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...

Ben Folds Acapella

An NPR driveway moment happened today featuring Ben Folds who has discovered college acapella music. The newscast, if you missed it, is in the link and is about 8 minutes long. For many of us BOCA (Best of College Acapella) has been an annual treasure.

I recall my brother John becoming a "barbershopper" in middle school. John is now a big Ben Folds fan and lives once again in North Carolina. Funny how that works. My own kids became "barbershoppers" in high school, then went on to college acapella and beyond. I felt the pull to sing again myself and joined a choral group. There is no feeling to compare to ringing a chord with a well-tuned choral group.

Silver Apples of the Moon - youtube version

I dreamed

Susan Boyle, amateur and unlikely singer, gives an unforgettable performance. Over 4 million views (in one day) on YouTube - but embedded viewer is disabled, so you must click on the link. The song is "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables:

I Dreamed a Dream

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.

Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used
And wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung
No wine untasted.

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame.

And still
I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms
We cannot weather...

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
so different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.

Silver Apples of the Moon

Here's a video link for a little W.B. Yeats:

"Wandering Aengus" - also known as "Silver Apples of the Moon" performed by the Cinnabar Women's Chorus in Petaluma ... our Monday evening choral group.

I may try posting a link to the youtube version also, but let's see how this works!

Potholes in Memory Lane

In preparation for a hip operation, I pulled out some of my hundreds of anatomy drawings dating from the 1960's (middle school and high school) and 1980's when I taught perspective drawing at the Academy of Art College (now University) in San Francisco. Of course memory lane has its potholes.

All the drawings are of properly functioning bones and muscles. No age or arthritis damage is evident anywhere. Within the past year, though, I discovered that I needed a bit of structural repair. After some discussion, tests and research I just had Birmingham Hip Resurfacing.



Crutches on stairs were the first challenge. With 13 steps into the house and no ramp, it was essential to master this before leaving the hospital. I'm still scooting around the house with the walker or crutches - but have been liberated now by being able to climb into the truck and drive!

Banana slugs and fungi

Just for a little truth in labeling, this post includes banana slugs and fungi. There are also waterfalls, redwood trees and undulations.

Yesterday we had a spring walk in the woods at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Note that the trail description says that the elevation is 200-400 feet. Seems easy enough, although the trail is labeled "strenuous". It turns out that the 2-400 foot elevation change happens about 12 times in the 12 mile loop we took. These turned out to be "undulations" or extremely large sine waves. Otherwise, a delightful day in the redwoods hunting fungi, banana slugs and waterfalls. We went to the Berry Falls, Golden Falls and Silver Falls - here's a copy of the official park map.


Berry Falls

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Along the way we found lots of fungi sprouting from downed trees and vegetable detritus. Colors ranged from virulent green to pink and dayglow yellow/orange. I'm sure they all have names.


Chuck, Felicia, Francois, John and I were the group. By about the half-way mark, my bum hip began to give trouble - so our return trip was a rather leisurely stroll for the seasoned hikers of the group.

We lunched at the base of the first (and highest elevation) falls of the group on West Berry Creek. John, having hiked the trail several times, did not reveal the delights in store. Especially the rappelling down the face of one of the falls. I asked, "is there another way down?" and John's one word answer - "No." Hmmm... 6 miles up a creek with an airplane cable to hold on to to get down. I guess I'd rather do that than try to walk back around...

We were truly stumped a few miles down the return trail where a pair of redwood trees had fallen across the path giving a chest high by 200 foot long barricade. Up and over, or down into the canyon to go around? We tried several methods and all emerged on the other side of the barrier.

The UC Santa Cruz mascot was thundering through the mosses...



...and fallen and fire scarred trees gave contrasting texture and color to the wet green canopy of the forest.


On the way home to Napa, exhausted and hungry (at least the hungry part was true of all of us) we stopped in Albany/Berkeley for the best pizza in the Bay area - Zachary's.