A Long Walk

Today the boys and I walked a long way. We walked over to our little "down town" area of willow glen where I bought us two donut holes each. That was only 300 yards and 10 minutes, tops. Then we walked up Lincoln Ave toward San Carlos. And we saw some interesting things.

This area was once all farms. And for the most part there is no trace of that agricultural heritage left. But as we were walking we passed an abandoned warehouse, and next to that warehouse was a yard with a chain link fence wrapped around it. Inside the fence was rusting old farm equipment. Diskers, an old Fordson tractor, some mechanical fruit sorters, etc. But the neatest thing was an assortment of old nut and fruit crates. If you haven't seen them it is difficult to describe them, but I will try. They are about 4 feet cubed and made of sturdy plywood with metal fasteners along all the edges and corners. Nothing about them would make you thin they are disposable. When I was a boy, when there were still walnut orchards on McLaughlin Avenue, my cousin Bryan and I made forts out of these kinds of crates. The crates Anselm and Basil and I saw today still had the brand names on their sides where they were stenciled 40, 50, or 70 years ago: Libby, JackFrost, Dole, Heart's Delight, Mission, and others.

As we were walking up Lincoln we passed a building that houses a law firm. We've motored past this building hundreds of times but while walking today we saw that there was a historical marker burrieed in the shrubs in front of it. Then I looked at the building more closely and saw that it looked really old, though well maintained, and just barely visible from where I was standing on Lincoln, around the corner of the house, I saw a much older looking building. Then I moved some of the shrubs to read the marker. The building is one of the oldest remaining in the county; the Sunol-Roberto Adobe, built in 1836.

We kept walking north on Lincoln, cut through a corner of a fruit warehouse turned into a furniture store liquidator, and turned toward the east on Auzerais. We walked by what 10 years ago was the last fruit packing plant in San Jose, the big Del Monte plant #3. The location is now a condo development by KB Homes. It is really nice but, unfortunately, it is only residential. There are some other lots around this new development that look ripe for redevelopment. Let's hope they are mixed use with retail/office/light industrial on the first three floors and residential on the top 5 to 20 stories.

We crossed the Los Gatos Creek a couple of times and the Guadalupe River once. At each crossing Basil insisted that I pick him up so he could look over the concrete rail and down to the tree covered waters. I bought the boys ice cream from a man with a push cart. Anselm is still surprised when I talk to people in Spanish. Its funny to me.

We stopped at a taco stand on San Carlos Ave. and had pineapple drinks and flautas de pollo. While there I told some youthful campaign workers that they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to get Prop 8 overturned. They seemed shocked when I told them they were destroying civilization. It was like no one had ever told them that before. What are they teaching kids in school?

When we got into downtown San Jose the boys played in the fountain in front of the Performing Arts Centere. They played in the fountain in front of the Fairmont Hotel. Then we walked up Paseo de something or other to the Camera 12 Cinemas, where we saw "Up" and shared a large popcorn and Milk Duds and root beer. All together we walked about 2.5 miles in 4 hours. We took a cab home.

The boys just got out of the tub. Athanasia just walked in the door from her day at school. I'll end this post now.