Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, January 19, 2019

7

BEST FRIENDS & MORE 

Mountain Views-News Saturday, January 19, 2019 


Happy Tails

by Chris Leclerc

BEST FRIEND

ANIMALS & AUTISM

TEMPLE GRANDIN 
HELPS BRIDGE 

THE GAP


Emma is a gentle boxer girl 
who was surrendered to the 
shelter when her family moved 
to a new home where pets are 
not allowed. She is 3-years 
old with brown and white 
fur. Emma has an easy-going, 
mellow personality and is easy 
to manage on a walk. She often 
sits at the front of her kennel 
watching all the activity going 
on in a calm, non-reactive 
manner. Emma is used to 
living in a home environment, 
and although she has adapted 
to shelter life, she would love 
to have a home and family to call her own. If you 
are looking for a sweet girl to be your new best 
friend, consider adding Emma to your family. 
She has a lot of love to give 
in return for a happy, loving 
home. Her adoption fee is 
$145 and includes spay surgery, 
vaccinations, microchip and 
a free wellness exam at a 
participating veterinarian. Feel 
free to call us at (626) 286-
1159 for more information. 
She currently resides at the San 
Gabriel Valley Humane Society 
located at 851 E. Grand Avenue 
in San Gabriel which is located 
off San Gabriel Blvd, north of 
Mission and south of Las Tunas 
Drive. To arrange a ‘Meet and 
Greet’, please stop by any time from 10:30am to 
4:30pm Tuesday through Sunday. Website:

www.sgvhumane.org.

Very little was known about autism back in in the 
1950’s when Temple Grandin was diagnosed with 
the, then, rather mysterious condition. Grandin didn’t 
speak until she was three and a half years old, but unlike 
many autistic children at that time, she benefited from 
the loving structure provided by her mother and an 
excellent team of school administrators, which allowed 
her to develop and function to her best ability and start 
normal kindergarten by the age of five.

 Autistic children have varying degrees of difficulty 
communicating and socializing, and they can lock 
into repetitive behaviors that are often misinterpreted 
as other forms of mental disability. But what a lot of 
people don‘t know is that many autistic children are 
quite gifted. The problem is that they struggle with 
developing and communicating the remarkable skills 
they possess in a way that most ordinary people can 
understand.

 As a teenager, Grandin visited her aunt’s cattle 
ranch in Arizona where she discovered that she has a 
very unique gift; the ability to connect mentally with 
animals. Scientific research indicates that the reason 
for Grandin’s special gift stems from the fact that 
because she is autistic, she shares the animals’ ability 
to think through visual associations, unlike non-
autistic individuals who think more in terms of verbal 
language.

 The more time Grandin spent with the horses and 
cows at her aunt’s ranch, the more connected she 
became with them and as she grew into adulthood she 
set out to apply her unique thinking abilities to making 
a difference for the better on behalf of the animals.

 When it came time to select a college to attend, 
Grandin made it clear that she wanted to go where she 
could learn more about how beef cattle are raised and 
slaughtered. Based on what she had already learned 
about the beef industry while visiting her aunt’s ranch, 
Grandin was determined to find more humane ways 
to go about the slaughtering process.

 She received her bachelor’s degree at Franklin 
Pierce College, then went on to attend Arizona State 
University where she earned her master’s degree. As if 
that wasn’t amazing enough, Grandin then continued 
her academic career at the University of Illinois at 
Urbana where, in 1989 she earned a PhD in Animal 
Science. The public became aware of Temple Grandin 
in 1995, when neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote about 
her in his book, Anthropologist on Mars. 

 Dr. Temple Grandin has played a key part in 
formulating the beef industry’s guidelines for more 
humane animal handling as well as in training a 
new generation of agricultural professionals in 
animal behavior theory. In 1999 she was hired by 
McDonald’s as a consultant to audit the meatpacking 
plants that supplied their fast-food chain, and she 
is now a renowned figure who is well respected for 
her understanding of how animals think and feel. 
She shares her knowledge on animal husbandry at 
symposiums as well as at conventions and seminars on 
autism.

 Now a professor at Colorado State University, 
Grandin is also sharing her unique knowledge and 
gifts with the graduate students she teaches. She has 
become a renowned master of animal behavior and 
helps others understand the importance of treating 
animals with the respect they deserve.

 In 2010, Director Mike Jackson got together with 
Temple Grandin and writers, Margaret Scariano, 
Christopher Monger and Merritt Johnson to produce 
the made-for-television biopic, Temple Grandin, a 
true story about the life of an autistic woman who 
became one of the world’s top scientists in the humane 
livestock handling industry. Grandin’s character 
in the film is performed by Claire Danes who did a 
remarkable job playing the role.

 As I read about Temple Grandin in preparation for 
this article, she became a hero in my mind. I imagine 
she wouldn’t consider herself to be a hero, as she seems 
to be a very humble individual who would probably say 
she simply did what came natural for her. The fact is, 
Temple Grandin managed to overcome the obstacles 
of autism and used her unique skills to bring about 
change for the more humane treatment of animals, 
and to me that makes her a true hero!

 Sources: 1) Seeing in Pictures, article by Richard 
Deitsch, Costco Connection magazine; 2) IMDb.com 
- synopsis on Temple Grandin, the movie; 3) Bio info 
from www.templegrandin.com


CAT OF THE WEEK

This is EMERY! She’s a female tortie (short 
for tortoiseshell colored fur), between age 3 
& 4 yrs. Sweet & may be easily held. She was 
living with an elderly person who did the 
best she could for Emery and a few other 
cats, but is now asking for help. Emery is 
healthy and ready to be in a forever home 
and be pampered! Contact us at 626-676-
9505 to arrange a meet & greet of this 
beautiful girl! She will come microchipped, 
spayed, vetted, & vaccinated. www.
lifelineforpets.org.


THE WORLD AROUND US


OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

WALKING INTO LOS ANGELES’ 

EARLY PAST

WHY CHILDHOOD IS BETTER 
THE SECOND TIME AROUND

This week the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and Yours Truly had the 
privilege of attending our youngest granddaughter’s second birthday party. I 
wanted to go to her third birthday party but she was not old enough yet. 
So, I will have to wait another year.

 On the way home we sat in silence thinking about the party we had just attended. It just does not 
seem possible that we have eight grandchildren. I broke the silence with a little comment along this 
line. “I’m just not old enough to be a grandfather of eight grandchildren. I don’t feel old enough to be a 
grandfather”

 From the other passenger in the car came a rather sarcastic snicker, if I say so myself.

 “What’s that supposed to mean?” I retorted.

 “Well,” she said rather slowly as if she was trying to collect her thoughts and use the right words, 
“believe me, putting all feelings aside, you’re old enough.”

 I did not quite know what she meant by that, and I was afraid if I ask she would tell me. I quickly 
changed the subject and said, “Didn’t Jordin look cute with birthday cake all over her face?”

 She laughed.

 Then, I thought I was talking to myself but apparently, I said it aloud, a least loud enough for my wife 
to hear. “I wonder what it’s like to be two years old?”

 “Get ready,” my wife said with a laugh in her voice, “you’re about ready to enter into your second 
childhood.”

 At the time, I rather resented the comment, but upon further reflection, I do not see anything wrong 
with that. After all, what is wrong with enjoying childhood the second time around?

 I really do not think it is possible to enjoy childhood the first time. There are so many things to 
interfere.

 First off, are parents constantly telling you what to do or not to do. Telling you when to go to bed. 
Telling you when to get up in the morning. Telling you when to eat. Telling you what to eat. Telling... 
telling... telling...

 How in the world can anybody enjoy life when people are always telling them what to do? The problem 
is, when a person is two years old they have absolutely no leverage against overbearing parents. The 
only thing the two-year-old can do to get the upper hand with his parents is to wait until they are in the 
supermarket with lots of people around and then throw a temper tantrum.

 Here is the advantage of entering a second time into your childhood. Nobody is around to tell you what 
to do or what not to do. You are on your own, at least in this area. Of course, in your second childhood it 
is not possible to throw a temper tantrum in a public supermarket and get away with it.

 The advantage of having a second childhood is that you have all that experience behind you to use to 
your advantage that a two year old could not possibly have. This in itself covers a multitude of sins.

 “What’s wrong with your husband?” Somebody may ask my wife.

 “Oh,” she responds quite mechanically, “he’s into his second childhood.”

 “I understand, my husband’s there too.”

 And all is right with the world.

 In a person’s first childhood, he is quite limited in his outlook. He does not know what he is missing. 
But during the second childhood, he has the benefit of knowing this and using it for his own personal 
profit.

 For example, when the parents of a two-year-old take him out to a restaurant he is completely at the 
mercy of the parents.

 “Eat your vegetables,” the parents demand, “then you can have dessert.”

 There is nothing the two-year-old can do at this point. After all, the one who pays the bill gets to say 
who does what.

 Now, as I enter my second childhood I have the advantage of knowing that all that malarkey about 
eating your vegetables first is just that... malarkey. And, since I am paying the bill, I will eat the desert 
whenever I want to eat it. In fact, I will start with dessert and end with dessert. And while I am on the 
subject, if I do not want to order vegetables, I will order no vegetable.

 Many has been the time when my wife and I are out to a restaurant and she will order a properly 
balanced meal, while I order dessert.

 “You do know vegetables are good for you?” my wife will insist.

 “I know no such thing,” I reply.

 The two-year-old believes it when his parents say that vegetables are good for him, especially the 
green vegetables. But someone like myself, enjoying the second go around of his childhood, knows this 
is absolutely not true. And, it is not true that I have to clean my plate before I can have my dessert.

As a mature man enjoying his second childhood, I do not have to believe everything people tell me. If 
dessert was not good for me, why in the world does it taste so good to me?

I have good scriptural evidence that God is on my side here. In the Psalms I read about God, “Who 
satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psalms 103: 5 KJV).

God has my best interest in mind for the longest period of time.

 Dr. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, 1471 Pine Road, Ocala, FL 34472. He 
lives with his wife in Silver Springs Shores. Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net. The 
church web site is www.whatafellowship.com.

[Nyerges is the author of “How to Survive 
Anywhere,” “Self-Sufficient Home,” 
“Foraging California,” and other books. 
For more information about his books 
and classes, go to www.SchoolofSelf-
Reliance.com.] 

 Each year on my birthday, I have 
attempted to do something special to 
recall the passage of years and the significant events of my life. 
Usually, this has taken the form of a run where I review each year 
of my life, and look at where I’ve been, and where I think I should 
be going. 

 In addition to this review this year, Helen and I chose to go 
into downtown Los Angeles to look-again at some of our cultural 
treasures, and to also look at the early history of this town.

 First, we went to the “new” Catholic Cathedral at Hill and 
Temple. If you’ve never been there, you really should check it out. 
No one will ask you whether or not you’re a Catholic, and they 
will welcome your $22 fee to conveniently park in their lot. The 
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels is an 
impressive structure – Catholic’s really 
know how to build churches.

 You enter the vast plaza, planted with 
unique trees, and you enter into the high-
ceilinged church, whose walls are lined with 
huge tapestries depicting the various saints 
and special ones of the Church. There are 
plenty of little side sanctuaries where you 
light a candle to the Virgin of Guadalupe, 
or various other saints. There’s a lot to see, 
especially the little statues scattered here 
and there. I especially liked the fountain on 
the east end of the courtyard, whose floor 
is painted with the constellations. The store 
offers you any and all of the keepsakes of 
Catholicism that you can ever hope to find. 

 I was brought up in Catholicism, and so I had a natural interest 
in this large monument in the heart of the City of Angels. But, 
more than that, on my birthday, I wanted to walk in Yangna, the 
original Indian village from which sprang Los Angeles.

 No one really knows where the village center may have been. 
The Cathedral is probably the western edge of the living area that 
extended eastward to the Los Angeles River. Native people used the 
river, but would have lived in the slightly higher ground, such as 
where the Cathedral is located. The Civic Center is often believed 
to be the center of Yangna, as well as the center divider of the 101 
just south of the MTA headquarters. No one really knows, but this 
village occupied the triangle roughly bordered by the Pasadena 
Freeway, the 101, and Los Angeles River. 

 According to research by Dr. Harry Kelsey of the Los Angeles 
County Museum of Natural History, A Yangna settlement existed 
on the land of the current Los Angeles Civic Center, and it was 
a favorite trading place for native people. Governor de Neve, six 
months prior to the establishment of the Los Angeles pueblo in 
1781, had undertaken preliminary diplomacy with the natives who 
lived there, in order to develop friendly relations before Spanish 
settlers began moving into the area. De Neve was apparently 
making some progress, but was replaced by Pedro de Fages later 
that year. Then, by 1828, a German immigrant purchased the 
land of the Yangna community and obtained the help of Mexican 
officials to evicted the entire Yangna community who had been 
living there for possibly up to 3000 years.

 Spanish missionaries in the 1700s impacted the Yangna people, 
and after the fall of the Spanish mission system, Mexican families 
founded the new pueblo where the native people once had their 
village. We think of it today as Olvera Street. 

After we left the Cathedral, we drove to the Terminal Annex Post 
Office where it’s easy to park, and walked to the Our Lady Queen of 
the Angels Catholic Church, across the street from Olvera Street. 
This is the original Catholic church, going back to the early days, 
with its courtyard bearing a resemblance to the early mission style 
of architecture. This is a small church compared to the Cathedral, 
and it was full of the serious, mostly older, Catholics, who are there 
to pray and to cry. There is none of the hipster atmosphere that 
you witness at the Cathedral, and none of the cameras hanging 
from every hand looking for a photo op. This is the real thing, 
and you’re quiet here, or you’re told to leave. This church is very 
reminiscent of the many old churches that you find still in small 
towns of Mexico.

 After a bit, we crossed the street to the Olvera Street plaza, 
and read the names of the founding fathers of Los Angeles on a 
somewhat inconspicuous plaque while mariachis played in the 
background. The 11 founders were Villavicencio, Rodriguez, 
Quintero, Vanegas, Lara, Mesa, Moreno, two Rosas, Camero, and 
Navarro, of the town they called El Pueblo de la Reina de Los 
Angeles sobre el Rio de la Porciuncula – the Pueblo of the Queen 
of the Angels on the River Porciuncula – Los Angeles for short.

 I was a bit amazed at how little traffic we encountered getting 
into downtown on a Friday, and I was struck 
by how quiet Olvera Street was. It was 
the first time I was there when it was not 
shoulder to shoulder. Of course, I usually 
go there on the weekends or on Dia De Los 
Muertos. I learned that the mobs of office 
workers of downtown Los Angeles have 
learned how to adjust their schedules so 
that they are no longer there on Fridays. It 
turns out that the busiest freeway day is now 
Thursday.

 We browsed at many of the items sold 
at Olvera Street, mostly interested in the 
molcajetes and some of the beautiful art and 
woven objects from Mexico. 

 We finally wanted to get an early dinner, 
and so we went to a Mexican restaurant I’d 
been to before – I am very much a creature of habit, often going 
back again to my familiar places. We went to Casa La Golondrina, 
at 17 West Olvera Street. Inside, it was like going back more than 
a century to early Los Angeles as we could see the original wood, 
and fire was burning in the big stone fireplace in the corner. The 
restaurant was part of the Pelaconi house, built in 1855, and 
because it was such a quiet time, we enjoyed talking about the 
history of the building with the waiter and the proprietress. We 
could imagine how this early city could function in the pre-electric 
days, with cooking by fire, and the springs and river bringing the 
water into the town via the zanja. 

 Of course, if you only go to this part of downtown as a tourist, 
you miss the depth. Within these several urban blocks was once 
the center of Indian culture, slowly pushed back by the Spanish 
missionaries, and then pushed back by the Mexican ranch owners, 
who were pushed back again by the new Americans. As you dig 
beneath the surface, you realize there was much pain and killing 
and suffering along the way. Another part of the story is Chinatown, 
just to the north, where the Chinese workers came until they were 
marginalized and considered no longer needed. It’s all a long a 
sordid history, painfully documented in such books as “The Other 
Californians: Prejudice and Discrimination under Spain, Mexico, 
and the United States to 1920” by Heizer and Almquist.

 George Santayana is famously regarded as telling us that we who 
do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Los Angeles is 
probably not unique in the way that each culture builds atop the 
old one, and then tries to forget its past. But such a great city as 
the City of Angels with its unique diversity provides us with the 
opportunity to learn from our past, and to respect and embrace 
all those who came before. It would be a remarkable destiny for 
this great city if everyone chose to do that, though the jury is still 
out as to whether we are collectively learning from the past, or just 
repeating old mistakes.


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com