May 7, 2009 – A Ride Downtown on the San Jose Light Rail

It was about 20 minutes before 8:00 AM on a Friday morning in early March. I had just dropped off my car with Franklin at his garage on Winfield Blvd in the Blossom Valley neighborhood of San Jose, California for its periodic service. Franklin dropped me at the Almaden Station of the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority (VTA) light rail spur (also called the Almaden Shuttle), which runs between Almaden station and Ohlone/Chynoweth station, named for the Ohlone Indian tribe that settled California before the Gold Rush and Mary Folsom Hayes Chynoweth owner of Hayes Mansion. I boarded the two-car electric train about to depart. The trip took less than five minutes and stopped only once at the Oakridge Shopping Mall station. No sooner had I disembarked at Ohlone/Chynoweth station—and the shuttle reversed and headed back to Almaden Station—than the VTA’s Alum Rock-Santa Teresa light rail train pulled into the station and I boarded, along with a couple dozen others, for the trip north.

My light rail trip had begun, a ride along Highway 87 through a part of San Jose I seldom get a chance to see. Instead of letting someone else drive, I’m usually zooming by though never during compute hours unless it’s a holiday or on the weekend, eyes glued to the road. Taking public transportation is giving yourself over to an automated system that you cannot control. Trains arrive and depart at prescribed intervals and you are responsible for being at a terminal at the appointed time of departure or face a 15-minute wait for the next train in the schedule: the concern of the many over that of the individual. Public transport is a form of socialism where everyone is treated equal. I board without buying a ticket at the station kiosk because my company has provided all its employees with light rail passes.

The VTA, which Santa Clara County residents voted into being on June 6, 1972, is relatively young as mass transits systems go. It came into being under the stewardship of 59th Mayor of San Jose, Norman Yoshio Mineta, the first Asian American ever to head a major U.S. city. The mass transit’s rolling stock came from three financially strapped local bus lines—Peninsula Transit, San Jose City Lines, and Peerless Stages. VTA, then called Santa Clara County Transit District (SCCTD) acquired the assets on January 1, 1973. In 1982 the federal government funded the preliminary engineering phase for the County’s first light rail line during Mineta’s tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives as Santa Clara County’s congressman.

The ride north passes by the San Juan Bautista Hills on the east, atop which sits Communications Hill, the large Kaufman-Broad high density housing development that began covering the hillside a little over a decade ago. The name Communications Hill comes from 11 large microwave towers located on top of Oak Hill. The development sits between the Capital Expressway and Curtner Light Rail Stations. The station before Capital is Branham, which follows Ohlone/Chynoweth. Every morning I run across the earthen bridge that carries Branham Lane over the rail station and Highway 87, and watch for a few moments the light rail and the early morning commute traffic on the freeway zooming by at the limit below me. Beyond, Curtner is the Tamien Station—named for the Tamien Indians that inhabited the Santa Clara Valley. There passengers seeking an even smaller carbon front prints disembark the light rail board Caltrain to stations north along the Peninsula or to stations south toward Morgan Hill and Gilroy.

The light Rail parallels Highway 87 just after leaving the Ohlone/Chynoweth station for five stops—the last of which is Virginia. From there it cuts right under the freeway and meanders left by the Children’s Discover Museum on Woz Way. Of the two Steve’s forming Apple, Wozniak got the street in front of the Museum named for him. Jobs, by far the more famous of the two, didn’t, perhaps because Woz was the largest private donor funding the museum. My wife and I took our grandkids to the museum. We found it thoroughly engaging.

If I were homeless, the underpasses the light rail lines runs under just before the museum would be decent shelter from the elements, though I’ve never seen obvious signs of habitation as the train passes by. I find it curious how hope—the museum—and despair—the underpass—reside side by side.

Once the light rail leaves Virginia Station, the 60 MPH speed it clocks between the stations along Highway 87 slows to a crawl approaching and beyond the museum, where the rail makes a hard right turn onto San Carlos Street, the metal wheels squealing until the length of the two cars have straighten and the train rumbles over the Guadalupe River bridge, past the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, over Almaden Boulevard to stop at the Convention Center Station. Look south from the station and you’ll see the original San Jose Martin Luther King Library, a gathering place for our young family when we first moved here in 1974, now abandoned for newer digs at San Jose State University.

The convention center, which sits behind the abandoned library and runs the entire block from Almaden Boulevard to Market Street was named for Tom McEnery, San Jose’s 61st mayor from 1983 to 1990. It was during his tenure that the light rail system was constructed and a good amount of downtown San Jose was developed, from the early 20th Century California agricultural town architecture to the high-rise urban area is has become.

Once you leave Convention Center Station, the train takes a leisurely pass through that San Jose of old. The first landmark is the six-story Sainte Claire Hotel at 302 South Market Street opened in 1926 offering all the big city luxuries of the time. Furnishings from Czechoslovakia still fill the antique lobby. The lounge and lobby are adorned with a hand-painted ceiling. Wealthy San Jose landowner Thomas S. Montgomery contracted the San Francisco architectural firm Weeks and Day to build the hotel. The firm had built the Mark Hopkins, the Sir Francis Drake, and the Huntington Hotel on Nob Hill. Now dwarfed by the towering new Marriot across the street and the Three Sixty Residences, a 23-story luxury downtown San Jose condo complex under construction behind it, the hotel continues to bring the turn-of-the-century French beaux arte look and feel to the South Bay

Next to the hotel is the Sainte Claire Building at 301 S 1st Street on the corner of Market, another Montgomery property Weeks and Day built. Opened in April 1925, local architect Herman Krause designed the ground floor for Appleton’s Clothing Store, while numerous medical professionals offices occupied the floors above. Spared the wrecking ball, the building has been turned into condominiums for residents who prefer early 20th Century milieu with 21st Century amenities. The recently renovated ground floor is home to Original Joe’s, a spin off of Original Joe's that the Rocca Family opened in San Francisco in 1937. The San Jose version opened its doors May 24, 1956 and has been at the same location ever since still owned and operated by the Rocca Family and its associates.

The light rail turns left at Original Joe’s and heads north along South First Street, passing on the left the Montgomery Hotel at 211 S 1st Street, an 86-room boutique hotel and another landmark downtown building that opened in 1911, a boutique European style hotel back then as it is today. Designed by local architect William Binder, it was also owned by T. S. Montgomery. The hotel was originally located where the new section of the Fairmont Hotel sits today. The old hotel was moved 186 feet south of its original site on January 29, 2000, with a large number of spectators on hand to watch the historic event, at a cost of over $12 million. The relocation broke a record as it was the heaviest building, at 9.6 million pounds, ever moved. Special equipment built for the project included remote controlled machinery placed under the structure, which inched along for more than 3 hours before reaching its destination.

The hotel now rests across the street from the Paseo de San Antonio light rail station and on Friday nights, my wife and I join dinners at the Mosaic Restaurant and Lounge—previously the Paragon Restaurant and Lounge—and watch the parade of buses, lightrail trains, cars and pedestrians as they enter and leave the open air station. Paseo de San Antonio is near ground zero for the founding of San Jose. In 1777 Don Felipe de Neve selected Lieutenant Jose Moraga to command nine soldiers skilled in farming, five pobladores (settlers), and their families—66 people in all. He directed Moraga to establish the pueblo San Jose de Guadalupe along the banks of the Guadalupe River. By 1797 after being flooded out each winter by the river, the settlers moved to the corner of what is now South Market and West San Fernando Streets—a half block north and a block west of the Paseo.

Near the Paseo de San Antonio station, at 210 S. 1st Street is the historic Twohy building an office space constructed in 1917 for Judge John W. Twohy. Now renovated into a mixed commercial/loft-housing complex of 36 apartments. Curiously, a recent attempt at large scale redevelopment in downtown San Jose near the site of the turn-of-the-century success failed. The Palladium Company a leading national developer of mixed-use projects in urban centers proposed to redevelop a five-block area in downtown San Jose, that the train I’m on cuts through: Mitchell Block—bounded by St. John, West Santa Clara, North First and North Market; Fountain Alley—along First Street; Zanotto's parking lot; a parcel at First and San Fernando; and Block 3—at South Second and West San Fernando.

In total the project would have built 500,000 square feet of retail space, a 350-room hotel, 350,000 square feet of office space and more than 1,000 downtown homes. On March 25, 2002, in the aftermath of the dotcom bubble implosion, Palladium pulled out after investing more than $3.5 million in the project. The Palladium proposal would have required approximately $1 billion in private investment. The massive complex at Santana Row, which was as ambitious as the downtown project, had begun a few years earlier and was nearing completion. It coasted through the recession to great success in its aftermath. In the process, Santana Row diverted the commercial trade that might have been captured downtown had the Palladium project completed. Timing is everything.

May 2, 2009 Hanging out on Moonstone Beach Listening to the Surf

Moonstone Beach, Cambria California, May 2, 2009 I’m sitting in the Sea of Japan Suite of the newly renovated Blue Dolphin Inn listening to the surf crashing rhythmically against the shore just across the two-lane blacktop. Below a sporadic cluster of pedestrians make their way north along the shoulder of the macadam lane toward the Moonstone Beach Bar & Grill. There is hardly any breeze and the temperature is in the upper 50s but it feels like mid-60s. I’m sitting with the window wide open and feeling comfortable in a tee shirt. From where I sit, indistinct bits of conversation waft up occasionally from those strolling by below. It’s half past eight in the evening and the sun has finally succumbed to night after struggling most of the day to break through the dense fog hugging the coastline and spilling over into most of the West Village of Cambria.

The inns along this stretch of road are filled with members of a Porsche car club this weekend. Every space in a parking lot at the inn next to ours is nearly filled with the slick racing machines. The Porsche’s link to the Central Coast was firmly established on September 30, 1955, when James Dean driving west on Highway 466—today’s Highway 46—crashed into a car driven by Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed that was turning left off 46 onto Highway 41. Highway 46 connects the California Central Valley—Interstate Highway 5 and California Highway 99—to California Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, that hugs the rugged California coast from just south of Orange County to just north of San Francisco. Highway 46 T’s into Highway 1 about three miles south of Cambria. The movie star was driving a rare Silver Porsche Spyder, one of only ninety built in 1955, his mechanic Rolf Wuetherich in the passenger seat was thrown free of the car and survived as did Donald Turnupseed.

Most of the Porsche club members temporarily populating the artist community certainly know of Dean’s unfortunate mishap. If this gathering is in any way connected with the doomed movie star, it’s hard to say. This assembly included a wide range of model years. It’s possible that among those visiting the village there was a rare 1955 Silver Porsche Spyder. However, this group is not unique. Cambria is host to clubs of Corvette affectionados, vintage car buffs—one time there were some many in the village, it was as if we’d been taken back in time to the days of William Randolph Hearst— among many others. The explanation for the gathering is more likely that Cambria is one of many stops club members make as they motor the length of the Pacific Coast Highway.

We’ve just returned from an early dinner at the Black Cat on Main Street in East Village of the seacoast artist community with a population of just under 6000. The Black Cat is one of the newer restaurants in the East Village, having come on the scene in 2002. The place is the creation of Chef Deborah Scarborough. A refugee from television production in Los Angeles, she’s turned the place into one of, if not, the best eatery in the seaside resort. Our meal tonight consisted of a main course of pheasant for me and abalone for my wife IM, preceded by blue cheese and goat cheese salads, respectively all accompanied by a glass each of Piper Heidsieck Champagne—the only way to celebrate a Saturday.

March 4, 2009 – A Walkabout San Francisco’s Barbary Coast

It’s Friday morning, November 8, 2008 at 8:00 o’clock. I’ve parked in the Golden Gateway Garage at 250 Clay Street in San Francisco several blocks from the office building near the Transamerica Tower where I have an appointment at 10:00 o’clock. I’ve come early to meet someone for breakfast but I’m not expected until 9:00 o’clock. I’m going to use the time until then to enjoy this part of the city. Where I am is what was the southeastern boundary of the Barbary Coast, that notorious section of the city that erupted when the first crush of gold seekers overran the small village of Yerba Buena toward the end of 1848. Being here is being at the epicenter of an explosion long after it detonated and time has covered over all trace of the initial event. In 1848, the small village of Yerba Buena, population 900, erupted into San Francisco, population 56,000 in 1850 and accelerating.

I exit the parking garage and turn right heading west on Clay toward Battery Street and the financial district further on. The office and residential towers of Two Embarcadero Center are on my left. Embarcadero Center sits atop what was Yerba Buena Cove in 1850 when everything southeast of Sansome from Jackson to California was underwater. The four large rectangular shaped building, between Clay and Sacramento Streets from The Embarcadero to Battery Street, and two hotels command 9.8 acres of the most prime real estate in San Francisco. The 45-story One Embarcadero Tower that I’ve just past was completed in 1971. The center’s rising happened just before my family and I found our way west to the Bay Area.

Embarcadero Center is the latest covering time has layered over the big event of 1849; the two towers of Three and Four Embarcadero Center are behind me. The brainchild of M. Justin Herman—the city named a plaza after him—the center began in 1967 when according to Time magazine, David Rockefeller President of Chase Manhattan Bank and his brother Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller proposed the $150 million project to San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Director M. Justin Herman. John Portman was the architect—think hotels like the Hyatt Regency with Atriums that soar skyward. Manhattan-based builder George A. Fuller Company would build the structure, with wealthy Dallas realty investor Trammell Crow participating in the deal, too. At the time the development was called Rockefeller Center West.

Running parallel to Clay and Sacramento and entirely covered over by the huge complex are five blocks that was once a notorious San Francisco thoroughfare, Commercial Street, which continues as little more than an alley from Sansome Street to Grant Avenue. In 1912 the 700 block of Commercial Street between Kearney Street and Grant Avenue had 15 houses of ill-repute—including the Parisian Mansion, the Lively Flea, and The Red Rooster—a year before the April 1913 Red Light Abatement Act became law in the state of California, officially shuttering the illicit trade of the notorious Barbary Coast though it would take a California Supreme Court ruling in 1917 before an organized police action on Valentine’s Day to close just over eighty houses of prostitution and evict over a thousand lady boarders from the establishments. San Francisco had come kicking and screaming into the 20th Century. However, the illicit trade didn’t stop; rather it moved to the San Francisco Tenderloin—today, the area between Polk Street, Sutter Street, Mason Street, Market Street, and Golden Gate Avenue—and went underground.

The Hyatt Regency San Francisco, sitting amidst the right triangle formed by Drumm and Sacramento Streets with Market Street as the hypotenuse, began welcoming guests in 1973. The hotel’s atrium lobby would be featured in “The Towering Inferno,” a year later. Two Embarcadero Center reached its full 30-story height in 1974. Three years later saw the completion of the 31-story Three Embarcadero Center and in 1982, the 45-story Four Embarcadero Center opened its doors for business. It would take until 1988 before the 25-story Park Hyatt Hotel—now the Hotel Le Méridien—at the corner of Battery and Clay Streets received guests. I stand out front of the hotel lobby for a moment remembering the times I had dropped off and picked up executives from my employer, a Cleveland-based publishing company. They liked staying here when visiting because the hotel chain bartered room accommodations for ad space.

I turn left at Sansome, walk halfway to Sacramento, and find the narrow asphalt thoroughfare that is Commercial Street leading west toward Montgomery Street. Beneath the concrete and asphalt of Embarcadero Center across Sansome are the hulks of many ships that brought the Argonauts—after the Greek mythological seekers of the Golden Fleece—and all merchandise they would consume. By the summer of 1850, over 500 vessels were recorded in the vicinity of Yerba Buena Cove. Most had been abandoned as passengers and crew struck out for the gold fields. The abandoned vessels were converted into warehouses, hotels, saloons, and jails or dismantled for their timber used in building construction by the San Franciscans who stayed behind to mine the miners. The history of the ship Niantic describes the fate of many.

Under command of Captain Henry Cleaveland of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts and his sons James and Daniel as first and second mates, respectively, the Niantic rounded Cape Horn from Rhode Island en route to the Pacific Northwest. Stopping in Panama to drop cargo, it picked up 250 Argonauts who had crossed the Isthmus of Panama racing to the California Gold Fields. The Niantic dropped anchor in San Francisco Bay on July 5th 1849. All passengers and most of the crew hastily disembarked and went in search of wealth. Without a crew Niantic’s owner, Burr & Smith, instructed Captain Cleaveland to sell the ship. Upon carrying out the order, Captain and his two mates did not succumb to the siren call of the gold field but sailed away on another ship. The Niantic was hauled to where Montgomery and Clay streets are today, covered with a shingle roof, sub-divided into stores and offices and painted over with signs of the various occupants. It earned its owners $20,000 a month in rent, returning far more on land than it could ever have produced at sea. The great fire of 1852, one or more of the six that ravaged the area from December 1849 to June 1852 destroyed the structure. It was rebuilt on the hull of the ship as the Niantic Hotel, the finest hotel in San Francisco back then.

The Barbary Coast would survive nearly 70 years until genteel society finally determined to rid the city of its Dionysian soul. The task of dismantling the Barbary Coast fell to James Rolph Jr. the 38th mayor of San Francisco. He was a banker, shipbuilder, and California governor from 1931-1934. But, even he and the California Red-Light Abatement Act could not shut it down for good until 1920. Afterwards, the area became San Francisco's Produce District where the area's narrow streets were lined with vendors selling fruits and vegetables.

If you look back on the years that this piece of ground has hosted large-scale human habitation, the time seems remarkably brief. I wonder if a hundred years from now these high-rise towers will likewise be torn down by developers or natural disasters and built over once more. Civilization continues to build upon the past and nearly all the memories in that past are locked away waiting for some curious soul to dig them out and give them an airing. I resume my walk along Sansome heading toward Sacramento where I turn left and head toward the Hyatt Regency and my first meeting of the day. I’m reminded of the Emily Dickinson poem.

Forever—it composed of Nows—
'Tis not a different time—
Except for Infiniteness—
And Latitude of Home—

From this—experienced Here—
Remove the Dates—to These—
Let Months dissolve in further Months—
And Years—exhale in Years—

Without Debate—or Pause—
Or Celebrated Days—
No different Our Years would be
From Anno Domini's—

February 22, 2009 – The Dichotomy of Social Networking

Walking into Faz’s Restaurant in Mountain View—near where Highways 101 and 237 intersect—at noon on Thursday last week, the din of conversation, the line at the maitre d’s podium, the energy in the dining room as my companion Irving and I were seated; you’d never suspect that there was a full-on recession going on outside. Upon being seated I launched into the benefits of social networking, particularly services such as LinkedIn that help in finding job opportunities, in these precarious times of layoffs. Irving was reserved, expressing concern about the amount of everyone’s personal information being made public in such forums. But, it’s only your resume, I persist to a still unconvinced lunch mate.

I must confess to an earlier reluctant to dive into social networking over the same concern. And, my reservations have resurfaced in light of the recently rescinded attempt by Facebook to mine the personal information of its billion or so subscribers. The cautionary tale in Orwell’s ‘1984’ and a more up-to-date version in John Brunner’s “The Shockwave Rider” still resounds in my mind. However, my wife and I and both my daughters are on Facebook and everyone except my wife is on Linkedin. We all enjoy the benefits that derive from our participation: reconnecting with middle school, high school, and college schoolmates as well as with professional colleagues; sharing information with network connections that informs, entertains or helps one another day to day.

Having a place—where everyone knows your name—within the World Wide Web to hang out and commune with others provides incredible synergy. I liken it to the human race forming a collective intelligence with each user serving as a neuron in this virtual brain. And like the real brain, when an impulse hits somewhere within the consciousness of this intelligence, a wave of activity explodes outward across the entire network: the recent terrorist rampage in Mumbai as an example. Images, descriptions, video, and even recordings of what was transpiring were being broadcast real time throughout the network, always ahead of the international news gathering organizations.

However, the benefits come at a cost. I cite the example of “25 things about me” I recently received on Facebook and dutifully completed and posted. I chose to reveal more about my observations on life and the world around me than things that would have more commercial value to a data miner, such as age, physical description, taste in clothes, preference for automobiles, type of soul mate being sought or already found, taste in music, movies, food, drink, and entertainment. The type of information such an innocuous diversion collects is even more revealing than revealed by the discarded AMEX and MasterCard statements a dumpster diver might find. In the case of Facebook, this information is restricted to a select group of friends. Nevertheless, it is recorded and certainly available to enterprising hackers—not to mention the owners of Facebook.

The argument in favor of using this information is that advertisers can be more selective in what they bombard you with. The advertising dollars are not wasted and you are not subjected to what you have no interest in receiving. The economy, as a whole, benefits from resources being more efficiently consumed, e.g. eliminating tons of unopened catalogs and pieces of direct mail.

But, in the process the privacy of the individual is compromised, which leads to the question: what is the value of the average law-abiding citizen’s privacy? For many, the value is nil as they post a great deal about themselves and others on blogs and webcams. By contrasts, participants in reality television do receive compensation for their personal information. Ultimately, each of us determines how little or how much of ourselves we make public. In general, today’s young adults are inclined to share far more than their parents or grandparents, but the older generation is being increasingly conditioned by their young offspring to let it all hang out.

At the end of our lunch, Irving remained firmly opposed to the idea of large-scale disclosure. I would describe his LinkedIn page as minimalist. If Facebook decides to begin selling the vast amounts of its users information to ad agencies and large corporations, he may be right.

December 12, 2008 – The Moon Is My Companion

Tonight we will be able to see the largest moon of the year, this according to the website Space.com. Editorial Director Roy Britt writes that the moon will be a mere 221,560 miles from earth. That’s 17,295 miles closer than the average distance the moon is from the earth throughout the year. This accounts for the increased size of La Luna on this particular day of 2008.

The moon and I are on familiar terms as she often greets me in the morning during the workweek when I leave home on my morning jog at 6:00 AM. And I see her frequently at this time of the year as I leave work at 6:00 PM rising in the northeast sky. We both share a syncopation in life. She orbits the earth every 29.5306 days. She rises and sets at a prescribed time each day. Her actions are as predictable as clockwork. My daily ritual is very similar, though lacking in the timely precision of the celestial body: up every morning just before 6:00 AM and returning from work around 6:30 PM.

A few months into the new millennium, the moon and I came to know one another on our present terms: I bidding her farewell after rising each morning and greeting her as I leave work each evening just after sunset during this time of the year. In the old century I was a nocturnal creature working until midnight and up after the sun had risen even during the winter. I still take comfort in this new cadence of life. During the time each morning I spend alone from 6:00 to 7:00 before the sun has risen, I observe the inhabitants that share the world with me at this early hour.

I don’t see them all the time but on occasion they make their appearance like the critter—I want to think it’s a raccoon—that scavenges the garbage cans on Wednesday mornings, our garbage pick up day. On one such occasion I recall hearing him or her tip over a can and for some reason I imagine the animal feeling foolish, much as I’ve felt the more than once I’ve tripped trying to avoid a pedestrian coming toward me in the dark dressed in dark clothing that makes him or her hard to see.

The other animals I come across are mostly cats peeking out from under cars to use the protection and what little stored heat they find. They occasionally cross my path. Then there are the geese flying in formation overhead, their honking—not an accurate description of their call—occasionally startling me as I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, after having given myself over to the monotony of my rhythmic pounding. They typically fly over toward the end of my time alone during the homeward stretch and ole Sol is peeping over the Diablo Mountain Range that sits astride the Hayward Fault.

I occasionally come across others bipedal creatures walking the sidewalk along Branham Lane where I run. They appear on odd days, sometimes passing at the same hour for a stretch of days then absent for a time. We pass without speaking. We each have our destinations and somehow saying “good morning” before the sun has risen doesn’t seem right. I pass this short, heavy-set fellow—of indeterminate age, though I surmise him to be older than 40 for some reason—coming east on Branham, a few blocks west of Snell Avenue. Dressed in a dark coat and typically carrying a bag in one hand he walks past me wordlessly. One morning I heard him speaking on a cell phone as we pass and somehow his voice matched his body shape.

There is a woman who jogs that same stretch of Branham and we pass infrequently. For some reason, she runs in the bicycle lane against the flow of traffic along Branham. She is taller than me with a Rubinesque figure—perhaps that is why she runs. She does say hello and I respond in kind. Our meetings are sporadic, either because she only runs certain days or she varies her time earlier or later day to day.

About a quarter mile west of the Carlton Plaza of San Jose assisted living facility at the intersection of Branham and Vistapark Drive, I occasionally come upon two women conversing as they walk past me. Their voices carry over the distant roar of traffic on nearby Highway 87; their conversation made indistinct by the intermittent car hurrying along the otherwise empty three lanes of Branham. Occasionally, I pass a man and woman at about the same place and I wonder if one of the women couldn’t make it and the husband of the one intent on walking filled in.

There is plenty of activity at the northeast corner of the Branham and Pearl Avenue intersection. An all night Arco station is typically busy with motorist filling up on the cheapest gas in South San Jose. We pay one another no mind. They belong in the world of automobiles and I belong in the world of pedestrians. Sometimes, one or more teenagers wait at the bus stop in front of the Arco station on Branham Lane for their school bus. What’s curious to me is that I saw them for a stretch of time and now they’re gone. Did the bus stop move or did their class schedule change?

Left onto Pearl, I pass a 7-11 convenience store, which like the Arco station, is busy at this early hour with patrons picking up coffee, breakfast foods, and cigarettes. They all seemed to be in a hurry to get into the store and get out. Further south on Pearl is a coffee shop in an L-shaped strip mall. It’s a Starbucks wannabe, offering Java City coffee though not a licensee. Occasionally, I’ll see a car pull in for coffee but most mornings the only person I see in the shop is the owner or employee. The welcome smell of coffee wafts across the dark morning fills me with a sense of warmth and satisfaction.

The rest of the way along pearl is residential until the intersection with Chynoweth, where on the southeast side of the intersection is the large Ohlone Chynoweth Commons Apartment Complex and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Ohlone Chynoweth Light-rail Station. On the rare mornings I pass another soul it’s one or more backpack-laden students on their way to the station or to nearby Gunderson High School, though it seems awfully early for classes to begin.

Turning left on Chynoweth Avenue, I jog down a slight decline that allows the street to duck under the concrete overpass of the Guadalupe Freeway (Highway 87) terminus where concrete flyovers sort traffic between Highway 87 and Highway 85 and Santa Teresa Boulevard.

Underneath the spaghetti maze, I pass two huge concrete columns supporting the off ramp from 87 to Santa Teresa Boulevard. Next, I come upon three large round columns supporting 87 as it shuttles traffic east and west onto 85. Next, I pass a single large oblong shaped column supporting the light rail tracks taking the one-, two-, or three-car Santa Teresa Train in and out of Ohlone Chynoweth station. I come next to three more large round columns supporting the three-lane convergence of two on ramps bringing traffic from east and west bound 85 onto 87. Finally, I pass two more large round column that support the 87 on ramp from Santa Teresa Boulevard.

Even at this early hour, the sound above me is that of cars accelerating and decelerating and the screech of the steel wheels of a light rail train slowing as it enters the light rail station. The lights within the cars illuminate a few early morning riders en route to start their day.

After emerging from the underpass Chynoweth climbs to its level before its descent. Over the eight years I’ve been making this early morning journey, only one person have I seen once or twice a year with regularity. She’s a young woman, short, medium build, with glasses that jogs alone. She too insists on acknowledging our passing with a greeting to which I respond in kind.

This stretch of Chynoweth comes to a dead end at Barron Park Drive, but I turn left on Hyde Park Drive past Vista Park and begin the last fifteen minutes of my solitary contemplation. The moon is at my back and the sun is making its appearance ahead of me. A lone plane—its landing lights shining—cuts a straight line from Morgan Hill to my right and Mineta International Airport at my left. I’m about to begin my work day along with everyone else in the Santa Clara Valley.

December 4, 2008 – Commuting Past a Life in the Balance

It’s Thursday morning, December 4, 2008 just around 8:00 AM. I’ve dropped off some laundry at San Jose Laundry on Winfield Boulevard and exited the industrial strip mall—this stretch of Winfield is lined with them—turned right and headed toward Coleman Avenue where I turn right at the traffic light and drive over Almaden Creek to Almaden Expressway, the six-lane thoroughfare that everyone in Almaden Valley relies on to access Highways 85 if they are commuting north and west to high-tech campuses in Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and further north to Palo Alto and Menlo Park. For those of us heading into San Jose, our choices are Almaden Expressway or Highway 87—great if you’re car-pooling but as slow as, if not slower than, Almaden Expressway—with all its traffic lights during the morning commute.

Joining the stream of traffic on the expressway at Coleman, I accelerate to the speed limit but then begin to slow as I approach the Blossom Hill Road intersection where the light has turned green for us but the queued traffic is taking its time getting started. By the time I come abreast of the traffic light, the fast lane has begun to clear as cars merge right readying to exit onto Highway 85 less than a quarter mile ahead. By the time I reach the 85-underpass, my lane is clear and I make the lights before and after the underpass, as well as the light at Branham Lane further on. Now, moving at nearly 50 MPH the traffic cluster I’m in races toward the Capital Expressway overpass and the traffic light at Foxworthy Avenue. There the light is also green for us but we have to slow to accommodate traffic merging on from Capital Expressway as well as commuters from the sprawling high-density Communication Hills Community coming on from Old Almaden Road. The community is that development covering the bronze colored hill you see landing at San Jose Mineta Airport from the south off the port side of the plane.

Beyond this bottleneck the traffic picks up speed again as we lose commuters in the left lane peeling off onto Lincoln Avenue—I always wonder who works in Willow Glen—but begin to slow as we approach the intersection at Ironwood Avenue, on the right, and Almaden Road, on the left. The light is green for us and we race onward. I’m in the middle lane and speed up to merge into the right lane just as a late model Toyota Celica merges on in front on me from Curtner Avenue. He accelerates and moves into the middle lane as I pass him in the right lane and slow to allow a red BMW 350 to merge on from the Canoas Garden Avenue on-ramp a few hundred yards down the road. By now, everyone going to Highway 87 is in the far left lanes and everyone going into downtown San Jose is in the right two lanes as we speed over the 87 overpass and begin to slow as we approaches the traffic light at the San Jose Avenue intersection.

This stretch of Almaden Expressway from the Highway 87 overpass to just beyond the San Jose Avenue intersection has remained unchanged since my family and I arrived here in the mid-1970s. On either side of the highway are industrial strip malls of long single story buildings, separated by open space to accommodate parking and traffic, that cater to collision repair, automotive maintenance, brake and tire repair and replacement, etc. Immediately on my left after I crest the overpass over Highway 87 is the South Valley Automotive Plaza with its rows of shops and the Enterprise Rent A Car handy for providing transportation after you’re dropped your car off and need a ride. The mall is accessible by Villa Stone Drive, which runs parallel to the expressway. Just north and west of the mall on Villa Stone drive at its intersection with Orto Street is a block of residences mixed in among the industrial park—single story 1950s-1960s homes if I were to guess. Further on is Almaden Body and Paint Shop with its sprawling parking lot of cars in various stages of repair along Stone Court: a side street that “T’s” into Villa Stone Drive. On the right side of the expressway is a sign for AAA Furnace on Stone Street which also parallels the expressway on the north east side.

The backup at the traffic light on San Jose Avenue, where I’m stuck three cars back, extends rearward toward the overpass to Orto Street—about four or five blocks. The light changes and the cars rush through the light and have to slow behind the backup at the next light along Almaden Road—the expressway ended just after we passed through the intersection at San Jose Avenue. The light holding us up now allows the residence of a large apartment complex on the right of Almaden Road to leave. The sprawling community of three story multi-unit apartment buildings occupy a large right triangular plot of land with Almaden Road forming the hypotenuse, La Rossa Circle, the next street up from San Jose Avenue—without a traffic light—forming the shorter leg and Little Orchard Street, to the north and east, the longer leg. The community was built in the 1980s when my daughters were in high school. We drove past the area en route to school every weekday for most of the six years it took the two of them to get their diplomas. A similar triangle of apartment dwellings occupy the plot of ground on the left side of Almaden Road with West Alma Avenue forming the larger leg and Shadowgraph Drive the other leg.

Beyond the light at the apartment complex entrance, the traffic moves to the next backup at the West Alma Avenue intersection with Almaden Road, where I eventually make the right off Almaden and onto West Alma heading toward Monterey Highway about 600 yards—around a quarter mile—away. I drive past new town homes on the left, a large commercial office building on the right—newly built and unoccupied as are a number of the new homes across the street. Further on I pass the DMV office at Plum Street before arriving at the intersection at Monterey Highway where the West Alma Avenue traffic can turn left from the two left lanes. I move into the left most which is shorter but I’m still back about five or six cars. As the light turns green for us, the two lanes begin the curve around only to find that the right most lane of the three on Monterey Highway—it’s officially South First Street—is block by a fire engine. The traffic slows to a crawl as cars slowly interleave in the middle lane just in front of the Denny’s Diner at the corner of Monterey and Alma. As I creep past the fire engine blocking the lane, I see a fireman on his knees besides a man lying on the sidewalk in front of the large AutoMart used car lot—the sign has a model T beneath the words AutoMart. The fireman is administering CPR on the fallen soul, who is completely inert. Just beyond the fire engine, I see a car—Japanese make, possibly a Nissan—and an SUV—first impression is a late model GMC. Both vehicles are pulled up onto the sidewalk. The scene suggests a minor fender bender but that shock of the accident drove one of the drivers—or possibly a passenger—to a heart attack.

I drive on, the scene receding in my rearview mirror as I ponder the reality for the poor individual lying on the pavement, his life hanging in the balance as the medic attempts to forestall the inevitable until another day. What’s going through the patient’s mind? That he’s having a heart attack and his spirit is hovering over his body looking down watching as the medic attempts to coax life his life force back into the inert shell of skin and skeleton. Is his will to live greater than the urge to leave all the suffering and pain that the inert body will administer if he returns? I leave the scene realizing that I will never know the outcome of the drama. Does the hero manage to hold on returning to his body and bearing the pain and panic of an ambulance ride to the Santa Teresa Community Hospital—West Alma Avenue to Highway 87, south on 87 to Highway 85, west on 85 to the Cottle Road exit then to the emergency room all traveling against the commute, 10 to 15 minutes at most. Or does the poor soul expire on that sidewalk, his life becoming part of the past, and the world around him like me leaving him in the wake.

November 24, 2008 – I-280 into San Francisco

Friday morning, November 8, 2008, 0630 hours, traffic is light on Monterey Highway northbound just south of downtown San Jose and the Interstate 280 interchange, my intermediate destination. Once beyond the congestion around the new shopping complex called The Plant, (built on land that once housed the giant General Electric campus at the intersection of Monterey Highway and Curtner Avenue), traffic moves at the 40 MPH limit past the SIMS Metal recycling center on the east side of Monterey and the Department of Immigration and Naturalization office on the west side of Monterey. The cluster of traffic I’m in stops at the Alma Avenue traffic light, about where Monterey Highway ends and the street we’re on becomes South First Street. The Windy’s fast food restaurant where the infamous finger in the chili was found sits unoccupied off to my left while diagonally across the intersection and just ahead on my right the Denny’s Diner is beginning its breakfast rush.

Through the intersection I follow the traffic veering off South First right onto Keyes Street for one block then left onto South Third Street, which is one-way northbound. I follow this to East Reed Street, where the traffic congestion around all-girl Catholic college prep Notre Dame High School is not yet underway thanks to the early hour. Turning right on East Reed one block and making another right at the South-Fourth-Street traffic light where South Fourth becomes the on-ramp to I-280, I’m soon merging onto the freeway that will take me into San Francisco. It’s just before 0650 hours. Sixty minutes from now, this stretch of I-280, where the freeway passes the Highway 87 and Bird Avenue interchanges in quick succession, will be bumper to bumper with cars exiting at both off ramps while others attempt to enter the highway from the two on-ramps. For now the traffic is moving at the limit and I’m anticipating no delays until 280 crosses Highway 17 and thereafter a slight slowdown where I-280 crosses Highway 85 and the Foothill Expressway.

I-280 after Highway 85 is one of the most scenic drives you’ll experience—with the exception of California Highway 1 from Monterey to San Simeon. I-280 rises gently off the floor of the fertile Santa Clara Valley as it passes through Cupertino. Once, before high tech became its major commodity, This stretch of land was called the “Valley of Heart’s Delight” for the cornucopia of fruit it produced. Beyond Cupertino, I-280 climbs onto the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains—the seaward bulwark holding back the Pacific Plate’s relentless geological assault on the North American Plate with the San Andreas Fault forming the battle line between the two. In this hundreds-of-millions years war the former is winning as witnessed by the gradual uplift of the Santa Cruz Range. The four- and five-lane wide concrete and asphalt freeway climbs and traverses tree- and brush-covered rolling hills sparsely populated with custom homes on large lots within the cities of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills off the Magdalena Road and El Monte Road exits from I-280. Beyond these exits the road curves left and descends to just beyond the Foothill College campus on the left before beginning to climb once again gradually veering right for nearly a mile. Traffic on the now-four-lane road has thinned considerably allowing the frustrated traffic to speed at 70 to 80 miles per hour using the right- and left-most lanes to pass slower cars and trucks in the middle.

Just over the hill north of Foothill College, the Interstate begins a fast descending gradual right curve then bending more sharply to the left with the grade diving, driving the speed of traffic above 80 until the highway bottoms out at Page Mill Road and begins to slowly bend right and rise once again. We loose the Palo Alto commuters here. Beyond the exit off to the right cattle graze beneath a handful of large tall microwave dishes scattered about dirty brown acres of open grassland spotted here and there by a lone tree. Land on both sides of the freeway, which has continued to climb gradually, is fenced-off with no sign of settlement until near the Alpine Road exit, where trees and shrubs once again populate the landscape. Just before Alpine Road, the road starts to descend again and off to the left custom homes on large lots follow Alpine Road as it meanders south and west. Just beyond the Alpine Road exit, the roadway begins a steep ascent crossing over the 2-mile long Stanford Linear Accelerator just before cresting the rise and curving left as the traffic passes the Sand Hill Road exit. The colony of low-rise office buildings on the northeast side of the Interchange signals an enclave of Silicon Valley venture capital companies and the surrounding residential community of tree-enshrouded Sharon Heights to the east and north. The golf greens of the tony community’s Golf Club follows I-280 north.

Beyond Sand Hill Road, traffic has thinned even further as we lose the Menlo Park and Stanford University commuters. Now, the freeway descends before passing the wealthy community of Woodside, west off the Highway 84 (Woodside Road) exit. After the Woodside Road exit, the freeway climbs once again. As it nears the crest of the rise, the road curve left passing the Farm Hill Road exit. A half mile north of Farm Hill Road on either side of the I-280 all the way to Highway 92, the landscape is as unsettled as in the time of Father Juniper Serra for whom I-280 is named. The subdivisions have been blocked from encroaching and the land of either side is covered over by trees and brush browned by accumulation of dust and grayed by the dearth of rain that California’s long dry season has wrought. The Bayberry, Pacific Madrone, California Bay Laurel, Coast Live Oak, Coastal redwood, and Douglas Fir that claim this landscape are all impatient for the next overdue winter storms—one that occurred a little while back merely teased this area with an unkept promise for more.

Approaching the Highway 92 exit, I-280 dips and rises before curving left and steeply diving toward the interchange, where CHP Radar are typically waiting to catch drivers hurtling down the hill at 90 to 100 miles an hour. On the western side of the roadway is a spectacular view of Upper and Lower Crystal Spring Reservoir, featured in the Bond movie “View to a Kill”—the last in the series featuring Roger Moore. Taking 92 west brings you to Half Moon Bay; taking it east carries you through San Mateo to Foster City—built off land reclaimed from San Francisco Bay—and further across the bay via the San Mateo Bridge to Hayward—the first suburban Bay Area town I spent time in during my nine-month stay in the Bay Area in 1963 to 1964.

The Upper and Lower Crystal Spring Reservoir flood the base of the San Andreas Rift Valley. The San Andreas Fault, which runs through the heart of this valley, created it. Further north and not clearly visible from the freeway is San Andreas Lake, which gives its name to the fault line. However, it was Father Francisco Palou, the diarist and historian to Captain Gaspar de Portola, governor of Baja California who named the lake and valley on November 30, 1774, to honor the feast day of Saint Andres, the younger brother of Saint Peter. I’m fond of this saint as his feast day falls on my birthday. In the late 1800s, the city of San Francisco purchased the lands within the watershed to provide a source of water for the growing city. Unable to satisfy the voracious thirst for the city’s inhabitants, in the second decade of the 20th Century San Francisco built a reservoir in Hetch Hetchy Valley to supplement the supply from Crystal Springs.

Beyond highway 92, the road traverses upscale Hillsborough, one of the wealthiest suburban enclaves in America with a population of around 10,000 and the highest income of anywhere in America. Seventeen miles south of San Francisco, the city looks east at San Francisco Bay. Just past Bunker Hill Drive the next exit after Highway 92, the highway slopes downward toward a bridge that takes I-280 high over San Mateo Creek. The gorge created by the creek serves as a moat between vast expanses suburban Hillsborough on the north and San Mateo on the south. Just over the bridge on the edge of the gorge is a house that looks like something out of a Flintstones cartoon. The home has graced the side of the freeway since we arrived in California in the early-1970s.

On the western side of I-280, just north of the Haynes Road exit, is Crystal Springs Golf Course. Within the city limits of Burlingame, the links run along and high above the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir (which is north of Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir). From the golf course northward the right hand side of I-230 is lined with expensive homes some with striking views of San Francisco Bay off to the east and below. Just north of Haynes Road, Highway 35 intersects I-280 then traverses beneath. Here the concrete freeway—tree-lined on the west with an expanse of apartments on the east—begins a rapid decline curving right as it races toward sea level. Careening down the grade, you get a dramatic view of San Francisco Airport as I-280 rushes toward its interchange with I-380 the short stub of a road that carries I-280 traffic to Highway 101 and to the northern hangers and long term parking and the newly-built rental car facility at San Francisco International.

Beyond the interchange I-280 passes the expansive 161-acre Golden Gate National Cemetery, home to 138,542 souls as of the end of 2007. Rows of uniform-shaped white marble headstones bearing the name of each interred below run for as far as the eye can see. The Pete Seeger song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” comes into my head every time I pass this place: “…gone to graveyards everyone. When will they ever learn…” (It’s the song I sang when visiting my Scottish in-laws decades ago and the custom after a few rounds was each person within the party graced the gathering with his or her song.) When viewing the thousands laid to rest alongside the highway, the last line of the Funeral Oration of Pericles from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War seems appropriate: “And now, when you have duly lamented, every one his own dead, you may depart.”

Beyond the cemetery, Interstate 280 becomes another urban freeway bearing its burden of 100s of thousands of commuters in cars and trucks all rushing some where to get some thing done. I’m one of them and I’m going to be an hour early for my appointment so I’m in no rush.