STUDENT OF HISTORY Birgit Werner recently wrote in with an amazing historical tidbit:
I happened to be reading the book “Milestones: A History of Mountain View, California” by Mary Jo Ignoffo and came across this passage which seems particularly apropos. It’s a quote from the diary of Alfred Doten from about 1860 (the gentleman was a farm foreman on land currently occupied by Moffett Field).
“The squirrels are the grand pest of this valley. They are almost as bad as the locusts of Egypt, or the grasshoppers of Utah, in their devastation on the vegetable and grain crop.”
He also calls the squirrels “more plentiful than the rats in San Francisco.”
It’s nice to see that some things, at least, haven’t changed in 150 years!
Too true, Birgit — when will San Francisco take care of its rat problem?
MEANWHILE, former health writer and soon-to-be globetrotter Diana Reynolds Roome wrote in to tell of an outstanding local physician getting his due at CSMA:
“R. Hewlett Lee, MD, was celebrated for his lifelong work as a world-class surgeon and compassionate physician at a gala event organized by the Peninsula Stroke Association, which Lee helped found in 1999. The PSA recognized Lee’s multiple talents, his humor, and his human touch, as well as his achievement in pioneering lumpectomy, a surgical technique that helps preserve the breast for women with breast cancer.”
The celebration, Diana said, took place Oct. 21 and featured several musical acts, including pianist Iris Doolittle, who “played a number of piano solos written or adapted for the left hand, which she uses exclusively and expressively since a stroke paralyzed her right arm at age 28.”
Find out more about the Peninsula Stroke Association by visiting www.psastroke.org or calling (650) 565-8485.
Don Frances can be reached at dfrances@mv-voice.com.
