PRADO BICENTENNIAL SPILLWAY DESIGNER STILL PROUD OF WORK, WHICH SPARKED PATRIOTIC SURGE IN AREA

Ron Kammeyer points out his 1976 award-winning design for Prado Spillway

Hungover from the war in Vietnam, which had ended the previous year. Hungover from Watergate, which led to President Nixon’s resignation two years earlier. Hungover from the ‘60s, whose cultural legacies still divided the nation.

That year, America’s zeitgeist could be seen it its movies—All the President’s Men; Dog Day Afternoon; Taxi Driver. It could be heard in its music—Take It to the Limit; Taking It to the Streets; All by Myself. It could be watched on television’s debut shows—Charlie’s Angels; Laverne and Shirley; the Blues Brothers on Saturday Night Live.

Clearly, as the United States entered the year it was to celebrate 200 years of nationhood, the center was not holding. Things weren’t falling apart, but neither were they uniting. “I got some bad ideas in my head,” said cabbie Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, a thought that seemed to catch the mood of the day.

Then two events occurred—both in southern California—twin tonics that together helped cure any psychic hangover lingering among most Californians.

The first happened in April 1976. During a baseball game at Dodger Stadium, Chicago Cubs player Rick Monday stopped two protestors who were trying to burn an American flag in the outfield. For his spontaneous courage, the former Marine Corps reservist got a standing ovation that day and in many other stadiums the rest of the season.

The Prado Dam Spillway today

The juniors were in the class of ’77 and were motivated by a “let’s-beat-those-seniors” challenge. To the surprise of most everybody, their design was picked. By the time hundreds of cans of red, white and blue paint were empty, the spillway, once etched with gang graffiti, was muraled in symbols celebrating the nation’s 200th birthday. “It was done on weekends and took us a month,” recalls Kammeyer. “Putting the match lines down was harder than anything. The first white paint washed out, but then came all the different colors and layout. It was a lot of fun.”

For his efforts, Kammeyer was awarded a $25 United States Savings Bond. He has never cashed it.

The onetime Eagle Scout had a secret weapon in the contest--designer DNA. His father Ken founded Kammeyer & Associates, an environmental design, planning and landscape architecture firm. For three decades, it has been recognized as one of southern California’s most innovative firms, bringing its expertise to such diverse projects as the Western White House for President Nixon, the Navajo Nation War Memorial, Isamu Noguchi’s sculpture garden at South Coast Mall and the Sherman Library and Gardens at Costa Mesa.

Kammeyer holds the original $25 U.S. savings bond presented him by the Corps

Like a lot of Prado’s neighbors, Ron thought the newly decorated spillway would again fall prey to rogue spray-painters. But it didn’t. The design lasted…and lasted…and lasted. It wasn’t until two years ago, in fact, that Ron approached L.A. District with the idea of donating the paint to brighten the now-faded colors at the dam. However, tougher environmental screening rules on lead-based paint had been passed since 1976, and the District had to reluctantly turn down his offer.

Three years after 9/11, with the Stars & Stripes unfurled nearly everywhere, it’s hard to remember that, back in the day, the Bicentennial didn’t spark a patriotic flame in the hearts of all Americans. Sure, most communities and many individuals planned to do their part in honoring the country’s birthright. But others simply couldn’t be bothered.

But Ron’s true-blue--and red and white--sentiments were genuine. “It was just a natural thing for me,” he says. “I was into Scouting, into my country. It was a period when everybody was into going to Canada or against the war.”

That’s the reason that Ron ranks the spillway design “at the top” of his professional achievements. “Because it was a time when it wasn’t popular to be patriotic,” he explains.

His design seemed to touch a nerve-ending in the population. Once a tempting concrete canvas for taggers, the Prado spillway has remained virtually free of graffiti ever since.

Besides reaching Eagle Scout rank, Ron also became a member of Order of the Arrow, one of Scouting’s highest honors. The Order’s motto is “Brotherhood of Cheerful Service,” and one of its four purposes is “to crystallize the Scout habit of helpfulness in to a life purpose of leadership in cheerful service to others.”

And like Rick Monday’s valiant actions in the Dodger Stadium outfield, Ron Kammeyer’s cheerful service at Prado Dam has inspired southern Californians for 28 years.