Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Silicon Valley Sunrise

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Silicon Valley Sunrise

It’s 7:25 Wednesday, October 13, 2004; I’m on Northbound 101. The speedometer on the six-year old 7 Series Bemmer reads 70 and the San Tomas Expressway exit is coming up on my right. The car pool lane on my left and the other two lanes of traffic on my right are all moving at 5-MPH over the limit. It’s a great morning in Silicon Valley. The sun is just about to crest the horizon and you can see its rays beginning to shoot laser-like, bouncing off the high rises on either side of 101 at the Great America Parkway exit just beyond San Tomas. I’m passing Intel’s campus on the northeast side of the San Tomas-101 interchange and as I move under the San Tomas overpass, the sun’s rays are dazzling as they bounce off
· the twin high-rise Tuscan brown office towers—one bearing the name McAfee—in the complex that houses Birk’s Restaurant—once the hangout for the 49ers during training season;
· the twin silver and greenish towers just north and slightly east of McAfee—the one nearest 101 appropriately shouldering the name Sun, the adjacent one sporting WebEx on its top;
· the complex of three or four square and round silvery all-glass lower high rises—once the headquarters of one-time high-flyer S3 Corporation;
· the gleaming tall-enough-to-be-seen-from-101 silver Marian Statue of Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church looking too somber and pious for such a beautiful morning as she stands transfixed looking down on the fertile Santa Clara Valley at her feet on the north side of Great America across from the four towers,
· the windows of the Embassy Suites Hotel on the west side of 101 across from the old S3 complex,
· and the sun’s rays bounce off the back windows and rear view mirrors of every car in the four lanes of freeway in front of me blinding if the reflected rays hit you just right.

The moment passes as quickly as it began—the freeway is not conducive to gazing long and deliberately at a beautiful site. The freeway is like television, a constant flow of changing images flashing by you in the wrap around screen that is your car. It’s a repeat of a program that has been running on this channel for the better part of 25 years, though the setting has changed slightly over time. That many years ago when you first tuned in, the high rises were nowhere to the found. On Great America Parkway, the lone development was the just built high-rise Marriott Hotel. It is east of and now obscured by the taller buildings nearer the freeway. The only other structure of note along this stretch of freeway back then was Our Lady of the Peace Catholic Church. The Catholics have been in California since the beginning of the modern age in the state, after all. The car pool lane wasn’t around back then, when 101 was only three lanes either direction.

Underneath the Great America Parkway overpass, the traffic races toward Lawrence Expressway—the first exit I took on a regular basis when I first arrived in the valley. The sun hanging low on the horizon and with its intense glare is making the commute more difficult as drivers take extra time peering into their rearview mirrors trying to change lanes to get to their exit or get around a slower traffic ahead of them. The overpass hides the sun just long enough to look back and get a good idea of what’s behind and on either side of you.

The interchange at Lawrence Expressway has undergone an extreme makeover in the past decade to accommodate the volume of traffic streaming on and off the two intersecting multi-lane thoroughfares. The only interesting feature of the junction besides the interchange is the large apartment complex on southwest corner of the roads’ intersection. When my family and I first arrive, there was a large sign where the complex now stands that announced the coming of commercial and residential development. It would take nearly 15 years from that time in 1974 for the sign’s message to ring true. On the southeast corner of the roads’ intersection stands the Ramada motel, which has changed hands at least once since we arrived. It was a Holiday Inn back then and we spent a good couple of weeks there before moving into our first home.

Beyond Lawrence the next exit is Fair Oaks, which remarkably has not changed in the past quarter century. Besides an off-ramp to office complexes on either side of the junction, the exit’s other great attraction is the Lion & Compass Restaurant on the north east side of the interchange, a creation of one-time video game kingpin Nolan Bushnell. He probably still owns the place, though you never see him hanging out there any more. At Lunch you still see the older executives of Bushnell’s age, who still have their power lunches in the place. You still see people at different tables waving at one another or coming over to shake a hand promising to call or get in touch. Occasionally, you’ll see TJ Rodgers holding forth at a table full of his guys. You don’t see Regis McKenna there anymore but maybe it’s because I don’t lunch there as often as I use to.

Up another exit on 101 and we’re barreling past the Mathilda Avenue exit which like Fair Oaks has defied the ages and remained the image of its younger self, though the nondescript buildings on either side of the freeway have aged and their style—what little there is—reflects it. After the Mathilda overpass, you pass under the Highway 237 overpass, where motorcycle cops hide behind a column in the median to catch car pool cheats and then you come upon the largest stretch of open space you’re going to see on 101 from the intersection of I-85 some fifteen or so miles south of where I am all the way to San Francisco and beyond: the expansive Moffett Field Naval Air Station, now largely an incredible real estate asset belonging to who knows. Hangar One, the largest remaining dirigible hangars built in 1932 is the one glaring structure in the otherwise open landscape. The concrete runways once busy with the take offs and landings of P3 aircraft, the Navy's first land-based anti-submarine patrol aircraft, now silent except when the President of some other DC dignitary wants to visit the Bay Area without having to go through the public’s airport security.

At the end of the exit ramp immediately after the 237 overpass, a right turn takes you onto Moffett Field, a left takes you down what could arguably be the heart of Silicon Valley, Ellis Street, once the headquarters of Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation: west on Ellis past, on the northwest corner of the 101-Ellis interchange, what was once a pretty decent greasy spoon restaurant—I forget its name, about a block or two more on your right and there it was, an imposing multilevel office structure. This was Fairchild after it had become a real company. Others would argue that the heart of Silicon Valley was Walker's Wagon Wheel, the other greasy spoon/bar where all the founders of the major Silicon Valley companies hung out before really becoming rich and famous. It was located at 282 E. Middlefield Road, just under a mile from the old Fairchild headquarters. I say “was” because the rundown bar and grill had been forgotten by the guys who use to hang out there and the new guys preferred Chili’s or some other chain restaurant to hang out in.

Once past Moffett Field my destination is coming up pretty soon, though the traffic grinds to a halt from a swift moving 50 to 60 MPH down to stop-and-go as three lanes of single-occupancy vehicles crawl toward 101’s junction with I-85, which is now undergoing an extreme makeover—lane changes, freeway overpass being moved, new overpasses under construction, earth moving equipment moving earth, and huge dump trucks inbound toward, or outbound from the construction site. This is what my tax accountant lists as depreciation in my car expense entry. The traffic moves at the limit for the next three exits, Rengstorff, San Antonio, and my exit Embarcadero. I’m leaving the off ramp slowing to a stop before the red light at East Bayshore Road and it’s 7:38 AM. Another couple of minutes and I’m at work, the only car in the parking lot and I stand outside my office door, computer bag on shoulder and look out at the expanding sunrise. You could get lost in it but I have a days work to do for the man.