September 2008 Issue | Download the Full Issue

Lobsters are interesting little creatures. These clawed crustaceans have kidneys in their heads, teeth in their stomachs, and if cooked just right they taste delicious!
The latter is one of the reasons “Lobster on the Green” has become such a hit for The Rotary Club of Fallbrook.
This year’s event will take place Friday, Sept. 5 at the Ingold Sports Park in Fallbrook.
Now in its 6th year, the all-you-can-eat Maine lobster and steak event remains the sole fund-raiser for the organization.
“Lobster on the Green has been very good for our Rotary Club,” said Howard Clark, event founder and this year’s event chairman. “When I first brought the idea to the club almost eight years ago, there were many raised eyebrows and the general consensus was ‘Howard’s really lost it this time.’ We were hoping for two hundred people to break even that first year, but over four hundred and fifty attended. As the saying goes, the rest is history.”
The largest group has been more than 800 people, which is also this year’s attendance goal. While Lobster on the Green is meant to be an evening of fun and socializing, it serves a greater purpose.
“We have returned almost $200,000 over the last five years to numerous charities and groups here in the Fallbrook community,” Clark said. “All the money raised stays here.”
The money raised-to-date conveys the generous hearts of the community and makes a big difference. Last year alone, the Rotary Club of Fallbrook wrote $53,000 in checks to local clubs and organizations including the Boys & Girls Club, Friends of the Library, Fallbrook Music Society Youth Programs, Fallbrook Food Pantry and more. Funds also went to the Sheriff’s department, the California Highway Patrol, firefighters and the military.
Speaking of the military, each year the Rotarians host an honorary table at the event. This year there will be a special table for wounded Marines from Camp Pendleton. Other plans include a live and silent auction, and a concert. The live concert is a new idea, and was secured in association with the Fallbrook Americana Music Series.
Clark said they hope that the concert, which is sponsored by Markstein Beverage Distributors, will encourage patrons to stay a little longer and enjoy the whole event rather than leave after dinner.
“We want to make it more of an evening affair…a night of entertainment,” Clark explained.
The concert will feature Judy Taylor and the Wild Oats. Taylor is an accomplished musician and an award-winning singer/songwriter specializing in Wild West shows and Western performances.
For just $75 a person, you can enjoy this evening of fun. The price includes a delicious meal of fresh Maine lobster, choice sirloin steak, coleslaw, corn on the cob, dessert and more with beer and wine available for purchase.
The money goes directly to the Rotary Club and into the hands of the community.
“We figure as long as we provide a good product, which we do, people will come back year after year,” Clark said. “The fact that the money goes to a good cause is incentive to come, but the fact that the food is good is even more of a reason.”
Clark attributes the success of the food preparation and cooking to their chef, Joe Fedorchek, who along with his brother own the El Jardin Mexican Restaurant in Fallbrook.
“It takes work to keep the lobster fresh when cooking for a large number of people,” Clark said. “There is a fine balance to keep the lobster from getting too rubbery and to serve it up right.”
Of course, such an event would not be possible without volunteers. Clark said the Rotarians and their wives and a group of young high schoolers volunteer hours of their time.
Gates for Lobster on the Green open at 5 p.m. Dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m. with the live auction and concert to follow.
Some of the items being auctioned off include a tour of the US Navy’s Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC), and a custom bronze sculpture.
The sculpture was specifically designed for the auction by local Rotarian Dr. Jim Helms, whose work took home “Best of Show” at the 2008 San Diego County Fair. The LCAC is a high-speed, over-the-beach amphibious landing craft used to transport the weapons systems, equipment, cargo and personnel of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force. The auction item includes lunch with the commander.
Guests are definitely in for some entertainment, and the new venue is ideal for the festivities. Ingold Sports Park was named after its benefactor, Arlyne Ingold, who is this year’s Title Sponsor.
“We’re really excited about the venue and Mrs. Ingold’s participation,” Clark said. “Her husband Bob was a long time member of our Rotary Club, and she is an honorary member.”
Additional sponsors are County Supervisor Bill Horn (Platinum Sponsor), The Hegart Group Bancamerica Investments, Paradise Chevrolet / Cadillac, CB Landmark Realty and Major Market (Diamond Sponsors), and The Village News (Tiffany Sponsor).
For more information on Fallbrook Rotary Club’s Lobster on the Green, call 760-510-0945 or go to www.fallbrookrotary.org. Please note that tickets are sold in advance only.

Liberty Quarry (Part II of II)

One of the biggest concerns that opponents of the proposed Liberty Quarry have is granite dust, especially silica dust into the air—threatening respiratory systems of infants and the elderly. Especially in areas subject to high winds.
As noted in Part I, the site is in Temecula, just over the Riverside County line from Rainbow. It could break ground in 2011 and be operational by 2012.
Dr. Daniel C. Robbins is a pediatrician who heads a group of 60 doctors in the Temecula area who oppose the quarry. “Gary Johnson will say that studies show that silica won’t harm people or reach their lungs, but there are plenty of studies to the contrary,” he says. Johnson is the project manager for the proposal the Granite Construction Company has dubbed the “Liberty Quarry.”
“The specific details about what is dangerous about gravel quarries is silica,” says Dr. Robbins. “Silica is so small that it can travel long distances and get into small parts of our lungs. That could be spread due to blasting and dust coming off the trucks that are going to be making trips to our area,” he says.
Dr. Robbins, and most residents of Rainbow, argue that the mitigations contained in an environmental impact report (EIR) (yet to be released for this relatively young proposal) won’t necessarily happen once the quarry is actually built.
Yes, they are attacking an EIR that hasn’t been written yet.
But the history of environmental activism shows that if you wait until an EIR is issued a project may be so set in stone as to be nearly unstoppable.
They also know that the proponent will include many studies and make many claims that may or may not happen.
But, they base many of their own objections and assumptions on quarries built ten, 20 or 30 years ago.
There is no way to check the claims of mitigation for, say, the new Rosemary’s Mountain Quarry, because it won’t start operation for three years. Like Liberty, it will have many state-of-the-art mining techniques designed to minimize dust.
Comparing Liberty’s planned operations to existing quarries in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties is comparing apples to oranges.
“It would be night and day compared to the Indio Quarry,” says Johnson. “That’s a thirty-year-old operation. It’s not covered. There are no filters. It is not environmentally controlled.
“Yet when people take the time to visit it they don’t see dust. It’s not noisy. There are some older quarries in Murrieta. They don’t have nearly the environmental controls this one will have and their levels are lower than standards set by state and federal government,” he says.
One who started out as an opponent, but was eventually persuaded in the other direction is a Temeku Hills, Temecula resident, Vince Davis, who was asked one day to sign a petition against the quarry.
Davis decided to attend an open house and took the free tour of the plant in Indio and of the proposed site.
“What I have seen is encouraging. They appear to be a group of folks with a well thought out project. The sense I get is that they are trying to put together a project that won’t be offensive.
“It became clear to me after taking the tour of the site. It’s very remote. When you are up there, when you look five or seven miles out, you can see a bit of De Luz, and a home in Fallbrook but nowhere else. They told me ‘We are going to move that hill and revegetate it so that those people won’t have to see the hole.’ What goes through my mind, after I've taken the tour and been educated, is to wonder how many of the opponents are willing to take the tour?”
“Even if environmental controls and mitigations are supposed to happen in an environmental report doesn’t mean they will happen in reality,” says Dr. Robbins, citing promised mitigations such as watering down of soil and hours of operation.
Johnson says that data generated specific to this site indicate that silica is not an issue.
“The analysis done for Liberty Quarry indicates that the level of silica dust at our boundary is one hundred times lower than acceptable levels. All of this has been reviewed by the Southcoast Air Quality Management District,” he says.
Dr. Robbins doesn’t believe that Granite Construction Co. will necessarily run its operation as promised. “If they don’t, then all of the data that will be produced in any environmental impact report can be thrown out,” he says.
“The unfortunate thing for Dr. Robbins,” says Johnson, “is that he makes these blanket statements and provides nothing to support it. He said he didn't need to read the reports and refused to meet with us.
“What we did was go and find an expert, an epidemiologist with twenty-five years of evaluating this issue to evaluate what level of silica there would be at certain distances from the operation. He wrote a report specific to the project, using his experience and concluded that it is absolutely not a threat to the health of people,” says Johnson.
That would be Dr. Patrick Hessel, who has spent his career evaluating the health effects of silica, including five years among hard rock miners in South Africa and researching occupational lung disease for 15 years at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
According to Hessel, “The environmental modeling data indicate that the proposed quarry will not be a substantial contributor to ambient levels of crystalline silica, and that ambient levels of crystalline silica will remain well below California’s Reference Exposure Level (REL)3 µg/m3.”
He adds, “…based on data from active quarries, the proposed operations may have no measurable effect on ambient silica levels near the facility. This is due, in part, to the presence of existing background levels of silica from natural sources (the natural geology of the area coupled with high winds) and traffic.”
According to Hessel, Silicosis (also known as Grinder’s disease and Potter’s rot) an occupational lung disease caused by inhaling crystalline silica dust, is a problem for workers exposed long-term to silica dust without dust suppression or respiratory protection.
He writes, “The levels of ambient silica near the proposed facility will be orders of magnitude lower than levels that have been shown to cause silicosis in occupational studies due to the nature of the operations and dust control measures at the facility.”
The opponents scoff at Dr. Hessel’s findings because he was paid to do his report.
To which Johnson retorts, “Find me the expert who doesn’t expect to get paid for his work!”
Opponents of the quarry have other reasons for opposing it.
One is home prices. Jerri Arganda of Rainbow Against the Quarry tells of real estate agents in Temecula who lost sales when they disclosed that a quarry might be in the area.
Another worry is the effect of the quarry on the Santa Ana–Palomar Wildlife Corridor, the last wildlife corridor in Southern California that ties the coast habitat to Palomar Mountain.
“The quarry is right in the middle of it,” says Jim Mitchell, president of the Santa Margarita Sierra Club chapter, a division of the San Gorgonio Sierra Club. “That wildlife linkage is alive with mountain lions, foxes, coyotes. It is critical for a species to have an unbroken corridor if it is to be able to spread their DNA around.”
Finally, they are also concerned about the effects of the quarry on the Santa Margarita River, which the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation calls one of the most important rivers in the state because it is one of the last free flowing coast inland rivers in California.
According to Mitchell, “When they dig down one thousand feet there’s going to be seepage into the watershed. So what doesn’t end up going into the air will end up in the river!”
To read more about the Liberty Quarry from the perspective of Gary Johnson and the Granite Construction Co., visit libertyquarryfacts.com/
To read more about what those against the quarry are saying, visit their Web site: www.libertyquarry.com or www.nogravelquarry.com/

John Deck: Saddle Maker

The life of a cowboy isn’t easy.
But thanks to John Deck, cowpokes across the U.S. and parts of Europe can ride in comfort and style.
Deck has been making Western saddles for more than 40 years, a passion that began when he was growing up in South Dakota.
“I had to ride with the trash nobody else would ride,” he says. “And it got to the point where I wanted to make my own so I’d have something good to ride.”
Since then, Deck has made saddles commercially, most recently through his business, John’s Saddle & Pack.
Deck learned the art of saddle-making from his friend Bruce Larner when the two worked together shoeing horses in Bellflower in the early 1960s.
“It took me a lot of years to find somebody to show me how it’s done,” Deck says. “It was like it was some kind of a big secret or something. Once I learned it, I didn’t really see what’s so secret about it.”
The art of saddle making involves at least eight separate steps, including shaping the rawhide covered tree, skiving the leather to make it even, and seating the leather before fitting it onto the tree.
Deck says he enjoys the process of making saddles and working with leather, and also says he never expected his handiwork to be so popular.
“I started out just making them for myself. I never thought of making them for anybody else,” he says. “But then my buddies wanted me to make some for them, so they’d buy the materials and I’d make one for them.”
Now, Deck says his saddles have found homes in various places across the United States, and a few have even found their way to Switzerland.
“I used to work up at Rawhide Ranch in Bonsall, and I got to meet some of the counselors from a kids camp up there,” he explains. “One of the girls was from Switzerland and was going to school out here, and I ended up making three or four saddles for her to take back home.”
Deck, along with his wife Raylene and their two sons, John and James, have lived in California for nearly 19 years—a big improvement over life in South Dakota, as Deck recalls.
“When I got out of the service, I married a girl from San Diego, but we moved back [to South Dakota],” he says. “Well, winter came along and I took a job feeding cattle, and I was out working from sunrise ‘til past ten every day. I figured there’s got to be a better way, so we packed up and came to California.”
Deck and the family moved to Ramona initially, then spent time in Norco, Chino, Bonsall and Bellflower before settling down.
He also does some minor blacksmith work, including making bridle bits. One of his bits is currently on display at the Valley Center History Museum.
Even though he’s retired from the commercial aspect of saddle making, Deck says his passion for the craft he loves has kept him going through the years.
“I love working with leather,” he says. “But whatever you do, you’ve got to have your heart in it in order for it to work.”
760-751-1306

The History of Castle Creek

In 2004 Larry Taylor of Castle Creek put together some notes and an article on his research into the history of Castle Creek.
This article is based on those notes and on some other sources that we found.
You can read the complete story by visiting the Castle Creek Country Club’s Web site: www.castlecreekcc.com/club_history.htm/
In his introduction Taylor wrote “While researching the history of our club, it became readily apparent that there was more information available than my wildest dreams.
“From the early Indians to gun-slinging episodes to one man’s obsession to build a championship golf course, Castle Creek’s history is full of rich and colorful stories.”
The man, whose obsession to build a golf course, was Art Doherty, who began planning his masterpiece in 1947.
But, as Taylor points out, the history of Castle Creek goes way back before that.
As long as 10,000 years ago, there is evidence of people living in the area that became known as Castle Creek, including grinding stones on the golf course, indicative of a village.
One of the areas where there is considerable evidence of people was Pamoosa Canyon. Pamoosa is allegedly an Indian name meaning “bearded face,” referring to the rock next to the waterfall in Moosa Creek. Some people doubt that derivation since beards were very uncommon among Native Americans in that era. However, the name was later shortened to Moosa Creek so as to avoid confusion with other similar-sounding names in the area—such as Poway.
A large oak (now only a stump) on the golf course was once called the Pow Wow Tree because it was supposedly a place where Indian men and women would gather—while the women worked!
The Indians were called the Pumusi, although they were part of a larger cultural and ethnic group known as the Luiseño.
The Spanish Conquistadors arrived in San Diego county in 1769 and soon created their network of missions, including the San Luis Rey Mission, which included the Castle Creek area as part of its territory.
A hundred years later that territory was part of the large land grant that was awarded to Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of California, as part of the treaty that ended the Mexican American War of 1845-46.
During the period of the Wild West there was a village of Pamoosa and Taylor’s history records, “There is an account of a small town called Pamoosa, which appears to be located in the general vicinity of the 16th green. In fact, there is a photograph showing the Moosa Creek Post Office, which in reality is a small shed with a desk and a few boxes.”
Castle Creek derives its name from the famous “Castle” that was built in the 1890s by the famous Scottish artist Isaac Jenkinson Frazee as a replica of a Scottish castle.
According to Valley Center historian Bob Lerner, in 1914 Frazee staged the “Peace Pipe Pageant,” which the Sunset magazine described as one of the most remarkable outdoor pageants in all of California.”
The reviewer said an audience of 1,500 came to the event on opening night, even though there was seating for fewer than 500. “Hundreds of conveyances of every style carried the audience,” he noted, “from the primitive ranch wagon cushioned with hay and drawn by plow horses to the up-to-date limousine.”
A review of the pageant in the San Diego Union noted that illumination was provided by kerosene lamps and automobile and truck lights. The critic complimented Frazee’s wife for creating the wigs and costumes for the 40-member cast with fibers grown in the hills surrounding their home in Moosa Canyon, according to Lerner.
In 1888, the most famous armed conflict in the history of the area took place: the Moosa gunfight.
This also took place where part of the golf course is now, near Old Castle Road.
It involved squatters and the homesteaded owner of the property there. The owner, a man named Levi Stone, was a honeybee farmer. He left the state for a few months and when he returned found squatters on his property, including a peg-legged man who advised Stone to “bring an army” if he wanted to evict him.
A six-man posse was sent and a gunfight ensued that left five people dead, including two members of the posse.
In the early part of the last century a cattle rancher named O. D. Reed bought 778 acres that included what is now Castle Creek Golf Course and Moosa Canyon. He called the ranch Circle R, after himself.
The ranch was later purchased by another owner who turned it into a farm that, along with cattle, raised Tennessee Walking Horses.
Eventually, in 1945 it was sold to two business partners, Art Doherty and Gil Sinclair.
They tried farming, but decided that this wasn’t going to be a success due to poor wells and a creek that only flowed occasionally. Sinclair left the partnership and Doherty decided to build a golf course.
He asked for bids, but as the lowest was $3,000, he decided he would do the work himself!
There was an old mission school and a school dormitory on the property that Doherty turned into a clubhouse, coffee shop and pro shop. The existing horse stables were converted to store golf carts.
The golf course opened for business in 1949. Men’s and women’s clubs formed in the early 1950s and in 1955 Doherty decided to add another nine holes.
Today, according to writer Taylor “Only the second, fourth, and fifth greens have survived these years. One can notice the difference in these 3 greens when compared to the others.”
During the 1960s a trading post and gas station were built where Creekside Veterinary Service is now located on Old Castle Road. During that decade the red barn, which has a big circle and an R was built as a storage facility.
In 1970 the father of the course, Art Doherty died. In the late 1970s the course was badly damaged by some of the wettest years on record in San Diego county.
Under the ownership of a Taiwanese-American investment group the golf course was completely renovated, or according to Taylor, “completely changed, with no hole unscathed.”
In 1989 a Japanese corporation bought the property, changed the name from Circle R to Castle Creek and apparently insulted all of the old timers by putting up photos of famous Japanese golf courses throughout the clubhouse.
As the Japanese economy declined, the investors decided to sell Castle Creek Golf Course to Josephine Development LLC, which made plans to bring the golf course back to its old glory—and apparently succeeded by all accounts.
You’ll still find references to the builder of the course in Doherty’s Dream, named for the 1948 founder of the course. It is a 370-yard straight up the hill par 4 to the clubhouse.
Currently there are plans to build a 63 unit senior living condominium on 5.5. acres in the Circle R area as part of the Circle R Resort Specific Plan that was adopted in 1978 by the Board of Supervisors.

A Perfect Day At Yankee Stadium

By Dale Good
Shirley and I have some friends who live in Manhattan and summer at their inn in Cooperstown, New York, the home of baseball’s hall of fame.
They are rabid Yankee fans, and in 2004 when the Red Sox defeated the Yankees in that dramatic league championship series by coming back from a 3 games to 0 deficit, they refused to take reservations at their inn from anyone in Boston.
Their daughter some years ago in her senior year in high school had applied to one college and one college only, Yale. It was Yale or nothing.
That same spring our friends—including their daughter—had season opening tickets at Yankee Stadium against the hated Red Sox. It was a glorious spring day in New York. My friend went downstairs from his walk-up to check the morning mail before leaving for the Bronx.
Inside the mail box was a large envelope from Yale addressed to his daughter. He lifted it up to the sunlight and could see through the envelope the word “congratulations.”
He stuffed the envelope into his coat pocket bound and determined to have it make an appearance at the appropriate time. That time was at the 7th inning stretch on opening day under a glorious spring sky with the Yankees bombing the Red Sox and his daughter was going to Yale, how perfect!
When I was a kid growing up in Tucson, Arizona, in the mid ’50s and early ’60s, long before cable TV, the only major league baseball game that I could watch on TV was the CBS Game of the Week. I would always reserve my Saturdays, late mornings and early afternoons, for the game.
Allowing for the three-hour time difference the game would always start about 10:30 each Saturday morning from April until seasons end in September.
In the mid ’50s there were no west coast teams, the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn playing at historic Ebbets Field and the Giants were in New York City still playing at the equally historic Polo Grounds.
In 1958, the Dodgers and Giants moved west and the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field were both torn down. Now, over half a century later. the grand dame of sports arenas will follow (at the end of this baseball season) Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. Of course, the Yankees aren’t going west and there will be a new Yankee Stadium built next door, but nonetheless, for any baseball fan my age or older, Yankee Stadium holds a special place in our memories.
Although the CBS Baseball Game of the Week did not always feature the Yankees, you could count on about half the weekly broadcasts during the season coming from the “House that Ruth Built.” In the early 1960s, when CBS bought the Yankees, the game of the week became a Yankee Game of the Week.
I hated the Yankees, I was a Dodger fan, and my idol was Pee Wee Reese—who by the way—is still my pick for starting shortstop on my all time All Star team. My center fielder is the “Duke of Flatbush, Snider not Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays, and I loved the Reading Rifle, Carl Furillo, because he was from my hometown, Reading, Pennsylvania. By the way, he got that nickname for his strong accurate right arm, not a firearm.
But since the Dodgers were in the National League and the Yankees in the American, I rarely saw the Dodgers, even more of a reason to hate the Yankees. I loved watching the game when Detroit was playing the Yankees and a pitcher by the name of Frank Lary was pitching for the Tigers. Lary really had the Yankee hitters number and in 1958 was 7-0 against them.
Another reason to hate the Yankees was that the Cleveland Indians did their spring training in Tucson, and they quickly became my American League team.
The Game of the Week announcers were Buddy Blackner and the colorful ex-Cardinal pitcher Dizzy Dean. Later Pee Wee would team up with ‘ol Diz when Blackner retired which made the weekly telecast even better for me.
Sometimes in the banter between Diz and Pee Wee, I could hear PA announcer Bob Sheppard, the Yankee PA announcer since 1951, say “now batting number 7, Mickey Mantle, centerfield,”—sheer poetry.
I hated the Yankees but I loved Yankee Stadium. The idea that I would see the Yankees play baseball there was my childhood dream. A dream that in the mid ’80s, well after the early 1970’s renovation of the stadium, would come true. I remember walking through the tunnel to my seat and getting my first look at the field—it literally took my breath away.
My seat was down the right field line. I surveyed the entire right field from infield dirt to right field fence as if to expect the Babe to appear. Then out to centerfield, where DiMaggio patrolled from the late ’30s to the early ’50s, and then onto the infield where Gehrig had that unbelievable games played streak.
After all, this was the place where the most famous speech in baseball history was made, Gehrig’s farewell, and years later a cancer-ravaged Babe Ruth gave his farewell speech.
It was where Don Larson in 1956 pitched the only perfect game in World Series history, unfortunately, against my beloved Dodgers, and then had to endure Yogi Berra leaping into his arms and bear hugging him, creating for some photographer the most famous baseball picture of all time.
This was the place, and I was in awe. There was and still is no better place to be.
But Yankee Stadium is not just about baseball games. Its history covers the spectrum of sports and even religion. On December 28, 1958, the stadium hosted a professional football game that has been called the greatest football game ever played: the game that made the NFL, the championship overtime game between the Baltimore Colts and their quarterback, Johnny Unites, and the New York Giants. A game won in overtime, by the way, by another Reading, Pennsylvania guy, Alan Ameche of the Colts.
Jack Dempsey fought at Yankee Stadium, so did Gene Tunney, Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Graziano and Muhammad Ali, and in 1938, with Adolf Hitler imploring his fighter in arguably the most famous heavy weight bout of all time, Joe Louis defeated German Max Schmeling with a first round knockout. It was one of eight fights that Louis had in Yankee Stadium.
For nearly two decades, from the early ’30s into the ’40s, the annual Notre Dame/Army football game was played at Yankee Stadium when both were national football powers. And in 1928 with the score tied 0-0, Knute Rockne gave his famous, “win one for the Gipper” speech in the locker room at Yankee Stadium. Oh my, it’s as if anything worth happening happened at Yankee Stadium.
And not just the sports world celebrated Yankee Stadium. Three popes celebrated Mass at Yankee Stadium.
It now appears that with the Yankees 10 games out of first place in their division that the last game at Yankee Stadium will be Sept. 21 against the Baltimore Orioles.
I just can’t believe that saving this great sports monument would be more difficult than sending a man to the moon. I’m hoping that one of my family members will read this and for an early Christmas present get me an airline ticket to New York sometime between now and Sept. 21 so that I can hit my bank account and buy a ticket one final time. Even if it is the Yankees, not the Dodgers, it’s still Yankee Stadium.

Ladies Night Out: An Evening of Education and Camaraderie

Attention ladies! You work, you clean, you cure colds and let pets out the door. You cook, you chauffeur, you do laundry and then you clean some more.
You deserve a night out (even if you don’t do all these things!)
Why not surround yourself with friends and pamper yourself with knowledge at Fallbrook Hospital’s Healthy Woman program?
The Healthy Woman program is a free community resource designed to empower women with the knowledge and confidence to make informed healthcare and well-being decisions for themselves and their loved ones.
Since May of 2007, Fallbrook Hospital has featured monthly Healthy Woman events focusing on women’s issues and healthcare choices.
According to Marketing Director Monique Murphy-Mijares, the program has been very successful and membership continues to grow.
“The sessions are very well-attended,” Murphy-Mijares said. “We currently have 785 members with an average attendance of about 90 people at each event.”
Like many other popular events, Healthy Woman started simply because nothing like it previously existed in the area.
“There wasn’t really a way to address emotional healthcare and life management skills,” Murphy-Mijares said. “We saw it as a well-needed program for the community, and we’ve certainly proven that by the attendance and the interest from the ladies.”
Ranging from medical concerns to medical decisions, topics for the program are chosen by a community women’s advisory council and by the hospital’s business partners.
“Our business partners play an integral role,” Murphy-Mijares explains. “This event is free of charge because of their support and participation.”
Businesses such as Graybill Medical Group and Rancho Family Medical Group sponsor food and supply professional speakers for many of the events. In return, the events are often held at the various partner sites to help with publicity and to expose people to their facilities and services.
Whether it’s learning to deal with an overactive bladder or ways to beat the heat—these evenings of education are very beneficial. They include food, fun, door prizes and social networking opportunities.
“The evening starts around 5:30 p.m. with food and the programs begin at 6 p.m.,” Murphy-Mijares said. “The night consists of two speakers each giving a half-hour presentation. If I find there is a lot of interest in any particular topic, I will allow for more question and answer time.”
To attend Healthy Woman, you must first sign up for a free membership through Fallbrook Hospital. Once you are a member you will receive e-mails and mailings with details on upcoming Healthy Woman events.
Since seating is limited, you are asked to RSVP for the events you and your friends wish to attend.
For more information on Healthy Woman, or to register and/or RSVP for an event, visit www.fallbrookhospital.com, or call 760-731-8432.

Aunt Kizzy'z Boys Reach For The Golden Ring After Years On The Road

What could be sweeter than achieving musical success in middle age? The odyssey of Aunt Kizzy’z Boyz shows that there are second acts—and, although it’s probably too early to say for sure, this Fallbrook-based band looks to be on the verge of breaking into the big time.
Sugaray, the lead singer, is, at 42, the youngest of this group of dedicated bluesmen. The oldest ones are 56.
Sugaray (his full name is Caron “Sugaray” Rayford) is a big, very tall man with a shaved skull. He used to be a bouncer and owned a security company when he was younger—and looks it.
On the same day that I interviewed Sugaray, the group had just signed its first contract with a major record company, RBC Records. Through them you will be able to buy their second record, It’s Tight Like That, anywhere, except Wal-Mart.
Their first album, Trunk Full of Blues, they produced and distributed themselves.
Band members include Jimmy King, lead guitar; Sugaray, lead signer; Bastos Moehno, percussion; Dwane Hathorn, drums; Joseph Schivone, bass and Michael Mack, keyboard.
Sugaray is a self-described Texas Blues Man, which is the title of one of the songs in It’s Tight Like That.
He wrote that song because he is from Tyler, Texas—born and raised— and his brothers got on his case because he didn’t do enough songs about Texas even though that’s his roots.
“I wrote it so we wouldn’t forget where I’m from,” he recalls.
Another original song is Annie Mae’s Cafe that he wrote for his wife, whom he met in a nightclub where he was a bouncer. They’ve been married four years. The cafe, by the way, is in Tunica, Mississippi—and you can see it on the band’s Web site, half submerged from a day when the levees failed—or so it looks.
The group is on the road 300 days out of the year. You read that right. And when I say “on the road,” I mean that literally. They still haven’t bought a bus for the band. The band members still pile into their personal cars and drive to places like Memphis, Tennessee, Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas and San Francisco.
Jimmy brings his family. Usually Sugaray Mo and Dwane pile into Sugaray’s car and Joe and Jimmy drive separate. Sometimes Joe and Mack will fly in. Joe is the only guy in the band who still has a day job. He works for Chrysler in Temecula.
Sometimes they fly. But usually they pull a trailer with all of the band’s gear in it behind a truck.
But they are going places.
In 2006 they finished second place in the three-day International Blues Challenge held in Memphis all up and down Beale Street, considered by many to be the birthplace of the blues—where they competed against bands from all over the world and were crowned the top unsigned blues band.
In July they won Round #1 of LAMN Jam’s Urban Music Contest in Los Angeles, where they beat R&B and Hip Hop bands on their home turf—and much more important, wowed several music experts, including one of the judges of the contest, RBC Records’s Brian Shafton, who offered them a contract on the spot.
Sugaray savors that moment. “When we showed up for the contest we didn’t know it was hip hop and R&B. All of these kids were 21, doing hip hop, funk and R&B, and we said to ourselves ‘What are we doing here?’”
But “we blew the kids out of the water playing blues!”
They advanced to the finale of the Urban Music Contest on August 25.
Last November they traveled to France, where Sugaray had been several times previously. He had talked the boys up about going there. He got everything locked in and even rented a house in the French countryside.
“We got there and low-and-behold the entire transit system had gone on strike. We are in the middle of the largest strike in their modern history. We can’t get back and forth and the euro is killing the dollar.”
Some taxi rides cost them $370 to go 40 kilometers.
“But we had a great time! It was wet and cold but we met some of the most beautiful people. French blues people are some of the most hospitable people I have ever met!” he says.
They plan to go back and right now are working on a one month trip to Australia next year during their summer—our winter.
“It’s getting tiring living on the road,” admits Sugaray. “It’s been five years straight. We never figured we would get a record deal because we are older guys. We figured the way to do it was the old-fashioned way to play your heart out and your soul out. And we have been very blessed because we have been willing to do that.”
The fruits of that dedication are starting to ripen.
Jimmy and Dwane started the band ten years ago. Jimmy is originally from California but his father is from Oklahoma. He grew up in the blues.
Sugaray grew up in gospel and the blues. He became interested in music while attending church as a child.
They play traditional blues, although some is “blues of the day,” as Sugaray describes it.
“We are blues men but we are blues men who live in 2008. We believe in preserving the past but we reflect the day,” he says.
Ninety percent of what they play they have written, although that depends on the venues.
Where I first saw the band was at Harrah’s Rincon Casino, where they play to appreciative audiences about once a month.
“We’re the only blues band that plays most of the major casinos from San Diego to San Francisco on a regular basis,” says Sugaray with satisfaction. “I think that’s pretty big.”
They are trying to get an invitation to play in Las Vegas, and they plan to intensify their efforts once they sign their record deal.
When they play at casinos they play half their own songs and half recognizable songs.
But when they play at festivals 90% of what they play they wrote themselves.
“When we play the festivals they get more of ‘us’ because they are there to see ‘us,’” he says.
Sugaray has written most of the songs. “But sometimes Jimmy will come up with a great lick and I will take it from there and run with it,” he says.
It’s a very collaborative process, especially in their second album. Sugaray writes the songs and lyrics with Jimmy, who sometimes will have some music in his head or something he heard years ago—then that will get added.
Sugaray recently moved to Los Angeles, although he still calls Fallbrook home because that’s where his six acre avocado ranch is. Joe continues to live in Fallbrook.
But you probably won’t find avocados on the menu when Sugaray gets to eat the kind of cuisine he prefers.
“I love catfish, collard greens and ribs,” he says with some satisfaction. “And chitlings every once in a while.”
A true blues man whose love of the music is much stronger than his love of money, every Monday Sugaray runs a pro blues jam at Cozy’s - Blues Club and Restaurant in Los Angeles—the premier blues club in L.A.
“I get lots of great people in there. Had Bobby Brown two weeks ago.” It’s free to anyone who cares to come and listen.
The jammin’ starts at 9 p.m., and when it ends is anybody’s guess.

An Artful Second Half

Escondido artists Gary Harper and his wife, Edith Garcia Velazquez, both reinvented themselves in middle age from other professions to become full-time commercial artists in the second half of their lives.
Harper is a self-taught artist whose first half of life was as a corporate executive, mainly as a director of marketing and sales. He had been painting since he was a teen, but only became a commercial artist after he decided to change careers.
“I went back to look at what made me successful in my business career and it came back to my love of art,” he recalls. In 1997 at the age of 43 he “reinvented” himself.
“I determined to go ahead and pursue art. I did some paintings and the response was good. I said ‘I’m going to do this!’ ”
Velazquez studied art at the University of Puerto Rico where she earned a BA in fine arts. She worked as an art teacher for many years in Puerto Rico and New York City before moving to California in 1997, where she became a full-time artist.
They met at an art show in 1999 and immediately felt a kinship.
He recalls what he thought: “I said to myself when I met her, ‘I’m going to marry her,’ although I didn’t say it to her at the time.”
Eventually they quit what they were doing before to practice art full-time.
They developed a marketing plan and pursued the galleries that did their type of work.
They were accepted and began to sell their works.
When they say, “our type of art,” they mean abstract expressionist, art that is non-figurative, is an expression of the artist’s feelings, emotions—a spontaneous process. Based mostly on textures and colors. It could be abstracted landscapes. It could be taking a memory of a scene and translating it to color. It’s a subjective interpretation of reality.
They were married in 1999 and moved to Borrego Springs, which has a thriving artists community. Their life there was all about art and very little else.
They started a company together called Azul Fine Art.
She picked that name because that color (azul) evokes scenes that are spiritual, like heaven, and reminds her of a book, Azul, by Chilean poet Ruben Dario.
One of their biggest customers is Valley View Casino. Once the refuge of kitsch and pop culture, today’s casinos are sometimes also the patrons of the fine arts to some of its most creative modern practitioners—having the same relationship as the Medicis or the Borgias had to artists like Leonardo or Michelangelo.
The couple painted some striking abstract impressionist pieces that you will see in some of the new facilities of Valley View Casino, such as BLD’s.
Seventy of their paintings hang in various parts of the casino, in executive offices and restaurants.
Some are sculptural, like the mandalas made of metals and resins and built up in multi-dimensions that Harper is known for. His paintings are all textural, taking the term “painting” to a new level.
One of Velazquez’s pieces was commissioned for the wine room of the super-glitzy Black & Blue steak house.
Harper and Velazquez spend half of their time in California and half in her native Puerto Rico where she also has a studio.
When 9/11 hit, the art market went into a tail spin. “We said we’d better go to where the market is larger and so we moved to San Diego and then Escondido,” he recalls.
Their works began to appear in the Michael Collins Gallery in Escondido. They pursued other art galleries, and were eventually accepted in some of the best in the region, including the Denise Roberge in Palm Desert, the Tracy Renee Gallery in Escondido, the Obernier in La Jolla and the Elizabeth Edwards in Palm Desert and Laguna.
Although they have done some pieces together, they each have highly individual styles. But eventually those styles would collide—literally!
By accident one of her paintings leaned against his and the media commingled. They liked the result and decided to collaborate on one with the background by him and foreground by her. Several of these are in Valley View Casino.
Whatever they do next, I expect that it will reflect their own inner energy and light. 760-741-3999.

Charros De Escondido

If you enjoy horsemanship and rodeo, you will enjoy the culture, tradition, sport, and art of the Charros de Escondido.
“La Charreada,” or Mexican-style rodeo, is different from other rodeos. Mexican cowboys are known as “charros.” Mexican cowgirls are known as “charras.” Both participate in La Charreada.
The first authentic charro came from the small landholders, and rancheros (ranchers). They were the originators of the charreada and would soon be teaching their skills to others in North, Central and South America.
This sport and culture of Charreria has endured for over 500 years, irrespective of borders and has provided a way to establish relations between countries.
Participation in charreada involves the entire family and friends from all backgrounds, whether as equestrians, trainers, musicians, audience, or costume designers.
The Charreria consists of nine events, eight for men and one for women:
1. Cala de Caballo (Test of the horse), consists of a controlled slide, left and right half, full and triple turns, a dismount and mount, and reverse walk. These maneuvers demonstrate the charro’s horsemanship and the horse’s training.
2. Piales en Lienzo (Roping of the feet). The horseman has three opportunities to throw a lariat letting a wild horse run through the loop—catching it by the hind legs.
3. Coleadero, or Colas en el Lienzo (Arena bull tailing) a lot like bull dogging except the rider never (hopefully!) leaves the horse. Points are given for technique, time, fall of the bull and roll as the horseman rides on the left side of the bull and wraps its tail around his right leg.
4. Jineto de Toro (Bull Riding) similar to rodeo event bull riding. The bulls are smaller, 990-1320 pounds. Two hands are used. The bull is ridden until it stops bucking. The charro must dismount and land upright. After the ride he must also remove the bullrope and bellrope so that the next event, the Terna en el Ruedo, can take place.
5. Terna en el Ruedo (Team of Three) team roping event. Three charros try to rope a bull, one by neck, one by its hind leg, and the last ties the feet together, all within six minutes.
6. Jineto de Yegua (Bareback on a wild mare). A Yegua, or wild mare is ridden with a bullrope, two hands are used and the legs must be held horizontally to the ground.
7. Manganas a Pie (Roping done on foot) the charro has to rope the hind legs and fore legs of a mare to bring it down. This is done either on foot or horseback.
8. Maganas a Caballo (Roping from horseback). Three opportunities are given for a charro to rope a wild mare by its front legs. The mare is pursued around the ring by three mounted charros. Points are awarded for time and rope tricks. Eight minutes are given.
9. El Paso de la Muerte (The pass of death). The most dangerous of the nine events. A charro riding bareback, with reins, tries to leap from his horse to the bareback of a wild horse without reins and must ride it until the horse stops bucking. What makes it dangerous is if he fails to make the leap and falls to the ground he will be trampled by the three mounted charros pursuing the wild mare around the arena.
Some charros, to add a little spice, will perform this feat of skill while riding backwards.
The Women’s Event
The women’s event is called Escaramuzca or skirmish in English. It adds a touch of elegance and beauty to the Charreada. It is comprised of a team of 8-12 women riding sidesaddle and dressed in colorful Adelita dresses who perform various precision riding techniques. It takes years of training. Rider and horse are held to a strict standard of rules that makes this event art, sport, and an extension of the culture that is Charreria.
La Charreada is a colorful event, with magnificent horsemen and horsewomen, and highly trained horses. The spirit and cultural traditions of Charreria is an experience you won’t soon forget.
The Charros de Escondido arena is located just west of the Escondido Dog Park off of East Valley Parkway.
Events are held on Sundays twice a month, weather permitting. Be assured that all precautions are made to ensure the safety of spectators, participants and animals.

Bonsall's Aloha: As Sweet As It Gets!

Twenty seven-year-old and mother of two, Leilani Piasecki, doesn’t keep a single tub of ice cream in her house. But before you start feeling bad for her husband and children, you should know Piasecki owns Leilani’s Ice Creamery & Fudge shop in Bonsall.
Yeah – her family gets goodies whenever they want.
With ice cream, candy, coffee, fudge, shaved ice, waffle cones, sodas, milkshakes, sundaes and more, Leilani’s Ice Creamery & Fudge fits the mold of an old-fashioned mom and pop ice cream parlor.
But more than simply looking the part, this quaint little shop emanates traditional goodness from its Hawaiian décor to the photos of friends and family on the wall.
“There’s just something about the charm of a mom and pop shop,” Piasecki said. “There are no franchise rules, so there is more freedom and flexibility.”
One example of flexibility was when the company’s credit card machine was down.
“People kept coming in with credit cards, so for two weeks we issued IOU’s,” Piasecki said. “And every single one was paid. That’s something you can only do with a small shop in a small town.”
Piasecki notes that 90% of her visitors are repeat customers.
“The first year they were strangers,” Piasecki remarked. “Now they’re friends we see everywhere. That’s part of the reason we like it here. We always joke that we could serve ice and still love it.”
It was the warm, friendly, family-oriented feel of the community that helped determine the shop’s Hawaiian theme.
“The aloha vibe in Hawaii is very similar to Bonsall and Fallbrook,” Piasecki said.
Originally from Orange County, Piasecki moved with her family to Bonsall after high school. She and her husband, Jeremy, bought the ice cream parlor in 2001.
“I was pregnant with my first child,” Piasecki said. “Now both my kids are growing up in the shop and learning how we run a business. My five-year-old daughter knows how to work the cash register and give correct change.”
Leilani’s Ice Creamery & Fudge shop is a boutique parlor that carries gourmet ice cream, novelty candy and creamy and nutty homemade fudge—the kind you can only find in a specialty shop.
With so many delicious flavors of ice cream, customers have a tough decision. I opted for samples of the Peppermint, the Peach Cobbler, the Pralines & Cream, the Lemon Meringue Pie and the Mango-Tangerine sorbet….all of which made me want more.
The Pralines & Cream was my favorite. It’s rich with the perfect blend of nutty texture. It is very sweet though, so you may prefer the sugar-free version. (Piasecki always carries a sugar-free ice cream for diabetics, and sorbet options for lactose intolerant customers).
For you peppermint fans, Leilani’s is one of few places that carry Peppermint ice cream all year long. It’s dreamy. So is the Mango-Tangerine sorbet that’s so light and fruity it leaves a cool blast of flavor on your taste buds.
Then there is the Lemon Meringue Pie that tastes exactly like pie, and while the Peach Cobbler could be a little peachier, it still tastes like the real thing.
Piasecki said the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter is her number one seller, but she was out that day. Don’t worry. It will be back.
“I carry what I need, sell it, then order some more,” Piasecki claims. “The key is to keep it simple. I order once a week which helps ensure the freshness of the product.”
Piasecki adds that everything in her shop rotates based on customer demand.
“That’s what’s so cool about being a mom and pop,” she exclaimed. “I can do special orders for my customers. I like to cater their requests, and they know if I ordered or made something just for them.”
In return, Piasecki is rewarded with big smiles, happy faces and loyal customers.
“That’s one of the perks of running a small business,” Piasecki said. “It’s personal. I know them and they know me. We’ve watched each others’ families grow. How can that not be awesome?”
Leilani’s Ice Creamery and Fudge is located at 5256 S. Mission Road in Bonsall’s River Village Center. It’s open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., with the exception of Sundays when it opens at noon, and stays open until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. For more information, call 760-941-1422.

La Cereza Winery and Gallery

Once upon a time there was a happy couple, Buddy & Cheri Linn, who lived in a lovely home overlooking the vineyards in the breathtaking Temecula Valley.
They so enjoyed sitting on their veranda, sipping wine, and taking in the splendor of it all.
Then one day they looked out and saw a “For Sale” sign at one of the wineries.
They went to bed so sad that night and both of them dreamed of sitting on their veranda and looking at… condominiums! This could not happen! They looked at each other, nodded, and bought the winery!
That was a little over three years ago. Today La Cereza Vineyard & Winery is a successful Spanish-style winery, founded in 1994 as Van Roekel Winery, and operated today by those two dreamers, Buddy & Cheri Linn.
Winemaker Gus Vizgirda and Assistant Winemaker Jim Swelgin help the Linns produce award-winning premium boutique wines, where every bottle is an extraordinary creation in itself.
The labels are original works of art, the bottles hand-numbered, and stories of adventure and intrigue are displayed on the back labels.
Winemaker Gus, a real down-to-earth kind of guy, was more than willing to educate me not only about what is going on at La Cereza, but also about Temecula Valley.
This area, not Napa or Sonoma, is believed by many to be the home of the first California winemakers, the missionaries.
Buddy and Cheri are keeping true to this history by creating a winery with a Mediterranean flair, unique in design and architecture.
“Good wines start in the vineyard,” said Gus. “Two years ago we started a five year vineyard management plan. The first year we made a complete vineyard inventory along with a soil and nutrient analysis. This year we are working on re-trellising certain sections of the vineyard. We have set down plans for replanting some less productive sections of the vineyard with newer clones that are better suited for Temecula Valley.”
For 40 plus years, plants in Temecula have been planted east-west. Gus is replanting his vineyards north-south, to take maximum advantage of the soft sun in the morning and the very hot sun in the afternoon.
For 40 plus years, winemakers have used what is called the California Sprawl system (two wires) of trellising. Gus is switching to the vertical shoot position (six wires).
For 40 plus years vineyards were planted 450 plants per acre. Gus will plant 750 plants per acre.
Why?
Experience and new technology prove that taking these steps will produce more grapes with better quality; and will require less labor and be more cost-effective. Can’t beat that!
Gus wants to “find and capture the distinct Temecula quality and flavor” in the wines he produces for La Cereza.
Just as people recognize Philly for cheese steaks and New York for cheese cake, Gus wants people to pick up a glass of wine and say, “This is a Temecula wine.” He wants to retain regionalization, something the larger wine producing areas are losing.
While Gus is exploring the progressive shifts in winemaking, Buddy and Cheri have found new ways to explore the art and love of wine by creating a most enjoyable and memorable experience in Temecula Valley. When you visit La Cereza you feel joyful as soon as you enter the tasting room. No stuffy wine drinkers here!
For example, La Cereza Winery released “Girlfriends,” the first wine produced in Southern California that is designed specifically to appeal to female palates.
“With women making 80 percent of the wine-buying decisions, why not make a special wine just for them,” said Cheri Linn, who helped create the unique wine, a blend of white wines combined with citrus, melon and papaya. .
Going one-step further and as part of the winery’s belief in the romantic appeal that the finer pleasures in life should be shared, La Cereza introduced a one-of-a-kind, world-class cigar. The premium cigar is named the “Girlfriends” Corona Light.
Cigar aficionados can enjoy this smooth and creamy cigar and others at La Cereza’s Hemingway’s Wine & Cigar Bar.
The charming tasting room entrance leads into a rich and cultural room overlooking lush picnic grounds and beautiful vineyards. The winery offers an extensive list of varietals and blends (14 to be exact). The Tempranillo, Garnacha, and Gewurtraminer are consistent winners in every competition. The Viognier and Pinto Grigio have won Best of Class awards. The bubbles and flavors of Peach Girls Champagne and Raspberry Champagne, two bubblies created just for La Cereza, will certainly tickle your fancies.
The richly designed tasting room, the Tank Room’s twinkle lights, and the Fountain Plaza, combined with the lovely backdrop of an authentic-looking monastery, cascading fountains, a gazebo with an elaborate dome, and gently sloping vineyards, are some of the most mesmerizing spots in Temecula Valley. La Cereza Winery is an ideal location for special events and especially for weddings.
Their affinity for art and music inspired the Linns to host the Temecula Wine Country Summer Concert Series. The outdoor concerts, produced by Golden Crown Productions, will feature new wave rockers, The Motels, on Saturday, Sept. 13, and the legendary Kris Kristofferson will close out the series Saturday, Oct. 25.
Tickets for these evenings under the stars are available for the concert at goldencrownproductions.com.
The tasting room is open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tastings are $10 for six tastes and a logo glass.
The winery is located at 34567 Rancho California Rd., Temecula. Call them 951-6761711, or visit their Web site at www.lacerezawinery.com.
And we come to the end of the day. The happy couple is sitting on their veranda, overlooking their winery, sipping their wine. They look at each other, smile, and say, “Now we can live happily ever after.” I’ll drink to that.

Local Golfer Joins 1,000 Volunteers at the 2008 U.S. Open

Even as Tiger Woods battled through the pain in his left knee to force a playoff against Rocco Mediate and eventually gut out an unforgettable win in the 2008 PGA Tour U.S. Open, the debate began: was this golf tournament the best ever?
For local Circle R resident Bob Franck, the answer is a resounding yes.
Franck was one of more than 1,800 volunteers working at Torrey Pines Golf Course when the pros came to play from June 9-15. He was one of more than 50 workers on hole number eight.
“I play in a senior [golf] league down in San Diego County, and one of the guys from the Balboa team mentioned that he was a hole captain for the U.S. Open,” Franck says. “He said he needed fifty guys to volunteer, so I said ‘yeah!’ We submitted our names last summer and got our hole assignment in November.”
Franck and his golfing buddies had to undergo a background check during the nearly year-long selection process, but when the tournament was over, Franck says it was worth the wait.
“They treat the volunteers really nice,” he says. “There’s a hospitality tent with fruit, doughnuts, coffee, sodas, and whatever you could want. They also give you coupons for lunch, and they gave us all kinds of souvenirs like shirts, jackets, hats, pins and a bunch of other stuff.”
But more than just the swag, Franck says that getting to interact with the players was something he’ll always remember.
“The players are really friendly, especially during the practice rounds,” he says. “They’d come up and chit-chat with you by the green, and they really went out of their way to express their gratitude for the volunteers. They said it really makes the tournament a lot of fun to play in.”
The fan-friendly atmosphere also led to a few humorous incidents, including one involving a European golfer.
“A friend of mine’s daughter was there collecting signatures on a flag, and [this European golfer] comes up the fairway and sees her, and he goes over and signs her flag,” Franck recalls. “So he’s talking with her when her dad comes up and wants to know why [that man] is hitting on a seventeen-year-old girl. [The European] says that all the players from [Great Britain] are friendly with the fans like that, but the girl’s dad looked right at him and said ‘Yeah, well you’re in America now.’”
The action on the course was just as tough for the golfers, Franck says, but the players seemed to have a healthy respect for the course itself.
“We saw a lot of bad shots; a few people got hit by a ball, and a lot of shots ended up out of bounds,” he says. “I guess even the pros have off days. But the course gave them all they could handle, but all the players were saying how it played fair.”
Franck also noticed how much time the players put in to make their game the best it can be.
“I was surprised by how small some of these guys are and still see how far they can hit the ball,” he says. “But they practice so much; I was talking with a guy at the practice green who watched a golfer practice three-foot putts for about forty minutes. I can’t imagine how much work they put in on everything else when they work on little three-foot putts for forty minutes.”
Throughout the weekend, Franck watched the epic tournament unfold, and when the opportunity came to witness the thrilling conclusion, he jumped at the chance.
“I volunteered for a playoff in case it came down to that, so when they called me to work the playoff on Monday, I said I’d be there,” he says. “It was a smaller group for the playoff, so we each worked four different holes, and I was right down by the green on each one.”
Franck started on hole No. 3, then went to No. 7, No. 11 and No. 15 before returning to No. 7 when the players forced a one-hole playoff. And as the golfers and volunteers moved through the course, so did the spectators.
“The fans were going crazy,” Franck says. “There would be people waiting at each hole, but as the golfers moved to the next hole, the fans would leave their seats and follow the action. By the end of it, there was a huge crowd following these two players.”
Even though Tiger Woods is the unquestionable face of the sport, Franck noticed that the fans seemed to be split evenly in their cheering.
“There were just as many cheers for Rocco as there were for Tiger,” he says. “All the older guys were cheering for Rocco, and it was great for him. He’s a very nice guy and he was so gracious, you could tell that he was just happy to have the opportunity to play against the best.”
Overall, Franck says that the tournament was well-organized and that it was an experience he’ll never forget.

The Boulevard Magazine
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Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688