Rollercoaster Ride October 1 - 14, 2002 about some more heroic deeds of my fragile mother

	Lick observatory sits atop a hill to the right like a small white egg

Sid has written up nicely how he enjoyed his four days with a mother-in-law. My mother, however, stayed quite longer than that, and so I would like to present my account of the rest of her visit.

Right from the start, my mom passed a test of good will, for she agreed to dine in our favourite sushi place. Our typical visitor, upon throwing his/her stare at raw fish, gains the color of wasabi (bright green) and from that point on, only carefully selects tidbits demonstrably missing any participation of ocean creatures, or, if they do, then properly baked or boiled. My mother was no different last year; this year, however, she did not only brave chopsticks, but also devoured several pieces of raw tuna.

	Thirty six inch telescope did not fit into my lens. And that after they had to shorten it upon installation, as somebody made an error when calculating focal distances, and it would not focus at first.

Also, an experiment of releasing my mother into the world completed rather successfully -- she survived three days on her own in Monterey, arranged a whale-watching trip for herself (and had seen whales, which quite surprised us this time of year). Her communication skills gave out only at some drugstore where she wanted find out what batteries her camera needed, upon which an eager salesperson opened the film chamber with exposed film. Most of her snapshot survived this brutal handling somehow. My mom received an apology and a new film; I still regret that she did not remember which store it was, for I would love to record the name of such "experts" here.

During my single remaining day of vacation, I wanted to show her Mt. Hamilton. From our back yard, a cupola of Lick Observatory looks like a small white egg nesting on top of the tallest hill of the souther end of Silicon Valley. A road going there is much longer than it may seem at first, as it copies an ox wagon trail from the end of 19th century. Ox wagons had brought up all the construction material for the observatory. Our wagon does not mind endless switchback either, and we easily reached the top. The observatory was, to our surprise, open for public, and we visited offered attractions - bathrooms, gift shop (where we bought amazing black T-shirts with glow-in-the-dark constellations), and a tour of the refraction telescope, which was built from fortune bequeathed by James Lick.

	Sid is demonstrating for the benefit of his mother-in-law that vertical motion is easy

James Lick is a character right out of California's colorful history books, and he's certainly worth mentioning. Born in Pennsylvania in late 18th century as the eldest son of a carpenter. At twenty one, he made a local miller's daughter pregnant, but her father refused to marry his daughter to such a poor fellow. James left for Baltimore, where he learned to build pianos. When he found out that they sell best in South America, he moved to Buenos Aires. There, he made such fortune that he managed to return back with forty thousand dollars for his bride, but since he somehow failed to mention to her, after having gotten insulted by her father, that he would keep her on his mind and had the intent to return, Barbara got married meanwhile. Heartbroken, James returned to Buenos Aires, later moved to a quieter Valparaiso in Chile, eventually settling down in Lima, Peru. In 1846, all his Mexican workers left him one day, called into war, and James spent whole eighteen months finishing all his open orders alone. In 1848, he arrived to San Francisco -- mere seventeen days before the outbreak of Gold Rush. He was bringing $30,000 dollars in gold, and 600 pounds of chocolate, produced by his Lima neighbor, Domenico "Domingo" Ghirardelli, originally from Italy. James invested his gold into real estate and since the chocolate sold well, he invited Ghirardelli to San Francisco. Ghirardelli's Chocolate soon distributed all over the western part of North America and became a famous brand.
In 1855 Lick finally met his son John, but they did not get along well and parted after about eight years; James eventually omitted John in his will altogether. I won't burden you with Lick's commercial successes; when he became bedridden as a result of stroke in age of seventy seven, he was so affluent that he could not quite figure out how to spend it all. He began with donations to fund city public baths, a house for destitute elderly widows, orphanage, and similar projects. Besides that he played with an idea of a monument to his own greatness. Originally he intended to erect a giant statue visible from the Pacific Ocean, but was troubled that in case of an naval artillery attack, it would became an easy target. A pyramid larger than those in Egypt, built in the middle of San Francisco, seemed better. Eventually someone was fortunate enough to convince him for a relatively sober project of "a telescope superior to and more powerful than any telescope yet made ... and also a suitable observatory connected therewith...". Lick did not live to participate in its construction, but his grave can be found at the foot of a thirty six foot refraction telescope, which remains one on the largest instruments of its kind in the world.

	Lída quite obviously believed him and soon reached the top...

Did it occur to you that visiting us had to be somewhat taxing? Consider a lengthy lecture on local characters and details of refraction telescopes in English, a car boiling its cooler in a desolate desert, coming to edges of abysses, walking her along chained paths during a mountain thunderstorm, raw fish to eat, toiling around our house, and eventually abandonment in Monterey. Combine that with our household based on semi-permanent heaps of stuff. Does it seem to you that we could not pile any more insult on injury? Well, think again. We had one more torture ready -- a wall. A climbing wall in our gym.

	Pigeon Point once a fog descends on the coast, it turns into a scene from The Hound of Baskervilles

When I began with climbing seven and half years ago, my mom took the approach that all climbers are suicidal maniacs yearning to freeze to death on Anapurna or some other ... high and remote place. My arguments that a climbing gym is completely safe and outdoor rocks are almost totally safe yielded nothing. Hence I was mightily surprised how readily my mom suddenly decide to participate in such dangerous sporting activity. Could it be that she did not want to get overshadowed by Hippo, who has been merrily conquering the vertical? Anyway, she really climbed a few routes and seemed to enjoy it, for she admitted she liked it.

On our last day before she flew back to Europe, we prepared a trip to Mt. Tama, but San Franciscan fogs decided against it. We abandoned our plans to show her a view of the City from there, and instead drove down Highway 1 to Santa Cruz, to Boardwalk - a permanent fair. I would say that Boardwalk represents quite well a Californian approach to life, so we had put it into our list of things to see for our visitors. Merry-go-rounds, roller-coasters, swings and shooting galleries are nothing special by themselves. Even lines to individual attractions don't differ from usual. What's interesting is the fact that the whole affair had been built on a beach. Once you get tired of tin speaker music, hot dog stands, cotton candy and the whole din of a fair, you can still walk a bit and sit down into a warm sand, listen to the sounds of a surf, and relax while watching seagulls skim the ocean surface.

	However, if the sun burns through the fog for a moment, things get much merrier. This picture is taken from the same spot like the one above, just a few minutes later...

Most interesting on this unusual fair are its customers. A great deal of them are children and their inevitable guardians, but still larger percentage are progeny-free grown-ups, who with childish enjoyment ride classical merry-go-rounds' horseys, squeal while being tossed and turned around on roller coasters, plaster their stomachs full with street-vended food, shoot at kitchy prizes -- and simply have fun. None of them wonders if it might be "inappropriate". None of them feels a need to "borrow" children from their relatives to masquerade their own lust for cotton candy and funicular rides.

We put my mom through a ride on a rollercoaster, one that is a protected historical monument (yes, it's been there for over seventy years!). If I count right, it has been twenty seven years since my mother rode with me on one in Prague. Our family stories vary in regard of who got more sick back then. This year, we all survived it without harm, so our dispute over strong and weak stomachs remains unresolved. It appears, though, that my mom has discovered the beauty of our relaxed lifestyle here in California, and without much prompting opted for an additional funicular ride above the whole fray of the Boardwalk, from one end to the other. There was just one more ride left for here on the next day -- the one to the airport, and then a flight across half of the globe. Well at least she got some heads up on turbulence.

Copyright © 2002-2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.