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Life & Times Transcript

10/17/07

Announcer>> Tonight on Life and Times --

No one's calling it a drought just yet, but one community isn't waiting.

Kevin Wattier>> We either have to conserve or we have to conserve. Those are the two choices and our perspective is let's do it now. Let's do it sooner rather than later. Let's do it the right way and let's not wait and see what happens.

Announcer>> And then, "a horse is a horse, of course, of course, and no one can talk to a horse, of course" unless it's the man who played opposite Mr. Ed for all those years, and now he's the one doing the talking.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> If you live in Long Beach, you probably already know there are four days out of the week where you can't water your lawn. Well, pretty soon, water restrictions like that may be throughout southern California cities because experts say we're headed for a drought. Roger Cooper has our report.

Roger Cooper>> It's been about fifteen years since our last big drought, but once again, the warnings are going out. Water officials in southern California say, if present conditions continue, we'll be facing a serious water shortage.

Jeff Kightlinger>> This is almost a perfect storm or maybe another way to put is a perfect lack of storm.

Roger Cooper>> Jeff Kightlinger at the Metropolitan Water District is always preaching water conservation, but this time there's a special urgency in his message.

Jeff Kightlinger>> The entire southwest United States has basically been gripped into an entire regional drought. The Colorado River? Eight driest years ever recorded in history, and we get water from the Colorado River. The Bay Delta? Last year, one of the driest years ever recorded. And here in our own Los Angeles Basin, the driest year ever recorded here. So all our sources of supply are extremely dry at this moment.

Roger Cooper>> And on top of all that, there's a new complication -- the fish factor. This tiny endangered fish is called the Delta Smelt. It gets sucked into water pumps and dies. So this August, a federal judge ruled that the fish must be protected. That means the amount of water that southern California gets from the Sacramento Delta will soon be reduced by as much as thirty percent.

Jeff Kightlinger>> That's going to cut our water supplies anywhere up to twenty-five, maybe even thirty, percent each and every year.

Roger Cooper>> Yes, it's true. Southern California also imports water from the Colorado River Aqueduct, but that supply has also dropped over the past four years.

Kevin Wattier>> Well, we've been watching the situation very carefully, particularly when the endangered species rule came down in August with the Delta Smelt.

Roger Cooper>> All this set off alarm bells for Kevin Wattier who heads the Long Beach Water Department.

Kevin Wattier>> Particularly, we've been watching very carefully the reservoir levels in northern California. When we saw all these things kind of come together in August, we said it was time to get real serious here in Long Beach about conservation.

Roger Cooper>> So this September, Long Beach took the plunge. It became the first southern California city to limit watering lawns to three days a week and only during evening hours. Long Beach restaurants can serve water only when customers ask for it and there's no washing down sidewalks or driveways with a hose. An exception is made for these special low-flow water brooms.

Kevin Wattier>> And this uses about seventy-five percent less water than if you were out here with your garden hose.

Roger Cooper>> Long Beach residents are encouraged to report water waste on a special phone line.

[Film Clip]

Roger Cooper>> And Long Beach has put up conservation videos on YouTube, and homeowners are also encouraged to plant water-saving lawns.

Kevin Wattier>> Grass uses a large amount of water. Fifty to seventy-five percent of a typical homeowner uses irrigation water.

Roger Cooper>> Interestingly, Long Beach's larger neighbor, Los Angeles, has decided to stay with voluntary conservation for now while it monitors the water situation. But Wattier says that Long Beach wants to be ready.

Kevin Wattier>> Our approach to this is that this is different. This is different than what we lived through in 1987 to 1991 or previous droughts because we don't think that this is going to go away. So we think the sooner we get started, the sooner we'll get to where we need to go.

Roger Cooper>> The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is taking action as well, cutting water supplies to southern California agriculture by thirty percent, but city dwellers could be next.

Jeff Kightlinger>> We're going to put in place our allocation plan that would lead to urban rationing for users. We're not going to order it yet, but we're going to hold it in abeyance and see how the water goes.

Roger Cooper>> And in time, consumers can expect their water bills to rise.

Jeff Kightlinger>> What we're really looking at, you know, as long-term 2009, 2010 and beyond and what we're projecting is anywhere in the range of five to ten percent increase as we have to take those additional actions to acquire water.

Narrator>> "California's vital water. The reality is that drought and climate change have already left us with a glass that is half empty and our state's fragile water storage and delivery systems are barely holding their own."

Roger Cooper>> A group of California water agencies has launched a television ad campaign calling the situation a water crisis. The ads urge the state to approve bond money to build dams and other infrastructure in the Sacramento Delta.

Narrator>> "Because we can't take water for granted."

Roger Cooper>> Jeff Kightlinger says that southern California used to have adequate water supplies seven out of ten years. No more.

Jeff Kightlinger>> Now it's reversed. With that court-ordered cutback, seven out of ten years, we're going to be short of water and have to go out and find supplies. That's a very different situation and, frankly, it's a fairly alarming situation. That isn't really sustainable. We have to get some fixes in place so that we can get back to a world where seven out of ten years we have adequate supplies.

Roger Cooper>> So do we have any kind of backup supply? Since the big drought in the late 1980s, Diamond Valley Lake has been built in Riverside County. It holds two hundred sixty million gallons of water, an emergency reserve that Metropolitan Water is glad to have.

Jeff Kightlinger>> Extremely glad. It's been our number one insurance policy. With that water in place, we can look at this and say we can have a nice sensible discussion about potential rationing down the road if necessary. Without that water in place, we'd be having the discussion of how fast and how soon do we start rationing?

Roger Cooper>> But even Diamond Valley Lake may be hard to replenish if Sierra snow packs this winter are small. And then there's the longer term challenge of climate change. Kevin Wattier thinks there's really just one answer to our water shortage.

Kevin Wattier>> Well, I think we either have to conserve or we have to conserve. Those are the two choices. Our perspective is let's do it now. Let's do it sooner rather than later. Let's do it the right way and let's not wait and see what happens because it's inevitable that this is happening. So that's what we're saying in Long Beach. Let's get out in front and let's do it right. Let's make it work for everybody.

Roger Cooper>> I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> So have you got any water-saving tips you'd like to share? You can do it. Just go tokcet.org/lifeandtimes/
blog.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> The war in Iraq has lasted a lot longer than most Americans expected, but it's not just our troops who are making a sacrifice. Families are feeling the stress, everything from the emotional to the financial. So are they getting the support they need? Saul Gonzalez went to Camp Pendleton to find out.

Saul Gonzalez>> Few places in America are as touched by the war in Iraq as Camp Pendleton, California.

[Film Clip]

Saul Gonzalez>> The sprawling Marine Corps base just north of San Diego. The Marines that train and live at Camp Pendleton have served multiple tours of duty in Iraq and many of them have been killed or wounded in the conflict.

Camp Pendleton, like other military bases, is also a community, home to thousands of military families who face financial and emotional challenges brought on by war. When they need extra help, many of the families turn to this woman.

Faye Bell>> "And then this is the information sheet kind of about what we're doing."

Saul Gonzalez>> Faye Bell, a former Navy pilot, is the Director of Military Outreach Ministry. It's a Presbyterian-affiliated organization that provides aid and support to Camp Pendleton's enlisted Marines and their families, regardless of their faith.

Faye Bell>> Whenever they come to us, you know, we don't want them to come humbly to use our services. We want them to know that we're doing this out of gratitude for what their families are sacrificing, what their husbands who are deployed are sacrificing and what their kids are sacrificing. We really want people to freely feel like we are patriots that support them and their efforts, and we also do it because it's our Christian duty to help others.

Saul Gonzalez>> The Ministry's highest profile work at Camp Pendleton involves the operation of a food distribution center in an old on-base warehouse.

Faye Bell>> "Well, let's get our hands together and let's make a circle of prayer."

Saul Gonzalez>> Before it opens, volunteers are led in a prayer by Bell.

Faye Bell>> "We ask that You keep those that are in harm's way safe and keep Your loving hand on them guiding them back to their families safely."

Saul Gonzalez>> At the center, Marines and their spouses can come and stock up on the essentials free of charge. Bread and biscuits, canned goods, baby food and fresh produce.

>> "Yeah, you can take as much as you want."

Saul Gonzalez>> This help is deeply appreciated by base personnel like Corporals Cary Pullman and Jericho Garcia.

Corporal Cary Pullman>> It really does help, you know. It's nice seeing all these people provide the service. They usually get a really good turnout and we really appreciate it.

Corporal Jericho Garcia>> Especially when you have a wife that's at home with a kid, you know. It definitely helps out financially.

>> "So help yourself."

Saul Gonzalez>> The Ministry also organizes parenting classes, religious counseling and social gatherings for young wives, many of whom are living outside of their hometowns for the first time and must fend for themselves while their spouses are overseas.

Faye Bell>> "Did you hear about our Mom's Club? Okay, well, you need to know about this more than anybody." They move from all over the country and some out of the country. They move here to this area all alone. They know no one and then they have a child and their husband deploys and that leaves them there all by themselves. That's basically what we are here for, just to keep that sense of community going and let them know that there's a place for them.

>> "Thank you for your service."

>> "All right. Thank you."

Saul Gonzalez>> With many enlisted Marines making between fifteen to twenty-one thousand dollars a year, money is also a big concern for these families.

Tina McDermott>> It's hard. It's really hard. Actually, finances is one of the things we struggle with a lot.

Saul Gonzalez>> Tina McDermott, whose husband is a Navy Corpsman, is familiar with the unique pressures of the home front and the importance of being stoic.

Tina McDermott>> You just have to be really strong and hold it together. You have to do it for your husband because, when he's in Iraq, he does not want to hear all the stuff that's going on at home. He doesn't want to hear about the problems. He just wants to call and know that everybody's okay and everything's fine and you're paying the car payment.

I can tell you, I was definitely weak before and things started to fall apart in our marriage. I was like, you know what, I have to just pull it together for the kids, for my husband, and we just have like a really good bond.

Saul Gonzalez>> Institutionally, the Marine Corps, like other branches of the armed forces, says it takes care of its own, offering a wide range of support services to service personnel and their families. These services were reviewed one recent evening at Camp Pendleton's theater.

Colonel Sam Mundy>> "There's a wealth of resources out there that you can tap into while we're deployed."

Saul Gonzalez>> Here, members of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, who are about to be sent to the Middle East, gathered with their families for a pre-deployment meeting. Speakers who addressed the audience covered everything from subsidized on-base housing and child care to the dangers of not being legally prepared for the possible combat death of a spouse.

Colonel Sam Mundy>> "If you die without a will, your property will be distributed according to state law. If you die without a will, the state will appoint guardians to raise your children. So obviously that's something that's very important to you."

Saul Gonzalez>> Like many here, Corporal Hugh Clark and his wife, Asia, are most interested in learning how they can stay in touch while he's deployed. So you want to know how to get word to each other in case there's --

Asia Clark>> -- definitely. Since we're expecting our first child and he's not going to be here when the baby comes, you know, this is a great way for us to get contact information so that we can contact each other just in case something happens while I'm in labor or something like that.

Saul Gonzalez>> Colonel Sam Mundy, the commanding officer of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, says helping families is an essential part of modern military life.

Colonel Sam Mundy>> The way I characterize it is that family readiness is important, personal readiness is important, so they all work together for the common good, so that they can be relieved and know that their wives and husbands are taken care of while they're gone.

Saul Gonzalez>> The final speaker at the event was Navy Commander and Camp Pendleton Chaplain, Val Jensen.

Chaplain Val Jensen>> "All that we want to do is to make this available so that you have the free exercise of religion."

Saul Gonzalez>> Chaplain Jensen says that he hopes he and his colleagues help prepare families spiritually for the challenges of military family life during wartime.

Chaplain Val Jensen>> I would hope that they be more encouraged, that they would be able to meet their responsibilities with a certain strength that has been, you know, enhanced because of their worship experience.

Faye Bell>> "Oh, there you go. Look at how cute all the pink stuff is."

Saul Gonzalez>> As she does her work, Faye Bell worries that, even after years of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, most Americans still have little understanding of the day in and day out hardships experienced by service families.

Faye Bell>> We're always going to have a military. There's always going to be military families and there's always going to be some struggles that are automatically attached to being a military family. They take those struggles with grace and the average citizen in our country needs to be aware of the struggles that these young families go through.

Saul Gonzalez>> For Life and Times, I'm Saul Gonzalez.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Toni Guinyard>> On Sunday nights in 1961 if you tuned into CBS, you would have seen a new show debut. It was about a horse who could talk and, over the next six years, "Mr. Ed" kept Americans entertained and wondering, "How did they get that horse to move its lips?" Our Val Zavala got some answers straight from Wilbur's mouth.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Alan Young has made an indelible mark on television history as Wilbur Post, the misunderstood husband who spent time in his barn talking to a horse. The year was 1961.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> But there's much more to Alan Young than the likable Wilbur and he tells his story in a book called "Mr. Ed and Me and More".

Alan Young>> "You want to read this with me? You don't want to read this? Oh, you've read it. Oh, I see."

Val Zavala>> I had the pleasure of meeting Alan Young at his home in Studio City where he dotes on his cats. At age eighty-eight, he warms up for an interview the old-fashioned way.

Alan Young>> "The teeth, the lips, the tip of the tongue. The teeth, the lips, the tip of the tongue." My mother taught me that. She was a singer, but she didn't have a good voice.

Val Zavala>> (Laughter) Alan enjoyed early success in radio which swept him from his homeland in Canada to New York and eventually Hollywood. But in the late 1950s, he hit a slump. Then a call came. Would he like to play the straight man to a talking horse? The producer was George Burns.

Alan Young>> George Burns had said to Arthur, "I think you should get Alan Young to do this because he looks like the kind of a guy a horse would talk to."

Val Zavala>> So how did Mr. Ed talk? How did he talk on cue?

Alan Young>> I started a lie saying we used peanut butter under his lip.

Val Zavala>> I remember that. That was a lie?

Alan Young>> But that wasn't true, but it served the purpose. No, the trainer put a soft piece of nylon under his upper lip and he tried to get rid of it, that's all. But the main thing was that he did it on cue. The trainer would be lying on the floor and just tap Ed's hoof and Ed would start to talk. He'd tap his hoof again and Ed would stop.

[Film Clip]

Alan Young>> There was one scene where Ed had to enter and shut the door behind him and go to the filing cabinet, open it up, take out a bunch of carrots, close the filing cabinet, walk over to the desk and drop them on the desk and go back into his room. He did it in one take. After it was all over, the whole set burst into applause. It was just wonderful. Ed didn't take a bow or anything (laughter), but he just did his job.

Val Zavala>> And you had to be very particular about your lines, correct? If you changed the words or if you didn't do your lines correctly, it might mess up Mr. Ed?

Alan Young>> We had to be very careful about our lines because the man doing the voice offstage had the script and he had to answer, so we had to be very careful. I know one time, we finished the shot and I went to Arthur Lubin, the director, and said, "Arthur, I can do it a little better." He said, "I'm sorry, Ed was perfect." So we had to be as good as we could be every time (laughter).

Val Zavala>> One of the favorite episodes, in fact, you have a lot of pictures of it here in the book, is when Mr. Ed is out on the Dodger diamond.

Val Zavala>> Yes, we took Ed out there. They had just built the Dodger Stadium and the show was about Ed teaching the Dodgers how to play baseball. He enjoyed it until we had one scene where Ed hit the ball and made a homerun. He had to run around the bases and, of course, they've got grass there and it was just newly laid.

When a horse runs on grass, he tears up the turf. The shot was ruined by Buddy Bavasi, who was the manager or something of the team. He came running down screaming, "You're ruining our pitch!" So that stopped Ed's run around the bases.

Val Zavala>> You had a lot of great guest stars on your program. In fact, stars called your producers wanting to be on. You had a great showcase.

Alan Young>> Well, Mae West said she wanted to work with the strongest, best-looking leading man she could get. I said, "Sure thing", but she was talking about the horse (laughter). So Mae West came on the show and she was very cute and very nice. Clint Eastwood is a great guy and he was wonderful on the show.

Val Zavala>> Because he was in "Rawhide" at the time? Is that correct?

Alan Young>> Clint Eastwood was doing "Rawhide" at the time. Of course, he knew more about horses than I did certainly.

Val Zavala>> Alan grew up in British Columbia during the Depression. His father was a laborer. Money was scarce, but love was abundant.

Alan Young>> I can remember once when my sister was very quiet. She was older than I was. We were having dinner and I was slopping up whatever food I had in the dish. She said to me later, "Why do you make such a fuss about eating? Didn't you see mother and dad had nothing?" I said, "But they were stirring their food." She said, "They were stirring nothing."

I suddenly realized how wonderful they were. As I grew up, I began to respect my parents more and more. They put up with everything.

Val Zavala>> And how did you get to Hollywood from this isolated fairly poor boyhood in Canada?

Alan Young>> We had lots of fun in the family. My parents had great senses of humor. Dad got a radio from somewhere and I used to listen to a show called the British Empire program with all the British comedians and Harry Lauder, the Scottish singer. I would imitate them. Somebody heard me doing this and they said, "Would you like to do a show at the Caledonian Society for us?"

So I went and did this little thing, this recitation, and they paid me three dollars. Dad was there and he saw me opening this envelope with three dollars in it. He worked about ten hours at the shipyards scraping the bottom of ships for three dollars when he could get the job. So he looked at this and he said -- my real name was Angus -- he said, "Angus, you stick with this talking business because lips don't sweat."

Val Zavala>> Oh, that's the name of one of the chapters. I wondered where that phrase came from. Lips Don't Sweat.

Alan Young>> That's why I called the chapter Lips Don't Sweat because lips don't sweat. I think it's the only part of your body that doesn't sweat.

Val Zavala>> At age twenty-seven, an offer came to go to Hollywood where he got his first glimpse of California.

Alan Young>> And when I saw the palm trees and the oranges, I said, "This is where I'm going to live" and I tore up my return ticket.

Val Zavala>> So whatever happened to Mr. Ed?

Alan Young>> Mr. Ed was retired. I was part owner of the show by this time. We all contributed a few bucks and gave it to Lester Hilton to take care of Ed for the rest of his life. So Lester bought a little house in Burbank with a barn in the back and Ed lived in that barn all by himself with Lester for the rest of his life.

Val Zavala>> But he died rather sadly and prematurely.

Alan Young>> He died prematurely, yes. Lester had gone away for a vacation and I was out of town, so Lester hired a horse sitter to take care of Ed. Ed used to love to roll around in the hay, but he had very slender legs and a big body and he struggled to get up sometimes.

He was flailing around and the sitter saw this and thought Ed was having a fit, so he got a tranquilizer and gave Ed the tranquilizer and Ed just slipped away peacefully. He'd never had medicine before, so it affected him that way. It was kind of sudden and kind of sad, but he was peaceful.

Val Zavala>> So you're so well-known for being Wilbur on the "Mr. Ed" show. Do you ever get tired of that being the claim to fame, the thing that everybody always remembers you for?

Alan Young>> No, no. Gratitude for the job covers a lot of ego (laughter). He was the star and I love to talk about him.

Val Zavala>> Well, Alan Young, thank you so much for sharing some just wonderful, wonderful memories with us.

Alan Young>> Val, thanks so much. I hope you enjoy it and I'll write another one if you do.

Val Zavala>> Once again, the name of Alan Young's book is "Mr. Ed and Me and More".

Toni Guinyard>> That's it for tonight's program. I'm Toni Guinyard. For everyone here at Life and Times, thank you for watching. We'll see you tomorrow.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

Sponsored in part by:


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