May 2021

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What’s Inside: Greeting from Veterans Memorial Senior Center/ Community Zoom Day #7 2-3

Sock Drive / A Bit of History / Thank you to the Redwood City Veterans Groups 4-5

Master Gardeners / Vegan Outreach / SamTrans 6-7

Chewing Tobacco, Dump Trucks, and the Summer of Love. Rick Sweeney 8-10

Gavin’s Secret Spaghetti Sauce….Shh, don’t tell anyone! 11

The Knee - Miriam Thurston Back Cover

Greetings from the Veterans Memorial Senior Center,

First off we want to say Happy Mothers Day to all the Mothers out there. To date, we have served over 95,144 free lunches and our plan is to discontinue the free lunch program in mid-July. We will be making an official announcement with all the major details in our June addition of the Sentinel. So stay tuned! Below are the pictures of the plants that were once seeds that we handed out on St. Patrick's Day. We are so pleased that everyone participated! Thanks again to the Maser Gardeners for all of the volunteer work they have done for our seniors!

THE VMSC STAFF

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Community ZOOM Day #7

All events will be posted and registered on www.travonde.com.

May 19 Community Day Schedule 9:00am – 9:45am: Morning Exercise @Home with Adaptive PE https://travonde.com/event/redwoodcityzoom2 10:00am – 10:45am: Learn about Medicare services from HICAP https://travonde.com/event/CommunityDayRWC22 11:00am – 11:45pm: Food Smarts with Leah’s Pantry https://travonde.com/event/d8d5494b-6db1-470c-a0f9-22311b22be1a 12:00pm – 1:00pm: Lunch 1:00pm – 1:45pm: Caregiving 101 https://travonde.com/event/CommunityDayRWC20 2:00pm – 2:45pm: What’s Happening in San Mateo County Parks? Conversation with our Park Ranger

https://travonde.com/event/3673da49-86cb-448b-845c-58a1eed109da 3:00pm – 3:45pm: Learn Tips and Tricks for Safe Travel by SMCOE

https://travonde.com/event/CommunityDayRWC21

4:00pm – 4:45pm: Listen to the magic of the Aurora Mandolin Players https://travonde.com/event/CommunityDayRWC19

If you have any questions on how to log on to Zoom, please call 650-780-7306 (preferably before May 19, 2021.) In addition, if you would like to teach a Zoom class or know someone who is interested in teaching, please call 650-780-7306.

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Sock Drive for Homeless Veterans

Please donate your new socks for our homeless Veterans that will be given to the Menlo Park VA hospital.

Drop your new socks off at the American Legion Post 585 1159 Bush Street in San Carlos

The Legion is open 10:00am-10:00pm daily and a bin will be inside to accept your donation.

For more information please contact Snookie at Snook81@yahoo.com

A Bit of History—TAPS By Mary Carnevale How often have you gone to a memorial or a funeral and heard the soul searching sound of a bugler playing Taps off in the distance? With bowed head, you fought that lump in your throat and hoped you were someplace else. This is the story of how Taps came about and why it is so appropriate at a funeral. In 1862 a Union Army Captain, Robert Ellicombe, was with his men near Harrison's Landing, Virginia. The Confederate Army was on the other side of this narrow strip of land. During the night, Ellicombe heard the moan of a soldier who lay wounded in the field. Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the Captain reached the soldier and began pulling him back towards his encampment. When the Captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was a dead Confederate soldier. The soldier was his son. The young man had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, he had enlisted in the Confederate Army. The flowing morning Ellicombe asked his superior officer, if he could have the Army band play at his son’s funeral. His request was denied since the soldier was a Confederate. Out of respect to the Captain they said they would grant him one musician. Ellicombe chose the bugler. The Captain asked the bugler to play the music found in the pocket of his son’s uniform…….that music was Taps. Taps to us symbolizes the end-the end of life and the end of the day and always seems to tug at your heart’s string and sometimes bring a tear to your eyes.

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Thank you to our Veterans Organizations at the VMSC!

Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #69: (VFW) The objectives of the VFW are to serve needy veterans and their families, insure a strong national defense, and promote true patriotism and allegiance to the United States of America. Projects we support include: Little League, Boy Scouts of America, USO, Blue Star Mothers and monthly parties at the Menlo Park V.A. Hospital Nursing Home. We welcome all honorably discharged veterans and currently serving military personnel who have a campaign medal for service in a combat zone. Join us as “Veterans Serving Veterans.” Did you know that the Redwood City Chapter of the VFW is turning 100 years old on May 28th 2021? 100 years of service from 1921 –2021. AMVETS Post #53 AMVETS is a veteran’s service organization that is distinctive for its open-door policy. Eligibility for membership includes veterans from wars of all eras who have received an honorable discharge. We also welcome current service members, including the National Guard and Reserves, but we are not limited to combat or war veterans. Any person with an honorable discharge is welcome. Disabled American Veterans Chapter 16 If you have a service-related disability, the members of the Edmund Parrot Chapter 16 invite you to join our chapter. The DAV is dedicated to a single purpose: Building Better Lives for All of Our Nation’s Disabled Veterans and Their Families. This is done through our core values of service, quality, integrity and leadership in representation and advocacy services, now and in the future. Vietnam Veterans of America, Steven Warren Memorial Chapter #464: Founded in 1978, Vietnam Veterans of America is the only national Vietnam veterans organization congressionally chartered and exclusively dedicated to Vietnam-era veterans and their families. VVA is organized as a not-for-profit corporation and is tax-exempt under Section 501 (c) (19) of the Internal Revenue Service Code. Warrior Canine Connection Warrior Canine Connection utilizes a Mission Based Trauma Recovery model to help Warri-ors recovering from the stress of combat reconnect with their families, communities, and life. By interacting with the dogs as they move from puppyhood to training to adult service dogs, Warrior Trainers benefit from a physiological and psychological animal-human connection. As a result of their efforts, Veterans with disabilities receive the finest in trained service dogs.

Ask a Master Gardener

Do you need help with your garden? Have a pest problem? Curious about what will grow well in your region?

Due to COVID-19 all questions must be emailed to: mgsmsf@ucanr.edu.

Please include the following information in your email.

Your name

Location

Question or problem, please include any photos.

Phone number and best time to call

http://smsf-mastergardeners.ucanr.edu/

Also-A big Thank you to the Master Gardeners for the lovely tomato plants they donated to the senior center!!! If you have any questions on how to grow your tomato plant or questions regarding your nasturtiums please contact them at 650-726-9059

Master Gardener Program of San Mateo & San Francisco Counties

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Since August 2020, Vegan Outreach has teamed up with the Veteran’s Memorial Senior Center to provide vegan lunches each Monday. We are thrilled to be a part of the amazing work and community that the Veteran’s Center provides for local residents. Working with Bruce, Chef Gavin, and the rest of the remarkable team is an ongoing pleasure. Vegan Outreach is a nonprofit organization raising awareness about the health, environmental, and animal welfare benefits of a vegan diet. Our employees are located throughout the United States and several other countries working to spread awareness through online and in-person activities. Last year we created the Vegan Food Aid program to help individuals and families who have been impacted by the pandemic. As part of the Vegan Food Aid program we wanted to find a way to serve seniors in the community. After meeting with Bruce in August, we decided that this partnership could be a win for all sides. The Veteran’s Center has been serving seniors for many years with their amazing lunches and we were able to provide a bit of funding and offer some new and exciting options for Gavin and his team to work with. The meals have been incredible and we’ve gotten some great feedback. We hope that the seniors are enjoying the vegan food and continue to look forward to Mondays!

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SamTrans is proposing changes to its bus routes and needs YOUR feedback!

Join a regional community meeting below. Learn more and take the survey at reimaginesamtrans.com.

This is your chance to be heard!

Learn more about Reimagine SamTrans at https://www.reimaginesamtrans.com/get-involved/

Join a regional meeting:

Coastside Meeting

(Pacifica, Montara, Moss Beach, Half Moon Bay and Pescadero) Wednesday, May 5, 2021, 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm

Meeting Link: http://bit.ly/reimaginecoast Call in Option: (669) 900-6833

Zoom Webinar ID: 990 1019 9651 Languages: Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese

South County Meeting (Redwood City, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, Atherton, unincorporated

area of North Fair Oaks, Woodside and Portola Valley) Wednesday, May 12, 2021, 5:30 pm - 6:30 Meeting Link: http://bit.ly/reimaginesouth

Call in Option: (669) 900-6833 Zoom Webinar ID: 968 8796 7098

Languages: Spanish, Mandarin and Tongan

North County Meeting (Daly City, Colma, Brisbane,

South San Francisco, San Bruno, Millbrae) Tuesday, May 18, 2021, 5:30 pm - 6:30 Meeting Link: http://bit.ly/reimaginenorth

Call in Option: (669) 900-6833 Zoom Webinar ID: 939 1238 2301

Languages: Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese

Chewing Tobacco, Dump Trucks, and the Summer of Love - Rick Sweeney

It was 1967—The Summer of Love. The hippie movement in San Francisco was in full swing. It was all about psychedelic rock and bands like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish; it was all about sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll in Golden Gate Park; it was about peace and love and ending war. It was all oh so groovy. Sadly, however, remarkably even, it was all happening without me. Everything I knew about the Summer of Love I learned from the six o’clock news, magazine articles, or from reading the backs of album covers. You see, during The Summer of Love, I was almost 3,000 miles away from San Francisco distance wise and even further culturally.

I spent a good part of the summer of 1967 in the bottom of a North Carolina ditch with a pick and shovel. I was seventeen years old, getting ready to enter my senior year at 71st High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina. My school was named after the 71st regiment of Scottish soldiers who fought with distinction during both the French and Indian Wars and the Revolutionary War. In modern times, Fayetteville was home to Fort Bragg and the 82nd Airborne Division and to Pope Air Force Base and the Strategic Air Command. The military was so prominent in Fayetteville during the Viet Nam War that the town was often disrespectfully called Fayette Nam. There weren’t too many hippies to be found around Fayetteville during the Summer of Love.

I was making $1.45 an hour working as a laborer digging footings for some new buildings going up on Pope Air Force Base; it was mind-numbing work. After we dug the trenches the skilled workers would come in and build concrete forms, pour the concrete, and construct the buildings. I wanted to be able to climb out of my ditch and work with the skilled hands but it was not to be. My friends and I were summer help hired to dig footings and that’s what we would do. When our footings were finished and the skilled hands came in we were moved to the next site where we would start digging again.

Our foreman’s name was Bruce Manley; we called him Boss. “Cool Hand Luke” had just come out and my friends and I, just to relieve the monotony of swinging the pick and scooping with the shovel all day long, took to acting like the prisoners on the chain gang depicted in the movie. “Takin’ it off here boss” we’d call out if we took our shirt off. “Gettin’ water here boss” when we went to the water cooler. This gave us a little something else to think about in our ditches. “Goin’ to the bathroom boss.”

Boss Manley liked his chewing tobacco and he seemed to always have a big plug of it lodged in the side of his mouth. He was in his mid forties and deeply tanned from years working under the hot North Carolina sun. He had crow’s feet coming out from the sides of his brown eyes that grew deeper when he smiled and displayed his nicotine stained teeth. He had a full head of hair kept short and combed straight back. He was always attired in a white tee shirt tucked into blue jeans that covered the tops of his fancy cowboy boots. His tee shirt, like his hands were always clean because, as a foreman, Boss Manley no longer had to do any physical labor. He was very vigilant with us, however, and he made sure we earned our $1.45 an hour.

Sometime during that summer of ‘67 I was outside our house eating raisins when I noticed that if I put a large handful in my mouth, chewed them up and pushed them over between my cheek and teeth, it felt like chewing tobacco. Furthermore, when I spit some raisin juice out it looked just like tobacco juice. I excitedly jumped up and ran into the house and stood in front of a mirror. Holy shit, the chewed up raisins in my mouth looked just like chewing tobacco. “Wow!” I thought, “Maybe I can make work in the ditches tomorrow a little bit more fun.”

Work started at 7:00 in the morning. We would show up at the job shack, collect our picks and shovels, and head for the footings, starting wherever we had left off the day before. Mornings and quitting time where the only times everyone was together so I chose the next morning to pull my clever little stunt.

I showed up at the job shack the next morning with my raisins in my cheek—it was a big wad. Everyone kinda looked at me like I’d just landed in a space ship. They just could-n’t believe that this clean cut high school summer laborer would show up for work chewing on a big wad of tobacco.

Boss Manley walked up to me and gave me a hard stare. “What the hell are you doing?’ he drawled. I stared back, turned my head and spit. “What’s it look like I’m doing?” “Boy, your gonna make yourself sick. Spit that shit out.” I didn’t know if he was genuinely concerned about me or if he was worried about losing a laborer for the day.

“I can handle it.” I defiantly replied, spitting again at the ground. Boss Manley just shook his head and started to turn around when I started a mad coughing fit and “accidently” swallowed the entire wad. Boss’s eyes got large as saucers. Off to the side I heard a shovel drop. The job shack became deathly quiet; all eyes were on me. Final-ly some one, another laborer, said “Boy, you gonna die.” “You best get to the doctors,” advised a very concerned Boss Manley.

Acting sheepish and embarrassed I stared at the ground and told everyone I wanted to work, so I shouldered my pick and shovel and headed for my ditch. It was fabulous. All morning people kept looking my way waiting for me to get desperately sick. Boss Manley came over several times to check on me. “I feel fine.” I smiled.

For a while I was a minor legend around the job site…the high school kid with the iron stomach who swallowed an entire wad of chewing tobacco but still worked all day. Had they not seen it with their own eyes they wouldn’t have believed it.

A few weeks after my great raisin conspiracy, I got one of the biggest surprises of my young life. It was another hot, humid North Carolina day and I was in a ditch swinging my pick when Boss Manley came over. He looked down at me, spit some real tobacco juice and drawled, “Can you drive a dump truck?” I had to look around to make sure I was the only one in the ditch and that Boss Manley was indeed talking to me. I looked back at him and assured him that yes; of course I could drive a dump truck. In reality, however, I wasn’t so sure. I’d only had my driver’s license for about nine months and up until that time the biggest thing I’d driven was a Ford Falcon. Continued on pg. 10

So while I didn’t really know for sure if I could drive a dump truck I did know for sure that I wanted out of that ditch and if he had ask me if I could fly an Apache Attack helicopter I would have answered “Sure boss”.

I climbed out of my ditch and followed Boss Manley over to the dump truck, damn it looked big. I crawled in and took a seat behind the wheel and was relieved to find out that my feet could reach the floorboard. Boss Manley told me where the dump knob was and said that when I was ready to dump, all I had to do was put the truck in neutral, push the clutch in and then pull out the nob. Then I was to slowly let out on the clutch while giving her a little gas, just like I was pulling away from a stop sign. That sounded easy enough.

The dump truck was parked just off and perpendicular to a very busy Pope Air Force Base road. Luckily I would be turning right so I wouldn’t need to wait for traffic to clear in both directions. When I deemed it was safe to pull out I put that puppy in gear, gave her some gas, let out the clutch and smoothly made my right hand turn onto the road. Man, it felt great. I had my right hand on the twelve o’clock position of the wheel and my left elbow hanging out the window. I was king of the road. I wished I had some raisins.

Everything was fine at first but the further I drove the harder it was to steer. I could turn the steering wheel hard over to the left or right and the truck would hardly respond at all. I held the wheel with both hands and wondered if I would be able to make a turn. Dump trucks, it seemed, had some very loose steering.

While struggling with the wheel I glanced in the rear view mirror. Holy shit! All I could see in the mirror was the big, black, dirty bottom of the bed of my truck. The bed was up and I had dumped the full load of rock and dirt onto one of the air bases busiest streets. That’s why it was so hard to steer. With the bed of the truck fully up all of that weight was behind the rear axel leaving very little weight on the front wheels. My heart sank…God, what a mess!

The material dumped pretty fast and I’d only driven about two blocks before I realized what I’d done and stopped the truck. Glancing in the side mirror I saw a line of cars piling up behind me, then I saw poor ol’ Boss Manley running down the road. I never knew he could run. “What the hell?” he asked breathlessly. “Get out of the goddamn truck!” And that’s what I did. I got out of the truck and Boss Manley hopped in, lowered the bed and pulled over to the side of the road. Then he had to round up two people to work as flagmen and bring a front-end loader over to scoop up all the material from the road.

Fortunately it turned out that in the end that it wasn’t all my fault. When Boss Manley was telling me how to dump the truck, he couldn’t see the dump lever where it was tucked in under the dashboard; he just assumed it was in. I could see the lever but I didn’t know what it looked like in or out so I also assumed it was in. Boss Manley said that the man who drove the truck before me must have left the lever in the dump posi-tion. Nevertheless, it was back in the ditch for me. My fault or not Boss Manley never asked me to drive a dump truck again.

Spaghetti Sauce By Master Chef Gavin Gonzado

Ingredients:

2 oz. salt pork 4 oz. onions, medium dice 4 oz. carrots, medium dice 2 quart can and peeled whole Marzano tomato coarsely chopped 1 quart tomato puree, canned 8 oz. ham bones or browned pork bones (brown bones for 45 minutes or until nicely browned but not burnt.)

Sachet:

1clove garlic 1 bay leaf 1/2 tsp dried thyme 1/2 tsp dried rosemary 1/2 tsp black peppercorn crushed– If you cant crush peppercorn, use table black pepper.

If you don't have a cheese cloth for the sachet, add all the ingredients to tomato sauce and remember to remove bay leaf before you blend sauce. Salt and sugar to taste. Procedure:

•Render salt pork in heavy sauce pot, but do not brown it. •add the onions and carrots and sauté until softened but do not brown. •add the tomatoes and their juice, tomato puree, bones and sachet. bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer over very low heat about 1 1/2 - 2hrs or until desired consistency. •remove sachet and bones, blend with hand held blender or use a regular blender. • Adjust seasoning with salt and sugar.

Sauce:

1. Consistency and Body: Sauce should be smooth with no lumps, slightly course, easily pourable and not to thick or thin.

2. Flavor: Distinctive but well balanced and concentrated flavor of tomatoes. Not bitter, not to acidic, and not to sweet. proper degree of seasoning, tomato flavor should not be overwhelmed by herbs and spices.

Vegan Option: Remove salt pork and pork bones

Please Enjoy this recipe! You can use this sauce on everything Italian.

The Veterans Memorial Senior Center relies heavily on your support to continue our mission: providing innovative, progressive and essential programs to our older adult community. Please send your tax deductible donations to: VMSC 1455 Madison Avenue Redwood City, CA 94061-1459

** We Need Your Support! **

Main Phone Line:

(650) 780 - 7270

Residential Customer

"THE KNEE" When you were

'Knee High’ in 'Knee Pants’ wearing 'Knee Socks’

You did 'Knee Bends' wearing 'Knee Shins' at times you may be 'Knee Deep’

in trouble and have 'Knee Jerk’ reactions.

There is an old expression, you are the 'Bee’s Knee’s'

You may have had a Baby bouncing on your 'Knees'

or hit a Soccer Ball using your ‘Knees'? But most of all you

Need to ‘Kneel' on your

‘KNEES and PRAY'

By: Miriam Thurston