Outraged Alamedan Donald Kirkland expresses outrage at Roy Avery's outrageous suggestion

Rog,

I realize that far-reaching conspiracy theories are a stock argument for any right-thinking Alamedan, but this time it's different because this time it's real!

Roy Avery paints a lovely picture of Alameda Point as a giant peat bog, but he conveniently leaves out one crucial fact. Wherever there's peat, there's whisky, wherever there's whisky, there are Scotsmen, and wherever there are Scotsmen, there are...


bagpipes! Yes, bagpipes, the very reason that Alamedans passed Tartan-limiting "Measure Angus" way back in 1893, when wave after wave of Scottish immigrants threatened to drown out the peaceful sounds of factories, railroad locomotives, and steamships with the din of their Devil-pipes. As the disturbing photograph above shows, the most horrible thing about bagpipes is their effect on The Children, who are clearly shocked and screaming in terror.

Ironically, many newcomers to Alameda have never even heard of "Measure Angus," despite the fact that it is the only thing that protects the small-town peace and quiet that drew them here in the first place. Unless they want to find themselves up to their aching ears in bagpipes, they had better wise up and join me in tossing Roy Avery out of town on a caber!

Fight for "Measure Angus." Attend meetings. Object to everything at every opportunity. Don't wait for an election.

The Scotsmen are in constant contact with our elected and appointed officials. They have relationships with city staff. Resistance must be constant.

Keep "Measure Angus."

Donald Kirkland

Roy Avery has soggy suggestion for Alameda

Editor,

Mr. Geddoff makes some excellent points, but the word "bogged" in his letter has gotten me thinking. Why not turn Alameda Point into a giant peat bog? Easy access to peat would be a great benefit to the whiskey distillery out there, and burning peat for fuel could be the energy alternative we've all been looking for. Apart from the existing buildings, we could turn the whole piece of land into a haven for deer, snipe, and mire pill beetles. Who could ask for better neighbors than those? Add a bit of heather around the edges, and Alameda Point would look quite pretty. Ah, I can just imagine the red sun sinking behind a ruined hangar, while an unwise out-of-town traveler sinks into the bog. Let’s bring back Alameda's lost swampland, only bigger and peatier than before!

Roy Avery

Lon Geddoff has valuable lesson for Alameda

Editor,

Why can't our Council see that every "plan" they come up with for development at the old base is just going to get bogged down in impossible to understand financial problems and pollution and traffic, or scrapped because of some stupid endangered varmints? Plans are just like dreams: useless. I had a dream once to make a lot of money, but you know what? My plan didn't work! I learned an important lesson: We need to stop dreaming and making plans and just let everything be. If Alameda is good enough for me, it must be good enough for anyone else who matters.

Lon Geddoff

Now Jean Kerkwilligers KNOWS what the big deal is!

Dear Roger,

FINALLY I understand what the big deal is! Writing to the Daily Noose yesterday is the best thing I've ever done. It has completely changed my life. Just five minutes after my letter appeared in your paper I heard the most awful "chop chop chop" sound out in the back yard. The plants in my garden were blowing around like crazy! I went out there and I saw not one but TWO news helicopters hovering over my house, trying to get a close-up! Unfortunately I was still in my curlers and bathrobe, so I hope they'll be back tomorrow for a better shot.

Of course, the very next thing I did was to head downtown to get my nails done. I have to look great the next time those reporters show up! Anyway, the ladies at the nail salon were absolutely abuzz! One of the younger ones fainted when I walked in. They were flitting around me like butterflies, asking if I knew Rog, asking what it felt like to see my letter featured ABOVE THE FOLD as the TOP STORY in a soon-to-be-award-winning daily noosepaper...it was almost too much! And they gave me a free pedicure to boot!

Next I stopped in at that hippie grocery store to pick up some of those great dried prunes you wrote about. As soon as the nice young tattooed girl at the cash register saw my name on the check, she started acting as if she had seen that Elvis Presley fellow. "Oh my GOD, it's JEAN KERKWILLIGERS! I can't tell you how much I LOVED your letter!" She called some of her hippie friends over and I had to sign various different parts of their bodies. They said they wanted to have my signature made into a tattoo...can you imagine that? And they absolutely REFUSED to accept my check for the groceries. "For you, Mrs. Kerkwilligers, it's on the house."

The only down side is that people are constantly asking me if I've met THE famous Roger Grumbel, and is he really as handsome in person as he is on TV, and is he really as intelligent as his editorial comments make him seem, and I just hate to disappoint them by saying I don't know! Please, Roger, now that you've changed my life by printing my letter, won't you join me for tea at your earliest convenience? Please don't print the time and place in your paper, though, because I don't want those darned helicopters messing up my hair!

Finally "in the know" in Alameda,

Jean Kerkwilligers

Jean Kirkwilligers asks what the big deal is

Editor,

I've been reading your site for years now and this is the first time I've written in.

I am really curious what the big deal is.

Sincerely,

Jean Kerkwilligers

Alameda Museum is the perfect Cultural Entity

Rog,

There's been a lot of talk about the terrible things going on in Alameda. We have Arts center's opening that are expecting to bring people to them, shopping centers that will increase shoppers, and now, open discussions about Measure A. How did it come to this?

Anyone who moves to Alameda should be required to study and visit the Alameda Museum. Nothing says Alameda more than this venerable institution. It is culture at it's highest and is a beacon to wonderful days of yore. And as all good institutions should be, it generates almost no traffic because almost nobody visits it. We get the best of both worlds! We can talk about the cultural spaces that we have and have them make no impact on the community.

Add to that the museum's focus on Measure A. They sponsor all the right speakers so that Alamedans can rightly understand our great island town, heck they even have the official Chuch Corica memorial, who wouldn't want to know that they could visit an actual replica of the barbershop where Mayor Corica worked, if they actually decided they wanted to visit the museum? The Museum is the only place in the city where one can see where the backroom deals of city government actually took place before California's sunshine laws kicked in---I don't count the back room of Ole's because they attract customers, and customers mean traffic.

Our current council should be looking at Alameda Museum as the perfect institution to be subsidizing, enough with these other ridiculous cultural projects.

Dolores Hepherhumper

I — I Mean, We — Told You So!

In our continuing duty to let you know how terrible the super-mega-monster-plex project that everyone hates is, we felt we needed to write in with a big I told you so. We warned you that the city was skimping on the details and now we have proof!

The big spanking shiny new parking structure is going to have wooden floors! As seen in this photo that we we took while walking around the neighborhood, you can clearly see that the second floor of the parking garage is made of wood.

How hypocritical of the city council to continue assuring actual citizens of Alameda that the planned work would be of the highest quality. How many cars are going to be able to park on each floor? Two? Three? And doesn't anyone remember the Great Chicago Fire, in which the entire city burned because it was made of wood? Or was that San Francisco after the Big One? I'm fairly sure a cow — or was it a Squirrel? — was involved . . . we confuse these things all the time. Anyway, my photo proves what I — I mean, we — have said all the time . . . this project is a disaster!