Chris Smith: The funny-sounding tree in Santa Rosa had this woman in stitches

When Elizabeth Koebsell read of the bomb-dropping, needle-leafed tree whose fate is in dispute in Santa Rosa, she had to tell about the fallen Bunya Bunya branch that she’s kept for 30 years.

The limb has been important to Koebsell, a school librarian who’s now 65, ever since it cracked open her head.

One evening in 1989, Koebsell recounts, she parked alongside Depot Park for a dinner with friends at the former Sourdough Rebo’s, located where Chevy’s is now.

Afterward, a mean wind blew as she returned to her car.

“As I was lowering myself into my seat, I felt a hard knock on my head,” Koebsell said. “I plopped down and sat dazed, wondering what had happened.

“Soon I was aware of blood dripping down onto my lap.”

She made her way back into Sourdough Rebo’s, her bloodied countenance startling the hostess who composed herself and called for paramedics. A couple of boys ran out to retrieve the 5-foot Bunya Bunya branch that had beaned Koebsell.

A emergency-room visit and seven stitches later, a friend drove her home. The following day she returned to Railroad Square and to her car - her wrecked car.

A second, larger bough had fallen from the Australian tree and crushed the back end.

Three decades later, Koebsell has some sympathy for the Salvation Army as it pleads to remove the Bunya Bunya that sprouts great pods and drops branches near the Silvercrest senior apartment towers.

The one in Railroad Square, she said, “had it in for me!”

HHHHHH

KATI BAKES AGAIN: At a point prior to Thanksgiving of 2011, Kati Hilario, at age 13, became determined to do something positive, and nourishing, for at least some of the many people in the world who suffer.

Then a 7th grader at Rincon Valley Middle School, Kati baked and sold to friends 16 pumpkin pies. She asked $15 apiece. She donated the money she received - $362 - to the Redwood Empire Food Bank.

The following Thanksgiving, she hosted her Pies for Poverty project a second time. That year, 2012, she baked 52 pies and delivered to the regional food bank and its mission to eradicate hunger $945 in donations.

Jump forward to last year. Kati, then 19 and a Maria Carrillo High graduate studying at Sacramento State University, hosted her eighth charitable Thanksgiving pie-a-thon.

That effort brought her eight-year totals to 1,432 pies baked, $25,246 donated to REFB.

Kati says the hardship wrought by the Kincade fire and that endures from the fires of 2017 compel her to round up her helpers and, on Thanksgiving eve, to bake again. Once again, the food bank is allowing her to use its commercial kitchen.

Kati, at 20, still requests just $15 a pie. Some patrons give more.

Folks who place an order by emailing Kati at piesforpoverty@outlook.com can arrange to have the pie delivered to them, or they can pick it up Wednesday at the food bank on Brickway Boulevard.

And there’s another option: You can order a pie, or two, for delivery to local firefighters, peace officers or paramedics - or fire survivors.

This is important: If you want to place an order, you’ve got to do so with an email to Kati by the end of the day Monday. Ready or not, Thanksgiving 2019 is almost here.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707 521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.