Main Street
Friends now call Los Gatan a centerfold
By Mary Ann Cook
WREATH WORK: Joanne Johnson's friends are calling her a centerfold because she, her front door and her dog are featured in a two-page spread in the December issue of Sunset. The article is called Easy and Elegant Wreaths and was photographed last June.
The wreath maker was actually Sunset staffer Bud Stuckey of Felton, whose title is test garden coordinator. Stuckey also breeds cocker spaniels, which is how he and Johnson connected. She bought her dog, Journey, from him in January. (He called the dog Spanky, which is why it's listed that way in the magazine.)
When Stuckey stopped by to see how Journey was doing in her new home, he was struck by the beauty of Johnson's front door, which has several panels of leaded glass, and asked if Sunset could use it for the wreath shoot that he knew was in the offing.
Johnson, in turn, could use the photo for her Christmas card. The shoot ended up taking two days because a garland was added later--Johnson's suggestion, since that's how she adorns it. Since the Sunset wreath was made entirely of fresh carnations it is obviously no longer on the Glenridge door.
Now Johnson is trying to decide whether or not to try to recreate it. Its shelf life is so brief it would mean making more than one. Johnson is also amazed at the vastness of the Sunset audience. She's heard from scads of people. Sunset is said to have a readership second only to The Reader's Digest.
PROTESTERS: Bellarmine teachers Kathy Eder and Chris Wolf, both of Los Gatos, joined six Bellarmine students to protest the School of Americas and call for its closing. The protest was staged in Fort Benning, Ga., where the school is located, over a November weekend.
The school, designed for warfare training, was established in Panama during the '40s. It was moved to Fort Benning when the United States no longer controlled the Panama Canal. Now, with the threat of communism dissolved, protesters want the school ended.
Those responsible for the murder of the Jesuit missionaries in El Salvador some years ago were trained at SoA. The annual protest has been staged for the past 10 years and calls for a weekend of prayer, protest and solidarity for those in Mexico, Central and South America.
The local group visited the Martin Luther King Center for Peace and Non-Violence before rallying in Fort Benning. Each year the number of protesters grows: Some 10,000 people joined the protest last year.
ENTER THE GUARDSMAN: With music written by Los Gatan Craig Bohmler, Enter the Guardsman plays at the San Jose Rep. through Jan. 7. The musical is based on a romantic farce by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar, set in decadent, turn-of-the-[19th] century Vienna, and examines erotic and romantic love.
Witty, ironic and very realistic, its director, Lillian Garrett Groag, calls it. Bohmler is the composer, musical director and conductor for this production. The play won an international competition in Denmark in 1997, and will be on Ashland's bill of fare in 2001, the first musical ever to be presented by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
LICENSE PLATES: Rotarians will soon have their own special license plate, once a new bill goes into effect, thanks to the efforts of Los Gatan Maggie Wilhelm. Wilhelm is a member of the Silicon Valley Rotary District 5170, and she collected 7,500 signatures in support of the bill that made the plates possible.
Proceeds from the special plates will go to fund outreach services sponsored by Rotary in the fields of education and humanitarian endeavors. To order one: Rlicenseplates@aol.com. It took a year, but Wilhelm's tenacity won out.
CULINARY OLYMPICS: Just when you thought you knew about all the Olympics categories comes another. This one is the Culinary Olympics, held every four years in Germany, and Terry Borge, raised in neighboring Campbell, won the gold.
She created an 18-inch-high chocolate sculpture captioned Eve Facing the Garden of Temptation. Borge heads the pastry/baking division of the Golden State Culinary School in Roseville. Her mother is Jeanette Watson, the mayor of Campbell.
Watson was shopping at the Travel Store in Los Gatos, which is where we caught up with her news. She made that a requisite stop before flying off to Germany to witness her daughter's triumph. The U. S. team captured three team gold medals, competing against 35 other countries.
HIGH UP: He was the easiest person to spot in the recent Children's Holiday Parade in Los Gatos. He's Ron Ringsrud, an emerald importer from Saratoga, who was making his stilt debut. Ringsrud makes frequent buying trips to Bogota, Columbia.
Since he'd always had a hankering for stilt walking, he signed up for lessons at a circus school in Bogota. By the time the Children's Parade rolled around he was ready to try out his elongated, 1-meter legs.
"I had a great time," he says, despite the fact that one woman, thinking he was a post, leaned against him and nearly knocked him over. He is available for formal occasions, too, at 408.741.9077.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
