One look at my kind eyes and sweet face and it’s easy to understand why Labrador Retrievers are such a popular dog breed. And Mady and Mel will tell you I’m exactly the companion they were seeking. After saying goodbye to two beloved yellow Labs, Mady and Mel had adopted Annabelle, a scruffy Terrier mix, from Humane Society Silicon Valley (HSSV). Although Mel adores Annabelle, he missed having a “real” dog (bigger than 17 pounds), so they checked back with HSSV, which turned out to be perfect timing. Pregnant with eight puppies, I had been rescued from the Central Valley and brought to HSSV. After being fostered and getting medical care, I was ready for my forever home in Los Altos. It took Annabelle a little while to warm up to me, but now we keep watch together and chase rabbits and squirrels in the backyard. And I absolutely adore Mel and Mady. I’m happiest when I’m sidled up so close that my head and entire body are touching them. They say I’m incredibly polite for a Lab (I guess it’s unusual that I daintily eat and sip my water.), but I show my exuberance whenever it’s time to go for a walk or ride in the car. I jump in the air and “talk” with joy, madly waving my thick, tapering tail. I’m super lucky that I have all kinds of toys to play with. Although I try to be as gentle as possible, white stuffing always seems to come out as I express (chew) my affection. Thankfully, Mel and Mady make sure I have a steady supply, although if you hear of a good sale on stuffed animals, I’m sure they’d appreciate the tip.  

There’s a saying that all surgeons want to cut. Not true for mobile veterinary surgeon Dr. Dean Filipowicz. Just the other day he walked in to work on a dog who was already shaved, sedated and prepped for a surgery that never happened. That’s because after palpating the pup’s injured leg, Dean decided the dog would heal fine with two weeks of rest. “We are trained that we are our patients’ advocates, so if we can manage medically and avoid a risky surgery, it’s okay to put the brakes on,” he says. “Doing nothing is not actually doing nothing.”

As a mobile vet, Dean makes the rounds through a dozen animal clinics and hospitals between San Francisco and San Jose. Usually, the board-certified specialist comes in to collaborate with the owners’ referring veterinarians at their locations. The first step is a patient consultation with the owners in person; the second step could be surgery. The recent cancellation was one of the rare times when Dean was brought in cold without a consultation. 

Dean will operate in the middle of the night if it’s an emergency, but after treating thousands of dogs and cats over the years, he says most cases are what he calls “emergent.” That is, surgery can wait until the animal is stabilized and the pain is managed. He presents owners with all the options, and whether it’s a newborn pup or an 18-year-old cat, “I prioritize the animal,” he says. “Making your best friend better” is his business slogan, so it’s not surprising when he admits, “I probably like dogs more than I like people.”

Dean’s preference could also help explain how a young man who grew up outside of Annapolis, Maryland, and earned a BA in economics and a BS in mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, went from wanting to build racing sailboats to trading commodity options in New York City, before landing in vet school at age 30. He still enjoys tinkering on boats and cars and working with his hands, which are insured, by the way. 

Dean’s father was a doctor and the younger Dean considered going into human medicine. He tried candy striping for a while, then switched from handling bed pans to cleaning cages at small animal practices. When he ultimately left trading to become a vet, he enrolled at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, then did his internship and specialized in small animal surgery during his residency at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. That’s where he met his wife, Kelly Zeytoonian. 

With a focus on large animals, Kelly went on to establish Starwood Equine Veterinary Services on the Peninsula and in the East Bay. “With equine medicine and small animal surgery, there is minimal overlap, so it’s interesting to hear what she does—it’s a different world,” observes Dean, before noting another advantage. “If you have a horse, you almost certainly have a couple dogs, so when I was getting started, she was a pretty good referral source for me.” 

When Dean returned to the West Coast, he worked with a surgeon at a specialty hospital in the East Bay and helped set up a specialty facility in Fresno before targeting where to set up his own mobile practice. The greater Palo Alto area appealed, and he operated in rented space before expanding to form a group of specialty veterinarians. In 2017, he went back to practicing on his own under the name of Bay West Veterinary Surgery.

With no overhead aside from an office in Redwood City where he sterilizes his tools and meets the technicians who sometimes assist him, he travels to hospitals and clinics where he has a relationship. They provide staffing, X-rays, CT scans, surgery rooms, anesthesia, bandages, medicine and follow-up care, plus handle the billing.

This arrangement allows Dean some extra flexibility in his schedule. He mountain bikes near his Woodside home a couple of times a week, and when time permits, pulls over to kiteboard off of Third Avenue in San Mateo on his drive back from appointments in the City.

At home, his black Lab Zorba and Jack Russell Terrier Andy eagerly greet him, sniffing out traces of smells from strange dogs. Little do they know that their owner probably just returned from performing a complicated fracture in the morning and repairing soft tissue in the afternoon.

Given the variety, with about 75 percent of his surgeries involving orthopedics, the rest soft tissue, oncological mass removal and emergency trauma, “There’s no way I can get bored with my caseload,” Dean says. “I love what I do. I love what I do on a daily basis.”

Dean repairs a lot of dogs’ knees, but one surgery he finds particularly rewarding goes by the initials TECABO, which stands for Total Ear Canal Ablation and Bulla Osteotomy. “Cocker Spaniels are the poster children for this condition because they have big droopy ears and allergies,” he says. As bacteria builds up, the ear canal closes down and turns into an “awful stinky painful infection.” Technically, the fix is difficult since the lining must be removed and the ear flap left intact. “The surgery is effectively amputation, you amputate the ear canal,” he says, “but afterwards, they become different dogs. They become happy and friendly again and gain years back in their life.” 

Certain breeds are predisposed to other problems. Pregnant Pugs and Bulldogs, he explains, usually need to deliver by C-section due to their flat faces and breathing issues. One week he treated broken bones in several Chihuahuas after their owners stepped on them. He attributes that freak streak to COVID, when more people started adopting animals and staying at home. 

When not consulting and operating, Dean is preparing to start a new company for diagnostic products that he’s developing. “The reason for pivoting and coming up with devices and apps is that I’ve learned enough about what I’m doing that I want to benefit more animals in an impactful way,” he says. “I can do that at the same time that I’m still operating on individual animals.”

A few years ago, Dean and his wife decided to go to business school together, maintaining their professional lives while they completed their degrees online at University of North Carolina. “It was a lot of work; for two and a half years, there were no evening activities at all,” he says. For this power couple, on call and practicing medicine in the veterinary world where animals get sick and injured 24/7, that routine actually isn’t that different from a normal day.

Excited to be on her first flight in over a year, photographer Mary Ries Fischer captured this Perfect Shot just after takeoff from SFO. “As we ascended into the blue sky, I saw this glorious view of the Crystal Springs Reservoir framed in my window,” she says. “As I lined up the shot I realized how lucky I am to call the Peninsula my home.” 

Image by Mary Ries Fischer @maryriesfischerphotography 

The sensory experience of stepping into Essentique is as meticulously crafted by its owner, Mandana Navi, as the natural skin, hair and body care products that line the shelves. The white walls soothe, leading your gaze to the child-sized Buddha sitting serenely at the back of the space. Tactile foliage on a living wall graces the entryway, inviting respite from the hard edges of the Palo Alto business district. Bottles in shades of brown and white invite you to spritz a toner or roll a little spicy scent along your wrist. 

“There is an intimacy to the products we use on our skin and hair,” explains Mandana, as she pumps a silky dollop of hand cream scented with amaranth into my palm. “You can’t make people understand what you have to offer. The customer has to take his or her own journey. When people need something specific and that need is met, they appreciate it so much.”

Mandana, who grew up in Iran, was interested in self-care from a young age. “Persian women take good care of themselves,” she says. “They really care about beauty and health.” When she wanted to lighten her hair, her mother wouldn’t let her bleach it, so Mandana experimented with what she had access to in the natural world. “I discovered that with dried apple tree leaves and chamomile tea I could lift the color from my hair,” she recollects with a smile. “That may have been my initial spark.”

It would take time and a particular kind of dedication for Mandana to grow that spark into the locally handmade product line she now creates, while managing every aspect of her business spanning marketing, research and development and front-of-house sales to hosting team building workshops where clients can create their own essential oil mixes. She pulls long hours, works almost every day and doesn’t regret a moment of it. “I make everything with love,” she says. “It’s my passion.”

Mandana started out with a biology degree, which included coursework in botany. “I think something in me must have known all along that this is where I would end up,” she muses. She worked in an infertility lab in Canada before earning her MBA, still not quite knowing where it would take her. It wasn’t until she was living in Palo Alto, taking a lot of yoga classes, that inspiration began to bloom. “I loved that moment in yoga when they would dab a little essential oil onto your forehead or neck,” she recounts. “I was really aware of the way the scent would wake up my senses.” 

Scent, Mandana says, bypasses the rational mind and heads straight to the limbic area of the brain: “That’s why smells can make you so emotional and bring up so many memories.” She began to experiment with essential oils to soothe muscle aches and create smells that spoke to her. Australian Sandalwood. Basil. Bitter Orange. Lemongrass. Cinnamon Bark. “Self-care is about so much more than beauty,” she says. “It’s about caring for your whole being, nurturing your spirit as well as your body.” 

It is no accident that the personal, the intimate, the bespoke, are central themes in Mandana’s work. Many of the products on her shelves she initially designed for just one person. A client of hers suffered from a scaly scalp, so Mandana crafted a serum to soothe the itch and heal the skin. When a friend published her first novel, Mandana made a spicy-scented perfume inspired by the story for its launch. She created a cleanser for the teens she hires to work part-time behind the register. “They had breakouts,” Mandana explains, “so I researched how to balance the sebum in the skin and I came up with an extract of sea kelp that helps with inflammation. They love it.”

Crafted in small batches to ensure freshness, Mandana’s creations draw from more than 100 natural and plant-derived ingredients ranging from Abyssinian oil and Pracaxi butter to willow bark extract. A glance at the final packaging reveals offerings like Luminescence, a hand and body polish derived from walnut shell powder and argan oil, and Dew de Dew, a moisturizing hair wash laden with bamboo and turmeric extracts. When asked which of her products is her favorite to make, she’s stumped for a moment. “Some recipes take longer, some are so hard to figure out,” she responds. “But they’re all satisfying in their own way. And when they meet the needs of the client, well, that is precious.”

Mandana spends every Monday when the shop is closed mixing up her standard product line in her lab and doing research and development on the recipes that still need perfecting. Even in the early days of forming her business, Mandana believed that making the bold move of having a storefront was essential, which led her to open Essentique on Park Boulevard in September 2016. “The efforts I make could seem extreme from a distance,” she notes, “but, I care so much about the finished product. I value the transparency and personal touch of having a shop where you can enter, smell and try.”

Continually crafting concoctions and experimenting with new equipment, Mandana is currently trying to crack the code for a non-toxic sunscreen and develop a product line for babies. She can imagine a world in which she opens a business in Paris where her sister lives, or in New York City, where she loves to take weekend jaunts.

But her connection to the community she’s cultivated is what drives her passion—along with the joy she feels watching eyes light up after a sniff or a gentle rub. “I can never fully explain how what I do is so different from everyone else,” she says. “I need people to discover it for themselves.”

We have a good-sized patch of grass in our backyard. It’s just right for playing catch with a baseball. It was there that I taught my boys how to “feed the apple” and how to move side to side to get in front of a grounder. We spent countless hours there, well into summer nights, reenacting dramatic plays from World Series games.

Though the days of Little League have long passed, there is still something magical about going out back and throwing the ball around, which my adult sons and sons-in-law do from time to time. Playing catch returns us to the heady days of youth—at once we are 12 and ready to strive for the majors. 

When we play today, I reach into our sports cabinet and grab my Wilson glove, the Ted Sizemore edition, something that’s been with me a long while.

On a beautiful spring Saturday in Amarillo in the ’60s, with The Beatles playing on the AM radio, my Mother drove me in her Chrysler station wagon to Vance’s Sporting Goods store. I was buzzing with excitement—the kind you feel when you are getting something special. In this case, my lust was for my own mitt, a glove like those used by my heroes of the day. Players like Carl Yastrzemski, Pete Rose and Willie Mays. 

Vance’s was downtown, and when we arrived, I rushed into the store knowing just exactly where the gloves were kept. Vance’s had a large selection, and the smell of the leather permeated that area of the store. Near the gloves were rows of wooden bats, shelves of cleats and racks of balls.

While I had a good idea of what I wanted, having done some scouting a month earlier with my Dad, I was now confronted with the reality of having to make a choice. It reminded me of my first major league baseball game—coincidently at Candlestick Park—when I was allowed to get one souvenir. I stood there paralyzed by my inability to choose. Finally, the pressure on, I selected a round reflecting Giants’ logo button, still with me today.

I tried on the gloves, each stiff and large. I took a nearby ball and smashed it into the mitts’ pockets. Gloves take “breaking in,” so you accepted that new ones were unpliable, but you still needed the confidence to know that it could happen. I narrowed it down to three gloves. Like my time at Candlestick, I was overwhelmed with indecision.  

A salesman came over and gave his opinion on which I should choose. He was a young guy, maybe 16, and he seemed to know what he was talking about. I asked him if he played ball and he said he did, for Amarillo High where my sister was in school. After he wandered away, I kept at it until my Mom said we were leaving with or without a glove. I finally went with my gut and selected a Wilson, the Ted Sizemore edition with Snap Action and Dual Hinge, model number A2611. It was $15.95.

As soon as we got home, I took a baseball and put it in my glove and placed two rubber bands around it to help shape the pocket. The next day, I took off the rubber bands and hit the pocket with a hammer a bunch of times and played some catch with my brother Danny. I did this for a week or so and slowly my glove became comfortable enough for me to have the confidence to use it on the field. 

Though it was psychological, having that new glove—my own glove and not my brother’s hand-me-down—gave me a lift and I had a great season. In fact, I made the play of a lifetime. I was the second baseman, and it was the bottom of the seventh inning (we only played seven), with a man on third and the game tied with one out. The batter hit a towering pop fly about ten feet behind second base and I raced to it. Reaching back, my Wilson glove doing its magic, I caught the ball. The runner at third broke for home and I threw a perfect strike to our catcher a moment before the runner reached the plate, and in a bang-bang instant, the umpire screamed, “Out!” It was a thrilling moment, and on our next turn at bat, we won the game.

That glove has lasted—through Little League, through college, through having my own children, to today. I’ve had the laces replaced a dozen times and they need replacing yet again. They broke not long ago, and in order to keep the game going, I took some wire and pushed it through the finger holes and tied it off. There is still plenty of action ahead for my Wilson with my ever-growing number of grandchildren soon to be playing catch with me out in the backyard.

Nestled in between Douglas fir, redwood and oak trees along Tripp Road lies the Woodside Store. A popular field trip for local schools, the restored one-story wooden structure offers a hands-on interactive program and artifacts for discovering California’s rich history. And, with free admission, anyone can visit the site to soak up the atmosphere of Peninsula country life in the 1880s. The original Woodside Store was built by Matthias Alfred Parkhurst and Dr. Robert Orville Tripp, the street’s namesake, to provide supplies to settlers and woodsmen in the area. After the first store burned down in 1854, the business partners built the existing building, which became a public gathering place that the community utilized on a daily basis. In addition to providing essential goods and Dr. Tripp’s dental services, Woodside Store also functioned as a stagecoach stop, a lending library, bank and post office. Parkhurst died in 1863, and Tripp and his family continued to run the store until Tripp’s passing in 1909. The County of San Mateo purchased Woodside Store in 1940 and it was listed as a State Registered Landmark in 1949. In 1994, the County completed the restoration of Woodside Store, returning it to its late 19^th-century appearance. For anyone seeking an even more immersive experience, once a year on the first Sunday in May, the site hosts “Old Woodside Store Day,” when visitors participate in old-time activities and craft-making. See parks.smcgov.org/woodside-store for current visiting hours.  

Three Spectacular Sunday Drives

words by Silas Valentino

The passenger door slams. We start the car, put on our shades, soon to soar along the open road while the radio plays.

For this photo essay with PUNCH photographer Gino De Grandis, the goal was to showcase a few of the best local drives that can help to disrupt our routines and ease our minds. 

We chose to take the back roads, photograph the landmarks so often passed by in a blur and pull over to gaze into the healing vistas of the ever-rolling Pacific. 

The open road was calling.

Gino requests an early morning launch. His gifted eye prefers when the light is off at an angle, not directly above us as it is during the noon hour. 

With the sun at our backs, we turn west, first to Highway 84, then to the 1 before looping back around on Highway 36, appropriately named Skyline Boulevard for how it slices along the crest that borders our mountain ranges and suburban sprawls.

Falling into repetitive pathways is so effortless that it’s easy to forget that there are switchbacks meandering into the Santa Cruz Mountains minutes from our downtowns. Or that old-growth forests neighbor our Peninsula communities. And how by just pulling out of our driveways, the edge of North America awaits just west of Highway 1. 

North –> South

Of our two major highway systems, the 280 is the silent giant. It tends to have less traffic and showcases bucolic hillscapes, the pristine waters of Crystal Springs Reservoir and visuals typically earned from a rural road trip, not a dash between Peninsula cities. 

We pull off the highway onto Skyline Boulevard in search of views. Just after we turn left onto Crystal Springs Road, we find a fresh angle.

Beneath the highway’s bridge that connects a Hillsborough canyon is a new perspective of a road often traveled. Markings of graffiti riddle the bridge’s underbelly while a cacophony of bustling vehicles generates muffled white noise, signaling the constant
motion above. 

Just beyond the shadow of the bridge lies the Crystal Springs Dam where mankind keeps a reservoir at bay to harness its power. Cyclists and runners pass over the dam’s roadway to traverse the Sawyer Camp Trail. We ride parallel to the reservoir along Skyline Boulevard. If the wind is still, and the water on the reservoir remains tranquil, a mirroring Peninsula is reflected in the calm.

East –> West

The curves of the road force us to sway from side to side. We split off from Highway 84 to join the winding roads that hug Pescadero Creek. Weaving through Loma Mar, the middle ground between Pescadero and La Honda nestled within the Santa Cruz Mountains, we catch sight of a blue house through the green foliage with redwoods rising around it. We pause to admire the serenity with anticipation for what lies beyond the curvatures ahead.

Soon, after emerging from the dense forest into more open terrain, our eyes focus upon it. “That’s the oldest Cypress tree in the world,” a nameless neighbor hollers to us after we stop to admire the massive tree trunks that grow out of the earth with such unbreakable resolve. The shade from its prickly green canopy extends well past the black asphalt. For scale, a white truck passes by and is  immediately dwarfed by the tree’s awesome presence. 

North –> South

The dust stops here. Dirt is exchanged for sand before quickly dissolving into the white foam of the sea as the Pacific ingests another gulp with its endless swell. 

The stretch from Pescadero to Pacifica is about 26 miles—or 40 minutes of drivetime that we wish would never end, like the looped backdrop in a Flintstones cartoon. We roll over seaside capes where years of erosion have created glorious shapes to celebrate the junction of the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. Stopping at pullouts along the way, Gino knows the spots to focus his camera lens. Although the sun is somewhat overhead, he doesn’t mind the lack of shadow. The rarity of a clear day with no fog to contend with makes up for the loss of dimension. 

At the north end, the Tom Lantos Tunnel guides us through Devil’s Slide, a rugged area well aware of the earth’s tendency to shatter under the forces of the sea. Emerging from the tunnel’s portal, we meet again the coastal greenery and boundless blue of a sun-drenched Peninsula afternoon. 

My name is Buddy and my love language is licking. It’s a good thing Angela and Todd immediately picked up on that when they first met me at Humane Society Silicon Valley (HSSV). I felt an instant kinship so I slathered them with wet kisses to express my enthusiasm. Angela and Todd understood what I was saying and brought me home to Los Altos, where I also live with Angela’s daughter Lily and my partner-in-fun Maggie, a Tibetan Terrier/Poodle mix also adopted from HSSV. As for me, I’m a mix of miniature Poodle and Bichon, which explains my petite size—just 10 pounds. And no, I didn’t pay for my dramatic ombré-colored ears. It may look like I just came from a salon, but my beauty is all natural. Angela and Todd often work at home during the day, so there’s always lots of company. But Maggie and I love it when Angela goes into the office. She works at Villa Montalvo Arts Center and takes us on hikes behind the villa and we get to run around the property. Lucky us, right? Lily is in high school, so whenever she isn’t home, I jump on her bed and wait for her return—and then greet her with a good licking. I’m often described as fun-loving and fearless but also a bit of a rascal. That’s just because I like to dig in flower beds and eat out of Maggie’s bowl, instead of my own. I also jump into Maggie’s bed first at night, but she thinks it’s funny and just pushes me out. There are advantages to being small. I get to take baths in the kitchen sink, and I love slurping down water while I’m being rinsed. After all, when you’re a licker like me, you’ve got to stay hydrated. 

After delivering intricate therapeutic treatments—from inserting needles with pinpoint precision to warming and carefully placing suctioning cups—what does a holistic medicine practitioner do to restore himself? If you’re Hide Minami, the director and founder of Holistic Health Center, you surf 30- to 40-foot waves at Mavericks on the San Mateo County coast. “Being in nature, cleansing in the ocean water” is the best way he’s found to replenish his own healing energy.

According to Hide, qi is key in his holistic medicine practice. “I use energy from the natural environment to move the patients’ stagnant energy,” he says. As Hide explains it, the energy that governs people’s physical and mental states needs to flow. From an early age, Hide was taught that if qi is blocked, blood and body fluids don’t flow well and that can lead to pain and illness.

Born to one of the oldest acupuncture families in Japan, Hide is a sixth-generation practitioner, with a family acupuncture lineage dating back 300 years. “A long time ago,” he notes, “we used mugwort leaves—moxa and natural herbs instead of needles—and burnt it on the acupuncture points.”

Working out of both Menlo Park and San Mateo locations, Hide still uses small cones of moxa to heat acupuncture points on the body that correspond to organs, to alleviate ailments such as skin diseases, alopecia and the effects of chemotherapy.

Although Hide received his Japanese national license in acupuncture, he initially fought the expectation to be an acupuncturist. In 1982, he came to the U.S. on a foreign student visa. Speaking no English, he lived with a Mormon bishop in Redwood City, attended ESL classes in Palo Alto and went on to major in hotel management at Cañada College. In perhaps a sign of inevitability, it was his love of big waves that led him back to his family legacy. 

Introduced to surfing by a friend in high school, Hide dreamed of working (and surfing)in Hawaii but he needed a green card. An attorney told him he could use his Japanese acupuncture license to obtain an H1B visa for a specialty occupation. That was the incentive Hide needed to make a pivot to the past—and reclaim a deeply-embedded commitment to healing. 

In addition to the training he received in Japan, Hide attended San Francisco College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. He also studied Chinese herbs with a Chinese doctor for three years and learned about cupping and gua sha, a traditional skin scraping technique. He obtained his state license decades ago, yet he strives to learn more, participating in an international study group for the last 20 years and covering subjects such as Japanese Meridian Therapy as well as Western medicine.

To many, Hide is known as “sensei,” which means doctor or teacher. He has a fifth-degree black belt in karate and second degree in kobudo martial arts weapons. In his hometown of San Mateo, he taught at Oshiro Karate Dojo for 30 years and has been teaching PE and Japanese meditation at Odyssey Middle School for 19 years.

Hide’s personal regimen includes free diving, gym workouts, pilates, yoga, strengthening and physical therapy for various injuries. His storied life also includes a professional surfing career. “I’ve almost been killed a couple of times,” Hide admits, but he shows no signs of slowing down. As evidence of that, he keeps 30 surf-boards in his garage. Perhaps most noticeable is the ten-foot six-inch pink board that surfing legend Jeff Clark gave him. They go way back, competing against each other in the 1980s. It was Jeff Clark who turned Hide on to Mavericks. 

Hide started surfing at Mavericks in 1997 and says it took almost ten years of practice before he could catch a wave every time. Sometimes he waits three to four hours to catch the right one, and last January that led to a mishap. It was dark at six o’clock and he was the only person still in the water. Although he was wearing a padded wetsuit, the last wave hit him with a pop and broke a rib. 

Hide cried out when it happened, but smiles now as he talks about it, figuring that he only missed out on five days of surfing this past season. Given his tally of injuries to date—two broken ribs, a labrum tear, about 20 whiplashes and ACL and meniscus tears in both knees—healing has become a way of being. Hide’s advice for anyone involved in dangerous extreme sports like big-wave surfing is to train hard and maintain a healthy lifestyle. “No party, no drink before going to Mavericks,” he says. “Eat well and sleep.” 

Hide credits his wife for making very healthy meals and getting him to embrace another favorite pastime: golf. After six years of practicing almost daily, he experienced the thrill of getting a hole in one, but he only plays occasionally these days because golf takes a lot of time and admittedly, he doesn’t have much. 

With all that he does, Hide still prioritizes his patients, some of whom he has treated for over 35 years. He is a healer to multi-generations of Peninsula families; his oldest client is 104 and he frequently treats infants as well. “I love what I’m doing,” he affirms. “I approve of my ancestors guiding me to this field—it’s very rewarding.”

Hide tries many approaches during sessions and frequently sends patients home with herbal remedies imported from Taiwan and Japan and ground into a powder to be added to hot water. He describes them as “very safe to take every day” and meant to strengthen his patients’ constitutions.

To maintain his own constitution, Hide relies heavily on pilates and meditation. He views the calming, relaxing serenity he achieves as another way to balance out his energy, which allows him to continue on his chosen path. 

Longevity is key to everything Hide hopes to accomplish, and he has his sights set on becoming the oldest surfer in Guinness World Records. The magic age is 92. “I want to beat the record,” he says, “and be living proof of the power of practicing preventative medicine.” 

Earlier this summer, the San Mateo County Fair welcomed 16,000 people a day to its fairgrounds for carnival rides, exhibits, music and a little slice of summertime American tradition. Rarely missing the moment and with his camera always within easy reach, Gino De Grandis snapped this month’s Perfect Shot of the Viper amusement ride, elevated off the ground and shooting countless streams of dazzling illumination for all to see. 

Image by Gino De Grandis / luiphotography.com

words by Silas Valentino

The day’s overture begins with a cup of coffee from Peet’s. Soon after, Khori Dastoor, general director (GD) of Opera San José (OSJ), launches into a meeting with her creative team about who should play the lead in the upcoming performance of Bizet’s Carmen.

As a lifelong performer who has sung on stages throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia, Khori’s network runs deep and she has a particular artist in mind who would be perfect to lead the company’s first show for 2022.

By 10 AM,  she’s on a Zoom call, followed by a meeting with the Friends of Opera San José, the company’s volunteer support group, before wrapping up to sit in on vocal auditions—the first in-person auditions in well over a year. Darting past a seated auditionee by the company’s front door, Khori shoots him a warm “good luck” smile.

Khori concludes her work day with a budget meeting before transitioning to her life outside the opera, which includes her husband, their two daughters and a home in Los Altos.

It’s an active day (only a Tuesday) but her schedule has bustled with hustle ever since Khori assumed the helm of the opera company in 2019, capping off a 14-year relationship with OSJ. Her first season as general director was hampered by social restrictions and cancellations, demanding her stable leadership to navigate the team through months of unknowns and uncertainties.

As OSJ approaches its new season and the return of live audiences, Khori earns a pause amid the flurry of scheduling to reflect and process the feat of safely guiding an opera company through the perils of 2020. “I just had faith that this was coming to me for a reason and that I had something to offer,” she says, before flashing a grin. “If I would have known all the things that were to transpire… I might have made a different choice!”

She lets out a well-deserved laugh. Now that the fraught hardship of keeping a production house afloat through unprecedented trials is over, pure comedy rises above the drama.

“You have to take a leap of faith,” she continues. “Most of us have that feeling, that deep-down fear of imposter syndrome. I realize that I do have a different perspective and a different resume but that is valuable.”

Khori first joined OSJ in 2007 as a singer and part of its resident ensemble of principal artists, a unique 12-month program that provides a salary and housing, giving artists the ability to remain rooted in one area and regularly perform.

She sang lyric soprano in over a dozen productions as a performer for OSJ and the experience shaped both her career and personal life. Following a production of Lucia di Lammermoor, Khori met her now husband at a party. (Coincidentally, she portrayed the titular character who, in the show, murders her own husband.) The two married four years later.

She’d go on to work in the administrative side of the company, first as an artistic advisor to the general director before becoming director of artistic planning, managing casting and artist recruitment. Her selection as the company’s next GD, the person who’s ultimately responsible for all of its artistic and financial aspects, was an obvious choice.

Although there had been a smooth ascent to Khori’s director role, drama unfortunately ensued on cue for the second act.

In the reception room of the OSJ office, there’s a poster for Khori’s inaugural season with Mozart’s The Magic Flute rounding out the calendar, slated for what was to be a doomed April 2020 opening. Khori and her crew were nearly ready for the production when lockdown and quarantine measures prevented the show from going on.

Now a life-like dragon used in the show hangs on wire suspended inside OSJ’s prop warehouse, a token reminder of the first show ever to be canceled in the company’s 37-year history. It was a decision Khori didn’t make lightly but did so with her team’s safety in mind.

Even without an audience in seats, Khori didn’t take a day off throughout 2020. She swiftly launched a successful relief fund to help the company’s musicians, artists and theatre staff affected by the loss of work.

By June, she oversaw the development of the Heiman Digital Media Studio, which allowed OSJ to begin broadcasting digital performances. Because of its unique ability to have a fully-equipped stage and a roster of talent on hand, OSJ began producing digital performances for an audience that extended beyond any physical auditorium. Other opera companies began rebroadcasting OSJ’s shows since it was some of the only fresh material available.

“We never had funding to invest in our archive but we had a space and artists who lived in-house,” Khori explains. “We had an opportunity to actively produce. At that time, we didn’t have an endowment so it made sense to make the shows available on a revenue sharing model. I was very certain we wouldn’t give this away for free. I don’t believe in that; these artists are professionals and I wanted to communicate that value to consumers.”

Khori adds that it’s easy to classify OSJ as an artists-first institution and she says this from her own personal experience rising up through the program.

“I was a waitress, a teacher and was getting my doctorate at UCLA when I came to OSJ. My job was to be an opera singer, which is a job that doesn’t really exist in America,” she says.

“The artist’s residency at OSJ is not just about housing and a salary, it’s healthcare and personal relationships. You’re putting down roots in a place. So often in this work we ask people to sacrifice family and their needs. It’s a tremendous gift but it does have cons. We’re not able to be in New York getting seen. But the pandemic shifted the calculus for artists about their priorities.”

Growing up in Pasadena, and for the rest of her life, Khori’s priority was theater and performance. She sang in the L.A. Opera’s children’s chorus and would sometimes join her mom to help on the floats for the annual Rose Parade.

She celebrates the timeless qualities of opera, how jokes written centuries ago still hold up and the shared humanity that persists through the ages.

It’s this passion and proven leadership that caught the attention of the Houston Grand Opera, which selected Khori to become its next general director and CEO, beginning in January 2022. Following 15 years in San José, Khori is bound for Texas. 

It’s the latest challenge and a new act for the lifelong performer, who continues to relish some of her favorite Peninsula traditions: It’s apricot season at the Thursday Farmers Market in Los Altos, a delicious taste of summer to treasure before her final OSJ curtain call.

After my freshman year at Claremont McKenna College, I was in Houston for the summer visiting my mother, who had moved there to play in the symphony. My stepfather Bob gave me—and I was grateful for it—the rather onerous job of painting apartment balcony railings in the city’s dreadful heat and humidity. 

My Dad had offered to help me buy my first car, so I was motivated to paint those rails. I had been longing for a Ford Capri II hatchback, and toward the end of the summer, my Mom and Bob took me to a dealer near their home. As if ordained, they had exactly the combination I wanted: a sleek white manual with a tan interior. Better yet, it had a sunroof. 

I truly loved that car, an emotion that came to define my relationships with cars. Once they were mine, I was all in. While I don’t need a lot of possessions, I tend to care mightily for the ones that I have. They become part of me, and I keep them meticulous. 

That car took me through college and graduate school, eventually ending up in Miami, where my wife and I lived for several years while I was the general manager—my first job—at Miami Magazine. Eventually the Capri—its air conditioning not up to the Miami summers and the salt air rusting its underbelly—gave way to me buying a new Volvo 240, white with tan interior. It was a beautiful car and everything worked properly, especially the air conditioning. It felt like a “grown-up” car.

We decided that Miami was not for us, and we traveled in my beloved Volvo to the Peninsula. Once my newly established publishing company was humming along nicely and we had bought a home, had a couple of children and bought a Suburban for the family, I discovered the Infiniti J30. It was shaped a bit like a classic Jaguar, and I was drawn to its elegance and sophistication.

Breaking with my color code, I bought a beautiful British green J30 (although still with tan interior!).  I loved the many glowing dials and switches in the car, and they reminded me of a small jet plane. I felt good driving down the road in this—for me—luxurious car.

I drove this much-adored Infiniti for almost a decade, yet it still looked brand-new inside and out when I sold it and bought a Mercedes 240, white with tan leather interior. I was uneasy, honestly, buying a German car since growing up my father had a strict rule about not buying anything made in Germany because of what he went through as a child there. But my sister had bought one, so I decided it was okay if I did as well. The car had a lot of plush aspects to it and frankly, I felt proud to be behind the wheel of a Mercedes. I guess it was the stage of my life when I needed to demonstrate my success, as modest as it was, though it took a while for me to get comfortable with that notion.

About eight years later, I moved up the ladder to a Mercedes E, again—and always now—in white with a tan leather interior. Its larger size and greater power served me better as I drove around my four teenage children. I relished this car, came to love it and care for it like a baby, but it did not love me back and developed severe problems as it aged—warning lights that could not be fixed, engine issues that were constant and a failing dashboard screen.

I thought long and hard about what I wanted next, and I realized it was time to get a vehicle that at its core was practical and versatile, one that could accommodate the projects and demands on me and my children now that they had their own homes and constantly needed help to move furniture or building materials or children’s “stuff.” I found a Range Rover Sport in white with a tan leather interior (a guy can’t change too much) that I instantly fell in love with, though my daughter Tali told me it was a “woman’s car.” So what? At first it was a challenge for me since it was so large, but it quickly became “me” and it has been enormously helpful on a regular basis.

So, I’ve had six cars in my life. These cars seemed to define who I was at different points in my life, from the sportiness of my youth to the practicality of having young children to a feeling of wanting to drive “success” to, finally, not caring about anything but having a workhorse of a vehicle. But I truly loved each car, bonding with them in what is certainly a ridiculous concept, fastidiously taking care of them and then feeling remorse when letting go of them. 

I know, of course, what my last ride will be and just hope that my family has the good decency to make sure that it is white with a tan interior. And maybe a sunroof.

Three Exceptional Photographers Capture the Iconic Spirit of the Olympic Games

Words by Sheri Baer

During his first assignment to the Olympics—Los Angeles 1984—photojournalist David Burnett took a seat mid-track to cover the women’s 3,000-meter final. He unwittingly found himself in the perfect position to document the infamous collision between American runner Mary Decker and South African Zola Budd.

“I kept seeing this movement of red in a place that did not look like it was supposed to be happening,” Burnett recalls of the limited view through his single-lens reflex camera. “But I couldn’t really tell what it was until all the runners ran by, and I saw Mary lying straight across from us on the track.”

Adrenaline firing, Burnett swapped for his telephoto lens, quickly checked focus, and then, “bing, bing, bing, bing, bing,” he continued to click, ultimately capturing an iconic and heartbreaking Olympic moment. 

Sports photographer David Madison counts the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo as his inaugural trip to the epic global event. He will never forget the sense of awe he felt the first time a ski jumper flew over his head.

“When a ski jumper comes off the lip of the jump and disappears over the slope, the thing that is stunning is how much noise comes from their body going through the air,” David marvels. “You just wouldn’t think of it, but it’s like having an airplane zip by you.”

For sports and fine art photographer John Todd, London 2012 was the ticket—and he was there to cover the USA Women’s Soccer team’s run for the gold. “They were so amped up. Some of the best soccer I’ve ever seen in my life was USA versus Japan in that final,” John says, noting that he channeled that same intensity capturing the action. “The Olympics is definitely the pinnacle for a sports photographer—you are covering something at the highest level.”

Through their joint exhibit The Torch Is Burning at Art Ventures Gallery in Menlo Park, David Burnett, David Madison and John Todd capture the spirit and visual wonder of the world’s most legendary sporting event. 

“The Olympics are something that people crave and can hardly wait for,” observes David Burnett. “People are ready to appreciate athletes again.”

David Burnett

davidburnett.com

Los Angeles 1984 may have been his first, but David Burnett subsequently went on to tally 12 Olympic Games—with plans to make Tokyo his 13^th. Named one of the “100 Most Important People in Photography” by American Photo magazine, the award-winning photojournalist first took up a camera during his high school days in Salt Lake City. Choosing the path of a “generalist journalist,” David’s six-decade career rewards him with a wide range of experiences. “One day it’s a business portrait for Fortune magazine,” he says, “and then it’s a congressional hearing for TIME magazine and then a picture of the Boston Red Sox for Sports Illustrated.” In 1976, David co-founded Contact Press Images, a New York-based independent photojournalism agency now in its 45^th year. David’s work at the Olympics reflects the agency’s mission to cover major events of the day through lasting images and in-depth photographic essays. With strong local ties (including family Stanford, Palo Alto and Menlo Park connections), David shares his wisdom and insights with the Peninsula through photography workshops ranging from the “Big Game” to an upcoming one on “The Art of the Portrait.” (see iriscreative.org/burnett)

Is there any kind of common theme through your coverage of the Olympics? 

For me, it’s about the representation of athleticism. What I really love about the Olympics is that for everybody who’s there, in addition to just having the best time or lifting the most weight, whatever it is, there is something in their expression of athleticism that demands your attention. What I’m always trying to find, what I’m always trying to get it honed down to, is that little moment when you see how amazing somebody can be. I rarely have the winners because I’m much more interested in finding something that is an expression of that athleticism, that energy, and some artistic way of interpreting it. 

What goes into capturing a good sports photograph? 

You want to end up with something that is striking, as the way any good photograph has that ability to speak to you without words. So much of it is about anticipation. You have to be very nimble and able to react quickly and understand what’s coming next. The thing about sports is that there’s very seldom, if ever, a second chance. The best stuff is more often a surprise than the thing that you thought was going to happen in the first place, but you have to be ready for it. You have to be able to change direction and to change look in a heartbeat because in sports, things can change so quickly. You’re looking for your pictures to land some great moment or to see something that nobody else saw—and occasionally, it happens.

Who have been your favorite athletes to photograph? 

I’ll say this about Usain Bolt: He is a perfect showman, which kind of matched his running talent. It was just always a joy to see him live up to himself. He was always great and fun to watch. Carl Lewis was a little like that in 1984 when he was doing long jump and the 100 meters and the relay team and won four medals that year. The gymnasts are amazing. Oh my God, I mean look at what they do and how they do it, and all I’m trying to do is get a picture of what they’re doing. So it’s really fun to watch and a joy to try to keep up with them.

David Madison

davidmadison.com

David Madison moved to the Peninsula in the late ’60s in time to attend Gunn High School. After attending Stanford and living mostly in Palo Alto, he moved to Portola Valley in 1993. For David, photography started out as a hobby in junior high, which had nothing to do with sports. “I fell into the sports thing in college when I started shooting Stanford football,” he says, “and it just kind of snowballed from there.” Through Stanford connections, David secured an assignment to cover Sarajevo 1984, which led to a total of 11 Olympic Games, culminating in Salt Lake City in 2002. David worked with sports photo agencies that pool clients and images, and his Olympic images have appeared in magazines like Newsweek and Sports Illustrated and have been used by Olympic sponsors including Levi Strauss, Kodak, IBM and the U.S. Postal Service. In a continuing career now spanning five decades of worldwide sports events, David is also commemorating 50 years of photographing Stanford football. 

What do you think distinguishes your style from other sports photographers?

I came into it as more of an outsider: What’s visually interesting to me here? Sometimes, I think I didn’t become a superb action photographer because I was more interested in non-action points of view and images from sports. Hard action is kind of the classic element of sports photography but there’s a whole slew of that world that is not hard action—whether it’s a scene that’s in-between moments or before a game or after a game. My images tend to be more symbolic of a sport, more of an iconic view or slightly more abstracted view, as opposed to documenting a certain play or a certain moment. 

How would you describe the physical toll of photographing the Olympic Games? 

I always looked at the Olympics like an all-you-can-eat menu and I wanted to just grab as much of it as I could. It’s very tiring. If I were to photograph a baseball game here, that would be a three-, four- or five-hour event. The Olympics is like doing that three times a day for almost three weeks. It’s a real challenge in terms of trying to keep your energy up, trying to sleep. By the end of the first week, you get on the bus and everybody’s instantly asleep for the half-hour it takes to go back to the media center. 

What sports have you enjoyed shooting most at the Olympics? 

I love track. It’s been something that I’ve followed intensely for a long time. To be in an Olympic stadium for the 100-meter dash final with 100,000 people watching, that is an incredible moment, an incredible focus of human energy in an arena, and it’s a privilege to be a part of it. It’s also terrifying because you’re nervous about what you’re going to try to capture and it’s over in 10 seconds. Weightlifting is the other sport that pops to mind. You think, ‘Weightlifting, how interesting can this be?’ But weightlifting at the Olympics is usually staged in a theater, so it has this formal ceremonial aspect to it. And when you see a lifter trying to complete their lift and either doing it or not, somehow this very basic core human emotion comes out. It’s a pure goal: ‘Can I lift this weight?’

John Todd 

johntodd.com 

Growing up in Palo Alto, the Olympics always held a wondrous quality for John Todd, which his mother, Anne Cribbs, undoubtedly helped foster. As the American record holder and fastest American breastroker on the 1960 Olympic team, 15-year-old Anne swam in the preliminary round of the medley relay, which helped position the team for its gold medal win. “I think the Olympics always just had this mystique in our household because my mom had gone at such an early age and would talk about it,” John reflects. The former Gunn High School football player, wrestler and diver launched his career answering an ad for a sports photographer in Connecticut. After moving back to Palo Alto in the early ‘90s, John’s career took off, taking him from AP stringer to owner of International Sports Images (ISI Photos), the official photography supplier to U.S. Soccer, Stanford Athletics and the San Jose Earthquakes. A professional sports and fine art photographer for over 25 years now, John also teaches regularly in Stanford’s Continuing Studies Program. After covering the 2012 London Olympics, he now has his sights set on Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028. 

How did you approach your coverage of the U.S. Women’s Soccer team at the London Olympics?

You don’t get to see the team until they’re on the field, and so it’s really just trying to capture those moments on the field that were important to their victory run—the drama, the celebration, the intensity of the physical play and the passion they exhibit. Also, I was lucky enough to have an all sports credential, so I tried to cover as many other sports as possible. I photographed Usain Bolt in his 100 meters, which was incredible. One of the most fun things for me to shoot was equestrian because of the colors and the pageantry. Photographing all-around gymnastics was an incredible moment as well. 

How would you describe the pressure on photographers at the Olympics? 

The athletes are competing on the field but all the photographers are competing against each other. So it’s really a photography competition that you enter when you go to the Olympics because you’re trying to outshoot everybody next to you. You’re trying to find a different angle in a constrained environment. That’s where you really have to elevate your own game as a photographer because you’re trying to get your own gold. 

How meaningful is it to partner with David Burnett and David Madison on this exhibit?  

David Madison has been a mentor to me since I moved back to the Bay Area in 1991. I took David out to lunch and he gave me some advice and over the years has always been there for the smart word, kind of steering me with career advice. He’s just been a fantastic person in the photographic community and very supportive. And David Burnett is one of my heroes. They say that you shouldn’t meet your heroes, and I say, well, you haven’t met David Burnett yet. And I couldn’t be more excited about The Torch Is Burning theme. Yes, the Olympics are the pinnacle but the important part of sports is the competition and that extraordinary drive that athletes have in them.

1. one highway to rule them all 

State Route 1 runs along most of the Pacific coastline for a total of just over 656 miles and the Peninsula is home to 50 of those gorgeous miles. Highway 1 is the longest state route in California and since its construction in 1934, the road has attracted worldwide attention due to its nonstop wonderland of scenic vistas. We get to trace it from the notorious stretch of Devil’s Slide, through the beach town sideshow of Half Moon Bay and past the pastoral landscapes of Pescadero before reaching the marine mammals lounging throughout Año Nuevo State Park.

2. art in abundance 

We’re so flush with priceless art that Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center is flanked by its Rodin sculpture garden on one side and the Anderson Collection, a world-class contemporary gallery, in its other wing. Home to more than 38,000 works of art that span 5,000 years, Cantor is open to the public for free viewing of its 24 galleries with more than 15 special exhibitions each year. And the Gates of Hell always await, just one of the many masterpieces in the largest collection of Rodin sculptures in an American museum. The Anderson Collection features an outstanding private assembly of modern and contemporary American art. Currently closed for building maintenance, the Anderson Collection will reopen in fall 2021 to welcome us back to its cultural riches.  

“We are a stone’s throw from Stanford University, which I think of as the mothership. Even if you didn’t go there, you can enjoy so many things on campus—concerts, museums, sports, classes.”    —Jennifer Gill Roberts, Menlo Park

3. into the woods

Click on the link openspacetrust.org/hikes and your screen will erupt with a jam-packed map of little blue markers. Pick a spot at random, for instance the Canyon Rim Route in Butano State Park, and you quickly learn that the trail is closed to dogs (horses okay) and to watch for sticky monkey flower, coast live oak and some expansive views. The Peninsula Open Space Trust is just one rich resource for trail information and ideas. The San Mateo County Parks Department is always finding new ways to inspire a trailhead visit, such as the popular Take a Hike Challenge that highlights seven routes worth filling your canteen and visiting.

“My perfect Peninsula day: lunch at Alpine Inn, hiking in Foothills Park, then driving out to the coast—San Gregorio market for coffee, Pescadero for fresh-baked artichoke bread and exploring Main Street in Half Moon Bay.”

      —Paula Meier, Redwood Shores

4. bask in the baylands 

From the rolling hills of Blair Island to the salt ponds of the Don Edwards National Refuge, the Peninsula has miles of Baylands to explore and appreciate. Birders rejoice with the ever-flowing migratory patterns in the Pacific Flyway while bicyclists peddle the Baylands Preserve, 15 miles of multi-use trails spanning Mountain View and East Palo Alto. A unique mixture of tidal and freshwater habitats, the Baylands is a one-of-a-kind park with bbq pits and picnic tables awaiting your summer gathering.

“On a brisk morning, Sawyer Camp Trail followed by a brunch at one of my favorite spots, Sun of Wolf in Palo Alto, is always a treat.”

      —Emma Elfving, Burlingame

5. all aboard caltrain

Since 1863, the railway has united the Peninsula but our red and white baby bullet began as Caltrain in 1985. It has since become a staple of Peninsula living for commuters, ballgame attendees and weekend warriors who want to travel between towns without getting behind the wheel. The electrification project will arrive in 2024 thus ending its long run as a diesel train, but the power of the train remains. The hourly blasts of a train horn are a reminder that we’re all connected here, one station at a time.

“Our SFO airport has had some incredible exhibits along with fantastic art in some of the different areas that are accessible without having a departing ticket. Then there is Filoli, which is an incredible visit, especially in the spring when the foliage pops out.” —Nancy Woods, San Mateo

6. seeing the future

If what they say is true (how California is 15 years ahead of most of the rest of the country), then helping to prove this point is the casual tech advancements we see every day on the Peninsula. The future of the digital roads is nurtured here with Tesla and Google’s Waymo vehicles out in full force, mapping every road and detail for a safe and inevitable driverless reality. No other community is likely as digitally mapped as ours. We’re the guinea pigs for tomorrow, each success and Google Glass failure at a time.

“The best part of the Peninsula is that we are centered between all these areas like Menlo Park, SF and Half Moon Bay. It helps for commuting and visiting friends.” 
 —Ashley Canty, Hillsborough

7. up, up and away

Don’t ever take this one for granted. Two major international airports bookend the Peninsula, meaning that picking up visitors is never a chore and nonstop flights are always within reach. Your portal to the world, SFO offers a convenient escape to destinations like Hawaii with several hundred flights to Kahului and Honolulu every month. San Jose offers direct flights to New York City with multiple fast passes to Mexico. Each airport makes it easy for curbside pick-up and drop-off and goes the extra mile to make the hours awaiting your flight enjoyable at the airport. Check out the rotating art exhibits at SFO that are better than a free hour of wifi.

8. dining al fresco 

More often than not, when the host asks “inside or out” upon arriving at a restaurant, the answer is clear. Outdoor dining reaches its peak during a balmy Peninsula day when the sunglasses are on and the troubles are out. With the recent addition of parklets, even more eateries can capitalize on our idyllic outdoor dining conditions. Everyone has their go-to spot and at PUNCH, a few recent favorites have been Mykonos in Burlingame, Town in San Carlos and Zareen’s (Redwood City and Palo Alto). Just a sampling of restaurants where the sunshine is always welcome.

“There is so much I love about living on the Peninsula. We have great weather, sunny skies and pleasant temperatures. I especially love taking in the beauty and scenery driving south on Highway 280 as the highway follows the curves and the contours of the rolling hills.”
 —Neal Tandowsky, San Mateo 

9. music in the air

As we get back to normal, nothing signals a community in celebration quite like live music. Anticipating that return, we pay homage to Peninsula summers that typically mean eight stages of free live music each week—whether it’s shows at Menlo Park’s Fremont Park or Redwood City shutting down its courthouse square for an active roster of local bands through its Music on the Square series. As for traditional venues, Club Fox across from the square draws in national touring acts while Stanford’s Frost Amphitheater frequently books the largest shows of the season. 

“Attending an old movie at the Stanford Theatre, shopping at East West Bookshop, hanging out on a blanket reading a book at Lincoln Park, listening to music from the Big Band era on local station KCEA, indulging myself with a gluten-free Gingersnapperdoodle cookie from Sweet Diplomacy.” 

—Diane Holcomb, Los Altos

10. you can always go—downtown

Petula Clark may as well have been a Peninsulan when she celebrated the sparkling allure of downtowns. From the crisp sidewalks of Burlingame to the semicircle stroll through downtown Los Altos, the Peninsula is home to a rolling sequence of city blocks worth the walk. Often featuring architecture from bygone centuries, a downtown on the Peninsula hits all the essentials (cafés, bars, restaurants and shops) with special character in each one. Redwood City keeps the tempo more active with its theaters while Laurel Street in San Carlos has a buzzing eatery and bar scene. Raise your spirits by going downtown.

Coastside saloon patrons who over-imbibed on the whiskey might have found themselves sleeping it off in the Half Moon Bay Jail. Up until the late 1870s, Thomas Johnston ran a freight company on this site. John Higgins bought the land from Johnston’s estate and built a barn for the horses and wagons of his own freight line. In 1919, Higgins sold the property to San Mateo County, and the Board of Supervisors approved the location for a jail. The 500-square-foot concrete structure that was built served as a sheriff’s substation with two small holding cells. For most, the Johnston Street pokey was a short-term stay; serious offenders were transferred to the main courthouse in Redwood City. The last prisoners came through in the late ’60s and Half Moon Bay Jail locked up for good in 1967. San Mateo County transferred the property to the City of Half Moon Bay in 1986 to be used for historical purposes. In 2018, the Half Moon Bay History Association opened a small musuem in the jail to exhibit artifacts and educational materials about life in early Spanishtown/Half Moon Bay. The Association secured a 25-year lease and plans are now underway for the construction of a new museum in the historic Johnston garage (“barn”) structure behind the jail. By 2022, visitors can expect to find even more Coastside historical exhibits and displays. For additional details, check out halfmoonbayhistory.org 

Confused you are?  Hrmmm. I may look like Yoda but I’m actually a dog. Even though Geoff and Verity immediately noticed that my ears resemble those of a wise and powerful Jedi master, they opted to name me Jake instead. I’m frequently mistaken for a German Shepherd puppy, but I’m actually part mini-Pinscher, German Shepherd and Lab—and eight years old! You can see a little gray on my muzzle, which makes me look even more dignified. I’m originally from the Central Valley but I was brought to Humane Society Silicon Valley (HSSV) for treatment and care. I didn’t have a family before then and I was very fearful and nervous. Thankfully, I got the help I needed at HSSV, which allowed Geoff and Verity to bring me home to Atherton. Having my own family really boosted my confidence, especially after they brought home a playmate for me, another HSSV rescue named Stella, who is super sweet and mellow. Stella and I have done a great job of training Geoff and Verity. When we sit or do tricks, we’ve taught them to reward us with yummy treats. They also appreciate our terrific teamwork in patrolling the fenceline for squirrels. Our proven technique includes a warning bark—followed by a chase. Although Stella has short legs and waddles a bit, she moves surprisingly quickly. Geoff and Verity occasionally need to do something without us, but we don’t mind. We take it as our signal to fully relax and catch some Zs. We stake out the door and snooze away until they return. Stella and I are both so grateful to have so much joy in our lives, which brings me to the other trait that I share with Yoda. I’ve come so far from the stray I once was and it’s because I draw power from the positive, loving “force” of my pack.

Working in an office is not everyone’s idea of a dream job, but for Heather Cleary, CEO of Peninsula Family Service (PFS), it definitely was. Heather grew up in the East Bay town of Orinda and, as a teenager, loved spending time at her father’s computer rental and service business doing accounting and data entry. She recognized that people in nearby communities were less fortunate than herself and, over time, found ways to use her interest in business for the public good.

“I enjoy numbers. I always have,” professes Heather. “I really appreciate how they tell a story, through what I call the language of accounting, about an organization.” Heather attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she earned her BS in business administration. She went on to work at Arthur Andersen and became a certified public accountant. 

After Arthur Andersen, Heather briefly worked in the dot-com industry before purposefully shifting course in 2001 into the nonprofit sector, which she says is one of the best professional moves she’s ever made. “I found it so much more rewarding to support a team that’s working on community needs rather than earning money for somebody else,” she says. “Once I started in the nonprofit world, I knew I would never go back to the corporate world again.”

Heather began her tenure at Peninsula Family Service as chief financial officer in 2010. As a mother of two living in San Mateo, she says the organization’s support of children and parents resonated with her, and as a CPA, she identified with PFS’ mission to support adult financial literacy. “One of the things that I love most about PFS,” she says, “is the potential to grow and adapt and do the work of the community in the community.”

Founded in 1950, PFS was created to support returning GIs and their families after WWII. Since then, PFS has been providing community-based programs to secure wellness and stability in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. Services offered change over time in response to community needs. Currently, PFS is focused on early learning, adult financial empowerment and older adult services.

As an example, Heather explains that a new community need arose during the stay-at-home orders when older adults could not access the internet and stay connected with their support system. “The digital divide became very real, very quickly,” observes Heather. “That’s an easy, somewhat low-hanging fruit to give them a tablet—they’re not that expensive—and give them training, as well as a place to come back for more training.”

In turn, PFS services often deliver a ripple effect. Older adults who have gone through the Second Careers and Mature Workers programs have found opportunities to work at PFS and can give back to their community through their jobs. Another way PFS directly impacts the community is through grant funding—such as a family of five using an ice cooler to keep their food cold receiving a grant to buy a refrigerator. PFS also helps people struggling with homelessness to rebuild their credit so they can eventually rent an apartment.

As CFO, Heather focused on strengthening the back office. “Understanding the finances of this organization has been a huge asset,” she says. “All the funding sources for each program have different requirements and restrictions, and we run a significant number of programs.”

In 2015, Heather stepped in as interim director of early learning and began moving into the management side of the organization. She decided to go back to school and earn a Master of Public Administration degree. Heather learned the skills of evaluating program success, community and government advocacy and obtaining public funding. This education and experience prepared Heather to take on the role of CEO in 2017.

“I see my work here as an opportunity to give back to the community that I’ve lived in and appreciated for more than 20 years now,” says Heather, who first moved to the Peninsula in 1999. As CEO, she’s grown PFS in both revenue and services and has added new programs like Got Wheels, providing on-demand rides for older adults, and Help@Hand, a calming activities app. 

The biggest challenge PFS faces is finding qualified teachers for its early learning program. “There just aren’t enough early educators,” says Heather. “The pay is so low there’s not a pipeline of new people going into the field.” Although the average wage at PFS has more than doubled since Heather became CEO, she acknowledges that it is still too low. As chair of the workforce committee with the San Mateo Child Care Partnership Council, Heather goes to Sacramento to advocate for PFS teachers—and ensures that their needs and voices are represented during meetings.

Outside of PFS, Heather volunteers with several community organizations and encourages her two teenage sons to give back as well. “What’s really important to me is to show my children that they need to participate and volunteer in the community that they want to live in,” she says. Her son’s teachers shared how he has been supporting a student who’s been struggling in class. “That’s really the culture I’m trying to create,” she confirms. “It doesn’t always have to be a formal volunteer thing, but just help out your neighbor.”

Heather loves the dynamic lifestyle the Peninsula offers, with plenty of things to do and employment opportunities for her children. Still, she recognizes that the high cost of living has led to increased rates of homelessness within the community. “In this area, we have the resources, and we have the talent to improve the shared experience,” she says. 

Getting involved is a simple step—and as Heather points out, opportunities are everywhere. Just at PFS, for example, numerous programs and special projects rely on volunteers—whether it’s individuals, families or teens seeking community service hours.

Like PFS’s logo of a heart supported by a hand, Heather believes Peninsula communities can express love for their neighbors by holding each other up. “If we respect everyone in our community, know that everyone goes through difficulties at times and have excellent programs to provide a helping hand when people need it,” she says, “our community grows stronger, and everyone benefits.”

Photographer Robert David Siegel captured this dramatic Perfect Shot of a red-tail hawk in a colorful field of Clarkia along Gerona Avenue at Stanford. What you can’t see in the image is the large rabbit trapped in the raptor’s talons, which was apparently too big to carry away in flight. “The hawk’s dilemma worked in my favor,” says Bob. “It was a moment of great exhilaration and luck to have my camera for this chance encounter.” 

Image by Robert David Siegel
web.stanford.edu/~siegelr/photo

It’s hard to separate the maker from the learner when talking with Kori Shaw. Not only are her interests wide-ranging, but new ideas are also constantly percolating in her head.

As a child growing up in New Jersey, Kori watched as her immigrant father built things. “His toys were scientific equipment,” she remembers. “He came to the U.S. for college in the ’60s. He was a physics major and also taught chemistry and math in Belize. I used to play with his copper wire and soldering iron. I helped him take things apart and was never afraid to break things.”

Kori’s mother was born in Spanish Harlem (New York City) to parents of Dominican and Cruzan (St. Croix) heritage. “Her family prioritized education, too,” notes Kori. “She majored in biology in college and was a nurse in interventional radiology for 30-plus years.”

As a young adult, Kori majored in mechanical engineering at MIT with a specialty in manufacturing. “At the time, I wanted to be an astronaut,” she says. “I wanted to know everything I could about space and what was out there.” In 1999, she received her MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

All of that education—and using her hands to make things—came into play when Kori found out that there was a vacancy at the Allied Arts Guild in Menlo Park. She jumped at the chance to sign the lease and open—well, actually, she wasn’t quite sure what. That was in February 2020. 

“Something was buzzing around in the back of my head,” she recalls. “I’d have friends come over to my house and we’d do little making sessions. I have a 1960s Vandercook proof press in my home studio and love the feel of high-quality paper and letterpress.”

Fast-forward a year and a half later, and Swirl Works now fills the space at the Allied Arts. “What started as a place for learning and exploration has evolved into more,” Kori observes. “As we come out of the pandemic, we need a place to rebuild community, connect and heal.”

Swirl Works offers a variety of creative workshops in subjects such as painting, pen and paper, flower arranging and jewelry making. Situated in the back courtyard near The Barn, the garden setting lends itself perfectly to creative play and escape. A beginner Cloisonné workshop offers the chance to learn about mixing color and layering enamel while a watercolor class covers paint types, basic strokes and the opportunity to create landscapes and handmade cards. Classes are taught by subject matter experts, and all materials are supplied.

Kori stresses that Swirl Works isn’t an art academy: “It’s an experience where we come together without judgement or perfectionism but with self-compassion and humor—and give ourselves permission to play and try and fail and laugh.” She also acknowledges, “That’s a tall order for people who live in this area!”

For Kori, “swirl” has more than one meaning: Fingerprints left behind on handmade items. Constant change and creation. Fluidity and movement. Mixing things up.

Other experiences have shaped Kori’s world view. The summer after her junior year, she headed to Peru to undertake a photographic exploration of weaving styles and later staged an exhibit at MIT. “I lived with a local family and master weaver who helped me appreciate the technology of weaving and cultural significance and story inherent in each textile,” she explains.

Kori’s interest in culture and language led her to minor in anthropology along with studying Chinese and Spanish, which she speaks fluently. “I wasn’t able to pick up Korean,” she says. “What a difficult and nuanced language. The guys in my graduate lab were all Korean so I tried to learn. No deal.”

The summer after her sophomore year, Kori had an internship at GE Nuclear in San Jose. She was out with friends one night and had a fateful meeting with David Shaw, currently Stanford’s head football coach, who was also out with friends. “He had just graduated from Stanford,” she says. “There was an instant connection.”

On their first date, they saw Apollo 13 at Shoreline and then went to Jack in the Box for a bite to eat. “He wanted to show me his school, so we had an impromptu picnic next to Memorial Church on the Stanford campus,” she recalls.

They got married at the church in 2001, and today are a family of five with an 18-year-old daughter and two boys, ages 16 and 11. 

“Until I met David, sports weren’t my thing,” she says. “My dad grew up playing cricket in Belize, and my mom didn’t have access to sports growing up in Manhattan. Now our whole family loves football and enjoys watching games. As a coach’s wife I’m not necessarily a fan, but I watch each game with the intensity of one and cheer for all the players.”

Kori is passing on her love of building and creating to her children. As an example, she builds BattleBots with her youngest son, who competes in the one-pound weight class—versus the 250-pound bots seen on the robotic combat TV series. “Watching everyone cheer as the remote-controlled robots try to destroy each other in the arena makes me happy,” she smiles. “It’s the perfect nerd sport.”

For Kori, everything maps to an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. “The common theme is curiosity and not being afraid to step into a new territory and possibly fail,” she reflects. “It’s the best way to learn.” 

There is increased angry rhetoric between the United States and Russia, reminiscent of the era that we called the Cold War. It reminds me of my childhood and one of my favorite TV shows called The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a fictionalized spy show that featured two men (Robert Vaughn and David McCallum) who worked for the multi-national secret intelligence agency, United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Week in and week out the pair battled evil, mostly in the form of the organization’s main adversary, THRUSH.

I decided that we needed to form our own spy agency in Amarillo and recruited a few of my neighborhood pals to join in. Before you knew it, we had created C.H.E.S.S., Command Helping Enforcement for the Secret Service. This spy business was important stuff and there were a few things we needed to become effective agents.

First on our list was a headquarters, as no good spy agency can be successful without a place to plan espionage and counter-espionage and other cool stuff like that. I was a project guy and so I carefully designed exactly what that building would look like and managed to convince my Mom to buy all the lumber required and have it delivered. Mostly it was sheets of plywood and 2x4s and 4x4s. 

Since I was always working on something that needed building, I was comfortable taking the lead. My Dad was not the type to help with a project like this, and since I didn’t know any better, I just assumed I could get it done. We built the building in the back right corner of our backyard, so the fence line provided two good walls to start. I remember the sweet smell of that fresh lumber and the excitement of watching our headquarters go up. C.H.E.S.S. HQ eventually had two small rooms, each big enough for about three grade school kids and one room had a “secret” room below with access only through a hidden trap door. 

It took a few weeks to finish the headquarters, and I had several bloody moments along the way: a smashed thumb, a torn-up knee and so on. But what pride we had in our new space when it was completed. I talked my Mom into buying a rope ladder so that when we were in there—planning missions or having lunch—we could pull up the ladder and prevent anyone from gaining entrance.

Being a useful auxiliary to the men from U.N.C.L.E. demanded special accessories, chief among them a few “Sixfingers.” A Sixfinger (advertised on TV as “Sixfinger, Sixfinger, Man Alive! How Did I Ever Get Along with Five?) was a finger-looking plastic device that you held between your thumb and your index finger that concealed a cap-loaded grenade launcher, a pen to write the coded messages that would travel via a tiny “S-O-S missile,” a signaling device, a “secret bullet” for tight spots and a fragmentation bomb. A la James Bond, it was the perfect hidden device—who’s counting your fingers, after all?

All good spies need to be able to record the activity of their adversaries, and so we set our sights on the subminiature mini-Arrow spy cameras that came with “real” film. These tiny things, just over 2” in length, actually took genuine photos and were straight from the days when everything was made in Hong Kong. We felt that each C.H.E.S.S. member should have his own.

Both the Sixfinger and the spy cameras were available at our local TG&Y. Fortunately, we had enough cash from the dues of our organization to cover the cost of our equipment. We rode our Schwinn Banana bikes down the brick streets of Amarillo all the way to the store at Wolflin Village to carefully evaluate all the espionage-related gadgets. Because we were a spy organization, we decided that guns were not necessary and besides, the Sixfinger had a grenade launcher, and that was certainly enough firepower for us.

Before our meetings, we would head to our local 7/11 and buy some Slurpees and cinnamon toothpicks (which we deemed cool to chew on) and then go back to our headquarters to plan our activities. Our most important work, as it turned out, was to spy on our siblings and try to catch them when they weren’t looking. We would take pictures of them with our spy cameras and shoot them with our Sixfingers. It was the best we could do, given, as it turned out, the low level of Russian influence in Amarillo.

Perhaps the current state of relations between the U.S. and Russia (and China for that matter) presents just the right time to reconstitute C.H.E.S.S. and go on eBay and pick up some Sixfingers and micro-cameras. I’m thinking the Secret Service might just need some Command Helping Enforcement, or, well, something like that.

Once known for dozens of grand country estates, Atherton still provides a rare glimpse back at 19^th-century rural life. Most of Atherton’s larger landholdings were sold and subdivided in the 20^th century with the exception of the Holbrook Palmer Estate, which was converted into a public park. Originally called “Elmwood,” the property was developed as a summer home for wealthy hardware and mining supply store owner Charles C. Holbrook in the 1880s. Designed and constructed by architect Henry C. Macy, the buildings included a Second Empire-style main house, a similarly styled three-story Water Tower and a Colonial Revival-style Carriage House. Situated approximately 75 feet apart, the Water Tower and Carriage House are recognized today as rare surviving agricultural outbuildings in Atherton—uniquely designed in recognizable architectural styles rather than just for functional utility. Charles Holbrook and his family enjoyed the Elmwood estate for many years. In 1926, Olive Holbrook Palmer inherited the property, which continued to operate as a farm until the mid-1950s. When Holbrook Palmer passed away in 1958, she willed the estate to the city of Atherton for recreational use. In addition to appreciating the still-standing historic structures, Holbrook Palmer Park visitors also enjoy the use of sports fields, playgrounds, gardens, bocce ball courts, fountains, tennis courts and a pavilion. 

The Collecting Legacy of a Father and Son 

Jim Rutter focuses intently from the stands at a Stanford football game, where he’s occupied a seat for nearly every football season of his life. Over the loudspeaker, he hears the call to action: “Let’s verify whether that play is a record with our sports archivist Jim Rutter.

Over decades, Jim has rigorously documented Stanford football, basketball and baseball statistics, along with archiving Stanford sports souvenirs including Big Game programs from the late 1800s. As a fourth-generation Stanford graduate, collecting Stanford memorabilia is practically in his genes but his passion for preserving is a family affair that extends far beyond Stanford.

Jim’s father Dr. Richard Rutter is an avid collector with one of the largest collections of Wizard of Oz literature and memorabilia worldwide. Together, the father and son duo also combine their enthusiasm to compile a substantial array of Sherlock Holmes literature and memorabilia.

“Marie Kondo would want items to spark joy,” acknowledges Jim. “The problem is that everything sparks joy for us. If you bring us some John Grisham novels from 1988 or a book on military history, we are interested. It is a blessing and a curse.” 

Longtime Peninsula residents, the father and son collecting team live near one another in Redwood City, affording them the opportunity to frequently check in and discuss their finds. “Our collecting isn’t as much for value,” clarifies Jim. “It is more the unbridled interest in all things.”

The Wonders of Oz 

Richard’s fondness for the Wizard of Oz began as a child enjoying Frank L. Baum’s 14 stories and later reading them to his own children. “My mother had a first edition and my cousin had another. Together, they were a bit of a collection,” he shares, before offering some additional context. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is only the tip of the iceberg. It is only one book in Baum’s original canon of 14. Then Ruth Plumly Thompson added 19 more Oz novels to the original canon.” Richard is such a committed Oz fan that he occasionally directs mail to be addressed to him at Emerald City, rather than the Emerald Hills neighborhood where he lives. Luckily, the postal carrier plays along with his whimsy.

One summer, nearly 50 years ago, Richard decided to indulge his interest in the Wizard of Oz by attending the Winkies Western Region Wizard of Oz meeting with his young son, Jim, and daughter, Karen. “Despite their cries, I dragged the kids up to Yosemite,” recounts Richard. “It opened a whole new world for me. Here were a bunch of people at the beautiful Wawona Lodge who were madly involved with Oz.”

A retired orthodontist and former professor at University of Pacific Dental School in San Francisco, Richard adopts alter egos to channel his enthusiasm for all things Oz. For over 10 years in a row, he won the costume contest at the annual Oz Convention. “It was the costume contest equivalent of the arms race,” observes Jim wryly. 

Richard’s costumes ranged from the Tin Man made from a silver-painted pool cover to Baum’s fictional elk-like creature the Gump, in which he cocooned himself inside of two sofas tied together with a deer head on wheels. “My father was careening down a pathway at considerable personal peril and crashed at high speed,” recalls Jim with a groan. As Richard is quick to point out, “I crashed, but there were no major injuries.” 

Richard’s zeal for costuming culminated in his impersonation of the “Great and Terrible Oz” himself while soaring over Indiana University in a hot air balloon for the 100^th anniversary of the original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz publication. “I felt a little bit closer to Oz,” he fondly remembers. Sporting his great-grandfather’s top hat and elaborate tails, Richard was subsequently featured in a New York Times front page story. “He is a bit of a reserved person,” notes Jim. “But when he would go into his costumes, his inner extrovert would emerge in the presence of glory.” 

Richard scours the globe to feed his insatiable Oz enthusiasm, securing copies of the book in 62 languages and nearly 1,700 Oz-related titles. The state library of North Macedonia even donated one of only two books in the country to his collection. At his home, Richard leads guests down a yellow brick road he built himself in his dedicated Oz room, where Oz literature, memorabilia and mint-condition collectibles are housed. Crystal Emerald Cities, rare cut-out Oz Waddle collectibles dating back to 1934 and colorful advertising materials are carefully exhibited amongst the wall-to-wall bookshelves and display cases. In 2019, Richard’s journey with Oz came full circle when he attended a showing of The Wizard of Oz at the Stanford theater 80 years after he first watched the movie in a theater as a child in 1939.

Stanford Superfan

On the fourth floor of the Stanford press box, Jim diligently preserves Stanford sports history by procuring everything from tickets, programs and newspaper clippings to fan buttons and game-winning footballs. He manages much of the collection on behalf of Stanford and works to acquire direct donations. This particular collectible calling is a deep-rooted passion: Jim can trace his great-grandfather back to Stanford’s very first “pioneer” class of 1895. “I have been going to Stanford games since I was four years old and traveling to Bowl games,” he relays. “Watching Jim Plunkett quarterback the team to win the Rose Bowl 50 years ago makes a strong impression on a six-year-old sports fanatic.” 

When he’s not at his day job running his social platform company Vitae (formerly YourSports), Jim has his Stanford archivist hat on, searching for hidden gems. “We have a copy of Stanford’s opening day ceremony program from 1891,” he says with pride. Jim also maintains a personal collection, although he laments that it could take a lifetime to track down certain elusive items. He even has a copy of the first yearbook, The Stanford Quad, from 1894. “I took my father’s collection to a completely different level of obsession,” he admits. “I have so much, you can barely get into the door of my home office.” 

And this begs the question— what is his spouse’s take on his uber-collecting tendencies? “My wife Cindy is clutter-averse,” he confides, “but she has a saint-like tolerance.” 

As for Jim’s favorite Stanford sports memorabilia item, it always comes back to family. Unquestionably, he says, “My great-grandfather’s 1894 fencing medal from a competition against U.C. Berkeley.” 

In Search of Sherlock Holmes 

When it comes to Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous fictional detective, the father and son investigators hunt down treasures for their joint collection. Richard and Jim focus on acquiring the body of Sherlock Holmes literature, which consists of 56 stories in the original canon and four novels. Along with the detective’s printed adventures and literary criticisms, their sizable collection includes many of Sherlock’s deerstalker caps, signature pipes and every imaginable kind of Sherlockiana. “It has been one of the great shared experiences we have as father and son,” reveals Jim. 

Richard remembers how the Sherlock obsession first started. “I was given Sherlock Holmes stories by my grandparents,” he says, “and I enjoyed seeing Holmes movies as a child during the war.” Nodding, Jim adds, “There is an international interest in Sherlock Holmes that would surprise most people—he has been named as one of the most recognizable literary figures.”

Richard is a charter member of the Sherlock Holmes Scion Knights of the Gnomon, started in Palo Alto in 1976. As one of 250 Sherlock Holmes groups in the U.S., the Scions adhere to an annual schedule that begins with the first meeting on Sherlock Holmes’ birthday in January. “There are certain groups that forbid suggesting Sherlock Holmes is anything but human,” says Jim. “We always refer to him in the present tense.”

All in the Family   

It won’t be surprising to learn that Richard and Jim are masters at preserving their own family history, referring to themselves as “collectors of life.” As Jim describes the process, “It is more of a bigger story of documenting the journey from the alpha to
the omega.”

As father and son carefully archive the present and what has been passed down to them, their intent is to share and illustrate generational stories through photos, old movies and mementos of family milestones. “Our family has kept virtually every document and diploma with some dating back to the 1800s,” notes Jim. “How many people can show you pictures of their great-great-grandparents?”

By meticulously capturing their family history, they hope to provide a legacy that will live way beyond them. “Your time on earth is a series of brushstrokes,” muses Jim. “We want to capture the life experience that can be shared and passed on—there is no end to the story.”

Jim Salyards’ Magical Green Thumb 

Imagine waking up in a bucolic setting where something new blooms every day, vegetable patches and orchards yield plenty and the surrounding acres teem with wildlife against sweeping vistas of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

And you’re already at the office. 

For Jim Salyards, this is just one of the many perks he has earned after working at the landmark Filoli estate in Woodside for more than a quarter of a century. Living on the property for the past 18 years, the director of horticulture also enjoys the benefit of zero commuting. After growing up in the area, he appreciates what a plus it is to dodge all the traffic.

The one disadvantage to living and working in the same place may be maneuvering through the sellout crowds of people flocking to ooh and ahh over the thousands of picturesque blooming flowers, shrubs and trees in the 16-acre formal garden each spring and summer. Those are the peak seasons at the National Trust for Historic Preservation site, which includes the famous garden and the Willis Polk-designed Georgian Revival mansion completed in 1917 for William Bowers Bourn II and Agnes Moody Bourn, and then owned by William B. Roth and Lurline Matson Roth from 1937 to 1975. 

But after spending so much time at Filoli Historic House and Garden, Jim naturally feels, “For the most part, this is my garden.”

“I  love the scale of the garden; it’s broken up into spaces… designed so each room is revealed as you walk through, go through a gate, turn around a corner,” Jim says of the garden that has components of both English and Italian Renaissance design. “There’s a natural unforced intentionality in the way you move through the garden.”

The approximately 30 rooms—with names like the Sunken Garden, Walled Garden and Knot Garden—take a full-time staff of 15 to maintain, plus a group of interns. And hopefully, as restrictions lighten up this summer, Jim is looking forward to welcoming back hundreds of volunteers, some of whom he considers like aunts and second grandmothers now that his extended family lives in New England.  

Jim’s earliest memories from his boyhood in Sunnyvale include catching butterflies with his younger brother in the fields and orchards before Great America Parkway changed the landscape. Jim’s parents took the family on regular visits to a local dairy farm that kept pigs and ducks, and for a time, young Jim wanted to be a zookeeper. A move to Boulder Creek at age nine led to the exploration of more wooded areas and an interest in raising his own animals: hamsters, snakes, iguanas, a box turtle and bluegill fish. Jim’s thoughts turned to becoming a veterinarian, but when he attended UC Davis, stimulating biology and botany courses changed his mind again. He ended up getting a BA in plant science and a master’s degree in horticulture there. 

“Propagation was my first love in horticulture in school,” he recalls. “I loved it so much, I interned at the Arboretum in Davis and knew that I wanted to work in public gardens.”

Jim had a side business doing yard work for people in Davis when he applied in 1995 to be lead horticulturist at Filoli. Luckily for him, he landed his first real job in one of the grandest public gardens in the U.S. Over the years, he was promoted to greenhouse manager, co-leader of the horticulture department and then director of horticulture in 2014. 

One of Jim’s challenges is balancing Filoli’s rich historical lore with innovative new ways. Photos and oral traditions help recreate and preserve the garden’s past, but an open mind and skilled staff help keep him forward-thinking.

“We’re dealing with historic plants and wanting to preserve what was planted by the Bourn and Roth families,” he explains. “We’re also trying to do things that are more sustainable and to some degree, more feasible, with the team that I have.” Another goal is making the garden appeal to a broader audience by being more exciting and welcoming.

More exemplary, too. In drought years, Jim’s team had to pivot to cut back on watering lawns and woody plants. He sees this as a way Filoli can showcase best practices in conservation for the community. A new master plan is in the works, and there’s talk of building a new education center and a bigger parking lot in the future. He is proud that in the past year, Filoli’s board and staff have focused on diversity and equity, “creating a place that is inclusive and accessible in so many more ways than I feel it was historically.”

Starting with this summer’s theme of “Fruitful Garden,” there’s a new emphasis on pollinator plants with sages, poppies and sunflowers planted along the path to the Sundial to attract insects and birds. Medicinal plants such as white, orange, red and yellow echinacea are laid out like a stained-glass window in the Chartres Cathedral Garden. And the historic vegetable garden that once helped feed the Bourn and Roth families, and was taken over by staff as a cooperative, will soon be converted to a demonstration garden. The renovated garden will be open to the public for events and classes. Before long, Jim envisions the café serving fresh estate-grown vegetables with extras being donated to the food bank Village Harvest.

He also foresees producing new products for the Clock Tower Shop, adding to the apple, pear and peach butters, honey, hard cider and herb collections that carry the estate-grown label.

Jim reads a lot to keep up on the latest gardening trends and says he’s grateful to have a well-educated and fully state-licensed team. “We’re not over-fertilizing,” he adds, “and we’re not over-applying pesticide.” The staff composts and mixes in rice hulls, coconut fiber, redwood sawdust and sand to enrich the soil. “We’re leaning more towards being organic,” Jim says, noting that the estate is a public place, located in a watershed area that spills into the Crystal Springs Reservoir. 

In years past, Filoli relied on volunteers to put in the much-needed elbow hours of weeding by hand. Without the extra help, the staff started experimenting with using corn gluten meal as a natural weed pre-emergent on the lawns. Innovative as he is, Jim continues to be mindful of the historic legacy he stewards. “We still tell the stories of how it originally was,” he affirms. 

Jim describes the plants and flowers in the greenhouse complex as the hardest to grow. They are used to decorate the Main House and to turn the Tea Garden House into a conservatory. That continuity of greenery “makes Filoli come alive, the plants and arrangements are what we do to make it more like it was when the Roths and Bourns were here,” he says.

Also of note are the living vestiges of the two family eras. In the greenhouses, the cycad, the large palm-like plant that the Bourns acquired, continues to thrive, as do the anthurium propagated from the original one the Roths brought back from Hawaii. The estate’s Hinoki false cypress originally came from the Japanese Pavilion at the Pan Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco in 1915, before being gifted to the Bourns. Some of the majestic trees on the 654-acre estate date back even further. The enormous live oak on the north side of the mansion is believed to be more than 300 years old. The big valley oak next to the Garden House also stood its ground there before Filoli was built. 

Pictures from around 1920 show the distinctive allees of Irish Yews in the garden. Grown from cuttings brought over from an estate the Bourns owned, Muckross House in Killarney, Ireland, the trees now number 210 and frame various rooms in the garden and swimming pool area, which was added later. 

Jim’s own favorite tree stands out next to the Bowling Green. He’s drawn to the Camperdown weeping elm because “every season, in a different way, it’s a beautiful tree.” As he describes it, the chartreuse seed heads look showy in the spring until the shade canopy takes over in the summer, and after the fall colors dim, moss covers the wet branches during the winter. 

It makes sense for a man of all seasons to revere such a stately tree given that they have shared the same special place for the last 26 years. 

“It has gone quickly,” Jim acknowledges, before emphasizing the many reasons he stays rooted. “What keeps me engaged and loving the garden is the setting and the views you can’t beat.”

Best of all, after hours, when Filoli’s visitors file out the gates, that splendid scenery is all his to enjoy.