Chris Smith: Coffee via 911, flights to Mexico and pygmy forests

The 911 call to the Sebastopol police the other night was dialed by mistake.

Dispatcher Zina Keeran could tell no one was on the line. She heard in the background, “Would you like whipped cream with that?”

The dispatcher texted to the phone number: “Your cellphone has dialed 911. Please call 829-4400. I would also like to order whatever you were ordering and yes, I would like whipped cream on mine. Thanks sincerely, your friendly dispatcher at Sebastopol police.”

Soon the owner of the phone, Ian Carnes, called to apologize. A roaster at Coffee Catz, he said his hand-me-down phone has a habit of randomly dialing 911 when it’s in his pocket. Then he thanked dispatcher Keeran for her vigilance.

“You’re welcome,” she said. She added with a laugh, “But where is my mocha?”

Ian’s wife, Alena, and their children, Malichy, 8, and Patience, 7, happened to be there at Coffee Catz. He asked if they’d take the kindly police dispatcher a mocha.

They did. To meet Keeran and surprise her with a fancy coffee was great fun. And for Police Officer Jacques Levesque to give Alena and the kids an educational, VIP tour of the station, that was the whipped cream on the top.

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FLIGHTS TO MEXICO are on the mind of Gemi José Gonzalez, the new consul general of Mexico in San Francisco, as he prepares to come to Sonoma County’s primary airport for the big Sept. 24-25 air show.

“I think it would make a lot of sense to have a flight to Guadalajara,” Gonzalez said Wednesday. He said a flight from the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport to Guadalajara would be a boon to the many people from that region of Mexico who now live and work in this region.

Gonzalez, who became consul general three months ago, is eager also to meet some of the people from Mexican who work or own their own labels in Sonoma-Napa Wine Country.

“I have always said that, really, all the great wines that California produces one way or another go through Mexican hands,” he said.

Hopes are high that one benefit of the presence at the air show of Gonzalez, members of the Latino Pilots Association, Miss Latina Wine Country, mariachis and Mexican food may be to inspire young Latinos to careers in aviation.

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THE PYGMY FOREST just inland from the Mendocino Coast between Caspar and Fort Bragg is getting some loving, a good dose from the son of the man who saved much of it from bulldozers in 1972.

Alden Olmsted was present days ago for the unveiling of a new sign at Jug Handle State Natural Reserve and a plaque declaring its pygmy forest a National Natural Landmark.

Olmsted was channeling his late father, naturalist John Olmsted, when he mounted a successful 2011 fundraising campaign to save Jug Handle from being shut down because of the state budget crisis.

The centerpiece of the Jug Handle reserve is its Ecological Staircase, home to a 2.5-mile trail that treats hikers to five terraces supporting distinct stages of plant life, from prairie to pines to the stunted trees and shrubs of the pygmy forest.

The staircase might not exist had the elder Olmsted not led a hardy cast of conservationists, who 44 years ago cried that the Jug Handle should not be developed, and were heard.

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