When state’s hall of fame comes calling
A Bay Area adventurer who climbed Annapurna said she was very glad to be named to the California Hall of Fame, even if she was a little fuzzy on the particulars.
“Actually, I had never heard of it,” Arlene Blum said with a smile. “And now I’m a member.”
The celebrated climber is among eight new inductees to the state hall of fame, an elite fraternity that is much less well-known than the people in it.
Blum joins restaurateur Thomas Keller, baseball pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, goldenvoiced singer Joan Baez and leather-faced actor Robert Redford in the hall that isn’t really a hall but an exhibit in a Sacramento museum.
They got in the hall because Gov. Jerry Brown says so. He does the picking. One of the eight inductees this year is his former longtime aide Nancy McFadden. The two others are TV journalist Belva Davis and the late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee.
Each inductee gets a medal on Dec. 4 at a
special ceremony at the California Museum in Sacramento. The next day the museum will include their stories in its hall of fame exhibit, which currently has 113 members.
Blum, 73, hung up her climbing pitons in favor of conducting chemical research at UC Berkeley in an effort to ban carcinogens from products such as flame retardants and water repellents. She said it was an honor to be in the hall, even if she planned to check her computer and read up on exactly what the California Hall of Fame is after talking to a reporter.
At the ceremony, a mannequin of Blum in her climbing gear will be installed in the museum’s hall of fame display. It will be adorned with the actual down vest that she wore on the Annapurna climb in 1978, which she said she found after rummaging around in her garage.
“I would have sent the jacket, too, but it was stolen by porters in India,” she said.
Her fight now to ban carcinogens is more important than her fight to get to a mountain summit, she said. At the hall of fame ceremony, she plans to seize the moment to pass out 500 postcards informing people how to fight against chemicals such as highly fluorinated PFAF, the water-repelling stuff that makes water bead up on a mountain climber’s gear.
“On Annapurna, if you make a mistake, you die,” Blum said. “With what I’m doing now, if we make a mistake, everyone dies.”
Her fellow inductees were thrilled about the making the hall of fame, too.
Baez, who sings as skillfully as Blum climbs mountains and as Valenzuela threw screwballs, said she was honored because California “thinks outside the box” and is “outspoken about truth and lies.”
Keller was perhaps too busy preparing the evening meal ($325 per person, wine not included) at his fabled French Laundry restaurant in Yountville to say what the honor meant to him. The meal will include lobster with parsnips and duck with turnips.
The new inductees are the 12th class to be inducted into the hall, which honors the state’s spirit of innovation. Brown said people like Blum “help push our state forward, inspiring Californians with the creativity and courage.”
The museum, located two blocks from the state Capitol, also features exhibits on California history, its missions and its Native Americans. Admission is $9. Seniors such as Blum, Baez, Redford and Gov. Brown get in for $7.50.
Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF