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Saratoga Sampler
The smell of lions in the Saratoga hills
By Mary Ann Cook
SILICON VALLEY CHARITY BALL: Irresistibly. . . Italy, this year's Silicon Valley Charity Ball, kicks off on April 21, at the San Jose McEnery Center. Headliner is famed comedian Bill Cosby. And guests who bid on auction items will have a chance to view other celebs at other times, as well.
For example, Tiger Woods. One of the items to be auctioned off is an all-expense-paid trip for four to the 2001 World Golf Championship in St. Louis, during the week of Sept. 10, and Tiger promises to be there competing.
The Silicon Valley Ball is expected to raise $1.5 million, which moneys will be given--in varying amounts--to 61 local nonprofit agencies. Many Saratogans play a major role in the event, including Board of Trustees Treasurer Nick Streit and Vice President Karen Krueger. Other Saratogans serving as trustees are Mike Fox Jr. and J.P. Puette.
BIRDS IN THE HAND: Recent speaker at the Foothill Club's public lecture series was artist Maryjo Koch, who lives in the Santa Cruz mountains near the Pacific, and is an expert on birds' nests. She is the author of Bird Egg Feather Nest.
People send her nests from all over the world. One came complete with the mop it had been made in. One page in the book is devoted to bird houses and one shows an architect's blueprint for a nest. Perhaps the most fantastic of the world's nest builders is the tailorbird, a native of southern Asia.
The female tailorbird uses spider's silk, grasses or cotton to baste and knot leaves together to form a pendulous cradle that sways in the wind. When schoolchildren were given the task of constructing a nest they found they couldn't do it, even with the help of mud, straw, moss and horsehair.
Must be a genetic skill. Koch is also the author/illustrator of three other naturalist books: Pond Lake River Sea; Dragonfly Beetle Butterfly Bee; and Seed Leaf Flower Fruit. She illustrates illuminated letters and note cards, as well, all with her trademark birds' nests.
Koch works in gouache, following pencil sketches, and is adamantly scientific about her nests being life-sized.
GOOD SCOUT: Beauty/spa shop owner Lilia Peake, a recent new resident of Saratoga, has three boys, but her community fundraising activities are focused on the Girl Scouts this year. "They help the underprivileged so much," she says. Peake owns Topiary Salon and Day Spa on White Oaks, just off Bascom in Campbell.
That business will throw its efforts into a fundraising auction for the Girl Scouts at the San Jose Fairmont in September. It's the first time the Girl Scouts have devoted themselves to something besides cookies for a fundraiser, Peake says.
RESPECT NEEDED: Retired Superintendent of Los Gatos Union School district Wesley Walton wrote Karen Degisher, the principal of Santana High School in Santee, after the tragic shooting rampage at that Southern California school. Walton's message was one urging compassion and understanding toward the perpetrators.
Students need to question themselves about how they may have contributed to the ostracism of those disturbed students, who feel they are excluded, "to recognize the needs for respect toward these 'special' students, and to exhibit at least a modicum of friendship on occasion.
"Classroom teachers need to become intolerant of (derogatory) behavior toward these students and hold them accountable for their negative words and actions," Walton's letter said.
LEAVING TOWN: Rich Lang and his wife, Patricia, are moving to Penn Valley, near Grass Valley. Patricia is a special ed teacher at Redwood Middle School in Saratoga, and intends to teach or tutor in their new neighborhood of Wildwood, a gated community.
Rich will continue to run LG Tire and Automotive by hiring a manager and commuting two or three times a week from that other valley. For seven years he has been chairman of the Los Gatos Art and Wine Festival and LG Kiwanians are loath to see him leave the post.
DEER NUISANCE: The presence of deer in the Saratoga hills is so all pervasive and such an on-going pain in the neck for homeowners that some have taken unusual measures, though with little success. The latest attempt to discourage them: spraying lion urine on fences. Now, that product can't be easy to come by.
ACADEMIC HONORS: Meng-Lin Wang of Saratoga was named to the Dean's List for the fall semester at Johns Hopkins University. Wang is majoring in computer science, will graduate in May 2004, and is the daughter of Ching-Mei Ti.
Also winning academic honors was Chris Rogan, a student at the Loomis Chaffee college prep school in Windsor, Conn. He is the son of the David Rogans.
INTERNATIONAL TEA: The History Club's annual fundraiser, their International Tea, will be held on April 25, at 1 p.m. at the clubhouse.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
