Some Photos of, and Facts About, What Will be my New Home. . . .

I will be heading off for Martinez, California at the end of November.  My plan is to move to Muirwood Apartments, just off the John Muir Parkway, California State Route 4, and not far from that fella's old homestead, now a National Historic Site. . . .

                        My place:

   
                        Muir's place:

East is at the top of this aerial photo.  My place is in green pentagon, Muir's in yellow; just one exit apart on the parkway:

A railroad line runs alongside the parkway, onto a trestle and then thru a tunnel behind Muir's home. According to a book I read recently, Muir's two daughters, Wanda and Helen, liked to wave to the engineers as the locomotives went into the tunnel.  Sometimes their dad would even put some of the grapes or other fruit from his farm on a pole near the tunnel entrance for the engineer to grab - for a snack - as he went highballing thru. 

The trestle and tunnel are still there today, tho a bit worse for the wear:

Muir's orchards are to the right in this old photo, as is the tunnel - just out of sight. . .

As I said, a bit worse for the wear:

Muir loved to go hiking and the outdoors generally. Took his wife and daughters along with him when he could. . . .

 He even named the two highest points in the area behind his home Mt. Wanda and Mt. Helen. There are hiking trails to the summits there today, from which I'm sure I'll be able to see pretty far, including my home, a bit off to the east (in orange on this map). . . .

. . . .as well as to see Mt. Diablo off to the south, at 3,864 feet the highest summit in the East Bay area.

Muir was the founder of The Sierra Club and had a large impact in the early days of the National Parks.  He influenced enough people to preserve Yosemite Valley:

One of those folks being none other than Teddy Roosevelt, who he took on a camping trip in Yosemite during Teddy's presidency. . . .

Martinez has some other distinctions, too. . . .

Birthplace of Joe DiMaggio:

Joe's boat still resides at the marina there:

The birthplace, too, of a certain drink:

Home to a ferry that took Pony Express riders across the Carquinez Strait so they could continue on to Oakland and then San Francisco:

And since 2006, home to a family of beavers in a stream that runs thru downtown!

They've even earned their very own page in Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinez,_California_beavers

Martinez, California beavers

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Yearling Beaver in Alhambra Creek, downtown Martinez

The Martinez beavers are a family of beavers living in Alhambra Creek in downtown Martinez, California. Prior to the arrival of the beavers, Martinez was best known as the longtime home of naturalist John Muir, and the birthplace of Joltin' Joe Dimaggio.

Two adult beavers arrived in late 2006,^[1] proceeding to produce 4 kits over the course of the summer. After a controversial decision by the City of Martinez to exterminate the beavers, local conservationists organized to overturn the decision, forming an organization called Worth a Dam.^[2] Subsequently, wildlife populations have increased in diversity along the Alhambra Creek watershed.

Tho the Wikipedia article goes on to say that the beaver dams were washed away by flooding in 2011, it seems that may not be true. . .  in view of the fact that the annual Beaver Festival was held again in August, 2012 according to this poster:

Seems to me that today the beavs and their fellow human Martinez-ians live together in blissful harmony.

The waterfront of Martinez is beautiful.  A nice park is on the west side of town running from the strait into the hills southwest of the city. . . .

The marina and the park near it are nice places to visit. . . .

There's an old locomotive and a string of freight cars & caboose at the entrance to the park near the marina. . . .

And that's also near the Martinez railroad station:

Which is a great place for the many "rail fans" in the area:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysC4fZALNVg

Martinez also has its 9/11 Memorial, near the railroad station.  Two pieces of structural steel beams from the World Trade Center rest there:

Over on the east side of town is the Waterbird shorefront park

 and - adjacent to that, as you can see - the Shell Oil refinery.  Shell has been there since 1914 and I couldn't find any record of there ever having been a problem of any kind with them there.  People in some of the nearby towns to the east claim that it is just a little bit smelly on some days, but I don't think that'll be a problem for me, living south and west of it.

1914 photo of the refinery:                                                

Recent photo of the refinery:

                             

Here's one more shot of the refinery.  Look off in the distance to the east, across the entire ridge-line of hills there & you'll make out the faint outlines of another form of energy Californians have in abundance!

Also on the east side of the city are the Benicia-Martinez bridges, one for railroad traffic and two more for vehicles travelling on Interstate 680. . . .

The I-680 bridge-crossing's toll plaza - located on the Martinez side and completed in 2007 - is ultra-modern:

This is a nice picture of both bridges taken from up in the hills to the southwest:

              

And out in Suisun Bay, farther east in the panoramic color shot above, you can see a cluster of old ships.  This is the remnants of California's "mothball fleet," similar to the one we New Yorkers had on the Hudson River just south of West Point until a few years ago.  I recall taking a few autumn trips to view the foliage and passing those ships on the Hudson - an impressive sight.

Here's Suisun's "fleet" a bit closer-up a few years ago.  The battleship USS Iowa - one of that fleet's most famous past residents - was there from 2001 to 2006.  

Here's a more recent photo of the fleet without the Iowa. . . . She's moved a few times since 2006; see the explanation farther on below.

The Iowa did see some service as recently as the 1980s, in the Persian Gulf. . . .  Here's a photo of her near Puerto Rico in the 1980s taking some exercise.  Notice the shock waves in the water. . . .

After 2006 she remained in the North San Francisco Bay area, at Mare Island a bit farther north, and then at the Port of Richmond a bit farther west, until finally in 2012 - per Wikipedia - she "was officially donated to the Pacific Battleship Center [museum] in Los Angeles by the United States Navy."

Downtown Martinez is thriving. The city is the county seat of Contra Costa County, so some of the largest buildings in town are the government buildings:

Of course, the tallest building in town is the county jail. . . .  Which I can't seem to find a photo of; Probably very few on the Internet so as not to assist any - ahem - "cake delivery services" to inmates.

Oh wait. . . .  Here's a shot of it on a postcard. Tallest building, almost smack in the middle.

But most of downtown is just like in this photo. . . .   Hometown USA. . . .

With a nice, quiet art-deco style library. . . .

The town's post office has an interesting mural, from the 1930s, titled "The Road to Eldorado":

But nowadays "All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else's name". . . .  'cept for two little nuggets I know about:

They and their mom and dad will only be a half-hour away, down in the "lizards mouth" on The Bay. . . . While I'll be on the bridge of the "lizard's nose":

Nom, nom, nom, nom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqe_Rr_r714

Charlie is ONE

I just video-phoned Jess & Jamie & Teddy and CHARLIE.  It's CJ's first birthday and he's ready to par-tay tonight.  They're having about 30 friends over for cake. . . .  Jessica is making a carrot cake, from scratch. Wotta woman!

Annnnnd Charlie is walking! He walked all the way across the kitchen and into his Mom's arms so I could see him do it on the video-phone. Jess promised me she will take video of it and post it to Google or Facebook. I intend to "pirate" it and post it here soon's I can.

Teddy was in the little springy thingie chair on the floor as Charlie walked by him and was laughing his butt off, very amused by his brother walking all over the place.

Today's celebratee

And here he was about one year ago.

Just a few days ago, with the rest of his fam

Memories of Metropolitan Life - and of some artwork there. . .

[Thanks to Anne Gnagi, a friend and former classmate at SUNY Geneseo, for unknowingly providing me with the inspiration and motivation to do this. . . .]

Haven't been on this blog in a very long time. A few years ago, when they told me they were going to start charging me because I had exceeded the free storage space allowed, I decided to stop writing.  Gonna try again now. . .  hoping that just maybe they've upped the storage space limits that are allowed for free.

Here goes.

Been idly "surfing the 'net" this afternoon.  The following is something I just found on a site http://www.paintingconservation.net/murals.html  It interests me because these are the murals that I saw in the basement of the old Met Life "North Building" in Manhattan nearly every single workday in the 1970s. . .  in the basement cafeterias, the waiting-lines/lounge areas outside the cafeterias and in the stairwells while on my way back up from the cafeterias there in the basement to the ground-floor lobby. . . .

What another website writes about N.C. Wyeth and these murals is interesting:

"Like many illustrators Wyeth chose murals as one path to lasting fame[. . . .  ]  His most ambitious project was a set of murals for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. He was working on these beautiful images (sample below) when he died."

Michael and Beth (and maybe James?) may remember coming to the city with Eleanor to visit me at work and having lunch with me in that cafeteria.  There were many other murals by N.C. Wyeth as well as Andrew Wyeth in the cafeterias themselves and in the lounge/waiting-line-for-the-cafeteria areas of the basement. Most of them were of the Pilgrims in scenes depicting them working, going to church and celebrating Thanksgiving. This one in particular, I remember vividly. . . of a Pilgrim wedding procession, as imagined by Wyeth:

Others were of more birds (a flock of blackbirds flying across a dreary-looking sky adorned another stairwell) and there was one in particular of John and Priscilla Alden - which I believe was among many others right in the cafeteria - that I found online now:

There were many more there - every wall in the full city block area of the cafeterias was covered with murals. But eventually - in the 1980s - all of the murals were "peeled" off of the walls on their original canvasses (see that website mentioned above - by Hudson & Salah Art Conservation Studios)  and sent 'on tour' around the country to many museums.  Where they are now, I have no idea.  But there is a book that was printed at the time they were sent on that tour that I'd like to get - and put on my coffee table - some day. . .

Just another interesting (to me at least) tidbit about the North Building. . . .  It started being built in the late 1920s or early 1930s and was planned to become the world's tallest building, topping out at 100 floors. Because of financial constraints, tho, especially including the Great Depression, construction was done in stages - and those stages were added in ever-so-more-slowly fashion until construction finally ceased completely at the 29th floor.

I really do believe that the 1920s management of Met was serious about making the North Building the world's tallest because the South Building (clock tower) was the tallest building in the world from 1909 - when it was completed - until 1913, when the Woolworth Building opened downtown. (Having been robbed of the title of World's Tallest Building after a mere four years they and their scions must've been steamed.)

I did work in that South Building, too, on the floor just above the clock - and we could hear the clock's Big Ben-like chimes while at our desks, (altho they were heavily muffled by soundproofing) bonging every quarter-hour.

The truncated North Building & the South Tower of the old Met Life "campus" on lower Madison Avenue in Manhattan

From Sandy to Snowy

We had a sizable snowstorm here over the weekend.  Started out as rain on Friday morning and turned to snow by afternoon.  Kept on coming down all night long Friday night, and this is what I saw out my front door at 7am Saturday:

Looking straight out the door, to Rockland Court.  That's an unplowed cul-de-sac road between the trees.  It remained unplowed until the following day, since priority was given to plowing the thru-streets first.

My big pine tree, and my 'buried' car:

Later that day. . .  the backyard.  (Just so you can judge the depth of the snow, I'll tell ya that's a 6 foot stockade fence at the back end of the property.)

The shed. . .

Another way to get some idea of how deep the snow was. . . .  This is my picnic table.  Seems it has a pretty big "dome" of snow on it.

Looking across the front of my house, towards neighbors' Pete and Suzanne's.  I had forgotten that they were away for the week. . . .  in Las Vegas.   . . .and just got home late yesterday.  Suz told me they were stuck at the airport there until 3am. . . .  not only because the NY airports were closed, but because the plane they were supposed to board had one of it's engines "flame out."  A mess of a trip and a mess of a sight to come home to. . . .

Pete and Suz's - before they got home:

Looking from street in front of Pete and Suz's towards my place:

After the dig-out.  The gray car is my 95-year-old neighbor Rocky's.  He wanted to keep his driveway clear of it so that his Lizbeth's car - in their garage - would more easily be able to get out of the garage and down their driveway. 

Didn't lose any power during this storm.  Not many outages were reported at all.  L.I. Power Authority must have learned a few things from SANDY about how to handle big storms.  The worst that happened was that a lot of folks driving home from work on Friday afternoon got stuck in it. . . . REALLY stuck in it.  Cars were abandoned on roads all over the place.  I stayed at home all weekend until just this afternoon (Monday), when the roads were finally starting to be passable.  Just HAD to get out for awhile, do some shopping, and see what the mountains of snow piled up along the roads and in the parking lots looked like.

Putting the Gift Shop "Back Together" at Fire Island Lighthouse

Had a good day at the lighthouse today.  We got all new display cases and some new shelving units for the gift shop.  Only thing was, we had to assemble the furniture.  My pal Dave and I were assigned the job of putting together the Cashier's Stand. . . .  no easy task.  The instructions were diagrams, in the mode of IKEA-type assembly instructions.  Here we are coping:

We were all rewarded with a little "Pre-Super-Bowl Party" afterwards:

THAT, and the Mudslides provided by Linda, made it all worthwhile!