When Helen Says, ‘Take a Hike,’ It’s an Invitation

“Take a hike, fella,” has a positive meaning these days to some people.

For Helen Graziano, 49, of Los Alamitos, that’s good news considering she’s out hiking at least three times a week, once for her own love of the outdoors and twice to tune up others for some serious hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Besides the conditioning, “It’s a really renewing experience,” said Graziano, a fourth-grade teacher, member of the Long Beach chapter of the Sierra Club and hike leader. “The mountains are so beautiful, and hiking in them is physically, spiritually and morally uplifting.”

Besides that, she said, the only cost is for equipment.

There’s more than the personal joy of hiking to the mountaintop, Graziano said: “It serves as a conditioning program and a social gathering, but there’s the added benefit of learning about nature and helping to protect it.” She said the Los Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club publishes a schedule of hiking trips by its various chapters.

Although she is not politically active, Graziano said, “it’s important to get involved in nature because if we don’t protect the birds, the whales, the trees and the oceans, there won’t be anything left to enjoy.” People who hike in the desert and mountains “leave it alone” contrasted with some who destroy nature for the fun of it, she said.

Hiking became an avocation when her children left home for college, she said. “I played tennis, golf, went skiing and did all those good things, but I needed something more meaningful.” She chose hiking with the Sierra Club and joining in its effort to preserve and protect the environment.

Husband Michael A. Graziano, 54, city manager of Los Alamitos, said hiking has opened a new world to them. “We’re urban people, but hiking and backpacking have given us a new outlet.” Besides her regular 10-mile Saturday hikes in the San Gabriel Mountains and the nighttime conditioning hikes on Signal Hill in Long Beach, Graziano occasionally tries more demanding peaks such as Mauna Kea in Hawaii. At other times she enjoys weeklong camping trips.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy my home,” said Graziano, who grows orchids and cooks. Still, she added, “I’m not content to just sew, knit and cook.”

“Give me the food and everything else or I blow this place up,” two would-be robbers in a shiny black pickup truck demanded of an attendant at a drive-through fast-food store in La Habra. For emphasis, they placed a wired box on the outside food service counter.

“Go ahead,” the attendant said. “I’m tired of working here anyway.”

The woman, whose name was withheld by La Habra police, closed the window and walked away.

The two men sped away--no doubt hungry and broke.

Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo is turning out qualified baby sitters at an astonishing rate--48 in the just-completed monthly course--and the description of graduates might have something to do with the course’s popularity.

They’re called “Supersitters.”

“We originally held the class every other month,” said hospital spokeswoman Beth Jbara, of Santa Ana. “But it got so popular we started holding it monthly.” Some classes have 60 students.

Most students in the three-hour class are age 13 or 14, she said, “but we had a woman in her late 40s and a young mother once took the class with her mother-in-law.”

Acknowledgments--James Hankins, 7, a first-grader at Taft Elementary School in Santa Ana collected 100 cans of food from his family and neighbors in the school’s canned food drive.