California Dreamin'

California Dreamin'

On an early, early, early Saturday morning a week or two ago, my wife and I took our first steps on a much anticipated vacation. I'd like to share some of my memories of it with you, but I don't think I'll use the same format as I've used in the past. I used to chronicle other vacations day by day what we did, what we ate, where we went and maybe even how much it cost. I don't believe I'll do it that way this time. I think I'll just share some of the things we did and maybe visit each one of those memories in a bit more detail than I might have done in the past. Maybe that will make it more enjoyable for the casual reader.

Or maybe less boring?

Our trip started really early as I may have mentioned before. Our original airline tickets had us leaving sometime shortly after 7 am from Cleveland Hopkins. But some weeks ago I'd received a revision from American Airlines. It said that the departure time was now 6:10. O joy. Since we live an hour away from the airport and they want you to be there 2 hours early, so... Let me see. Yep, up at 2, on the road by 3, at the airport by 4 and then we waited. We boarded at about 5:45 and at our scheduled departure time we...

No, we did not depart at that time. Some oil had been noticed below engine number one and they needed to investigate a bit before we would be cleared for take off. About 30 minutes later they determined that the oil was some residue from maintenance performed during the last stop and we were good to go – no leaks. We finally lifted off around 6:45 and were on our way.

Before that departure, however, while we were in the departure lounge waiting to board the aircraft, we happened to notice the flight crew arriving. One of the flight attendants looked over at us waiting customers and said, “Good morning!”

No one said anything. I mean, it was early and we were all apparently a bit groggy. She stopped in her tracks, did a left-face and re-examined us again. “I said GOOD MORNING!” she restated in a manner that resembled that of a Marine Corps drill sergeant. This time we all responded with a hearty good morning ourselves which garnered a smile from the attendant.

I whispered to my wife at that time, “That attendant will probably have us singing gospels before we achieve cruising altitude!” We found out that I wasn't exactly correct, but close. Later on while we were waiting permission to take off, that attendant introduced herself to us as Miss Patches and spent about 5 minutes kibitzing with us and doing her darnedest to wake us up and make us happy, happy, happy! She had us clapping and laughing and saying hello to a nearby child who was flying with us whom she'd made friends with earlier. A charming lady and an asset to her employer. We were all smiling after her impromptu show.

During our week stay in California, we stayed as guests in my brother's house in San Jose. He'd recently bought a house and was pleased to show it to us and make us feel at home. It is quite a nice place and we were very happy accepting his hospitality for the week. He had put a new bed in “our” bedroom and had things ready for us when we arrived. We were all set for a week of fun, frolic and no problems.

Of course our friend Murphy (of Murphy's Law fame) had other ideas.

The first morning we awoke in our sunny bedroom we found that we had some unwelcome visitors. A contingent of small ants had found their way to our abode and were starting to set up residence quite near our bed. My brother had been fighting battles with his ant population for some time now in his new house, but was unaware that they had made inroads in the guest bedroom. A quick spritz with the ant killer and we were insect-free the rest of the week. I really hated to embarrass my brother by telling him the news about our new “buddies”, but we really wanted the bedroom to ourselves for the week. He was chagrined, of course, but, like a good innkeeper and a better brother, he took care of the problem. We all got a good laugh out of it, too. There was another household problem that arose during our visit but it was overcome also with the help of some professionals and some dollars. I promised him I won't go into that one. Just let your imaginations run wild!

My brother invited some of his friends over on Sunday afternoon for a get together and we all enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of conversation, noshing on various tasty appetizers, having a few drinks and eating a very picnic-like lunch of hot dogs, potato salad and baked beans. I was pleased at how gracious his friends were to us wandering Ohioans and the afternoon went by in a flash. Chuck (my brother) is blessed with bright, articulate and fascinating friends.

We had an interesting encounter on Monday night while we were out to dinner. The three of us were eating at a local Marie Callendars restaurant and we were occasionally hearing cheers and some raucous laughter from somewhere down a hallway. It wasn't really intrusive, but it made me curious as to what the occasion might be. Perhaps a banquet in another room or maybe a reception? After finishing our excellent dinner, my brother and wife headed to the restrooms and I wandered toward where the commotion was coming from and stuck my head around the corner. As I should have guessed earlier it was the bar and they had on the Monday night football game. One gentleman and his wife motioned me over and asked if I wanted to join them. They were having a great time, had reached the jovial level of inebriation and seemed very friendly. We chatted for a few minutes and imparted to each other the quick biographies which were apropos to strangers meeting in a barroom. He said that he had some connections to Ohio and mentioned that he was from the “216”. I had to think for a moment before I realized he was talking about a local telephone area code! Since most of my area of Ohio had been changed from 216 to 330, I told him that we now called that the “classic 216” and that it was just up near Cleveland now. We chatted some more like we were old, old friends and I was sorely tempted to join their merrymaking, but I still had some catching up to do with my brother and told the lively couple that I had to leave. It was a very nice moment. Small encounters like that were the whipped cream and cherry on top of a nice trip.

We traveled to San Francisco on a day trip on Tuesday through the incredibly busy rush hour traffic that everyone takes for granted out there. Luckily the highways we traveled on had a “diamond” lane, a lane reserved for cars with more than one occupant, electric vehicles and buses. We fortunate diamond-laners zipped along almost at the speed limit and passed thousands of slowly moving cars each with one driver on board. This was a reminder to us that living in Cali wasn't just blue skies and nice weather most of the time. There are costs and downsides.

We didn't do the “normal” touristy stuff in San Francisco that day. We'd done that before and we had more off-the-beaten-path targets for this trip. We visited the California Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park for a few hours and checked out their exhibits and other neat stuff. Then it was off to find the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets, the birthplace of the hippy generation, for an I-was-there photograph. After searching here and there for a while, we happened upon Ashbury Street and soon after were taking a picture of the famous street signs. Then we were off to a preferred eatery of my brother's – Tommy's Joynt. This place was a very cool restaurant and an acknowledged historic landmark of the city. Very cool with large, colorful psychedelic signs painted on the outside of the building and layered with hundreds of old beer signs all over the inside. Excellent meats freshly sliced for each order and a huge assortment of beers from around the world. We had a tasty lunch there and soon were off to another San Francisco landmark – City Lights Bookstore.

I'd been a fan of the author Jack Kerouac since I'd been introduced to him back in the '60's. Reading him lead me to other “beat generation” writers and to the place a lot of them called their home away from home, the City Lights Bookstore. I'd wanted to visit there for quite a while but had never had the chance to get there. This trip I made sure it was on the top of my “to do” list.

The shop is in an old building very close to Chinatown. It looks like it carries books that you just might not be able to see in other stores, political things, historical, poetry, just lots and lots of fascinating books just sitting there waiting for your perusal and your purchase. I obliged and left with three books and a t-shirt. I'd have loved to buy more but didn't want to blow the entire budget for our trip at one stop! And it would have been so EASY to do that!

The next day was a long-planned visit with an old Air Force friend. Joe and I had spent 18 months as Air Weather Observers in the Panama Canal Zone at Howard Air Force Base back in the late '60's. We'd become friends there and promised we'd see each other after we'd returned to “the world”. We'd accomplished that in 1970 but not since, so I was anxious to see him again.

We drove from San Jose to Half Moon Bay. That trip consisted of a drive across the coastal mountains from Silicon Valley (where my brother lives) and over to the seashore where Half Moon Bay sits, an interesting drive over some quite ruggedly beautiful terrain. We met Joe at the public library where he works along with the other librarians on staff – a nice bunch of people. Joe took us on a stroll around the little town and pointed out some of the highlights therein including his church. As a side note, one of the congregants of the church decided he'd learn how to do stained glass. As one of his early projects, he designed and created the stained glass windows for this church! They were quite beautiful to start with and more amazing for the fact that it was an almost beginner who'd created them. Very impressive! We then went to a local beach and checked it out. Joe and I continued to talk about the “old” days and generally catch up on what had been happening in our lives the past 44 years. That conversation took a while! Then a coffee break at a local bakery, more conversation, a trip to the harbor to see the boats and then we had to say adios. The time for our return trip was getting short. We'd planned on taking the “scenic” route back to Chuck's house – Highway 1 along the beautiful California coast. We took that drive and feasted on the views from a number of vantage points on that fifty-mile stretch of beach. We ate an early supper on the pier in Santa Cruz and “enjoyed” another twisty-turny trip across the coastal mountains to his valley home. An unplanned treat was the daily special at the restaurant on the pier – Gilda's - prime rib dinner for a very agreeable price! Another nice Cali day.

The next day was when we stopped at a few of the places that made Silicon Valley what it is today. We stopped at the Intel Headquarters and visited their small but excellent museum showing how they make the chips that run a lot of the microcomputers in the world. It's a fascinating story. Another stop was at One Infinite Loop, the Apple Headquarters where we took pictures and visited their company store. Another quick stop was at the Facebook HQ for a photo op. Then we hit the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. They had a large amount of exhibits that highlighted the evolution of computing, from the abacus clear up to the networking systems of today. Highlights for me were the IBM 360/30 mainframe identical to the one I worked on in the early '70's and one of the wooden prototype Apple-1 computers constructed by Steve Wozniak. It's signed Woz on the front and our docent (tour guide) said that particular machine was probably worth in the neighborhood of $200,000 or maybe more. One similar had sold recently for about twice that amount. Very interesting.

On our drive back to Chuck's house that afternoon he had me detour past a very large construction site. He proudly said that what I saw going up was to be the San Francisco 49ers new football stadium. It's in Santa Clara, just up the road from his home in San Jose and just next door to the Great American Amusement Park. When it's completed it will hold the record in the NFL as the stadium furthest away from its host city – over 38 miles. It's expected to be completed for the '14-'15 football season and also will be the Super Bowl host for the following year. Levi Strauss & Co. purchased the naming rights, so it will be called Levi Stadium. It looks huge from the ground! As a further note, my brother just started work on this site as a construction electrician. His first assignment will be working on the solar panels on the roof of the stadium. I hope he's not too concerned with heights!

My brother Chuck had remembered how fond we were about Mexican food so he took us to one of his favorite Mexican eateries on Friday night. He also had invited his friend Dave to accompany us, so there were four of us that evening. The food was very good, the margaritas were plentiful and the strolling mariachis made the evening quite special. We were glad that he'd saved this particular treat for our last night there.

There were other adventures we experienced during our sojourn on the West Coast, of course, but most were probably more interesting to us than maybe they would be to you, so I'm taking pity on our gentle readers by culling the chaff and only displaying the gems.

Or something like that...

The California we saw this trip is a beautiful place with a lot of wonderful people who welcomed us with open arms. We enjoyed ourselves immensely and are already talking about how soon we can return. Check it out yourself if you can. You'll be glad you did!

(Even if you have to massacre a few ants from time to time!)

The Best Damn Onion Rings!

The Best Damn Onion Rings!

Once again I find I must ask for my reader's patience and understanding by writing another blog about how things were in the old days. I can hear your responses to that as I now sit here.

“Is he going to talk about the good ol' days again!” or

“Good Lord, he's off on a another long memory tangent again!” or

“If I read just one more story about how it was back in “the day” I think I'll...”

Yeah, I get that. I can feel your pain as another famous Bill was fond of saying. But doggone it folks, some of those stories are interesting and some of them are enjoyable, both to write (from my end) and to read (your end, of course). At least I think so. So, with that caveat floating over all our heads, here we go for another ride on the memory express.

My wife and I went out to eat on Saturday evening. Although there was food in the cupboard at home, nothing seemed to appeal to us at that moment, so we decided to motor on down the road to a new/old restaurant that had opened/reopened recently. As to why the conflicting adjectives you just read, please know that this restaurant had opened its (I think) third incarnation recently and had been receiving rave reviews from our friends who had dined there. Its name is Bishops and anyone from my hometown will immediately recognize the name and know what I'm talking about. Its probably as famous in these parts as Nathan's is in Coney Island, Geno's or Pat's is in Philly or Tony Packo's is in Toledo. On our way to this newly re-arisen icon of local gustatory splendor we happened to pass through a neighborhood of our hometown where I used to live. It was now one of the no-so-nice parts of town – a label that wasn't necessarily the truth back when I was a kid and lived there. Of course being just a kid, what did I know, eh? It was perhaps a post-war ghetto back then also, but that's beside the point. Being in that neighborhood sparked many memories of my childhood and those memories immediately caused my mouth to open and my voice to start reciting some of them to my wife. Perhaps it was more of a verbal acknowledgement of the memories rather than an actual impulse to “tell a story” to my wife. I may have even started talking if I had been alone in the car. One never knows. But of course, in our 41 years of marriage I had probably told her these stories before. Possibly multiple times. She was nice enough to hold her tongue, at least for a while, and let me blabber on which more than likely added yet another accumulating layer of polish to her halo. I wisely kept my remarks fairly short, too, not wanting to get that “look” from her, even if I felt the urge to keep on yammering.

When I was a kid – call it kindergarten through sometime in 4^th grade – maybe ages 6 through 10 or so, I lived in the south end of our town. It was definitely a working class neighborhood – low to low middle if you wanted to categorize it. Dad worked in a factory and mom was a homemaker. Both were, and in my opinion still are, honorable professions. I believe the house we lived in was a rental as I don't think dad actually bought his first house until later - 1960 or thereabouts. It had two floors plus a basement. Although I think it was an OK house for the time for us, it also happened to be situated in an ideal location for a kid.

Let me explain.

Behind the house was a largish yard with the customary swing-set and sandbox for the kiddies. Dad had made the sandbox by cutting a large truck tire in half along the tread leaving two big doughnuts. He'd painted one of them red, white and blue, placed it open side down on the ground and filled the middle with play sand. Voila, sandbox! The other half he flipped over and filled with water. That was like a little round river we could use to sail our toy boats on. The yard with it's playthings for us kids was a plus for sure, but go out the back gate to the yard and that's where the real fun began. Behind our yard was an alley and behind that? First there was the storage yard for the telephone company's telephone poles. Behind that was a railroad track and way further back from there was the city dump! To the right as you faced the pole-yard was a storage area for a gravel company and they had huge piles of gravel there. Also be aware that nothing was ever fenced! It you were an average kid, all this wonderland was freely available! I ended up spending years of my childhood playing in those areas – hide and seek in the pole-yard, king of the mountain on the gravel heaps, putting pennies on the railroad track to get flattened by the slow-moving freights that rumbled through there a few times a day, playing tag everywhere and just doing kid stuff. The only rule my folks had was to stay out of the dump and, to be honest, we did. It was smelly and had lots of rats. Not really very appetizing and we had all those other areas to play in.

It was nirvana for kids.

You might ask, did any of you get hurt messing around back there? Any one get hit by a train? Anyone? The answer is, of course. Kids do dumb stuff and occasionally get hurt. I can remember one neighbor kid breaking an arm jumping off the roof of a nearby shed. He had a sheet on his back like a cape and believed, at least for the short time before he hit the ground, that he could fly like Superman. It was a hard lesson but there were some of us that needed hard lessons before anything sunk in. As far as I know he never jumped off a roof again. I see his name on social media once in a while, too, so he's still breathing.

Once again, apparently, lesson learned.

We also messed around with b-b guns and yes, we got stung a few times from “innocently” misaimed shots. No eyes shot out in my group, although I knew a fellow later in life who suffered that injury. Just none of my group ever did.

For all the rough play and many, many hours of fooling around, remarkably few of us kids sustained any lasting injuries. Bumps, bruises, a cut here or there. What we defined as normal.

Anyhow...

On school days I had a “special” way to get from our house to my school. I would first leave the house by the back door. Then down the alley to the pole-yard. Across the pole-yard to the railroad tracks. Down the tracks a few hundred yards to another alley. Up that alley to a street where I'd pick up a friend. The two of us would then go up a street, cut through another alley and we'd be at our elementary school. It was a short cut for me and, to be truthful, it maybe cut off a tiny bit of travel distance from my home to the school.

And it was cool!

Anyhow, because we'd just driven by the house where my friend from those old days used to live, all those long ago memories fluttered through the ol' noggin.

Now, back to Bishops...

The first incarnation of this restaurant was as a drive-in just north of our hometown. It was THE place to go to see and to be seen. Everyone would, from time to time, go there for a meal and for a look-around to see who else was there. Especially the teens of the area. This was particularly evident on Friday and Saturday nights. You'd park in the lot, look at the menu posted and soon a carhop would come out and take your order. She'd return later with the goodies on a tray that attached to your car window. When you were finished you'd turn on your headlights and they'd come back out to remove the tray. All the while you were there you'd play your radio to the approved rock 'n roll stations. (C'mon, you were a teenager too. You knew which stations were cool and which ones played the best music.) You'd listen to the tunes and check out the rest of the folks there. Bishops on a Friday/Saturday night was a must do!

Most everything they had on the menu was great, but they were known far and wide as having the absolute best onion rings anywhere and anytime. Bar none! They were big, chunky rings, heavy-cut suckers with a golden-brown crunchy breading just out of the hot oil and smelling delicious! They more resembled doughnuts than onion rings. The breading mix was so beloved that they packaged it and sold it in brown paper bags with the Bishops logo on it so you could make your own rings at home!

The years went by and then the owners were... well, to be honest I'm not sure why the place closed. Was it an economical decision? Possibly the owners were offered a goodly sum for the site and chose to sell it? Their location was prime real estate in those days. Or maybe the owners grew old and weary, tired of the endless hours of running a popular restaurant? Maybe it was a combination of pressures that caused the first incarnation of Bishops to fold. I really don't know for certain.

Many years later a sit-down restaurant opened with the same name about 8 miles east of town. They were some relation to the original owners, I guess, or they had bought the rights to the name and menu, so those remained the same as the original. It remained open for some years but just didn't seem to get the business that the original did. I wasn't sure if it was because it was quite a ways out of town or maybe the ambiance was different? Maybe? Just don't know about that one either.

Anyhow, it closed too.

Word swirled around the social media in the past several years that Bishops was going to open another place here. Or was it there? It was to open next month, or six months, or a year, or two years down the road. No one seemed to know anything concrete until the rumors finally became the truth and the exact place and time of the new Bishops was disseminated. It was coming back home where it belonged.

It finally reopened a few months ago. It's within my hometown's city limits and its business, from all the accounts I've heard, has been very, very good. Most people I've talked to have mentioned waiting in line for some periods of time before being able to be seated. But they have all agreed that it was well worth the wait and the food is definitely as good as the original.

If not better!

So our stars aligned properly on Saturday and we went out to experience the new Bishops. We could hardly wait to give 'er a try and to add our comments to the throng already acclaiming the merits of the place.

First off, yes we had to wait. Not long – maybe 5-10 minutes. We were led to a table in one of the two dining rooms and it was clean and ready to go. Our waiter was prompt with the menus and to take our drink orders. He returned quickly and our supper wishes were soon in the kitchen's capable hands. In about 10 minutes our orders were being set before our hungry eyes.

Bishops is not a fancy place. It never was in the past and it remains the same today. I observed that most orders are still served in plastic baskets with a layer of heavy paper inside just like they were in the car-hop days. The food is set on the paper and brought to you just as if it was being delivered to your car window at the drive-in. We'd ordered fried chicken and onion rings. We'd loved those dishes in the past and were curious as to how today's would compare. My wife's other side dish was cole slaw and she said it was as she'd remembered from the good ol' days – sweet and creamy. I got baked beans as my side and they tasted homemade with shreds of what appeared to be pork roast intermingling with the savory beans. The chicken was as remembered, crispy/crunchy breading with moist and juicy chicken inside. The onion rings were as we'd hoped – perfect and crunchy with the fresh onion inside steaming hot.

It was every bit as good as I remembered.

I wrote a friend about our experience there that evening while it was still fresh in my mind. I was effusive in my praise. I was and am ready to return at a moment's notice. I want to check out the rest of the menu. The shrimp looked great at the next table, the clams and perch all sound yummy. And the homemade pies looked fabulous.

And of course we have to have some more of those divine onion rings!