IT’S THE HISTORY. IT’S THE diversity of food, from restaurants to markets to semipermanent food-trucks. It’s the out-of-state license plates ringing the Plaza on weekends. It’s the eight-acre Sonoma Plaza itself: families having picnics, occasional Tai Chi enthusiasts or Morris dancers, the rose garden(s), the three fountains, the bridge over the duck pond, the ducks, the former chickens, the sundial, even the smelly gingko tree. Continue reading “Why I Love: Sonoma”
Tag: places
Are we there yet?
Out of the Ashes, Endlessly Turning
A YEAR AGO THIS WEEK, Ann, Geronimo and I fled the then-largest wildfire complex in California history.
We were voluntary evacuees who came home to find everything relatively intact, so our story had a happy ending. My niece and nephew-in-law weren’t so lucky; residents of Corralitos to the far south, they owned a house in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park that, like almost all the others in that neighborhood, burned to the foundation. Many people fared similarly, some worse.
“The Fires” were the second time in my life I faced a “will I die in the next five minutes?” moment. Continue reading “Out of the Ashes, Endlessly Turning”
Why I Love: Geology
IT’S THE SMELL OF THE rocks. It’s knowing what everything on the surface is sitting on. It’s the finding of hand-samples. (It’s also the finding of fossils.) It’s the divisions of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. It’s the appreciation of Deep Time. It’s the walking-about in nature. It’s that every rocky layer is a page in a vast book. It’s the feel of obsidian and chert and soapstone. It’s knowing the Mohs scale. It’s using the Mohs scale. It’s that the raw ingredients are made out of stardust. It’s literally seeing the connection-to-everything-else. Continue reading “Why I Love: Geology”
Live Long and Proffer
THE FIRST SOLO BAY AREA excursion I made after my mom and I moved to Walnut Creek in August 1977 was a trip to the aptly named Federation Trading Post, a Berkeley specialty store selling all sorts of Star Trek merchandise.
It was my second brush with official fandom of any sort. When I still lived back East, I had attended the 1975 Boston Star Trek convention, where my 13-year-old mind was blown by a hotel full of people who all suffered from the same obsession I did. Oh, I had it bad. Continue reading “Live Long and Proffer”
Don’t Look Up
OF ALL THE PET PEEVES this modern life offers, one of the most soul-sucking is checking out at the grocery store.
I’m specifically talking about the debit-card machine. Time was, you could fill the two-to-three-minute transaction with friendly banter; ask after the checker’s health and/or welfare; comment on how busy the day is; even chat about the house music. It doesn’t matter what — it’s a friendly benefit for both customer and checker. When you’re working retail, these little conversations help pass the time and break up the daily monotony. Continue reading “Don’t Look Up”
Night, Fog, and One Hell of a Bang
IF I HAD KNOWN THAT our galleon would collide with a freighter, I would have worn a life jacket.
The time was February 1988. Through a curious series of circumstances, I had signed aboard the replica galleon Golden Hinde II a few months earlier as a deckhand and docent, sailing around the Bay Area and down the California coast giving tours of our fine ship. Our plan that night was to motor (yes, we had a small engine) from San Francisco to the Farallon Islands, then sail down to Half Moon Bay. We left San Francisco well after midnight in order to take advantage of the outgoing tide, and were soon past the Golden Gate Bridge and into the open sea.
A cold and foggy 3 a. m. found me atop the foredeck on bow-watch (front lookout) with a couple of other chilly souls. Continue reading “Night, Fog, and One Hell of a Bang”
(Shave and) a Haircut, 12 Bucks!
WE HAD LIVED IN SONOMA for a third of my lifetime before I visited Allen’s Hair House, about a half-block south of the Plaza. I had become fed up with being charged $20 for a chop job by my previous barber, who shall remain nameless, and I was frankly curious about the unassuming Broadway storefront with the classic spinning barber pole and the hand-stenciled sign: “HAIRCUTS – $12.”
I was greeted by the smell of jasmine rice, and by an older Vietnamese man with a thick accent and soft voice. He offered me one of the two empty barber’s chairs and, when I sat down, he tied the traditional paper strip around my neck before enveloping me in a smock decorated with an Egyptian theme. Continue reading “(Shave and) a Haircut, 12 Bucks!”
Overheard in Sonoma
(For Leah Garchik’s back-page-of-the-San Francisco Chronicle feature.)
Ms. Garchik,
I was walking on the west side of Sonoma Plaza this morning when I passed a middle-aged touristy couple, just as the man was saying to his female companion, “Someday, she’ll know what beer is.” His words are a mystery to me, and I hope amusing to your readers.
Be well,
Neal
#oldpunksneverdie
Never thought I’d hear Safeway’s in-house music channel play “London Calling” this morning. But I sang along with it anyway.
Deadline: 2036
ONE THING I MISS ABOUT the pre-21st-century days is the sense of humanity plunging headlong toward some destination.
These days, that collective goal seems hellbound and handbasket-wrapped. But in the days and years leading up to 1/1/2000, the Great Rollover, that sense of heading toward something great and mysterious was sometimes almost palpable. Maybe it’s because we could see a deadline.
Deadlines are wonderful tools for focusing the mind. Without one, I find myself picking listlessly at the keyboard; with one, I have an excuse, however small, to get off the couch. And that’s important. Our planet’s emerging global culture is lacking something without that sense of notional and communal quasi-closure, and I would like to offer a replacement.
In just about 25 years, give or take a month (or, to put it more or less as accurately as I can, in
days:hours:etc.) an asteroid named Apophis will make its second pass at Earth and quite possibly collide with it. That’s about as dead a deadline as you can get, but it’s also a good chunk of time — it’s a quarter-century off, which is sort of good news for us would-be codgers as it obviates the need for Social Security and other obligations; it’s close enough to inspire the imagination, yet far enough to finally develop those %$#@! jetpacks. And it’s a great excuse, however small, to get off the couch.
April 13, 2036. I hope to see you there.
The View From Superman’s Cape
FLYING OVER EARTH IN THE International Space Station? This is what it looks like.
Monumental Question
“Do you honor the hole, or refill it with something?” (This may also apply to more than just the WTC memorial. Me, I vote for honoring the hole.)