Category Archives: Bay area, Calif.

Winter, blah

For us, one of the attractions of moving to the San Francisco Bay Area was the weather. Sure, we knew that there are usually a couple of days a year when temperatures dip below freezing, but we could handle that.

The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather warning for the Bay area. For tonight, they say “the coldest air of the season so far is expected. Snow levels will lower to 500 feet….” Since we live well below the 500 foot level, that is fine with me. It might be charming to see a little white on the tops of the coastal range.

The forecast continues: “Areas of frost are possible late Monday night into Tuesday morning.” That is still within the range of acceptable weather. In fact, it would be fun to see some frost: last time we lived in the Bay area, it was faintly amusing to see people trying to scrape frost off their car windshields with credit cards (I made sure to keep our ice scrapers in the glove compartment). But then the forecast continues with something is is quite unacceptable: “Monday through Saturday. Colder with rain and snow showers….”

Snow showers, even if mixed with rain, are completely unacceptable, and will not be tolerated.

Happy Thanksgiving

Earlier today, we walked down to San Francisco Bay and saw Black-necked Stilts in the mudflats and the San Mateo Bridge in the distance. We sat around eating Spanish cheese and rice crackers, and Sue and Carol drank some chianti. Sue and Carol went to take a nap, and I walked over to Central Park in San Mateo to walk through the Japanese Garden.

Now I’m back home, about to do the final preparations for the Thanksgiving feast. The turkey is sitting on top of the oven to cool. The butternut squash has almost finished roasting in the oven. The mashed potatoes are cooked, the broccoli is about ready to be cooked. I’m about to set the table, and pretty soon we’ll be eating.

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving!

Winter: dark, wet, and green

By now, the sun had gotten about as low in the sky as it will get. We will lose a few more minutes of daylight between now and the winter solstice, but it almost won’t be noticeable.

Over the weekend, we got some more rain, not a great deal of it, but enough to make a difference to growing plants. While the hillsides still look brown, there are even more tender green shoots coming up in odd places.

Mass American culture tells us that spring is associated with tender green shoots and lengthening days. But that’s not the way the seasons work here. Right now, our days are short, and at the same time we have tender green shoots coming up. We don’t dash through the snow to get to grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving; we dash through rain showers and greenery. The Advent or Yule season is dark, just as it is throughout the northern hemisphere, but it is also wet and green. Mass American culture stems from North Atlantic culture, but parts of it just don’t apply to the Pacific Rim.

Waiting for winter

After the rain we had in October, little green plants started springing up in all kinds of places. In front of our house, the ground between the sidewalk and the road turned from barren beaten-down earth to little delicate green plants in the days after the rainstorms. In our front garden, the fennel roots put out fuzzy little green leaves a couple of inches long. Along the railroad tracks, a few green shoots started showing in among the golden brown stalks from last winter’s now-dead plants.

We haven’t had any significant rain since then. Those little green plants have gotten a little larger, but not by much. There they sit, waiting for the next big rain storm so they can grow a little larger.

More on Eliza Tupper Wilkes

In the 2/9 June 1888 issue of Unity, a Unitarian newspaper, reported that Eliza Tupper Wilkes was the pastor of the Sioux Falls Circuit in Dakota Territory (p. 197). C[aroline]. J. Bartlett (later Caroline Bartlett Crane) was pastor of All Souls Church in Sioux Falls. Wilkes had founded the church in Sioux Falls, and Bartlett joined her there in 1887; by 1888, Bartlett had become sole pastor (Standing before us: Unitarian Universalist women and social reform, 1776-1936, by Dorothy May Emerson, June Edwards, Helene Knox, p. 128).

The following biographical notices from History of Minnehaha county, South Dakota, by Dana Reed Bailey (Brown & Saenger, ptrs., 1899, p. 740) tell about Eliza and her husband William. Note that William and Eliza lived apart for three years while Eliza was in California:

Wilkes, William A., was born in Fremont, Ohio, in 1845. He was educated in Marion, Ohio, and at the age of eighteen years removed to Dodge county, Wisconsin. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1871: then practiced law at Rochester, Minnesota, and at Colorado Springs, Colorado, and was elected prosecuting attorney of El Paso county two years. In 1878 he removed to Sioux Falls, where he has since resided. In connection with his professional work he engaged in the real estate business for some years. In 1893, and again in 1897, he was nominated judge of the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit by the Populist party, but was defeated by Judge J. W. Jones, the Republican nominee. At the general election in 1896 he was elected judge of the County Court of Minnehaha county, and re-elected in 1898. While at the bar he was engaged in some of the leading cases before the state tribunals, has always taken an active part in public affairs, and is a good citizen.

Wilkes, Rev. Eliza Tupper, was born at Houlton, Maine; was fitted for college in New England, and graduated from the State University of Iowa; was educated for foreign mission work; entered the Unitarian ministry in 1868, and took charge of the Universalist church at Neenah, Wis., the same year; in 1869, was married to William A. Wilkes at the last mentioned place; moved from there to Rochester, Minn., where she had charge of a Universalist church; in 1872, removed to Colorado Springs, Col., where they resided six years, and during part of that time she preached in the Unitarian church at that place; came to Sioux Falls in 1878; was one of the foremost workers in the establishment of the Sioux Falls Public Library and the Ladies History Club; started the project of building All Souls church, and labored zealously until the work was accomplished; has been pastor of the Unity church at Luverne, Minn., for the last twelve years, except three years, when she was assistant pastor of the Unitarian church at Oakland, Cal. With such a record of good works, comments would be superfluous.

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AM talk radio does a show on Unitarian Universalism

Did I scare you with that headline? Don’t worry, the talk radio station in question is KGO in San Francisco, and since it’s a San Francisco radio station, we’re not talking about Rush Limbaugh and other right wing commentators. If there’s such a thing as left-of-center AM talk radio, KGO is it.

On Sundays, KGO has a weekly radio show called “God Talk,” hosted by Brent Walters, who actually has a post-grad degree in religious studies. Yesterday, Walters did a three-hour show on Unitarian Universalism, which you can find online here. Thanks to Richard, a member of the Palo Alto church, who found this online. However, as Richard points out, “be aware that this is a rolling weekly archive, and if you wait a week it will be gone.” [Update: Victor has now put an audio file of this radio program up on his Web site (with commercials and news edited out) at: http://uustpete.org/RadioShow.mp3 Thank you, Victor!]

Brent Walters had posted an advance summary of the show online, and I’ll include it below the fold… Continue reading →