LOUISIANA ROOTS MAKE ENTERTAINING SPECIAL

 Phyllis Van Boening

When Phyllis Van Boening wants to do some “special” entertaining in Bakersfield, she digs deep into her Louisiana roots. She puts on a spread of crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice, and shrimp Creole.


And, of course, the spread includes a bottle of Tabasco, or its rival, Louisiana Hot Sauce, both iconic sauces made near Van Boening’s childhood home of Franklinton, La.


Van Boening says her Louisiana cooking is a “novelty” she likes to share with her Bakersfield friends. And the tastes and smells remind her of home.



With a soothing Southern drawl that has survived more than two decades of living in Bakersfield, she recalls many a school trip to tour the Tabasco factory, just over the Mississippi River and across the bayous that form Avery Island. They are trips that she replicates today as a “tour guide” for family and friends on cross-country vacations.


“It’s fun to show other people that there is more to Louisiana than just New Orleans,” Van Boening said during a recent interview.


A native of Louisiana, Van Boening grew up in Franklinton, a small agricultural town less than a two-hour drive north of Avery Island. In recent decades, the town’s population has hovered at its peak of around 4,000. Its biggest claim to fame is that it is home to the state’s largest country fair and to an imposing complex known as the Louisiana Castle, a replica of an English Norman Keep Castle that is open to public events. The Bogue Chitto River, a favorite for tubing on a hot summer day, passes through Franklinton.


Van Boening left this sleepy Southern paradise years ago to pursue a career with nonprofit organizations. It was while working in Atlanta, Ga., for the American Cancer Society that she met her husband, Jon Van Boening, a young pharmacist, who was recruited to help start a fundraising program in Bakersfield.


That program gave birth to the enormously successful Relay for Life movement. Jon later became the president and chief executive officer of Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. And Phillis moved to Bakersfield when the couple married in 1993.


“It was a culture shock at first,” she recalls. “But there was such a big ‘oil connection’ between Bakersfield and Louisiana that it was easy to feel at home.”


And then, of course, there is the food and the Louisiana hot sauces that never let Van Boening forget where she comes from.


A visitor to the state is likely to be confused by what people call Louisiana cooking. Sometimes it’s called “Cajun,” and other times “Creole.” New Orleans is a Creole city. Over the past 300 years, it has blended French, Spanish, Caribbean and African immigrants. The food reflects this blend. Cajun refers to the French immigrants booted out of Canada by the British, who later settled in the bayous along the Gulf of Mexico.


Some say the biggest difference between Cajun and Creole cooking is that Creole has a tomato base, while Cajun doesn’t. But there are exceptions to this rule and there seems to be a lot of crossover dishes. Some say Creole cooking is “city” cooking and Cajun is “country.” Then others say to really know what to call what you’re eating, you need to meet the family cooking it.


But really, when it tastes as good as it does, who cares what it’s called?


Van Boening has shared three of her classic Louisiana recipes for people in Bakersfield to try.

Crawfish Etouffee

1 cup finely chopped onions


1/3 cup finely chopped green bell pepper


½ teaspoon minced garlic


2 tablespoon margarine


2 tablespoon all-purpose flour


1 pound peeled crawfish, rinse and drained (if crawfish tails are unavailable, shrimp is a good substitute)


1 cup water


Dash cayenne pepper


Dash of Worcestershire sauce


Dash of Tabasco sauce


Salt and pepper to taste


Juice of 1 lemon


1 bunch green onions (scallions), tops only, finely sliced


Preparation: In a large non-stick skillet, sauté the onions, green pepper and garlic in the margarine until tender.


Stir in flour and cook one minute.


Add the crawfish tails and water.


Cover and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.


Add the cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce, and lemon juice.


Add the green onions and cook for 5 minutes longer.


If the mixture becomes too thick, add more water.


Serve over rice.

Red beans and rice

2 tablespoons vegetable oil


1 cup chopped onions


½ cups chopped bell pepper


½ cup chopped celery


1 teaspoon salt


½ teaspoon cayenne


1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper


1 teaspoon dried thyme


4 bay leaves


1 pound boiled ham cut into 1/2-inch cubes


6 ounces sausage cut into bite-size


1 pound dried red beans rinsed and soaked overnight, then drained


Two cups steamed rice


Preparation: Heat the oil in large heavy saucepan over medium heat.


Sauté the onions, bell peppers, celery, salt, cayenne, black pepper and thyme for about 5 minutes.


Add the bay leaves, ham, and sausage and sauté for 5 to 6 minutes.


Add the beans, garlic, and enough water to cover the contents in the pot.


Bring to a boil.


Reduce the heat to medium and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally for 2 hours.


Add more water if the mixture becomes dry and thick.


Use a wooden spoon to mash some of the mixture against the side of the pot.



Continue stirring occasionally for about 1½ hours, or until mixture is creamy and beans are soft.


Add more water if it becomes too thick.


The mixture should be soupy, but not watery.


Remove the bay leaves and serve with Tabasco over steamed rice.

Shrimp Creole

1 bunch of celery


1 bunch of parsley


2 bunches of green onions


1 large onion


1 tablespoon minced garlic


1 stick of margarine


1 can tomato sauce


1 can diced tomatoes (or two cups fresh chopped tomatoes)


2 pounds large shrimp (21-25 count)


1 tablespoon dried thyme


1 tablespoon dried basil leave


1 tablespoon sweet paprika


1 teaspoon salt


1 teaspoon black pepper


1 teaspoon white pepper


Tabasco to taste


Preparation:


Chop celery, onion, green onions.


Sauté in melted butter until soft.


Add tomato sauce and spices.


Bring to boil, and then reduce heat to simmer.


Cover and cook for at least 30-45 minutes.


Add shrimp and cook about 15 minutes.


Serve over rice.

This story appeared in the Aug. 12, 2016 issue of The Bakersfield Californian.

 https://www.bakersfield.com/entertainment/for-some-engagin-cajun-home-cook-recalls-louisiana-roots/article_ffb9a0bc-e8eb-543e-bff7-f9f108e611a4.html
 

TABASC-OH! BIRTHPLACE OF SAUCE

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New Orleans has not just recovered from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. Its tourism is booming. More people are flocking to the city, which has more restaurants, hotels and attractions than before the storm.

Louisiana and city tourism officials note only 3.7 million people visited New Orleans in 2006, a year after the hurricane hit. Last summer, the number had climbed to 9.5 million and it is expected to match or exceed the pre-Katrina figure this year.

In addition to the opening of new attractions, including parks, museums and a trolley line, visitors now are greeted by about 1,400 restaurants that feature the classic Creole and Cajun dishes, as well as a wide range of contemporary and ethnic food.

I confess. I love New Orleans and not for the debauchery of Madri Gras, which I have never attended. Rather, I am attracted to the centuries-old port city by my love of travel and history, and my desire to sample its different cultures and food. (I suspect with enough garlic and butter, New Orleans chefs can make eating an old boot a treat.)

The cost of traveling to New Orleans depends on how and when you want to go. I played around with the United Airlines website and found a round-trip summer airfare for about $480 from Bakersfield and about $230 from Los Angeles (LAX).

But many of my trips to the city have been detours from longer, cross-country road trips. When I am in the “neighborhood,” I’m obliged to stop. And that’s how once again I ended up in New Orleans this spring.

But you can only hang out on Bourbon Street so long. And, really, if you have seen one souvenir shop, you have seen them all. This time, I went in search of the city’s “real flavor” and that required a two-hour drive through some of Louisiana’s most spectacular countryside.

Headed out

Out of New Orleans, we pointed our car southwest on U.S. 90. (If you fly to New Orleans, you will have to rent a car, which is worth the cost.)

The well-maintained highway and its adjoining routes comprise the Bayou Byways and are listed on many guides as one of the nation’s most scenic drives. The highway snakes (pun intended) through swamps and farmland, with beautiful, but creepy-looking moss-draped forests of oak trees creating a canopy that in places seem to engulf the asphalt. The intermittent expanses of swamps are bordered by farmland, where all sorts of plants are grown, including pepper plants.

The billboards lining the highway leave no doubt that you have entered alligator country. And the folks who live here seem to have both a healthy respect and love for these toothy animals.

Next come the signs about crawfish and just about any other critter that crawls out of the Gulf of Mexico to please a person’s palate or scare them out of their skins.

Highway 90 passes through or near places called Kraemer, a base for alligator processing and swamp tours; Houma, the confluence of several bayous and another base for swamp tours; Franklin, another home of bayous, swamp tours and sugarcane growers; Shadows-on-the-Teche and its collection of antebellum homes; and finally, Avery Island, our destination.

The route continues west for many more miles, with additional classic Louisiana bayou attractions. But we turned off on Louisiana 329, just east of New Iberia, which ends at the gated entrance to Avery Island, the birthplace of one of the region’s most distinct flavors — the peppery red sauce we know as Tabasco.

Visit to historic spot

Tabasco was developed on Avery Island by Edmund McIlhenny, a banker, who began commercial production of the hot sauce after the Civil War. McIlhenny’s descendents continue to grow the peppers, and bottle and distribute Tabasco from their processing plant on Avery Island.

Avery Island is not really an “island.” Instead, it is a 165-foot high dry mound, or salt dome, surrounded by wetlands. The land was recognized as a source of salt by Native Americans, who mined salt and sold it to other Midwestern and Southern tribes.

Originally called Petite Anse Island, the land was purchased in 1818 by John Craig March, who used it to operate a sugar plantation. Through subsequent marriages, its ownership morphed to include many family branches and its name changed to Avery Island.

Before the Civil War, McIlhenny married Mary Eliza Avery, the daughter of the island’s owner. As the Civil War raged, family members fled New Orleans to live first on the island and later in Texas.

The island became the scene of pitched battles between Confederate and Union forces lusting after its rich salt deposits. When the McIlhenny family returned after the war, they found their plantation ruined, their mansion plundered and their business destroyed.

What remained were a few dried peppers and seeds that a soldier returning from the U.S.- Mexican War had given McIlhenny around 1850. McIlhenny had eaten some of the peppers with his food and saved some seeds for planting in the family’s garden on the island. Determined to turn the peppers into income, McIlhenny combined vinegar, Avery Island salt and mashed capsicum peppers to create a spicy sauce that eventually was named Tabasco.

Packaging and aging the sauce in 350 used cologne bottles, he distributed samples to grocery wholesalers, including one in New York. On the strength of these purchases, McIlhenny began the commercial production of Tabasco in 1868.

The spicy sauce adorned all types of tables — from country folks to royalty. It became the critical ingredient in such delicacies as the bloody Mary, a mixed drink invented in New York in the 1920s. A legendary treatment for a hangover, it includes vodka, tomato juice, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, lemon, lime, horseradish and, of course, Tabasco.

People don’t just “use” Tabasco on their food. They are fervently devoted to the sauce. Consider the 1932 isolationist “Buy British” frenzy that threatened to ban the importation of Tabasco into Britain. It caused such a stir that the ban had to be lifted. It is said that to this day, the queen uses Tabasco pepper sauce on her lobster cocktail.

Tabasco Pepper Sauce and other Tabasco-branded products are sold in more than 160 countries.

After running out of land needed for growing peppers on Avery Island in the 1960s, the McIlhenny Co. began shipping special varieties of Avery Island capsicum pepper seeds to countries in South America and Africa. Peppers harvested in these areas are mashed, mixed with salt from Avery Island and fermented for three years in white oak former whiskey barrels, before being blended with vinegar and bottled at the Avery Island processing plant.

Checking things out

A visit to Avery Island includes a walking tour of the production process — including the growing of seeds, aging, blending and bottling. The visitor’s center includes a gift shop that features all things Tabasco, including some items seldom found on store shelves, as well as a restaurant that offers classic Louisiana food.

The island is about 3 miles long and 2 ½ miles wide. It includes a 170-acre drive-through Jungle Gardens that was developed decades ago by a McIlhenny son, who was a naturalist. It features a variety of azaleas, camellias, bamboo, a “Bird City” sanctuary, and even a centuries-old Buddha that was a gift to the family in 1936.

This article appeared in The Bakersfield Californian on Aug. 12, 2016.

https://www.bakersfield.com/archives/tabasc-oh-birthplace-of-sauce-is-a-thrill-for-senses/article_dfa7912e-7bfb-5e0e-9f48-d2728761b3f2.html

FRONT PORCHES NO LONGER IN BACKGROUND

The Sudermans enjoy their downtown front porch.

 

If the world had a front porch like we did back then,

We’d still have our problems, but we’d all be friends.

Treatin’ your neighbor like he’s your next of kin

Wouldn’t be gone with the wind If the world had a front porch like we did back then.

— From singer Tracy Lawrence’s “If the World Had a Front Porch”

It was a warm summer evening in the mid-1950s. Charlie and Marie were enjoying their daily after-dinner ritual of sitting in overstuffed chairs on their front porch, watching their world go by. A wave to Mr. Rossi, who lived across the street; a sympathetic shake of the head and a whisper to Charlie about the neighbor’s son being “in trouble again.” Both robustly harangued the Ford motor company for firing the “old man” next door.

I was just a little kid visiting my grandparents, Charlie and Marie, in Detroit. But my memories of sitting with them on their front porch are still vivid. They seemed to know and care about everything that was happening on their tree-lined suburban street. Their front porch was the center of their life. It was the busy intersection of the outside world and the privacy of their home. It was a time when air-conditioned homes were rare. So when summer temperatures climbed, Charlie and Marie found relief in the cool evening breeze trapped by their porch. By the mid-1950s, my grandparents owned a black-and-white television, but they weren’t convinced it was worth watching. Instead, they preferred to end most days relaxing on their front porch.

But they were part of a dwindling majority.

After World War II, the American front porch started disappearing with lifestyle and architectural changes. Air conditioning replaced evening breezes. Automobiles replaced family-centric recreation. And people gathered around their television sets, instead of on their porches. People turned inward, hunkering down inside their homes. And for outdoor recreation, they preferred to use patios and decks built behind tall fences on the side and back of their houses.

But new home developers are seeing a rebirth of the American front porch as families seek a “sense of community” in their neighborhoods and are attracted by the nostalgia of a simpler time.

“Quite a few of our homes have front porches,” said Mike Miller, Central Valley Division president of Lennar. “I own a Lennar home [in Clovis] and it has a big front porch. I love how it looks. It gives architectural appeal to the neighborhood.” Miller admits that the valley’s often triple digit temperatures make it “hard to enjoy a porch” year-round.

“We use ours more for decoration. It is more about how our house looks.”

Miller also noted that municipal development standards can influence whether including a front porch makes sense. When standards call for deep front-yard setbacks, builders forgo including front porches because they would have to push their houses back on the lots. That leaves homeowners with smaller backyards.

In the same way, a standard that calls for greater neighborhood density — the essence of “smart growth” and “walkable communities” — can encourage the inclusion of front porches. A smaller lot usually means a smaller backyard and a house placed closer to the roadway. A front porch can be used to separate the homes’ living space from the roadway, provide an additional entertainment area and create a pleasing, cozy streetscape for the neighborhood.

Lennar has included covered front porches in some floor plans in its Summerlyn tract at the intersection of Allen and Reina roads in northwest Bakersfield. Kelly Jarboe, Lennar’s new home consultant at the tract, said homes with front porches are very popular.

“People are buying them mainly because they like the look. They are not necessarily buying them for sitting outside.”

When Betsy and Patrick Wadman went looking to buy an existing home in 1999, they knew they wanted it to have a front porch. Unable to find something they liked, they decided to build a new home with a front porch on Greystone Court in northeast Bakersfield.

“Our builder, Dave Packer, really embraced the idea,” said Betsy Wadman, explaining that he researched Craftsman-style bungalows and took the Wadmans to turn-of-the-century Southern California neighborhoods, such as those in Arcadia, to help adapt the design to their Bakersfield house.

The house the couple built on a cul de sac features a large front porch that Betsy said serves as a gathering place for the neighborhood.

“When the neighbors had young children, we would all sit on the front porch and watch them play. Our grandchildren now come over and they love it.

“Our nephew made us a swing in woodshop. It faces where you can sit and watch the moon rise. If we ever built another house, it definitely would have a front porch.”

The dwellings of primitive man had front porches. They were often formed by the outcroppings of cliffs. These early porches evolved with regional architectural styles and the emerging industrialization in Europe, Asia and Africa. The melting pot of America replicated and blended these diverse styles. Advances in building techniques reduced construction costs in the mid-1800s and spread the popularity of the American front porch. It remained an architectural mainstay and cultural focal point until after World War II.

That is why local residents will find the largest selection of grand front porches near downtown Bakersfield, where many homes were built at the turn of the century and today’s residents have dedicate themselves to restoring and maintaining them.

Bonnie Suderman loves porches so much that she and her husband, Dave, restored three porches attached to the home they bought on 20th Street. The home now has a small front porch at the entrance, a side porch and an enclosed porch that can be used year-round.

“There’s no better way to meet your neighbors,” said Suderman.

One of Suderman’s neighbors is Monsignor Craig Harrison, whose house across the street features a wrap-around porch, where a table and chairs have been set up to provide space for entertaining and meditating.

“I watch the sunrise out there every day and do my morning prayers,” said the pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church. “Front porches build a sense of neighborhood and community. I know almost all my neighbors. If I didn’t have this [porch] I would be in the house all the time.”

In January, Jenny Barker and her husband, Sean, moved into a 19th Street house built in 1917.

Only the second owners, Barker said the house had been so well-maintained that it needed only a little bit of paint and fence repair. She said the covered, wraparound front porch was “a dream we wanted, but did not think possible” in a house for their growing family, which includes an infant, 3-year-old and 5-year-old.

“When we have people over, they gravitate to the porch. We sit out here and just let the kids run.”

Two blocks away, Allen Craft has lived for 35 years in a Victorian house he restored on 19th Street. The retired junior high school teacher said he used a book featuring American “Painted Ladies” to select the color scheme of his brightly colored house, which he calls the “hippie house.” Its focal point is the front porch.

“I use the porch several times a day to sit out with friends, or just sit by myself to watch the cars go by.”

This article appeared in The Bakersfield Californian on Oct. 24, 2015.

https://www.bakersfield.com/archives/front-porches-no-longer-in-the-background/article_260dda4f-a64c-5b01-925b-fc7421c70040.html

Allen Craft shows off his "Painted Lady" porch.

VIRGINIA CITY: YA GOTTA GO

 

To some, the mere suggestion of being “politically correct” makes the hair on the back of their necks bristle. Those folks should go to the Oct. 3-4 Champion Outhouse Races in Virginia City, Nev., just for therapy. The rest of us should go because the two-day event is a downright kick in the pants.

During visits with family living in Reno, I have stopped in at the former mining boomtown three times — once to watch the Champion Outhouse Races and twice for just something to do.

Virginia City never fails to entertain. In the mountains 2,000 feet above Reno and Carson City, it is filled with shops, restaurants and colorfully named saloons. My favorite is the Bucket of Blood, a lively joint known for its red beers and local band.

Anytime is a good time to visit Virginia City, which is now a National Historic Landmark District. On any given day, you will find dusty old miners parking their donkeys at the city’s corners. Vendors hawking their food and wares squeeze under its wooden sidewalk coverings. You can pan for gold in a slough wedged between two downtown buildings or ride a steam engine train into the surrounding mining field.

The city’s calendar is filled with special events, including nearly monthly saloon crawls and parades, a Rocky Mountain Oyster Fry in March, Muckfest (mining, whiskey and cigars) in June, International Camel and Ostrich races in September, and a Zombie Run during the annual monthlong Hauntober celebration in October.

But the event that seems to grab the most worldwide headlines is the annual Champion Outhouse Races. This will be the 26th year of the two-day event, which begins with racing on Saturday, Oct. 3, and ends with the crowning of the champion outhouse racing team on Sunday afternoon.

Why does this event draw so many spectators, participants and news media? Because it is so WRONG. For a taste of how wrong it gets, consider the team during one race that “honored” California’s governor with an outhouse named the Urinator. Under a depiction of Arnold Schwarzenegger was the promise: “I’ll Pee Back!”

While politicians are fair game for this good-natured ridicule, other entries in the race included the Breaking Wind team and the Oldtime Saloon’s Precision Plungerette Drill Team. No doubt the already raging 2016 presidential campaign will provide plenty of red meat for this off-color event. In my mind’s eye I can see outhouses labeled Trump’s Dump, Christie’s Crapper, Rubio’s Cube and The Bushwhacker. Not to leave out the Democrats, how about Hillary’s Privy Server and Obama’s Presidential Library?

Legend has it that the idea for these races came from a day way back when the use of outdoor toilets was banned in Virginia City. Angry residents pushed, pulled and dragged their outhouses to the town hall in protest. But that may be just a good excuse for the present-day residents and business owners to give vent to their more than 100-year tradition of raunchy behavior.

About a 6 ½ hour drive from Bakersfield, Virginia City sprang up as a silver mining boomtown with the discovery of the massively rich Comstock Lode in 1859. At its peak in the mid-1860s, the city had a population of about 25,000. Now only about 855 people live in Virginia City. One of the nation’s largest historic districts, Virginia City soared to prominence in the 1960s when it served as the backdrop for the popular Western television series, “Bonanza.” Much of the good, bad and made-up history of the early city was chronicled by Samuel Clemens.

It is believed that Clemens first used his famous pen name, Mark Twain, while working in Virginia City as a reporter for the Territorial Enterprise newspaper. On the main street, across from a gift shop that once housed the Enterprise newspaper, is the Mark Twain Saloon. For the price of a beer, visitors will be told Clemens got his pen name from “ordering two drinks at once and asking that they be served on credit.” But historians claim the pen name really came from Clemens’ Mississippi riverboat days. Clemens worked for the Enterprise from 1862 to 1864. Reportedly he fled Virginia City to escape a duel threatened by an editor who was upset by his reporting. Many of Clemens’ Virginia City stories were later reprinted in his 1872 book, “Roughing It.”

No doubt Clemens made up and embodied much of the character of boomtown and present-day Virginia City. And his later observation about humor is spot-on when it comes to the city’s annual Champion Outhouse Races: “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

After a day spent cheering on the outhouse teams, few visitors are left standing. They crawl into their beds for a good night’s rest.

This article appeared in The Bakersfield Californian on Sept. 11, 2015.

https://www.bakersfield.com/archives/virginia-city-outhouse-races-you-gotta-go/article_e0da8f92-7a3d-56c3-95dc-44f2c607d907.html

GOING ON A SoCal SAFARI

A giraffe welcomes visitors to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

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The trumpeting of elephants just a few yards away seemed to shake the canvas sides of our tent. Soon thereafter, other big scary animals that I couldn't identify joined the chorus as night shrouded our camp during a recent safari. Any thoughts of getting up in the night to search for a bathroom were quickly wiped from my mind.

About a decade ago, my husband and I parted with about $10,000 to pay for the once-in-a-lifetime trip to South Africa, which included several days in Krueger National Park and a camera safari out into the bush to see amazing animals.

We will never forget the experience, nor will we forget being squished into the tightest seats my long legs have ever endured for the 22-hour-plus flight from Los Angeles, via New York, to arrive in Johannesburg and then climb onto a bus to ride two more hours to the park. Preparing for the trip, we were required to receive a series of shots for all sorts of maladies, including malaria and cholera.

While the trip was worth all the costs and inconveniences, we concluded it was probably the end of our safari days. That was until we heard about the "Roar and Snore" at the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park in Escondido.

It was my kind of safari: Drive south from Bakersfield only about 215 miles (3½ hours if the traffic gods like you); see all sorts of cool animals; no exotic shots or medications required; and just one night of roughing it. (Campground accommodations vary, starting with tents with no beds and going up to the "premium" tents that have queen-sized beds. That was my choice. The older I get, the higher off the ground I sleep.)

As instructed, we arrived at the Safari Park at 4 p.m. on a Friday in March. Parking for the Roar and Snore was close to the gate and park staff scrambled to our car to collect our backpacks, which they delivered to our tent in the small campground adjacent to the elephant enclosure. (Pack simply for this safari. No food is allowed. Just pack an overnight change of clothes and "necessities," which I highly recommend includes a flashlight.)

We lounged around and shopped in the safari store while the park was cleared of daytime guests. At about 5 p.m., the safari began with a guided march through exhibits and animal enclosures until we reached our campgrounds.

We were told to take a few minutes to settle into our tents; dinner was being served at 5:30. We were to report to the dining area, which overlooked a breathtaking view of giraffes and gazelles that seemed as curious about us as we were of them.

Dinner might not win a culinary award, but by then I was hungry and the salads, hamburgers, barbecue meat, macaroni and cheese, and hotdogs looked mighty good. The buffet also included vegetarian offerings. Plus, there was a bar. I already had tested out the bed -- HARD. I realized a nice glass of wine might make the night easier to take.

I was just wiping the ketchup off my chin when the call went out to begin assembling for the night-time walking tour. I may have paid thousands of dollars for an African safari, but few of the animals in Africa came as close up as the animals, including a majestic lion, on this evening stroll through the park.

It was now pitch dark when we circled back to the campground and were invited to go to the fire pit in the dining area. It was time to make S'mores, eat popcorn and drink hot chocolate, while guides recounted tales about the park and its inhabitants.

Lights out for me arrived at about 10 p.m. Most everyone else fell into their sleeping bags or beds by midnight, leaving the animals to serenade us to sleep. The tents came equipped with bottled water and heaters (or fans) depending on the seasonal need. Besides the absence of a bathroom, we had most of the comforts of home.

The wake-up call the next morning came before 7 a.m., so we could pack and be ready for a hearty breakfast buffet that included eggs, sausage, biscuits, fruit, pancakes, cereal and (thank God!) coffee.

The timing of our safari was lucky. The next morning was the opening day of the one-month "Butterfly Jungle" at the park. This annual event gives park visitors a unique opportunity to observe more than 30 species of butterflies hailing from Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. "Snorers" who did not dawdle over breakfast were let into the butterfly enclosure before the park opened at 9 a.m. for an exclusive visit.

The Roar and Snore officially ended when the park gates opened at 9 a.m. But a simple stamp on our hands allowed us to enjoy the park on Saturday as regular visitors. And, as an added bonus, we received discounts on that day's tours.

We hopped onto the bed of an open truck for the two-hour caravan safari, which included feeding giraffes and seeing the 3-week-old Southern White Rhino calf, Kayode, and his mother, Kacy.

All and all, for just $648, which included the $120 charge for the two caravan tickets, and a tank of gas, it was a pretty darn good safari and a lot closer to home.

This article appeared in The Bakersfield Californian on May 17, 2013.

https://www.bakersfield.com/news/going-on-a-socal-safari/article_a13ef5d0-b69a-54e5-87a4-cce76b164755.html

 

PUCKER UP: GO TO THE 'KISS STATUE'

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It's way bigger than life and certain to put a smile on your face when you see it.

The 25-foot-tall "kiss" statue -- officially labeled "Unconditional Surrender" -- was bolted into place and officially dedicated on Valentine's Day. It now looms over the San Diego waterfront park adjacent to the retired U.S. Navy aircraft carrier museum USS Midway.

It is a sight to behold and the cornerstone of a weekend getaway to San Diego, a 232-mile drive south from Bakersfield. If the traffic gods are cooperative, the drive should take only 3½ hours.

If you have a couple of days, you and the family can hit the more commercialized venues like Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and Legoland.

But if you're looking for something unusual and a bit off the beaten path, head to the waterfront park, which has been renamed the "Greatest Generation Walk," at 910 N. Harbor Drive.

"Unconditional Surrender" was created by artist J. Seward Johnson and inspired by the Aug. 14, 1945, photo of a sailor grabbing an unsuspecting nurse in New York's Times Square and planting a wet celebratory kiss at the announcement of the end of World War II.

While many contend the statue is based on the iconic photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt, which appeared in Life magazine, Johnson said he actually used a lesser-known image taken of the same scene by Victor Jorgensen.

Johnson's original statue was made of a foam core, with a urethane outer layer. Susceptible to weather damage, it was loaned to San Diego in 2007 by Johnson's nonprofit Sculpture Foundation. It remained in San Diego until May 2012, when it was returned to a New Jersey foundry for repairs.

At its 2007 installation, retired Los Angeles teacher Edith Shain, who claimed to be the nurse in the now-famous photograph, recalled the kiss.

"During the moment of the kiss, I don't remember much; it happened so fast and it happened at the perfect time. I didn't even look at the sailor who was kissing me," she told reporters. "I closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment like any woman would have done."

Shain, who died in 2010 at the age of 91, acknowledged that the statue brought back "so many memories of peace, love and happiness. There is so much romance in the statue; it gives such a feeling of hope to all who look at it."

In addition to Shain, several men and women have stepped forward over the years claiming to be the "Unconditional Surrender" sailor and nurse. Because of the chaos at the scene, neither photographer obtained the subjects' names.

But it really doesn't seem to matter.

The photographs and statues are representative of a heroic generation that fought a long, hard war and saved the world for the rest of us.

When the original statue was yanked from its San Diego perch last year, the USS Midway Museum and a national coalition of World War II interest groups called "Keep the Spirit of '45 Alive!" led a communitywide "Save the Kiss" fundraising drive to purchase a permanent replacement made of bronze. In just a few months, more than $1 million was raise to pay for a more durable statue and to re-landscape the surrounding park.

Landscaping includes cherry trees donated by the Japanese Friendship Garden Society of San Diego. The park also features the Bob Hope Memorial Plaza, which includes statues of the much loved entertainer and his soldier audience.

Replicas of Johnson's "Unconditional Surrender" statue also are on display in Hamilton, N.J., and Pearl Harbor, near the battleship USS Missouri.

Until last year, a statue also adorned the water front in Sarasota, Fla. That statue was removed for repairs after it was damaged by a car crash.

The Sarasota statue initially received a cold shoulder from the arts community, which called it a garish "giant cartoon" unworthy of water front display.

Artistic taste aside, there is no denying that "Unconditional Surrender" is a real crowd-pleaser. Even on the overcast day of my San Diego visit, people pressed around the base -- some to admire the size, others to peek up the nurse's skirt and many young lovers to mimic the pose.

But mostly, people were smiling.

This article appeared in The Bakersfield Californian on April 12, 2013.

https://www.bakersfield.com/news/pucker-up-and-go----to-kiss-statue/article_689c5197-5e97-5fba-93e7-58076d676989.html

ST. JUDE: THE LAST HOPE

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Beth Elliott was all smiles as she took a break from being prodded and probed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

After years of wondering and after weeks of undergoing painful medical procedures, the 19-year-old Bakersfield College student finally received good news: The size of the tumor in her brain had shrunk. The tumor is not gone. It probably never will be. But it's smaller and less likely to press into vital areas of her brain that are required for life itself. The fact that Beth's tumor is smaller -- even so slightly -- is not good news. It's great news.

"And I feel better today than I have felt in five years," said Beth.

It's a testament to her stubborn determination to make medical sense out of symptoms she had been experiencing since she was a freshman at Bakersfield High School. It's a testament to the dedication of medical researchers to find cures for incurable diseases.

Long journey

Beth's medical odyssey began when she was a young girl heading into puberty and with all the excitement of high school looming ahead.

"I was always tired and had headaches," Beth recalled during a recent interview at the Memphis hospital.

Her mother, Leah, and father, Richard, took Beth to the family's Bakersfield doctor. After a series of tests, Beth's symptoms were dismissed. But she clearly had less energy than her peers and siblings; her headaches continued; and she had chest pains.

Unable to find a cause, her family doctor referred her to a series of specialists -- a gynecologist, neurologist, endocrinologist and cardiologist. Tests came back with readings in the normal ranges. A local radiologist reported finding nothing abnormal in a CT scan taken of Beth's head.

But Beth, whose lifelong ambition has been to become a pediatric oncology nurse, and her mother, a registered nurse, were not satisfied with the answers they were receiving. They knew something was very wrong.

The mother and daughter launched their own research -- using reference materials available on the Internet, at Bakersfield College and at local hospitals.

From what she had read, Beth concluded she had Cushing's disease, or a tumor on her pituitary gland. Beth and her family asked to be referred to a specialist at the University of Southern California.

The USC doctor was skeptical over Beth's diagnosis and resisted having an MRI performed to rule out a brain tumor. But the young woman insisted, prompting the doctor to accuse Beth of "wanting" to have a brain tumor. After a heated exchange, the doctor ordered the MRI.

The MRI was performed in Bakersfield on the eve of the long Labor Day weekend last September. Unwilling to wait for her doctor's office to reopen after the holiday, Beth retrieved her own test results from the radiology office.

She cried when she read the report. She did, in fact, have a tumor growing in her brain. It was not on her pituitary gland. Rather it was a craniopharyngioma -- a noncancerous rare growth of cells that generally occurs just above the pituitary gland. The tumors may interfere with important surrounding structures, causing serious health problems, such as obesity, delayed development, impaired vision and swollen optic nerve.

Dr. Thomas E. Merchant, chief of St. Jude Hospital's Radiation Oncology Department, said only about 100 cases are reported in the United States each year, so hospitals have limited experience treating the tumor.

Initially Beth returned to USC to consider her treatment options -- remove the tumor surgically; remove it with radiation treatments; or use a combination of surgery and radiation.

But doctors acknowledged that permanent removal of the entire tumor was unlikely, and both radiation and surgery posed risks. Surrounding areas of the brain could be damaged, worsening Beth's condition.

An alternative strategy

Disheartened, Beth and her mother turned to the Internet to search for an alternative strategy. They discovered St. Jude Hospital had just started a clinical trial involving an alternative strategy: treating the tumor with a proton beam radiation protocol, with the goal being to maintain the quality, not just the length of a patient's life.

Leah Elliott contacted Dr. Merchant to discuss her daughter's inclusion in the clinical trial. She sent Beth's medical records to St. Jude Hospital. The records included the earlier CT and MRI scans. Merchant said both clearly showed the presence of the tumor.

Beth was accepted into the clinical trial and by Sept. 27 -- just three weeks after her condition was correctly diagnosed -- she was being tested and treated at the Memphis hospital.

"It was the first time I had a doctor who sat down and listened to me," said Beth, recalling her first meeting with Merchant. "It was the first time that a doctor seemed to know more about my condition than I did."

Merchant reviewed the treatment options, including surgery. But he encouraged her to enter the clinical trial because it promised to give her the best quality of life.

For that reason, "I made the decision on the spot," she said.

That meant Beth and her mother would not return to their Bakersfield home for more than three months. The initial testing at St. Jude Hospital was followed by six weeks of daily treatments at the University of Florida's Proton Therapy Institute. The university is helping facilitate St. Jude Hospital's clinical trial.

"You go into a room, put on a gown and have a mask that goes on to your head," Beth recalled, explaining that the mask is engineered to precisely guide radiation beams to strike the tumor and spare surrounding tissue. "They snap you to a table and you go into this huge machine."

The one- and two-hour sessions were conducted five days a week for six weeks. Even when Beth was briefly hospitalized to treat excruciating headaches that resulted, she was taken out of the hospital each day to continue her treatments.

By January, Beth had returned to Bakersfield College, where she is completing prerequisite science courses in hopes of eventually entering the nursing program at Cal State Bakersfield.

During the first year following completion of radiation therapy, Beth will return to St. Jude Hospital for testing and evaluation every three months. After that, the frequency of her trips will drop to twice a year, or every six months, and then to annual checkups.

It was during the follow-up visit in August that Beth -- at long last -- received the good news: Her tumor was smaller.

"If the tumor doesn't grow, we call it a success. If it gets smaller, we are exceedingly happy," said Merchant, who explained that most of Beth's tumor is "calcified" and not expected to disappear. The portion that shrank, relieving the pressuring on surrounding areas of the brain, is a cyst-like mass.

"Beth's tumor is quite small. It is certainly not the smallest [he has seen] but it is far from being the largest. It is an intermediate size that made it a perfect target for radiation," Merchant said after he gave Beth the good news.

Merchant expects to include about 125 patients, or about 20 per year, in his clinical study, which could extend over a period of five to six years. The results of testing and treatment will be documented, with the goal of developing a treatment protocol that can be used by health care providers throughout the world.

"We are always searching for answers," said Merchant, praising patients, such as Beth, for their willingness to help find new cures.

Beth will be a St. Jude patient throughout her life as she returns to the hospital for follow-up monitoring and care. The lessons learned from Beth's case, as well as those of other patients in the clinical trial, will help generations of children who develop this rare brain tumor.

 

Beth Elliott and her beads.

Beads and blankets help them thrive

Like most patients at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Beth Elliott has documented her medical journey on a string of beads.

There are the beads for the good days and the bad days, the ambulance rides and the needle pricks. Each procedure -- and for a really sick kid, there are many procedures -- has its own special-colored bead.

But as a participant in a clinical trial at St. Jude Hospital, the Bakersfield College student discovered that there was no bead to represent the cutting-edge proton radiation therapy being used to shrink the tumor in her brain.

Beth spent six weeks last fall at the University of Florida's Proton Therapy Institute, which is assisting St. Jude Hospital in developing a treatment protocol for her rare condition that involves a noncancerous growth of cells, generally occurring around the pituitary gland.

During Beth's stay in Florida, she took a class in bead-making and created a glow-in-the-dark bead that represents proton radiation therapy. In addition to adding the bead to her own string, she plans to make enough to supply them to other young patients at St. Jude Hospital, who are being treated with proton radiation therapy.

Donated beads and blankets are among the many items that give comfort to the children who each year undergo experimental treatments in St. Jude Hospital's decades-long search for ways to cure rare or "incurable" medical conditions.

While accompanying her daughter during her treatment in Florida, Leah Elliott organized the mothers of other St. Jude Hospital children to make cozy blankets to warm and comfort patients.

"It gets pretty cold in there," said Beth, describing the hour or two each day that she was strapped to a table and placed in a huge machine, where she was bombarded by proton radiation.

"My blanket was so important to me. It was the only thing that stayed constant in radiation."

After returning to Bakersfield, Beth and Leah have encouraged family and friends to help make blankets for St. Jude Hospital patients.

To learn more about Beth Elliott's medical journey and how to help children being treated at St. Jude Hospital, click on to her blog at www.bethfightsback.com.

-- Dianne Hardisty

 

These articles appeared in The Bakersfield Californian on Sept. 17, 2012

https://www.bakersfield.com/news/st-jude-the-last-hope-for-hopeless-cases/article_77ece0c7-69da-5608-9678-bb6a5ff2c904.html