All posts by Chris

Zach's Dad

Innovation

. . . is quite the buzz word here in the (self-proclaimed) tech capital of the world. I won’t cast judgment on those who work in the industry. By all accounts it is keeping San Francisco from becoming nothing but a tourist town. That’s another topic.

I was doing a crossword puzzle this morning and the clue was ‘Postal area’. The answer was ‘zone’. I thought that was interesting since the US hasn’t had postal zones since the introduction (innovation!) of Zip codes in the 1960s. It struck me that that is an innovation that is wildly successful. No one thinks twice about it and it just works.

I have a vague memory of watching a TV show many years ago. It was probably the ’60s. I think it must have been ‘What’s My Line’ because the guest turned out to be the inventor of the Zip code system. When he was revealed at the end, there was some ribbing about it. Maybe that was the schtick; I wasn’t sensitive to such things then, but I certainly got the sense that mainstream America thought Zip codes were another one of those newfangled things we could do without.

On a tangent, thinking about innovation and game shows of the ’60s, I remember that a common prize on those shows was an ‘Amana RadarRange’. When the contestant won it, there was the usual extolling of its virtues. It all went over my head. Even as a science-oriented person in, say, 1965, I couldn’t comprehend how an oven could be like radar. Of course, now I realize they were talking about a microwave oven. I suppose somewhere someone did a thesis on the moment that product became mainstream in America. I’m going to let it pass. Clearly another innovation success story, though.

photo of Zach

We got a new printer which in today’s world includes scanning and copying capabilities. I had a stack of photos so I went through them to test the scanning process.

There really isn’t anything special about this photo. I’m not sure of the year or the place. The prints were marked with a December 2000 date so it had to be before that. Most likely in the summer in the foothills.

Earlier that year we had all gone to England for two weeks. It turned out to be a great trip. Zach was 11 and spent much of the time holding my hand as we walked around London. I remember thinking how precious that was and how unselfconcious he was doing it. I miss you son.

San Francisco

I live in San Francisco. When I was growing up, San Francisco was always ‘The City’. No qualifiers needed. The only comparable similar usage is Londoners referring to the oldest part of London. Whenever someone asked my father where we lived, he would say we lived on ‘The Peninsula’. Again, no qualifier.

While I do not know the technical definition of a peninsula, I’m pretty sure that most geographers would say that Santa Clara is not on the San Francisco Peninsula. Dad worked in Menlo Park, which is on the peninsula. Maybe he felt there was a certain cachet to living on the peninsula. We’ll never know.

Anyway, while I was growing up, San Francisco was a place to go on the day after Thanksgiving with my cousins. We went shopping at Union Square or went to Fisherman’s Wharf. I suppose we ate out because I have an enduring memory of watching the Mr Planter sign go by in the total darkness as we headed for home.

I came up here to work and live in 1978 and stayed through 1990. I got married, had kids, and established myself in my profession. We did lots of things around town and it was mostly a good time.

The only thing that bugged me was the weather. Growing up in the South Bay I liked warm summers. Our house in SF had a view to the east and sometimes I would look out the windows at the Hayward Hills and wistfully think, ‘It’s 80 degrees over there.’ At our house it was cloudy and 60.

For a number of reasons that made sense at the time, we moved to Grass Valley in 1990. It had nice hot summers and crispy winters and that was fine.

After many travails, I started working in San Francisco again in 2008. On one of my first trips down here from the foothills, I came around the turn on highway 80 where the Golden Gate Bridge comes into view. I could see the huge bank of fog surging over the city and through the Gate and I thought, ‘This is where I want to be.’

I’ve come to embrace the summer fog and the year ’round mild weather. It suits me. I never go out without at least a light jacket. I never wear shorts or just a T-shirt. I do appreciate that the neighborhood we live in now is not foggy all the time. Sunshine is good!

When we walk around The City™, I am always aware that it is a human construct. Whatever was natural on the tip of the Peninsula™ 250 years ago has been long since covered over with stuff. And, while the weather overall may be changing due to climate change, San Francisco will remain the city between the ocean and the big valley and thus subject to the tug of war between the warm and cool air masses there.

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I put this post in the ‘Travel’ category because none of the other categories seem to fit and I don’t want to add more categories. Do you care? Probably not.

Jet lag

I’m beginning to think that this getting older thing is real. Last year when the time changed, it took me several days to re-adjust. At the time, I put it down to work stresses.

We came back from the Eastern time zone last Wednesday. Today is Saturday, ten days later. This morning is the first time I’ve felt like I’ve gotten decent sleep that is aligned with the sun.

It’s weird; both times the symptoms weren’t overt. I wasn’t getting up exactly three (or one) hours earlier, etc. It was more like being generally unsettled. This time, it was complicated by the fact that I didn’t have to go to work every day. Laying in bed in the morning – or going to bed early – was an option that I took advantage of.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s why it took longer. Hmmmm . . . .

So, I am retired now. I did go into Davies Hall one time to help with some transition issues but mostly my schedule is completely open. We had some doctor appointments; we got the car serviced, but this is the new normal.

The trip was great. We went to Toronto and Montreal and visited Sepi’s sister’s family. Jet lag issues on the front end were relatively minor. I attributed our fatigue more to the fact that we came out on a red-eye. But, we also were thrown into doing things! I’ll have to remember that.

I’ll do a write up in a separate post. I have the time now!

Sasha

I just put up a post that I wrote last week and only just got out. In the meanwhile, life went on, and in the due course of things, we took the Symphony to its annual appearance at Stern Grove last Sunday. At the end of the concert I was busily packing up the various bits and pieces when suddenly our concertmaster, Sasha Barantschik, was standing next to me.

As with Esa-Pekka, my relationship with Sasha has been cordial and professional. Unlike Esa-Pekka, Sasha is not an international star. He has been concertmaster for the SF Symphony for more than 25 years, a not insignificant accomplishment. Not being a jet setter, Sasha goes out into the trenches every week, playing whatever and for whoever, happens to be on the program that week. Given that, I have a more relaxed relationship with him. We can make little jokes with each other when it’s time for him to go out and tune the orchestra. Or, at Stern Grove, where we don’t have our usual methods of signaling, I had to walk out to where he was sitting on stage to tell him it was time to start. We always get a little chuckle out of that.

Sasha’s wife, Alena, plays occasionally with the orchestra as a sub. She was with him on Sunday.

He came up to me and said, ‘This is goodbye.’

I was taken aback until I realized that Sasha always takes off for the summer pops season. This had been our last concert together with me as Stage Manager. Flashing on my picture with Esa-Pekka, I said, ‘Can we get a picture?’ He said, of course, and Alena took this lovely photo.

Sasha has the same birth year as me. I made a little joke about him joining me in retirement. He didn’t bite.

Esa-Pekka

I don’t usually think about having my picture taken with anyone, much less famous people. I’ve spent my whole career working with more or less famous people and, for the most part, they’re there to do a job just like I am.

With the end of my time with the Symphony approaching, I thought about my relationship with Esa-Pekka Salonen. His time with the Symphony is not coming to an end like mine but his status has changed profoundly in the last six months. Like mine.

Our relationship has been cordial but businesslike. I like to think I’ve earned his respect as a stage manager. Any social contact I’ve had with him has been in the context of a party with lots of other people around competing for his time.

Anyway, with the orchestra retirement party last week, I thought it would be cool to have a picture taken of just the two of us. It turned out he wasn’t at the party very long so I missed that opportunity.

Yesterday was his last concert and I was sure he’d be jetting off somewhere right away. I asked Shoko, his secretary, if she could identify a moment when I could get a picture with him. Her first question was, what about tomorrow? He was staying for the Principal Bassoon audition.

But we already had plans to go to Mom’s after Sepi’s PT appointment. I resigned myself to not getting one.

The concert was Mahler’s 3rd Symphony, a six movement, 100 minute behemoth performed without intermission. Afterwards, we were busy clearing the stage for the auditions so I was running around, not thinking about it, when suddenly there he was in the hallway with Shoko!

She said, do you want to take that photo?  I said yes and it was done!

Retirement party

Trying to write after a long layoff . . .

I get ideas – usually in the small hours of the morning – but translating them to written text has been extremely difficult. Is it writers’ block? I don’t really consider myself a writer. I would like to write more. I think I write well. I don’t think I am a ‘writer’.

I spend a lot of time at work on a computer. At home, I actually have a decent setup but there always seems to be something else I should do. I keep thinking I will use that early morning good energy time to write. Someday . . .

And someday may be approaching. After Sepi and I made the decision last January that I could retire, the actual date has crept closer and closer. Jon at work got me a countdown display that shows days and hours (and minutes and seconds!). I keep it on the Stage Manager’s desk for anyone to see. I believe it’s on 41 days today.

Yesterday at work was an annual event honoring the members of the orchestra who are retiring. Surprisingly to me, I was included in the celebration. Esa-Pekka made a little speech during the concert in which I was called out on stage for applause from the orchestra and the audience.

After the show there was a gathering with food and drink in one of the backstage rooms. Michele got up and said some nice things about me. I then spoke briefly, thanking my crew, Michele and Tim but forgetting Sepi. I found that I got rather emotional doing it. I really love the orchestra. They all appreciate what we do.

I really do consider it the pinnacle of my career. It’s a hard job but being part of the team that helps a great orchestra make great music is very satisfying.

After many years of hiding it, I let the cat out of the bag to certain members of the orchestra that I like to play music. I was reluctant to do that because I know how good these musicians really are. I’m not even close to their level. To a person, though, they have been supportive of my music making.

Lately, a common question I get is what am I going to do in my retirement. I say play more music. Then I say write more.

70

I turned 70 a couple of months ago. It’s completely freaky to be referring to myself as being that age. I suppose that because I still have hair, most people I tell are amazed. They say I am well preserved for that age. I tell them I’m rotten inside!

I was a freshman in high school when the Simon and Garfunkel record ‘Bookends’ came out. It had the hits Mrs. Robinson, At the Zoo and Hazy Shade of Winter on it but it also had some different tracks that didn’t make much impression on my 14 year old self: Save the Life of My Child was a strange story about someone’s child jumping off of a building. Voices of Old People was recordings of old people talking about nothing in particular – I thought. Then there was the Bookends Theme, with the line ‘ . . . how terribly strange to be 70.’

That line has been rolling around in my head for the past few months. I don’t know what Paul Simon – then not even 30 – was referring to specifically, but it sure resonates in me now.

I get to have lunch with a group of stagehand friends every couple of months. Everyone in the group is retired except for me. The first question I am asked when I see them is, ‘Are you retired yet?’

So far, the answer has been no but that will change this year. While the Symphony Stage Manager job is tremendously rewarding in some ways, it is very stressful and I decided that last years’ Christmas Holiday programming – always the hardest month of the year – would be my last. My friend and colleague Jim J. finally retired last fall at the age of 75. Many of us thought he should have gone sooner. Not because he couldn’t do his job but because we all recognized that sometimes the body doesn’t work the way it used to. And sometimes that happens with little warning. I’m ready to enjoy life a little before it’s too late!

I think about my friend and former band mate Tim I., dead from prostate cancer at the age of 59. I’ve had my PSA checked every year since then. So far, it’s still very low.

I had three surgeries last year under general anesthesia and one more (skin cancer) under local. It’s time to not take anything for granted.

Eight

Eight years today since we lost Zach.

It’s still early afternoon here in California as I write this. At this time on this day eight years ago, Zach was riding his bike around the LSU tailgate parties visiting with friends.

It’s a measure of how far I’ve come that I had to look up the date to make sure I had the right one. I get the 14th and 15th confused for some reason. Zach was killed on the evening of the 14th. November 14, 2015. Many of us got on an airplane the next day and were in Baton Rouge less than 24 hours after it happened.

I had a resolution for a long time that I would not mark Zach’s death date but instead focus on his birth date. On the whole, that hasn’t worked very well. This year is the first time I haven’t been counting down the days to November 14th. I will take that as a good thing.

I’ve averaged about one or two crying jags over Zach per year in the last 5 or so years. Sometimes a photo of him comes up on the screen saver and I have to catch my breath.

No one else in the family has mentioned it and, aside from this post, I’m not going to bring it up.

Sepi and I came down to Mom’s today. We usually come on Sundays but because of a quirk in my schedule, my only option this week was today, a Tuesday. All the way down here I kept thinking the traffic was weird for a Sunday. Somehow, my confusion over the exact date of Zach’s death seems related. My work is very stressful and I think of retirement often. I also know Zach would have something interesting and useful to say about my work situation.

Naïveté

Memories . . .

I remember a warm day, the smell of pine, sun on canvas. I was at Camp HIgh Sierra with my Boy Scout troop. I was a pre-teen, 11 or 12. I had never been anywhere without my family before.

So the memory that inspired this post was really not any of those things, although I am sure they were all there. It was going into my tent, probably after lunch since it was full day, and finding a nice neat turd on my sleeping bag.

I remember that there were three or four other boys there, laughing at my predicament. I remember wondering how it could have gotten there, what animal could it have been. I don’t remember much about the environs. Of course, it was the high Sierra, probably 4 or 5 thousand feet elevation, among the pines. Whether there were wild animals around was the subject of some debate but, regardless, something had gotten in and pooped on my sleeping bag.

I think I knew enough to know that it wasn’t a human turd but beyond that I was clueless. I think the best explanation seemed to be a that it was from a raccoon. That raccoons are night creatures was not known to me.

Of course the other boys in the tent thought it was hilarious. I remember thinking that maybe I could reach into the bag under the turd and fling it out of the tent. The sides were open and it seemed possible in my desperation. Why I didn’t go get a paper towel and pick it up remains a mystery. Maybe there were no paper towels in the bathrooms. I certainly remember a major aversion to touching it.

By now, gentle reader, you will have realized that it was a prank. The ‘turd’ was a bit of plastic. After 10 or 15 minutes of hilarity, it was revealed to me by the perpetrator. I don’t remember anything about him or any of the other boys who were there. There were no other incidents like that during my time at Camp High Sierra.

I was an introverted, bookish boy. I don’t remember why I joined the Boy Scouts, I remember the troop met at the church parish hall so there was some connection there. I went to Camp High Sierra twice, each time for a week, in the summer. It was the only time I did any serious work on merit badges. Merit badges, for those who don’t know, were the raison d’etre of the Boy Scouts. One started out as a Tenderfoot and rose through the ranks by earning merit badges. The really cool kids had a sash to put their badges on. The top of the heap was an Eagle Scout. I didn’t get enough merit badges to merit a sash.

At Camp High Sierra, somehow, I learned to do what we called ‘lanyards’. Lanyards were these long skinny multicolored plastic things that could be woven into shapes. Ironically, there were no merit badges for ‘lanyards’. Or perhaps that is telling that that is what I spent so much time on. Anyway, I made a kind of a key fob that I still have. It’s all that’s left besides memories.

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