business. I answered "a superintendent".

He said, "Do you think men would take orders from a woman?"

I said,"If she's the boss they will."

Within a month I was Assistant Superintendent, and in a few more, I was Superintendent. The men did take orders from a woman.

don't come home till dark

As I left this evening to walk in one of the large precincts in Napa, my husband called out "Don't come home till dark!" This is something my mom used to say as she shooed the six of us out of the house. Sometimes she even locked the door after us. Perhaps the purpose was to prevent us from watching too much TV -- but I think the noise just got to her at times. I recall a dull roar from the house, punctuated by whoops and hollers. I had to smile because it brought back so many childhood summer memories.



Local political races include lots of knocking on doors. The great thing is to see all the different neighborhoods in Napa. Here's a magnolia grandiflora from the east side of town:



And here is a planting of edible strawberries by a front walkway - spilling out of strawberry pots and covering the ground:



Here I am at the end of a long hot Saturday, still smiling.

Where in Napa is...

This brightly painted house is in one of Napa's earliest neighborhoods. Where might that be?



While enjoying a visit from my brother John Inman and his wife Patti, we walked around this neighborhood. There are some lovely hydrangeas on the same block:



We also had an opportunity to go to the Saturday farmer's market by the Oxbow Public Market:



Our visitors were very impressed with Napa. The farmer's market trip was prompted by a dinner at Grace's Table and a quest for the smoked olive oil used in one of the dishes. It is definitely available at the Saturday market.

Muir Woods

Patti and John Inman are visiting Napa for a few days before heading up to Lake Tahoe. Last summer we visited the giant sequoias in Yosemite. While talking about trees, it became apparent that these east coast residents thought the giant sequoias and coast redwoods were the same trees. So off we went to Muir Woods, the only old growth redwood forest remaining in the bay area.



As a well-known bird watcher, John was as interested in the fauna as the flora. Down the trail is John with his binoculars scoping out the tops of the trees.



Just over the barrier is Redwood Creek, with many spotted Salmon fry. The young salmon were abundant and healthy looking. We did not see any banana slugs thundering through the mosses. Of course this is a much dryer time of year than when I last went to Big Basin Redwoods.

Haint Blue number 2

I've been looking up at porch ceilings for many years. Growing up in the south, I found that porches are ubiquitous. Some have upholstered furniture, some have the requisite wicker furniture, some have swings, gliders, rockers or benches. A porch must be wide enough (six feet minimum) to sit and to allow one to get into and out of the furniture. After looking at porches for many years, I realized many in the south have blue ceilings - "haint blue" ceilings, that is. I find it interesting that haint blue is almost as ubiquitous as the porch itself - even being found on the ceiling of this 1892 Queen Anne Victorian in Napa. (A previous post shows the original paint hidden under the layer of stucco applied in the 1930's.)

We love our porches in Napa. My neighbor started a tradition last summer of inviting friends and neighbors every Sunday afternoon for a sit on her porch. What a lovely tradition!



Both of these houses were designed by Napa Architect Luther M. Turton.

history mystery

Historical sites, buildings and records have fascinated me for decades. As a child I roamed the back roads and historical traces remaining in my home town. A colonial era roadway, stone arch bridge, miller's house ruin, mill and mill pond was one of the sites I intermittently visited. To my enduring dismay, this whole group of sites was destroyed in order to build a major cross town freeway in Greensboro, NC. As historic sites across the nation were decimated in the 1950's, 60's and 70's - I acted in my college town to snatch building parts prior to the bulldozers moving in. Most of these relics were sold in about 1984 before yet another cross country move.

My friend Missy will recall the bandsaw cut railings rescued from an eastern NC building - some used for a restoration in Raleigh, NC, and the remainder given to a restoration effort in Little Rock, AR. All of our marriages ended - in the 70's 80's and 2000's.

I found recently a fabulous Library of Congress site. On this site can be found thousands of Dorthea Lange depression era photographs, ans well as many thousands of other documents. This is truly one of the Federal Treasure troves available.

Pose an historical question - and some unexpected results may follow. Check it out! After reading "Thomas Jefferson, American Sphinx" by Joseph P. Ellis, I searched for photos of Monticello and found a treasure trove. Likewise, in seaching for "turpentining" I found the Dorothea Lange archive.

stagger lee

The internet makes it possible to re-connect to a long vanished past in many surprising ways. We can now access maps, photos, documents, film, and virtual cemeteries. A small and growing group of alumni from design school began posting notes and a few photos in a facebook group, and now the archive has grown to include all kinds of ephemera from the intervening years. We are spread across thousands of miles, and took wildly different paths. The postings have become more and more creative and are as unlike the dry university sponsored page as can be imagined.

There are also music and cultural connections that are meaningless to those who never lived in our little slice of the south. Another southerner posted a recent "status update" about going dancing - western swing dancing - and I posted a wikipedia link to the official state dances. Of course I commented that the Shag is the official dance of two states. Her response to the video was that it looked like "Riverdance gets drunk at a fraternity party!"

"Shag:The Movie" - starring Annabeth Gish, Phoebe Cates and Bridget Fonda shows the southern beach culture and dance. For those in UK countries, it is not what you might think! A road trip movie... check it out.

Napa fourth of July

This year we stayed home for fourth of July, along with everyone else in town.  We were invited to a wonderful barbecue - and the host was surprised that almost everyone accepted.  A last minute email went out to round up additional tables for the feast.  This was not just any barbecue, but a southern (specifically North Carolina) barbecue.  The menu included pulled pork, corn on the cob, sliced fresh tomatoes, black-eyed peas, cooked greens, potato salad, cucumber salad, okra and tomatoes, cole slaw, soft rolls, Napa wines, pecan pie, black bottom pie... Guests brought some starters - including pimento cheese, chopped liver, deviled eggs, and catfish pate.







Earlier in the day we had a home grown parade - with the Wells Fargo stagecoach as the big "shew". 

After our leisurely afternoon, we ambled down to the river to watch fireworks.  




It was a great day to think about Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton - subjects of three books I've read this past month.

hard headed hard hat

Thinking about the long and winding trip from this lovely pile of bricks to current land use skirmishes in Napa, I must remind myself at times that I am still that "hard headed hard hat" who broke the gender barrier in North Carolina over thirty five years ago. The main reason my construction career was not limited to one intense summer during college was this building - the North Carolina Governor's Mansion.

A week or so after marriage and moving back to an 1870 cottage in Raleigh, NC about two blocks from this home, I noticed that the building had a familiar construction company sign posted. I wanted more than anything to go into this house and to work on it. I also needed a job. Should I work in an architecture office drawing toilet room partitions and running blueprints - or march up to the door and seek a laborer job with my former employer? Not a hard choice, actually...

Mr. C-, the superintendent looked startled and nonplussed at my effrontery to be standing there asking for a job. I'm a "girl", for heaven's sake. Girls don't do construction work. He needed laborers - right then - and asked if I had any experience and could do the job. Looking around the jobsite, suspiciously clogged with men within earshot, I noticed Mr. P- my former superintendent. Looking a bit further, I noticed a couple of other superintendents I recognized. I said, "Mr.P- can vouch for me."

"Hey P-, do you know this girl?"

Mr. P- (who was working, not lurking) turned - and wreathed in smiles came over to greet me. "Great to see you again. What are you doing here, Juli?"

"I'd like to work on the Governor's Mansion. I love this house!" I said.

Mr. C- and Mr. P- talked for a minute, while I greeted Mr. P-'s son Arthur - also working on the project. Arthur was a quiet, quick moving carpenter whose hammer loop always squeaked in a rhythmic way. He pointed out several other superintendents working on the job. All were master carpenters, and the company, Clancy & Theys Construction Co. had put every top craftsman on this job. I knew this was the right place to be. Mr. P- did the sales job for me, and I started that day.

Within a couple of months I was assistant superintendent for Mr. C-.

The Governor's Mansion was so close to my house, that I walked every day. I still have my lunchbox and hard hat, but the thermos is long gone. My 1953 deluxe cab Chevy pick up truck sat quietly in the drive, happy to be a weekender truck working on the weekend project...

Bite a Blue Apple

An obituary arrived in the email inbox today for Claude McKinney, former Dean of the School of Design at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Dean McKinney (as I still think of him) came to the School of Design in 1973 - replacing Dean Henry Kamphoefner, who had lead the school since1948.

This quote - "A 2000 recipient of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine Award, presented by then-Gov. James B. Hunt Jr." - started me on a mini treasure hunt. For many years I've had hanging on the wall my Order of the Long Leaf Pine awarded by Governor Robert W. Scott in about 1970. This was for work done as part of a student group promoting the establishment of a natural Zoological Park for the State of North Carolina.

Dean McKinney spoke at our commencement in 1974. One of my other college treasures is a small metal lapel pin with a bitten blue apple. These were passed out at the very small commencement gathering and pre-date Apple computers, but not Apple records. The title of the commencement address was "Bite a Blue Apple".

I must admit that I don't recall the text of the speech, and probably questioned the whole development of the theme as I was prone to do in those days. However, I kept the pin through all these years. I also kept the Order of the Long Leaf Pine granting me the unique post of Ambassador Extraordinary entitled to give the official State of North Carolina toast in select company anywhere in the free world.

I wonder if that is why I memorized the toast in Jr. High School?

So in memory of Dean Claude McKinney please raise your glass-

Here's to the land
of the long leaf pine,
The summer land
where the sun doth shine,
Where the weak grow strong
and the strong grow great,
Here's to "down home"
the old North State!