Short Takes Short Takes (February 11, 2004)

No such thing as strangers

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. Like Menlo Park.

Recently, a reporter mentioned to City Attorney Bill McClure that she'd just been chatting with Menlo Park developer David Bohannon. Mr. McClure remarked that he'd known Mr. Bohannon since boy scouting days.

A few days later, Peter Carpenter, a member of the Menlo Park Fire District board, was speaking before the City Council on a proposed fire-sprinkler law.

When Councilman Chuck Kinney addressed him, Mr. Carpenter responded, "Yes, sir?"

"Call me Chuck," Mr. Kinney said with a grin, explaining, "We're classmates from way back."
Where everybody knows big game

Portola Valley town historian Nancy Lund and her husband Tor spotted a mountain lion Saturday afternoon, February 7, in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Mr. Lund got a good look at the beast through his binoculars, Ms. Lund said.

There have been several other big cat sightings in the last couple of weeks, Ms. Lund said, including one near Ladera, which borders Jasper Ridge. Several residents who belong to an e-mail chat group follow up on lion sightings by analyzing tracks and studying deer carcasses for evidence, Ms. Lund said.
Or perhaps they're just oblivious in Menlo

Menlo Park resident Peter Bradshaw applauds his honest, sensible neighbors for neither stealing nor fomenting a bomb scare when he accidentally left his bag at the Caltrain station recently. When he returned for it nearly an hour later, the bag was sitting right where he left it.

"The bag actually contained 200 pages of a manuscript, written in Russian English, which I'm trying to edit," Mr. Bradshaw said. "I almost wish it had been stolen."

Short Takes is edited by Andrea Gemmet. Send items to agemmet@almanacnews.com.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.