RON HENGGELER

Driving west on Fulton Street while on the way to Ocean Beach, I caught this glimpse of the Sutro Tower breaking through the marine layer of fog. This view is looking south from Fulton at Shrader Street, across from St. Ignatius Church.

The poetry of the earth is never dead.
John Keats

Ocean Beach was packed on Sunday with a high temperature of 81º. The day before, two teens who were pulled into the surf and swept out to sea.

The boys were about waist-deep when a strong wave or strong undertow knocked them off their footing and dragged them farther into the water.

Rescue crews from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Fire Department responded to the section of the beach, near Lincoln Way just south of Golden Gate Park, and used boats and a helicopter to scan a 9-square-mile area, Baxter said. After a nearly five-hour search effort, law enforcement met with the boys’ families and discussed the likely outcome: that the boys had drowned.

The two boys were probably carried as far as 15 miles from the scenic coast, where no lifeguards are on duty because the surf is considered too dangerous for swimmers.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
William Shakespeare

The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.
Mary Shelly

In this very breath that we take now lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us.
Peter Matthiessen

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best.
Saint Jerome

Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.
Willie Nelson

 

Joan of Arc by Anna Huntington on the front lawn at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco
Joan of Arc, nicknamed “The Maid of Orléans” is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years’ War, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII. She was captured by the Burgundians, transferred to the English for money, put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais, and burned at the stake when she was 19 years old.

This piece was one of Anna Huntington's earliest public works, exhibited at the Salon of 1910 in Paris. Several replicas were made, and the statue won Anna the Legion of Honor from the French government. In 1927.

The south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge glimpsed from the parking lot of the Legion of Honor Museum in Lincoln Park.

The south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge seen from the parking lot of the Legion of Honor Museum in Lincoln Park.

Qualities of light seen while walking the trail through the forest that surrounds Lincoln Park

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
Arthur Rubenstein

 

“Today most scientists would agree with the ancient Hindus that nothing exists or is destroyed, things merely change shape or form…the cosmic radiation that is thought to come from the explosion of creation strikes the earth with equal intensity from all directions, which suggests either that the earth is at the center of the universe, as in our innocence we once supposed, or that the known universe has no center.”
— Peter Matthiessen

 

The great stillness in these landscapes that once made me restless seeps into me day by day, and with it the unreasonable feeling that I have found what I was searching for without ever having discovered what it was.
Peter Matthiessen

 

 

 

I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents; we're all teachers - if we're willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door.
Maria Gibbs

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

E.O. Wilson

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
John Muir

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.
John James Audubon

Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
Gustav Mahler

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
Edward Abbey

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
Ansel Adams

Zen is really just a reminder to stay alive and to be awake. We tend to daydream all the time, speculating about the future and dwelling on the past. Zen practice is about appreciating your life in this moment. If you are truly aware of five minutes a day, then you are doing pretty well. We are beset by both the future and the past, and there is no reality apart from the here and now.
-Peter Matthiessen

 

The southern side of the entrance to the Golden Gate is dotted with a family of dangerous wave-swept rocks that includes Black Head Rock, Lobos Rock, and Pyramid Rock. The two northernmost, and thus most dangerous to navigation, are Mile Rock and Little Mile Rock, known together as Mile Rocks. Located roughly a half-mile from the closest shore, it seems Mile Rocks are so named because the rocks are one mile south of the main shipping channel leading into San Francisco Bay.

Text taken from http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=77

In November 1889, the Lighthouse Service placed a bell buoy near the rocks, but the strong currents in the area would pull the buoy beneath the surface of the water and even set it adrift. The bell was withdrawn in May 1890, and frustrated lighthouse engineers concluded that the rocks “must always be a menace to navigation as long as they exist,” as building atop the rocks or dynamiting them below the surface didn’t seem practical. Then on February 22, 1901 the City of Rio de Janeiro, inbound from Hong Kong in heavy fog, struck Fort Point Ledge and sunk in just eight minutes. Of the 210 people aboard, 128 were lost. The Lighthouse Board concluded that the shipwreck, the worst in San Francisco’s history, might not have occurred if a fog signal could be heard considerably seaward of the ledge.

Text taken from http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=77

The tragic wreck provided ample motivation to overcome the obstacles inherent in constructing a lighthouse atop Mile Rock, and on June 28, 1902, Congress appropriated $100,000 for the work. James A. McMahon of San Francisco was awarded the contract to build the foundation in 1904, and he set off with a skilled crew to assess the construction site. After seeing the seagirt rock on which the lighthouse was to stand, the crew promptly quit. A second crew, consisting of deep-sea sailors recruited from San Francisco’s Wharf and thus more familiar with the sea, was assembled, and work began in September of that year. The small schooner Rio Rey was anchored near the rocks and served as floating quarters for the workers.

Text taken from http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=77

A good portion of Mile Rock, which measured forty by thirty feet, was blasted away to provide a level foundation. Next, four-feet-thick walls made of reinforced-concrete enclosed within steel plates were built to a height of thirty-five feet to form the base of the tower. A cistern and fuel tanks were located within the substructure, and a stairway led down to a heavy oak door enclosed in a bronze frame that provided access to the base of the foundation. The difficulty in working on the exposed location was noted by the Lighthouse Board: “There was hardly a day during the year on which at some time the waves did not break over the rock. There were many days when no landing could be effected and many others when the party, after landing, was driven off with only a few hours of work accomplished. On several occasions it was necessary to call upon the neighboring life-saving crews to take the men off the rock. A full day of eight hours passed upon the rock was exceptional until after the substructure was completed in June, 1905.”

Text taken from http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=77

 

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
E.O.Wilson

 

In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.
Mangari Maathai

In the 1960s, the Coast Guard developed plans to automate Mile Rocks Lighthouse that called for the upper two tiers of the tower to be demolished and the top of the truncated tower converted into a helicopter landing pad. San Francisco Supervisor William Blake and the Conference of California Historical Societies both protested the automation plans, but the Coast Guard was determined to proceed with the cost-saving measure. In 1966 and at an expense of $110,000, the Coast Guard dismantled the lantern room and top two tiers of the lighthouse and constructed the landing pad. The San Francisco Maritime Museum tried to acquire the top forty feet of the lighthouse and place it on display at the foot of Hyde Street, but as saving the upper portion of the tower would have added $87,000 to the $110,000 contract for refurbishing the lighthouse, the living quarters were scrapped.

Although the base of the tower is now painted with colorful orange and white bands, the beauty of the structure was greatly compromised when the tower was decapitated. One can only speculate at what role this truly unique tower would have today, if it had remained intact. One can view still view one of the more attractive remnants of Mile Rocks Lighthouse, as its lens is currently in use at Old Point Loma Lighthouse in San Diego.

Text taken from http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=77

The Labyrinth at Lands End
The Labyrinth is located on the northwestern rugged edge of Lincoln Park, 15 minutes walking distance from the Legion of Honor Museum. The leveled cliff top where it resides was outfitted with huge cannon and anti-aircraft gun installations during World War II. The decrepit ruins of bunkers and pillboxes still dot the landscape all around Lands End. Parts of the Park Service utility road that winds its way along the cliffs at Land's End was originally the track-bed for Adolf Sutro's train in the late 19th century. The train delivered San Franciscans to the famous and much loved Cliff House and Sutro Baths. Nowadays, it is used by hikers, joggers, dog-walkers, raccoons, skunks, and coyotes.

 

The Labyrinth at Lands End
The Labyrinth is located on the northwestern rugged edge of Lincoln Park, 15 minutes walking distance from the Legion of Honor Museum. The leveled cliff top where it resides was outfitted with huge cannon and anti-aircraft gun installations during World War II. The decrepit ruins of bunkers and pillboxes still dot the landscape all around Lands End. Parts of the Park Service utility road that winds its way along the cliffs at Land's End was originally the track-bed for Adolf Sutro's train in the late 19th century. The train delivered San Franciscans to the famous and much loved Cliff House and Sutro Baths. Nowadays, it is used by hikers, joggers, dog-walkers, raccoons, skunks, and coyotes.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
Alexander Pope

 

 

 

“Where to begin? Do we measure the relaxing of the feet? The moment when the eye glimpses the hawk, when instinct functions? For in this pure action, this pure moving of the bird, there is no time, no space, but only the free doing-being of this very moment -now!”

— Peter Matthiessen

Mile Rocks Lighthouse and Golden Gate Bridge in 1962

 

The future will either be green or not at all.
Bob Brown

Mile Rocks Lighthouse was always a “stag station,” as there was hardly enough room for the resident three keepers themselves let alone their families. The first woman to sign the register at the lighthouse was Mabel Norris Hull of the University of California, who “performed the perilous feat of boarding the lighthouse” in November 1908. Access to the station was accomplished by the door at the base of the foundation in calm weather or by climbing a Jacob’s ladder suspended from the station’s derrick in rough weather. Before completing the thirty-foot ascent up the ladder, the keeper was occasionally knocked off by the bobbing delivery boat.

Couples came up with some innovative methods for maintaining contact. One keeper’s wife would walk the family dog out to Land’s End in the evenings and use a flashlight to signal a greeting to her husband.

 

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
Jacques Yves Cousteau

 

 

Mile Rocks Lighthouse 1910

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein

 

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
Vincent Van Gogh