A few weeks before the beaver festival I was contacted by Tim Hon of Illuminaries who happened to live in Martinez and wanted to create a beaver mural because he had been surprised to see them one night when he first moved in. It was pretty exciting and especially wonderful that it had nothing to do with me and I wasn’t responsible in any way. 
Mind you, I asked for one thing. That it look like an actual beaver and not a nutria of woodchuck. I even gave him some photos to work from, and even though our beavers never wore snorkels you can probably see the influence.
He had access to two privately owned places and asked what was involved in getting permission. Even though the approval for our beaver mural took a good number of meetings and several months to finagal, I was able to find out that there was no permit needed for private property in city limits.
The other property he was considering turned out to be on unincorporated land and the county of contra costa said they needed a permit costing 2500 dollars to paint it!
Thus, this little mural on the side of a ancient gas station was born. It just happens to be right across from the Copper Skillet, where I’m told the mayor has breakfast sometimes. I didn’t make him do it or try to stop it. Tim admitted he was a graffiti artist at heart, so doing things was easier for him than getting permission anyway,
He started it the day of the festival and just now finished the ice cream. Doesn’t it just make you happy? Tim cameby the festival afterwards and was very impressed to watch Amy’s temporary chalk creation, which I thought was fun. Bonus points! When our beavers moved upstream their interim lodge was in the creek right next to this property. And when I was in 7th grade I organized a car wash at this gas station to pay for a birthday cake for our beloved band teacher.
Long live the snorkling beaver!
My interview yesterday on BYU radio was fun and very polite. Marcus Smith started it off by saying Heidi Perryman of Worth A – oh goodness I need to swear on the radio – dam. He let me tell the story the way I wanted. Marcus seemed genuinely pleased that I was a civilian and asked a whether being a child psychologist helped me plan the festivals or fight the city, which I liked very much because people don’t usually act like it has anything to do with it. They were going to talk to Ben Goldfarb later in the day. I think I did okay, it will air in a couple weeks and I’ll give you the link then. The only odd part was that the host and his helpers were so polite – letting me say as much or little as I wanted – that sometimes I wasn’t totally sure they were paying attention and not, you know, checking their nails or something,
I’m from California for pete’s sake, I wanted to say, I’m used to more pressure!
