California’s San Joaquin Valley produces 25% of our nation’s table food using 1% of the nation’s land. Grapes – table, raisin and wine – cotton, nuts – especially almonds and pistachios – lettuce, citrus, tomatoes are among the more than 250 crops grown in the area. Pretty impressive for what is basically a desert. But it’s using up what water it has available.
Category: Places
Places I remember
Country Hardball
During the Independence Day weekend, the downtown plaza in Sonoma (population 10,600) was filled with people enjoying the holiday entertainment and browsing the surrounding shops and restaurants and wine-tasting venues. Two blocks beyond the plaza, three hundred baseball fans watched the Sonoma Stompers take on the San Rafael Pacifics. The finale was a Sunday double-header: afternoon game in Sonoma, then a thirty-mile ride to San Rafael for the evening contest. The Pacifics won both.
Whiskey & Hot Brown
Does softball lead to crime? Maybe in this instance. Authorities in Kentucky have broken up a whiskey-theft crime ring. Nine people, who got to know each other from playing softball, were charged with conspiracy. They stole eleven stainless-steel barrels of whiskey worth $100,000 from Buffalo Trace and Wild Turkey distilleries. The stolen whiskeys included seventeen-year-old Eagle Rare bourbon and twenty-year-old Pappy Van Winkle.
Also indicted was a security guard for Buffalo Trace, who was paid $800 by the conspirators, to look the other way while thefts occurred. You can read about it here.
Mt St Helens at Thirty-five
Thirty-five years ago – May 18, 1980 – Mt. St. Helens, in southwest Washington, erupted. Fifty-seven people died and property damage totaled billions of dollars. The mountain was suddenly thirteen hundred feet shorter than before. Previously, 9,677 feet tall, its elevation now stands 8,364 feet. Prior to erupting, the mountain had been the subject of daily news reports for months. Every puff of steam or movement at the peak was reported. A daily Mt. St. Helens story became a news staple.
God’s Wine Country
Living in California’s wine country is living in God’s country. That’s what we tell ourselves. Obviously, God’s plan was to pull out all the peaches and apples and hops and prunes and pears, and plant grapes in their place. In wine country, the price of grapes, especially the price of grapes in Napa versus Sonoma, is headline news. There is a friendly competition between these two wine-growing regions. Sonoma likes to make fun of Napa; Napa does not recognize the existence of Sonoma.
Q: How do you make a small fortune in the wine business?
A: Start with a large fortune.
Time Zones
Over the years of my business life, I’ve spent many nights at the University Inn in Seattle. Some time ago, it became part of Pineapple Hospitality Company. Pineapple has several properties in Seattle, one in Portland and, most recently, in San Francisco. Not long ago we spent a getaway weekend in The City – natives always use capitol “T” and capitol “C” – and stayed at Pineapple’s Hotel California.
In the lobby, they helpfully display three clocks, so one can immediately check the time of day in any city where Pineapple has a hotel.
