Doing Simple Yet Heroic Deeds

You don’t have to strive for greatness to become a hero. Just get the government to admit it goofed, or put on a pair of running shoes, or pick up the telephone and say, “I can help.” That’s the trilogy offered here today . . .

Dale Ghere lives in Laguna Beach and teaches biology at Corona del MarHigh School. He loves to ride his bicycle along Pacific Coast Highway near Crystal Cove State Park. The ocean breeze and the sweeping view are magnificent. But a few months ago, Ghere noticed something going wrong.

The state had planted 10 different types of seeds along the roadway on the ocean side to beautify the area near the state park. But one of the 10 was salt bush. While salt bush is native to California, Ghere says now, “I knew it was the wrong plant in the wrong place.”

Salt bush is spindly and thin-leafed but grows wide and 7 or 8 feet high. It’s so large that it overtakes other plants and worse, it blocks that spectacular view of the ocean.

Ghere pointed this out to state officials just as the salt bush was taking off in June. While they were polite, they were skeptical. “They wanted to know just who I was and what expertise I had,” he recalled.

Ghere learned that a state worker had already spotted the problem before the seeding had begun and had convinced his superiors to radically reduce the amount of salt bush. But even that wasn’t enough, Ghere said.

State officials finally came to see that Ghere was right. But they explained they simply didn’t have enough workers to go in and cut out the salt bush along two miles of roadway.

So Ghere offered to do it for them.

“I told them I’d get the workers if they’d provide the supervision,” he said.

Ghere is a member of Friends of the Irvine Coast, an ecology-minded group. A friend of his also belongs to the Surfrider Foundation, another coastal ecology group, whose members agreed to help. So Ghere has begun organizing cleanup operations to rid the roadside of salt bush.

He’s staged one cleanup already. The second one is today, from 3 to 5 p.m. Students from Orange Coast College are helping; so are some of Ghere’s high school students.

“In the area where we’ve already been, you can see the other plants filling in the space nicely,” Ghere said.

So it turns out one person can make a difference. Call Ghere at (714) 494-1496 if you’d like to add your strong back to the labor force.

Just a Call Away: Robin Rudy of San Juan Capistrano now can live the life that many aspire to: With both children off to college (one at Harvard, another at San Diego State) and husband Steven Rudy a successful urologist, she can while away the day with golf, tennis or bridge, just like others she knows.

But two years ago, Rudy spotted a notice in this newspaper that the county needed volunteer probation officers. Goodbye tennis and bridge. She was already doing volunteer nursing at a local health clinic. But Rudy was convinced she had something to offer young people in trouble with the system.

Her two years of hard work have paid off in ways she didn’t expect. Recently, she received a special award from the Probation Department for her outstanding work.

Rudy takes on the toughest cases. She works with the families of the 8% of youths who fit the profile of the most likely repeat offenders. Her role is loosely defined.

“One family I picked up on Lincoln Avenue and took them immediately to a restaurant, because you never know when they’d seen their last meal,” she told me.

In another family, she’s tutoring two younger siblings of the juvenile on probation, in an attempt to stop the cycle. She rewarded one probationer with a trip to the San Diego Zoo after he stayed in school and improved his grades.

Why, I asked, is she doing this when she’s already doing volunteer work at the clinic? She explained: “I grew up in a family without money. Neither of my parents were high school graduates. I had to set definite goals for myself to make it. I see these youngsters, and I see how easily that could have been me.”

Ronald Runner: Tim Young of Fullerton loves long-distance running, but doubts he could run halfway across the country just for himself. He can reach down deep and make it, though, for a cause.

“Just as a man, I doubt I could do it, but my faith gets me through,” he said.

Five years ago Young ran coast to coast to raise funds for Childhelp USA. Saturday, he heads off across the desert and the Rockies for Sioux City, Iowa, where he was raised. This time he’s raising money for the Orange County Ronald McDonald House. The house provides shelter for families with ill children.

Young’s father and his sister both work at the Ronald McDonald House. Young explained: “I don’t have the emotional strength to do what they do. But I can run, and maybe help that way.”

Young, 46, an electrician at Disneyland, is taking a leave of absence for his 1,700-mile trek, which should take 56 days. Two of his four children--son Skyler, 20, and daughter Magic, 14--will be in a vehicle beside him most of the way.

“Magic is part of why I’m doing this,” he said. “She’s been hospitalized several times with severe asthma. I know how important it is to support those who help children.”

Wrap-Up: Robin Rudy told me something about her volunteer probation job that will stay with me a long while.

“It can be very frustrating,” she said, “because so often I don’t see any improvement in these families. But one of the probation officers told me, ‘You’re planting the seed. You may not even be around when that tree bears fruit. But some day that seed you plant will take hold.’ ”

Seems to me it takes a hero--or heroine, if you prefer--to stick with a cause like that.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail [email protected]