Easter activity

The birthday party went well! There were just a few relatives gathered at a restaurant. A manageable size, but nice spread of ages from 2 to 90.

We also had lunch on Thursday with Harold's cousin who works for the Bonneville Power Administration. Good Friday we made a little escape to Bainbridge Island, a 5-hour drive. There we visited my niece, who together with her husband, works for Linblad Special Expeditions cruise company. Ross maintains the vessels and was away; Andrea works in personnel in the Seattle office. We were eager to see their "new" home, a fixer-up'er that they had made much progress on. We had a great walk around the town, and then a good dinner and breakfast before heading back to Portland.

In both directions we passed over the bridge that replaced the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in a high wind in 1940. Did you know it was designed by Moiseiff, the same man whose theories and designs guided the construction of the GGB? He carried his idea to an extreme. The length to width ratio of Galloping Gerdy was 72 to 1, whereas the GGB was only 47 to 1. The engineer who studied the collapsed bridge was none other than Clifford Paine, Strauss's Vice President. Paine was therefore brought in to inspect the GGB in 1951 after a 69-mpg gale caused it to pitch one side of the roadway 11 feet higher than the other! Paine prescribed stiffening girders criss-crossed between the chords underneath the roadway the length of the span.

After we returned safely to Portland, we had dinner with Harold's cousin and her mother. Today, Easter Sunday, we attended Irwin's church and then visited old Cincinnati friends now living in Lake Oswego. Tomorrow it's time to return to Cincinnati. Too bad. I really wanted to return to San Francisco to hear the Calder's play at the Herbst Theater. But the airlines wouldn't cooperate in their pricing structure....

Goodbye, San Francisco

One more day at Stanford and it was time to leave the Bay area. Too bad. There is so much more to do there. The History Room at the San Francisco Public Library is purported to have material, not to mention the GGBHD offices. But I didn't want to overstay my welcome with Peter and Georgia, and there is only so much one can absorb at a time. My hand was cramped from writing. Next time I'll take a laptop into the archives. Pencils and laptops - the only tools allowed. At least I have a reason to go back!

I flew to Portland OR where we'll be celebrating Harold's father's 90th birthday tomorrow! Our arrival was a surprise. He lives in Gresham. We're staying in a nearby motel. Tonight we had dinner with Harold's Oberlin classmate and his wife.

Back to Berkeley

I wasn't really done at Berkeley. There was another archive to see - the Water Resources Center Archives. There they had the files of Derleth, Dean of Engineering at Berkeley and consulting engineer for the GGB. His papers were interesting, corroborating much of what I had seen already. At the WRCA I had to do my own copying, and had to fortify myself with dimes to copy the many letters and articles that appeared interesting.

I worked there all day. Librarian Paul Atwood kindly helped me to search for dissertations on the bridge, done by students at Berkeley and Stanford. We found the 2003 dissertation entitled "Paying the toll...." It was mostly about the funding of the bridge and had little to say about Strauss. I need to get my hands on a 1958 dissertation that looks promising....

At day's end I whisked over to the Bancroft Library, but only in time enough to learn their policies. I suspect they have photographs that might be of interest, but I have already seen some of them posted on the internet. Perhaps my retracing those steps is not necessary.

Music@Menlo

Friend Peter and his wife Georgia are music lovers and support the new Music@Menlo chamber music program in Menlo Park. The festival runs in the summer, but during the off-months they organized a thank-you concert for donors. I got to tag along as a guest. The program featured past, excellent students from the program, and also Wu-Han, pianist. The setting was amazing - in a house tucked on the side of a hill in Los Altos. They had a veritable theater in the home, the result of Mrs. Birnbaum being a singer. She claims she sang with the Cincinnati Opera back when performances were at the zoo. She predates our time in Cincinnati apparently.

Mr. Birnbaum was assistant to Carly Fiorina, president of HP that was recently forced out. I learned after leaving that he recently gave an IEEE presentation on IT and electronic libraries. See "Cybersecurity considerations for digital libraries in an era of pervasive computing," Birnbaum, J., Proceedings of the 2004 Joint ACM/IEEE Conference on Digital Libraries, 2004, 7-11 June 2004 Page(s):169. If I had known I would have struck up a conversation!

Later that day we had lunch with my college roommate Ann Hill, who drove up from Salinas. She is a prosecutor for Monterey County, and that keeps her busy. Her beat is abusers/molesters. Disheartening cases.... We walked and talked to exercise her dog. Thus ended the weekend.

Saturday in San Francisco

My cousin lives in San Jose. She offered to take me on a walking tour of San Francisco. After two long days sitting in the Stanford archives, I was ready for a break. Gail picked me up early in the morning and we whisked into town, parked near the Ferry Building, and began the day with a cruise through the Farmer's Market. We bought some vittles, but nothing bulky as we would be walking all day.

Gail had a book on stair walks, and she led me on a walk combining two of the tours in her book. It was fascinating. We had views in all directions, needless to say, and took in places such as Coit Tower, Lombard Street, and much in between. We descended through China Town, got a late lunch at the Ferry Building, and then caught a ferry to Sausalito in order to view the GGB from the water. Upon our return, we rode the trolley up to the Castro District where we had dinner. By then it was getting dark, so we trollied back to the car and drove it through Fisherman's Wharf area to the south end of the GGB in order to see the statue of Strauss. I was amazed at the display of cable, a 3-foot diameter cross-section. It looks so delicate at a distance! It was too late to walk across, but at least I got to see the bridge up close.

Heading back to the freeway we passed landmarks such as the San Francisco Conservatory and San Francisco State. We were bushed but pleased to have had strenuous exercise while taking in a myriad of sites. Next time I'll have to walk across the GGB and back.

Lunch at Stanford

I found my counterpart at lunch time - Karen Clay - in the Stanford Engineering Library. We joined other science librarians and staff at the student center. There I reconnected with others I knew, including Sharon Propas who at one time worked in Langsam Reference!

I was thinking about being envious of Karen and her position at Stanford, such a prestigious institution. But when I found her she was in her blue jeans, pulling journal volumes off the shelves to go to storage. This was her first foray into sending off items for which she also had electronic access. And she had to fight for the space. We are progressive in Ohio. We can be thankful for that.

By the way, though friend Peter dropped me off in the morning, I was able to walk "home" at the end of the day. It was a 30-minute walk past the hospital area and the faculty/grad housing. It's a huge campus, not to mention the shopping center they own....

Stanford next

Stanford had the files of Keesling, Chairman of the Building Committee for the GGBHD (Golden Gate Bridge Highway District) and sat on the Board of Directors. Needless to say he had lots to do with Strauss as Chief Engineer. Keesling was a Stanford graduate, hence their acquisition of his personal files. Some of the files were devoted to his work on the bridge; in his real life he was a lawyer. Stanford had a set-up similar to the Environmental Design Archives at Berkeley, in that they asked me to identify material for copying and then they would copy and send for a fee.

It was hard to restrict myself as I screened the material for any correspondence related to Strauss specifically. I especially liked two habits of Keesling. One was to keep a calendar in which he noted with whom he met, the topic, and a brief description of content. Much in the way a lawyer would track billable hours. He also had someone take transcripts of meetings so that you can see who said what verbatim. This got interesting when Strauss was on the hot seat.

San Francisco, here I come

The Ides of March. That's the day I flew to San Jose from LA where I heard the Calders the night before. I have high-school friends who live in Menlo Park, right across the stream from Stanford. How lucky could I be? They picked me up at the airport, fed me well, and gave me a good night's sleep.

Today I actually started in at the Environmental Design Archives at UC Berkeley in order to catch them on days they are open. Also, I had to give Stanford time to fetch files from storage. It was an adventure getting to Berkeley by public transportation. I took CalTrain to Millbrae and then BART to Berkeley. It took a while, but I made it!

The Archives have a file of Irving and Gertrude Morrow. Irving Morrow was architect for the GGB. The file contained much correspondence between Morrow and Strauss. The Archives allowed me to identify items for copying, which they would do for a price and send to me at home.

Who should I have lunch with, but Elizabeth Byrne! She was head of the DAAP library way back when.... It was great to see her, and to have a tour of her library, the Environmental Design Library. She looks great, especially so following a spate of serious health problems. She took me to the Women's Faculty Club on campus. Wouldn't you know they had to have their own, back in the day when women weren't allowed in the Faculty Club. But now everyone is entitled to use both....

Calders in Ohio

Weird. I just HEARD the Calders at MIT Friday. This week they played in Dayton and Springfield, right in our backyard! Fun for us, but hard on them. They drove all the way from Boston for these two concerts March 2 and 3 and then had to drive all the way to Bethlehem PA for a March 4 concert....