Smith: He left Memorial all stitched up

Thanksgiving night, one of the patients treated in the emergency room at ?Memorial Hospital was a homeless man equally concerned about his health and his coat.

Paramedics had to cut it off him. He told Memorial staffers the sturdy, well-lined coat was all he had to keep warm.

Emergency Department technicians Paisley Roberts and Robert St. Pierre took at look at the scissored coat and agreed it was repairable. They considered stitching it with suture filament. No, they decided, that wasn’t sufficiently long-lasting.

Looking about, St. Pierre and Roberts nodded at the sight of the drawstrings on bags used to store patients’ belongings. They laced the coat back together with the strings.

It left the ER on the back of a grateful man.

PEARL HARBOR DAY falls this year on a Sunday. Next Sunday, to be precise.

To commemorate the events of the Sunday morning of Dec. 7, 1941, a program will begin at 9 a.m. in the club room at the back of the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building.

The assembly will miss Herb Louden, who presided brightly over many Dec. 7 observances. Louden, at 97 the longtime leader of the Sonoma County group of Pearl Harbor survivors, died on Veterans Day.

Santa Rosa resident Larry Petretti, another survivor of the attack 73 years ago that drew the U.S. into World War II, has said he will step up to help keep the group going. He plans to take part in Sunday’s memorial.

There will be coffee and doughnuts, and no charge.

IN THE NEXT ROOM at the Vets’ Building on Sunday, Santa Rosa firefighters will kick off their Toys for Kids holiday drive with a pancake breakfast.

Admission to the breakfast, which runs from 7:30 to 11, is $5 or a new, unwrapped gift.

The firefighters have just begun to collect gifts for thousands of local children. There are barrels at stations of the Santa Rosa and Rincon Valley fire departments, and from Dec. 8 to Dec. 22 firefighters will accept donations of toys and cash from near the center escalator at Santa Rosa Plaza.

YOU GOTTA EAT on Thursday. If you do it at any one of 81 Sonoma County restaurants participating in Dining Out for Life, the meal will be all the more nurturing.

Owners of the 81 restaurants will donate a share of Thursday’s receipts to Food for Thought, the Sonoma County AIDS Food Bank. Volunteer ambassadors for Food for Thought will be present to thank diners and welcome additional donations to the food bank.

See the participating eateries at diningoutforlife.com/sonomacounty/restaurants/.

From 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, I’ll play ambassador at Mac’s on Santa Rosa’s Fourth Street. Love to see you.

LA FONTANA, boasting sidewalk dining on Old Courthouse Square, was a happening Italian restaurant decades ago. Just about everybody in town knew owner Tony Prendusi, who later ran Mama Angelina’s on Montgomery Drive.

It made headlines when Tony befriended the late Mother Teresa, a fellow child of Albania, and when Tony and some prominent helpers mounted relief missions to Albania.

Now Tony has written a memoir. He’ll sign copies from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday at ?Boudin in Montgomery Village.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.