FACE YOUR FEARS. I first heard this popular phrase in the 1970s and recalled immediately the fatal accident involving my college parachuting club. It had left me more afraid than ever of tackling one of my life’s dreams — to go skydiving.

Last week, I made the leap. In a sexy red jumpsuit, I hurled myself into a 150 mph wind and flew like Wonder Woman. Now before you send me champagne, you should know that I didn’t jump out of a plane and I wasn’t pulling a ripcord. In fact, the only real risk I faced was helmet hair, which became a reality after wearing one of those protective brain buckets.

How did I dance on a current of air for a full two minutes? In one of just 12 skydiving simulators on earth at I Fly SF Bay in Union City . They use an ingenious contraption that pumps wind — lots of it — into a 12-by-40-foot cylinder. Four powerful fans create the gusts in the chamber that buffet and blow up to four people around at a time. For me, it was fulfilling a fantasy I’ve had ever since I saw Mary Poppins. For just $50 and a few minutes of instruction, I was swept off my feet and into a whirlwind that simulated a skydive at 13,000 feet.

Life is exhilarating when you face your fears. I am woman; hear me soar.

UNFRIENDLY SKIES: Speaking of flying, I’ve been peppered with e-mails since my column piece on airplane noise. No less than 25 readers have offered confirmation of the constant din created by planes, large and small, buzzing the hills.

“My conversations with the airports boiled down to the increase of private aircraft as the cause,” writes Realtor Laurel Strand, who first brought up the problem and suspects a lot of it comes from Federal Express carriers.

The folks at the Port of Oakland have figures showing it’s not an increase in their passenger flights, but they’re taking complaints anyway at 510-563-6463 (or on their Web site at http://www.oaklandairport.com.

My colleague, Bay Area News Group-East Bay reporter Candice Murphy, says she researched the matter about a year and a half ago, when she first noticed the noise above her house. It has since abated in her area, but she writes: “They’re San Francisco (International) Airport-bound planes . . . you have to deal with them, and it’s something like the Red Bluff Vector, as I recall. It’s supposed to be based on weather — so when it’s rainy or heavily overcast, the planes are rerouted more over Montclair.”

I’m sure that’s no comfort to readers like Judith Bean, who says the jets are coming in so low, she can almost see the passengers waving. For now, it remains one of life’s little annoyances.

STOPLIGHT UPDATE: The man who’s trying to stop the stoplight at Mountain and La Salle says the groundswell of opposition has temporarily halted the project.

“The installation is not even in the design stage at this time,” says Derek Liecty, who has formed a committee to fight City Hall on the proposed signal.

Readers like Cathy Harrison are fervently opposed.

“To put a stoplight (expensive or not) at Mountain Boulevard and La Salle is asking for horrendous traffic and pedestrian problems,” she writes. “Traffic will be backed up all through the village, pedestrians will have to cross Mountain Boulevard illegally to go from shop to shop, street parking will become impossible due to backed up traffic, people will bypass the village (bad for merchants), and car pollution will be horrendous.”

NAME DROPPING: Rumors have been flying that new Oakland Raiders quarterback Jamarcus Russell has moved into the mansion perched above Shepherd Canyon Road. But the fact that there are sometimes two black and silver sports cars in the driveway doesn’t mean there’s a Raider in the house. In fact, my mole in Montclair tells me Russell spent $3 million on an enormous estate near Skyline and Keller. With sweeping views from his fancy slate decks, he’ll be able to look down on the place where he’ll make his fortune — the Coliseum.

Reach Ginny Prior by phone at 510-273-9418, by e-mail at ginnyprior@yahoo.com and on the Web at http://www.ginnyprior.com.

WELL, it’s the end of an era. I’ve traded my Prius for a car that gets half the mileage. The timing couldn’t be better, too, as gas bubbles back over the $3 mark. Call me crazy — but I dumped it because I got tired of seeing myself everywhere I went. In every parking lot, I’d find my car and a half-dozen just like it. I met myself twice at Thornhill and Moraga — staring across the intersection at not one, but two blue hybrids exactly like mine.

Psychiatrists say you are what you drive. For seven years, I was a gas-sipping greenie. I traveled in pods with other hybrid owners, secure in the knowledge that I was making a difference. Now, I just want to be me. I want to break loose from the pack and drive something that people will notice. Look for me in my new blue Scion sports coupe. I’ll be the one at the gas station, filling up.

STICKER SHOCK: Speaking of the Prius, those coveted HOV stickers that hybrid owners snapped up in droves are worth plenty these days. Terry Broderick at Oakland’s Downtown Toyota says they can increase the value of a Prius by as much as $4,000, because the DMV isn’t giving them out anymore. It’s amazing that something so ugly can be worth so much. But then things look a whole lot prettier when you’re driving solo in the car pool lane.

BIG EVENT: Happy anniversary to the Lakeshore Homes Association, celebrating its 90th birthday on Oct. 6. My radio colleague, Dianne Nicolini from KDFC, will lead a procession up Longridge to kick off the event. Longtime Oaklanders may remember the train that ran from the foot of Longridge up the hill to the new homes in the Lakeshore Highlands. The Key System shut down in 1958 and was replaced, with much protest, by the more modern buses. Speaking of history, Eagle Scout candidate Guy Hager will be taking donations that day to put up historical signage in the neighborhood.

ABOUT TOWN: My mistake for reporting that the Knitting Basket was closing in Montclair. Owner Rachael Jeffries says she’s got a new buyer taking over Sunday. After 10 years, it would have been a shame to see such a popular shop leave the village. But speaking of closures, J&J Hardware shut its doors, suddenly, the other day. That leaves one hardware store in town — the venerable Montclair Village Hardware across the street. It’s still going strong after 60 years.

E-MAIL BAG: Reader Ann Nunno says someone has been having fun with the stop signs in Piedmont. At the corner of Indian and La Salle, for instance, as well as Hampton and La Salle, we have “STOP Voldemort,” she writes. That’s Voldemort as in the evil Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter. I guess President Bush is off the hook — at least in this neighborhood.

WHAT CAN $250,000 buy? If properly spent, it can pave a lot of potholes, spruce up our schools, or pay the overtime salaries of a few more police officers in Montclair. Or it can buy a stoplight that some folks seem dead set against. The city of Oakland is poised to put in a light at the corner of Mountain Boulevard and La Salle Avenue — an intersection the traffic department deems is one of the most dangerous in the city. But not everyone is buying it.

“It’s total nonsense,” says Derek Liecty, who is starting an Ad Hoc Committee to Stop the Stop Light. He claims the department’s evaluation methods were wrong and they’re trying to ramrod the project through without public input.

Well, the Montclair Safety and Improvement Council did hold a meeting on the matter last week, and the opposition was vocal. But the MSIC’s Roger Vickery says, now that the stoplight has been OK’d and funded, there’s a potential liability issue if the city doesn’t go forward and someone gets injured at the intersection.

“Public Works is open to adding enhancements to the project,” he says, such as sidewalk bulb-outs, landscaping, benches, etc. But opponents are more worried about how a light will affect traffic in the village. Think about the issue and then decide. If you don’t have a problem with the new light, then do nothing. But if you feel, as many do, that a stoplight is a bad idea, then contact Derek Liecty at 510-339-2345 or by e-mail at spoker@sbcglobal.net.

E-MAIL BAG: It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s another plane. Realtor Laurel Strand says there has been a significant increase in the overhead airplane noise over the hills these past few months. “The noise has literally interrupted my Montclair open house conversations with prospective buyers,” she says, “and now prospective buyers are asking sellers about the jet stream noise patterns!” Strand says when she calls government agencies to complain, they have no advice. Has anyone else noticed the noise? If so, let me know and we’ll get to the bottom of this.

MORE MAIL: Reader David Walther has these thoughts on last week’s piece about a promised trail that the homeowners are fighting for along Shepherd Canyon Road. He says that would be great, but his first priority would be to expand the parking lot at the soccer park, where the overflow of cars often spills into the street. I would offer up that before some child is killed there, or people get injured while crossing or walking along the roadway, that the city expands the parking lot.

NEIGHBORHOOD BLIGHT: Remember that little service station in the Woodminister District that always sold gas for less? Well, it’s been shut down for quite a while now, and neighbors are banding together to see what can be done. “We don’t know whether the tanks are leaking,” says reader Jackie Care. “They might be, so as a neighborhood we’re just trying to get it cleaned up.”They’ve put in a blight complaint and are meeting with merchants in the area to come up with a solution. Meanwhile, they’re not even sure who owns the place, but they think he has other property in Montclair and San Ramon.

DEEP DISCOUNTS: I’ve wanted to stop by the Wine Mine for some time now. Not only is it owned by a dad at my son’s former school, I’ve read great things about it on Internet wine blogs. Tucked just behind Telegraph Avenue (5427 Telegraph) in an old red brick building, the Wine Mine does have rock-bottom prices. “My business plan doesn’t pay me a penny for two years,” says owner David Sharp, who seems perfectly content with the arrangement. And where did he get the name for the place? From his dad, who calls his own cellar stash the “wine mine.” Check it out — especially on Saturdays when you can taste six wines for a dollar.

YOU MIGHT CALL it a ghost trail. It’s a pathway that was promised to the people of Oakland 32 years ago. Meandering beside one of the longest stretches of free-running creek in town, the trail would have started below the Shepherd Canyon fire station and stretched to Scout Road — about a third of a mile.

It never materialized, and now the Shepherd Canyon Homeowners Association is suing to make it happen. What spurred their interest? The East Bay Regional Park District wants to transfer the deed for the land to the city of Oakland, evading a promise it made in 1975 when the district bought it for “a song” from Caltrans.

That’s how neighborhood activist Mike Petouhoff sees it, and he’s got an ally in attorney Steve Finley, who is handling the case for free.

“He took this on out of the kindness of his heart,” says Petouhoff, who doesn’t want another generation to pass before the trail dream is realized.

The parcel in question was one of two pieces of land that Caltrans “unloaded” when it dropped plans for a highway through Shepherd Canyon. The Shepherd Canyon Corridor Plan called for two public-use trails to buffer the development of more than 1,000 homes in the canyon. We did get one trail — the popular path that runs along what used to be the tracks of the Sacramento Northern Railroad between Shepherd Canyon Road and the village. But oddly, the creekside trail never materialized, and Petouhoff fears that a transfer of deed will mean death for the deal. “The scandal of Caltrans gas funds being used to extend a few private back yards has the potential to be swept under the carpet,” he claims, “as EBRPD washes their hands of the matter.”

Once again, it seems only a squeaky wheel gets the grease. The Shepherd Canyon Homeowners Association is making the noise. Let’s hope our elected officials are listening.

NEW NEIGHBOR: There’s been quite a hubbub over Jerry Brown’s move up the mountain to Montclair. A Realtor friend of mine says his new house was on the market for about nine months before Brown bought it, and has several levels of living and great rooms throughout. The house even has a retractable wall that opens to killer views of the bay. Talk about bringing the outside in!

LEMON ZEST: When life gives you lemons, start cooking. Reader Lynne Orloff-Jones is teaching a luscious lemon cooking class from 6:30-9 p.m. on Sept. 25 in the hills. The author of two cookbooks, the “Happy Cooker” is also a wine expert and will pair her three dishes with three wines to match. Such a deal! You can call her for more information at 510-406-2987.

STRANGE SIGHTING: I’ve seen my share of wildlife in the hills, but last week’s sighting of a giant brown snake takes the cake. The reptile was wrapped around a guy’s neck as he walked along Mountain Boulevard, as casually as if he were wearing a scarf. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised — after all, Montclair does have an animal mayor.

TGIF. Thank goodness it’s fall. Not officially, of course, but it’s so close I can taste it. There are pumpkin-spiced lattes and cinnamon scones and dinners of chili and cornbread. I can finally fire up the crock pot again and just throw things in it, and call it a stew or a soup.

And finally — there’s football. I’m high on the Raiders this year and it’s not just because of new coach Lane Kiffin. It takes more than a cute coach to catch my attention. It takes a cute coach and a Culpepper and we have them both.

AROUND TOWN: The more Montclair changes, the more it remains the same. Albertsons has turned back into Lucky, and shoppers seem happy with the prices and service. Word on the street is we’re getting another baby store in the village, filling the spot that Body Options left vacant.

And, sadly, the Knitting Basket is closing its doors after nine years in Montclair. Carla Judson, an employee for 22 years, says she’ll try to fill the void by offering private knitting lessons to anyone who wants them. (Carla’s e-mail is knitdoc@gmail.com.)

E-MAIL BAG: Last week’s column on cops working OT in the village prompted reader Charles Pine to write: “We are happy that the recent crime surge in Montclair has been beaten back, at least for the moment.” He reminds us, though, that it’s really just a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. The Oakland Police Department is short officers and needs to make recruiting a top priority.

GRAFFITI BUSTERS: The couple that scrubs together stays together. Just ask John and Jo-Ann Donivan, the husband and wife graffiti-busting team in the Laurel District. Every weekend, they’re part of a group of volunteers that covers gang signs and other unsightly scribbling that springs up at night.

“Mostly we take off spray paint, crayon, markers, lipstick and metallic paints,” says Jo-Ann, whose team uses everything from Goof Off to Goo Gone to cover the tags. “When this doesn’t work, we then paint off in appropriate colors.”

She says they’ve had to repeatedly paint a mailbox in the area that gets “hit” all the time. All that cleaning must be good for the soul. The couple is writing a how-to brochure for the city to use in training more volunteers.

EYE-POPPING EVENING: Moraga may be a “bedroom community” but it’s apparently not ready for sexy foreign films at the Rheem Theatre. A flurry of complaints followed the showing of a hot French flick the other night at the normally quiet Art Deco movie house. The show was part of a foreign film series sponsored by the neighboring Ristorante Amoroma. Future films probably won’t be as “spicy,” but you can still get the heat from the wine and hors d’oeuvres they serve before the curtain goes up.

ALL IS QUIET on the home front. The rash of crime that we saw in Montclair and the hills, this summer, has subsided. It’s no accident. Oakland police have been working overtime shifts in the village since a mid summer crisis meeting by Montclair merchants and the MSIC (Montclair Safety and Improvement Council).And it’s working.

Sgt. Joe Seale is the guy who puts together the schedule, and he says he’s got coverage in the village several nights a week. Apparently, it’s not hard to find guys to take the shifts, although Seale admits most of the officers would rather work the Raiders or A’s games, given the chance. Still, it’s great to have the officers watching Montclair and there’s no doubt that crime is down — way down.

“It’s a shame it has to be done this way on an overtime basis,” Seale said, “but as long as the city has the funds available, we can do it.”

Good job, everybody. Let’s keep the pressure up on our city officials to get our share of police protection in the hills. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and the noise we’ve been making is finally being heard.

BOARD DUDES: Now that school is back in session, hopefully the skateboards will go back in the garage. There were a rash of complaints, this summer, about skater dudes riding illegally on Montclair sidewalks. But nothing compares to the insane act I saw, recently, in the hills. Two boarders shot out from a side street onto Shepherd Canyon Road, and one actually wiped out in front of a mini-van. The driver narrowly missed the young man and do you know what he did as he got up and ran? He flipped her off! The unmitigated gall leaves me speechless.SEX ED: They’re getting down to the birds and bees in Piedmont Pines. Reader Elaine Hoffman says the lack of fruit on neighborhood trees has forced her to pollinate her own kiwi. The details might make you blush, so I won’t get into them — but needless to say, it worked. Her next step comes this spring when she sets up her own bee hive. The queen comes “special delivery” to her door, and gets right to work recruiting a hive full of “honeys”. Talk about “sexing up the neighborhood.” By fall, every fruit tree on Ascot should be in good shape.

GREAT DAY: Congratulations to Lloyd and Nancy Coyne — who just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at the place where they first met — Berkeley’s Newman Center. It was reportedly quite a bash, with a 3 o’clock mass followed by a party (coordinated by hills event planner Rebecca Faiola) for 100 of their closest friends and relatives. Here’s the really interesting part. Not only did Lloyd and Nancy meet there, but their daughter, Joanne, found her husband Dan there too, in a singles grou

IT’S A TYPICAL Sunday on Skyline Boulevard. Cars share the road with a steady stream of Spandex-clad bikers and leather-suited motorcyclists. It’s a popular drive — listed on many Web sites as a destination. “Unfortunately, the thrill of speeding round those curves is not only disruptive to the neighborhood, but as we experienced last summer — can be deadly,” says Sue Piper, the community liaison for Councilwoman Jean Quan.
Neighbors near Skyline have been complaining for years about speeding motorists. They’ve witnessed countless vehicles racing along the section above Montclair that has no lights and no stop signs. “You could help,” Piper tells me, “by reminding folks that the speed limit, whether posted or not, is 25 miles per hour.”

My reminder comes with a warning. Oakland police have been parked along Skyline Boulevard in recent weeks, watching for speeders. A ticket could be a nasty way to cap off your day. It goes without saying that an accident of any kind would be worse. Let’s all try to slow down and be more cautious on this scenic stretch of roadway.

OFF-RAMP AFFECTION: Even a freeway off-ramp needs love. Just ask Tod Vedock, who has been on a mission to spruce up the Broadway Terrace exit from Highway 13. “I was tired of traveling all over the country and seeing these nicely planned communities, and then coming home to my very expensive home and seeing weeds all up and down the street,” he says. So Vedock pulled the weeds and put down a dozen bags of shredded redwood mulch to cover up the dirt. And, yes — he did it without fanfare, and at his own expense. “The city will never be Walnut Creek,” he writes, so you have to “adopt it yourself.” Thank you, Tod. It’s folks like you who remind us of the virtues of civic pride.

VILLAGE UPDATE: I’ve been sitting on a secret for a couple of months, and now I’m able to share the news. Farmstead Cheeses and Wines is opening in the village by year’s end. The smoke cleared on the deal not long after La Salle Cigars vacated the space across from the parking garage. “The plans aren’t finished yet,” says Farmstead owner and hills dweller Jeff Diamond, “but hopefully there will be room in this space for a tasting bar.”
Diamond and his wife, Carol Huntington, have been building a steady following at their Park Street store in Alameda. The Montclair store will be almost twice the size — 1,000 square feet — and will allow them to bring in even more specialty cheeses and wines, along with their popular winemaker dinners.

E-MAIL BAG: If you’re looking for a small way to make a difference, reader Donna Bersaglieri could use some help with the one-on-one reading program at Piedmont Avenue Elementary School. “It’s a nice relaxed program started by someone in the neighborhood about 11 years ago,” she says. Volunteers read with two students a week for a half hour each in the school library. “There’s so much reciprocal giving and taking — it’s really a joy” she says. If you’re interested, call Donna at 510-482-0862, and she’ll tell you more about it.

FUNKY FINDINGS: Gross is the only word to describe the nasty, fungus-encrusted stuff that’s fouling the waters of Lake Merritt. A group of volunteers went on a little fishing expedition recently to celebrate Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s birthday. Skimming the lake with nets, they pulled up slime-covered bottles and Styrofoam and “the obligatory dime bags and syringes,” says organizer Suman M Paranjape.
And they also found turtles, which Paranjape says “aren’t so yucky but are kind of sad — since they can’t survive in the lake, but people release them anyway.”
She says they’ll be doing another clean-up on Sept. 15, and anyone who’d like to volunteer can call 510-931-7477.