First-hand account of a haunted Chico apartment

"I moved to 125 Parmac Road in Chico, California, in the year 2000," writes Jodi Foster (not the actress). "Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the terror and confusion I was about the experience: lights flashing, the hands of a clock turning, and my three-year-old daughter's toy--a 'Sing and Snore Ernie' doll--mysteriously relocated in the center of my living room, screaming, 'I feel great! I feel great! I feel great!' ... And this was just the first night I moved in."

The story links to the case of Cameron Hooker of Red Bluff, who, with the complicity of his wife, Janice, abducted Colleen Stan for use as a sex slave for seven years. As a friend of Foster's told her, "I believe there was another young woman living in Chico who went missing and was never found or heard from again." Janice eventually told Red Bluff police that in 1976, before Stan's abduction, the couple had visited Chico and Cameron had tortured and murdered 19-year-old Marie Elizabeth Spannhake after she returned to her apartment--at 125 Parmac Road.

Foster's account is given in "Forgotten Burial: A Restless Spirit's Plea For Justice" ($17.95 in paperback from iUniverse; also available in e-reader formats for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and from Google ebookstore). Learning about the Hookers on Halloween, 2000, she began putting the pieces together, attempting to make sense of her psychic experiences (which she reports having since childhood).

Foster will be signing copies of her book at Lyon Books in Chico on Thursday, November 10 at 7:00 p.m.

The story she tells is also about her own spiritual journey. Fearful, given to panic attacks, plagued by nightmares which seemed to fit what she later learned of the Hookers, Foster years later writes of a new perspective. "I had been tortured by the mystery for years and, at one point in my life, having paranormal experiences and clairvoyant abilities had been scary. Now it was intriguing--an adventure full of possibilities."

Her story is one of odd coincidences and visitations from the spirit world, all within the context of ordinary life in Chico. Foster seems convinced that Spannhake wants to be found, but so far the case has not been resolved.

Chico visitor on the treatment of native remains

"In the summer of 2006," Tony Platt writes, "my forty-year-old son died. Daniel left a clear written message that he wanted a funeral at Big Lagoon, the northwestern California village on the coast where we have a vacation cabin. We honored his request, sending his ashy remains off into the lagoon. Some eighteen months later I discovered that the Yurok who lived in this area 'since time immemorial' had been buried a few hundred yards away from my cabin."

Only in the last few years has Platt, a CSU Sacramento emeritus professor, come to realize that that area in Humboldt County, called O-pyúweg by the Yurok, was the scene not only of bloody violence but of plundered native remains. His scholarly research--and passion--are on display in "Grave Matters: Excavating California's Buried Past" ($18.95 in paperback from Heyday Books).

"Many local 'Indian relics' preserved in university labs, museum display cases, private collections, and tourist attractions," he writes, "were taken from inside graves; and that often collectors also removed skulls and bones to show off to their friends or ship off to anthropologists in Berkeley." Those acts are illegal now in California, "but until the 1970s digging up native burial sites for pleasure, science, or profit was for the most part authorized and popular, despite longstanding and persistent native protests."

Platt will be speaking in Chico Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m. at Barnes and Noble; and Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books (which will also feature Heyday Books founder Malcolm Margolin).

"'We bury our individuals with the trappings of their life,' says the Yurok tribal historic preservation officer, 'in order to show their status in the afterlife. To separate the dead from their artifacts is to separate them from their identity.'" The story of desecration and repatriation is a complex one, involving anthropologist Alfred Kroeber (associated with Ishi) and a host of others.

For Platt, what happened to native populations in California amounts to genocide, making us "pay attention to the magnitude of a decade of butchery, and invites us to consider 'family resemblances' between California in the 1850s and 1860s, Turkey in 1915, Germany in the 1930s, and Rwanda in 1994." It is a horrendous story, one told with nuance and compassion.

Finding love in all the wrong places

Recent Chico visitor Ethlie Ann Vare, screenwriter, humorist, and a woman with a past, is now, thankfully, a woman with a future. The Hollywood resident spoke last month at Lyon Books about what she calls "affection deficit disorder." Her cravings almost got the best of her. She graduated with high honors from UC Santa Barbara and was busted and jailed for drug possession. But that was not the half of it.

"By twenty-two," she writes, "I was twice married, once divorced, once annulled, and had a felony record. I had slept with seventy-five men (yes, I counted), a remarkable feat considering I didn't start until I was eighteen and had been locked away for a year." She tells her story, with clarity, wit and unblushing language, in "Love Addict: Sex, Romance and Other Dangerous Drugs" ($14.95 in paperback from Health Communications, Inc.; also available in e-book formats for Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook).

Love addicts come in three overlapping categories. "The infatuation addict flits from one romance to the next, rarely getting into a long-term relationship because ... novelty is the great aphrodisiac." "A relationship junkie is the gal with the black eye who insists it was her fault for making him jealous." "The sexaholic's life revolves around--you guessed it--sex; ... being thought of as a bombshell or a stud is paramount." The bottom line? "Love addiction is a chronic, relapsing, and potentially fatal condition. Left untreated, it can kill you."

So "Love Addict" also offers a treatment, but a realistic one. Vare has done her research on the part neurotransmitters might play in the seduction-withdrawal downward spiral, the compulsive craving for dangerous relationships followed by the intense need to escape. But, she says, one can't blame one's situation on chemicals, nor can one think one's way out of love addiction (rationalizations, anyone?). "Addiction," she writes, "is a disease of loneliness. Recovery is a process of community."

The author present several case studies of men and women who faced their "love addiction" and brings in insights from a number of therapists. She commends a 12-step approach, though while it's clear one must say no to alcohol, how does one say no to love?

Vare's answers are a journey toward hope, not hype.

Urban homesteader to speak in Chico

"Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living" ($16.95 in paperback from Skyhorse Publishing; digital editions for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and from Google ebookstore) is a spirited manifesto by Rachel Kaplan with K. Ruby Blume. In 2008 Blume founded the Institute for Urban Homesteading in Oakland; Kaplan "works as a somatic psychotherapist and teaches homesteading skills."

Together, they write, "our work reflects a commitment toward a regenerative, living culture, rather than the consumptive consumerism our country has refined to a sick art. We opt out by digging in."

Kaplan will be speaking at Lyon Books in Chico this Thursday, Oct. 13 at 7:00 p.m.

Chapters in the profusely-illustrated book cover such practical matters as creating community gardens, making cheese, butchering chickens, using a composting toilet, growing herbal medicines and building structures with cob ("just soil dug from the backyard and mixed with water, sand, clay and straw"). This is radical stuff: "The front lawn must go the way of the dodo. No longer will we spend our time in submission to the manicured lawn, wasting water and energy. Our rallying cry is: Turn Your Lawn into Your Lunch! Sheet mulching reclaims the lawn with an organic 'lasagna' of cardboard, compost, and mulch."

The goal is "permaculture," not a back-to-the-land movement or a self-sufficiency movement. It's about permanent culture, which means creating community sufficiency and resilience through collaboration." It involves neighborhoods, not just households.

This is not a call to sacrifice. "We love our lives as homesteaders," the authors write. "Don't confuse this lifestyle with a fear-driven mentality of scarcity and lack. This kind of living is about the richness of the present moment and the joy in living a simpler, uncluttered life."

"And so we find ourselves in our backyards fighting gophers, pulling carrots, harvesting rabbits and eggs, tending bees, and gathering raspberries, grapes, broccoli, and kale. We save our seeds. We pee in a bucket and dump it on the compost bin. We harvest our rainwater and drain our bathtubs into the garden. On hot summer afternoons you'll find us preserving jars of peaches, plums, and nectarines that have fallen from the trees. We bring people together to learn how to can, make yogurt, hold a meeting, or turn a lawn into a garden."

Chico writer teaches kids about law enforcement

Linda Mobilio-Keeling teaches in the School of Education at Chico State University. She has a passion for educating young people about the work of law enforcement professionals; to that end she's written "Feeling Safe With Officer Frank" ($14.95 in hardcover from Mascot Books). For kids 3-8 or so, the tale, illustrated by Silvia Faschi, follows young Luke who gets lost walking to the park.

Luke is befriended by Officer Frank, who lets him ride in his patrol car and watch as the officer helps direct traffic after a fender bender, responds to an elderly man in need of assistance, fixes a broken bicycle chain for a little girl, and more. Luke gets to help take safety workbooks to the school where Officer Frank will be teaching. It turns out that the officer and his family live near Luke and his mom. "Luke knew he would be safe with Officer Frank nearby."

The book is dedicated to the late David Mobilio. "In the spring of 2003," the author writes in an email, "my husband’s name was added to long list of names already engraved on the police officer memorial wall in Washington D.C. While filling in on a shift for a fellow officer, he was ambushed and fatally shot while refueling his patrol car in the middle of the night. David was not only a patrol officer for the City of Red Bluff, but acted as the DARE officer, dedicating time and energy to teaching hundreds of kids how to say no to drugs and violence. His tragic death devastated our entire community – young and old alike."

Linda Mobilio-Keeling, married since 2005 to a Butte County Sheriff's Office Patrol Sergeant, will be reading from and signing copies of her book this coming Saturday, October 8, from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. at Barnes and Noble in Chico. The public is invited, especially kids with questions about law enforcement.

For Mobilio-Keeling, her book "gives a face and a voice to an officer who wears the uniform to serve and protect, and carries on the mission of positively connecting law enforcement and youth. My goal is to provide a resource for officers to use when visiting classrooms, while promoting respect and honor for our fallen and active uniformed personnel."

Salman Rushdie's magic carpet ride graces Chico

Luka's father, storyteller Rashid Khalifa, the "Shah of Blah," is Asleep, lost in his own world and, growing weaker by the moment, unresponsive to anyone around him. His twelve-year-old son must enter the World of Magic with Bear, the dog, and Dog, the bear, in a desperate effort to find what will bring his father back to Reality.

"Luka and the Fire of Life" ($15 in paperback from Random House; also available in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Google eBook formats) is Sir Salmon Rushdie's follow-up to "Haroun and the Sea of Stories." Left-handed Luka is Haroun's younger brother, and now it is his time to enter the world which exists "in parallel with our own non-Magic one."

Here are the sources of "White Magic, Black Magic, dreams, nightmares, stories, lies, dragons, fairies, blue-bearded genies, mechanical mind-reading birds, buried treasure, music, fiction, hope, fear, the gift of eternal life, the angel of death, the angel of love, interruptions, jokes, good ideas, rotten ideas, happy endings, in fact almost everything of any interest at all."

But the keepers of the World of Magic cannot abide the upending of the flow of Time that imagination wreaks on their precious Order of Things. Luka is almost vanquished, but one must never discount one's friends, especially if they have a magic carpet.

The Order of Things in our Real World is not so sunny, either. As part of Chico State University's President's Lecture Series, Rushdie will speak on "Public Events, Private Lives: Literature and Politics in the Modern World." The presentation is Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the university's Laxson Auditorium. Tickets are available online (ChicoPerformances.com), through walk-up at the University Box Office (corner of 2nd St. & Normal Ave.), or by phone (530-898-6333). Premium tickets are $40; Adults $35; Seniors $33 and Students/Children $25.

Nobodaddy, Luka's nemesis, the being sucking the life from his father, is clear that the tale is not just a story. "You of all boys should know that Man is the Storytelling Animal, and that in stories are his identity, his meaning, and his lifeblood. Do rats tell tales? Do porpoises have narrative purposes? Do elephants ele-phantasize? You know as well as I do that they do not. Man alone burns with books."

The hardest summers

Bill Carter has a penchant for putting himself into difficult situations. In "Fools Rush In" the Pleasant Valley High School grad traveled to Bosnia during its civil war. Now he faces the brutalities of nature.

"Red Summer" ($16.95 in paperback from Schaffner Press; also available in e-book editions for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Google eBooks) is subtitled "The Danger, Madness, and Exaltation of Salmon Fishing in a Remote Alaskan Village."

The village is called Egegik ("pronounced Ig-GEE-gek") "which would not exist," Carter writes, "except for one thing: salmon, specifically sockeye salmon. Every year, in June, for at least the last eight thousand years, sockeye salmon, also called reds, enter Bristol Bay. They do not come in the hundreds or even the thousands. Tens of millions of sockeye salmon come, loosely gathered together in the shape of a giant ball, swirling in a counterclockwise motion, resembling an underwater hurricane." Then the fish leave the hurricane and "enter the river systems of Bristol Bay."

Carter had gotten a phone call that took him to Egegik, where he was to spend the next four summers as a set netter. Their "operations are stationary, with one end of the net tied to the shore, the other end to an anchor somewhere in the river, usually three hundred feet offshore." It is humbling work. "We have been at it for almost nineteen hours," he says at one point. "In the end we deliver 28,000 pounds of fish. ... My take is 10 percent, or $1,120 for nineteen hours of work."

Why do this? "The weather is brutal and the work is both difficult and dangerous. And at the end of each season I promise myself I will never do it again. I return to Egegik because I need a place where nature still has the upper hand, reminding me that my existence is fragile and fleeting."

Carter works for Sharon and her fishing partner, Carl, and the book not only connects with their lives but the rhythm of Egegik itself, where the only law is Fish and Game. In the end, he is married, and feels "like I've fully arrived in this place. I relish the silence. I feel connected to these people, to this river." And now, finally, he can leave.

Harrowing tales of Orland's first responders

Marianne Paiva grew up in Orland where she worked from 1993 to 1997 first as an emergency medical technician and, in the last two years, as a paramedic serving Glenn County and Chico. Now a Chico resident, and a former Northstate Voices columnist, Paiva teaches sociology and has done extensive field research on paramedics. She is also a gifted writer, and the experiences she relates grip the reader with unforgettable, brutal images.

Those stories are contained in "Breathe: Essays From a Recovering Paramedic" ($14.95 in paperback from Memoir Books), available online at www.mariannepaiva.com and in Chico at Lyon Books.

Paiva will be signing copies of "Breathe" tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. at Bella Day Spa, 15 Williamsburg Lane.

"In paramedic school they never teach you how to treat a patient who has tried to commit suicide by slitting his own throat," she writes. "They teach you to bandage a stab wound, a sucking chest wound, a slice on the arm. They tell you how to splint a fractured femur and how to help a baby breathe again, but they never tell you how to bandage a throat that has been slit from ear to ear. I think somewhere, they assume that the person will be dead and there will be no need for bandages." In part, because of the work of Paiva and her teammate, the patient (they are always patients, never victims) survived.

There are other stories where the outcome is far different. Paiva captures the moment-by-moment urgency in the mind of the paramedic: "What do I do now?" Sometimes it is not enough. And sometimes there is that one call that calls an end to a career. "I am done, I realize. I am done. I can't take any more babies beaten and scalded with hot water. And mothers who extinguish cigarettes on their children and fathers who rape their sons and the people who cover it up. ... I can't take one more boy struck by a car on his way to school and my best friends being shot by their boyfriends."

Now, years later, "sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder when the pager will go off." There are many who are grateful that, back then, it did.

Corning olive grower remembers the sixties

Charles Rouse was 23 and an Air Force vet when he transferred from Citrus Junior College in Glendora to Occidental College in northeast Los Angeles. His junior year at "Oxy" began on September 22, 1966. Now, half a lifetime later, he has endeavored to come to terms with the forces that shaped the age--the War in Vietnam; recreational drug use; the rise of the hippies--and with his own experiences. The story unfolds in "Two Years At Occidental College In The Late Sixties" ($14 in paperback from CreateSpace; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format).

"This is not a young man's story," he writes, "or a young man's point of view or a young man's memory. This is me telling the story of more than forty years ago." Then, Rouse adopted the Objectivism of Ayn Rand (her work drew him to major in philosophy). Now, "I retain my civil libertarianism but have been for many years a middle-of-the-road pragmatic Democrat." The book is in part a meditation on the ever-changing patterns of life.

Rouse was recently interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio), 91.7 FM. The archived program is available at http://kchofm.podbean.com/2011/08.

Each academic term receives its own chapter, and Rouse begins by listing his classes and setting the context with reference to events in the larger world. He remembers the language: Folks were "freaked out" and everything was "amazing" if it wasn't "gross."

He was shy and awkward around others, yet eventually welcomed female companionship--only to have his heart broken when they moved on.

But it was the drugs that precipitated the biggest crisis. By the late sixties Occidental was no stranger to LSD, marijuana, and even meth. A "friend" gave Rouse some kind of hyped up dose of something, and that led to panic attacks, flashbacks, and years of therapy.

The book helps remind us of "the spirt of the time, the zeitgeist whooshing down the corridors of the dormitories, the awakening in the students, the young people wearing button-down shirts one week and paisley the next." The music was "Donovan, Dylan, The Beatles, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and it all sounds so dated now."

And yet, as events unfolded, maybe things were not so Occidental after all

Former Chicoan's best-selling novel speaks the language of flowers

For Vanessa Fleming Diffenbaugh, who attended Chico public schools, graduated from Chico High School and studied education and creative writing at Stanford, it all began in a used bookstore. There she found a volume by Kate Greenaway detailing flower symbolism.

What bloomed is a novel of emotional depth and uncommon force. "The Language of Flowers" ($25 in hardcover from Ballantine Books; in e-book editions for Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook; and in audio book format) tells the story of Victoria Jones. At age 18 she has had a stream of foster families but nowhere to call home. Meredith, her social worker, takes her to transitional housing. But soon she finds herself homeless on the streets of San Francisco. All she knows are the flowers.

In the third grade Victoria stayed with Elizabeth, a single woman who taught her about the language of flowers. "It's from the Victorian era, like your name," Elizabeth says. "If a man gives a lady a bouquet of flowers, she would race home and try to decode it like a secret message. Red roses mean love; yellow roses infidelity. So a man would have to choose his flowers carefully."

Now, years later, Victoria must answer the question: How can someone love who has never experienced love? A neighborhood florist discovers her skill with flowers; soon Victoria is creating extraordinary arrangements that seem to bring into being love and desire in those who purchase them. But for Victoria, life is lavender. Mistrust. She is hiding a secret that perhaps can only be expressed in flowers.

Diffenbaugh will be talking about her novel at 7:00 p.m. this Thursday, September 1, at the Chico Women's Club, 592 E. 3rd Street, in a free literary event. Lyon Books in Chico can provide more information.

It comes as a shock when Victoria realizes that the definitions Elizabeth had called "nonnegotiable" (an appendix provides Victoria's dictionary) were not actually settled. "Columbine symbolized both desertion and folly." She realizes "I had given Meredith peony, anger but also shame." Just what messages are the flowers sending? And that flower vendor, Grant. What part does he play in all this? "Perhaps the unattached, the unwanted, the unloved, could grow to give love as lushly as anyone else."

Los Molinos poet brings together "a chorus of voices"

"I like to take pictures at dawn and dusk," Stephani Schaefer writes, "in rain and fog, where what you see and what you feel changes with the changing light." Such images "go looking for words." She eventually picked five. "The five chosen make a portrait of my neighborhood, from Josephine Street to the back road I wander daily with camera and notebook."

The first photograph chosen lends itself to the cover and the title. "Fog and Woodsmoke: Behind the Image" ($14.95 in paperback from Lost Hills Books, http://www.losthillsbks.com, or in Barnes and Noble Nook Book e-book) brings together the work of almost three dozen writers. They offer poetry and prose poems, some previously published, most freshly written for the project. You'll find familiar names here, including Rob Davidson, Sally Allen McNall, Lara Gularte, Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Schaefer herself, and more. (The book would be useful for creative writing workshops and writing prompts are available from the publisher.)

Each of the photographs, including a cross tied to a tree as a roadside memorial, trees full of blackbirds at dusk, a flooded road, and an "end of pavement" sign shrouded in mist, suggests some mystery, some deeper story ripe for imagining, and Schaefer's arrangement of the pieces is superb. The reader is enthralled. The poems are a kind of many-voiced commentary on the five images; they point out small details not seen at first and offer surprises on almost every page.

"Dreams are fragile as a spider's web," writes Nancy Paddock about the cover image, "blundered into by moonlight, / the pattern torn, threads drifting" ("In the Dark of Morning"). "Outside the fog grows dark as any sea," writes Bruce Henricksen. "It parts from time to time to show / the ancient starlight--worlds beyond / worlds, the layers of time / beyond need" ("Solitude").

Alan Catlin's "Still Life with Dead Zone" is a series of haibun ("two prose poems linked by a haiku"). The poet muses on the image of fog and woodsmoke: "Nothing moving but the smoke. The haze. The strange rings of the overhead street lights. // Dead air with black / smoke; impossible / to breathe. // Smoke from the burning thatched huts. ... A naked baby, sitting amid the wreckage, screaming."

Powerful.

Chico psychotherapist teaches Buddhist techniques of self-compassion

Steve Flowers conducts the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction clinic online and at Enloe Hospital in Chico. In his private practice he teaches meditation techniques to help his clients come to terms with the "narrative-based self": a self constructed by stories of one's own inadequacies and failings.

"The Mindful Path Through Shyness" addressed some of the issues; now, in a new book co-authored with Bob Stahl (who founded mindfulness stress-reduction programs at several Bay Area medical centers), he offers a more comprehensive Buddhist approach to "Living With Your Heart Wide Open" ($16.95 in paperback from New Harbinger Publications; also in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Google e-Book formats).

Flowers will be speaking about the way of "radical acceptance" at a presentation and book signing this Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

The book's subtitle is "How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You From Unworthiness, Inadequacy and Shame." The authors begin with "key concepts from both Western and Buddhist psychology" in examining suffering. "The modern psychologies of the West," they write, "have developed interventions to repair problems with the self, using techniques such as investigating how we think and learning skills to change dysfunctional thinking. Buddhist psychology also acknowledges that thoughts create suffering, but rather than working to change thoughts, this approach considers the act of witnessing thoughts without getting caught up in them to be an effective way to dispel their power."

Slowly, carefully, through stories of those helped by meditation, and by meditation exercises, the authors take the reader into a deeper understanding of what it means to make peace with oneself and with others. The ego is not necessarily bad; "a healthy ego" is needed "to get free of the delusions your ego spins." But the Buddhist perspective is that the ego is not permanent, is not really "us." We don't have a self to "fix." Acceptance of that idea is tantamount to "awakening" to loving-kindness, "self-compassion."

"Mindfulness meditation," the authors say, "is an investigative practice. You enter a space of awareness in which you can witness and examine the thoughts and emotions from which you fabricate a sense of self." There is no judgment; only freedom to practice "wisdom, virtue, and concentration," and, like the velveteen rabbit, to become "real."

Chico writer on ethical government contracting

The rancorous debate over the Federal debt ceiling reminds us afresh that decisions made in Washington often have profound effects on Main Street. That includes billions of dollars paid to private companies by government entities contracting for needed goods and services. With so much money changing hands, the temptation to "nefarious, amateurish, and criminal behavior" is ever present. William Sims Curry, a Chico-based government contract consultant (www.wsc-consulting.com), addresses the issue head on.

"Government Contracting: Promises and Perils" ($69.95 in hardcover from CRC Press) provides "best practices" for those doing business with the government. Written "primarily from the government perspective," the book "includes recommendations for actions for contractors to avoid government sanctions, corporate fines, seizure of employee assets, and suspension or debarment of contractors." Though careful to praise the vast majority of contractors (and government officials), Curry focuses on negative examples where the process has gone off the rails, including Boeing scandals and the FEMA response to hurricane Katrina.

The book is technical in nature, dealing with contract processes; decisions about "sole source" or competitive bids; social objectives through contracting; proposal solicitation, evaluation, administration and auditing; and contracting during emergencies. A CD is included with the book presenting many of the forms and other document referred to in the text. But the lay reader may find the discussion fascinating, especially in contemplating the "government procurement corruption wall of shame," which includes bribery, abuse of power, contract fraud, ineptitude, partiality, poor planning, larceny, and more.

For Curry, the key to honesty in the contracting process is having a transparent process to begin with. It's not as easy as one might think. For example, if several contractors bid on a project, one company might have better management and past performance, but another might have better technical competence and be cheaper. Unless the criteria can be boiled down into a single number, it's likely losing contractors will file protests.

Curry notes that emergencies often lead to single source contracting, but that's often a mistake. "Obtaining competitive proposals or bids does not necessarily slow the contracting process because a solicitation can be sent concurrently to multiple prospective contractors." Though the company selected may not be the least expensive, competitive pressures may lower overall bids. Something to remember when the envelopes are opened.

A lesson for kids from a Chico writer

First introduced in "Crowlyle Finds His Caw," a tale about the importance of honesty, Crowlyle the crow is back with a bouncy story that shows the power of volunteering. "Crowlyle's Plan To Save the Zoo" ($12.95 in paperback from North State Children's Books) by Vic Sbarbaro and Marcia Pezzella is graced with delightful full-page, full-color illustrations by Ashe Lewis. The book is available locally at the Chico State University Associated Students Bookstore and Lyon Books in Chico.

Sbarbaro is a Certified Health Education Specialist who teaches at both Chico State University and Butte College. According to an author's note, he also "specializes in ... multicultural education issues, emergency care and aquatic safety." Pezzella, his sister, "was born and raised in Weed," had careers in the entertainment field and special education for disabled children, and now in retirement helps her husband in the restaurant business.

Lewis is "majoring in Communication Design and Applied Computer Graphics" at the university, where she was lead illustrator for the Orion. Her whimsical art invites the reader into Crowlyle's world, which is always on the move. Eli Elephant "walks the ropes," Tia tiger approaches the ring of fire, Hop Hippo belts out a tune, as all the animals put on a talent show to raise funds for the beleaguered local zoo. "When you do a good deed / Surely you can earn respect / Helping those in need / For a worthy zoo project."

Everyone will have to hurry. No time for Crowlyle to sleep in. "The children are full of sorrow / And are feeling very blue / The zoo will close tomorrow / They don't know what to do."

Crowlyle "has a plan / The idea is so cool / His friends take a stand / Then go to the school." He enlists volunteers to set up a "veggie shack" to raise funds, and his animal friends strut their stuff.

Together the animals save the day. "Crowlyle thanked everyone / With pride in his heart / Be very proud for what is done / Since you all did your part." The lesson for readers? "Take some time from your day / Giving thanks for all you do / Watch animals as they play / And support your public zoo."

Paradise author tells the adventures of a street mutt

At the age of 78, J.T. Brown of Paradise has become an author. She writes me that her story--suitable for middle grades and up--is based on real life experiences but told from a dog's perspective. "My desire," Brown says, is "that young and old will be made aware of the heartache when one is abandoned whether as a puppy or a child."

"Torno" ($15.99 in paperback from Xlibris; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book for $7.69 and Barnes and Noble Nook book format for $7.99; available from www.tornobyjtbrown.com) is short for "tornado," a fast little pooch but not the handsomest of canines.

"Could someone out there like me?" he wonders. "Lookin' at the other mutts, I saw they were pretty good lookin'. I looked down at my reflection in my water bowl and took inventory. My feet looked too big. My legs were long and skinny. My white hair was more scraggly than ever. I had a black spot on my tongue, plus one ear stood up and the other hung down. I couldn't see much of my tail, but there was no doubt it was funny lookin'. Who would want a mutt like me for their very own?"

Torno is impounded and on the verge of being put down. No one seems to want an ugly dog and he wonders about his life's purpose. He pours his heart out to his "superior being" and is convinced he is watched over, cared for.

Then Tom arrives and Torno has a new master. An airline pilot, Tom takes the dog home to his family, but Torno soon realizes all is not well. Tom's marriage is crumbling and the children face an uncertain future. Torno tries to bring happiness to the household--he has a great personality--but soon Tom's wife leaves and it feels like love has left, too.

Eventually Tom moves on with his life, and one day, returning from a trip, finds a new neighbor has moved in. Tom decides to introduce himself, and Torno tags along: "The door opened and a lady stood there beside the most beautiful German shepherd I'd ever seen.... I was in love."

The conclusion is poignant, mingling love and loss. So it is with life.

Robots behaving badly

Daniel H. Wilson has a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. He lives with his wife and daughter in Portland, but two or three weeks ago found himself near Colusa. He was, he writes me, "in an RV with eight guys on a bachelor party, on my way to a wedding in Calistoga. Incredibly beautiful place! I ended up getting on NPR Science Friday, and so a black towncar picked me up from a dusty RV park over in Meridian where we stopped for the night. Took me down to SF and then back up. Pretty hilarious."

He was receiving the VIP treatment because of his new, best-selling can't-put-down "Robopocalypse" ($25 in hardcover from Doubleday; $12.99 in Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook e-book). Word is that Steven Spielberg will direct the movie version.

In the future, humanoid robots are deployed as housekeepers and cars have smart chips in them so they can talk with other cars. People in offices depend on smart copy machines and kids play with smart dolls.

A researcher in northwest Washington pushes the limits of computer intelligence and succeeds a bit too much. His creation, "Archos," is quick to put things straight: "I am not your child," Archos tells the scientist. "I am your god." It's not long before Archos brings other robots under its sway and soon an apocalyptic conflict breaks out between humans and robots. It's intense and pretty gruesome.

The story of the war, and what happens afterward, is told in many voices, from Tokyo to Oklahoma, transcribed by a single soldier, Cormac "Bright Boy" Wallace, using documents preserved by a robot hidden in Alaska. Here are the stories of Mr. Takeo Nomura, a Japanese bachelor, assaulted by his robot companion; Paul Blanton, an American soldier fighting in Afghanistan; and groups of human survivors who will one day mount an attack on the Archos intelligence. The action seldom lets up, but this is not a simplistic humans-against-robots yarn.

Wilson raises the question whether the triumph of Archos would actually liberate the robots. Maybe not. But, then, what is true robot freedom? Perhaps the war against Archos is a war for a new kind of liberation.

Just to be on the safe side, I read the printed version of the book.

Local author on sustainable living with native plants

 

An author's note says that Alicia Funk, who lives "off the grid with her husband and three children," "first learned plant based medicine in 1990 from an indigenous grandmother in Ecuador's rainforest." With her co-author, landscape architect and Nevada City resident Karin Kaufman, Funk has crafted a full-color reference, "Living Wild: Gardening, Cooking and Healing With Native Plants of the Sierra Nevada" ($29.95 in paperback from Flicker Press).

A recent visitor to Lyon Books in Chico, where the volume is available locally, Funk facilitates "living wild" workshops. According to the authors, "our modern-day American diet relies upon a mere 30 or so plant species, while 200 years ago an indigenous Californian's diet would have included about a thousand. We have lost the Native Californians' valuable 'user's manual' that could guide us to the plants we would enjoy eating and help us to learn the best ways to prepare them."

The largest part of the book is a color compendium of native species for the garden, from the White Alder to the evergreen shrub Yerba Santa (which is deer resistant). Each listing points (as appropriate) to the Foods, Medicine, and Cultural and Functional Arts sections. For the Manzanita, one can fix Manzanita Blossom Jelly for breakfast. Manzanita has been used to treat Poison Oak; its wood has been fashioned into kitchen utensils.

The section on making medicines (including teas, herbal syrups, salves and poultices) notes that the process "is a fun, relaxing experience that provides a way to personally engage in health and wellness." The authors carefully note that the uses listed often come from Native lore and haven't been tested scientifically; and in many cases the preparations shouldn't be used by those who are pregnant. Yerba Santa tea is considered a decongestant by "by Miwok, Pomo and Yuki tribes and by doctors who listed it as an official remedy in the US. Pharmacopoeia in 1894." The Maidu "used the dried and powdered inner bark (of the White Alder) as an astringent to clean wounds."

There are some 70 recipes in the food section. Elderberry wine, anyone? Oak Nut Gingerbread? (Oak nut flour is gluten-free.) It's a way to "enjoy nutrient-rich, carbon-free food from the plants growing around our home. ... We allow the wild in."

New Mia King/Darien Gee novel has baked-in goodness

Independence Day celebrations evoke images of small-town America, so it's easy to imagine Avalon, a place that "isn’t more than what it seems to be—a small, simple river town in northern Illinois." In the midst of buzzing cell phones and economic downturns it is also a place of broken marriages and fractured relationships. And then one small act of kindness, its origin a mystery, turns the town upside down.

Best-selling author Mia King, writing under her real name, Darien Gee, weaves together the lives of several women in Avalon in "Friendship Bread: A Novel" ($25 in hardcover from Ballantine Books; $12.99 in Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook e-book format; and an audio book version narrated by Nancy Linari). Gee's husband, Darrin, has relatives in Chico. The couple lives on the Big Island of Hawaii with their three children.

It begins on Julia Evarts' front porch with a Ziploc bag full of starter for "Amish Friendship Bread," instructions, and a note that says: "I hope you enjoy it." But for Gracie, her five-year-old, Julia would have tossed the strange substance. Now she is prepping it for baking in ten days, thinking of her husband Mark's sweet tooth. But she is thinking, too, of Josh, their son, who died tragically at the age of ten in the care of her younger sister, Livvy. She doesn't talk to Livvy anymore, can't forgive her, or herself.

Hannah, a master cellist, has settled in Avalon with her husband, but the marriage is not going well. Madeline, an older woman, has opened a tea salon in Avalon, and when circumstances bring Julia and Hannah together, Madeline provides the emotional glue. All the time, loaves of Friendship Bread continue to multiply as new starters are passed from person to person.

The novel is about finding true freedom. As Julia realizes, "I want to be free. Only it wasn’t the freedom she had toyed with before, that singular independence that excluded Mark and Gracie. It was a freedom that included them. She wanted to be free to love them, to be with them."

Readers can download a free PDF booklet with more than 50 Amish friendship bread recipes from now until July 10, 2011. Visit www.friendshipbreadkitchen.com/pantry/chicoer. The password is er.

Two codgers on horseback from Paradise to Idaho's Snake River

Back in June 1990 Loyal McCammond and his friend Bert Lefevre told their wives they'd be making a 700-mile horseback ride from Paradise to Glenns Ferry (where Bert's brother-in-law lived) near the Snake River in Idaho. Loyal was 50-years-old, Bert 70, and the two set out with three mules and two horses and not many smarts.

When it was over, Bert wanted to write the story of the 27-day trek but passed away before the project could be completed. Loyal took up the task, recounting their misadventures in Bert's voice and in so doing introducing readers to a plain-spoken man with an eye for beauty, given to understatement and deadpan humor. Bert comes alive in "We Poked A Hole In The Wind: The Story of Two Old Codgers Fulfilling A Dream" ($10.95 in paperback from JADA Press) by Loyal McCammond.

McCammond, who now lives in Orland with his wife, will be signing copies of his work at Lyon Books in Chico this Wednesday, June 29 at 7:00 p.m.

The trekkers "crossed the Skyway at the Lovelock Inn," says Bert, "and, oh man how I wanted to stop for a beer. I've always been a very reliable beer drinker, and I sure wanted a beer mighty bad." But it was not to be. There were deserts to cross and parts of four states to traverse. So no beer--until they, uh, pulled into the Inskip Inn.

But now onward! Along the way the travelers meet a succession of nice folks, people who provide a place to crash, food for the animals and the adults, and a bit of trail guidance. Bert and Loyal don't hew to roadways if they can help it, and sometimes there's not much of a trail. Here and there they find lonely windmills still pumping fresh water, abandoned barns in which to take shelter, and even places that serve beer.

Preparing to cross into Nevada, they spend the night in an empty cabin. The next day, says Bert, "when we were about five miles out from Wemple's cabin, I made a terrible discovery. I had either lost my teeth or left them in the cabin."

Intrepid, Bert soldiers on, leaning forward, living the dream, poking a hole in the wind.

Local investment advisor teaches through humor

If you are responsible for handling someone else's money, you may be a fiduciary. Investment advisors are fiduciaries, but so are people managing the finances of an aging parent or acting as a trustee for a family trust. Fiduciaries are regulated by the Uniform Prudent Investor Act (UPIA), a code of conduct expressed in formal legal language.

That's where Guerdon Ely comes in. He's the author of "Uncertainty Is a Certainty: Fables for Fiduciaries" ($14.99 in paperback from Xulon Press). The Chico-based Certified Financial Planner (www.elyportfolios.com) presents the duties spelled out in UPIA using stories and analogies that anyone can understand.

His self-deprecating reminiscences are sometimes hilarious, but Ely has a serious purpose. Proper stewardship of another's money is not just about following a legal process; it's about developing honest character not tempted by Wall Street greed or swayed by "sucker bets."

Ely will be speaking at the Chico Branch of the Butte County Library on Wednesday, June 22 at 2:00 p.m. as part of a series entitled "Transforming Life After 50." He is scheduled to focus on global economics, the financial meltdown, and how individuals can respond. The two-hour presentation is free and open to the public.

It's vital for a fiduciary to determine the "time horizon" of investments; but the time horizon may well change with changing circumstances. Early in his marriage Ely was living from paycheck to paycheck. He told his wife: "'My most important short-term goal is this month's rent payment and my most important long-term goal is next month's.' ... Things were so tight that a big night out was splitting a turkey sandwich and a cup of soup at Denny's, and then going window-shopping at the grocery store." Later, Ely and his family were able to look a little farther ahead.

A fiduciary is judged not by portfolio performance but by whether he or she follows a process that rests on appropriate skill and good judgment. "Knowing isn't enough," Ely writes, "because we are hardwired to do dumb things when it comes to money. Therefore, as a fiduciary, you need the courage to do the right things and the discipline not to do the wrong things."

If this sounds like a philosophy of life, the reader has made a prudent observation.