CUL-DE-SAC

The icons of San Diego include the beach, the bay and Balboa Park. But there is no structure in the center of the place that people know about and recognize. There’s no Empire State Building. No St. Louis arch. No Sydney Opera House.

The Hotel Del Coronado, seen in the classic film comedy “Some Like it Hot,” comes close. But it’s not actually in San Diego and its image isn’t easily lodged in the mind. When I first knew I might move here, I had seen and remembered a few  photos of the downtown convention center. But I thought it was a silly-looking thing that resembled an enormous tent. Not an icon.

Now, a group of local denizens has come up with an idea for an icon, and they have a rich philanthropist who’s agreed to pay for the thing. It would be a huge two-part sculpture located on Navy Pier and would be called Wings of Freedom. (Oh barf!)

But let’s set that aside the ridiculous, pseudo-patriotic name and take a look at what it would be: A 500-foot pair of sculptures that look like aircraft wings. It would sit on the end of the pier where the retired aircraft carrier, the Midway, is now docked.

Wings of Freedom

Typical of big proposals like this, it’s gotten a wide range of emotional reactions. Some think the theme is too militaristic. Some think it’s just great. Some say it’s bad art. But one thing is clear: The price is right. Denny Sanford, a Midwestern credit-card tycoon who lives half the year in San Diego, has pledged $35 million to build the freedom wings.

Do you build a huge sculpture right on the bayfront just because you have $35 million to do it? No. Nor does it mean you don’t build it. So far, I think most of the reaction to this proposal has been, well, reactionary. It deserves more serious thought.

Aviation has been a great part of the history of San Diego. Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis was built here. San Diego factories turned out bombers for World War II. The Navy and the Marines have based their air divisions here for many years. So the theme of the sculpture is unassailable.

But how good is the artwork? That’s a matter of opinion, and I haven’t formed a strong personal opinion. I think you have to imagine seeing the sculpture from the ground and the air from a lot of different angles. What will it look like as you sail past it on the bay and see the shape slowly change? How will the sun play off the sculpture as the day changes from dawn to sunset?

The hardest question is whether the shape and image of the piece are strong, singular and beautiful. You don’t spend $35 million of anyone’s money, or give a huge sculpture the city’s front and center stage, if it doesn’t have all of that.

So far, the model has attracted a lot of snooty comments. It’s been called bunny ears. It’s been called a hood ornament, children’s water wings, etc. But it’s easy to come up with sarcastic put downs, and they’re not helpful. I can imagine someone today looking at a model for the St. Louis arch, prior to it being built. “What is this? A goddamn McDonald’s?”

The idea for Wings o’ Freedom (I really dislike that name) comes from a real artist named Malcolm Leland. But he had something very different in mind.

Leland imagined an amphitheater on San Diego bay in the shape of a ship, where the sails would close over the auditorium during inclement weather. Leland’s “sails” morphed into “wings” as others fastened onto it.

Leland told arts reporter Angela Carone he lays no claim to the current proposal, and he wishes the city would build his original model. Sadly there’s not much chance of that. The estimated cost of Leland’s amphitheater would be nearly four times the cost of the freedom wings.

Public art mavens and academics have said the city should just hire a great artist with a vision, and do what he says. But does a big-name artist guarantee  a memorable, iconic structure? I doubt it. Creating an iconic structure takes heart, vision and a great idea that can gather enough momentum to survive the tough, nasty process it takes to win over the city fathers.

So far, we’re a long way from concluding that will be found in the Wings of Freedom.

The memory is a big storehouse whose dusty odds and ends occasionally turn up by chance or strange coincidence. Why else would I have thought about Kevin Keegan last week?

I was hosting a live radio program when I interviewed a reporter named Keegan Kyle. It’s a strange name, which seems to have the first and last names turned around. So it was no surprise, as I was back-announcing his name after the interview, that I muffed it. I called him Kevin Keegan.

Kevin Keegan in his prime.

But who is Kevin Keegan and why did I give the name to Keegan Kyle? The answer soon came to me. Kevin Keegan was a British soccer star who played for Hamburg, Germany’s pro team in 1978 when I lived there as a high-school exchange student.

Kevin Keegan has not come to my mind for — literally — decades. But while groping for a reporter’s odd name he emerged from my subconscious and leapt effortlessly from my lips.

Kevin Keegan played for Hamburger Sport Verein (HSV) in the late seventies after being a star for Liverpool earlier in the decade. When he played for Hamburg he had a big fluffy perm (it WAS the 70s) and many Hamburg teenage girls fell in love with him.

Another strange coincidence comes from this story. A colleague who also works at KPBS in San Diego heard my interview flub on the air, and it triggered a series of memories for her as well. She grew up in England and says Keegan visited her school when she was a kid.

Afterward, she got her picture taken with him. He put his arm around her for the photo and she thought it was creepy. She claims she still have the photo somewhere.

I was at the Anderson Nursery a week ago with a cart filled with seedlings I planned to plant in my garden. An old guy looked and me and said, “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.”

“Everyone needs a hobby,” I said.

“Yup,” he said. “I tell my wife it keeps me out of the bars and the whorehouses!”

It’s funny that I tell people gardening is my hobby, but I don’t know what else to say. I used to train in traditional karate, but I ran out of time for that after having my second child. Now if someone asks me what’s my hobby, I say “gardening.”

I remember a story told by a friend who was soon to graduate from law school and was applying for a job. The boss of the law firm asked her several questions relevant to the law but then asked her what was her hobby. She thought for a few seconds then said she was going to school full-time, working part-time and she had a baby boy at home. So she really didn’t have time for a hobby.

But the managing partner pressed her, thinking there must be something she liked to do on the side. Unable to think of anything else, she said, “I shop!”

I decided a few years ago that “gardening” would be my fallback position in situations like that, because I have become interested in it. And it all started when I moved to Southern California.

When I lived in the Midwest, plants were simply part of the landscape. I would have been hard-pressed to identify and name even the most common trees and flowering plants. But then I moved to San Diego where nearly everything grows, provided you water it. Suddenly plants were strange and exotic.

After I had kids, I also noticed that gardening was very compatible with child care. It was something you could focus on while also entertaining a little kid by giving him a job of pulling weeds or digging holes. Gardening allowed room for talking, interacting and playing.

Hobbies are better-suited for early life and old age. Midlife is too filled with work and kids. But in case anyone asks, I have a ready answer for what’s my hobby that isn’t too far off the mark.

This blog post comes a little late, but it’s worth it. My neighborhood holds a Halloween parade every year, and this is the 2011 event. Kids and parents wander through the neighborhood and try to create a spectacle.

My son, by the way, is the grim reaper.

Three nights ago I let one of my three pet cats out for the night. Molly has not come back since then. I live near a canyon and two nights ago I heard howling that one of my neighbors later assured me were coyotes. Some howls were low and resonant while one was like a high-pitched scream.

I have owned cats for more than 20 years, and I’ve always let them out whenever they wanted. This caused my cat Maya to become pregnant a year ago. One of her kittens was Molly, who has not come back.

Molly was a sweet and trusting cat, and that may have been part of her problem. I have seen her be social with the skunks and raccoons in the canyon. Her mother is more streetwise. I once saw her run from dogs, and she did it in a way that made me think she could take care of herself.

I was once turned away from a local shelter, where I was trying to adopt a cat, when I honestly answered the question of whether my cat would be an indoor-outdoor cat. The shelter seemed to believe the humane thing to do was to deny cats any home, where they might be put in danger of going outdoors.

I differ with this view of humane treatment of animals. To me a cat is only allowed to be a cat when it can go outside, hide in the shadows and hunt mice and rats. Our cat, Maya, was born on a farm in Kansas where the cats were not allowed indoors. This would come as a shock, I’m sure, to that animal shelter I visited.

The disappearance of Molly gives me second thoughts about my cat care, even though I cannot be sure she was killed by another animal. I feel downcast when I think about that middle-of-the-night baying of the coyotes.

My 11-year-old son still walks to the back door in hopes of seeing Molly reappear, and he still calls out to her. We put lost-cat flyers up around the neighborhood with our address and phone number on them.

My wife and I have told our children that Molly probably found a new home and had just gone to live with a new family. I don’t believe that, but it could be true. As for our other two cats, they will continue to be indoor-outdoor. Death is a risk when you venture into the world, but as long as my cats still want to go out-of-doors, I’ll let them.

And when the time is right, I may ask my son if we can have a little funeral for Molly to put her memory to rest. Again… I’m not saying she was killed, but just in case.

I wouldn’t have known that Tom Keith had died if I hadn’t gotten the email from Scott Horsley. Scott, who now covers Barack Obama for NPR, used to work with me at KPBS. I hear from him, now and then, when he sees something that he knows relates to my past.

He may call me from the press bus while traveling though Iowa when he can catch a glimpse of my home town, Grinnell, or the Barilla plant outside of Ames. Obama goes to Iowa when he starts thinking about elections. But I digress.

Tom Keith

I knew Tom Keith, though not well, when I worked at Minnesota Public Radio in the early ’90s. He performed with Garrison Keillor on Keillor’s old morning radio show and later on a Prairie Home Companion Show.

Tom created a radio persona named Jim Ed Poole, and most MPR listeners knew him by that name. I once worked at WCCO, the CBS affiliate in Minneapolis, where one of the radio personalities was “Dark Star.” Around the station we called him by his first name, Dark. I’m not kidding.

Tom Keith was one of those guys who was well-known in public radio circles. He was best know for being the original sound-effects guy for Prairie Home.

The thing I remember about Tom was a story told to me by a fellow MPR employee who played with Tom on the company softball team. Tom Keith was not physically imposing in any way. He was bald and of average height. But he was an outstanding athlete who had played on the varsity baseball team at the University of Minnesota.

The guy on the MPR softball team played first base, one season, when Tom played shortstop (or maybe third base… this was a long time ago). When Tom would field the ball and throw out the runner at first, he would throw so hard the ball seemed to ascend as it flew threw the air.

Tom Keith soon retired from softball and left it to the duffers. He died at the age of 64. Interesting what you learn about people. Jim Ed Poole, rest in peace.