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THE COAST NEWS
SEPT. 10, 2010
Transit district talks temporary train stop By Bianca Kaplanek
CONSTITUTION WEEK Anne Barrett, 1st Vice Regent of the Santa Margarita Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, accepted a Proclamation for Constitution Week from Oceanside Mayor Jim Wood at the recent City Council meeting. The DAR was instrumental in petitioning Congress to set aside the week of Sept. 17 annually as Constitution Week. This year was the 223rd anniversary of the signing of this document. Courtesy photo
D Street Bar & Grill is taking sliders to another level DAVID BOYLAN Lick the Plate Growing up in Michigan and having been exposed to White Castle burgers or “sliders” at an early age, I never really thought much about them until I turned 21. It was then that I gained an appreciation for their true value as a late-night, after-bar source of pleasure and instant gratification. White Castle was founded in 1921 in Wichita, Kan., by Walter A. Anderson. Anderson is credited with invention of the hamburger bun as well as the kitchen as an assembly line and the cook as a replaceable technician giv-
ing rise to the modern fast food phenomenon. Due to White Castle’s innovation of having chainwide standardized methods, customers could be sure that they would receive the same product and service in every restaurant. This can be taken as a good or bad thing, depending on your views of fast food. That’s my history lesson for today. Fast forward 70 years or so and some smart cook somewhere decides to give the old slider a gourmet upgrade. My first exposure to this phenomenon was at the Martini Ranch in Encinitas about 10 years ago, which occupied the building where D Street Bar & Grill is today. I’ve been hooked ever since and it seems like just about every bar and grill has them now TURN TO LICK THE PLATE ON B8
Local amputee takes on another triathlon ENCINITAS — Encinitas resident and Hanger Prosthetics & Orthotics patient Andre Szucs, a below-the-knee amputee, boarded a plane to Budapest, Hungary, Sept. 7 for the Paratriathlon World Championship competition. This race is the highest race level for the paratriathlon category Olympic distance. Szucs, now 30, was born without his right leg below the knee, but that has never kept him from excelling at sports. Szucs grew up participating in sports and dedicated himself to becoming a high-performance athlete. After eight years of competitive swimming, Szucs was inspired by other amputees
competing in triathlons and started training for his first triathlon five years ago. In 2009, he placed sixth in the World Championship Paratriathlon in Australia. The Paratriathlon World Champion competition Szucs will be participating in on Sept. 11 consists of a 750meter swim, 20-kilometer bike, and a 5-kilometer run. His goal is to finish within one hour and five-to-ten minutes and guarantee a place in the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. Szucs is a triathlon coach and founder of Brazil’s Royal Tri Triathlon Team. He recently took a position with Hanger Prosthetics & Orthotics as a business development manager.
In an effort to move forward with a project that has been discussed for more than a decade, North County Transit District officials will present preliminary plans for a temporary train stop south of the Del Mar Fairgrounds during the Sept. 16 board of directors meeting. Carl Hilliard, Del Mar City Council’s NCTD liaison, said he’d like to see the seasonal platform installed in time for the start of the San Diego County Fair in June 2011. But Matt Tucker, NCTD executive director, is a bit more conservative. “That’s a great goal,” Tucker said. “But the public process and funding will dictate when it gets delivered. “I’d like to get everything done yesterday,” he said. “But there’s funding and environmental concerns and community input that need to be considered first.” The long-term goal is to construct a permanent seasonal platform in the northwest corner of the fairgrounds. It is included in an environmental impact report for the proposed fairgrounds expansion. A permanent platform would provide direct train access to the facility during its two popular annual events — the fair and horse races. Expected benefits include less traffic on the freeway and side streets, no need for buses between the Solana Beach station and the fairgrounds and fewer intoxicated people leaving those events on the road.
ALL ABOARD At its Sept. 16 meeting the North County Transit District board of directors will be presented with a plan to build a temporary train platform where double tracking begins just south of the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Photo by Bianca Kaplanek
But studies indicate a permanent stop in that location requires double tracking and raising the bridge out of the flood plain, making it a 10- to 15-year, $80 million project by most estimates. “That’s a much bigger, much more environmentally sensitive project,” Tucker said. “And because we’d be working in the lagoon,it’s subject to controversy.” In an effort to reduce traffic in the meantime, officials have been eyeing a temporary platform, but the most recent
attempts to construct one about two years ago failed to come to fruition. “We’ve been working with the fairgrounds and the city of Del Mar to discover what the concerns were and why it didn’t work,” Tucker said. “We’re building on what was done earlier but taking a fresh look at different approaches to get a project the community can embrace.” Based on the earlier study, the cost estimate for a temporary platform is between $2 million and $2.5 million.
Hilliard said funding is secured. Tucker said no money has been identified. “But until you define what the project is, funding is a secondary consideration,” Tucker said. “Our concern now is the project details.” The current plan is to install a temporary stop south of the fairgrounds just beyond the Southfair office complex at 2010 Jimmy Durante Boulevard. “There is double tracking TURN TO TRAIN STOP ON B8
POW to return to Japan nearly 70 years later By Patty McCormac
CARLSBAD — Lester Tenney wants to make one thing clear. His upcoming trip to Japan is not a vacation. “This is a historic event. We are making history,” said the 90-year-old survivor of the Bataan Death March of World War II. This trip is historic because he and a delegation of some of his surviving comrades will get what they desire and deserve, acknowledgement from the Japanese government and the companies that used them as slaves while they were POWs during the war. Tenney has spent nearly 70 years trying to get an official apology from the Japanese government for their brutal treatment of the prisoners of war. About 1 1/2 years ago, Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki acknowledged Tenney. The apology finally came in May 2009 when Fjuisaki spoke at a convention of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor POWS in San Antonio. Later came an invitation to visit the country, courtesy of the Japanese government. Because of this trip through the Japan/American Reconciliation Program, he said he will enter the country with his “head held high.” “The Japanese took our honor from us and now we are going to get it back,” he said. “This time they will bow to me instead of bowing to them. As a prisoner I had to bow to them, now they are going to bow to me.” Tenney,a retired professor
SURVIVOR Ninety-year-old Lester Tenney shows a photograph of himself at the age of 20 when he was a survivor of the Bataan Death March during World War II. Tenney and some of the comrades who were prisoners of war with him will travel to Japan soon as a part of the Japan/American Reconciliation Program. Photo by Patty McCormac
from Arizona State University, and 13 other people are scheduled to arrive in Tokyo on Sept. 11. They will spend time with American Ambassador John Roos before being hosted as dignitaries by the Japanese Diat during their visit. Although the Bataan Death March was nearly 70 years ago, the lingering emotions are still very close to the surface for Tenney. He was 20 when on April 9, 1942, out of food, water, medical supplies and ammunition, General Edward King ordered his troops, 12,000 Americans and 55,000 Pilipino, to surrender to the Japanese. The group was too large to transport by trucks,
so the captives were forced to walk the 86 miles from Mariveles to their destination of San Fernando,but the troops were already weak from the lack of food. ‘If you stopped you were killed,” he said.“If you stopped to defecate you were killed. If you stopped for water,you were killed. If you fell down on your knees, you were killed.” When they were allowed water,mostly from ditches,they would push aside the animals to drink, and as a result dysentery ran rampant and killed hundreds of the soldiers a day. Bands of Japanese “Buzzard Squads” followed behind and finished off those
too weak to go on. Tenney said he worked 12 hours a day for 3 1/2 years in a coal mine where he was regularly beaten and watched his friends die from exhaustion, malnutrition and abuse. During that time, his young wife, who thought he had died, remarried. Tenney said their captors considered them cowards because they surrendered instead of fighting to the death. “They treated us lower than a dog and of course treated us that way for 3 1/2 years,” Tenney said. He said over the years, his feelings about the Japanese people have softened and that he has made many Japanese friends. He has been invited many times by Japanese educators to speak to students about the treatment of the POWs. “They ask their grandparents about the war, but they don’t want to talk much about it,” said Tenney, a resident of Carlsbad’s La Costa Glen where he lives with is wife of 50 years, Betty. During his upcoming stay Tenney said while the others visit museums and the site of their prison, which he has already seen, he will visit the widow of a Japanese friend who passed recently. “I consider this my last hurrah. I won’t be going back,” he said. He wrote of his experiences in the book,“My Hitch In Hell,” and is now working on a book about post traumatic stress syndrome.