Sometimes when Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey got up to speak I would hold my breath. She’s not a smooth talker, sometimes speaking haltingly like she’s trying to gather her thoughts. But as tentative as she could be in her delivery, she was always strong in her convictions.

Still, I’m happy about Lynn announcing this week that she will not run for an 11th term in the House of Representatives. For one reason. She can cut back on the speech-making and the mocking of her fumbles by media critics. One of her supporters standing next to me when Lynn made her announcement said, “Can you imagine taking on a job where half of it required you to do something you hated doing and knew you weren’t very good at?”

That was about the time the coastal California wind swept through Lynn’s Petaluma backyard, tangled her speech notes, she lost track of what she was about to say, then shrugged and said, “Well, you know.”

Smooth talking is definitely an asset in politics but it isn’t everything. Washington is full of silver tongued slicks in a suit. Dick Cheney is good with words. Anthony Weiner was a definite wit.

Actually Lynn does quite ably in one-on-one talks. Rachel Maddow closed one interview with Lynn, saying, “always a pleasure to hear your straight talk, Ma’m.”

Yes, straight talk. Not flowery. Not clever. Not mean. No winky-winks.

And always a brave heart. In doing exactly what her constituents wanted. Never wavering.

Lynn has opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and American involvement in Libya. She’s delivered nearly 400 speeches on the House floor in support of bringing U.S. troops home. She voted against the USA Patriot Act, saying that it recklessly violated civil liberties. She once proposed the government establish a Department of Peace with cabinet status. In 2006, she gave antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan a ticket to George Bush’s State of the Union speech.

She initially voted against the $700 billion financial bailout because she said it wouldn’t do enough to provide jobs. She pushed for a stronger public health care option than was eventually adopted in the Affordable Care Act and waited quietly while rowdies at a town hall meeting in Petaluma shouted her down when she said, “our health care system is broken.”

Nancy Pelosi has called her the “conscience of the Congress.”

Lynn went to Washington when she was 55 in 1992, the famous Year of the Women when a record number of women joined the House and Senate. It was not lost on those who gathered in Lynn’s back yard that coincidentally the same day she announced she would be leaving Congress another congresswoman, from Minnesota, announced her bid for president, even though about the only things the two have in common is their gender and their job title.

For example, Lynn Woolsey fought against privatizing Social Security when George W. proposed it. Now Lynn is re-engaged in the current Republican assault on Social Security. The Minnesota Congresswoman has bragged that were her GOP crowd in control they could get rid of Social Security over one long weekend.

Lynn’s good pal and colleague Congresswoman Barbara Lee credits Lynn for never being shy about connecting her personal experiences to her political beliefs. Lynn is the first member of Congress to have once been a single mother on welfare, so of course she supports social safety nets. When you ask her about choice she tells the story about her grandmother, pregnant with her first child and almost to term when something went wrong and the doctor told her husband there was no way to save both his wife and the baby. And he chose his wife. And two years later Lynn’s mother was born.

Lynn, who has promised to continue her anti-war efforts and work to protect the California coast from offshore oil drilling, is the real thing. Nancy Pelosi has called her the “conscience of the Congress.”

That’s certainly worth more than glib talk from suits in wingtips.

When it’s being friendly, the morning sun announces itself as a golden glimmer outlining the neighbor’s redwood tree. Finally it blasts through the bedroom blinds, lighting up the room, coming on so strong that inevitably someone says, “Hey, would you get those blinds, it’s too bright to read the newspaper.”

What? Shut out the very sun we’ve been longing for? Do you want to jinx summer? Wasn’t it only a week ago we turned on the heater and pulled out the down vests? In June!

That was during the odd cold and heavy late spring rains which caused locals to grumble about the June gloom, trading weather gripes on Facebook which must have looked pretty silly to people dealing with serious weather. But even I, who likes to Pollyanna the weather by chirping “the sun is out there somewhere,” joined the grousing and posted a photo of my wet dog looking pitiful in her yellow slicker.

But now, as I write this, there have been sunny mornings and daytime temperatures near 90 and people are declaring that summer is finally here. Even though our coastal NorCal weather is never finally anything. Typically our summer weather is a fog sandwich – gray mornings and cool nights with heat in the middle.

On days of full sun you can water the vegetables in shorts. You can even plan a dinner outside.

The late spring storms messed with the grape crop, cancelled town barbecues and forced Wine Country weddings inside. They also created a rare lush green landscape, untypical for this place this time of year which is normally starting to fade to brown. This year the grasses stayed green and the hydrangeas hung heavy and sodden. I said, “It looks like a summer back East.” And those fluffy high clouds that dance across the sky make me think of lazy warm days in the Midwest.

But the Midwest, beyond its pretty clouds, has been swamped by record flooding and killer tornadoes. And the people back East, having just finished with record blizzards, are dealing with the kind of record heat and humidity typically reserved for August.

Everything’s topsy-turvy. Did somebody say “climate change?”

A new study by the Yale Project on Climate Change shows that more people do believe in global warming but not enough. Half of Americans believe that global warming is causing or worsening coastal erosion, fires, hurricaines and flooding. But many think environmental disasters happen in other places.

In a recent newspaper piece, climate activist Bill McGibben challenged any thinking person paying attention to recent weather catastrophes to scoff at climate change. Isn’t this what climatologists have been predicting for years. “That as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet.”

Paul Krugman wrote a column connecting the dots between the series of droughts and floods, disrupted ag production and rising world-wide food prices. Amy Goodman pointed out what innovative countries are doing to create new energy systems and green jobs while the Obama administration gifts more billions in subsidies to oil, coal and nuclear industries.

Of course they’re all liberal thinker-writers and some people still think that global warming is liberal hype. The Yale study did say more Democrats believe in climate change than Republicans.

Meanwhile, I’m looking for some more sunny summer days like they have other places. Enough to encourage the tomatoes, but not too much to exhaust the lettuce. And then the morning fog can creep back and we can grump and grumble. Because if the fog stays away and it really starts to look and feel like back East or the Midwest in the summer, then we’ve got trouble.

My hiking companions always aim for the top and so naturally we take off on a trail that heads straight up into the redwoods. No messing around with flat canyon floors pausing to look at ferns and wildflowers, we charge the skinny trail skirting roots and rocks, finally pausing at a flat spot to share a log and chug our water bottles.

These women are better than going to the gym. They’re better than Botox. They get each other out and moving, like all the wellness experts preach. I’m a newbie. The others are more agile and sure footed than I am. They walk as fast as they talk. I’ve learned to ask a question and get them talking so I can stay quiet and concentrate on my panting.

I’ve been walking with these women, who call themselves the Wander Women, on and off for more than a year. Many in the group have been at it for 10 years. Weather permitting – including light rain – they hike one day a week and bicycle another day. In the summer they kayak. Some weeks ago they did a zip-line through the woods, hanging from a cable and screaming like Jane meets Tarzan. I am afraid of heights and do not zip.

I joined these women after leaving my newspaper job. They include therapists, a non profit director, family doctor, boutique owners, artists, writers, teachers. Some are still working; some, not. They are natural beauties whose hiking gear includes earrings, lip gloss and pants tucked into socks to guard against ticks.

Our uphill trail that day was in Armstrong Redwoods Nature Preserve, a California state park known for its giant ancient trees. We finished at a campground with a potluck to mark their 10 years together. Someone built a fire. Someone popped champagne. Everybody said how grateful they were for the camaraderie and the motivation.

Scampering up a hill like a billy goat is a great way to get a full-body workout. Hiking is cheaper than hiring a personal trainer, seeing a therapist, having a massage or getting your cheekbones lifted. Work those calves, pump the arms, breathe hard, de-stress, sweat until you glow. The morning fog is the redwoods’ natural moisturizer and against your face it’s better than any spritzer.

Can you tell I’m becoming a real nature lover, a tree hugger of the old growth variety? I want to pat those huge gnarly trunks of trees that go on forever and say “sorry, sorry” for anything we teeny-tiny humans have done to cause these loveable giants any distress.

Parks like Armstrong Redwoods have spared the trees the loggers axe. But not the budget axe, and now many of these sanctuaries, these places of worship for even last minute born-agains, are threatened to be closed down.

The California park system is running out of money. Armstrong Redwoods Preserve is currently not on the list of parks that the state has targeted for closure, although the adjacent Austin Creek Park is. But rangers will tell you that no park is secure in these desperate budget days.

Last year California voters rejected a measure that would have put more money into parks via a surcharge on vehicle licenses to help save parks. I’d certainly pay more to keep trees like this in my life. Maybe do some volunteer trail maintenance. Learn how to fix a fence, clear a trail. Stand at the visitor center and remind people that the ancient coast redwood is the tallest living thing on the planet but still needs our protection.

Count me in. What am I going to do with a new walking stick and a golden years discount pass when they lock up all the trees?

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