Category Archives: San Mateo County

San Francisco Flower and Garden Show

Around home, San Mateo County

 

When I was a kid – say about 10 – the San Mateo County Products & Floral Fiesta was a big deal, only we – we being everybody I knew in about 1950 – called it The Fiesta. Our parents would leave us alone in a temporary mini-midway, five dollars worth of coupons in hand, to go on the sleazy rides and eat all the bad food we could while they went next door to the Bay Meadows Race Track to watch, and bet on – I guess – the horses. At the end of the day, rejoined by our parents, we might even wander into the buildings where the local farmers showed their flowers, or bushels of fruits and vegetables, or prized animals.

As an aside – On one wander into a county products building, I even saw a mother pig give birth to a bunch of piglets – on a, now unknown but vaguely remembered, bedding covered concrete floor – in a pool of amniotic fluid, as I stood, fascinated, next to my equally fascinated but horrified mother. End aside.

Now the Race Track is gone and the Fiesta grounds are called the San Mateo Event Center. Then San Mateo County seemed more rural than suburban with a population of  235,659  (205,748 Native White, 24,453 Foreign- born White, and 1,110 Chinese according to the Census – now the population is 718,451 with 383,535 White and 178,118 Asian). It is obviously a much more interesting place to live.

For some reason, the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show is now held thirty five miles south of San Francisco at the Event Center, so, for the first time in over 50 years, I went back. There was no midway and there are no pigs and we never got to the flower section, but there were lots of temporary gardens. The picture above is one of the winning gardens and is a little – a lot? – idealized: when we walked in, my first imprssion was of a dark barn with dim tungsten lighting. Sort of like this:

(the camera compensated for the exposure and I went back and corrected the white balance in the first picture.)

We went with Eileen and Aston Pereira who are definitely garden aficionados and had actually got there early to get in more face time with all the displays (such as the Dahlia bulb emporium and the hanging succulent garden seller).

They had saved the gardens to tour last when we got there. The theme was something around small spaces which worked perfectly for the venue. Aston didn’t think the gardens were as good as last year, but I thought a couple were at least very good, one was bizarre but interesting, the rest were above average, and some of the plants were spectacular.

All in all, it was a great way to tour gardens on a crummy, rainy, day.

Occupy Wall Street far west edition

Americana, Around home, Politics, San Mateo County

I went to an Occupy Wall Street protest last Friday. We occupied an overpass over Highway 92. The theory being that this overpass was one of 74 bridges have been found to be structurally deficient in San Mateo County. That is a pretty amazing figure; San Mateo is one of the richest counties in the United States and pretty consistently votes democratic and even we doesn’t take care of our infrastructure. There were 122 people signed up to be here and I talked to a couple of people who said that they hadn’t signed up so there were probably somewhere between 120 and 150 people spread out over the overpass.

They were just regular people, some of whom took off work early and some – like me – that didn’t have work to take off of. The crowd seemed completely middle class.

 

 

I especially liked the accidental juxtaposition to the sign in this picture.

It was mostly a late middle age group although there were people of all ages.

I am not sure how much of what I saw and felt was reality and how much is my projection, but – with that qualifier – everybody seemed more sad than enraged, disappointed with a deeping realization that it wasn’t going to get better. At least without a huge amount of work on our part. I talked to one woman who said that it was a typical San Mateo crowd, We are nice people who don’t make waves. These are people who believe in democracy, who haven’t given up or they wouldn’t be here. They are aware that America’s day in the sun is ending but are not happy with the government only helping the rich.  I had the sense that they weren’t going away.

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday to me.

Americana, Current Affairs, Evolution, San Mateo County

Yesterday was my 70th Birthday. It is a bigger deal than I expected. Michele suggested that we celebrate -partially – by weeding. It was a great Idea.

Part of the rebuilding of the Portola Valley Town Hall was digging up the pipe and re-naturalizing part of a creek that used to flow through the Town Hall area – only sort of re-naturalizing because, here, the creek was probably a flood plain. The new creek fragment has been planted with natives by Acterra a self-described Environmental education and action nonprofit.

The new plants are thriving but so are the invasive non-natives. The good thing about natives is that the native bugs1 like them. In the past, I would have thought that was a bad thing, but now that I am over 70 – and wiser – I realize that it is a good thing. Bigger bugs and birds like the little bugs and need them to survive. Bugs eating plants is the first step of the food chain.

Because bugs haven't yet adapted to and don't eat – in general – non-native plants, a great looking South African bulb like Crinum macowanii might as well be plastic. They look great but are not part of the food chain. 

Crinum macowanii 

So we spent a couple of hours, under Acterra's tutelage, weeding. It turns out to be a great way to spend a couple of hours on a birthday: getting rid of those things that – while they may look good – don't add to our lives. Sort of like taking stock….with action points. And, when we were finished, the creek looked like we hadn't been there.

TownHallGarden-1
TownHallGarden-2-4635
 

1 bugs as in insects, not bugs in the more limited sense of beetles only.

Cats and dogs and big cats

Americana, Current Affairs, San Mateo County

When I was a boy, we had a dog named Zola*. Almost everybody I knew, that had a pet, had a dog. Dogs were the heroes in movies like Old Yeller. Lassie, and Rin Tin Tin. The only people that had cats were villains and old ladies. Cats were bad – well, not exactly bad, more couldn't help it evil. Think Silvester.

Now everybody I know who has a pet, has a cat. Even people who have dogs, have cats**. 

When I was that same boy, there were no longer wolves in the Bay Area and coyotes had yet to move in. There were no cougars or mountain lions, either. But, while the wolves seem to be really gone, the cougars are moving back in. And they are being embraced. The cover of our local park district magazine sports a mountain lion on the cover and an article inside promotes their virtues. So, it seems, both General U. S. Grant and mountain lions are making a comeback. Maybe health care will pass after all.

Mtn. Lion Cover 

* for Émile Zola who accused the French Army of antisemitism and obstruction of justice when they convicted a Jewish artillery captain, Alfred Dryfus, of treason. 

** except for the Obamas who only have a dog.