Preview: On the Red Carpet at the Hall of Fame

If you read tomorrow’s (Monday’s) paper, there’s an article about Marysville’s ties to several inductees into California’s Hall of Fame.  To get that story, we went to Sacramento last week to attend the induction ceremonies, which included the obligatory “red carpet” parade of notables.  Click back here later for some behind-the-scenes tidbits that didn’t make it into print.

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Be True to Your School

I stopped in at the Mary Covillaud School where today they were celebrating its 150th anniversary. The original grammar school that stood at the same location on F street was designed by Julia Morgan. The school’s two-block campus is right across the street from three homes she designed for local residents early in the 20th century. When I got there, Sue Cejner-Moyers, portraying Julia Morgan, was just beginning to give the audience some background on the role this famous architect played nearly a century ago in the development of Marysville.  I am lucky enough to live in one of those three Julia Morgan houses (interior renovations are almost done), so it was perfect timing for me to sit in on Sue’s presentation. (And weird to see her hold up an historic photo of my own home!)  

Mary Murphy Covillaud herself (well, Karen Compton in 19th-century dress), also made an appearance, which is only fitting since both the school and the city are named after her.  There was “birthday” cake galore and dozens of tabletop collections of old yearbooks and other ephemera from classes over many decades, which was a treat for the alumni of all ages who came to the party.

I missed Santa’s visit earlier in the day, (who knew that Santa started work at 7:30 am?), but it was better to finally meet long-time principal Doug Escheman and his wife, Deirdre.  Oh yeah…Doug confirmed that the Community Garden at the north end of the school’s campus, fronting 8th street between F and G, is definitely no more, and soon to be replaced by an expanded parking lot.  Hmmm, that’s the view from my front windows; here’s hoping the City plants some trees to soften the landscape.  

By the way, if you have kids who have outgrown their winter jackets and coats, please consider bringing them over to the school.  These are distributed to students in need.  You might even consider checking out the thrift shops and see if you can buy one or two for just a few dollars.  On any given day 25 to 50 of the school’s more than 400 students are homeless, and the school does an outstanding job of caring not only for kids’ educational needs, but also their nutrition, health and well-being.  Details are in an article from last year. Mary Covillaud School is a Marysville miracle, but they can always use some extra help.

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Multi-culti fun for the family

After an early morning run to the Farmer’s Market, (and thinking about how I will miss this wonderful community resource when it closes for the winter), I am off to Gauche Park for today’s 10th annual Cultural Celebration, hosted by the Yuba City Parks & Rec Dept. (which has a lot of great programs for locals of all ages).  I’m volunteering at the Children’s Art Area, organized by the Yuba Sutter Regional Arts Council (on whose Board of Directors I am proud to serve) and sponsored by the Sutter Yuba Association of Realtors. The arts and crafts for kids, like all the other music and dance performances thoughout the day, is free.  That’s F.R.E.E.  Every local family should be coming to this event. The Appeal-Democrat and KUBA, among the event sponsors, has certainly provided a lot of advance information about it, so I hope there is a big turnout.  There’s still time – for more info, click here.  In addition to the entertainment (from Hmong butterfly dancers to an Eagles/Creedence tribute band), there’s a wine tasting area, foods and arts and crafts for sale.

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Take the Last Lane to Smartsville.

My grandfather and I had a running joke in which we referred to all faraway places that we might be going to some day as “Timbuctoo.” I wish he were still here so I could tell him that it turns out it is only 20 miles from Marysville. (Yeah, I know we were referring to that other one, Timbuktu in Mali, but you get my drift.)  Jet and I went there and to Smart(s)ville on Saturday to the first-ever Pioneer Day. 

I learned about the event at the earlier History Day held a few weeks ago at the Yuba Sutter Mall.  (I wish as many people would have shown up in Smartsville as at the Mall!)  Earlier, I had met Kathy Smith, co-author with Lane Parker of the latest title in Arcadia Publishing’s local history series, Smartsville and Timbuctoo. (You can get a copy at Amicus Books and B. Dalton at the Mall.) Kathy and Lane have a whole website about the two towns and their research project. She is also one of the persons pushing to get the P.O. to put the “S” back in Smartsville. 

On Saturday, our local history groups were out there with more interesting displays of our past, along with some of the vendors who show up reliably at most local events.  One vendor that I had not seen before was selling home made mustards, Kelly’s Gourmet Mustards of Yuba City. I bought a jar of the green peppercorn one for my brother who is coming to visit next week. He is a good cook and a bit of a mustard connoisseur, if there is such a thing, so it will be cool to be able to put a local variety on the table for him. And it was only $2.50 a jar!

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Cows, Cavies and Cotton Candy.

Are you getting ready for tomorrow’s cattle drive?  I guess the steer on F Street during the Marysville Stampede this Spring was just a preview. It’s the kick-off event for the 150th Yuba-Sutter Fair. I got a sneak peek at the fairgrounds last night. I was asked to help judge the entries in the Yuba Sutter Regional Arts Council competition. (I am proud to say that I am a new member of the Council’s board of directors.)  The art was in Franklin Hall and walking over to it gave me a chance to see some of the set-up being done.  Hay bales being piled up, tents being pitched, banners being hung. It’s exciting and I can’t wait to explore the whole dang thing. High on my must-see list: cavies (cavys?) and other small critters, a performance by Plasterman (who??),  quilting, history and horticulture displays, the donut biting contest and all of the carnival. Whew. I’m pooped already.  Click here for the full schedule, and come on over! 

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Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

That’s exactly where I’m going tonight.  The Sox are playing the Scorch.  (Don’t get me started on singular team names…the Heat, the Jazz, the Scorch. Sorry, it’s gotta be a plural name to sound real to me.  The A’s, the Giants, the Yankees.)  Tonight is Green night at the stadium, sponsored by my favorite recycling experts, Yuba-Sutter Disposal, Inc.  The fireworks, I imagine, will still be in red, white and blue. This will be my first Gold Sox game ever, and I am excited.

Yesterday, Jet and I joined some friends to watch the Cardboard Boat Races on Ellis Lake.  What a hoot.  My favorite was the S.S. Minnow, complete with a little life preserver and a fender on the gunwhales. Alas, it did not have waterproofing and soon looked like it had hit an iceberg. The construction of all the boats was downright ingenious; what a great event.  My only complaint — why don’t they have a regatta for grown-ups?  Jeez, kids have all the fun. And I still wish someone would bring back the rowboats, or even paddleboats, on the lake. I know the last concessionaire lost money on the operation, but maybe there is some new solution. 

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There’s No Place Like Home. Or Home Base.

Well, I’m back from back east, and there was a lot of “home” on the trip.  First of all, I had to go back to New York City — where I was born — for some business meetings. The meetings were in an office in Rockefeller Center — where my first post-college job was located.  We ate lunch in three different restaurants around and in the Center over the course of the several days of meetings; each one of them had been places I had frequented years and years ago.  Walking through the various Art Deco lobbies and corridors of Rock Center took me back to when I used to emerge each morning from the subway, marveling at how I got to walk through these gorgeous buildings on my way to work.  It always made the day seem, I dunno, important, and made me feel very grown-up.

I was staying with my old friends Joan and Peter across the Hudson in Weehawken, right next to the ferry landing, and I got to take the ferry to work for the week.  Cool.  Marysville is the first land-locked place I have ever lived in, and I realized I did miss that unique aromatic blend of salt air and floating fish that is New York Harbor.  I got home each night in time for a game of Scrabble on my friends’ tiny terrace, where we battled on the board while betting which ferry passengers would respond to our friendly waves.

Weehawken, in case you were wondering, is next door to Hoboken, which is famous for two things:  Frank Sinatra was born there and so, it is argued, was baseball.  (Abner Doubleday can take a hike.) Joan and I had lunch in a casual place called the Elysian Cafe. Its baseball-fanatic owner named it after the Hoboken field where the New York Knickbockers took on the New York Nine in the first officially scored match-up, which took place on June 19, 1846.  As it turns out, it was June 19th of this year when we were lunching in Hoboken, and we could tell something was up when Abbott and Costello came out of the pub. Costello was brandishing a bat and they were heading down the street to where we had seen some chairs being set up earlier.  We followed and joined the audience for a ceremony to unveil a refurbished plaque commemorating that first baseball game.  The Mayor of Hoboken was there, Abbott and Costello did their famous Who’s on First routine, and bartenders dressed like peanut vendors were tossing peanuts and crackjacks to the crowd.  We pledged allegiance, sang the Star Spangled Banner and finished off with a rousing round of Take Me Out to the Ball Game.  For a baseball lover like me, there couldn’t have been a happier piece of serendipty. Maybe Marysville and Hoboken can start a sister city deal — two small towns with a great baseball heritage.

Home was also the theme when I drove into Penna. over the weekend  of my visit to visit Nanticoke, the small town where most of several generations of my family were born.  I took pictures and met the current owners of the house my great-grand uncle built for my grandparents, and the one down the street where they had rented before my mother was born, went by the old church on Main Street, and the site of the old high school, then visited the family plot to place flowers and do a little gardening, and finally drove up the road to the small lake where my family went every to fish and canoe and swim, every summer for about 60 years. 

And now after this very satisfying trip, I am here….in Marysville….back home.  No place like it.

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Pets, Pies and the Punjab: Just Another Day in Yuba-Sutter

I don’t like pie.  (However, I love the word “pie,” one of the best words in the English language.  You can always get a laugh using the word pie somewhere in a sentence.  See?)  My mother, on the other hand, likes pie, and she likes berries.  So what better treat for her than a berry pie?  My friend Pamela Ryan stopped by the house Sunday — at 7 am, mind you — on her way from Redondo Beach to Portland.  She had stopped overnight in Cambria, and no stop in Cambria is complete without a visit to Linn’s, home of the Ollalieberry, which is 75% blackberry and 25% red raspberry.  Pamela bought an ollalieberry pie for her friends in Sacramento.  But they were leaving town, so Pamela brought the pie with her to Marysville.  Mom had a piece, Pamela had one of my chocolate muffins and, well-fortified, continued on to Portland with the remaining portions of pie. (Regarding the chocolate muffins — I actually made them from some cupcake mix, but calling them muffins makes them sound healthier, don’t you think?)

Après pie, Mom and I headed over to the Fairgrounds for the Punjabi-American Festival. India happens to be one of my favorite places in the world, and I will never turn down a chance to enjoy some sitar music and dancing.  There was a big, beautiful Kodachrome crowd, and the good weather held for most of the afternoon, so it was quite a successful gathering.  Buying the tickets at the Punjab Bazaar ahead of time saved $5 per, and allowed me to pick up some garam masala while I was at it.

Before the rodeo on Saturday, we went over to the Grand Opening of the His and Hers pet shop, (which, I explained to Jet, was different from the ribbon-cutting on Thursday). They had drawings for various goodies and when we got home Mom got a call informing her that she had won a certificate for a free pet portrait!  So Jet will now be formally photographed.  A bath will be in order, no doubt.

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I’m an ole’ cowhand….

Just got back from the Stampede.  Whoa, Nellie, it was great.  Going home, I drove up F Street from the levee but I could not get across 5th Street as it was blocked off on the other side. Why, you ask?  Well, turns out there’s a longhorn steer in a cage inside a fence, smack in the middle of F Street, between the two John L. Sullivan Chrysler dealership blocks.  Sullivan was one of the big sponsors of the rodeo. There’s a steer on my street!  Who says nothing exciting ever happens in Marysville? 

As for the Stampede itself, I’m sure glad I went.  It kicked off with a guy jumping out of a plane, carrying a HUGE American flag and maneuvering his parachuting self right into the rodeo ring, while Lee Greenwood sang back-up.  Well, a recording of Lee Greenwood. Must admit, I got a little misty.

The mutton bustin’ was too cute for words, even though the little cowgirl who won best outfit (pink boots!) ended up being too afraid to actually get on the sheep.  I don’t blame her.  Another favorite: the world famous One-Armed (literally) Bandit, John Payne.  He rides his horse, cracks his whip in the air and two HUGE buffalo just do whatever he says.  Since his one hand is holding the whip, he stays on the horse and gives it commands through his legs.  Talk about powerful muscles — this guy should bill himself as The Thighmaster.

Despite the drizzle earlier in the day, the rain held off for the entire event.  Once again, I am surprised at how relatively few people were there.  Hundreds were, of course, but there was plenty of room left for more spectators. So, if you are reading this Sat. night or Sunday morning, plan on getting over to the Stampede for the second night.  I’ll be at the Punjabi-American Festival. Talk about your Land of Contrasts!

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Oh, how does my garden grow

My mother arrived Wednesday, and it is probably no coincidence that my apricot and peach trees fruited just about overnight.  There must be 200 teeny apricots on the one tree and several dozen even smaller beginning peaches.  Can’t wait to taste them.  And, no doubt, give some away. I am still harvesting two dozen oranges a day, along with a few lemons from those younger trees. A girl can only drink so much freshly squeezed orange juice.  Now I am making orange chicken, orange cupcakes, orange sorbet…. And, of course, I am still busy freezing chopped onions — 20 pounds left in the bag.  I now am giving away oranges and onions; I should find a recipe that uses both so I can tuck that into the bag when I foist off the produce on my neighbors. I think I’ll check the Food Network’s website; they have literally thousands of free recipes from all the shows and their celeb chefs.

It’s also no coincidence that, with the start of my mother’s visit, I spent the last hour running a WeedEater in the South Meadow.  She’s the plant whisperer, and already has attacked the extensive needs of the backyard. Yesterday, we went to the plant sale put on by the Sutter Buttes Garden Club (of which we are new members), and came away with a few items and some good suggestions from the Master Gardener on duty.  We also bought our tickets for the club’s May 3 Garden Tour.  Then we buzzed back to the house, dropped off the box of plants, picked up Jet and went over to the Marysville Cemetery to see how the bi-annual work party was going.  Sure enough, there were people out there weeding and moving bricks and raking and mowing.  If you want a free glimpse into Marysville’s history, just walk around and read some of the headstones.

OK, back to the garden….

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