When I moved to Berkeley in the ‘70’s, I soon learned about all of the colorful characters who hung out on Telegraph Avenue.  Little did I know that my dog, Eddie, would also soon reach legendary status.

There was a guy we called “The Orange Man” who could usually be found on the edge of Sproul Plaza, at the south entrance to the university.  He was always dressed in pastel tie-dyed clothes and had long curly blond hair like a halo around his head.  He carried a plastic bag with three or four oranges inside which he would swing about as he stood for hours, talking to no one in particular.  The word was that he had lost his mind on drugs and that he fancied himself to be a sort of Johnny Appleseed, but with oranges.

There was a homeless man with bloodshot eyes and a crazed expression who camped out near the Café Mediterranean down the street.  He would mutter and scowl and then occasionally break into a frantic kung fu fight, driving away unseen foes.  Once I asked him if I could buy him a coffee.  “No, thanks, I’ve already had one today,” he replied in a clear and refined voice.

My favorite, though, was the one we called “One-way Shoes” who shuffled about town, sometimes pushing a shopping cart.  He had a pair of worn-out leather shoes with the back part squished down under his feet – like someone going outside to get the morning paper.  The shoes were so tattered that we joked that if he ever tried to back up, he would leave the shoes behind.

My friend Bruce worked at Moe’s Books in a five-story building on Telegraph and lived in an apartment on the third floor.  I was staying with him temporarily until I found an appropriate place for Eddie and myself.  Finding an apartment was going to be tough because not everyone allowed dogs, not even an average dog, and Eddie wasn’t exactly average.

Eddie was a shepherd-terrier mutt and to call him hyperactive would be an understatement. His expressions of strong will were legendary, leading him to near-expulsion from a dog obedience class (for trying to bite the trainer) to being maced by a mailman (for greeting him with barks, snarls and a driveway-long sprint). He had already dodged death once – or at least dodged a few fenders in a mad dash across four lanes of Interstate 80. But despite all of this, Eddie was a lovable and loyal pup who never wanted to leave my side.  But that day in Berkeley, we had a terrific craving for a cappuccino and couldn’t bring him with us across the street to the Café Med for fear of what Eddie would do to the apartment if left alone. So we meticulously planned (for 20 or 30 seconds) and decided that the perfect solution would be to leave the dog alone on the roof of the apartment building.

There was stairway access to the flat room where a clothesline was located and the perimeter was enclosed by a four-foot high solid wall. As we left Eddie up there, we wedged the door shut, gently pushing his eager snout out of the way, and made our way to the elevator. In a minute, we were in the lobby, opening the front door.

We were greeted by a passer-by who seemed to be very disturbed about something.

“There’s a dog running around in the street and I think it was just hit by a car.  Does it belong to one of you?”

“No.  My dog’s on the roo…,” I started to say.  Bruce and I looked at each other in horror as we came to the same conclusion.

We ran outside to see Eddie, who recognized me and came hobbling in my direction, listing twenty degrees to the right, stepping gingerly, as is he were walking on thin ice.  My mind couldn’t quite figure out how he had gotten there until I went around to the alley next to the building and saw a parked car with a dent on the hood, surrounded by Eddie-hairs.

No, Eddie had not been hit by a car.  He was the one who had done the hitting.  “Dog Hits Car”, the headline would read.

I was filled with guilt as I took Eddie to the emergency vet, certain that he wouldn’t survive the day.  I felt completely irresponsible for leaving him on the roof, but who would have thought that he would have jumped over a four-foot wall?

Amazingly, Eddie survived.  He didn’t even have any broken bones or major injuries, although for a few weeks he moved as if he had aged a dozen or so dog-years.

Looking back on it, I wonder what One-way Shoes would have said if he had shuffled around a corner just in time to see Eddie flying off the roof and crash landing below:

“Hey little bro’ – you got the right idea – keep moving forward, never go back.  Just remember though – the jumping is the easy part – it’s the landing that takes a little getting used to!”

November has been a busy month for the Krahling family.  Not only has Heidi published her cookbook Insalata’s Mediterranean Table, but Mark has finally released his collection of short stories, Still Blinking.

From the book cover : “Still Blinking is a collection of stories which capture those tiny moments in time that pass in a blink of an eye.  Mark helps us to sit back and ask the question, ‘What just happened there?’ – sometimes supplying us with his own interpretation while encouraging us to find our own.”

Still Blinking is available online and may be purchased ($11 plus tax, shipping and handling) using a Paypal account or major credit card.

- Rosie Sorenson, award-winning writer and author of They Had Me at Meow

“Humor twinkles in Mark Krahling’s kindly observations of life’s incongruities.”

- Lum Franco, Co-author of Other Voices

Mark’s pause––your elixir. Drink! Savor!

- Carolyn Ingram, co-author of The-Not-So-Scary Breast Cancer Book: Two Sisters’ Guide from Discovery to Recovery.

“Read Still Blinking in bed, alone or with your lover, sighing and laughing outloud.”

- Christie Nelson, author of Woodacre: A Novel

Last summer, I learned about a book club for the homeless, founded in Boston.  Peter Resnik, a downtown lawyer, made it a habit of cutting through Boston Common on his way to work. Each day he would see a homeless man named Rob and they began having daily conversations about jokes, sports, and eventually literature.  Peter loaned a book to Rob, who in turn shared it with other homeless people. Before long, a book group was created, with members meeting each Tuesday to discuss stories while snacking on doughnuts and coffee.

The meetings are described in an Boston Globe article by Jenna Russell:

When talk flows at the book club, the dynamic that emerges is pure and powerful.  The members are equals, linked by what they read and respected for their insights.  Their discussions…are both a stimulus and a respite for people used to staying focused on survival – where to sleep and how to stay dry – rather than the themes and symbols of fiction.

This description very much appealed to my own sense of what a book group should be about – that the group should use the literature as a stimulus for discussion and sharing rather than something that needs to be critiqued and dissected.  I sent an e-mail to the group and received a response from Ron Tibbetts, a Beacon Hill church deacon and longtime homeless outreach worker.  Ron has created a nonprofit group, the Oasis Coalition, and has replicated the idea of a book club for the homeless.  I offered to donate copies of my book Still Blinking and he wrote back, accepting my offer.

The books are now in the mail and I look forward to hearing about what kinds of interesting discussions the stories might generate.  Ron says that the idea of a book club for the homeless is spreading across the country and that he plans to set up a blog to keep people informed of the progress. I’ll share that information on this blog when it becomes available.

Heidi Krahling’s long-awaited cookbook is now available for purchase. The book is truly a work of art – filled with more than 120 recipes from both Insalata’s and from Heidi’s family along with gorgeous illustrations by Laura Parker and mouth-watering photographs by David Matheson. The book features a foreword by Ann Lamott and Heidi’s personal stories to introduce each recipe.

Insalata’s Mediterranean Table was recently reviewed in the Marin Independent Journal and is available for purchase at Insalata’s – 120 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo, CA – or by clicking the following link: