But this is Chico, too

My return to the copy desk at the Enterprise-Record and its nightowl hours have encouraged me to pursue anew a former languid daytime pastime of visiting Chico’s many fine coffeehouses. I’ve already returned to my old habit of playing the field.

I’ve rested my heels a couple of times at Café Flo, the perfect stop on a flaneur’s stroll from downtown Chico to Bidwell Park and back. It’s right where the businesses give way to residences. Café Flo was one of the first coffeehouses in Chico to offer fair trade coffee. Since then, it has become standard practice among the independents.

I had to smile when I overheard one patron tell another that the off-the-wall conversations that buzzed all around her could only happen at Café Flo. That may or may not be true, but customers there do seem to feel comfortable talking to each other. Café Flo feels like a large, cozy kitchen. It’s more than a place to drink coffee. It has a dimension of cordiality that goes a step being its function as a business.

I’ve also spent a couple of late mornings at the Coco Caffé on Mangrove Avenue. This isn’t a stop on a flaneur’s stroll. You don’t walk along Mangrove for pleasure. To find Coco Caffé you have to remember that it’s the more northerly of two almost identical-looking strip malls. Having made those disclaimers about its location, I can report that it’s as relaxing an oasis as Café Flo. The only difference is that there doesn’t seem to be any cross conversation among the customers. People do spend time hanging out there, they either come alone to read or use their laptop or with one or two friends to talk.

I continue to stick with my regulars: Café Mondo, Moxie’s, Café Paolo, the Naked Lounge and Jump Start Espresso every time I have the oil in my car changed. Jump Start shares the lobby with my mechanic, C & M Automotive.

These days I’m in an expansive mood when it comes to choosing coffeehouses, but my loyalty lies entirely with the locals. There’s no need in Chico to go to a chain.

Posted by at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Talking to my son Todd, who is almost 21, is one of the ways I keep up with what’s up with Generation Y. Reading the Synthesis and The Orion and watching Chico State University students at play give me additional insights. As an amateur sociologist with strong biases, I’ve come to the conclusion that baby boomers rule. But it’s intriguing to compare my generation with those that came before and after it.

An ad in The Orion gave me a sense of how things have and haven’t changed since I was young. The ad consists of a photo of a species of primate (not enitrely unlike the drawing that illustrates this entry) accompanied by text that says: “See Hairy grow. See Hairy go on a date. See Hairy take his clothes off. See Hairy not get some ...” It then exhorts male readers: “Don’t be hairy” and urges them to get a cut and a wax at their business, which offers and array of tonsorial and other cosmetic services.

What hasn’t changed is the belief that everyone is getting “some” except the unlucky few, and that this can be easily remedied. What has changed is that male body hair has become a sexual turn off.

The idea of yanking my hair off with wax creeps me out. You see, in my day, male hairiness was a good thing. The reason men wore their shirts half-unbuttoned in the 1970s was to flaunt their chest hair. Back then, a buff torso wasn’t even mandatory. Being follicly unchallenged from neck to navel and the wearing of flashy chains was all you needed to be appealing.

As an older yet wiser man, I appreciate the arbitrariness of this change within a single generation. Young men today are aping a style that was popular during the time of the Roman empire. A hairy chest has no more or less intrinsic appeal than a waxed or shaved chest, but who knows how many times this cycle has repeated itself in the last couple of thousand years. It’s how fashion works.

I've found at least one reason to be happy I’m not young at this point in history. Such a futile effort to defy nature sounds like a lot of work. I can sympathize with women, who have seldom had the benefit of living in an era that didn’t demand they keep their limbs and face shaved, waxed or depilated.

Posted by at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We’re halfway through a walk around a block bracketed by four vintage corner buildings.

Starting at the southwest corner of W. Second and Main streets, head south on Main. Made in Chico is in the middle of this block. I visited it this morning just to refresh my memory about what it sells: books about Chico, books written by Chicoans, CDs by Chico musicians, local food products in bottles and jars, housewares, jewelry, clothing and art glass. Could you expect to run across Made in Stockton, Made in Bakersfield and Made in Redding stores? I doubt it. Why do I doubt it? Because they’re not Chico.

On the northwest corner of Main and Third streets is the building that housed Oser’s Department Store for almost 100 years. At one time, every community had a locally-owned department store, but by the late 20th century, just about all of them had vanished.

One of this building’s best features is the garland that decorates the cornice, making it look like a gift-wrapped box. The building has been vacant for a while, but new owners Scott and Ellen Stephens of Vina plan to remodel it and divide the first floor into small retail spaces, reminiscent of the Garden Walk Mall. The second floor will become office space.

Turn right on Third and head west until you reach the large corner building at the Broadway intersection. It has been around since about 1890. The exposed brick wall on the Third Street side is its most obviously 19th century feature. The building was remodeled in about 1920, when the second floor was removed and the top portion of the front of the building was faced with bricks.

In the last 117 years, this building has been used as a saloon, grocery store, pharmacy and, more recently, clothing stores.

When you turn right to head up Broadway, you’ll see that this building and the old Bank of America building take up all of the block, except for a parking lot between them.

Join me again soon for another walk around the block.

Posted by at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The theme of this walk around the block is amazing corner buildings.

Three of the bookend buildings in this block, bounded by Broadway and W. Second, Main and W. Third streets, have been around since the 19th century. Even the one 20th century building is older than most baby boomers’ parents. Give thanks for the durability of these buildings by singing the Beatles song that goes “Let’s all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born, though she was born a long, long time ago.”

Let’s start with the youngster, the vacant Chevy’s restaurant building at the southeast corner of Broadway and Second. With its gaudy accent colors, it’s all tarted up with no place for customers to go, except for Jamba Juice, which occupies a small space on the first floor.

It started out its life as the home of Bank of America, which built its sixth California branch at this corner in 1931. This is one of the few Chico buildings that was done in the moderne style. Among its more prominent features are the truncated corner tower and the decorative parapet and entrance arches.
Heading east on Second, the scaffolding covering the facade of the building that houses Magna Carta will catch your eye. The front of this building is covered with ceramic tile that was added in the 1930s to give it a more contemporary art deco appearance.

The building on the southwest corner of Second and Main, which now houses Zucchini & Vine, was built in 1874 after a fire leveled the entire block. It was the site of a drug store for 97 years, from 1874 until 1971. It has undergone some remodeling, but the tall arched windows on the second floor help it retain its original Italianate -style appearance. This is one of downtown Chico’s oldest remaining commercial buildings.

Join me again next time and we’ll complete this walk around the block.

Posted by at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I led a bus tour along The Esplanade as part of Butte County Air Quality Management District’s “Spare the Air Week” earlier this month, I was asked to fill out a survey. One of the questions I was asked was what would it take for me to ride the bus more often.

In all honesty, I had to answer “not having a car.” It’s similar to what I would say if someone asked me what would induce me to go to a laundromat (not having a washer and dryer at home) or could I think of any reason I would use a public library computer (not having a computer at home).

In Chico, most people ride buses because they are either too disabled to drive or too poor to own a car. This is a great service, but most of us have decided we can get along without it.

When I lived in the East Bay, I took the bus to school and rode the BART train to San Francisco. Public transportation makes sense in large, densely populate metropolitan areas with heavy traffic and high parking fees. But Chico isn’t like that. It’s relatively small and compact and traffic and parking problems aren’t bad enough to induce us to stop driving. I know a few commuters ride the bus to work, but I can’t imagine people using it for grocery shopping unless they don’t have access to a car.

One of Chico’s myths is that there was a golden age of transportation in the early 20th century. You could ride electric trains anywhere in the city and get connections to Sacramento and Oakland. People did this because they didn’t
have cars. Their only other choices were walking, riding on a horse or riding in a carriage pulled by a horse. When they got cars, they abandoned the train system.

For better or worse, we are living in the golden age of transportation. Our cars take us anywhere we want, anytime we want. We may feel nostalgic about trains and buses, but we value the freedom of movement that our own wheels offer us.

Posted by at 02:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tomorrow, after three years as a feature writer, I go back to my old job at the Enterprise-Record. I return to a part of the newsroom, a team of co-workers and a state of mind known as “the desk.” Here, the stories, headlines, photos and captions that comprise the pages of the paper are assembled. More importantly, this is where mistakes are supposed to be caught. When they’re not and readers cry out in disgust “Don’t you have any copy editors?” they are referring to those of us who work on the desk.

We are mortified whenever we hear those kinds of comments and experience a sinking feeling whenever we let a mistake get by. Being wrong in print means we’ve screwed up 30,000 times.

So you can see that being on the desk is a vital job, but it’s not nearly as fun as writing. I’m lucky. I will still have my weekly column “But this is Chico” and this blog to console me.

The downside of working on the desk is the hours. The pages have to be put together after the stories have been written and the photos taken, so copy editors work a late afternoon and evening shift. Because the E-R comes out every day without fail, the copy editors take turns working on weekends and holidays.

The upside of working on the desk is the hours. The mornings and afternoons are mine to do with as I please. One of the ways I plan to use this time is to walk a little every day, both for exercise and to enjoy the life of a flaneur — a sentient ambler through urban space, who occasionally seeks rest and refreshment at coffeehouses.

When I told my son about how I intend to spend my days, he said “That sounds British.” I can see his point. All that idling about sure doesn’t sound American. If I were the kind of person who went in for pen names, I’d call myself Flaneury O’Towner. I’d want something that sounds European, and I’d want it to be as colorful as the name “Steve Brown” is plain. I’d know it was a good name if it would make my son shake his head in disbelief and say “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

No, I probably wouldn’t, but anything that needles my son is worth bringing up. We no longer take walks together, but we enjoy teasing each other. I pretend to be more strange than I am, and he pretends to be more shocked about it than he is.

Taking strolls and joking with my son are ways to help me relax and recover from my gatekeeping duties on the desk.

Posted by at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Eons ago (it was more than two weeks, in fact) when I did my last post, I wrote that one of the goals of my upcoming vacation would be to make my mind a perfect blog blank. It was getting to the point where every thought I had was insisting I audition it for a bit part in cyberspace. It starting to feel harried and harassed.

Things went fine the first week. My mind got the rest it needed. But by week two, blog ideas were starting to storm the gates of my consciousness. I tried to pass them off as column fodder. After all, I told myself, my ban was not intended to apply to “But this is Chico,” which appears without fail in the E-R every Monday, whether I’m on vacation or not.

I quickly realized that this was just a mind game. I’m almost ready to start a long series of columns based on readers’ memories of being in Bidwell Mansion. It will run for at least a couple of months. And when I’m done with that, I have enough column ideas to last me through the rest of the year. The supply of topics vastly outstrips the space that is available for “But this is Chico.”

So, no. These nascent ideas that have been begging me to pay attention can only find a home in cyberspace, with its unlimited carrying capacity.

In my efforts to make my mind a blog blank, I came to appreciate anew not only the tremendous ability of the brain to filter experience, but how much experience there is to filter. Think of all the physical sensations we routinely block. Having to focus on breathing, blinking and swallowing would overwhelm us. What if we weren’t able to ignore the contasnt presence of that wiggly eel of a tongue that is trapped in our mouth? What if we couldn’t tune out the white noise that makes a ringing sound in our ears even in the most quiet moments? What if the process of digestion required us to think about it?

Add to that all the thoughts, emotions and urges that make our way willy-nilly to our brain every second we are awake or asleep and I start to be amazed out how this filter manages to keep from breaking down.

Or maybe it does break down from time to time. Maybe that’s what madness is. Maybe what the Cheshire Cat told Alice is true:

“I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

I guess I should take comfort in the fact that my blog brainstorming mechanism is in fine working condition. I’d prefer to have thoughts clogging my brain than to go mad.

Posted by at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)