Category: Family

Some of my most popular blog entries from a year or two ago involved my choice of a new car: a Subaru Legacy GT with the license plate DARWIN. Even though my Amazon relocation package would have paid for the shipping, I decided not to bring it with me to Seattle, which was a smart move. And now I’ve finally signed it over to Chris and Celeste, who drove it from Massachusetts to California, covering “4233.3 miles in 13 days”. It’s a trip that I would have liked to do myself, but life’s a bit too busy right now. I hope they enjoy DARWIN (or whatever their new California plates are).

A couple of days ago, I made an unexpected discovery. 45 years ago, my father won a Grammy.
I hardly knew my father. He walked out when I was 5 years old and returned to the USA, where he made a career as a recording engineer in New York. He visited us briefly during the 1960s, and in the early 1970s he moved to Miami with his partner, Tom. After we moved to the USA, we saw them a couple of times in Massachusetts and Florida. Eventually Tom succumbed to AIDS, in the most painful way, and my father lost interest in life and died in January 1995.
My friend Kate happened to mention my father on Friday, and later that day I decided, on a whim, to Google for him. There were lots of hits, so I narrowed my search: “Robert Arnold recording engineer”. Up came this Wikipedia entry:

The Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical has been awarded since 1959. The award had several minor name changes… From 1961 to 1962 it was awarded as Best Engineering Contribution – Popular Recording
[…]

• Grammy Awards of 1962
  Robert Arnold (engineer) for Judy at Carnegie Hall performed by Judy Garland

Wow. Not just any recording, but a legendary event:

April 23, 1961 – a legendary night not only for Judy Garland, but for the entertainment industry in general. This night, attended by the normal folks and the glitteratti of show business, has gone down in history as one of the greatest nights in show business. Judy was in perfect shape both vocally and performance-wise. The creme-de-la-creme of show business were there, and all were “reaching out to touch Judy Garland” as Rex Reed would state years later. All who were there would talk about it as if it were a revival of some sort.
Capitol wisely decided to record this concert. The two-record set would spend 95 weeks on the charts, 13 of those weeks at #1. The record would garner FIVE Grammy Awards: Best Solo Vocal Performance, Female; Album Of The year (the first time an album by a female artist or a concert recording won this award); Best Album cover; Best Engineering Contribution, Popular Recording; A Special Artists And Repertoire Award given to the set’s production Andy Wiswell).

He never mentioned it – not to me, or to my mother or brother. I certainly never saw any kind of plaque or trophy when I made an (admittedly half-hearted) attempt to sort out his things after he died. Who would have thought it?
I wonder what other surprises Google has for me? But first, I think I need to buy myself a copy.

I just got off the phone (Skype, actually) with my mother in Botley, on the west side of Oxford. She’s OK (her house is on a bit of a hill), but she’s cut off from Oxford centre (as you can see in these pictures at the BBC), and there’s major flooding all over Oxford, Abingdon, Kidlington. As Alec reports, Worcestershire is a mess too. And the rain keeps coming.

Herewith a handful of pics taken when I was back in Massachusetts last weekend. They show Tommy at Children’s Hospital, visiting the Franklin Park Zoo, and playing in the local park (when the sun finally came out on Sunday).

In all my travels to the San Francisco area I’ve never had occasion to ride the BART rail system until now. I’m heading with Chris and Celeste into San Francisco to watch this afternoon’s Giants baseball game. Earlier we visited the WW2 aircraft carrier USS Hornet, which is a floating museum moored at Alameda; then we had lunch at the New Zealander – excellent food and drink (and rugby on TV). Lots of photos to upload when I get the opportunity…
UPDATE: Top of the 5th, the Phillies leading the Giants 4-3. This is a very nice new ballpark, though it wouldn’t be too much fun if I was sitting on the other side of the ground with the sun in my eyes.
FINAL: Well, the Phillies’ pitchers kept throwing strikes, and the Giants folded up, and the final was 8-5 to Philadelphia. So now I’m on the BART heading back to Berkeley, and then I’ll pick up my car and drive back out to Livermore. (Yeah, false economy.) And then tomorrow I’ll check out early and drive to Palo Alto (along what is reputed to be one of the worst commuting highways in the area). Ah, well.

I’m presently seated in The Fishes, a delightful pub/restaurant not far from my mother’s house in Oxford. The establishment offers three of the essentials of the good life: beer (I’m drinking a pint of Bateman’s), food (a pork steak is being prepared for me), and free wi-fi. What more could one want?
I visited my mother at the JR yesterday and today. (Her sister, Ru, was here today – it was lovely to see her again.) Lorna is doing pretty well, and is likely to to be transferred to an “IRB” (intermediate recovery bed – oh, the jargon you’ll learn) in a day or two.
The second leg of my flight was entirely uneventful, and we got in to Heathrow without having to hold. I think that’s a first for me. I encountered a new approach at the car rental (Alamo): after they’d processed my reservation, they told me to go out to the car park and choose any car in my group (“K”) that I fancied. I looked at a couple of sporty cars, then remembered that I might be ferrying elderly people and chose a Citroen G (I think) – very upright, good headroom. It was a very good selling point; if they do this in the US as well, I may well switch from my usual provider (Avis).
The food has now arrived. More later…..
UPDATE: Very tasty. Dessert too. And the coffee came with a little bowl of Smarties. (That’s “M&Ms” for those of you in the colonies…..) Now I must pay for it. Of course my Visa card isn’t equipped for chip’n’pin…….

I’m flying over to England today to visit my mother and help with various things. I’ll be there until Monday – and then I’ll fly back here, arrive in the middle of the night, repack my bags, and jump on an early flight to Reno, as I mentioned earlier.
It’s the first time in many years that I’ve had to book a last-minute flight for personal travel. Orbitz and all of the airlines’ own sites were quoting fares well over $1,000, including fees and taxes. The best American Airlines rate I could find was $1,753; the cheapest United offering was over $3,000!!!.
However Hotwire.com quoted me $752.00 (including everything) from an “unnamed major carrier”, which turned out to be American Airlines! So here I go: SEA-ORD-LHR. And then I’ll have to find a WiFi hotspot before I can blog any further….

This 8 hour time difference to the UK is a bit frustrating sometimes. I just called my mother’s ward at the JR to see how she’s doing; it’s 11:45pm here in Seattle, 7:45am over in Oxford. Of course the nursing staff is in the middle of morning hand-over, so it’s hard to get their attention, and if I wait until they’re sorted out it’ll be getting on for 1am here! [Sigh] Anyway, I was able to exchange messages with Lorna via the nurse, and things seem to be going OK. She should be moved to rehab (what used to be called a “convalescent home”*) on Monday.
—
* From the Latin for “growing strong”.

I learned today that my mother, Lorna Arnold had a fall while walking home from the shops, and broke her hip. She’s at the John Radcliffe in Oxford, where she had surgery yesterday evening. Obviously at the age of 91 this is a fairly serious matter.

I’m planning to phone the hospital around 11pm my time (7am in England) and I’ll update this entry with any news.
UPDATE: I just spoke to the nurse, who said that Lorna’s doing fine… blood pressure a little low, but otherwise excellent; she was awake most of the night, talking to the staff. I’m not going to try to talk to her now – the bedside phones in English hospitals are an expensive, hit-or-miss affair, and I doubt I could Skype-out – but I’ll check in with my brother soon.

It’s been a long, but delightful day. After breakfast (at which I met my former colleague, Hal Jespersen, who’s just launching a new startup), I headed over to Berkeley to meet up with Chris and Celeste. We drove up to Mount Diablo, from which we hoped to get a great view of the San Francisco bay. It was misty, but we felt sure it would burn off.
I’d only been to Mt. Diablo once before, about 10 years ago. My daughter Kate was at Mills College in Oakland, and I was visiting her during one of my business trips. On that occasion we drove part way up the mountain, but because time was short we turned off and drove out through Walnut Creek. This time Chris took us to a car park about 850 feet below the summit, and we climbed the Jasmine Trail up to the Lower Summit area. It wasn’t all that far, but the path was steep with loose, friable stuff underfoot, so we got a good work-out. Unfortunately when we reached the top of the trail we found that the mist hadn’t really burned off. Although it was brilliant sunshine atop the mountain, all we could see were ghostly hills looming out of the white. After a break to rehydrate we walked back down the road to the car. (My shoes weren’t well suited to hiking, and I was worried about turning an ankle.)
By now it was after 2, so we drove down to Walnut Creek and grabbed some lunch in the first likely restaurant. From here Chris took us back along Route 24, but before we reached the Caldecott Tunnel he swung up to the north, intending to drive through the Tilden Regional Park. After traversing a maze of twisty lanes, all different, we emerged on the main road through the park, right next to the Redwood Valley Railway. Last summer Chris volunteered at the railway, and wrote an entertaining blog about his experiences. We were about to drive by, but I insisted that we check out this narrow-gauge railway. So we did. One of the enginess was in steam, pulling a passenger train for visitors, and eventually we were able to enjoy the 12 minute ride through the redwoods. (There were lots of visitors, especially children, and each train was full.) After that we walked across to the engine shop, where one of the locomotives was undergoing maintenance, and talked to some of the volunteer staff. After a look around the roundhouse, we took our leave. (I’m going to be back, though.)
From Tilden Park we descended through the redwoods and eucalyptus towards the UCB campus. We parked on Euclid, and Chris took the opportunity to get a (startling!) haircut, while I browsed in the bookshop next door. Then it was time to head over to Oakland; we’d arranged to meet Steve and Wendy for tapas in Piedmont. And so we did, and it was good. Eventually we returned to Berkeley, and I said goodnight and took the long drive back down 880 and across the Dumbarton Bridge to Menlo Park.
I took a bunch of pictures which you can find here. By the time you read this, they will hopefully have finished uploading; however I won’t get around to adding captions for a few days. Enjoy, anyway – especially if you like narrow-gauge steam trains.