On the Road: Fresno, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 27, 2007

Unfolding the Map

We're in the heart of California's Central Valley, moving on down toward LA. Click the map!

Book Quote

"He drove me into buzzing Fresno and let me off by the south side of town. I went for a quick Coke in a little grocery by the tracks, and here came a melancholy Armenian youth along the red boxcars, and just at that moment a locomotive howled, and I said to myself, yes, yes Saroyan's town."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Fresno, California

Californians can be very provincial. I'm not sure this isn't like other parts of the United States, and we certainly know that provincialism on a larger scale is known as nationalism and has caused many problems on the international stage. When I write "provincial," I mean an attitude that not only is the place where one is the best place, but also that one has a lack of interest in other places.

I will provide my own mother as an example, who has been a place or two, but who really never left my hometown except for some temporary trips, and who doesn't seem to have a great curiousity about the outside world. But I have more as well. There seems to be a reluctance among many New Orleanians, and having lived there I have found this to be true in many cases, to leave their home and settle in any other place. This can be summed up for two reasons -- one is that New Orleans was and still is a very unique place in our country, but the other is that New Orleanians feel this uniqueness and cannot see themselves in any other place, despite the problems and the difficulties that come with living in New Orleans. This is why post-Katrina, the diaspora was so difficult for many New Orleanians -- they have difficulty adjusting to life outside of New Orleans because of their attitudes, their rootedness to the place and to their social environment.

So, in California, the Bay Area thinks it is THE place to live. All of Northern California is very resentful of Southern California, and Southern Californians feel pretty superior to everyone else.
About the only thing that urban dwellers in California can agree upon is that they can look down upon more rural areas of California, and when I was growing up, going to or living in Fresno (or Bakersfield, which will be considered in the next post) was considered to be a karmic punishment.

Why this is, I don't know. I haven't been to Fresno. But I heard about the blazing hot summers, the thick tule (pronounced too-lee) fog in the mornings that made driving hazardous. The lack of things to do. I bought into these attitudes, but have since learned in my life that making pronouncements about places not only does an injustice to them, but also limits one from ever exploring what they may have to offer. I offer as an example Houston. When I lived in Texas and in New Orleans, everyone pretty much put down Houston. It was hot and humid, it was a concrete jungle, it was too big, you had to drive long distances to do anything. Yes, Houston was these things and more, but we found by exploring it that there are fantastic things in Houston that make some of the inconveniences worth negotiating, like the Art Car Parade, or the Rothko Chapel.

So I try not to bias myself against Fresno or any other place any more. Sure I have my favorites, but everything seems to have at least something to offer. And it is notable that in this particular Kerouac passage, Sal acknowledges that Fresno is the hometown of William Saroyan, who wrote optimistic tales set in some of America's darkest times. If Fresno was such a terrible place, then wouldn't it have made a worse impression on Saroyan? Wouldn't Saroyan's stories and plays be darker?

If you want to learn more about Fresno

California State University - Fresno
City of Fresno
Fresno Bee
Fresno City and County Historical Society
Fresno Convention and Visitor's Bureau
Wikipedia: Fresno
Wikipedia: William Saroyan
William Saroyan Society

Next up: Bakersfield, California

On the Road: Madera, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 26, 2007

Unfolding the Map

Racing down through Central California, Sal is waxing poetic as he usually does. Not surprising, given that his creator was a poet. Click the map!

Book Quote

"...Madera, all the rest. Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries. I stuck my head out the window and took deep breaths of the fragrant air. It was the most beautiful of all moments."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Madera, California

These moments, as Sal describes, are hard to come by. You have to really treasure such times. Kerouac uses both sight and smell to describe this evening, and it's interesting that I remember my own moments in the same way. Sunsets over the Pacific Coast, where I grew up, were notable. Especially on evenings in early to mid-summer, when the air was cool but not cold, and the sun set over the ocean through a panoply of clouds, leaving muted pastel colors of yellow, orange, red, gold, purple and pink in its wake. There was always a smell of salt surf in the air -- even when the ocean was calm small breakers would still throw up mist into the air, which had a slight but sharp aroma when inhaled.

Evenings in New Orleans were often associated with both light and smell. One evening, not long after I moved there, I went to some friends' house in the Riverbend district. As I pulled over and parked, the sun was setting. The sky in the west was an incredible burnt orange, the likes of which I had never seen before nor have I seen since. The air was filled with the aromas of New Orleans -- jasmine, wisteria, gumbo, crawfish and jambalaya. I stayed outside my friends' house until the burnt orange faded into a purple, soaking in the beauty of it all.

On a trip to Canyon de Chelly, in northern Arizona, we camped in a Navajo-run campground on the reservation. We awoke early one morning to the sound of Native American flute music softly playing on a loudspeaker at the camp headquarters. I crawled out of the tent to see the most amazing dawn. The air was crisp and cool. The moon, which looked gigantic, was setting in the west -- the sky near the horizon was black like night, changing in hue as my gaze lifted toward the sky above me to a very dark blue. Above me the last few stars of the evening blazed. Then, as my gaze turned east, the sky began to lighten, changing from dark blue into a dark red, then red, then orange until, at the eastern horizon, the first glow of the sun peeped up over the scrub of the desert. I felt, at that moment, perched on the edge of night and day and that I had the power to tip the balance between darkness and light. It was a magical moment that I may never see repeated.

Moments, then, in time and space that we can't repeat will still stick with us forever. We leave it to the poets and the dreamers to make them real for the rest of us.

If you want to know more about Madera

City of Madera
History of Madera County
Madera Tribune
Wikipedia: Madera

Next up: Fresno, California

On the Road: Manteca, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 25, 2007

Unfolding the Map

Sal is working his way down California, which is a long way since it's a long state. You can work your way down California too by clicking on the map to see where we've come (and a little of where we are going)!

Book Quote

"The sun goes down long and red. All the magic names of the valley unrolled -- Manteca..."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Manteca, California

I remember, when I was growing up, that we only had two television stations for the first few years of my life, both out of Eureka, California. Just before I hit my teens, my parents splurged on cable, which gave us a total of about 12 stations, most of them on VHF but at least a couple in the UHF area. These stations opened a whole new world for me, because they were San Francisco stations with new and different programming. I actually saw new cartoons after school like Speed Racer and Kimba the White Lion. I also began to learn about place names around the Bay Area that I hadn't known before. These names were often exotic, like Sausalito, or simply descriptive, like Mill Valley or Stinson Beach. One TV station, advertising its reach with a catchy jingle, threw the name "Manteca" into the mix and that was probably the first time I ever heard of that particular place.

I write this because not just because I wanted to highlight my ignorance of Manteca, but also because the names evoke images that are hard to replace. When Jack Kerouac writes about "all the magic names..." I can identify with that because growing up in rural California in an isolated spot on the coast, these names created some imaginary scenes in my mind. I would have never pictured Manteca as being a simple and small San Joaquin Valley community surrounded by farms. Manteca to me sounded much more exotic and fantastical. The fact that the TV station celebrated its name in a jingle made it that much more likely that it was a special place. I don't mean to imply that it is not special in many ways, but you may see my point, that we often create images where the reality is probably less than the imagination.

Even when traveling as a teen with my family, on our occasional trips to the Bay Area (which were often fraught with tension because my parents weren't comfortable driving in urban areas) the simple act of passing a road sign pointing to some town off the freeway often made me wish that we could take a side trip. Now that I'm an adult, when I drive and notice a sign that seems interesting, I will go there. I remember one memorable trip I made when I was younger where I visited Salt Lick, Kentucky and Pee Pee, Ohio. Who can resist stopping in such places, if only to take a look around and say "Well, that was interesting/uninteresting?" Of course, any place that had some variant of my last name got a visit if I was passing by. It was magical, in a way, and only heightened at sunrise or sunset, when people were either getting up to start a day's work, or going in to have their suppers and settle in for the evening. At those times, passing through such sleepy places often seemed to me like catching them in a private moment and that I should be honored that they let me view them, illuminated almost mysteriously in the first or last rays of the day.

If you want to know more about Manteca

City of Manteca
Manteca Chamber of Commerce
Manteca Convention and Visitors Bureau
Wikipedia: Manteca

Next up: Madera, California

On the Road: Tracy, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 24, 2007

Unfolding the Map

Sal gets out into rural California. Hard to believe there is such a thing, right, when most of what is transmitted around the country about California involves glamorous LA city life, or crunchy granola San Francisco city life. Surprise! California is much more rural than urban, at least in land space, and if you throw a dart at a map of California you're probably more likely to stick in the general vicinity of a country-music listening redneck than you are a hip-hop loving, clubbing, partying blonde bombshell starlet of the week. So check the map.

Book Quote

"The first was the mad one, with a burly blond kid in a souped-up rod. 'See that toe?' he said as he gunned the heap to eighty and passed everybody on the road. 'Look at it.' It was swathed in bandages. 'I just had it amputated this morning. The bastards wanted me to stay in the hospital. I packed my bag and left. What's a toe?' Yes, indeed, I said to myself, look out now, and I hung on. You never saw a driving fool like that. He made Tracy in no time. Tracy is a railroad town; brakemen eat surly meals in diners by the tracks. Trains howl away across the valley."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Tracy, California

I didn't have an amputated toe, but I drove like that through California once. I was in maybe my second year of college. A friend of mine, John, and I drove down to Walnut Creek where I could visit my sister, who was in the hospital there. On the way back, being youthful, we decided to see how fast we could get back to our hometown. From Walnut Creek, the trip could take about four hours, the last 75 miles or so over winding roads through the coast range to Fort Bragg. We may have been spurred on by a supposed deadline -- John had to be home for dinner or I had to be home for something or other.

So, starting from Walnut Creek, we pushed 90 mph, me driving, while taking the long flat road around the top of the Bay area, then hitting the freeway at highway 101 and heading north. We slowed somewhat through Santa Rosa, but then pushed it again until we got to Cloverdale, where we turned west on CA-128 and drove over to the coast. This was the windy section, but I swear that John, who was driving this part, pushed 60 mph over most of it. We clocked in at 2½ hours, if I remember correctly. Only now when I look back on it am I amazed that we didn't get stopped by a cop, nor did we have a major wreck.

Years later, I learned what Sal is learning while careening with madmen over two-lane highways in rural California. On a month-long trip to Bangladesh, I was driven most everywhere. You can't imagine my thoughts the first time I sat in the back of the vehicle as the driver careened toward a huge truck bearing down on us in the opposite direction. Both blared their horns incessantly and I was certain there would be a head-on. At the last minute, both swerved, still blaring their horns, and passed each other with little room to spare. I was to experience many more moments like that, and learned how to simply go into a Zen-like calm. It is a good day to die, I would say, and simply let it be. Thankfully, I think some sorts of rules of the road that I was not aware of were at work, and I lived.

I don't know anything about Tracy, and I am not even sure if it is still a railroad town. Most likely it isn't, and is a stereotypical sleepy Central Valley farm community, but check out the links below to learn more.

If you want to know more about Tracy:

City of Tracy
Tracy Chamber of Commerce
Tracy Press
Wikipedia: Tracy

Next up: Manteca, California

On the Road: Oakland, California

Click on the Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 23, 2007

Unfolding the Map

Sal, tired of working, tired of the bickering between Remi and Lee Ann, hits the open road again, stealing out into the night and opening up a new set of experiences in California that we'll continue to explore through his first journey. So sit back, enjoy the ride, and click on the map if you want to see where we are right now.

Book Quote

"In the morning Remi and Lee Ann were asleep as I quietly packed and slipped out the window the same way I'd come in, and left Mill City with my canvas bag....In Oakland I had a beer among the bums of a saloon with a wagon wheel in front of it, and I was on the road again. I walked clear across Oakland to get on the Fresno road."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Oakland, California

Sal just stops in Oakland to have a beer. In a way that's fitting, because Oakland always has been a 1) working class city and 2) the practical sister of San Francisco. If San Francisco and Oakland were represented by two people in a bar, San Francisco would be the fun one, who would get drinks simply by being dazzling and spectacular. Oakland would be in the corner quietly drinking and going about its business. Sal is looking for the dazzle, whether its on the open road, in the city, or in romance, so it's no surprise that Oakland is only good for a quick beer for him - a short rest to collect his thoughts in the length of time left in a bottle.

I have a more complicated and nuanced relationship with Oakland, because it has waxed and waned in my life. I was born in Eureka, California where I was put up for adoption. I was given over into a foster home there, but when that didn't work out, I was taken to Oakland where the agency that took custody of me farmed me out to another foster home. I first met the people who were to become my parents in Oakland. Later, when my parents adopted another sibling, it was in Oakland that the adoption was handled.

Oakland was where I went to my first major league sporting event. My former foster parent Larry took me to see the Oakland A's play baseball when I was a teenager - I don't really remember who they played. I first rode a light rail train, BART, in Oakland. My first zoo experience was the Oakland Zoo.

In the early 80s, I drove through Oakland as a college student on my way to see my former foster parents. I drove right down the main street through Oakland. My former foster parents gave me hell. Oakland had a large black population, and they held the same opinions of blacks as other people of their generation did...blacks were okay when you dealt with them individually but when you got a bunch of them together they would start shooting white people. So they yelled at me for a little while. I eventually would go on to mystify them completely by choosing to live in an inner-city, mostly black neighborhood in Milwaukee.

Despite the influences that Oakland has on my life, I still know little about it. I know that it has a fantastic little museum where a former roommate of mine works. I know where the A's, Raiders and Warriors play. I know that BART runs through it. I know it is next door to Berkeley and the University of California. It is a port city. It has a small airport which is much easier to get in and out of than San Francisco International. Jerry Brown resurrected his political career by getting elected mayor there. I know it is still primarily working class. But I never really captured the soul of Oakland like I have other cities, and I don't quite understand it like I do other cities. And I find that a little sad.

Oh, by the way, Jack Kerouac lived near Oakland himself, at 1943 Berkeley Way in Berkeley, with his mother for a few months in the late 1950s before she got tired of it and they moved back east. His original cottage is not there anymore, just a few apartments.

If you want to know more about Oakland

City of Oakland
Literary Figures of Oakland
Oakland A's
Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau
Oakland Museum
Oakland Tribune
Oakland Zoo
Wikipedia Oakland

Next up: Tracy, California