Old-timers recalled another roadside tragedy upon reading that the defense lawyer representing Hall Road fatality suspect Heather Anne Howell is Steve Spiegelman.
He's a Santa Rosa native who was 13 when, late in 1968, he and most of the members of his large family were riding in a packed Ford station wagon bound from Las Vegas to Southern California.
It crashed near Victorville, killing three of Spiegelman's seven siblings and their mother, Gaye (Siegel) Spiegelman, a Santa Rosa High alum and actress famed for a time in North Beach as "The Topless Mother of Eight."
"I am very familiar with tragedies," said crash survivor Steve Spiegelman, who did some show business himself before he went to law school.
He became the attorney for Howell, who stands charged with second-degree murder in the crash Saturday in which 56-year-old Jesse Garcia died, because of connections to members of her family.
Spiegelman said his instinct today is to go to everyone suffering the impacts of the crash, hug them "and ask, &‘Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?' "
IN THE FAMILY: Showgoers at a special five-performance run of Mel Brooks' "The Producers" that opens today at 6th Street Playhouse will have a laugh and delight a bunch of kids.
Thirty-eight local students comprise the cast of the teen version of the play. A run of "The Producers" that featured an adult cast wrapped up at 6th Street last weekend.
The youth version has been full of surprises. One came when producer Jenifer Cote and director/choreographer Laurie Glodowski picked 14-year-old Montgomery freshman Dave Bradbury to play Franz Liebkind, then realized that his uncle, Mark Bradbury, nailed the same role in the adult production.
YOU'VE GOT TALENT and if your teen band or your Elvis impersonation win the top prizes in contests at the soon-to-start Sonoma County Fair, you'll also have $1,000 in your pocket.
The fair's talent-seekers (specialevents@SonomaCountyFair.com) are extending the entry deadline through Saturday.
BACK TO BODEGA BAY: The traveler who aspires to pedal a bike into Bodega Bay's Spud Point Marina between about 4 and 5 p.m. Saturday is not human.
How could Erden Eruc be? Since the Turkish-American set off from the bay in a high-tech little boat on July 10, 2007, he became the first adventurer ever to row solo across three oceans. He also cycled or hiked the thousands of miles of land in between.
Eruc had spent a total of 876 days rowing the globe when he made landfall in Louisiana on May 28. He pedals now toward where he started, in Bodega Bay.
I propose a blood test to determine if that's what courses through the astonishing wayfarer's veins.
(Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.)
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