Independent from Long Beach, California • 29

mr -v on Mary Ellis Carlton -f -to 4 1 4 v-rf 4 4 -rwV; s'- I 'it 7 fikv Pv i A 4 i -1 4 4 i H44 v. 4 4. i. -rf 77' 7 4 4 4, I 4 4 4 4 WILLIAM MANCINELLI CHECKS RAIN-MAKING MACHINE AT EATON WASH DAM, 14 1 L.B. restaurateurs hobby Aircraft museum growing By DENISE KUSEL Staff Writer Aztecs prayed to Rain Godl to drench their parched land with water to nourish fhSlr crops and fill their canals with precious fluid.

The Los Angeles County Flood Control District doesnt exactly' ask' mystical gods with special wisdom to keep the cement-bellied Los An-eles River swollen with water, but does county heavily on a little help from 22 cylindrical silver-colored tubes. The tubular structures are cloud-seeding generators whose appearance hardly warrants the romantic stories which surround rainmaking. In fact, rainmaking is a misno- mer probably gleaned from stories' of drifters traveling through the early West In flatbed wagons equip-ed with special drums to imitate the sound of thunder. There is no such tiling as rainmaking, warned William Manet nelli, a senior supervisor with the Flood Control District, so dont call me a rainmaker. Part of Mancinellis job a civil engineer, is keeping an eye on the cloud seeding generators which are leased by the county from North American Weather Consultants.

JTHE GENERATORS are strategically placed in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains. The location of toe generators is Mandnem because we prefer to increase rainfall in the area where we can trap the most water and keep it until we need it. Rain falling into the Los Angeles basin itself usually ends up running into the Los Angeles River channel and finally into the ocean. The Flood Control District has been seeding clouds since 1969 and estimates an increased rainfall of 15 per cent a year. So, for every 100 drops of rain that fell this year, the district claims credit for 15 of them.

It takes one milligram of silver iodide in a cubic mile of air to produce rain, toe mustached MancinelU said. He explained the optimum conditions for cloud seeding is a slow-moving storm front When a storm moves slowly, we can place the silver iodide particles exactly where we want them and hopefully top drops will splash down into one of our reser-' volrs. 1 Cloud seeding depends on toe location and elevation of a cloud layer and 4 certain temperature conditions. We have to get the particles into the zone of the cloud which is just below freezing temperature within the elevation limitation of our generators which is 6,000 feet FOUR OF THE 22 generating stations are operated by remote control- and can be activated by dialing a telephone code number. Two generators were taken out of action after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake because toe district doesnt seed in areas which have been scenes of recent fires or earthquakes.

One of toe functioning genera-. tors is located at Eaton Wash Dam. The approach is dusty and the soil is rocky alluvium fan boulders and pebbles tumbled from the San Gabriel rounded and pelted by centuries of rain! Hardly the romantic spot for a rainmaking device which flirts with nature. The dam is 12 miles from the Los Angeles Civic Center and is smack up against the San Gabrials. north of Pasadena.

The station consists of two spreading areas holding ponds where water trickles or gushes, depending on need, through a diversion gate located above the two ponds. The trapped water soaks into the ground, replenishing the water table in the area. ALTHOUGH THIS has seeming-7 ly been a wet year, county hydrog-raphers still consider it a drought period. Normal rainfall at Los Angeles Ciylc Center is 15.1 inches. It takes a 15-inch reading to push the year out of the drought category.

So far this year, 14.98 inches have been recorded. The wettest year on record, measured in 1888-89 was 38.18 inches. Weve seeded almost every storm tills year, Mancinelli said, adding, After a storm reaches five inches in rainfall, we stop seeding." On top of a rocky crest near the dam is an innocuous looking doublelayer cylinder connected to a propane tank by The raini The cylindrical tube is about 4 12 feet tall and makes a noise similar to that of a kitchen stove when its turned on. The propane gas provides the flame which pressurizes a stiver iodide solution stored in toe bottom of the tank. Heat from the flame turns the solution into microscopic crystals which are lighter, than air.

The iodide crystals are lifted by prevail-ing winds. As toe particles are swept up into the clouds, ice forms around them and they gain weight and fall back to earth. By the lime they reach ground theyre melted rain. The peach corps9 makes big splash EVERYBODY IN town is agog otct ttie 3,200 flowering peach trees toat this spring have turned toe Ing Beach State University campus into a riot of living color. "Absolutely beautiful, says Es- toer Haynes, 3822 E.

Seventh St. I wouldnt miss them for anything. I have a proprietary interest in those trees. I claim them for my own. A lot of people in Long Beach feel toat way.

for a variety of reasons. As for Mrs. Haynes, dies the one, back in December, 1964, who came up with Join the jpeach corps, winning slogan for the citys flowering peach trees campaign. Besides that, her family nickname was Peach Blossom. The peach corps referred to in her prize slogan was then being recruited by a group of civic leaders to raise money for a vast tree planting program they rightfully envisioned, would turn the university campus, into .320 acres of fantastic beauty.

THE VISIONARIES cant seem to agree on who thought of it first Dont remember if it was Ed Klllingsworth or Hank Bidder, says Ed Lovell, consulting landscape architect for LBSU. It definitely was Robert Irvin, says LBSU public relations director Bob Wells. A bunch of us came up with the idea sitting around at lunch, says. Llewellyn Bixby first chairman of the resulting Flowering Trees Committee. The project took firm root at a meeting in October, 1964, in the office of Herman Bidder, late publisher of the I.P-T.

Columnist Mac Epley used this, space to conduct a slogan contest (toe one won by Mrs. Haynes) and committee members soon galvanized the city into Contributions totaling $11,102.98 poured in from organizations, civic groups and beauty-conscious individuals. THE FIRST campus plantings' were in January, 1965. The idea flourished in other groups. Betsy Taubman, then chairman of Long Beach Beautiful, influenced her subjects to declare 1965 the Year of toe Tree.

Travis Montgomery, business executive at Los Altos Shopping Center, promoted planting of 120 of the flowering beauties around the perimeter of the shopping center. Memorial Hospital put in plantings. And city employees established a memorial grove of 400 trees at the Bellflower entrance of the LBSU campus to honor late City Councilman TOby Wicks. Long Beach Beautiful, with Dorothy Buerger now as chairman, hais kept the tradition alive by: presenting flowering peach trees to schools as annual awards in civic beautifucation competitions. And the City Council passed a-resolution April 29, 1969, declaring the Helen Borchers flowering peach the official city tree.

FUNNY THING, though. Somebody up there apparently forgot to tell toe Park Board that the Helen Borchers is our official city tree. Park Board tree expert Ron Sissons, for one, hadnt heard. We recognize it is a magnifi-cient flowering tree, he said, and we are reassessing our position on its use. We have hesitated to use it in city plantings because of the possibility of fruit falling on public sidewalks.

At Long Beach State, toe fruit wasnt expected. Though the Helen Borchers is not a commercial fruit tree, some of ours have turned out to be pretty sexy, Ed Lovell said. Every June when little green peaches start showing up, students have a lot of chuckles. Some apply for the brandy-making concession. Some threaten to start a co-op fruit stand on Seventh Street Others col-lect basketsful and make Jam.

Meanwhile, groundsmen on campus are studying up on pruning techniques and peach genetics. Their hope is to come up with a zero peach population. Peaches or no peaches, the plantings continue. The Helen Borchers, with their profuse double blossoms and vivid pink color, are said to be the most beautiful flowering trees of them all. Anyone whos been out to look will attest to that John Regnier, director of physical planning at the university, says there are still bare spots' and "we sure would welcome some additional flowering peach money.

Contributions can be sent to LBSU Foundation Tree Planting Fund, 61Q1 E. Seventh St, Long Beach 90801, vJoin the peach corps! Help make Long Beach the peachiest. place in toe U.S.A. jjh ft 4" Almost Never Flew -Staff Photo by BOB SHUMWAY two B26s, three Bristol Blenheims, two P40s, a P38, a P63 Lysander and another TBM. Yet to be acquired are another Corsair, a Brewster, and two loans a BIT and aB29.

Tallichet also is requesting another B24 from the Indian government and wants to fly it back himself if he gets it Most of this aircraft are owned by Military Aircraft Restoration which is owned for Specialty Restaurants. They are destined for a new concept in museums, Talli chet says. it says A li' live museum, he explains, By MOLLY BURRELL Staff Writer When restaurant tycoon Dave TalUchet says come fly with me hes not talking about an ordinary executive Jet And when he says Mustang he doesnt mean si Ford. What he means is a regenerated P51 now stabled at Chino Airport as part of a growing collection of World War II aircraft For the bashful Texas kid who always wanted to fly and almost didnt is sky high these days, collecting military planes the way some men Collect classic cars or classy broads. The college dropout who parlayed a hotel clerk Job into a $19 million Long Beach based empire has returned to his first love and found it as exciting as when it was new.

Whats more, hell probably make it pay. At least thats the eventual goal for his vintage aircraft museum project and a corollary Battle of Britain re-creation in multiple dimension. Ever since he got in on the tail end of World War II as co-pilot on a B17 hep been hung up on period planes. Even before he made it big in the restaurant business Tallichet had bought an early Stearman open cockpit trainer and was stunt flying it along with two fellow co-owners. But it wasnt until three years ago on a visit to the Smithsonian that he got the idea for toe flying museum.

He saw a Hurricane and knew he wanted it But it vu bad timing because by then toe prices already were way up. Now theyre astronomical, he says. MILES FROM CIVIC CENTER Staff Photo by KENT HENDERSON with multi-dimensional sound and visual experience, rather than totally static exhibit." It is tentatively scheduled for someplace near Orlando, Florida, and the planes on loan from toe government will, if included; be leased. 4 His other project is a re-creation of the Battle of Britain which hed like to install alongside the Queen Mary where three of his companys 19 Southland restaurants operate. He envisions another multi-dimensional project, complete with taped voices of Churchill and other wartime leaders.

Tallichet, president and chairman of the board of Specialty, is a 50-year-old dynamo with a drawl, a shaggy-haired sultan of industry who has tuned drawbacks personal and financial into assets the way some losers turn them into castastrophes. When the Air Force told him he' couldnt fly because of severe astigmatism, he started doing eye exercises, had his eyes dilated, and then hung around the recruiting office until late afternoon when the medical examiner was anxious to get home to dinner. Finally one day I wore him toe eye exam by calculated compensations, and got in in time to fly 21 missions, he says. Years later when they told him he'd need a lot of capital to branch out on his own after managing toe Lafayette Hotel he put up a modest collateral on a big loan, went hi way over his head and launched himself in the business which last year showed these success indices: a 42 per cent profit gain over the previous year and a 25 per cent sales rise. WORTH $1,000 with an estimate from Morry Simon of toe Upstairs Gallery toat the Picasso sketch i worth at least $1,000.

MacDonald, who had the idea of tackling Picasso, might get through school after all; he might sell the sketch. Did he ever follow up on his art studies? No, Nickell "For him, it was art appreciation. DAVE TALLICHET Nevertheless Tallichet has ac-quired 20 planes, has several In the process, has been promised a B24 as a gift from the Indian government, and has several more on loan bom the U.S. Air Force with strictures on their non-profit use. He has two men scouring New Guinea for mine.

In flying condition are the P51, a Stinson L5V, an AT6. a TBM, a Corsair, a red and white checked Stearman biplane. A six-man crew at his Military Aircraft Restoration Corp. hangar is working on: two B25s used the movie "Catch 22 ing the famous artist for a sketch. His teacher was Verajoan Nelson, now Mrs.

Robert Nickell, and she had led her class into the study of Picassos works. She told the class that she owned a Picasso original and. of her admiration for toe master whose outpourings spanned more than 75 years before he died last Sunday at age of 91. Young MacDonald asked his teacher if she thought- Picasso would draw a sketch on my check if I sent him 4 It was worth a try; she said, and so be did. He wrote a short Sketch Picasso sent gratis to student now worth $1,000 note, enclosed a check for $1, and waited.

The letter was postmarked Nov. 22, 1963, at 11:30 a.m., the day and time President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. The letter went searching for Picasso at Paris, then to Alpes Maimtimes, where he was vacationing, and finally to his villa at Vablauris. i For some reason perhaps be-1 cause his name' was spelled Piccas-so by young MacDonald, Picasso did not open the letter. But he did make a small sketch with pencil and signed it before ordering the letter returned to its sender.

It was returned to MacDonald Dec. 26, 1963. He. didn't draw on the check, but look what he did! he blurted -out to his teacher. Thats even better she ad-vised him.

For some reason, though, he became disenchanted with toe whole thing, and offered it to Miss Nelson. She pledged to keep.it fdr him. and when Picasso died, returned the envelope to him complete -t- 4 By BOB GEIVET Staff Writer He tried to get a sketch from Pablo Picasso for Instead, he got one for free and now its worth an estimated $1,000. Thats the good luck stoiy of Rich MacDonald, 22, of 108 Prospect Long Beach, a student at Long Beach City College and a part-time ambulance driver who needs money to get through school. It was almost 10 years ago when young MacDonald, who was in an art class at Washington Junior High School, got the idea of ask i i.