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Leslie Dinaberg’s Articles

Fall Artfully Back to School

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Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

Back to School Get Creative!

There’s nothing quite like the creative inspiration found in the inviting smell of a fresh package of crayons or the satisfying sound you get from cracking the spine of a brand new notebook.

Whether you’re going back to school or simply back to work after Labor Day, why not lift your spirits—and expand your vocabulary—with something new, like fair trade messenger bags by Handmade Expressions, available from Folio (4437 Hollister Ave., 805/964-6800). The rules of geometry take on a whole new meaning with this Areaware Strida bike from Imagine (11 W. Canon Perdido St., 805/899-3700) which magically folds down to just the right size to stow, while the lessons of ingenuity are literally right at your fingertips with this bright diary and notebook from Upstairs at Pierre Lafond (516 San Ysidro Rd., Montecito, 805/565-1502).

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

See below for information about the rest of our finds from Folio, Imagine, Upstairs at Pierre Lafond, UCSB (University Center, 805/893-8321), Westmont College (955 La Paz Rd., Montecito, 805/565-6064) and SBCC (721 Cliff Dr., 805/730-4047).

Clockwise from top: hand woven jute and cotton Handmade Expressions messenger bags from Folio; recycled packaging material diary and notebook from Upstairs at Pierre Lafond; foldable Areaware Strida bike from Imagine; Forgotten Shanghai “Desk in a Bag” from Folio; and Cavallini & Co. Can o Clips clothespins and Chipiola curlicue paper clips from Folio.

Bike folds up and fits in knapsack.

PHOTOS: JULIA MEHLER, AREAWARE STRIDA BIKE COURTESY OF IMAGINE/AREAWARE

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

Santa Barbara Seasons, Local Lowdown, Fall 2010

A is for All-Ages Education

BACK-TO-SCHOOL TIME isn’t just for kids. Santa Barbara offers a plethora of educational opportunities for learners of all ages. Do you have a passion for plants? UCCE and Botanic Garden offers a master gardener training program this fall (mgsantab@ucdavis.edu). Participants learn about sustainable landscapes, identifying and managing pests, soil and plant nutrition, plant management practices and diagnosing plant problems, then apply their knowledge to assist schools, parks, retirement communities and Botanic Garden with various garden projects.

Why not indulge your artistic impulses and support the environment with a Saturday morning workshop at Art From Scrap (302 E. Cota St., 805/884-0459, www.artfromscrap.org). Almost every Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, local artists like Dug Uyesaka, Holly Mackay and Bill McVicar lead workshops for children and adults to explore their creativity, all at the bargain price of $6, supplies included.

Want to learn more about art? Santa Barbara Museum of Art (1130 State St., 805/963-4364, www.sbmuseart.org) offers docent-led tours of special exhibitions Tuesday through Sunday at noon and an overview of the collection at 1 p.m. (free to members or with paid admission).

Want to learn to dance the tango, shape up with fitness classes, explore your musical side or teach your dog to stay off the couch? Santa Barbara Parks and Recreation (www.sbparksandrecreation.com/) offers low-cost classes in all of these things and more.

Don’t see anything that tickles your fancy here? Check out Santa Barbara City College Adult Education (http://omni.sbcc.edu/adulted/) and UCSB Extension (www.extension.ucsb.edu/), both of which offer hundreds of classes for lifelong learners.

—Leslie Dinaberg

Top–bottom: Covent Garden Newgate alarm clock and Acme Pens Studio Crayon Retractable Ballpoint Pens designed by Adrian Olabuenaga, all from Imagine; Illustrator’s Sketchbook and “The Game” youth hat from UCSB Bookstore; embroidered hat from Westmont College Bookstore; zippered hoodie from SBCC Bookstore; floral laptop case by Pylones will hold up to a 17” laptop, from Imagine; and Toms Shoes in brown plaid—for every pair of shoes purchased, this company gives new pair of shoes to a child in need—from Westmont College Bookstore.

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Editor’s Letter Fall 2010 (Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine)

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Santa Barbara Seasons Editor's Letter Fall 2010. Photo by Tracy Smith Reed.

Santa Barbara Seasons Editor’s Letter Fall 2010. Photo by Tracy Smith Reed.

 Winter is an etching, Spring is a watercolor, Summer an oil painting and Autumn a mosaic of them all. –Stanley Horowitz

FORGET JANUARY 1. As any parent will tell you, fall is when the New Year really begins. The kids go back to school and their structured autumn schedules, while mom and dad toast their newfound freedom with at least as much as gusto as the days of Auld Lang Syne.

Fall is also a great time for celebrating the beauty of seasonal changes. Our (slightly) cooler weather offers a perfect opportunity for taking long walks and appreciating the remarkable bounty of art and architecture available just about everywhere you look in Santa Barbara.

Even though I’m lucky enough to have been a resident for most of my life, while working on this issue, I was pleased to discover new and interesting details about our town while taking both the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara walking tours through the traditional local landmarks and a Walking Wednesdays with Santa Barbara Walks trek through the impressive variety of architectural styles, not to mention landscaping inspiration, found on the upper eastside (“Get Up Close and Personal with Architecture,” pg. 24).

I also had the pleasure of spending some time in the whimsical world of Ablitt House, and I can’t imagine a better cover subject for our seventh annual art and architecture issue. We provide an intimate peek into this bright symphony of colors, tiles, curves and angles conducted by homegrown architect Jeff Shelton, a true visionary who has refreshed and reinvented the look and feel of Santa Barbara’s architecture while continuing to pay homage to our Mediterranean roots (“Art + Architecture + Ablitt,” pg. 60).

Yet another fascinating and fanciful brick in the architecture of our city can be found in the exuberant mosaic bursts of colors in Dan Chyrnko’s creative art installations. I had the dual pleasure of joining Dan at his creekside studio, where he shared some of the inspirations and stories behind his mosaics, and then sharing some of our conversation with you (“Mosaic Master,” pg. 104).

We also take you inside the homes of contemporary art collectors Jacquelyn Klein-Brown, Geoffrey and Laura Wyatt, and Tim Walsh and Mike Healy to share some of the fascinating artistic treasures—and their hunters and gathers—hiding behind closed doors in the 805 area code (“Contemporary Art Lives Here,” pg. 50). We were impressed and inspired by their collections, and we think you will be too.

Our cultural journey then meanders in a completely different—but still quintessentially local—direction to the historic backcountry’s iconic Cold Spring Tavern, where the acoustic pairing of Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan under the oak trees is a favorite part of the weekend ritual for foodies, bikers and, most of all, local music aficionados (“Roadhouse Blues,” pg. 56).

All of us at Santa Barbara Seasons get a huge kick out of capturing and sharing the unique, quirky, fun, classic and otherwise notable aspects of Santa Barbara life for your enjoyment, and it has a been particular delight for me to fill in as editor for this issue while editor Rebekah Altman has been extremely busy with an amazing production of her own—a precious baby girl. My advice to her (and to all of us, really) is to savor every moment of this season, because in what feels like the blink of an eye, she’ll be right there with the rest of us, toasting fall’s return back to school.

Cheers to a wonderful autumn!

Leslie Dinaberg

EDITOR PRO TEMPORE

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine, Fall 2010. Cover photo by Jim Bartsch.

The Write Stuff

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Rebecca McClanahan "Word Painting"A Conversation With Rebecca McClanahan

When we’re not gobbling up the written word with a gusto that bewilders non-readers as much as whatever it is they do for pleasure baffles us, one of the things we writers like to do most is talk to other writers.

This week I had the pleasure of chatting with Rebecca McClanahan, the 2010 winner of Santa Barbara City College’s Raab Award in Creative Nonfiction, who will give a reading from her work from 7-8 p.m. on Friday, October 8, in the Fe Bland Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Leslie Dinaberg: You’ve published in many different genres. How do you decide that this idea will be an essay rather than a poem or fiction or creative nonfiction?

Rebecca McClanahan: I don’t think particularly about that, though I’m sure you could find little vestigial tails of experience in poems that I have written. … I think I’ve always written about home and loss of home and homesickness. … There are certain things, themes and characters and places that I revisit whether in fiction, poetry or nonfiction. … Certain things that continue to float up, that you revisit in some ways, you gnawed on it, you buried it and then it came up in another shape another form. … At some point you do begin to notice patterns.

LD: You often write about your personal experiences and your own life. When things are happening are you writing about them or do you wait a while?

RM: I think I maybe do a little of both. I have a writer’s notebook and sometimes I’ll jot down things as they are happening to me, events or specific details that I want to retain. But I think especially as an essayist, and that’s sort of the main hat I’ll be wearing in Santa Barbara because of the Raab Award, I really think that nonfiction and the essay is a reflective stance, that’s the genre. With a good essay, I think you really want the sense that you are discovering the meaning, the why of the experience, you’re not just writing down what happened.

… The best essays require reflective distance, especially if you’re a character in them. You’ve got to be the person on the other end of the experience trying to understand it because being in the middle of it, it’s a muddle. … I think there’s a place certainly for blogs and for instant writing and all of that but I don’t want to lose the power of reflection and time. You know that old saying; “we serve no wine before its time.” I tell my young graduate students “we serve no memoir before its time.” Wait a little bit.

LD: I read an interview where you were talking about how much more difficult it is to write sincerely about happy feelings as opposed to darker material. Can you talk a little bit about that?

RM: I hosted a panel called “Joy: The Last Taboo” a couple of years ago. It really is very difficult to not be Hallmarky about it … It’s very, very hard in our culture. I think especially because we really want to go to that sordid troubled dark memoir. I’m just so tired of them I can’t tell you.

LD: My husband and I have a running joke that our childhoods were too happy for us to really be successful writers because we didn’t have enough drama-no alcoholic parents or poverty or any of that great material.

RM: (Laughs) There are so many sad things out there. But here’s a quote by the poet John Ciardi: “You don’t have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.”

I definitely have written about a lot of dark things, personal and otherwise, but that’s not a whole life and that doesn’t make it interesting just because your father raped you or something. Even that has to be shaped into a text that is beautiful and meaningful to others. … What I look for in writers is someone who has really, really worked hard and allowed the truth to come through them in a way that’s going to change my life. That’s why I read. I can read the newspaper for the other stuff.

LD: As a writer, how do you know when you’re done?

RM: With briefer pieces, poems and brief lyric essays, I think I have a very firm sense when they’re done. The longer book length essays, it’s much harder to know because it’s such a complicated weaving. … I try to explain to my students, it’s like all the plates are spinning, and you’ve spun one and you’ve spun another and before the first one drops you have to run back to spin it again and finally when all of the plates of the world of the poem or the essay or the novel are in the air spinning as beautifully and blissfully as they can, they’re all alive at the same time, then you know it’s done and you get out right then-before you fall on your head.

Rebecca McClanahan will be reading from her work at 7 p.m. on Friday, October 8, in the Fe Bland Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public. For information about her writing visit www.mcclanmuse.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.

Random Acts of Awesomeness

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Courtesy Operation Beautiful

Courtesy Operation Beautiful

For all of the hype about women and their low self esteem, it didn’t really hit home until the other night when I was out with a few of my beautiful and brilliant girlfriends laughing and chatting and having a great time until-dare I say it-one of them challenged the rest of us to say two things that we were good at.

You’d think she had ordered us to rob a bank or step on a crack and break our mother’s back for all of the nervous shudders that greeted the prospect of simply giving ourselves a compliment.

“I think I’m a pretty good cook,” said T, who could easily rival Rachael Ray in the kitchen. “I guess I’m sort of creative,” said M, who has such a beautifully decorated house that it could put Martha Stewart to shame.

You think?

You guess?

You’ve got to be kidding me!

I couldn’t help but contrast these women’s struggles to say something nice about themselves with the way my 11-year-old son’s top three adjectives to describe himself rolled off his tongue: “awesome, awesomer and awesomest.”

Awesome indeed. How can an untested 11-year-old kid have so much more confidence in himself than a group of fully-grown women who have proven their awesomeness time and time again? The answer is complicated, but one antidote is amazingly simple-in fact, it’s as simple as a Post-It note. Just ask Caitlin Boyle, founder of Operation Beautiful, a positive thinking movement so simple that all you need is a pen and some paper to participate.

It all began when Caitlin was having a really bad day and wanted to do something small and simple for someone else to make herself feel better. Tired of watching women criticize themselves while staring into bathroom mirrors, she scribbled, “You are beautiful” on a Post-it and slapped it on one of the mirrors in her Florida office building. Then she posted a picture of the note on her blog, www.HealthyTippingPoint.com. Soon women around the globe began mimicking her random act of kindness.

Notes started showing up on diet books, scales at gyms and on Slim-Fast boxes. Then Caitlin started the operationbeautiful.com blog, with a simple mission to leave positive, body-affirming notes in public spaces and invite others to do the same. The response was so overwhelming that she’s chronicled some of her favorite messages in a new book, Operation Beautiful: Transforming the Way You See Yourself One Post-it Note at a Time.

Since starting the project about a year and a half ago, Caitlin’s left hundreds of Operation Beautiful notes of her own, including her favorite saying of the moment, “Scales Measure Weight, Not Worth.” She also leaves notes around the house to inspire and motivate her, like the recent “You are the creator of your own destiny.”

Talk about a girl after my own heart.

One of my favorite things to do is write myself a message when I order things online, like a recent prescription order that came with a gift card saying, “Leslie, you rock!” And a book I got for my son arrived with the message, “Your mom must be awesome to have such an awesome kid.”

Not surprisingly, when it was my turn to say what I was good at, “amusing myself” was at the top of my list. As for Caitlin, she said, “I can seriously do anything I put my mind to- launch a small business, move across the country, practice yoga, run a marathon. And I have epic calf muscles.”

She’s got some pretty epic ideas too.

Keep an eye out ladies: you might just see a message on a mirror near you.

When Leslie’s not leaving random post-it notes in library books and public bathrooms, or writing cards to herself, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 24, 2010.

Working Girl

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I Have A Quick Update To Share by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

I Have A Quick Update To Share by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

“I don’t know what inspiration is, but when it comes I hope it finds me working.” -Pablo Picasso

Just about every college bound kid I know has an impressive record of digging ditches in Cambodia, planning the prom, singing on stage and scoring soccer goals. According to one admissions counselor friend, the extracurriculars are a dime a dozen, “If you want to distinguish yourself as a high school student these days, what you really need to do is get a job.

Many kids seem to think J-O-B is a four-letter word, but my parents had an ingenious method of motivating my sister and I to go to work: they refused to buy us all of the things that we wanted.

We had to earn our own cash if we wanted to keep ourselves in Ditto jeans, Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers and John Hughes movies. Thus began my own intricately tailored vocational education program.

I started out babysitting for families in my neighborhood, a surreal experience since we lived on a block of almost identical tract houses. There’s something very disconcerting about snooping through the drawers in a bedroom exactly like your mother’s, only to find compromising pictures of your current employers.

Rule number one in the quest for the perfect job: it can’t be anything that tempts you into embarrassing behavior.

Next I handed out food samples-Gorp, Country Time Lemonade and Pringles were among the products I peddled to shoppers at the old Santa Cruz Market on the Mesa, which has since been yuppified into Lazy Acres. It was fun flirting with the box boys and peeking in people’s carts, but I wasn’t allowed to sit down on this job, not even for a minute.

Rule number two: you don’t come home from the perfect job with aching feet.

My next job was working at Harvey’s Tennis Shop on upper State Street, now the home of BB’s Knits. This was a great gig. I mostly remember giggling, trying on clothes and getting lunch at Petrini’s … until the owners got wise and figured out that they really didn’t need two teenage girls (me and my best friend) working all day Saturdays to service just a handful of customers.

Rule number three: make sure your employer is going to stay in business.

I was now addicted to trying on clothes, so when the tennis shop closed I jumped at the chance to work at Rumor’s in Piccadilly Square (the precursor to Paseo Nuevo). Little did I know that my future husband was toiling away nearby at Hot Biscuits, I was too distracted by my job in fashion heaven. My entire paycheck–and then some–seemed to go back to my employer, but that was definitely my best-dressed year ever.

Rule number four: it’s great to work for love, but you do need to take home some money.

As a waitress at the Lobster House (now that fake lighthouse on Cabrillo Blvd. with a Rusty’s Pizza Parlor) I learned some important lessons from the manager: you balance a tray from the inside out; the customer is always right, even that old lady who tips you in pennies; Frank Sinatra has a song for almost any situation; and most importantly, even when you do get good tips, it’s hard to appreciate them in a clam chowder-stained yellow polyester uniform and white nurses’ shoes.

Rule number five: the perfect job will include the perfect outfit–comfortable and cute.

My next job was working at the snack bar at Cathedral Oaks Tennis Club (now Cathedral Oaks Athletic Club) followed by a stint behind the desk. It was a lot of fun, but I was envious seeing my friends playing tennis, while I supplied their Gatorade and court assignments.

Rule number six: the perfect job should make others jealous, (i.e. “You really get to sit around and write all day?”) but not me!

Speaking of envy-worthy gigs, one of the best ones I had was working security at the County Bowl. That’s right, I was one of those girls in the attractive yellow windbreakers looking through your purse. But unlike the courteous crew they now have–who send you to the office to check in your illegal cans, bottles and alcohol–in those days we confiscated it all for the post-party.

Rule number seven: beer before wine makes you feel fine, but confiscated liquor makes you feel sicker.

Basically all of these pre-college jobs taught me more about what I didn’t want to do than what I did. Looking back at all my jobs, I only wish that when I was applying to colleges they had put more weight on my employment history. With a resume like mine, I definitely would have gotten into Oxford.

When Leslie’s not working for a living-actually even when she is-she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 10, 2010.

Blooming Girls and Blooming Idiots

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Photo by by imagerymajestic, freedigitalphotos.net

Photo by by imagerymajestic, freedigitalphotos.net

Sixth grade started last week and I was shocked to find my still-squirrelly-not-yet-pimply-but-still-closes-his-eyes-when-people-kiss-in-movies little boy in a class full of young women. Never have I seen such blatant evidence of girls maturing faster than boys as I did in that sixth grade classroom.

If Koss had been aware enough of the opposite sex to look-really look-around, he would have been shocked at the new uh, developments that had perked up among his classmates over the summer. Those giggly little girls were growing into graceful young women, or at least women-in-the-making, while the boys were still, for the most part, goofy little boys. Sure, the boys were microscopically taller than they had been in June and their trash talk was becoming a bit more colorful, but these were basically the same increments of gradual maturation I’d been witnessing since preschool.

The girls, on the hand, seemed to have catapulted into womanhood in the blink of an eye. It was like they’d all been sucked into some kind of puberty-filled time machine and grown three years older in just three months. I know there are lots of theories about genetically modified hormones causing girls to mature sooner, but given the preponderance of glitter nail polish and day glow accessories, I’m starting to think they might be pumping something into the air at Claire’s.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Koss came home from his first day of school and told me about the new rule for the sixth graders: deodorant was mandatory. After all, last year’s sex ed video gave a very basic anatomy lesson, just slightly above the level of the one I gave Koss when he was potty training, and then spent the rest of the video talking about the importance of wearing deodorant. He’s been asking a lot of questions about Old Spice and Right Guard ever since, but sex, body hair, voices changing – all of that stuff – is still way, way off his radar.

I have noticed a few strange and alien tween behaviors, like eye rolls, shoulder shrugs and “yeah, right mom’s,” but not really anything else. Seeing those girls so developed kind of freaked me out. Naturally I went to my friends for advice on dealing with the inevitable onset of, gasp, puberty.

“He’s still a long ways away,” said my friend Audrey, whose three teenage sons give her a lot of street cred in this arena. “But I would advise you to start investing in hair dye pretty soon,” pointing to a new streak of gray in her once auburn tresses.

“At least you have a boy,” piped up Penny, whose daughter, at age 11, is already shaving her legs and buying tampons. To think I used to envy this particular mom when the kids were little and her daughter would swing docilely for hours while I wore myself out running around the park with Koss, feigning endless interest in trucks and dinosaur action figures.

“I’ve got a good idea,” suggested Krista. “We should send the girls to middle school in sixth and seventh grade, and leave the boys in elementary school till they hit puberty.”

Holly laughed, “As soon they tell you they are too old for Superman underwear and watermelon flavored toothpaste, then they have to go to junior high.”

“We could even throw a commencement party and all chip in to buy our boys boxer shorts and sheets that don’t have Bob the Builder on them,” said Nina.

“I’ve got an even better idea,” said Audrey, the only one of us who has been through this multiple times and lived to tell the tale. “Throw mom a puberty party and give her a few years supply of wine and chocolate-and don’t forget the hair dye.” I knew there was a reason why we were friends.

Send your puberty party suggestions-and early donations-to Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.  Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 3, 2010.

Back to school daze

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Photo by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

Photo by stockimages, freedigitalphotos.net

It doesn’t seem possible that summer is almost over. We’ve only had three decent beach days and we haven’t dusted off the barbecue or the blender in weeks. Summer’s barely started. How can it possibly be time for school to start again?

There is something fundamentally wrong with going back to school in August, especially this year when the entire summer was engulfed in June gloom.

There should be a law enacted that school can’t start until we’ve had at least a week in Santa Barbara where the weather’s hot enough for wimps like me to go in the ocean above my ankles. There should also be a law that school can’t start until I’ve once again mastered the fine art of carting towels, beach chairs, boogie boards, soccer balls, sunscreen, hats, clothing changes, reading material, snacks and assorted children from the parking lot to the beach in a single trip.

And there should, without a doubt, certainly be a law that school can’t start until after Labor Day. How can you possibly start school before the official end of summer? It doesn’t make sense.

I know a lot of parents jump for joy when summer is over and they can finally escape from their kids, but I’ve never really understood that. How can they be so ready for summer to end when it has barely even begun? Do they really enjoy worrying about bedtime and balanced meals and soccer schedules? Do they really enjoy stressing about how they’ll get any actual work done when there’s so much volunteer work to do?

And seriously, is there a parent alive who really likes “helping” their kid with homework? I’m fairly certain that I forgot everything I learned in sixth grade math before I got to high school, but I’ve retained enough logic that I don’t need to point that out to my 11-year-old. And if you value our relationship, then please don’t mention it to him.

Give a mom a break-I’m trying to maintain some semblance of authority here and don’t ask me how it happened, but the kid has a lot of respect for math. He’s been calculating various ways he’s going to rule the school in sixth grade since he was nine. As much fun as his summer has been, I think he’s actually looking forward to school starting. Crazy kid. Doesn’t he know that summer doesn’t end until AFTER Labor Day?

Can’t we just press the snooze button on summer a few more weeks? Sigh. It is still August, after all. No matter what the school says, MY summer doesn’t officially end till next month.

When Leslie’s not soaking up those last rays of summer every chance she gets, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on August 20, 2010.

History in the Making

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Boehm Family Photo by V. Smith, courtesy Boehm Group

Boehm Family Photo by V. Smith, courtesy Boehm Group

Eric Boehm & Family

Honoring the past while looking toward the future has been a recurring theme throughout the 92 years of Eric Boehm’s life and his most recent venture, Boehm Biography Group, brings together three generations of his own family-son Steven, 49, and grandson Jeff, 25-to help others preserve their heritage and create meaningful legacies.

Boehm’s brush with history began just before World War II in 1934, when his German-Jewish parents’ prescient concerns about their son’s future stirred them to ship 16-year-old Eric from Hof, Germany, to live with his aunt and uncle in Youngstown, Ohio. “If you have to leave home, my suggestion is the time to leave is when you’re 16 years old, because you are young enough to adapt and old enough to be looking for adventure,” twinkles Eric, as he recalls his early life in America.

By the time his parents and brother had escaped Germany in 1941, Eric had received a B.A. from the College of Wooster and was working on his M.A. from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Those diplomatic skills came into play almost immediately, when he served a critical role in helping dissolve the Supreme Command of the Luftwaffe in Germany at the end of World War II. In a life with many high points, this experience stands out as one of the most significant, says Eric, whose work as an intelligence officer and interrogator is detailed in a new book, The Enemy I Knew (Zenith Press, 2009) by Steven Karras.

After leaving the military, Eric continued to work for the U.S. government in Germany as part of the press scrutiny board, reviewing German newspapers to glean information. While there, he met his wife, Inge Pauli. His cocker spaniel puppy played matchmaker for the couple. ” I took him to work with me every once in a while and he would disappear. He kept going upstairs looking and seeing if Fraulein Pauli was there,” laughs Eric. “She had been feeding him.”

The couple married in a double wedding ceremony with Eric’s brother and sister-in-law in Blake Wood, Illinois in 1948 and worked together until Inge died a decade ago. They had four children: two girls that died as children and two sons, Ronald and Steven, who live in Santa Barbara. If not for an encounter with anti-Semitism from a chemical company, Eric might have become a chemist rather than a historian. He was shattered after losing a job he thought was a sure thing. His history professor pulled some strings, and, unbeknownst to Eric at the time, created a job for him at the University of Massachusetts. While completing his doctoral studies at Yale, Eric published a collection of personal accounts of survival in Nazi Germany.

This passion for preserving knowledge led Eric and Inge to found historical bibliography company ABC-CLIO in 1955. The family and the company moved to Santa Barbara in 1960, soon after they spotted the while town en route to Los Angeles for a vacation. “We said you know, this is a nice place. On our way back let’s stop,” says Eric. “Then we took a hotel room by the beach … and one night here turned into two nights and three nights and four nights and while we were here we looked at houses.” The rest, as they say, is history.

Son Ronald now runs what has grown to become an international academic publishing enterprise.

About five years ago, the family founded Boehm Group. “At 87, I was too young to retire, but I was too old to spell bibliography, so I spelled biography,” smiles Eric, who credits his health and longevity mostly to good genetics. “My father died at 98, and I had a great grandfather who died at 98. The name of one of my ancestors is Liverecht, which translates to ‘live right,’-that’s what I try to do.”

In addition to producing individuals’ biographies to preserve family stories and institutional biographies, such as an upcoming coffee table book commemorating the 100th anniversary of Santa Barbara City College, Boehm Group plans to develop an online program that will offer college degrees in biography, explains Jeff, who is responsible for the technical project management.

“I see huge potential and it’s in the family business-plus I get to spend time with my grandfather and my father,” says Jeff, who affectionately calls his “Opa” (German for grandpa) Eric only when they’re in work mode. “I thought that I’d want to spend time doing something on my own, but this is something exciting that they’re starting new and I’m creating it with them.”

“The idea of working together, making it a family enterprise had meaning to me that I enjoyed,” says Eric. “What greater thing could you have than having a grandfather working with his son and grandson? It’s a real joy.”

Originally published in Santa Barbara Magazine In Spring 2010.

I Wish I’d Thought of That

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Image by Stuart Miles, freedigitalphotos.net

Image by Stuart Miles, freedigitalphotos.net

Jon Stewart had a guy on the other night named William Rosen who wrote a book called, “The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention.”

The most powerful? Seriously? Not that I have anything against steam engines but I highly doubt that they were the most powerful idea in the world, if that’s what the book is about. I’m assuming it is because what else would it be about? Steaming your cappuccino? The invention of the steam bath? I’m guessing saunas, while pleasant enough, aren’t that big a deal.

Anyway, I didn’t actually watch Jon Stewart’s interview with this guy because I was really tired from catching up on episodes of “The Colbert Report” because of the whole DirecTV, DVR, time-shifting your TV watching thing. Now that’s a powerful invention. Being able to watch “Mad Men” at 7 p.m. while the rest of your Facebook friends are still talking about how they can’t wait to see what happens to Don and Betty Draper later that night and you already know. Talk about feeling drunk with power, knowledge, wealth and overall superiority. Muahaha! Now that’s the kind of thing I want to invent.

Like this website I heard about recently, www.runpee.com, which does the research in advance so you come to the theater already knowing the best time to go to the bathroom when you’re at the movies. Brilliant. There’s nothing worse than sitting through an endless piece of family entertainment, such as “The Karate Kid” remake-which could have lost an entire hour without losing a single second of its entertainment value-while wiggling in your seat for 30 minutes because you think that the movie has to be over any minute now, for the last 30 minutes.

Another great idea is Switch Gear Jewelry (www.switchgearkit.com). I won a set of these mix and match earrings and they’re one of those simple genius ideas that make you think, “Wow, I should have thought of that.” Basically, it is a kit that gives you tons of options to create your own earrings on the spot (no tools) using various combinations of interchangeable hoops, chains, and funky architectural materials such as metal, rubber and tortoise shell. It’s totally fun and super easy. Again, why didn’t I think of that?

Then there’s the Java Log (www.pinemountainbrands.com) for your fireplace. Hello? What a great idea this is. Every time I throw out my coffee grounds I think I should do something with these. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this idea before Rod Sprules, the guy who’s now making millions selling these green firelogs that not only divert 12 million pounds of coffee grounds from landfills each year, they also make great smelling fires, and give you a caffeine buzz to boot!

Probably my favorite new invention of all is from Daniel Wright, the author of “Patently Silly” and proprietor of the website www.patentlysilly.com. This guy is a college engineering major turned comedian, who now makes his living making fun of other people’s inventions. His website and book feature zany ideas-all of which have real patents-such as an Apparatus for Cat’s Cradle Game, a Hip Hop Aerobic Exercise Doll and a Thong Diaper. Talk about a patently obviously brilliant idea. He didn’t even have to invent anything, he just had to write about silly things that other people invented!

I wish I’d thought of that.

Share your invention ideas with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on July 30, 2010.

The Girl Who Stared Into Space

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Image by marcolm, freedigitalphotos.net

Image by marcolm, freedigitalphotos.net

Last Sunday I went to the beach to relax with my husband and son. It was a perfect warm day, with just the right amount of sea breeze. I had warned them both earlier that I wasn’t in the mood to socialize. I just wanted to veg out with the sand in my toes and a book under my nose.

We spotted friends a few yards up the shoreline but I wasn’t in the mood to socialize. I was determined to $#% relax that afternoon, as I ever so (im)patiently explained to my loved ones. They were supposed to read their books too.

That was our plan.

I was going to $#% relax if it killed me.

I had said so-clearly-before we left the house.

The tall guy immediately took off on a walk, while the short one read his book and I read mine. “Ah summer,” I thought lazily. “This is exactly what I needed. Pure bliss.”

That blissful feeling lasted a whole 45 minutes till I turned the last page of Richard Russo’s “That Old Cape Magic” (good book, by the way) at the exact same moment the short one turned the last page of Cory Doctorow’s “For the Win.”

I handed him my iPhone to play with (hey, it was an emergency) and dug in my beach bag for another book.

Now, if I were to have my own version of “The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut” it would be “The Girl Who Never Ever EVER Wanted to Run Out of Books to Read,” as evidenced by the 18 unread books I have sitting by the bedside and the other 247 I have in various rooms around the house.

I am never ever EVER without a book to read and yet I didn’t seem to have another one in my bag. This couldn’t be happening to me! I was always prepared with an extra book (or two or three), yet there I was sitting on the beach with perfect weather and a child who was uncharacteristically tired enough to sit there contentedly playing a game on my phone with little or no interaction required on my part-and no book to read!

I honestly had no idea what to do with myself.

I was so un-used to having the luxury of a few minutes just to space out that it took a little while for this to option occur to me.

I’m so used to always having a child to entertain, a project to think about, an article to work on, a book to read, a problem to solve or a friend to talk to that the idea of sitting and staring out at the vastness of the ocean took a while to sink in.

Then it took me a while to remember how to do it. To simply sit and do nothing and allow my thoughts to wander where they may, with no specific purpose or direction.

To simply be.

To relax and enjoy the sounds of the birds and the warmth of the sunshine and the salty smell of the ocean and the gritty sand between my toes was pure bliss once I got the hang of it.

Who knows, by the end of August maybe I’ll actually be “The Girl Who Stared Into Space-and Liked It” after all.

Share your summer stories with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on July 23, 2010.