Chicken Corner

Chicken Corner is flying the coop

2013-02-15T17:27:30Z

Dear Readers, it's true. Chicken Corner has decamped. Just a few months ago, I believed I might possibly never move from my house in Echo Park, and now here I am moved out of that house and on my way to Cincinnati, Ohio. (Via I-40.)

Packing was all-consuming, and I have to admit I developed blogger's block when it came to chronicling the process or even announcing it -- much as I'm sure you would have loved to be apprised of which box my LAPD "Survivor" cup (from 1992) went into as well as all the other one-of a-kind precious or burdensome objects.

Our chickens are guest-staying with friends Kim, Dove, and Jonathan in Echo Park. In the sping they will come to Ohio. (First, I have to build a coop, then find a way for them to travel, then actually make the travel happen.) For the time being, they are doing well in their new digs.

It's difficult to say good-bye to Chicken Corner. It has been a true honor to be part of LAObserved, and writing the blog has added a dimension to my life that I don't know how to measure. I wouldn't trade it for anything. It helped me see and know my neighborhood and the city where I lived for 22 years. In a way, it gave me new eyes. And a new identity. Who ever dreamed I'd grow up and be able to refer to myself as Chicken Corner in third person? Fate has a sense of humor.

I have cherished the emails I received from readers -- sometimes even the angry ones! Thank you for taking the time to check in and to share your opinions, knowledge, and offer encouragement. Your notes helped shape this column.

Because I'm awful at goodbye's I won't say it -- for now at least. I have a number of Echo Park and LA photos from the archives that I'd like to post before the curtain goes down. So stay tuned. They're coming!

Much Love, CC

FAQ: Why am I moving to Cincinnati? My husband, RJ Smith, has started a job there. He is an editor at Cincinnati Magazine, which is owned by the same company that publishes Los Angeles Magazine, where he used to work.

Happy Holidays!

2012-12-25T19:37:57Z

May your 2013 be filled with bright, twinkling lights, flights of fancy, and love!

Photo: Christmas Tree Lane -- AKA Santa Rosa Ave. -- in Altadena, taken a few nights ago when Chicken Corner visited the home of her friends Todd Mandel and Natasha Mitchnik and Laila Mandel. Somehow I had never before visited the spectacular holiday lights-event, which a DJ on KUSC this morning called the nation's oldest electric-lights outdoor Christmas display. First lighted in 1920, the display stretches about a mile and, with lights reaching to the tops of massive deodar trees, it's a breathtaking sight. According to the Christmas Tree Lane Association, it was designed in the 1920s with automobile-viewing in mind. Photo below, right, via Christmas Tree Lane Association.

Secrets at the echo-spot*

2012-12-13T20:28:10Z

On Avon near Ewing there's a hollow, and in that hollow is a spot. And in that spot, there's an echo. I walked over it hundreds of times, and the little spot kept its secret. But then one day I walked over it while talking to my daughter and heard the echo. That was the magic key. I heard the echo, and now it's a game we sometimes play -- my daughter, Madeleine, and I -- when we're walking the dog. We find the echo spot and speak loudly. We listen to the faint throwback of sound, like a muted bell.

So, it's special place, but we thought it contained only one secret. Then, this past Sunday, our friends Mia Trachinger and her daughter Lotte, came to visit and we walked the dog to Elysian Park together. We forgot about our special echo-location, though, because right there was a display of paintings -- good ones -- in a driveway, and a sign hanging from a tree that read "Driveway Gallery."

I have been walking in front of this driveway since 1999, and I never knew it was a gallery. Not only, but I never knew the inhabitant of the adjacent house was a painter. I learned his name is Bill Rangel. I knew him by sight. Usually because I saw him driving past. But the hundreds of paintings carefully stored in the lower level of his home have been keeping their own silence to a passerby. We talked for a while. I thanked the painter for the earth globe and basketball he and his husband put out on the street and other items that we've picked up and used over the years. And then Madeleine, Lotte, Mia, and I went on our way toward Elysian Park.

We walked longer than we meant to, and it was almost nighttime when we once again passed the special place where there was an echo and a gallery.

The gallery was still installed, like an exhibition in itself -- it was lighted now. But the painter had departed. The following day, of course, it was all gone. But it lingers in the mind.

*Edited post: Updates the artist's name.

Ding dong! Yip yap!

2012-12-07T04:41:34Z

Officer Gregory Randall is an urban ranger, and most likely he is the Facebook wildlife blogger for the Los Angeles Animal Services Wildlife Program. The site is one of my favorite places to visit in those free moments that I find here and there in the margins of the day.

Randall -- or Ranger X we could call him -- has seen just about everything.

For example:

In a November 28 post, Randall describes a memorable bit of invention: An 85-year-old man fashioned a dumb-waiter to lower food to his neighborhood coyotes. The way he knew they were ready for dinner was via a motion sensor in his yard that rang the doorbell.

But there's a fine line between feeder and perpetrator, and, we learn in the comments section that the elderly gentleman paid a hefty price: a $1000 fine for delivering food to the coyotes. (They had attacked a neighbor's dog.)

Lengths people go to feed predatory wildlife. This gentleman feeding the coyotes had a dumbwaiter that lowered down from his balcony to feed coyotes, How did he know they were there? Note the motion sensor in the picture [above] which rang a doorbell in his home. When I knocked on his door he said "how did you know?" ... I pointed at the overweight tree squirrel sitting on my right shoe holding my pant leg and said "A little squirrel told me."

A squirrel sitting on your shoe as you lay down the law, which prohibits dumbwaitering food to coyotes: all in a day's work.

LA in Cinty*

2012-11-12T02:19:14Z

Chicken Corner set foot in Cincinnati for the first time in her life last weekend. It's an amazing city. While I was there I also had the fortune to visit a Zaha Hadid building for the first time. It's the Contemporary Arts Center and massively elegant, made of masculine materials and colors, feminized in delicate massing. Walk into the lobby, and what do you see? Andre the Giant -- in a huge Shepard Fairey wall, some of the pieces of which will be familiar to Echo Park pedestrians (even as they've been de-politicized and de-California-ized). A little bit of home near the Ohio River.

*Cincinnati for short.

Building exterior: Wiki image.

Election Day diary

2012-11-06T21:37:09Z

Election Day and the hens are finally coming home to roost. Only 6-and-some hours to go PST. And then, hopefully, an end to the squawking about who will win, and we can start clucking (hopefully happily) about who did win.

In Echo Park, the polls were busy at 7:30 a.m., with a line outside the door on Morton Avenue. At 11:15 a.m., when Chicken Corner returned, the line was shorter, and the deed was done in less than ten minutes.

Meanwhile, at the Quaker Meeting House in Pasadena, a group of children were busy working on the sign above, which urges people to "go vote." The kids, ages five to ten, are art students of Abira Ali, and the sign was started and completed this morning. They're too young to vote, but not too young to join the effort. Good work! Cluck!

Full disclosure: Abira is my boss at Wisdom Arts Laboratory, where I help with admin and grants.

Shameless plug: This Friday, Nov. 9, Wisdom Arts Laboratory will hold the last of its 2012 Community Fridays events, in which the public is invited to join artists in making wooden toys, Mandarin calligraphy, and other art projects in a program funded by the Gayle and Rowe Giesen Trust. All ages. Free and lots of fun. From 3:45 to 5:30 p.m. at 520 East Orange Grove Blvd. Pasadena 91104.

Angeleno Heights comes alive...

2012-11-01T04:59:45Z

...amid tombstones, hanging corpses, and wicked witches each year at Halloween. The neighborhood known for its large stock of well-preserved Victorian clapboard houses draws many hundreds of people to trick or treat at the done-up homes -- on Carroll Avenue in particular. At 9 p.m. this evening Douglas, Kellam, Carroll Ave. were packed with children and adults, the houses buzzing with parties up and down the blocks, the candy supply already dead at some locations. There were low riders and set designers. And scores of three-year-old Supermans.

We had the pleasure to arrive at Harvey Shields' house on Carroll Avenue in time to see three of four of the famous Mighty Echoes -- an a cappella doo-wop group -- sing "The Monster Mash" for a crowd in front of the house, below:

Before the singing, Chicken Corner had the pleasure of meeting three grass men, the first is below, dressed in military camouflage. Hallowgreen:

There was a witch:

And a rocket-powered lapdog:

And the moon between houses:

A man with the head of a horse:

And a couple visiting from another era, waiting for the bus down on Sunset Blvd. where it was quiet.

Good night, Halloween.

Lil Rascals back in the hood

2012-10-02T19:42:47Z

This morning at about 9, there was a pre-production gang scouting the hills of Elysian Heights, looking for the right kind of exteriors for a remake of The Little Rascals. Well, they had come to the right place -- almost! -- Chicken Corner clucked. The original Little Rascals was often filmed just on the other side of Glendale Boulevard in a wooden bungalow court off Duane Street, about a quarter mile from where we were talking. Some of the Hal Roach child actors may even have been housed in the same Duane Street Location. In those days, of course, the neighborhood was called Edendale.

Crew members were unaware of the proximity of their modern day search to the Lil' Rascals original haunts. "Do you mean the 1994 [Penelope Spheeris] version?" one guy asked.

They said the new movie will go straight to video. I am guessing it's the old housing stock in this neighborhood that attracted the new filmmakers who may want to approximate the old series' look.

Here's the Edendale days' way to make a cake: recipe here. They suuuure did set the bar high for subsequent generations. Watch and learn.

Live-casting now: Manos Amigas

2012-09-29T01:32:17Z

There's a special beauty in the graduation ceremony for 155 adults by El Centro Latino for Literacy in Pico Union. "Manos Amigas/Helping Hands" shows that a typically concealed problem, illiteracy, can be exposed and toppled and its replacement -- the ability to read -- celebrated publicly.

It takes guts and resolve to learn to read as an adult. Chicken Corner offers her heartfelt congratulations and admiration to El Centro's class of 2012.

The ceremony is taking place at this moment, and is being live-blogged until 8:30 p.m. this evening. The speeches, including one by CD-1's Ed Reyes, are mostly in Spanish.

R.I.P. Little Man

2012-09-27T18:10:14Z

Last week, Echo Park lost one of the colorful, larger-than-life persons who make the history of this colorful neighborhood. Little Man was a dog, and he was a local legend in his lifetime. He spent his latter years under the guardianship of Christine Peters, who posted the following appreciation on our neighborhood list serv (minimally edited by Chicken Corner):

"Little Man" as we knew him, but some called "Red," "Red Dog," "Wookie," and in his early days "Cujo" was a local legend in Elysian Park. In late September 2001 he showed up in Elysian Park, making a camp for himself on the Vista Gordo Meadow. A scrappy young thing, with a too tight puppy collar growing into his neck, he made it very clear, you can look, but don't touch. Oh, and you can feed me, leave me water, let me walk with you and your pack, but no touching. Well, we did trap him, tackle him and get that collar off of him, but he was soon up and over or under the fence, only to park himself across the street on the curb, staring into the place that held his friends "captive." He waited daily for them to escape captivity, like clockwork, in the morning and evening. He never understood why they did not try and escape as he had.

Years passed. So did attempts to trap and tame him. Much roasted chicken was used to lure him into the gated front yard -- only for him to tunnel out and wait, across the street. Animal Services set traps, catching multiple neighborhood dogs, squirrels, even a skunk, but never Little Man. Even the self proclaimed "best roper in the West," who then worked for Animal Services, left unrewarded. Little Man was not to be had--he lived on his own terms, and he liked it that way. Until a very hot day in 2008 when his guard was down.

Little Man was so well known in Elysian Park, people would make special trips to feed him and offer him treats. Or just stop by for a visit. He'd become very set in his ways and where he would hang out. He would tag along with other folks on their walks, send out "woof woof" warnings to dogs he considered encroaching on his territory, and overall lived a simple life, hanging curbside.

One afternoon, Animal Control had a truck in the area, looking for a stray pit bull that had attacked another dog. They did not find him, but instead, a deeply slumbering Little Man basking in the shade of a coast live oak tree. After 6 1/2 years, he was caught-and sent to the "Big House." No tunneling out there.

The neighbors of Vista Gordo were beside themselves. What to do? How do we get him back? Little Man logged more visitors than the most charming and precious canines at the shelter. The Shelter staff scratched their heads? Why would anyone care about this scrappy little stray dog? After weeks of negotiating with them, it was agreed he would be released to me, on the condition he would NEVER be loose again. A tall order for a dog that had never been touched. But, fingers crossed behind my back, I swore to abide by the order. Papers signed, off he went to the vet to be neutered and micro-chipped. I made the vet promise to put a collar and tag on him while he was under for surgery. How else would I ever be able to get close to him?

Little Man's homecoming was an amazingly rewarding day. He was waiting outside the vet's office with a slip leash on. NO Collar. Ugh. The vet forgot. Now how was I going to get him in the car and into my house? We had brought Ray, his best buddy, in the car as a lure to get him in. He surprisingly allowed me to boost him into the back seat with Ray and home we went. Once out of the car, this little guy continued to be full of surprises. He let me slip a collar and leash on him, and then he walked like a show dog into the house, his signature fan tail waving back and forth. The next morning when the pack went for their walk, he joined us--on leash. My only explanation I could ever come up with for this sudden behavior, was, that he was scared straight. Like the 1970s prison documentary they showed us kids (those of us who were in school in the 70s), to make us not get involved in crime. Whatever it was he was a changed man. No more attempts to escape, and soon he was walking on and off leash, never leaving the pack, and always coming back into the house at the end of our walks. He had a bed, and favorite couch on the back porch. He never spent another rainy night outside in the cold.

This miraculous journey continued on for the last 4 1/2 years. People would see him and not recognize him. He would greet his old pals with that signature circular fan wave of his bushy tail. He let people pet him.

Just four weeks ago he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer that affects how the blood cells replenish. His issue was high viscosity of the blood which was making his heart work overtime. He still insisted on coming on a shorter version of the walk in the park, sniffing his way around, as he also had experienced sudden blindness. His medication seemed to be working, and just 2 days ago, he was barking to go out in the park, waving his tail, and gobbling up snacks.

He died in Christine's arms one night as she was settling him into the car to take him to the vet -- the car parked near the spot where I used to see him basking in the sun. Everyone knew him, and no one ever thought he was lost. He had a good life. So long, Little Man.

Photos: Little Man at the pound, Little Man at home.

]]> Little Man was so well known in Elysian Park, people would make special trips to feed him and offer him treats. Or just stop by for a visit. He'd become very set in his ways and where he would hang out. He would tag along with other folks on their walks, send out "woof woof" warnings to dogs he considered encroaching on his territory, and overall lived a simple life, hanging curbside.

One afternoon, Animal Control had a truck in the area, looking for a stray pit bull that had attacked another dog. They did not find him, but instead, a deeply slumbering Little Man basking in the shade of a coast live oak tree. After 6 1/2 years, he was caught-and sent to the "Big House." No tunneling out there.

The neighbors of Vista Gordo were beside themselves. What to do? How do we get him back? Little Man logged more visitors than the most charming and precious canines at the shelter. The Shelter staff scratched their heads? Why would anyone care about this scrappy little stray dog? After weeks of negotiating with them, it was agreed he would be released to me, on the condition he would NEVER be loose again. A tall order for a dog that had never been touched. But, fingers crossed behind my back, I swore to abide by the order. Papers signed, off he went to the vet to be neutered and micro-chipped. I made the vet promise to put a collar and tag on him while he was under for surgery. How else would I ever be able to get close to him?

Little Man's homecoming was an amazingly rewarding day. He was waiting outside the vet's office with a slip leash on. NO Collar. Ugh. The vet forgot. Now how was I going to get him in the car and into my house? We had brought Ray, his best buddy, in the car as a lure to get him in. He surprisingly allowed me to boost him into the back seat with Ray and home we went. Once out of the car, this little guy continued to be full of surprises. He let me slip a collar and leash on him, and then he walked like a show dog into the house, his signature fan tail waving back and forth. The next morning when the pack went for their walk, he joined us--on leash. My only explanation I could ever come up with for this sudden behavior, was, that he was scared straight. Like the 1970s prison documentary they showed us kids (those of us who were in school in the 70s), to make us not get involved in crime. Whatever it was he was a changed man. No more attempts to escape, and soon he was walking on and off leash, never leaving the pack, and always coming back into the house at the end of our walks. He had a bed, and favorite couch on the back porch. He never spent another rainy night outside in the cold.

This miraculous journey continued on for the last 4 1/2 years. People would see him and not recognize him. He would greet his old pals with that signature circular fan wave of his bushy tail. He let people pet him.

Just four weeks ago he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer that affects how the blood cells replenish. His issue was high viscosity of the blood which was making his heart work overtime. He still insisted on coming on a shorter version of the walk in the park, sniffing his way around, as he also had experienced sudden blindness. His medication seemed to be working, and just 2 days ago, he was barking to go out in the park, waving his tail, and gobbling up snacks.

He died in Christine's arms one night as she was settling him into the car to take him to the vet -- the car parked near the spot where I used to see him basking in the sun. He had a good life. So long, Little Man.

Photo: Little Man at the pound.

The Shuttle cacophony

2012-09-22T02:42:27Z

Chicken Corner simply must join the online clucking and cooing over Endeavour's carrier strutting the skies of Los Angeles this afternoon. Talk about noise and excitement!

First there was the rumbling sound of the sky beast itself, and my husband calling out, "That's it!" We run outside, in plenty of time to see the aircrafts turning a wide circle to the west of our house. Down the hill there are the shrieks of hundreds of children on the playground of Elysian Heights Elementary.

A short time later, I am driving to an appointment and find upper Alvarado filled with people, in the street. It's bringing people together, which is exciting in itself. They're pointing binoculars and talking loud: The Shuttle is flying by!

On the 2 Freeway folks are driving slow....there's the Shuttle again!

On the 134 westbound, motorists have turned the shoulder into a parking lane as they stop to watch ... the Shuttle again!

Meanwhile, in Altadena, children have been waiting on a field for two hours to see the sight. One has fainted from the heat -- they pour water on him, another has been sick. Finally, the Shuttle comes and all the children start screaming, I am told by a young student named Eliza.

"Was it thrilling to see the Shuttle?" Chicken Corner asks.

"When all the kids started screaming, that was exciting."

But was it worth the screaming of chain saws killing 400 trees?

Ask the residents of Inglewood and South Los Angeles.

Update: It's 8:42 p.m., and a helicopter flies overhead. My daughter, Madeleine, asks, "What is that noise? Is it the Space Shuttle again?" Over and out, from Echo Park.

The secret train to a hometown beach

2012-09-03T01:31:52Z

My friend Iva told me about it, and it sounded too good to be true. A $5 Metrolink train ride from Union Station to the ocean at San Clemente, the platform just a few feet from the beach, a pier, and cafes you can walk to. Her enthusiasm was pure and contagious. "It's just like Europe!" she said.

That's one of the features of Los Angeles. Whenever something is good here, people -- even longtime residents -- say it reminds them of someplace else. As if the ocean were a piece of stagecraft.

So, it's Labor Day weekend. The perfect time to be at the beach, and the perfect time not to be driving. Saturday morning, we are on the train. And it's nearly empty. I had to ask myself, is this a state secret? We have "system-wide," round-trip tickets that cost $10 and can be used on Sunday as well. The ride is about an hour and twenty, and -- just as advertised -- the beach is directly across from the station platform. The water is blue, and the surf is high, the beaches fairly crowded but not miserably so.

Why was I not told about this sooner? And don't tell me I was out of town.

It's a happy day, with a couple of drawbacks. First, is the schedule. The last train back to L.A. leaves at 4:30, which means no time to eat dinner in a restaurant on the pier. (At 7 p.m. we ate dinner at Mongolian BBQ in Silver Lake, sun-drenched and hungry, and permitted the illusion we were still at the beach.)

The second off-put is the presence of both sheriff's deputies and three bomb-squad uniformed cops with their labrador-retriever bomb dog. Chicken Corner's guess = Labor Day weekend, when train stations across the nation are probably on high alert. Every time a train (Amtrack and Metrolink) arrives, the cops patrol the "platform," which actually is at ground level.

The three lifeguards at our station were on stand-up alert, too, frantic with their binoculars, with the crowds and the busy surf. All this nervous energy, kind of made me think of NYC.

Photos: Top, Union Station, Saturday morning; middle, our train, Saturday morning; bottom, 4:20 p.m., seasoned ticket-holders wait for the train back to L.A.

Kickstarter ham

2012-08-31T22:30:05Z

Machine Project wants a ham. Not just any ham, but Jamón ibérico.

The innovative gallery-laboratory made the following appeal to supporters: Make a $50 donation to Machine Project's ham campaign on Kickstarter, and you will get a ticket to "Cabeza Debacle, "a several hour marathon event inspired by the story of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's voyage from Spain to North America in the 16th Century." The Debacle will take place on September 8.

According to Machine:

The evening will be centered around a communal, dramatic reading of an english translation of La Relación, De Vaca's account of his journey as told to the king of Spain.

Obviously, for this event to be a truly gluttonous debacle, we need to purchase the finest, fanciest and most opulent imported Spanish ham that money can buy: Jamón ibérico.

Since its inception, Kickstarter has been used to fund some pretty noble projects: socially-engaged documentary films, innovative and life-improving inventions, and opportunities for earnest, hard-working bands to produce their first album. But, to our knowledge, the platform has yet to be used in order to crowdsource a ham.

By the way, Chicken Corner wonders if they shouldn't be eating fancy beef, given that the English translation of Sr. Cabeza de Vaca's name is Mr. Cow Head. Just asking.

The subject: money-facturing

2012-08-27T20:19:12Z

Way back in the day, before Chicken Corner owned hens or had even heard of Echo Park, she was an 11-year-old who was driven past a stolid-looking building every day on the way to and from school in Washington D.C. They said it was The Mint, and I used to wonder if that really were true. The building looked too ordinary and boring to be the place where money is created. By money, I was thinking quarters.

It turned out that this building was not The Mint. It was (and is) the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing. But they do make the money there -- paper notes -- as well as stamps, White House soiree invites, and miscellaneous special portraits.

They were doing it then, and they've been doing it all this time, seven days a week, apparently without rest, while we are sleeping, when we're awake, when we're driving to the airport, or yawning. It never stops. (And who said we don't make anything in this country anymore?) I learned this last week when I finally toured the D.C. building.

So, we saw them making twenties, big sheets of them, which are printed, reprinted, stamped, cut, sorted, photographed, judged to be worthy, or shredded and sold in the gift shop. It was a 45-minute tour, with no bathroom breaks allowed, we were told at the outset by a guy who sounded like a drill sergeant. First we watched a video that showed twenties being made in a Texas facility (there are two, including the DC shop). Then we followed a young guide through some tunnel-like hallways with Plexiglas windows that looked down into the printing shops, which were staffed by good-looking folks in uniforms who sometimes waved, winked or even pretended to offer an uncut sheet of 32 "subjects," as they call each bill. We saw paper and ink, and big sheets of cash being shuffled in the air before being passed into a new machine to be stamped.

The subject of counterfeit ran through the tour guide's spiel like a ribbon. It seems to inform every decision made in the printing process. And there were lots of jokes about "making" money. Which is why Chicken Corner won't be making a joke about making money, not here, not now. Though I do like their URL: www.moneyfactory.gov. Cluck, cluck.

Words in Harpers Ferry: writ in stone

2012-08-22T19:07:24Z

Chicken Corner and a few family members drove up to Harpers Ferry, WV, on Sunday to go canoeing on the Potomac and see a few historic sights. It poured rain, was cold (cold? yes, cold), and we didn't get to canoe. But we did get some glimpses of history in the town where John Brown and co. attempted rebellion and so many other notable things happened. To say that the meanings of much that happened in Harpers Ferry are subjects of dispute, is like saying that the American people are divided on the subjects of race, class, religion, and the definition of rape. It's a bit of an understatement.

In any case, we drove in three cars, and we met at "the Fort," which was where Brown and his doomed rebels were either shot or captured in their effort to arm the slaves with weapons taken from the government munitions store. The building has been reconstructed, and its location has changed, moved about twenty yards downhill from where it stood originally.

You see all kinds in Harpers Ferry: backpackers from the Appalachian trail; people like us who come mainly to play in the river; Union history and civil rights buffs who are interested in the John Brown story and black history in the area; and Confederacy buffs, drawn by nearby Antietam Creek and the fact the Confederacy held Harpers Ferry several times during the Civil War -- and, yes, I did notice one Confederate cap wearer.

So, you read a plaque about the Abolitionists, and then you turn a corner and there's a marker like this:

THIS BOULDER IS ERECTED BY THE UNITED DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDERACY AND THE SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS AS A MEMORIAL TO HEYWARD SHEPHERD, EXEMPLIFYING THE CHARACTER AND FAITHFULNESS OF THOUSANDS OF NEGROES WHO, UNDER MANY TEMPTATIONS THROUGHOUT SUBSEQUENT YEARS OF WAR, SO CONDUCTED THEMSELVES THAT NO STAIN WAS LEFT UPON A RECORD WHICH IS THE PECULIAR HERITAGE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND AN EVERLASTING TRIBUTE TO THE BEST IN BOTH RACES.

Next to the stone marker is an interpretation in sun-faded plastic, kind of acknowledging the startling words in stone:

It says:

During the ceremony [to dedicate the Daughters of the Confederacy's stone marker] voices raised to praise and denounce the monument. Conceived around the turn of the century, the monument has endured controversy. In 1905 the United Daughters of the Confederacy stated that "erecting the monument would influence for good the present and coming generations, and prove that the people of the South who owned slaves valued and respected their good qualities as no one else ever did or will do."

It reminded me of how much further in the past the Civil War seems to a resident of Los Angeles. We have few physical reminders.

Heyward Shepherd was the free black man, unconnected to Brown, who was shot by someone in John Brown's company, noise from the shooting causing Brown's mission to fall apart. Today, when I googled Shepherd, the first entries are all about the marker that's dedicated to him. The man who probably never knew he'd be famous is now most famous for an infamous tribute to his actions.

Cluck, cluck. Chicken Corner is going to the hardware store right now to get a chisel and chip out a response she thinks worthy of 2012.