LE T TER FROM THE EDITOR
Helloooooo springtime! Glad you’re here. It’s always fun to do a springtime issue of the magazine (especially when you’re writing about it in February and it’s pouring buckets outside). Stories about gardening and home-front judging and bowling greens tend to shake those cobwebs loose. We’re welcoming a new writer to this issue: Ann Jarmusch, the former architectural critic of The San Diego Union-Tribune, will be a regular contributor to Coronado Lifestyle. Ann’s an old friend. She loves our community and relishes the opportunity to meet some of our local architects and explore “Coronado style.” In this issue, she introduces us to several Craftsman-style homes built a century ago by F.C. Winchester. Several Winchester homes will be on this year’s home tour presented by the Coronado Historical Association. Ann’s story begins on page 22. I drove up to San Francisco a few months ago, taking Highway 101 and it’s changed dramatically from the years I traveled the road in the early ’70s. From Santa Barbara to San Jose the rolling hillsides are covered with vineyards. Our wine columnist, Samantha Metzger (who also is an English teacher at Coronado High School) takes us on a statewide tour of the wine country…Napa Valley has some competition these days! Samantha’s story begins on page 58. The Soroptimists have a way of choosing three women each year in our community who are heroes, and who we either haven’t gotten to know personally or who have been there for us for generations and we’ve tended to take for granted. Get to know this year’s Legends a bit better, Doug St. Denis’s story begins on page 36. Now, I know your gardens will be yielding some of their most bountiful blooms this year. Do consider sharing them at thee April Flower Show. (See page 11.) Just pick up a garden show “Schedule” — that’s what the official brochure of Standard Garden Shows is called — at the library or your local florist to show you all the possible categories. Or, heck, just cut off a stem and head down to the show on n Saturday morning. The friendly folks will point you and your posy in the right direction. Happy gardening!
Kris Grant 6 Coronado Lifestyle • Spring 2010
Up the
Amazon! By Patty Jepson
Last November my husband Bill and I embarked with a small group of Coronadans — Charlotte and Wes Harris, Sara and Lionel Rowe, Sherry and Ed Martin, Carolyn and Glenn Ayres — on an Oceania Cruise, one of my favorite cruise companies. Organized by Coronado travel agent Pat Flynn, the cruise began and ended in Miami and included travels throughout the Caribbean. But for ten days we cruised the Amazon River, the longest river in the world.
52 Coronado Lifestyle • Spring 2010
Oceania’s ships are thankfully and luxuriously smaller than the mega-cruise ships that carry up to 3,000 passengers. Our ship maxed out at 600 passengers, almost all of them adults. Oceania’s ships don’t have the water slides and rock climbing walls that cater to young kids. But for us older kids, there were plenty of fun events — costume parties and a big celebration for those “pollywogs” crossing the equator for the first time, complete with King Neptune and his trident commanding the seas and issuing certificates to the novitiates.
Photo: Werner Zotz, courtesy Embratur’s Image Bank
Cruising the Amazon River
Spring 2010 • Coronado Lifestyle 53
Up the
Amazon! By Patty Jepson
Last November my husband Bill and I embarked with a small group of Coronadans — Charlotte and Wes Harris, Sara and Lionel Rowe, Sherry and Ed Martin, Carolyn and Glenn Ayres — on an Oceania Cruise, one of my favorite cruise companies. Organized by Coronado travel agent Pat Flynn, the cruise began and ended in Miami and included travels throughout the Caribbean. But for ten days we cruised the Amazon River, the longest river in the world.
52 Coronado Lifestyle • Spring 2010
Oceania’s ships are thankfully and luxuriously smaller than the mega-cruise ships that carry up to 3,000 passengers. Our ship maxed out at 600 passengers, almost all of them adults. Oceania’s ships don’t have the water slides and rock climbing walls that cater to young kids. But for us older kids, there were plenty of fun events — costume parties and a big celebration for those “pollywogs” crossing the equator for the first time, complete with King Neptune and his trident commanding the seas and issuing certificates to the novitiates.
Photo: Werner Zotz, courtesy Embratur’s Image Bank
Cruising the Amazon River
Spring 2010 • Coronado Lifestyle 53
The ship featured four restaurants, the Terrace buffet and a large formal dining room offering breakfast, lunch and dinner; Toscana, offering fine Italian fare and the Polo Grill, offering steaks and chops. Casual dress was the norm, although there was one “dressy” night, which translates to a nice shirt and no blue jeans. Makes packing pretty easy! We enjoyed classes in computers, advanced computer, bridge and bridge lessons, a wonderful Canyon Ranch spa, a workout gym with lessons in Pilates and yoga, a full service beauty salon, onboard shopping and a Las Vegas-style casino. Going up the Amazon has always seemed so dark and mysterious to me… something one reads about in adventure fiction novels. I never dreamed that it would be accessible by a large cruise ship! But aboard the Regatta, we cruised
the Amazon for 10 days. The entrance to this famous river resembles more of a lake than a river, as there is no land in sight. I kept saying impatiently, “When are we going to get to it?” and discovered we had been cruising on the river for most of the day. With the Southern Hemisphere’s seasons reversed from ours, we were there in the height of the summer, although I don’t believe the temperatures change all that much year-round. After one day of cruising, we arrived in Santarem, the customary stop for cruise ships entering the river. It’s a fairly large city with a sprinkling of farms on the outskirts. The harbor bustles with dockworkers, many are doing container type commerce. In the city of Santarem, there seems to be a standard dress for the young set:
Photo: Werner Zotz, courtesy Embratur’s Image Bank
Traveling the Amazon
54 Coronado Lifestyle • Spring 2010
girls wear tight jeans and high heels. There must be a special talent to be able to walk just a few steps in some of these styles, much less the blocks of shopping on the main avenues. Men are dressed in styles we see in Coronado — baggy shorts, Nike tennis shoes and brandname tops. We could have been in downtown Los Angeles. Further down the river as we stopped into a small port, several of us signed on for a “zipline” tour where we toured the rainforest from a height of 90 feet — right above and in some places “in” the tree canopy — an ideal vantage point to survey monkeys, parrots and all the flora of the area. Attached to a harness, I soared over the rainforest’s treetops from one platform to the next. The foliage was so dense below that I’m sure I saw places where human beings have never stepped. Traveling deeper into Brazil is easiest done by small boats and we left the Regatta for a small riverboat. The river we traveled on was the Tapajo, a major
tributary to the Amazon. We learned about Brazil, the Amazon and its people from our onboard tour guide, a professor of English and South American history, who brought a special understanding and appreciation to everything we saw. He introduced us to the “Riberinhos,” or river people here who are a mixture of Tapajos Indian, Portuguese and Spanish. We began to notice extreme changes as we left port cities behind. Little rural dwellings are built on stilts, necessary to make way for the mighty river, which swells to enormous heights during the rainy season. The rickety wood
top: The Meeting of the Waters is a phenomenon where the waters of two rivers run side by side without mixing for a length of over 6 km “Mama” and her husband were pleased to welcome us to their humble home.
above: Santarém with its white sandy beaches lapped by crystal clear waters of the Tapajos Photos: Werner Zotz, courtesy Embratur’s Image Bank
Spring 2010 • Coronado Lifestyle 55
The ship featured four restaurants, the Terrace buffet and a large formal dining room offering breakfast, lunch and dinner; Toscana, offering fine Italian fare and the Polo Grill, offering steaks and chops. Casual dress was the norm, although there was one “dressy” night, which translates to a nice shirt and no blue jeans. Makes packing pretty easy! We enjoyed classes in computers, advanced computer, bridge and bridge lessons, a wonderful Canyon Ranch spa, a workout gym with lessons in Pilates and yoga, a full service beauty salon, onboard shopping and a Las Vegas-style casino. Going up the Amazon has always seemed so dark and mysterious to me… something one reads about in adventure fiction novels. I never dreamed that it would be accessible by a large cruise ship! But aboard the Regatta, we cruised
the Amazon for 10 days. The entrance to this famous river resembles more of a lake than a river, as there is no land in sight. I kept saying impatiently, “When are we going to get to it?” and discovered we had been cruising on the river for most of the day. With the Southern Hemisphere’s seasons reversed from ours, we were there in the height of the summer, although I don’t believe the temperatures change all that much year-round. After one day of cruising, we arrived in Santarem, the customary stop for cruise ships entering the river. It’s a fairly large city with a sprinkling of farms on the outskirts. The harbor bustles with dockworkers, many are doing container type commerce. In the city of Santarem, there seems to be a standard dress for the young set:
Photo: Werner Zotz, courtesy Embratur’s Image Bank
Traveling the Amazon
54 Coronado Lifestyle • Spring 2010
girls wear tight jeans and high heels. There must be a special talent to be able to walk just a few steps in some of these styles, much less the blocks of shopping on the main avenues. Men are dressed in styles we see in Coronado — baggy shorts, Nike tennis shoes and brandname tops. We could have been in downtown Los Angeles. Further down the river as we stopped into a small port, several of us signed on for a “zipline” tour where we toured the rainforest from a height of 90 feet — right above and in some places “in” the tree canopy — an ideal vantage point to survey monkeys, parrots and all the flora of the area. Attached to a harness, I soared over the rainforest’s treetops from one platform to the next. The foliage was so dense below that I’m sure I saw places where human beings have never stepped. Traveling deeper into Brazil is easiest done by small boats and we left the Regatta for a small riverboat. The river we traveled on was the Tapajo, a major
tributary to the Amazon. We learned about Brazil, the Amazon and its people from our onboard tour guide, a professor of English and South American history, who brought a special understanding and appreciation to everything we saw. He introduced us to the “Riberinhos,” or river people here who are a mixture of Tapajos Indian, Portuguese and Spanish. We began to notice extreme changes as we left port cities behind. Little rural dwellings are built on stilts, necessary to make way for the mighty river, which swells to enormous heights during the rainy season. The rickety wood
top: The Meeting of the Waters is a phenomenon where the waters of two rivers run side by side without mixing for a length of over 6 km “Mama” and her husband were pleased to welcome us to their humble home.
above: Santarém with its white sandy beaches lapped by crystal clear waters of the Tapajos Photos: Werner Zotz, courtesy Embratur’s Image Bank
Spring 2010 • Coronado Lifestyle 55
Be it ever so humble...Mama’s family of 12 sleep inside this little house on hammocks suspended from the walls. The family homestead is perched above the Tapajo River; the rainforest looms largely in the background
shacks are usually no bigger than our two-car garages. Cows, goats and chickens roam freely, not to mention some of the largest black pigs I have ever seen: I say, “Throw a saddle on them and you’ll have your ground transportation!” Here, though, there really isn’t much in the way of ground transportation, except for a few horses. As we mosey down the river, fishing off the side of our boat — for piranha! — I notice a small boy washing his horse in the river. (What could his parents be thinking?) Our guide assures us that piranha only attack humans if there is an open wound. (But still!) A canoe is usually tied up next to the river dwellings and we come to learn that river travel is the main highway of this area; even children go to school by canoe. It was low tide as we tied up just below one of the river homes. Our director, who spoke fluent Portuguese, inquired of one 56 Coronado Lifestyle • Spring 2010
of the families if the American travelers could visit their home to better understand life in Brazil. With big smiles and waves, they invited us to come ashore. Only a handful of us, myself included once again, were willing to walk the gangplank up the embankment. It turned out that we were visiting on a very important holiday in Brazil — “Fiesta of the Immaculate Conception” is a bigger celebration than our Fourth of July. People were picnicking all along the river. So up the bank we went, greeted by an entire family of broad smiling faces. Inside the shack there is no electricity and no furniture. There is a front door, back door and one window, all without screens. “Mama” explains that the family of 12 all sleeps in hammocks and she shows us the hooks on the walls where the hammocks are suspended. The one small cupboard contains some storebought food, mostly rice and seasonings.
In the corner are very large bags of whole beans. A wood-fired stove is outside, where river water is boiled. Mama raises vegetables in a garden, elevated high so that the chickens won’t eat the veggies. An enclosed pen holds a half-dozen cows, all mooing loudly. There’s a basin of some beautiful fish and a horse tied to a stake. And there are millions of flies everywhere. Nearby I see the young boy who I had seen earlier washing his horse in the river. He has a big smile on his face and is swelling with pride. The home’s interior and exterior are all very neat and clean — even the shack’s dirt floor seems clean. Upon leaving, I notice the clothesline: shorts, bathing suits and lots of thong underwear. (Oh, those Brazilians!) The diet of the Riberinhos consists mainly of fish, manioc (a tapioca), flour, eggs, fresh fish, vegetables and fruit. One of the national dishes is called Feijoada, a stew made of chunks of beef, salted or
Cooking is done outdoors on a wood-fired stove.
smoked pork ribs, two varieties of sausage, bacon, beans, garlic and onions. Asking what sports they like, the kids respond: volleyball. Through our guide, I ask, “Well how about soccer,” and the translation comes back to me: “That’s a religion!” All to quickly, our daytrip has ended and it’s back to the “big boat.” I found the Riberinhos a very happy and healthy people, living in an extremely beautiful country. I look forward to visiting this part of the world again. Mama’s cows are confined within a nearby fenced pen; the constant mooing
Spring 2010 • Coronado Lifestyle 57
Be it ever so humble...Mama’s family of 12 sleep inside this little house on hammocks suspended from the walls. The family homestead is perched above the Tapajo River; the rainforest looms largely in the background
shacks are usually no bigger than our two-car garages. Cows, goats and chickens roam freely, not to mention some of the largest black pigs I have ever seen: I say, “Throw a saddle on them and you’ll have your ground transportation!” Here, though, there really isn’t much in the way of ground transportation, except for a few horses. As we mosey down the river, fishing off the side of our boat — for piranha! — I notice a small boy washing his horse in the river. (What could his parents be thinking?) Our guide assures us that piranha only attack humans if there is an open wound. (But still!) A canoe is usually tied up next to the river dwellings and we come to learn that river travel is the main highway of this area; even children go to school by canoe. It was low tide as we tied up just below one of the river homes. Our director, who spoke fluent Portuguese, inquired of one 56 Coronado Lifestyle • Spring 2010
of the families if the American travelers could visit their home to better understand life in Brazil. With big smiles and waves, they invited us to come ashore. Only a handful of us, myself included once again, were willing to walk the gangplank up the embankment. It turned out that we were visiting on a very important holiday in Brazil — “Fiesta of the Immaculate Conception” is a bigger celebration than our Fourth of July. People were picnicking all along the river. So up the bank we went, greeted by an entire family of broad smiling faces. Inside the shack there is no electricity and no furniture. There is a front door, back door and one window, all without screens. “Mama” explains that the family of 12 all sleeps in hammocks and she shows us the hooks on the walls where the hammocks are suspended. The one small cupboard contains some storebought food, mostly rice and seasonings.
In the corner are very large bags of whole beans. A wood-fired stove is outside, where river water is boiled. Mama raises vegetables in a garden, elevated high so that the chickens won’t eat the veggies. An enclosed pen holds a half-dozen cows, all mooing loudly. There’s a basin of some beautiful fish and a horse tied to a stake. And there are millions of flies everywhere. Nearby I see the young boy who I had seen earlier washing his horse in the river. He has a big smile on his face and is swelling with pride. The home’s interior and exterior are all very neat and clean — even the shack’s dirt floor seems clean. Upon leaving, I notice the clothesline: shorts, bathing suits and lots of thong underwear. (Oh, those Brazilians!) The diet of the Riberinhos consists mainly of fish, manioc (a tapioca), flour, eggs, fresh fish, vegetables and fruit. One of the national dishes is called Feijoada, a stew made of chunks of beef, salted or
Cooking is done outdoors on a wood-fired stove.
smoked pork ribs, two varieties of sausage, bacon, beans, garlic and onions. Asking what sports they like, the kids respond: volleyball. Through our guide, I ask, “Well how about soccer,” and the translation comes back to me: “That’s a religion!” All to quickly, our daytrip has ended and it’s back to the “big boat.” I found the Riberinhos a very happy and healthy people, living in an extremely beautiful country. I look forward to visiting this part of the world again. Mama’s cows are confined within a nearby fenced pen; the constant mooing
Spring 2010 • Coronado Lifestyle 57