Archive for the ‘Keywords’ Category

Stanford Powwow

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

Stanford Powwow

The 39th Annual Stanford Powwow is happening this weekend, Friday May 7 through Sunday May 9, 2010 (Mother’s Day!) in the Eucalyptus Grove at Stanford University, near the Stadium. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never been, but I’m making plans finally to go this year. It’s billed as the largest student-run Powwow in the nation. The focus is Native American drumming and dance competitions, but I expect also to be dazzled by an array of arts, crafts, cultural displays, and food vendors. I’m really excited to try frybread. I don’t know what it will taste like but really with a name like that, you can’t go wrong.

Timm WilliamsThere are interesting intersections between Stanford University and local Native American history. Thousands of years before the Spanish arrived, the Muwekma Ohlone people occupied the entire Bay Area in an interwoven complex of tribal clusters. They left behind archeological remains and the vast Stanford land alone holds more than sixty excavated sites. Young Leland Stanford, Jr. used to enjoy collecting arrowheads and mortars and pestles from the property. In the 1930s the students adopted the Indian as the athletic teams’ mascot. In 1946 the “Mad Indian” logo was created, featuring an Indian caricature with a big nose. In 1952 Timm Williams (pictured), member of the Yurok Tribe (um…best tribe name ever), began appearing at sporting events as Prince Lightfoot in full Native regalia, and continued his appearances for nineteen years. In 1970 during the midst of the Indian occupation of Alcatraz, newly organized Native American students and staff petitioned University President Richard Lyman to put an end to the mascot appearances, feeling they were a mockery of Native American religion. Discussions, negotiations, and further petitions over the next few years led to the abolition of all uses of the Indian symbol and mascot, the reasoning being that they were at best insensitive and unworthy, and at worst offensive and racist. This issue continues to be controversial among alumni of the era who cherished the old mascot without meaning to give offense, and defended Williams’ sincerity.

This blog is another reason I want to go to the Powwow this year. Obviously it promises to be a spectacular El Camino event. More than that though, I hope it will help me on the difficult path of reconciling nostalgia over a romantic notion of California’s mission days with the painful reality of the suffering and injustice the Spanish and later the Americans brought to the Native inhabitants. I can look at California today and easily see the Spanish, Mexican, and Yankee influences. This weekend I want to start opening my eyes to see the Native spirit, the sublime and the profane, that dwelled in this land before the others came, and to learn to recognize how it manifests today.

No Faire?

This is the Powwow’s 39th year. This should also be the Stanford Spring Faire’s 40th year, but I can’t find any evidence that it’s happening this year or happened last year. For as long as I can remember the Powwow and Spring Faire have happened together, every year during Mother’s Day weekend. The Faire is an arts, crafts, and entertainment festival in White Plaza benefiting The Bridge, Stanford’s peer counseling service. I’ve been to the Faire many times, and every time I promise myself I’ll go to the Powwow next year. Well I’m finally going to the Powwow and go figure…no Faire. I haven’t confirmed if it’s on or off so if you know something about the Stanford Faire, tell me.

39th Annual Stanford Powwow

http://www.stanfordpowwow.org/
Mother’s Day Weekend
May 7-9, 2010
Stanford University Campus Eucalyptus Grove

Geek Dad: The Book

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

Geek Dad.indd

Saturday night my family was delighted to attend the private book release party for Geek Dad hosted by author Ken Denmead. The party was held at Dave & Busters at the Great Mall in Milpitas. Ken is a close longtime friend, and this book launch was the culmination of an exhilarating, transformative journey for him, a dream coming true. We relished sharing this special moment with him, and rejoiced in his excitement. It was a special treat for me because I was credited as a contributor to the book.

Ken and I have known each other since the eighth grade, went to high school together, and have been good friends all along, more than two-thirds of our lives now. We got married around the same time to amazing wives and our kids are very close in age and are growing up together. (They might tell you they’re already grown.) He’s a professional engineer but he harbors many passions including movies, science fiction, internet trends, and fine food. Frankly, he’s a geek.

“Geek” used to be an insult but today it’s been reclaimed and is a self-identifying term of pride used by those whose personalities, by Ken’s definition, achieve balance in the following traits: knowledgeability, obsessiveness, and social skills. In short geeks know a lot of stuff, throw themselves with abandon into that stuff, and enjoy sharing that stuff with like-minded friends. That’s Ken.

In 2007 the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson, started a blog under Wired’s web site called GeekDad to celebrate the intersection of geekdom and parenthood. (Despite the name, Geek Moms are equally valued, if slightly underrepresented.)  Geeks get married and have kids, and the blog is a forum for exploring ways for geeky parents to share their interests with their kids, benefiting all. Ken joined the blog as a contributor and was shortly named its editor. Under his direction the blog and accompanying podcast have exploded in popularity with dozens of writers and millions of visits, being frequently referenced by major internet and traditional media outlets. In 2008 he was approached to propose and write a book which he did with amazing vigor. About one thousand gallons of sweat and two thousand gallons of Peet’s coffee later, his baby is done and its official release date is May 4, 2010, having been duly fêted on Saturday, May 1 by his supportive family, friends, and colleagues.

CIMG0119The book is organized into fun, engaging projects geek parents can undertake with their kids. They are geek-tested, kid-approved, and vice-versa. Ken included a project I conceived to create electronic flash cards on a Sony PSP hand-held video game system to help my son study for tests without the waste and expense of old-school paper cards. He also describes a project to launch a video camera into the sky for aerial videography by attaching it to a flock of helium balloons. I spent a fun day last year helping him prototype that project; call me “Partner P2.”

flash_card

CIMG0951Naturally there are El Camino Real connections here. The book release party was at the Great Mall, which is on Main Street in Milpitas. This is part of what I call “El Camino de San Jose,” the historic road linking the San Jose Pueblo to Mission San Jose in Fremont. The Great Mall was built from the old Ford assembly plant. Further, one of the chapters in the book details a fourth-grade school project wherein his oldest son built an amazing model of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia made entirely out of cake and other edible ingredients. This model was inspired by the masterful cake creations of Charm City Cakes featured on the television program Ace of Cakes starring Geek Chef Duff Goldman. Mission San Luis is the largest in the California mission chain, founded in 1798 by Fr. Fermín Lasuén near present-day Oceanside in Southern California. By Ken’s taxonomy I’m an El Camino Real nerd today, but I aspire to be an El Camino geek. I have been to several El Camino community planning meetings, which are the closest things we have to conventions. El Camino Con?

Watch on YouTube

I asked Ken if with its tech-savvy focus this book could have been written anywhere else besides Silicon Valley. (He and his family live in Fremont which is a city that bridges Silicon Valley and the East Bay.) He believes it could have. The GeekDad blog has contributors scattered throughout the world, reflecting the fact that although so much technology innovation is centered here, content is king and is being created everywhere. I asked him how he felt at this moment and he replied, “scared and excited.” He’s always been a creative force and he has accomplished much with the blog, but having written and published a book is a milestone on a different level, a game- and potential life-changer.

I’ve read a few chapters so far and I recommend this book whole-heartedly, and not just because it was an awesome party. I should also disclose that Ken graciously gave me a complimentary copy for contributing the flash cards project to the book. It’s an enjoyable read, infused with Ken’s signature dry wit and winking geek culture in-jokes. Mother’s Day is nearly here and Father’s Day and graduations are not far behind; the book is a great gift for all occasions. The projects it contains will be perfect for upcoming summer days, ways to forge family memories more lasting than video game high scores. My son, thumbing through it, exclaimed, “This is so cool. I love this book!” It will be available starting this week from a wide variety of online and real-life retail outlets. Ken deserves every success in this remarkable endeavor. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer Geek or a more beloved Dad.

CIMG0941CIMG0946

Read Any Good Books Lately?

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

You know those Arcadia Publishing Images of America local history books? I’m talking about the sepia-toned paperbacks about a single city or region, filled with pages of old photographs and local lore. I love them. After I started researching El Camino Real I became slightly addicted to them. I couldn’t go into a bookstore without gravitating towards Arcadia’s distinctive displays and very often walked out with one or two books. I at least had the self-control to limit myself to California cities on El Camino, but more than once I brought home books only to find out I already owned them. Mockery from my wife has prompted me to make a Google bookshelf of all the Arcadia books and other books I’ve accumulated about El Camino Real and California history so far. It will help me prevent duplicates, but beyond that it’s cool to see my whole collection in one virtual place.

I have 33 books in the list as of this posting, but I know I’ll be adding more. I own most of these titles, some I’ve gotten from the library, and the rest I’ve just heard about and hope to read some day. Fact is I’ve only read three of them cover-to-cover; the rest I just thumb through or look at the pictures or use for reference. That’s how I end up with duplicates—it’s hard to remember I have a book when I haven’t read it yet. Here’s a brief overview of a few key books on the list.

San Jose's Historic DowntownI have twelve Arcadia books, all unique. (I returned the duplicates.) The first one I bought was San Jose’s Historic Downtown. I bought it years ago, before All Camino, simply because I live in San Jose and was charmed by the book. I shortly went back and bought Milpitas because I work there.  The rest I picked up after starting the blog. As I said they’re all cities on some branch of El Camino except strictly speaking Alviso, San Jose,  which is so closely interrelated to its El Caminoed neighbors that it is included honorarily. Besides, Alviso, San Jose was written by the same guy who wrote Milpitas, Robert L. Burrill. There are several eligible books in the series still that I don’t have like San Francisco’s Mission District and Colma, not to mention cities outside the Bay Area. I suspect they’ll find their way onto my shelf eventually.

The Alameda: The Beautiful Way is noteworthy because it is the only one whose author I’ve met, and I got it signed. Bay Area native Shannon E. Clarke researched, wrote, and designed it while an undergrad at UCLA and it’s a remarkable achievement, a comprehensive and indispensable historical account of my favorite El Camino stretch. I bought it on the Fourth of July, 2009, at the Rose, White, & Blue Parade and Festival. Shannon was leading bus tours of historic The Alameda and the Rose Garden. I missed the last tour, but she was kind enough to give me a quick virtual tour using one of the book’s maps as a guide. I hadn’t launched the blog yet, but finding this book was the spark that inspired me finally to get it off the ground.

California's El Camino Real and Its Historic BellsCalifornia’s El Camino Real and Its Historic Bells is golden because it’s the only book I have that is explicitly about El Camino as a road, literally telling the story of its route, passability or lack thereof, and commemoration. What it lacks in polish it more than makes up in dedication, and it contains information you can’t find anywhere else. It’s one of the books I’ve read in its entirety. If Junípero Serra is the father of El Camino Real, Mrs. A. S. C. Forbes is the mother—with apologies to Mr. Forbes and the Franciscan order. You’ll have to read the book to learn more about this dynamic woman.

Deep California: Images and Ironies of Cross and Sword on El Camino RealAnother book I’ve mentioned a few times here is Deep California: Images and Ironies of Cross and Sword on El Camino Real.  It’s an unusual work because it espouses the notion of terrapsychology, the idea that the Earth literally has a psychology and that ecological features like land masses, water bodies, and climate are outward expressions of this inner soul. Since (most) humans are from this planet, we are subconsciously attuned to this psychology and play out its archetypical facets through our individual and societal behaviors. If we act contrary to nature, it reacts in kind. It’s a powerful idea, and the book is a fascinating colorful romp through the stories of California, picking out recurring themes from the human realm that reflect deeper root causes of place and pointing out the mistakes of the past so that we may learn from them. This book means a lot to this blog because it validates the approach I’ve taken, that there is a different way to tell the story of El Camino Real: that the road we experience materially may be interpreted symbolically as a path to deeper truths.

Oh, California, 21st Century EditionAs I read Deep California—front-to-back, and it’s big—I realized I knew very little about California history. I didn’t know Portolá from a pueblo or De Anza from adobe. How embarrassing. Every California schoolchild learns state history in the fourth grade (mission projects!) and I remember seeing this stuff in my son’s social studies book when he was in that grade but I don’t remember what I read in mine a generation prior. So I had a brilliant idea: I bought two grade school textbooks, Oh, California and Social Studies: California Edition, both published by Houghton Mifflin.  One of them is used which makes it very special. (Thanks, Kris, wherever you are, for your responsible stewardship, and I promise to provide the same.) They are a gentle introduction to a daunting subject, they represent at a curricular level what the state believes every citizen should know, and they contain plenty of colorful graphs and pictures. I like pictures. I may not be smarter than a fifth grader, but with these books close at hand I at least have a shot at holding my own.

A last few mentions. Historic Spots in California is I believe the California Bible, and Clyde Arbuckle’s History of San Jose is the San Jose Bible. Historical Atlas of California turned me into a mapaholic overnight. The Labors of the Very Brave Knight Esplandián, a romantic novel written around 1500 by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo of Spain, is the origin of California’s name. It includes an account of Calafía, the fierce black Amazon queen of the then-fictional island California, who wore armor made of gold as she battled the handsome Catholic hero Esplandián in the first bloody Crusade. She was defeated honorably so she subjected herself and her queendom to Christianity. Allegory much?

Each time I crack open one of these wonderful books I learn something new. The story of this great state is rich and enlightening, but impossibly complex. Studying how El Camino Real slices through it all is an effective way to get a clarifying cross section of history. Moreover the more general a book is, the more carefully I have to comb through it to find information specific to the road, and the more rewarding and thrilling is each golden find. I wish for the time and patience to someday read them all. Unless they make a movie first.

Bike Party

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

bike_party_2010_april by billmo, on Flickr

Friday night, April 16, 2010 San Jose Bike Party hit the El Camino Real, bringing their two-wheeled high jinks to Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Stanford. Bike Party is a volunteer group that organizes monthly bike rides through the streets of the South Bay, attracting hundreds of riders. In contrast to the edgier and more confrontational Critical Mass, Bike Party seems to be a more festive and light-hearted event, but still a serious ride. Friday’s route was 27.57 miles long.

bikeparty  191I first heard of Bike Party last year when they rode past my house in the middle of the night. I was asleep in bed when I was awakened by a couple neighborhood dogs barking their heads off. I could hear voices and strange mechanical noises coming from outside in the street. That’s not so unusual; it’s a busy street and occasionally we’ll have boisterous pedestrians or vehicles going by. But this time the noises didn’t stop and the dogs kept on barking so I went to the window to see what was going on and slipped into the Twilight Zone. There were bicycles rolling down the street. Wave after wave of bicycles. Dozens of them. There were mountain bikes, road bikes, stunt bikes and beaters, riders in costumes, hipster types, and nerds in reflective vests. I thought I was dreaming. I went outside in my pajamas and found a couple teens from the neighborhood already standing on the curb, watching the spectacle. They’re the ones who told me it was Bike Party, being much hipper than I.

When I learned Bike Party’s route this Friday included a big chunk of El Camino, of course I wanted to go see the fun and maybe take some pictures. However we went to the anniversary celebration at Calvin’s and I stayed too late enjoying the festivities so by the time I got up to Palo Alto the ride was pretty much over. I saw a few isolated stragglers but hardly enough to constitute a party. I stopped to chat with two riders fixing a flat tire who told me they estimated there were a thousand riders out. I asked how the ride on El Camino was and they replied, “too many cars.” Fair enough.

I reflected on how tragically unhip I am. I drove my car to try to get a look at a celebration of bikes, and missed the whole thing. Ironic and sad. I drove over to the ride’s end at Sunnyvale Town Center and strolled up and down South Murphy Avenue to see if I could spot any riders enjoying a post-ride beverage at the many nighttime watering holes there, but all I saw was this well-populated rack. As it so happened several bars had the Sharks’ hockey playoff game against the Colorado Avalanche at HP Pavilion on their TVs, and as I was walking back to my car I heard the whole street erupt in cheers as Devin Setoguchi scored the game-winning goal in overtime to even the series 1-1, thrilling the home crowd. Friday night on El Camino the good times just rolled.

Calvin’s Second Anniversary Celebration

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

This is a big weekend for Calvin’s Philly Cheesesteaks on The Alameda in San Jose. They’re celebrating their second anniversary at that location. There will be raffles, entertainment, and new menu items. There’s so much going on, the most difficult thing is deciding which day to go. But wait a minute, who says I have to choose only one…?

Newsflash…Calvin’s is opening a second location at 1699 W San Carlos in San Jose soon! I like to think of San Carlos/Stevens Creek as the Second El Camino of the South Bay.

As it so happens our family was in Philadelphia for one day last week and we stopped at Geno’s Steaks, the South Philly Cheesesteak institution, to give them a try. The sandwich was very good and served up really fast…but Calvin’s is better. Plus Calvin makes a mean hoagie. We’re fortunate to have him in San Jose.

Calvin’s South Philly Cheesesteaks and Hoagies will celebrate our 2nd year anniversary at this location 1411 The Alameda, San Jose, CA 95126.  We would like to invite you to participate with us starting Friday April 16, thru Sunday April 18, 2010.  We will have a weekend filled with Great Food, Entertainment, Free Giveaways, and much more.

Calvin’s South Philly Cheesesteaks & Hoagies
1411 The Alameda
San Jose, CA 95126
408-286-5626

Friday April 16, 2010

11:00 – 4:00

Join us for a special tasting of Dietz & Watson awarding winning Hot Dogs and Deli Meats.
They are a Philadelphia staple and have been around since 1939.  Special Raffle drawing every hour.

8:00 pm
Calvin’s is pleased to host a special Fundraising Event for  “A Cup of Cold Water.”  This is a non-profit organization providing health education to the community.  They teach you what doctors are too busy to explain.  The evening will feature hors d’oeuvres, a raffle with wonderful gifts, entertainment, free ice cream provided by Treatbot, free samples from Calvin’s new menu. Make sure to take a picture with Calvin to remember this special event, photography provided by Definitive Images, and there will be many more surprises throughout the evening.  You don’t want to miss the kick-off to the 2nd year anniversary celebration!  Join us as we give back to the community!

Saturday April 17, 2010

Free Hot Dogs while supplies last!
Free Raffle!
Join us as we introduce new specialty meats by Philadelphia’s own Dietz & Watson.

Chili Cheese Fries $0.99

Sunday April 18, 2010

Introducing BBQ Sundays
Free Raffle!
Entertainment!

El Camino de San Jose

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

One of life’s more mysterious delights is synchronicity, those moments when you experience a startling coincidence that impresses your instinct as having special meaning that may defy logic. I’ve been enjoying several of these “whoa” moments with respect to El Camino Real since I started this project.

Here’s an example. The afternoon of September 25, 2006 I read the landmark article “What Is Web 2.0” by Tim O’Reilly. It had been written a year earlier, but I’ve always been behind in all things web. I read it, I “got” it, and was inspired to create a web site as a way finally to express this ticklish notion I’ve had for a while of celebrating El Camino Real. The name came to me like a thunderbolt: AllCamino.com. Later that evening I was browsing the San Jose Mercury News online and was astonished to read an article published that same day called “Bringing face-lift to historic road” which was all about the Grand Boulevard Initiative of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a multi-city drive to revamp El Camino into a unique, thriving street for the 21st century. It was fate; it reinforced that El Camino has a story to be told. I registered the domain name immediately.

CIMG0150Here’s another. I registered the domain in 2006 but didn’t get around to creating this blog at the site until August 11, 2009. (I told you I’m always behind.) I accomplished this milestone with my laptop at the San Jose Library Rose Garden branch using their free wi-fi. After creating the blog, to celebrate I drove up Naglee Avenue and down The Alameda to Tee Nee Thai for lunch. On the way I happened to see the Hester Park gates at Singletary Avenue. I had never noticed them before and I wondered what “Hester Park” meant. Was there really a park? Aha, an El Camino mystery to investigate! So after lunch I walked back up to Singletary and took some photos of the gates. I walked down Singletary several blocks to look for a park. I didn’t find one so I turned right on Park Avenue, passed Hoover Middle School and the Egyptian Museum, turned right again at Naglee and walked all the way back up to The Alameda, a big loop. Then inspiration struck again. Since it was a beautiful day I decided to walk the entire length of The Alameda from that point all the way down to the Caltrain underpass and back. That day I “did” The Alameda; what better way to celebrate the launch of AllCamino? An ice cream cone from Schurra’s consecrated the occasion. My walk all started with that happenstantial glimpse of the Hester Park gates; none of it was planned, I just followed a series of whims. A few months later in January 2010, I was studying an old map of San Jose and realized that Singletary Avenue wasn’t always called that; it used to be called Moore Street after Judge John Hendley Moore who owned that land. My last name is Moore, no relation to the judge. So yeah, without knowing it I marked the beginning of my El Camino career at the intersection of Moore and The Alameda. Mind-blowing. Did I mention there’s a bell right there? As a humorous postscript, I discovered there is no Hester Park on Singletary/Moore after all; that was the name of an old housing subdivision there. However I did find an actual Hester Park very nearby…a teeny tiny playground adjacent to the San Jose Library Rose Garden branch, the very same branch where I launched this blog. Ba doom, crash!

Moore St

That’s all kid stuff. Here’s synchronicity’s grandma with respect to El Camino Real and me.

Shortly after I launched the blog I went looking for books about El Camino, or at least with “El Camino” in the title. I bought two for their distinctiveness: Deep California: Images and Ironies of Cross and Sword on El Camino Real by Craig Chalquist, PhD, and California’s El Camino Real and Its Historic Bells by Max Kurillo and Erline Tuttle. The latter contains a reproduction of a 1912 AAA road map showing the length of El Camino from San Diego to San Francisco. It answered a mystery for me. El Camino nominally links the missions, but Mission San José in Fremont is nowhere near today’s El Camino Real. So what route did early Californians take from Mission Santa Clara to Mission San José? I had assumed the route ran down The Alameda to Santa Clara Street in San Jose to Alum Rock Avenue, perhaps running north along the foothills on Piedmont Road. The 1912 map suggested something different. It shows El Camino entering San Jose from the south as Monterey Road/First Street then splitting. One branch goes west to The Alameda as expected, but the other branch continues along First Street then turns east somewhere around Gish Road, then turns north on Old Oakland Road. There it continues along Main Street and Milpitas Boulevard in Milpitas, to Warm Springs Boulevard in Fremont, to Mission Boulevard which runs right to Mission San José. So there’s the route, which I like to call El Camino de San Jose.

Here’s the thing. I live on Old Oakland Road. I live on El Camino de San Jose.

I’ve lived there for over ten years. I had no idea about its mission connection. This knowledge did not inform my decision to buy the house, nor did it impact my interest in El Camino Real or motivations to start the blog. I had always assumed Old Oakland Road was simply the old road to Oakland, later replaced by Interstate 880, and never thought more about it than that. To tell the truth I had been feeling naggingly incomplete blogging about El Camino when I didn’t actually live or work on it. I didn’t have standing. But guess what, I do after all and I learned all this after the fact. Astounding.

A 1912 map is pretty old, but it’s a lot more recent than 1797 when Mission San José was founded. I embarked on a quest to find older maps that show this road. I bought a bunch of well-known San Jose maps from eBay, Lord help me. The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection has also been helpful, however the Online Archive of California, in particular the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library collection, has been absolutely indispensable in this research. They have high-resolution scans of the California land case maps, evidence the Mexican rancho owners presented in their petitions to the U.S. government for the rights to the land. “Transfer” of land ownership is of course the fundamental moral, ethical, and legal quandary in California’s past, but the records generated shed light on state history. The following two maps are the keys for me to El Camino de San Jose.

The first is a free-hand map or diseño of North San Jose dating from the 1840s. I first found it in the Historical Atlas of California by Derek Hayes. It clearly shows “El Camino Nacional” (in some maps the name changed from “Real” (“Royal”) to “Nacional” (“National”) to reflect Mexican independence from the Spanish crown) running to the San Jose pueblo from the south, then branching off as “El Camino de San Jose” to the north in the direction of the mission which unfortunately is not shown. This camino crosses Coyote and Penitencia Creeks (“Arroyo de Collotes” and “Arroyo de la Penitencia“), and I contend that this road is Oakland Road today. Oakland Road still crosses Coyote Creek in front of the San Jose Municipal Golf Course, and it used to cross Lower Penitencia Creek in front of Orchard School before the creek was radically altered into submission.

ECdSJ_diseno

The next map shows only Milpitas, but this time it’s an official survey from 1857. It’s so dead-on accurate I can overlay it on a modern map and details like roads and historic buildings line up perfectly. It’s irrefutable that the road labeled “San Jose Road” on the survey is Oakland Road today. It hasn’t moved in over 150 years.

ECdSJ_survey

To recap, my thesis is that at least as far back as 1797 the Spanish must have had a road that connected Mission Santa Clara and the San Jose pueblo with Mission San José, and that Oakland Road today is part of it. The 1840s rough diseño shows such a road labeled “Camino de S. Jose” that approximately corresponds to physical features of Oakland Road. It unfortunately doesn’t show Mission San José but there’s a suggestive ambiguity in the name “Camino de S. Jose;” it’s the perfect name for a road connecting Pueblo de San José to Mission San José. It’s reasonable to conclude that “Camino de S. Jose” on the diseño is “San Jose Road” on the 1857 survey; it’s a direct Spanish-to-English translation. The survey proves topographically that San Jose Road then is Oakland Road now, and that’s where I live.

I’m no historian so I can’t say how much proof is proof enough, and I recognize there are holes in my maps. For example on the diseño the road crosses Penitencia Creek at the wrong spot, but I’m willing to attribute that to either map error or shifts in the creek over time. On the other hand, I’ve read at MilpitasHistory.org and other sites that Penitencia Creek was so named because the padres from Mission Santa Clara and Mission San José would periodically meet in an oak grove along its bank and give penance to each other and to the native Ohlone. I’m writing a song about it:

How’d the padres get to San Jose?
They drove on Oakland Road, and stopped to pray along the way…

So I’m convinced. And if that weren’t enough, this little detail from the southwest corner of the property in the 1857 survey grabbed my attention and drove the point home to me.

ECdSJ_survey_detail

Synchronicity. It’s a trip.

I have a much deeper personal connection to El Camino Real than I ever realized or may ever understand. So far it’s been fun and exciting, the experience of a lifetime as I try to hear what it’s saying to me. I will henceforth widen the scope of this blog to include the historic East Bay as well as the Peninsula. I look forward to following this road. Who knows where it goes?

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Heidi Durrow is coming to the Bay Area this week to read from her debut novel, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, and sign copies of the book. She’ll be at the Stanford University Bookstore on Wednesday, April 7, and at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park on Thursday, April 8. Full details are below. You’ll note that both Stanford and Kepler’s are on El Camino Real. Meet-the-author events are always enlightening and a great way to show support for independent booksellers, but these particular readings are quite special to me. You see, I’m privileged to know Heidi.

Heidi and I were Stanford undergrads together, both class of 1991. Freshman year we lived in the same dorm complex, Stern Hall. We didn’t really know each other in college, but we were aware of each other. I hope she doesn’t mind my sharing that she worked in Food Service at the dorm and her job was to swipe the residents’ meal cards through the cafeteria card reader. She was the gatekeeper of the goulash. (My roommate and lifelong brother-from-another-mother Shu Nung Lee also worked in Food Service, but he wasn’t cute enough for that kind of front-of-house duty.) So I saw her just about every day and remember her well, the pretty, petite, light-skinned girl with the startling blue eyes and fuzzy-curly hair. We never spoke beyond the perfunctory exchange of redundant thank-yous.

Recently, when prompted by me, she said she thought she kinda sorta remembered me singing a cappella with the Stanford Fleet Street Singers. Perhaps she was just being polite or it might have been an induced memory, but at the risk of sounding immodest I was a bit of a campus celebrity in those days, known for my blues-inflected rendition of everybody’s favorite “Schoolhouse Rock” ditty, “I’m Just a Bill.” See, my name is Bill. That made it funny.

heidi_headshotWe graduated in parallel in 1991. Fast-forward to 2006, the year of our fifteen-year reunion homecoming celebration. For every homecoming class, the Alumni Association compiles a Reunion Book to which every graduate can contribute a yearbook-like page summarizing what they’ve been up to since college. When I received my copy of the Reunion Book, I enjoyed flipping through it cover-to-cover, reading its many diverse stories. Most pages are jam-packed with photos and text because as it turns out it’s difficult to cram fifteen years of life onto a single letter-sized spread. But Heidi’s page made me pause; it stood out because it was nearly blank, little more than a Tweet. It contained a single Hollywood-style head shot, an intriguing one-line professional summary—journalism, law, fiction writing, consultant to the NBA & NFL  (!)—and a URL: www.heidiwdurrow.com. That was it. She sounded like a real-life Dee Dee Thorne.

I totally remembered her and wanted to know more so I went to her web site and got the rest of the story. The site has since been redesigned but even back then it was professional and engaging. I learned she was now a writer and impressively had completed her first novel manuscript, titled Light-skinned-ed Girl. (The title is a term she heard a lot growing up, an African American Vernacular English phonological construction. I learned those words in a Black English Linguistics course and I think Heidi may have been in that class too.) I learned she was working very hard in the face of constant rejection to get this manuscript published. I deduced that the site itself was a deliberate marketing vehicle to promote her work. It worked on me; I got sucked in by the nearly-blank Reunion Book page trick! I learned she was smart, determined, and talented.

I learned something else. I learned she’s biracial: her father was black and her mother is white. She’s also bi-cultural: her father was an Air Force sergeant from Texas, her mother a librarian from Denmark. Having lived in the Bay Area most of my life I’ve known many biracial and multiracial people, people in mixed marriages and relationships, and families built up from cross-racial adoptions. I never gave their stories much thought though; I took them for granted. I was certainly aware that mixed relationships were often fraught with palpable difficulty from both sides during the racially-charged sixties, and that cross-racial adoptions require special sensitivity and cultural effort. But I never stopped to think about what it means to be mixed. Heidi had, a lot, and she wrote about it, a lot, with eloquent honesty. On her web site she had a link to her blog, also called Light-skinned-ed Girl. She didn’t have all the answers because no one possibly could, but she fearlessly asked aloud the questions she lived every day.

I stayed up very late that night reading everything on her site. I read a short excerpt from her manuscript, and longed to read more. I read every posting on her blog and every comment from the community that was starting to build around her. I was hooked and inspired. Race and identity make up a large part of her writing, but the larger story which emerges is about the joys and challenges of living a creative life. Her novel is the heroine of that story and comes to a happy ending. On May 31, 2008 Heidi exuberantly announced that her manuscript had won Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change, a prize which includes recognition, cash, and most splendidly publication. Her book, renamed The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, was published by Algonquin Books in February, 2010. But I got it in January. How?

Rewind back to 2006. (Get used to nonlinear narrative; it’s an important literary device in her book.) I live in the Bay Area so I never miss my Stanford Reunions and the fifteenth was no exception. I was hoping Heidi would be there so I could make her acquaintance but she wasn’t. After it was over I slipped out of my comfort zone and emailed her out of the blue to let her know how much I enjoyed her manuscript excerpt and her blog. I was reading her blog regularly and in fact hers was the first blog I ever followed and the first to show me how the technology worked and what it was capable of. That same year I first had the idea to create AllCamino.com. I had various big plans for it but thanks to Light-skinned-ed Girl I came to understand that a blog would be the heart of it.

Fanshen and HeidiIn 2007 Heidi and her longtime sister-from-a-different-mister Fanshen Cox created Mixed Chicks Chat, an award-winning weekly live call-in podcast dedicated to telling the truths of the mixed experience. Fanshen, an amazing actress, filmmaker, educator, and friend, is also mixed. Of course I listened to their podcast religiously (again the first I ever followed) and participated in the off-air chat room, calling in when I could, and before long found myself thoroughly involved in the wonderful burgeoning Mixed Chicks community, which is bizarre because I am neither mixed nor a chick but somehow it makes sense. Drop by some time; I’ll introduce you around. In 2008 these two amazing women with the help of a tireless cast of volunteers produced the first Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival, an annual event at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles celebrating Loving Day with films, readings, workshops, and family activities focusing on the untold stories of being mixed. I flew down to L.A. for the inaugural festival to help out and meet them both in person after months of amiable but purely online interaction. I tell you all this (a) to plug the Mixed Chicks, and (b) to paint a picture of my high regard and ongoing involvement with Heidi and Fanshen.

Stunned by my good fortune, and so happy for you! Can I crow ... on TwitpicHeidi’s publisher announced the book would come out in February, 2010, Black History Month of Barack Obama’s second year in office. Perfect. In January the advance copies were circulating, getting rave reviews, and the publisher was pushing it hard to booksellers. Awesome. Not content with their considerable efforts however, I went to the Stanford Bookstore on January 16 (I was in the area) and asked their information desk if they were going to carry it. The employee wasn’t sure so I got the contact info for their buyer. Cool. I was about to head home, when I succumbed to a slightly crazy urge to go a little further north to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park. I asked their information guy the same question, were they planning to carry The Girl Who Fell from the Sky when it came out the following month. He typed a search into his computer then replied, “We have it in stock. It’s on this new releases table right here.” Sure enough, there it was, nearly a month ahead of the release date. I was flabbergasted. Incredulous. Elated. I couldn’t believe my good fortune, having the honor of being among the first on the planet to buy the book. It was Cosmic perfection that this happened on El Camino. I bought three copies (I gave two away to family), DMed Heidi on Twitter, raced home, and finally, three and a half years after I first read the teaser from the manuscript, read the full novel, finishing it in three days.

Heidi DurrowThis post is quite long so I won’t talk too much about the novel itself. It has been covered at length in national press including the New York TimesWashington Post, Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. TV is next; Oprah, we’re comin’ for ya. It’s lighting up the blogosphere and vlogosphere, and it’s climbing the sales charts. This is a fun time. I will say this: I loved the book. It’s beautifully written, it tells an important, heartbreaking story, and I’m incredibly proud of Heidi. There were passages, including the climax, where time seemed to stop as I was reading because I was so consumed by the prose. This is high praise for art in any form. The most valuable gift to me is that because I’ve been getting to know Heidi these past few years, hearing her voice and her stories, I was able to inhabit the book in a way I’ve never experienced before. I knew what she was talking about. Go get it and read it; it’s widely available online and at your favorite independent and chain bookstores. Join our online community. If you can, go to her readings this week or check her book tour schedule for one near you. Seeing her eyes, hearing her voice, and getting her autograph will enhance your enjoyment of the book.

Kepler’s won the day but ever since I read those pre-published manuscript pages in 2006, I’ve visualized Heidi reading and signing her books at the Stanford Bookstore. The bookstore cuts an elegant symbol, the busy crossroads at the heart of the campus where we intersected only incidentally  twenty years ago but left just enough of an impression to build a friendship on years later. Now that the vision is coming true, it brings full-circle the arcs of our two stories, but not to closure. This Ferris Wheel ride isn’t done turning.

Book Readings & Signings

Heidi Durrow, author
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

Stanford Bookstore

White Plaza, Stanford University
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 5:30 pm

Kepler’s Books

1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Thursday, April 8, 2010 7:30 pm
Dessert served compliments of Anna’s Cookies of San Francisco

Loaves and Fishes

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Andy's Pet Shop, Plate 2

You win some and you lose some. A couple of businesses in San Jose, neighbors on The Alameda, have found themselves on opposite sides of Fortune’s wheel. Greenlee’s Bakery happily is on the ascent, whereas Andy’s Pet Shop has sadly sunk beneath the horizon, never to shine on The Alameda again.

Technically it’s not Greenlee’s Bakery per se which is enjoying good fortune, but rather its flagship product, Greenlee’s Best Cinnamon Bread. Its popularity has increased tenfold in recent years and continues to grow and with good reason: it’s fantastic.

Christmas Eve, 2009, I was driving around town looking for gifts for family. Don’t judge; that’s how I roll. I was headed to a bookstore to pick up some goodies when I pulled up behind a Greenlee’s delivery truck at a red light. It was as if the heavens opened up and The Voice proclaimed, “Get thee to Whole Foods.” So I gat, and I got loaves of cinnamon bread for everybody, and they loved it. The first thing you notice when you pick it up is how heavy it is. The next thing is the amazing aroma. My car smelled like an enchanted gingerbread house by the time I got home with a half-dozen loaves in the back. Open up the bag, peel off a marbled-spice slice, pop it in the toaster to caramelize the gooey glaze, slather it with something sinful, and the result is pure joy.

Whole Foods Market is in fact how the bread is taking off. After catering just to locals who kept the secret well, Greenlee’s a few years ago widened their reach a smidge by branching out to farmers’ markets around the Bay Area. A Whole Foods buyer discovered the bread in Redwood City and now loaves are sold in Whole Foods stores up and down the West Coast. They’re not done; the Southwest and Midwest are next, and they’re talking about going national by the end of the year. Every loaf is still baked right at Greenlee’s Bakery at 1081 The Alameda alongside an assortment of event cakes, cookies, and muffins, though I imagine they’d have to add capacity to keep up with national demand.

In stark contrast, at the end of the block Andy’s Pet Shop has sadly vacated the premises after sixty years at that location. The iconic neon sign out front has been a landmark for decades. The building used to be a California Highway Patrol office, but after Andy Camilleri and his wife Geraldine took over it became well-known for its selection of unique and exotic animals and birds. After the Camilleris died the business changed hands a few times and is now owned by Lissa Shoun and Eric Bong who changed it over completely to a rescued pet adoption center supported by pet food and supply sales. It was the noblest of endeavors but sadly business dropped off so they had to move out. The animals were placed in temporary foster homes, the inventory was put in storage, and the neon sign is coming down. The owners are hoping to find an affordable location so they can open again. Their web site has a link where you can donate via PayPal to help defray the expenses of moving and preparing a new location.

The Alameda won’t be the same without Andy’s snails and puppy dog tails, but at least we can console ourselves with sugar and spice from Greenlee’s. Did I mention you can order it online?

Greenlee's Cinnamon Bread

A Pilgrim’s Odyssey, or There and Back Again, Part 4

Sunday, March 28th, 2010

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At the Daly City BART station I wandered around looking  for the Muni Route 14 stop. I looked. And looked. And looked. Then I remembered…the 14 doesn’t go to the BART station, it starts at the top-of-the-hill. Curses! I had known this from my planning the night before, but I got caught up in the romance of the trip and missed my stop. I had a good laugh at my own absent-mindedness and made the half-mile steep hike up John Daly Boulevard from the BART station back to Mission Street. Honestly though it was good to stretch my legs and get a little fresh air and exertion after four hours of sitting on buses.

The Muni route description said the 14 starts at the intersection of Mission Street and San Jose Avenue, but of course when I got there I still couldn’t find the bus stop. I walked a couple blocks down San Jose Avenue. Still no stop, but suddenly I saw a 14 bus coming up San Jose towards me. I didn’t know where to catch it, but I didn’t panic. I watched it get into the turn lane to make the sharp left turn onto Mission and I realized the stop was on Mission. The bus was stopped at a long red light so I actually had time to cross the street before the bus turned. Even better, that stop was a timepoint so the driver took a break; I had plenty of time. My little bus hunt was fortuitous because it caused me to spend a few minutes on San Jose Avenue. I learned later that San Jose Avenue is the real continuation of El Camino Real to San Francisco, not Mission Street. San Jose Avenue follows the original Anza trail that became the link between Mission San Francisco and the San Jose Pueblo, and any modern map will confirm that San Jose Avenue is the more direct route to the mission via Dolores Street. Mission Street on the other hand as I understand it originally ran from the mission to the Yerba Buena pueblo on the waterfront to the north, and only after the Gold Rush extended down the county to merge with San Jose Avenue. So my misguided stroll up San Jose Avenue was in fact an unintentional acknowledgment of its rightful place in geographical history. Sadly Muni doesn’t run a bus up San Jose Avenue from Daly City to the mission, so my transit route up Mission Street was a concession to necessity.

Time: 4:45 PM
Place: Daly City
Route: Muni 14 Inbound
Fare: $2.00
Total: $8.00

At 4:45PM the bus driver went back on duty and I boarded along with a nice little crowd that had developed in the meantime. I paid $2 and got a transfer for the return trip. This was another articulated bus but battle-scarred and road-weary, not at all like the cushy SamTrans coach. [This just in: it has come to my attention that route 14 is actually an electric trolley, a little detail I either missed completely or simply forgot. Hey, it was a long day.] I took a window seat on the passenger side according to plan, however this time my seat faced backwards. This inbound route is a popular one so the bus filled up quickly and was soon standing-room only.

As I noted earlier Daly City looks a lot like San Francisco so I had no idea where we crossed the city and county line. The city web site says the boundary is Guttenberg Street but Google Maps thinks it’s Acton Street. If Daly City and San Francisco ever go to war they can settle the issue. The ride was crowded, rocky, and increasingly getting dark so I didn’t take many notes. A cool mural near Concord Street and the old-timey Billiard Palacade did catch my attention.

I didn’t see any bells on Mission Street and truthfully they would have looked out of place. There is nothing on El Camino Real proper in Northern California that is quite like the Excelsior and Mission Districts in San Francisco.  Buildings are close-set and multi-story. Many appear to be mixed-use with businesses on the ground floor and residences above. Most of those businesses are mom-and-pop shops and eateries, and even the national chains look like they used to be something else. Each building is unique, representing a vibrant stylistic hodgepodge from diverse eras. The sidewalks are narrow and bustling with pedestrians of every persuasion. Bells would get swallowed up in this larger-than-life streetscape. San Francisco truly deserves its nickname in the Bay Area: “The City.”

At 5:15 PM the bus arrived at 16th Street and I hopped off, took a moment to collect myself, and started walking west towards the Mission. On the way I considered how the rest of my day was going to go. The original plan was to leave the house early and arrive here around lunchtime, giving me time turn around and do it all again in reverse. However I got such a late start that it was now early evening and getting dark. What’s worse was I was supposed to cook dinner that evening; that clearly wasn’t going to happen. So I took out my phone and made a very difficult call to my wife, asking her to cook dinner instead. She playfully protested but after I talked her through the process of roasting the pork loin I had already purchased, she agreed. Then I made like a Palm Pre commercial and used my smartphone’s browser to look up the exact recipe from my favorite epicurean web site and email her the link, all from a San Francisco street corner. She ignored my recipe (she broiled the meat instead of roasting it) and it came out great; she was very proud of it and has since added the dish to her repertoire. These things happen for a reason.

CIMG0277It was four-tenths of a mile down 16th Street from Mission Street to the mission at Dolores Street. I arrived there around 5:45 PM. Everything was closed for the day, dark and deserted. First I marveled at the beautifully ornate “modern” (erected in 1918) Mission Dolores Basilica. I climbed the stairs and simply touched the door to mark the end of my journey. After drinking the heady draft of the moment, I moved next door to the “Old Mission,” Misíon San Francisco de Asís. It’s the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco, miraculously surviving the 1906 earthquake and fire. It’s the sixth mission in the chain, founded by Father Palóu in June of 1776, five days prior to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence 2,500 miles away. For decades it and the nearby presidio represented the northern reach of the Spanish Empire in Alta California, the tip of El Camino Real. (The two more northern missions at San Rafael and Sonoma came much later, just as Mexico was asserting its own independence from Spain.) There’s a historic El Camino Real bell in the grassy median in front of the mission, the only bell I saw in San Francisco. Its label is gone and it’s badly rusting but like the mission, the city, and the state, it endures.

I spent some minutes looking around and snapping pictures of the many historical plaques and markers adorning this special place. Finally the time arrived to turn back. I weighed my options as I walked back to Mission Street. It was now too dark for effective sight-seeing so it didn’t make sense to take the slow bus ride back down El Camino. There is a BART station at 16th and Mission, which opened up some possibilities. I considered taking BART to Millbrae then transferring to Caltrain for the trip to San Jose, but with a little help from my smartphone I decided on a different route. I would take BART across the Bay and down to Fremont, catch the VTA 180 Express Bus to Milpitas, then transfer to the VTA 66 for the last leg home. Apart from being reasonably efficient, it had the added appeal of completing a big clockwise loop which is more satisfying than simply retracing my steps. Plus the East Bay part of this trip would have some special El Camino Real significance which I’ll explain in a later post; consider yourself teased. Here’s a hint: the VTA 180 goes down Mission Boulevard in Fremont.

Back on 16th Street, I arrived at the BART station plaza at Mission which was sticky with inner-city character. Music blared from a boom box while dozens of people stood or sat alone or in twos or threes, living a corner life. A sincere man with a pushcart was hawking free uncooked Thanksgiving turkeys, possibly overstock from a local charity kitchen. It’s a different world from where I come from. There is a coin-op public toilet there but it was out-of-order. I was oddly relieved (pun intended) to be spared any potential unpleasantness inside, but it did mean I was in for a long evening.

Time: 5:54 PM
Place: San Francisco
Route: BART Fremont Line
Fare: $5.65
Total: $19.30 w/scam

I took the stairs down to the underground station and fed money into the machine to buy my ticket to Fremont. I plucked the stored-value card from the machine but when I inserted the ticket into the fare gate, it was rejected. I gave it to the station attendant who told me it had no money on it. What?! Then she told me its last value had been used up at the Oakland Coliseum station. WHAT?!?! My mind was reeling with incomprehension. I just bought this ticket seconds ago; what happened to it? These days I rarely take BART but there was a period long ago I took it every day so I was hardly a newbie. I had never heard of anything like this. My theory is either the ticket machine had somebody’s old worthless ticket loaded inside it which means I won the loser lottery by “purchasing” it, or somehow I was the victim of a bold scam. Maybe someone shoved the bad ticket in the machine’s dispensing chute for an unsuspecting dupe (me) to pick up, then they came behind me and took my good card when I wasn’t looking. Perhaps it was just user error. I’ll never know. It was bizarre. I lost $5.65 and a significant chunk of my good mood. I had to go back to the machine and purchase a whole new ticket.

Time: 6:56 PM
Place: Fremont
Route: VTA 180 South
Fare: $2.00 w/day pass
Total: $22.30 w/SNAFU

Fortunately the wait for the train and the ride to Fremont were uneventful. At the Fremont station I easily found the stop for the 180 but it showed up quite late which irked me, further chipping away at my disposition. The 180 is an Express bus which means I could use my VTA day pass but I had to pay a $2 upgrade fare. I had plenty of time to confirm this by reading and rereading the fine print on the back of my day pass while waiting for this late bus to arrive. I boarded, flashed my pass, and dropped my last two dollar coins into the fare box. As I was turning to take a seat the driver called me back and said I had only dropped one dollar in the box. “No, I put in two dollars.” He insisted the machine had only registered one. What…the…fill-in-the-blank. I think I dropped the coins in pinched together instead of one at a time, and the machine counted them as one. This stupid machine has one flipping thing to do, count money, and it screwed it up. Fine. I pulled out my wallet and slipped a dollar bill in the machine. The driver showed me how the machine now registered $1 on its digital display, I guess trying to demonstrate its infallible accuracy. Yeah, whatever. Kiss my aggravated backside.

Time: 7:30 PM
Place: Milpitas
Route: VTA 66 South
Fare: $0.00 w/day pass
Total: $22.30

I took a seat huffily and wondered what I had done to anger the transit gods on my return trip so. The bus rolled through Fremont onto I-680 South and before long we reached the Great Mall in Milpitas. After a short wait I boarded once again the VTA 66 and rode it to the exact stop where I started my day. A two block walk back, and I was home around 7:50 PM. Eight hours on the All Camino.

So what was the point? It meant a variety of things at different levels. For the purpose of this blog it was an invaluable accumulation of experience. I’ve now been on every inch of El Camino between San Jose and Daly City, except for one block in front of the South San Francisco BART station which remains a hole in my mind. I have photos, notes, and memories. I visited some cities in San Mateo County for essentially the first time, and can now put faces to the names when I write about them. I discovered new places that piqued my interest and make me want to go back. What’s most important is that I was there attentively, not thinking about driving or schedule or destination, but focused on seeing what was there. Not just living in the moment, I was living in my location, in my inertial frame.

An All-Encompassing Paradox:
•North El Camino Real
•East El Camino Real
•South El Camino Real
•West El Camino Real

There were some intellectual accomplishments. I confirmed the paradox that this one special road contains the four cardinal directions (see sidebar). I have statistics for one side of the road, counting 25 historic El Camino Real bell markers in a single day. I tallied fast food and select other businesses; there are companies that pay for this kind of data!

El Camino (East Side) by the Numbers, in Order of Appearance

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  • Historic El Camino Real Bells — 25
  • Gas Stations — 24
  • Jacks in the Box — 7
  • KFCs — 5
  • Burger Kings — 5
  • Lucky Grocery Stores — 4
  • Blockbuster Videos (some closing) — 7
  • Carls Jr. — 2
  • Kragen Auto Parts — 5
  • Safeway Grocery Stores — 5
  • Subway Restaurants — 5
  • Togo’s Restaurants — 2
  • Taco Bells — 7
  • McDonalds — 1
  • The Offramp Bicycle Shops — 2
  • All Bicycle Shops — 5

I don’t claim these numbers are accurate as I probably missed  businesses, but some interesting trends do emerge. El Camino is a car-serving zone with plenty of gas stations (24), auto parts shops (5), and fast food drive-ins. Among the fast food spots McDonalds is surprisingly underrepresented (1) and the leader is Taco Bell (7). Nothing could be more fitting since Taco Bell’s logo and architecture are a commercial parody of the missions. Cars rule the road, but there are a number of bicycle shops (5) that remind us that along with the BART stations, CalTrain depots, and VTA, SamTrans, and Muni bus stops too numerous to count, real transportation alternatives do exist.

This is unfinished business. I only told half of the story, the eastern half. I missed great universities, historic movie theaters, thriving shopping centers, and who knows what else. I do plan to do this same trip in reverse to observe the western half, moving counter-clockwise around the Bay. Memorial Day weekend will be the perfect time since it will have been six months from the first trip, closing the loop with elegant symmetry. I’ll admit I did get overwhelmed by this project as it took me over four months to finally get it written up. For next time I have ideas to streamline the process by writing as I go. I expect Twitter will be involved.

For now, I can say: El Camino Real. Been there. Done that. Blogged all about it.

A Pilgrim’s Odyssey, or There and Back Again, Part 3

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

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The Palo Alto Caltrain station was the county-nental divide for my transit trip up El Camino Real. It’s where I left the VTA system which serves Santa Clara County, and boarded the SamTrans Route 390 bus which serves San Mateo County. I had a few minutes to wait so I spent them studying the posted maps and schedules. That’s when I spotted a notice that was as welcome as it was unexpected: select VTA and SamTrans routes accept each others’ day passes in Palo Alto. I could use my VTA pass to board the SamTrans 390! For free! Sweet!

Time : 1:50 PM
Place: Palo Alto Caltrain Station
Route: SamTrans 390 to Daly City BART
Fare: $0.00 w/VTA day pass!
Total: $6.00

The 390 arrived after a few short minutes. It was an impressive articulated coach. I boarded and flashed my VTA pass with just a hint of nervousness that it would be rejected, but my papers were indeed in order so I had no problem at all. The train station is the startpoint for this route so the bus was empty. I had my choice of seats and selected one on the right side as I planned, stowed my backpack at my feet, and settled in for the long ride up the Peninsula.

I’ve lived in Santa Clara county for a while now and I like to think I brim with civic pride, but I have to say honestly that the SamTrans 390 was nice. Really nice. Frankly it blew the VTA 522 off the road, which pains me to admit. The windows were clear (no wrap!), the seats were comfy, and the air conditioning was luxurious. Best of all its general pace was much more leisurely. As we pulled out of the station past the historical marker at MacArthur Park and turned onto El Camino, I could literally feel myself relax as I sat back and prepared to enjoy the ride.

I hate to bag on VTA but I’ve always been ambivalent towards it. There was a period when I took it every day to work and regularly took it to special events downtown. It’s an adequate system, but I wish I could say it’s great. The fact is it’s troubled with low ridership, high fares, and increasingly infrequent schedules. Part of the problem is that the county, especially San Jose, is so gosh-darned spread out with relatively little population concentration that it’s tough to service it efficiently. Plus in our history we’ve been blessed with some boom times, most recently around the high tech industry, that resulted in a solid suburban middle class and drove the adoption of a car culture. So our buses are not world-class. I do have hope for the future of VTA given new high-density development around transit hubs and the plans I’ve seen for dedicated-lane Bus Rapid Transit, but we’re not there yet.

Back to SamTrans, I noted with approval the aptly named El Camino Park as we drove by, then tried and failed to spot El Palo Alto the landmark tree as we crossed San Francisquito Creek; I think it’s just not visible from El Camino. And then just that quickly we left Palo Alto, left Santa Clara County, crossed into San Mateo County, entering Menlo Park.

The Tesla Motors dealership is a hopeful spark in contrast to the three or four closed car dealerships just up the street. There are still plenty of gas stations though, additional reminders of El Camino’s car-serving nature. Jeffrey’s Hamburgers stands out as an eye-catching diner; I’ll have to check it out soon but it will be competing with some of my favorite burger joints past and present on El Camino. At Ravenswood I saw the first historical bell of the county and it was a standout because it’s the first I’ve seen that isn’t hanging from a trademark shepherd’s crook guidepost. Rather it’s hanging on a yoke which I presume is how they were mounted in the actual missions.

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I took pictures of this bell, and these were pretty much the only photos I managed to take out the bus windows all day. The only reason I got these is that I lucked out and the bus was stopped at a lengthy red light. I had planned to take many more, but I was overwhelmed simply trying to look vigilantly out the windows without missing anything. It was hard enough just taking notes; photos were beyond me.

The light finally turned green and I was treated to the ultra-hip Menlo Center and the sublime Kepler’s Books. I noted a historical marker at Triangle Redwood Grove, and that Gaylord Indian Restaurant had closed. Gaylord at the Stanford Shopping Center used to be a favorite with my family and my college roommate. I still miss it.

Soon the businesses went away and El Camino became all trees, fences, walls, and the backsides of really expensive homes. Welcome to Atherton. Many of these houses back right up to El Camino, but I presume none of them has an El Camino address. When the neighborhoods cleared and we got to the business district it felt very close with two-story buildings butting directly against the sidewalk, like a tall narrow corridor. There’s a distinct village feel, but severe and a little creepy, like the kind of place you read about in pulpy horror stories. Pleasantville by day but at night, no one will hear your screams…

Atherton is wide but short so before I knew it we rolled into Redwood City. I jotted something about “SF Water Dept.” but have no idea what that was a reference to. I may have become distracted because around this time the air conditioning on the bus shut off and the heat snapped on, throwing me for a loop. We passed the Target at Charter Street then the SR 84 junction, our first highway crossing in quite a while. Harry’s Hofbrau made me nostalgic with its old-timey decor. There’s an El Camino bell posted nearby at Chestnut Street, welcoming you to town. Franklin Street Apartments provide some residential density convenient to the shops and transit at bustling Sequoia Station, but Maguire Correctional Facility looms soberly behind it. A quick look down Broadway reveals a classic and historic downtown (“Climate Best by Government Test”). The Ben Frank’s hot dog stand is as iconic and appetizing as ever, but it overlooks the too-close at-grade Caltrain crossing which was the scene of a shocking tragedy last year. I chuckled at the odd alternating type sizes on an “EL CAMINO REAL” street sign, then noted with satisfaction that the Caltrain tracks are at a higher, safer grade by the time it crosses over Howard Ave. This stretch has some big culverts which are cool to look at. Somewhere along the line I noticed a couple free newspaper boxes for the Daily Post and Daily News.

As we cruised into San Carlos I stuck dogmatically to my strategy of only observing the right side of the street. That’s when I discovered that in San Carlos, there is no right side of the street, just gravel lots and train tracks. The Caltrain tracks are so close to the road there’s no room for proper businesses so most of it is left open. The businesses that should be there seem to be on the other side of the tracks, on Old County Road. The San Carlos Caltrain depot at San Carlos Avenue however is an eye-catching exception, and is graced with a bell. Things open up shortly and there’s a posted notice for proposed development north of the station, which is a recurrent theme. San Carlos Plaza, a shopping center, leaves no doubt that the right side of El Camino is indeed open for business. Trivia break: this paragraph contains the name “San Carlos” seven times. San Carlos.

Belmont is frankly more of the same. There’s a bell near Harbor Blvd. and another at the Belmont Caltrain station at Ralston Ave. By then the right side narrows to a gravel lot again. Then something surprising happens: El Camino must gain a little elevation because the sight lines clear and you gain an expansive view of the San Mateo Bridge and the East Bay hills. Google Street View tells me this occurs around Marine View Street and Mountain View Avenue. Someone was paying attention when they named those streets.

Now entering San Mateo, the county namesake. I had assumed it is the largest and most populous city in the county, but sadly it is neither. However we started to hit the first heavy traffic of the day around SR 92 so clearly it’s big and populous enough. The first thing I wrote down is there are no sidewalks at 42nd Avenue. Yumi Yogurt was a happy sight at 38th Avenue but it has no sidewalk either. I noted Hillsdale Shopping Center even though it’s on the other side of the street; an unforgivable mental lapse. However I was back on track with Ana Furniture which stands on the correct side of the street, across from the mall. Peninsula Station is a mixed-use development appealingly sandwiched between El Camino and Caltrain. This section has a kind of retro downtown feel with small sidewalks culminating with the highrise Tower Plaza building. There was a line out the door at Heidi’s Pies, people no doubt picking up orders for Turkey Day desserts. There was no rush though because Heidi’s never closes. Ever. Bridge Point Academy was the first school I had seen in a while, and The Beading Frenzy wins for the best business name of the day. My wife and my mom have both been into beading; the imagery in the name describes the ensuing mania perfectly. Scenic Central Park is bounded by 5th Avenue—a sly homage to Manhattan geography—and is the gateway to downtown San Mateo. There’s a multi-level parking garage at 2nd Street which is great since downtown is so strollable.

One notices that there are a lot of churches on El Camino in northern San Mateo. The Church of St. Matthew and St. Matthew’s Episcopal Day School occupy beautiful grounds near St. Matthews Avenue. Notably up to this point in San Mateo the street signs say “S El Camino Real” but here they switch to “N El Camino Real.” Indeed the address of the church is One South El Camino Real and this is where the numbered cross streets begin, starting with 1st Avenue and continuing into the forties as you proceed south. San Francisco and Santa Clara of course were Spanish Catholic missions that became cities and counties. San Mateo separates them but there was never a mission here, rather a satellite Franciscan outpost where San Mateo Creek—whence the region got its name—crossed the Royal Road. It’s notable then that here at the equator of the city, where north becomes south, on the El Camino virtual meridian there is no Catholic chapel but rather an Episcopal church. The Episcopal “big-C” Church as an institution was founded during the American Revolution to replace the Church of England in the newly independent nation. So in a sense the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew, built in 1865 on the site of the abandoned mission outpost, represents the region’s Americanness, a Yankee stake in the Ohlone-then-Spanish-then-Mexican ground, the footprint where Mateo got kicked out and Matthew was shoed in. Fittingly here at the crux of San Mateo’s history and culture is placed an El Camino bell marking the spot where a mission might have been.

My parents live in San Mateo, a short stroll from El Camino. As it turned out, it took nearly three hours to get to their house from mine by bus, an amusing family factoid. I’m tempted to laugh at how impractical this mode of transportation seems, but in fact there was a passenger who got on the 522 with me in San Jose, transferred to the 390, and got off in San Mateo. People do it. As I was pondering this we entered Burlingame and were reminded by a familiar historical marker that Juan Bautista de Anza had been there 230 years prior. A public parking lot at Burlingame Avenue is convenient for shoppers and diners. Near Floribunda Avenue I spied a bell and not much further the wonderful onion domes of the Church of All Russian Saints. Russians have a long history in California, but that’s a topic for another time. Crossing Broadway downtown gave me a sense of déjà vu, having crossed Broadway in Redwood City already. There seems to be nothing but churches and apartments here, and I was struck how there were no pedestrians. After the businesses and apartment buildings faded we entered another zone of backside fences shielding single-family dwellings, similar to Atherton. The difference here though is the corps of venerable landmark eucalyptus trees. A bell at Rosedale and Peninsula Medical Center at Trousdale were my final Burlingame observations.

In my life I’ve been to San Mateo too many times to count and to Burlingame maybe a dozen or two, but north of there San Mateo County is the wild unknown to me. Some of those cities I’ve been to a handful of times and others not at all to speak of, particularly not their El Camino profiles. It was actually kind of wonderful finally to experience these cities which are household names but which I had only visited in Google Maps excursions. Let me tell you, when you start a blog about a street, you wind up spending a lot of time in Google Maps. A lot. This in a nutshell is why I undertook this trip. There’s no substitute for being there.

At Millbrae Avenue this bus turned off of El Camino for the first time to stop at the spectacular intermodal bus-BART-Caltrain Millbrae station. That’s when I realized how close El Camino is to US 101 here, probably the closest I came all day. By now it was after 3:15PM so school kids started boarding the bus, happy and chatty, ready for their long holiday weekend. Their presence brought a lively if slightly rowdy change of atmosphere. Back on El Camino, on the 1000 block there’s a bell. A little further a tree in front of the Mission revival Best Western El Rancho bears some kind of historical marker, but I don’t know what it signifies.

San BrunoSan Bruno gets a standing ovation: their street signs sport their city seal which contains not one but two bells. Bravo! Now that’s some El Camino pride. In reality much of El Camino here is a commercial hodgepodge. It is happily broken up at “The Avenue” A.K.A. San Mateo Avenue, San Bruno’s deliberately-branded downtown shopping district. There is an actual bell here, presumably the model for the seal. I wonder though how those traditional downtown storefronts fare in the shadow of The Shops at Tanforan and San Bruno Towne Center. Malls kill commercial strips; that’s the perennial challenge for city planners. So is traffic, which again got heavy as we approached I-380. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Tanforan, and I was until now unaware that there’s a Hooters there, right on El Camino. Look for more in a future post. I will of course be looking for signs of improved morale and career advancement opportunities after their CEO’s epiphany on “Undercover Boss.” Plus I want to see the barstool trick.

This is where I became aware of San Bruno Mountain rising before us. Ironically it is actually in South San Francisco, “The Industrial City.” The mountain really anchors and defines South City. There’s something else in South San Francisco: the headquarters of See’s Candies. I love candy and I love chocolate; I wonder if they give tours? After a while I noticed the road starting to ascend, and sure enough by the time we got to W. Orange Avenue we had gained a bit of altitude as we started to cross the northern tip of the Santa Cruz Mountains. I saw some big honking crows here. Kaiser Permanente Hospital looms large and Park Station condos and Archstone Apartments cozy up to the South San Francisco BART station, which again we had to turn off of El Camino to get to. The bus passed a Costco I had actually stumbled upon once years ago while looking for gas, and nearby there’s a bell. Treasure Island RV Park has a playful name. Here’s something to ponder. San Francisco and South San Francisco are in different counties, as are Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. Fascinating.

Something else that’s fascinating is the city of Colma, “City of Souls.” To make a long story short, in 1900 it became illegal to be dead in San Francisco so Colma grew as a city of cemetaries to hold the San Francisco deceased.  As you roll through Colma it’s literally cemetary after cemetary after cemetary. King of them all, at least from a bus on El Camino, is Cypress Lawn. Holy Sepulchre, Batman, is it ever gorgeous with manicured lawns, serene landscaping, and elegant structures. A nice place to visit. People do actually live in Colma, as evidenced by their landmark police station, and it has a homey village feel. Colma does have a bell, right in front of Eternal Home. Bill Graham is buried there. Here though there are graves just feet away from El Camino which was somehow a bit shocking, but a frank reminder that not every final resting place is a country club. I made a note of pedestrians at the walkway to D street; it could be they were the first people I saw in town. Sidebar: the Colma Historical Association claims that “Colma” is an Ohlone word meaning “many springs” but I don’t buy it. I’m convinced it’s an acronym for “City Of” something, but I don’t know what yet. “Lawn-Mowed Acres”? “Little Motion Anywhere”? “Last Mortal Address”? What do you think?

I noticed the street signs changed to some cool-looking blue ones with a bird logo and indeed the street name itself changed to Mission Street which means we were finally in Daly City. Mission Plaza at Citrus Avenue is a large retail center and there’s a bell in front. The War Memorial Community Center and John Daly Library complex are newly remodeled civic jewels and Landmark Plaza are condos in progress. My main impression was how similar Daly City is to San Francisco, dense and hilly. A spectacular view of Sutro Tower, not to mention some distinctly urban traffic, underscored this notion. Then at long last we reached the storied top-of-the-hill in Daly City, which I was very satisfied to see has a bell planted firmly at its peak in a place of honor. I’ll go out on a limb and claim without substantiation that this is the highest-altitude and westernmost bell in the Bay Area.

The bus turned off Mission onto Hillside to head down to the Daly City BART station, the end of the line. It was about 4:00 PM. I gathered my things, disembarked, and prepared to board Muni for the final push into San Francisco.

Next installment…Do You Know the Way to…?