With Kelp and Ice Plant, ‘Text Messages’ to All
By Clarissa Aljentera, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.
Aug. 12–The Monterey Peninsula’s unofficial message board looms above Highway 1, its ever-changing pithy messages writ large in the sand.
Passers-by get a quick glimpse of the dune — variously known as Scribble Hill or Graffiti Hill — as they motor by.
A natural feature of the Monterey Peninsula that looms so high that an ominous shadow is cast on the road below, it has been transformed from a former sand mining operation into a kelp-and-sand billboard.
Think Vegas sign without the glam.
Sometimes the messages are silly, like “U Smell.” Or they can be heartfelt: “Welcum Hom Lia” or “Colby ‘heart’ U.”
Once in a while a political message pops up. On Dec. 1, someone put up a red ribbon to commemorate World AIDS Day.
The dune messages make an impact. “It is a really important part of the area,” said Lori Lewis of Monterey. “It is like a remnant of the history of the area.”
Added Steven Levinson, a mass communications lecturer at CSU-Monterey Bay: “This is ice plant communication in the age of MySpace.”
Messages on the dune, like those that go out via mass e-mail, blog posting or MySpace, can be read by dozens or hundreds, he said. One difference is that decorating the dune is often a communal activity, unlike messages sent by lone Internet posters.
“The group element is really important,” Levinson said. “The playfulness of it is critical and that is why it keeps happening.”
For Lewis, a member of a fifth-generation Peninsula family, the sand dune is a place to play.
She led a group of youngsters to “sand mountain” to create a message on a recent afternoon, walking the Circuit City parking lot up the Recreational Trail to the sand mound-turned-sandwich board.
Shoes were kicked off as eight pairs of legs trampled down the grainy brown sand to rearrange ice plant.
Sand caved in around their knees and ankles as they formed letters. Three of the children were given the task of pulling more ice plant from the bottom. When all was said and done, the crew admired the “GNJ” they created in the dune. Lewis said the initials were a salute to loved ones: Grandpa, Nanna and Joshua.
Grandpa and Nanna, she explained, are Lewis’ parents; Joshua is her son. The three were due home soon from a camping trip and Lewis wanted to welcome them back with a dune sign.
Many of the messages on the dune are G-rated, but an occasional phallic image or inappropriate word appears and is quickly removed by the Sand City public works staff.
Police Chief Mike Klein said the property is owned by developer Ed Ghandour, who has an option to develop along the coastline. The parcel includes the former sand mining operation Lone Star Industries Inc. Prattco Plant, which closed in 1986.
Esther Aschele, 96, who moved to the city in 1953, said she remembers when there was more than one dune. “It is such a drastic change I don’t even want to think about it,” she said. “I took cardboard boxes and slid down it all the time.”
And a few recall the accident that claimed the lives of two young men 27 years ago.
Ian Robert Bowe and Todd Allen Vevoda were killed in February 1985. The pair were buried when a slope collapsed on them.
As Mayor David Pendergrass drives past the dune, he glances to see what message is going up. Messages of a global kind make an occasional appearance.
A Monterey man camped atop the dune in 2004 with a “pray for peace” sign for two weeks. He sat there daily with his camping chair, playing his violin.
Memories and fun are some of the reasons Teri Penko and her family scaled the dune on a recent weekend. Penko’s relatives were coming to town for a mini-reunion when she slid in the idea of climbing Scribble Hill to plant a message. Six adults and two children wrote out “4640″ in ice plant.
“It was short and simple,” she said. “It was something that means a lot to us and people would be talking about it and saying, ‘What the heck does 4640 mean?’”
The number is the house address in downtown Chicago where Penko’s father was raised.
Clarissa Aljentera may be reached at 648-1171 or claljentera@montereyherald.com.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.
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