Volunteer tames a path’s junk, landscape
Every Monday through Thursday, San Rafael resident Tom Harrison gets up, puts on his work clothes, gathers his tools, says goodbye to his wife, Barbara, leaves the comfort of his home and heads out to toil and tame the landscape for three or four hours.
Except it’s not his landscape and he doesn’t get paid for his efforts.
He has volunteered his labor — what some might call a labor of love — for six years under the City of San Rafael Parks division of Public Works.
He spends the first half-hour of his work day picking up litter on a flat multi-use pathway called the Spinnaker berm, a paved walkway that winds gently from Bellam Boulevard to Spinnaker Point Drive, past a number of cul-de-sacs and two sets of busy tennis courts.
It’s a quiet but well-traveled lane, populated mostly by locals — neighborhood pedestrians, dog walkers and bicyclists who ply the path as it starts from one end of the industrial area of San Rafael across to Pickleweed Park and the bay.
There is not one trashcan along the way for people to deposit empty bottles, food wrappers or doggie waste bags, and although Harrison doesn’t mention it, it’s clear that any of that trash will be left for him to pick up.
He also picks up trash along “a two-block stretch of Spinnaker Point Drive between Catalina and the west end of old Schoen Park,” he says.
After that, he will turn his attention to the landscape — pulling weeds and ivy, trimming trees and shrubs, cutting branches, uprooting invasive species, such as acacia saplings, and removing plants and trees that are either in the wrong place or have safety or maintenance issues.
Recently, he spent hours, tediously and carefully, extricating a large, gnarled old vine that had become entwined in a stretch of chain-link fence.
That’s just part of his “job” and he does it faithfully Mondays through Thursdays, but
on Friday mornings, he changes hats, and as a volunteer with San Rafael Clean, picks up litter on every street in Spinnaker Point.
Why would anyone, let alone this map publisher and cartographer, former California state park ranger and one-time chief of the maintenance crew on Angel Island, spend so much of his well-deserved free time doing public yard work and trash collection?
His answer is simple. Besides seeing the project as having his “own little park” to maintain, he gets to use tools and work in the dirt.
“It’s every 10-year-old boy’s dream job,” he says. “Every day is different and every tree, shrub and weed has its own challenges. I get fresh air, sunshine, exercise and meet the neighbors. What’s not to like?”
One might also say that like the proverbial mountain that needs to be climbed, Harrison sees the “path” clean-up job and something that needed to be done, and he stepped up to do it.
“We have lived in the Canal area since 1979, and in the Spinnaker Point neighborhood for more than 20 years,” he says. “The ‘path’ had become an overgrown weedy, garbage-strewn area several years ago, so I asked Public Works if I could volunteer to help clean it up.”
The agency, he says, was delighted to have someone care about the path as it had abandoned it due to budget cuts during the recession of 2008.
As a volunteer, the city of San Rafael insures him for any on-the-job injury but he provides his own tools.
“I use saws, pruning shears and leverage prongs,” he says. “The tool I use the most is probably the good old pickaxe.”
San Rafael Public Works, he adds, “has been incredibly easy to work with and is very appreciative of volunteer efforts. There is no obligation, no minimum hours or effort required.”
He encourages other people to volunteer for the city of San Rafael by contacting Cory Bytof at cory. bytof@cityofsanrafael.org.
While he is happy with most of the residential landscape in his corner of San Rafael, he has observed
one spot in particular that is in need of help.
“The biggest area for improvement would be on both sides of the Highway 580 freeway entrance and exit at the Francisco Boulevard and Bellam Boulevard intersection,” he says.
“Caltrans owns the property and the slopes are too steep for volunteers to work, especially given the volume of traffic.”
The slopes, he says, “are overgrown with fennel and scrub, and the pines are raggedy-looking. It is a
very ugly entrance to our neighborhood.”
Show off
Since so many of the popular home tours are off the calendar this year, please consider this your invitation to share with fellow readers the images and description of your newly designed or remodeled Marin home.
We’d also like to see pretty images of your winter-dormant Marin garden and any wildlife you happen to photograph in or around it.
Please send an email describing either one, what you love most about it and a photograph or two. I will post the very best ones in upcoming columns. Your name will be published and you must be over 18 years old and a Marin resident.
Don’t-miss events
• Join master horticulturist and beekeeping mentor Bonnie Morse in an eight-session course, “Planting for Pollinators and More,” that will help turn a front lawn into a pollinator paradise. The once-a-month course runs Sunday mornings from March 28 to Oct. 17, and includes a private consultation. Price is $475. Register at fairfaxbackyardfarmer.com.
PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at pj@ pjbremier.com.