City by the Bay

I almost forgot; two weeks ago I was in Berkeley, California. Already it seems months ago. My dad and I flew out so that he could visit his sister, my Aunt Charlotte. They hadn't seen each other in fifteen years. Whomever of the cousins that could make it did. It was nice.

The weather was cool and breezy, overcast in the mornings and sunny in the afternoon. Our hotel was next to the Marina, with a small nature park on the other side. The restaurant had floor to ceiling windows overlooking the crowded masts. Beyond the Marina a long pier stretched out into the Bay.

Our mobility was limited with my father in a wheelchair. I chose that hotel because I wanted to know I was on vacation, but more than that I wanted the calming influence of the water for Dad; he's eighty four. We got both. I believe this was the most relaxing vacation I've ever had, even though Dad needed medicine around the clock, and help getting up, down and around. I didn't hardly go anywhere. I never made it into the City, just looked at it from across the bay.

Oh, sure, we went some places. we went to Dan and Valarie's, twice. A beautiful little house in Rockridge; compact, cozy, with skylights, art on the walls, and a private garden out back. We had a cookout. There were chickens next door. We went to restaurants too. The real highlight of the trip, besides seeing people, was the food. There was soooo much good food. And various errands took us to Berkeley, mostly just to the drugstore, though a couple of restaurants were involved.

One of these drugstore outings was particularly enjoyable. A friend of mine from college, Karl, who I hadn't seen since the early 1980s lives in the West Bay. He drove over for a visit. We talked for an hour or so while Dad played around in the hotel computer room, then I drug him off on an errand. They had only given us enough of Dad's primary medicine to last half the trip so we had to go get some more. After that mission was accomplished we strolled through a flea market we'd passed on the way there. The sun had come out.

It was definitely a California flea market, there were at least three massage booths, all with lines. There was some nice merchandise too. Some of it was junk, of course, but much of it was interesting. I particularly liked a classic picnic basket and an art deco table lamp; there was African art and hours could have been spent looking through the vintage vinyl, but that would have left Dad hanging. Amidst the din a drum circle provided a background beat. One of the vendors came out to give Dad some attention. He did a handshake ritual with him which Dad ad-libbed well, then he turned to me. After the third grip I slid my hand out to do the finger snap but his fist stayed tight expecting something else. We're so passe in the Midwest. It's all good.

After the flea market we parked in a trendy area and strolled through the shops, ending up at an outdoor cafe talking and people watching. Then it was time for Dad and I to get ready for our planned events and for Karl to get back to his busy life.

That was the most touristy thing that we did; no art, no music, no museums. Dan and Valarie were full of suggestions, but Dad just wasn't up to it. But it was good, it was very good. Like I say, it turned out to be a relaxing vacation, something practically unheard of when visiting a city.

Off the Beaten Track

 

Ye-haw! Ride 'em...farmer?

I have this image of a horse drawn plow: a bent over farmer plodding behind a single horse guiding his plow up and down the field, upturning one furrow at a time. Maybe some poor peasant or sharecropper did it thus once, but that's not how they do it in contemporary Amish country. The Amish farmer has a wide plow to open many furrows at a pass, and he doesn't plod anywhere; he stands atop a box in the center of his plow wielding the reigns not to a single horse, but to a team of horses.

I was just driving past and couldn't count the blades on the plows, but the horses were easy to count. The first team I saw consisted of four horses all in a line, which I thought was pretty cool, but then I saw two more teams that had eight horses each, in two lines of four. They could really move too. It looked like fun, though I'm sure that if I tried it my furrows would be all over the place, not in nice parallel lines with a smooth arc at the end of the row leading into the next run. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would have thought a tractor had plowed those fields.

They sent me to Shipshewana, Indiana. I knew that I was in Amish country by the wide paved shoulder of the road bearing the marks of carriage wheels. Sure enough before long I passed one of their black buggies, the proud horse in full canter with its head and tail held high. In town there were several more buggies. One looked like it was going to pull out in front of me but it turned and took the shoulder before I got to it. I slowed down and gave them a wide berth. I'm glad that I did too because just then I noticed a cop sitting in a parking lot a few hundred feet ahead. I don't think he'd take too kindly to me endangering the Amish citizens.

My directions had me taking a left at the four way stop, going about a mile and a half, then turning right at County Road 850W. I'd already seen more Amish than I ever had before, and now I was going out into the Amish countryside.

The first thing that I noticed was that there were a lot of horses out in pastures, and I mean a lot. It seemed they were all black, or dark brown to match the buggies I suppose. I don't know my horse breeds but these were all those sleek specimens that pull the carriages. The work horses I saw pulling the plows were bigger, and light in color. I didn't notice any of them out to pasture, but then I was just driving by and had to watch the road as it was very narrow.

Then, of course, there were lots of buggies. I was lucky and didn't get behind any, though there were ample road apples to mark their passage, but there were buggies pulled up in front of every house and barn, it seemed. Once there was a field full of them; a Buggy Works or something, I suppose. I got a kick out of the Bulk Foods store, with buggies filling the parking lot like cars, the horses waiting patiently for their masters.

Another common conveyance was the bicycle. There were a lot of bicycles parked about and I saw a woman riding one in her long skirt and bonnet. The bikes all had a large basket attached to the fronts of them.

And the Amish people themselves were present, all dressed alike, somberly, the men in their hats and the women in their bonnets. There were more horses than people, that I saw, but there were plenty of people too. I passed a school, the children out for recess. They were dressed just the same, little replicas of the adults. The school yard was packed, lots of kids all divided up into different groups playing different games, volley ball and basket ball, etc. It was kind of funny to see a girl in her long skirt doing a layup.

I was a novelty in my big truck and the heads of many of the children turned to watch me as I passed, those not directly in the games. I waved but got no response which I thought was strange. My experience with the Amish has been that they are quite friendly, always waving when you passed them on the road. Maybe I was now on their territory? Nobody bobbed their fist in the air asking me to blow my horn either.

So I was wondering what kind of a place it was I was going to, out there in Amish country. The name of the establishment was EZ Freeze, and I was bringing them 25 refrigerators; appliances that run on electricity. The Amish are off the grid. It was still America though, of course. I mean, I passed several cars going the opposite direction, so there were more than just Amish that lived in the area.

The building was fairly new and looked more like a factory than an appliance store. Other than a small sign bearing their name there were none of the usual brand logos that help me pick out a customer's location amongst the cacophony of signage that usually predominates, not that that was a problem here. The woman who'd given me directions said that I'd be able to turn around in their lot so I pulled right in. It was pretty narrow, and with a tractor parked next to the building I didn't think that I'd make it, but I did. An old dog lying beside the office door stood up to observe my progress. She came over to greet me while I opened the doors to the trailer, then sauntered back to her nest by the door.

All was quiet after I backed in, not a soul was around. I went into the warehouse and there wasn't anyone there either. I went back outside to enter through the office door, rather than taking the liberty of wandering through their building. Inside there was no office, though the word “Office” was above the door, but rather what looked more like a factory floor. I'm still not exactly clear about the status of that place, what all goes on there.

An Amish man was on the other side of a work bench carefully applying some kind of tape to the strange coils of a type of refrigerator that I'd never seen before. He meticulously finished his task before he looked up and acknowledged me. I waited patiently as there was no-one else to be seen. I was then told that I'd find “Him” down that way, toward the warehouse. “I think he's on the phone just now.”

Sure enough there was another Amish man, albeit sans the hat, standing in the doorway of a cubbyhole of an office talking on the phone. I turned my attention to more closely examining these odd refrigerators that seemed to be the main stock in trade of this establishment while I waited. If they'd been talking secrets the guy wouldn't have had to lower his voice in my presence; I could hardly understand a word. It sounded like one of Garrison Keillor's Swedish Farmers more than anything else.

After the phone conversation was over and I'd been greeted I asked about the refrigerators. “They're propane. We sell them to the Amish, and for back country cabins, off the grid.”

“Ah, yes,” I thought, and wondered again what exactly was going on here. Was this guy Amish, or did he just sell to them? He looked Amish. He'd shed his hat and coat but had the same black shoes, loose gray pants upheld by suspenders and white shirt; he had the same close cropped hair, clean shaven upper lip and full but modest beard around the jaw; and an accent, not counting the unintelligible conversation that I'd just overheard. Yet there was a tractor parked next to the building and electric lights burned overhead. Was this Amish assimilation?

As curious as I might be there was work to do, and the way he moved it had to be done quickly. We worked together unloading the truck and did it well, passing each other in the narrow isles of the warehouse with our hand trucks loaded and empty. We never did shake hands, but he looked me in the eye and it felt like a handshake.

Here's a satellite image from Google Maps of where I was. It might have looked like a tractor had plowed those fields from my position on the ground, but from the sky there are some wonderfully organic things happening. I encourage you to zoom in and if unable to in this image by all means go to Google Maps or Google Earth and start from Shipshewana, IN, then search northwest.

*                 *                *

Leaving out early one morning, maybe 7:40 GMT, I tuned into the middle of a BBC interview with an oil company spokesperson lauding president Obama's decision to open up off shore drilling. “We have an almost perfect record of drilling in the Gulf,” he said. Recorded prior to the present crisis, no doubt.

Drill Baby, drill!