take me for a ride in the car

a ride in the car

The stars aligned so that Lizzye and Philip could take a ride in the car. After a lazy-day-off-together start, we headed up the 80 to Pinole and thus to the 4. Stockton was our destination and good beer our desire. A ride in the car is a vacation for me. All we need is a destination, usually a late lunch somewhere. (Remind me to tell you about the Olema Inn!) Brewpubs have been our preferred destinations but we had run out of them until 2 weeks ago. Our local started pulling ales from Valley Brewing Company and Philip was enticed. Since a ride across even part of this great state is my idea of a very good time, we took advantage of the MLK holiday and headed for Stockton.

We had wanted to come to her over the 4, my second favorite highway after 395, but missed our turn and ended up taking Vasco Road down to Livermore. Those are beautiful hills, very unstable and good only for cattle grazing and watershed. The brilliant winter green against the grey of winter rain made for a stunning drive.

We picked up the 580 and headed for Tracy and the 5. This is the blood stream of California. Huge trucks filled with the bounty of of the stae roar up and down this most important of roads. Stockton is just north of Tracy and we came to her southern border and took Pershing into the city. By the way, why does everyone pick on Stockton? In the history of this best of all states, Stockton is essential. A river and aggie town with a fine university, this dear old burg does not get the honor that she has earned. What a sweet place—neat, medium sized houses on pretty streets. The campanile of the University of the Pacific rises above the flood plain, anachronistic but handsome. What with streets that change their names when crossing avenues, we got a little turned around but found our destination, the Valley Brew pub and sports bar.

We have some experience of pubs. We know them in Inverness, York and our dear Grosvenor in Pimlico, London. Our local is Barclays in Rockridge, Oakland where Philip had his first Valley Brewing ale. Valley Brew is a sports bar, with very high ceilings, brick walls and good sight lines. It is not a pub and certainly not a brew pub. If the brewery is not on the premises, it ain’t a brew pub. But Valley Brew is a good place to drink VERY good ale and beer. The brewers have noticed that it gets warm in Stockton and have produced some lovely hot weather beers, the aptly named Central Valley Golden and a wheat ale. The double IPA is so hoppy and green it smells like a open field. The Black Cat Stout is intense and dry, the second greatest stout Philip has ever had. (his favorite stout cannot be had outside of Scotland.)

My crab cakes were crabby and held together with cornmeal, a delightful difference. Philip’s ribs were made with the house stout, a splendid sauce that is very dark with a hint of bitter. We bought three bottles of their varied best to take back to Oakland.

The ride home was just what I needed—the broad flood lands of the lower Sacramento. Large rivers frighten me; they are great powers I don’t understand. The Sacramento is the exception. With so many dams and diversions, she is much gentler, like a great cat who has been declawed. I ride across the her flat heart, watching the herons in the flooded fields and the black earth that feeds the world. I’ve seen her magical headwater, coming out of a granite mouth in Redwood Park, Shasta City. Here on the flood plain, the Sacramento is a mighty water and the 12 from Stockton to Rio Vista is just the place to see her. Accompanying the white herons are assorted grebes and terns chasing each other across a classic valley cloud display. When the weather breaks in the Sacramento/San Juaquin delta, the effect is DRAMATIC! We are talking C.B. DeMille, with great rays of sun splitting the thunderous clouds and Mount Diablo looking like the Hall of the Mountain King.

The 4 and the 12, the narrow highways that cross the middle of our state, are a perfect way to see the Great Central Valley. These are the pastures of plenty of which Woody Guthrie sang and they give us our peaches and radishes and kale and and and on forver. I love these drives even more than Sir Francis Drake Boulevard out to Pt. Reyes. I get a mini vacation and enough time to do political theory and moral philosophy with my favorite traveling companion. Take me for a ride in the car.

Reading is Sacred

letters from a bookseller

#1. Reading is sacred

1) of the Eucharistic elements, consecrated

2) consecrated to, esteemed, especially dear or acceptable to a deity

3) of things, places or persons and their offices: set apart or dedicated to some religious purpose

Look up the word “sacred” in the Oxford English Dictionary and what you find is a circular definition. Sacred is that which is consecrated or set apart for a religious purpose. I stand before you, as a religious personality, with a 4th definition of the word. If religion is the relationship between a human and a transcendent, then I submit the sacred is that which opens the door. We, mortal beings, know the immortal in the material world and even in ourselves through the sacred. For some, mountains and valleys are that door; for them, the Sierras are transcendent.

Think of ancient sacred places where someone, long ago, had a soul altering experience: the well at Beersheeba, the Boh tree, or the valley of the New River— the name of these places is legion and all have opened a door. But not all sacred are great and well known. The totality of sacred cannot be measured; it is as infinite as the individual. The door to a transcendent can be as simple as using a bowl that your grandmother used, as simple as seeing a vista you’ve seen everyday that suddenly becomes real, as simple as handing someone a book.

Writing is what separates us as human. Our cousins, the other great apes, live in societies and use tools. But we alone among our order write down what we know. We write what we know, collect it in books and in it open the door.

Books are stories They have beginnings, middles and ends. Even manuals, texts and study guides follow that form. Novels and treatises, theology and metaphysics all begin in one place, offer information and then sum up. Collections of poetry, of essays and of short stories are other ways of telling stories. Editors tell very large, diffuse stories and place the poems or stories in very specific order, to support the arch of the collection.

Authors who collect their own stuff often tell the most complex and revealing stories. I offer two examples to support this: A Day of Pleasure and Axe Handles, by I. B. Singer and Gary Snyder. These books are beautiful spaces, buttressed by the individual stories or poems. Each of these are spaces of their own but together they create a greater whole. Singer opens the door to a small shul, where the walls shake with the voice of Reb Asher, the milkman. Snyder brings us into a hot day doing sweaty work where the deer lick the window sills. Stories upon stories and the book handler serves them all. Be we librarians or be we booksellers, we serve the story. Sometimes it is the clear and bitter story of Mme. Bovary and sometimes they are the tales of a frog and a toad.

Putting letters or pictographs together into words and thence into stories is very hard. I didn’t start reading until I was in 3rd grade and that drove my mother nuts. Every day I see the new readers, struggling through the heady adventures of the Berenstain Bears and the great essays on friendship of Frog & Toad Some children read easily and some are intimidated; one way or another we all have to learn to read. But even with all of the hard work, learning to read is not the opening of the first door.

The first door into the sacred nature of stories comes before reading, before potty training, even before memory. The door opens in a dim room, on a warm lap with an open book. Before we can read we already know that books are magical things that contain little worlds. Rhyme is the handmaiden of the word. From Jamberry to A Child’s Garden of Verses, the rhymed word enters our ears and becomes part of our DNA. I do not offer this as a scientific theory but as experiential fact. My store has a small stage that reproduces the Great Green Room from Goodnight Moon. The children take what they see at face value. They are in the book. It is to the parents that the words come, unbidden and automatically. Some of them cannot help but recite the whole book, and after over 60 years, Margaret Wise Brown strikes again. With clear rhyme, anyone can remember anything. Only music works better as a memory aid.

The lap reads the book and all too soon the child wants to DO IT MYSELF. They hunch over copies of Tamara Pierce and Lemony Snickett and ignore their parents when called to go home. They are the most loyal consumers, often wanting books they've already read. They will become the new fans of Stephanie Plum & Elaine Pagels and whoever is next.

That is where we come in. We specialize. Some of us read those beautifully written, dark modern novels. Others know poetry or sports or cookbooks or even picture books. Librarians and booksellers, we serve the stories and the words that make them. And I say that that which we serve is sacred. For the printed word is the portal to other minds, other sorrows and all of the gods. The word is sacred and we serve the word.