Port of Stockton Celebrates Eighty Years
Agriculture, food processing, and several other Merced County industrial sectors rely on the transportation and logistics systems in place throughout the state of California. One of those transportation systems reached an important milestone this year.
The Port of Stockton is celebrating eighty years of service to the business community.
Every Saturday this summer, the Port has been providing free boat tours to the public in celebration of this milestone anniversary. Recently my wife and I took advantage of a two hour tour of the area served by the Port.
As our boat set off at the docks near downtown Stockton, we were impressed by the substantial investment of time and money to create an attractive vantage point of this city of four-hundred thousand.
The city has had a lot of negative attention in recent years with the local government filing for bankruptcy, CBS 60 Minutes describing the area as ground zero of the national mortgage crisis, and general bad news about crime.
Seeing the beautiful waterscape at the Port injects some optimism as well as civic pride.
Through the Port of Stockton, more than ninety percent of the chemical fertilizer used by the Central Valley agriculture industry comes in every year.
More than a million and a half tons of American products, everything from agricultural goods to tire chips, to cement goes through the waterway. The value of these products, as estimated by the Port, is over one-billion dollars annually.
The Port says it pays more than five million dollars annually in taxes.
Before the US Housing bubble burst in the middle of the past decade, the Port hit an all-time record in the shipping of concrete.
More than 2.2 million metric tons of cement were brought in for use throughout California and other states to feed the demand for new housing.
Those numbers fell throughout the housing crisis, but there is hope now as we see signs of a slow recovering in the building of new homes. Builders expect the demand for cement will intensify.
In 2011, the Port issued a report that showed the amount of material leaving the Stockton facility exceeded the value of goods coming into the facility. While the rest of the United States was experiencing a trade deficit, the Port of Stockton activity was going against the trends.
On top of that, management is proud of the environmental initiatives that have improved the soil, water, and air in the region.
We were shown wildlife habitats along the waterway as we passed under Interstate 5 and made our way west past Rough and Ready Island. Rough and Ready Island was a Naval Base that was turned over to the Port in 2000. The acquisition drastically increased the size and scope of services available to users of the shipping site.
Our cruise boat passed a number of warehouses that line the shoreline. There are seven-point-seven million square feet of covered storage space available to users. In addition to storage, the Port has U.S. Customs offices, scales, and an in-house police force providing security.
Both the Union Pacific and Northern Santa Fe Railroad lines run to the facility. With rail, truck, and ship traffic, this is truly a full intermodal transportation and logistics center.
There are also a number of private homes that line the north side of the waterway. These homes are considered prime real estate in a community that has hadmore thanits share of bumps in the midst of the mortgage crisis.
One home in particular shows its community pride with a replica of the Statue of Liberty on display for international visitors to see as they pass through the Port.
Nearly five dozen countries have some form of trade relationship that touches the Port of Stockton. Leadership at the Port takes pride in estimates that this community asset effectively supports over forty-five hundred jobs in the San Joaquin County area that includes Merced, Stanislaus, and other counties. These jobs generate an annual payroll of about $180-million to the region.
We take great pride in the bounty our farmers produce here in Merced County. Our agricultural producers know even the greatest products we can grow are of little value without a system to move these goods to the marketplace. Excellent products, coupled with a sound transportation system, add value to what our community contributes in terms of economic activity.
Thanks to the Port of Stockton and other transportation systems, the true economic engine of the Central Valley can be realized.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
A Buffalo Bills Sweatshirt and a Season of High Hopes
photo by steve newvine
I will be pulling out my faded blue Buffalo Bills sweatshirt soon as the National Football League season gets underway. The sweatshirt is now over twenty years old. It never brought any luck to my beloved Bills back when I bought it in the early 1990s. I should have tossed it out many seasons ago. But I can’t.
In the late 1980s, the Buffalo Bills started a winning dynasty. Back then, quarterback Jim Kelly, running back Thurman Thomas, and defensive back Bruce Smith were household names in western New York. Coach Marv Levy led a team of skilled players to several winning seasons, many division and conference titles, and four trips to the Super Bowl.
That’s where the heartache began for fans of the team.
The Bills went to the Super Bowl four times and never won. Each time, they came back to western New York as winners for getting into the big game. But each time, there was an undercurrent of “wait until next year”.
I became a Bills fan during those years. In fact, I became an NFL fan during those years. Before the Bills started winning, Sunday afternoons were reserved for family activities as my wife and I raised our two daughters.
Once Buffalo became a contender, I started to carve out a little time to watch their games. As our daughters got older, the Bills became more of a focal point in the house during football season. I never converted the girls to full-fledged football followers, but that did not stop me from trying.
My attempt to start a little football pool, much like the ones most work places had in those years, often found my daughters making picks without regard to the win and loss records, but more on jersey colors or interesting team names.
But it did not matter. I had a lot of fun following the Buffalo Bills in that time of my life. Every Sunday, I’d put on that blue sweatshirt and watch their game.
As the Bills’ winning years started to fade from view, I continued to watch the NFL. By the time I moved to California in 2004, there wasn’t much to cheer about for my team. Every season started with optimism. Every season ended with hopes for better luck next year.
The one thing that remained constant has been my faded blue sweatshirt. I’ll retire it when the Buffalo Bills win a Super Bowl.
In the meantime, I have come up with some rules I’ll follow as this newest season of football gets underway:
I will not resign myself to believe any team that starts 0-3 is out of it for the season.
I will not be convinced that any team starting the season at 3-0 has a playoff berth locked up.
I will use the time between the end of the Sunday late afternoon game and the start of Sunday Night Football to get out of my chair and exercise.
I will diversify my snack food mix to include cheese curls.
Having kept my pre-season resolution not to care about exhibition games, I’ll refuse the temptation to talk back to the television when an announcer says, “He looked good in the pre-season.”
I’ll make a better effort to remember who won on Sunday when I’m watching Monday Night Football.
I will add to this list one more item: I will continue to wear my Buffalo Bills sweatshirt every Sunday throughout the football season.
Here’s to another season of America’s game. Enjoy!
Steve Newvine lives in Merced.
Remembering the Day Elvis Died
photo by steve newvine
I was twenty years old the night I heard that Elvis Presley had died at his home in Memphis. The date was August 16, 1977.
My shift as a checker at a grocery store ended at nine o’clock that evening. Unlike most nights, I drove home without the radio on. When I got home, my parents asked me whether I had heard the news.
They told me. I reacted in shock to the few details we knew that night: heart attack, at his mansion called Graceland, and fans were holding a vigil in front of the home.
I went to my room and began tuning in radio stations on my Sony AM/FM/record player. All over the radio dial, disc jockeys were playing Elvis songs, interviewing fans, and sharing stories about man who elevated rock-and-roll into popular culture.
I became an Elvis fan on December 6, 1968. That was the night NBC broadcast Singer Presents Elvis. Singer referred to the sewing machine company that sponsored the one-hour special.
The show was billed as the first television appearance by Elvis in nearly a decade. I was impressed with the long list of hits he performed. I was really impressed by the closing song If I Can Dream. The next day, I bought the record.
Over the years, I’d buy each new Presley single. In the Ghetto was the next single release coming in the spring of 1969. Suspicious Minds came later that year. Kentucky Rain would soon follow. I bought them all.
I saw the songs shift from rock-and-roll to more of a country-rock sound in the mid-1970s. It didn’t matter to me. I was a fan right on through to college where I studied to be a radio announcer and ended up being a television reporter. I even had a part time job at a radio station where I could play his records even as his popularity flattened in the last two years of his life.
And that leads to that night in August when I heard that Elvis had died. The disc jockeys I listened to that evening were paying tribute to the man who popularized the music of a generation. Radio was hosting a wake. Those of us who enjoyed the music took part by simply tuning in.
At 11:30 that evening, I moved from the radio in my bedroom to the television set in the living room. NBC was airing a half hour Presley retrospective with David Brinkley as the anchor.
A friend of mine recorded the audio from that broadcast and gave me a copy. I have probably played that tape hundreds of times. I’ll never forget how David Brinkley kicked off the broadcast with what amounted to a reason why America cared about the loss of the rock-and-roll icon:
“It didn’t matter a great deal whether you liked Elvis or not. He changed our lives. So did a lot of other peoplechange parts of our lives. Montovani played Charmagne. We heard it a thousand times on the radio, in elevators and at the dentist office.
But it didn’t change anything. Elvis Presley did. He changed the way then teenage America thought about things: public entertainment, popular attitudes, toward behavior and attitudes about dressing and sex. And so when he died today from a heart ailment at the age of forty-two, people felt a sense of loss whether they ever liked his singing or not.”
I got through that night thanks to the community of broadcasters who wouldn’t let this death go unnoticed. The fans kept up the outpouring of sympathy on through the funeral a few days later. That affection for Elvis has kept on going ever since.
Soon, we would read of allegations of drug abuse, physical decline, and just plain weird things that went on during those final years. The image of a slick rock-and-roll icon was tarnished for a long time.
But the music endured. And with time, the entertainment industry has found a place for the man who, as David Brinkley said so eloquently some thirty-six years ago, changed things.
We have Elvis Presley to thank for that as well.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced.
School Spirit at El Capitan High School
A student car wash fund raiser is a common site on just about any Saturday in our community. But when the fund raiser is held at a school that has yet to open its’ doors for classes, the event takes on a special significance.The car wash was held in late July to tie in with the community open house for Merced’s newest high school: El Capitan High School (ECHS).
Among the many things I had to grow accustomed to when I started living in California nine years ago was the start of the new school year in August. Keep in mind I’m a transplant from another part of the country. Most schools in the northeast United States begin classes on the day after Labor Day.
El Capitan High School is located at the city’s northernmost border. The school is setting the stage to be the jewel in the district’s crown. At the very least, it has one outstanding benefit: on a clear day outside the east side classrooms, students may enjoy a view of the Sierras. When I was in high school, the closest thing to a distraction outside the classroom window was watching a local farmer operate his manure spreader.
This campus speaks state of the art at every level. During that recent community open house tour, my wife and I learned there would be no student lockers. Each student will have a laptop where all their textbooks will be digitally stored. We saw the library that will have very few paper books but lots of computer connectivity.
Outside, there are two football fields, many tennis courts, numerous outdoor basketball courts, and a large swimming pool. You get the feeling that once classes begin, there will hardly be any time when there isn’t some sort of activity going on among these outdoor athletic facilities.
photo by steve newvine
Inside, there is a large gymnasium with lots of room for fans to cheer on the El Capitan Gauchos. There’s also a smaller “practice gym” with no spectator seats. My wife joked that when she went to school the practice gym was better known as the “girls gym”. Thank goodness those days are behind us.
There’s a large quad in the middle of the array of buildings. The quad includes an amphitheater. The design will encourage social interaction. Our tour guide at the open house, an incoming freshman named Markus, says he is really impressed with the trash cans that have the school name cut through the metal.
750 students will make El Capitan their academic home this year. In their first academic year at ECHS, only freshmen and sophomores will attend. Incoming freshmen will join the student population over the next two years so that by 2015, the school will serve students in all four high school grade levels. Eventually, the student population will rise to about 1,800.
It is an exciting time for students at El Capitan High School. The start of a new academic cycle is always special. At schools throughout Merced County, students should be coming back to shinny floors, freshly painted walls, and updated landscapes. They will come prepared with new school supplies, new school clothes, and maybe a change in hairstyle. With any luck, they should also be welcomed by recharged faculty, encouraged by energized parents, and basking in a culture of lifelong learning.
Those students raising money for their school activities are doing much more than washing cars. They are engaging in a journey that offers knowledge, connectivity, and community service.
We should all be optimistic for the promise of this new school year.
Memories and Photographs
Remember when taking a picture was a special thing in your family. My parents’ photograph albums are filled with snapshots from birthdays, graduations, first communions, and other special events. In our house, a camera was a very common accessory on many occasions.
My family’s photograph albums are also filled with many pictures of things that are not tied to a special event. There are shots from a heavy snowfall, kids playing croquet in the backyard, or family members chowing down at a picnic.
Today with digital photography and web services such as Facebook and Instagram, I feel as though the special aspect of taking pictures has lost something. I remember having to wait a week from the time we sent a roll of film in by mail for processing to when the pictures were returned by mail. Today, you can post an image on-line within seconds of taking the picture.
I guess that’s why I got a little nostalgic this week when an envelope containing old photographs arrived at my mail box.
My sister found the pictures while helping my dad clean out his attic. I cherish this gift of old photos. I’m not only grateful to my sister for sending them to me. I’m also appreciative that someone took the time many years ago to make sure special moments were documented on film.
The package contains some prints that are quite familiar. There’s a shot of my dad’s family: Dad, his two brothers, his sister, and his mom and dad. I remember the original hanging on the wall in my grand-parents’ home during the years I was growing up. It was taken in the family parlor at the home where Dad was raised.
There are a few pictures of my dad from his high school years. I had not seen any of these. In one shot, he’s smiling broadly. In another, he had a quite serious look on his face.
There is a baby picture of me at about one-year old. I believe it was colorized using some kind of 1950’s technology. I guess I was a happy baby, or at least happy at the time that photograph was shot. There’s a big smile across the face of this future husband, father, and writer of columns and books.
Also in the batch is a three-shot featuring my sister, brother, and me. We’re dressed up in our Sunday best for that studio shot. I was probably four years old. I have no real memory of the time it was taken.
There’s a shot of my mother with my two daughters taken in the mid-1980s. I took that picture and sent a copy of it to my family at the time I had the film processed. My mom passed away thirteen years ago. Anytime a picture of her shows up, it brings back nice memories as well as an appreciation for her desire to take pictures, maintain photo albums, and capture those special times in all our lives.
According to my sister, these photos were kept in a box belonging to my grandmother. When my grandmother passed away nearly twenty years ago, my mom got the box of photographs. She probably put them away in the attic where they remained until my sister found them.
The pictures were well travelled, yet they didn’t leave my dad’s house for the past two decades.
Now, some of those treasured memories belong to me. I’ll keep them for as long as I can. Hopefully, they will pass on to the next generation. By that time, who knows what Facebook or Instagram will do to our traditions of taking and storing photographs. All I can hope for is that future generations of my family will have as great an appreciation as I have had for these slices of life, preserved through the magic of photography.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Merced’s Musical Memories
I recommend that before the summer comes to an end, spend about an hour at the Merced County Courthouse Museum and see the exhibit on our community’s musical heritage.
The exhibit, called: “On the Banks of the Old Merced: A Music History” opened June 27th at an open house that included live musical performances.
The woman’s singing group Harmony Valley Chorus sang California Here I Come and a song written about our area On the Banks of the Old Merced. By the way, the song about Merced is pretty good. To paraphrase a contestant on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand’s Rate-A-Record segment, “I liked the beat, but found it hard to dance to. I’d still give it a 90.”
Early rock and roll local legend Roddy Jackson apologized to the opening night audience that doctor’s orders were to not sing or play. He then talked for about a half hour sharing his memories of early rock and roll and his contribution to local history.
Roddy introduced three musicians who made up the Merced Blue Notes, a blues band that captured a lot of attention in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The music returned with Crystal Syphon, a psychedelic rock band that recorded one album back in their heyday.
The performances were well received by the crowd at the Courthouse Park on that opening night of the exhibit. I hope some of the folks made it inside to see the exhibit. “On the Banks of the Old Merced: A Music History” is a fascinating look at the City of Merced through music, photographs, and artifacts from the past.
We saw the trumpet that belonged to Warren Lewis, sheet music from Along the Banks of the Old Merced, records (both 45-singles and 33-long playing albums) among dozens of pieces that make up the exhibit.
The visitor can read the stories behind the people who were making local history in the early days of rock and roll. There are dozens of photographs depicting some of the musicians. A lot of familiar landmarks are shown as they were seen decades ago.
Fortunately for us on the opening night of the exhibit, many musicians and their families were on hand to recall their recollections from that era. One band member told he always thought the name of his band was spelled one way, and learned for the first time after viewing a vintage concert poster, that the band, or possibly the concert promoter, preferred the spelling in a different way.
Crystal Syphon’s musicians may look familiar. Many of the band’s members were part of The Beatles Project that covered many of the Fab Four’s hits for several years up until about a couple of years ago when the group began to focus on returning to their roots.
Interestingly, you won’t find too much about The Beatles Project among the items on display at the museum. That is because their history is far too recent. This exhibit is divided into four categories: Early Musical Development, The Swing Era, Rock & Roll, and Music Melting Pot of the 1980s.
“On the Banks of the Old Merced: A Music History” will be on display through early October. The Museum, at 21st and N Streets in Merced, is open Wednesday through Sunday, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
This exhibit is about Merced’s past. I encourage you to take a look before it closes. You’ll learn something about early rock and roll as well as other categories of music. You’ll get a better understanding of Merced area musicians and their contributions to the evolution of the art form.
With any luck, you may be entertained by stories about the people who loved their craft and who were willing to share it with all of us.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Golf Hazards
photo by steve newvine
Having spent a lot of time on golf courses over the past few years, one can discover certain types of hazards. Some are a direct result of nature. Some are a direct result of human nature.I squeeze in at least one nine-hole round of golf every week.
Before moving to California from the northeastern United States nine years ago, golf season lasted all of five months. I can now play every week of the year. For about the past three years, playing golf every week for fifty-two weeks has been my New Years’ resolution. I have not achieved it yet, but I’m getting closer to that goal every year.
As for hazards, why would anyone complain about a golf season that never ends? I don’t complain. But I have encountered some problems on local courses that might give the golf purist reason to become rankled. So with my tongue firmly in my cheek, here are some frustrations I’ve endured.
Earlier in the spring, I found tumbleweeds littering one of my favorite courses. They would roll through the fairway as they made their way across the landscape. Some remain stationary as I approached a putting green. They’re easy to move out of the way, but they have proven to be a pesky diversion.
I usually see tumbleweeds in the spring, and they usually are accompanied by winds; another nature-induced hazard. All I need is the cowboy singing group Sons of the Pioneers to serenade my golf group with the song Tumbling Tumbleweeds.
I remember one night a few years ago playing at the Rancho Del Rey course in Atwater. I was walking up to the putting green to survey what my chances would be to sink a putt. Pondering the possibility of getting par on the hole, I spotted a dog from one of the homes that encircle the course coming up onto the green.
The dog was friendly, but a little greedy. It picked up my ball with its mouth and ran away. I never saw that ball again. While amused by the dog’s behavior, I can only wonder what kind of ruling I would have received had the animal dropped the ball in the cup.
Nature and animals are always watched by golfers for potential hazardous situations. But one shouldn’t leave out the human element when it comes to difficult days on the golf course.
A golf partner and I were behind a group of young men on an area course one hot summer afternoon. These young men were learning the game, but had not yet mastered the elements of etiquette expected from more seasoned golfers. In short, they couldn’t keep their mouths shut.
I remember both my partner and I sharing a bemused laugh after one of the golfer’s struck his ball and yelled to the other members of his foursome, “Hey you guys better watch out, my ball might hit you.”
Hey pal, we have a term for that particular situation. One word spoken loudly: fore!
On a least a couple of occasions in my three decades of playing the game, I have encountered the kindly older gentleman who believes a golf course is the perfect place to discuss religion. Whether it’s asking where I am in my faith journey, or whether I know what the true meaning is of an upcoming religious holiday, I really don’t want to discuss it while I’m trying to break forty on the front nine.
I try to be polite. If that ever happens to me again, I’ll remind the well-intentioned proclaimer what the Reverend Billy Graham has said about religion and the game of golf. “The golf course is the only place where the Lord doesn’t answer your prayers.”
I have lots of disappointing score cards to prove that point.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Ping Pong and Family Time
Recently, my brother told me he was putting the old family ping pong table out for his upcoming garage sale. After more than forty years in the family, the old ping pong table is going to either the first person to pay the asking price or the first person who makes “a better offer”. I suspect it will go to the first person willing to clear it out of the garage.
I’m going to miss that table.
It was heavy duty, made of plywood and two-by-four boards. That’s the only way ping pong tables were made back in the early decades of the last century. It was sturdy. It was not necessarily portable like the lightweight, folding game tables that you see today.
It was at least forty years old when we acquired it in the early 1970s from a friend of my mother. This friend wanted to clear space in her attic, and thought our family might enjoy playing the game at our house.
To accommodate the table, we had to remove a wall between two rooms in the first floor of our house. That job in and of itself was a story to share.
It was Thanksgiving 1970. We had come home from a dinner with aunts, uncles, and cousins at my Grandma’s house. After changing into work clothes, my whole family: brother, sister, Mom, Dad, and I attacked the wall between the two rooms. I never saw so much dust and plaster in my life as we sledge-hammered our way through the wall and emptied about a dozen trash cans of plaster onto a trailer bound for the dump.
I remember the exact day because after about two hours of bull work, we all cleaned up, and watched the television premier of the movie Oklahoma. According to Wikipedia, that night was November 27, 1970.
We let the dust settle in that corner of our house on Friday. We spent that day after Thanksgiving engaged in the holiday tradition of Christmas shopping. I think we also bought some ping pong paddles and a net to cross the center of the table.
On Saturday, after a few runs with the mop, the room was prepared for painting. We did that project again as a family. I recall it didn’t take long for us to paint the walls. Nothing takes too long when you’re dedicated to the mission. Our mission was to play ping pong.
By Sunday, my Dad and brother set up the ping pong table. Our family then began learning and playing the game. Over the next few years, the table provided lots of competition among family and friends.
When I think about that old ping pong table, I think about the games. I think about waiting my turn to take on the winner of the game I was watching. I remember wanting to hold onto my winner’s spot for as many games as possible. My older brother won most of the games. I recall playing doubles, always with one of our family of five having to sit out the game while the other four went into battle. I remember gentle lofts of the ball coming over the net only to be slammed back so fast the opposing player had no way of returning the shot.
But I also remember how getting ready for that ping pong table became a true family endeavor. The whole family got involved in making space available so that the table could be set up. We all worked to prepare the room. And we all played the game together.
We took the table down after a few years once the novelty of the game wore off. Dad insulated and paneled the room, turning it into his den. He had his desk there. He built a sewing table for Mom and she moved her sewing machine into the room. The ping pong table was stored in the barn behind the house.
Several years later, my brother set up the table in the basement of his house shortly after he got married. The game of ping pong was revived for a few more years until the space was needed to store firewood.
And now, in a few weeks, some other family may take it home, and start new memories of ping pong and family time.
I hope they have as much fun with that ping pong table as my family had when it was part of my life growing up.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Having a Good Time, Wish You Were Here
Consider the photograph of this Adirondack region lake a postcard from my recent vacation in upstate New York. On the back of this virtual postcard are the words I used for the title of this column: having a good time, wish you were here.
I visited my hometown recently. I try to go back once a year to visit relatives and friends who stayed there while I moved on. It’s always good for me to go back. With my hometown being nearly three-thousand miles away from Merced County, it’s a challenge to make the trip.
This year’s trip was nothing unusual. I arrived jet lagged from nearly twelve hours of flying and waiting on planes at three airports. The final leg of the airplane journey had me flying over the campus of Syracuse University where I earned my bachelors’ degree over thirty years ago.
I crammed in a short visit with a college friend before making my way to relatives. I attended a ceremony honoring outstanding students at Herkimer County Community College where my higher education journey began.
I saw a good friend who is coping with dialysis and all its’ complications. Another friend was unavailable due to a prolonged hospitalization from his dialysis issues. A third friend wasn’t burdened with health problems so our visit was more upbeat than the others.
I spent a lot of time with my dad and my brother. I saw the neighbors and even spent a few moments with the son-in-law of a family friend who passed away since the last time I visited. I joined my dad for his weekly visit to the local senior housing facility where we played cards with some of the residents. This was my third consecutive year playing cards with the residents there. My dad does it every week.
My hometown has changed a lot in the three decades since I left to pursue my career. Three major employers in my hometown and surrounding communities have closed. Some of the jobs lost have come back through expansion of existing businesses and the attraction of new companies.
A lot of jobs disappeared forever. Main Street in my hometown once boasted two grocery stores, a bank, hardware store, flooring store, Laundromat, two diners, and three taverns. That same area now claims two of the three taverns, and one small grocery store. Three newer businesses occupy some of those vacant buildings. But it’s not the same.
I reached an accommodation of my hometown many years ago. I accept that it may never be the same town I left after I graduated from college and left to pursue my career. The village has changed, just like many places have changed over the years. I take it all in stride. Many of my family members still live there, and they would likely never move. It’s home.
I do take a lot of pride in the community that helped raise me as a boy. All the churches that were there back in the 1960s and 1970s are still operating. The volunteer fire department is going strong and is relied upon by the citizens.
The Firemen’s Auxiliary recently marked fifty years of existence and claims a handful of charter members still active in the organization. The community came together this spring to hold a fundraiser for one of my buddies coping with dialysis.
And there’s the natural beauty of the place. That’s why I took the picture of Brantingham Lake, a small body of water near my hometown. I keep it within view on my desk. It’s a reminder of what may have attracted people to settle down in Lewis County, New York in the first place. I know that scenes like this keep me coming back year after year.
I enjoyed my visit back east this spring. I’ll be back again next year.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Backstage Pass ~ Merced Theatre
Merced Theatre
Two entertaining venues on Main Street in Merced caught my attention on a spring-time Sunday afternoon.
The first was Playhouse Merced’s production of Urinetown, The Musical. My wife and I generally take in one or two shows during the Playhouse season. I’m glad this was one of them. The show grabbed a lot of attention, as well as a few Tony awards, when it debuted on Broadway a few years ago. Merced’s receptive audiences enjoyed the show.
I found myself becoming more and more amazed at how the Playhouse productions continue to get more sophisticated. Each production seems to raise the bar on what the local theater group can do in staging, set design, and performance.
The Merced Theatre Foundation
Following the show, we headed down Main Street to the Merced Theatre. The Merced Theatre Foundation was holding an open house to celebrate the first anniversary of the restored venue. For the first time, we were able to walk all over the place.
Our backstage pass was a community wide invitation to stop in during the three-hour Sunday afternoon window.
We were allowed to view many areas of the theater that the public ordinarily does not get a chance to see. With Foundation members sprinkled all over the place to answer questions and give us directions, we took the self-guided tour.
We entered through the main entrance underneath the marquee. The smell of popcorn set just the right mood for touring a movie theater.
Spanish style balcony
Our first task upon entering was to head up the stairs to the balcony. The Spanish style wall décor reminds you of the days when movie theaters were not cookie cutter stark boxes near shopping centers.
The balcony was where I took a picture of my wife sitting in one of the chairs along the sides of the structure. The view up there is impressive. While you’re not looking straight-on at the stage, the vantage point puts you well above the action.
Next, the two of us headed to the stage where we could see the audience from the perspective of a performer. The house lights that illuminated the audience seating may not have been the same as a spotlight shining in the eyes of a performer, but it was still a treat to be on stage.
The wings of the stage are reminiscent of the wings of any high school auditorium stage. There was even a spiral stairway that could take a stagehand all the way to the ceiling if the production called for that task. The spiral stairway was not open to the public.
Dressing Rooms
A Theatre volunteer told us how to go downstairs to the green room and the dressing rooms where the performers get ready for a performance. The green room (the name goes back to theater legend, but this room was actually painted beige) is where a performer who isn’t needed at a particular time during the performance waits until he or she is needed on stage.
There are two dressing rooms; each with a glittery star on door. Both dressing rooms had bathrooms and showers. You can imagine the performers nervously awaiting their call to come upstairs to the wings of the stage.
There’s a video camera shooting the stage, and the video feed is wired to the green room area.
Our back stage tour of the Merced Theatre, coupled with an entertaining musical at Playhouse Merced, made for a fun Sunday afternoon in our city. If you haven’t been to either yet, resolve to do that before the year is out.
If you haven’t been to either in a while, make plans to visit one or both in the near future.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Marking a Tragic Anniversary
photo by steve newvine
Thursday, April 4 almost passed without my noticing it was the forty-fifth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Junior. While the date didn’t have the same impact on me as November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, the death of Dr. King did awaken an awareness among my classmates and I about what was going on in our nation.
On April 4, 1968, I was a fifth grader in Mrs. James class at Port Leyden Elementary School in upstate New York. The shooting happened on a Thursday night. It was Holy Thursday night. The next day, Good Friday, classes were held for just the morning hours with dismissal for religious services at midday.
Mrs. James probably did not have much of a lesson plan for us on that half-day, but it made no difference. I recall most of that morning was spent watching news coverage from Washington, Memphis, and other cities throughout the northeast as outbreaks of violence were being reported. My classmates and I watched the coverage.
April 11th.
Few if any of us had heard of Martin Luther King prior to the shooting. All of that changed after April 11.
The topic of race was now being discussed in our classroom. Violence was now introduced to this group of naïve fifth graders. Most of us had faded memories of the assassination five years prior of President Kennedy, when were just first graders. Now, at eleven years of age, a lot of us grew up that day following the horrific event in Memphis.
I believe everyone in that classroom took in a lot over those few days in April of 1968. We watched the funeral services, the march along the streets of Atlanta, and still more scenes of violence all over the country. I won't speak for the others watching those images on television forty-five years ago, but I know the images made an impact on me.
Fourteen years later, Dr. King’s life would again touch me in the chance drive through the neighborhood where he was gunned down in Memphis. I was on assignment as a television reporter dispatched to do a report on the then fifth anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.
My photographer and I spent the day at the entrance to the Presley home: Graceland Mansion. We interviewed fans, shot lots of video, and tried to answer the question “Why are fans still mourning the loss of the rock and roll singer?”
When we finished gathering video, the photographer suggested we drive by the neighborhood where Martin Luther King was shot. The photographer knew the city pretty well, and I was interested in this kind of history. I wish I was journaling back then, because all I have are faded recollections of seeing the former Lorraine Hotel and thinking how tight all the buildings were in that part of town.
Fast forward another twenty years, and I find myself at the newly opened Martin Luther King monument in Washington, DC. This time, I was journaling. I wrote about how it felt to see this hero of the civil rights movement be memorialized with a large monument in the nation’s capitol. I wrote about the relative closeness of the King monument to the Lincoln Memorial; the very spot where he gave the famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
I was again taken back to that fifth grade classroom at Port Leyden Elementary. I was thinking seriously for the first time about race, violence, and change.
A lot would happen in our nation in the weeks and months following the King assassination in 1968. Robert Kennedy would be gunned down within two months. The Democratic National Convention would rock the city of Chicago later that summer with more violence and charges of police brutality on the streets of the Windy City. The Vietnam War would continue to rage seemingly out of control as more American soldiers paid the ultimate price.
It was a unique year for me. So much happened, and it was only the beginning. From that year forward, I became more aware of my world. I could almost feel my boyhood innocence giving way to the reality that I was living in a new day and age.
It was a year that still holds many memories, forty-five years later.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Grateful for my Gateway
photo by steve newvine
This column is the last one to be typed on my trusty old pre-millennium computer. Our Gateway brand system was purchased in the mid-1990s. It’s time for a change. We put it off for a long time.
The old computer is still working, but it is painfully slow. The new model promises to be faster, take up less space, and have far fewer wires than the old one. The new model combines the computer and flat screen into one compact unit. It will have just one cable going from it to the wall outlet.
The new system replaces the cube-like monitor, spare tire sized tower, and what seems like seven-hundred and fifty-three feet of wires that run from behind the old computer to various add-ons such as a printer, speakers, wireless router, and modem.
If the local salesperson’s assertions are correct, that can-of-worms cable mess behind our computer desk will disappear.
My fingers are crossed.
We had a few Apple computer products before purchasing the Gateway. We were given advice at the time that “Apple is nice, but we live in a PC world.”
I will miss that good old Gateway computer. So many things happened for me on that antique. My family’s first internet hook-up ran through that system back in the AOL (You’ve got mail.) era. I started my book-writing career on that keyboard; seven books were written and edited on that computer. My latest book project started on the Gateway, and will hopefully be finished later this year on the new system.
All of my opinion and editorial (op/ed) columns, beginning with a 2003 tribute to newsman David Brinkley, came out of that computer. My twice- monthly columns here on MercedCountyEvents.com pass through the darkness inside the Gateway microprocessor before seeing the daylight of the on-line world.
Our new computer promises a lot of things. I’m sure I’ll adapt as I have adapted to so many changes in my fifty-plus years. I remember someone in college referring to an electric typewriter as a “sort of computer” back in the 1970s.
I also remember when cell phones looked like a quart carton of milk. I remember when new cars were sold with a full-sized spare tire in the trunk.
A lot has changed in our lives.
I’ll get by with our new computer. But just in case, the old Gateway with the block-style monitor and all those wires, will stay in my closet. Just in case.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
A Report Card from the School
As it happens many times in life, we learn so much more from our children who speak about their challenges, their survival skills, and their life lessons. That was the case in Merced in late February when the educational community presented a status report on schools.
About two-hundred local people from all over Merced County were invited to lunch to receive a report on kindergarten through twelfth (K-12) grade student achievement. The lunch was sponsored by the Merced County Office of Education (MCOE). Program materials listed over seventy sponsors to the MCOE Foundation.
As most annual report events go, this one had all the elements that one would expect. There were the post lunch introductions of the local political and community leaders who were in attendance; although thankfully, the Superintendent grouped many of these so-called officials into sections such as “elected office holders” and “school board members”.
The assistant superintendent for Instructional Services, Kathy Pon did a presentation on California’s Common Core Standards that are being implemented into classrooms right now. The Standards are intended to help students be better prepared for college and/or the workforce by building on a pyramid of skills that begin with remembering and go up to the top where creativity comes into play.
The County School Superintendent Steve Gomes narrated over power point slides that touched on the statewide measurement system for a school’s academic performance and how it measures up to schools of similar sizes.
This system is known as the Academic Performance Rate (API), and according to the data in the printed version of the report, about forty percent of the County’s eighty schools are at or above the recommended target.
But the most memorable parts of the program came before the reports from the school officials started. Organizers invited two students to give presentations on how their lives have been positively impacted by their school experiences. Koata Moua is a student in the Career Technical program better known as ROP (Regional Occupancy Program) .
Delainie Inman is a student at UC Merced who shared her experience as a high school student initially seeking to go to college away from the Central Valley, but who later changed her mind and chose to remain in the Valley by attending UC Merced.
The decision to use students as presenters was a good one. The audience response to their stories drove home the point about why so many people remain focused on how our children are doing at school. We could all relate to their stories of overcoming obstacles, changing their minds when convinced that there may be alternative solutions to traditional thinking, and achieving success at all levels.
It was refreshing to see their enthusiasm, their brevity, and their poise. Speaking in front of two-hundred people is no easy task. When you are a teenager, the challenge is even more imposing. Both did a great job. We could all learn a thing or two from their life lessons.
The state of schools in Merced County is promising. There are always challenges. Even in a flourishing economy, schools come under the microscope. Times are tough now, but no one is ready to give up. There’s too much at stake to stop trying.
Certainly Delainie and Koata are not giving up. We can all learn lessons from them.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced. He serves on the MCOE P-16 Council, the Business Education Alliance of Merced, and the Merced County Workforce Investment Board.
Working Cars
It caught my eye in the parking lot of a local strip mall. There, in what I can say with the use of a cliché’, in all its ‘gleaming beauty’ it sat in the morning Merced County sun.
It was a 1972 Mercury Montego. It reminded me of a scale model kit I put together back when I was a kid. I asked the owners Peter and Eleanor about it and they told me it’s been in the family for over forty years.
It’s not uncommon to see vintage automobiles around Merced and throughout California. Most of the vehicles that are thirty, forty, or more years old, are basically “classic” cars that make their way to the many car shows and swap meets that define life in the Central Valley for auto enthusiasts.
But this one, the 1972 Mercury Montego, is a working car. The owners drive it regularly, fix it when it’s broken, and it’s been with them since the day Eleanor’s father bought it from McAuley Motors of Merced brand new forty-one years ago.
“My father drove it right up until he stopped driving,” Eleanor told me as I asked about the history of the car. “I got it after he passed away, and it’s been with us ever since.”
Eleanor and her husband Peter are proud of their Mercury. Peter likes working on cars and has been able to do most of the repairs to keep this one going as it’s racked up over 140,000 miles since it was new.
It’s not the only vintage car the couple owns. Eleanor drives a 1970 Buick Skylark.
“Peter put in a Corvette engine and Corvette wheels,” she says with a smile. She likes the more powerful engine but she’s not crazy about the sports car tires. She puts up with it because Peter did the work.
Their third vintage car is a 1979 Lincoln Continental. “That’s the ‘going out on the town’ car,” Peter says.
Any classic car person will tell you that ownership comes with a lot of concessions. Parts are harder and harder to come by, filling the gas tank is horrendous (it costs $120 to fill up the tank of the Lincoln), and in the case of larger vehicles such as the Mercury and Lincoln, garage space is at a premium.
“Our garage is pretty much just the car,” Eleanor says. “I barely squeeze by to get into the house.”
But there are so many plusses. Peter recalled a couple of occasions when the car was involved in fender bender accidents caused by other cars running into or backing into the Mercury and the Lincoln. The other cars, much newer than these vintage vehicles, received extensive damage, but the autos from the 1970’s sustained only minor bruises. “The bumpers could take a lot, Peter said. “I did a minor repair of a piece of vinyl in the bumper after one of the accidents, while the other driver was looking at a lot more damage.”
While Peter handles most of the repair work, the car occasionally needs the attention of a more specialized mechanic. When that happens, he takes it right back to McAuley Motors where he’s a regular and special customer. According to Peter, “There’s a guy down there who really knows the car well. He takes good care of it for us.”
At about fourteen miles to the gallon, the 1972 Mercury Montego will never make it on a “most fuel efficient” list. When I divide the 140,000 miles driven into the forty-one years the car has been of service, it works out to an annual average of about 3,100 miles. At this stage in the life the vehicle, not much is expected from it. Peter and Eleanor drive it around town to run errands and go to appointments. It’s in great shape and the couple intends to keep it that way.
“We’ve had offers to buy it,” Peter says. “But we just tell them, ‘thanks but no thanks’, it’s not for sale.”
Along California’s Beaten Paths with Huell Howser
When I first arrived in California from upstate New York nine years ago, I had many first impressions. These impressions included the rough condition of Highway 99 in the Valley, the abundance of vegetables and fruits available at local restaurants, and the frenzy of the real estate market in those pre-recession days.
Other impressions of California came through my television screen from the California’s Gold program hosted by Huell Howser who passed away earlier this month.
During our first years living in the Central Valley and not knowing much about what to see and do in the state, my wife and I watched Huell take us on the road to practically every corner of California. His visits would consume the entire half-hour of the program, unlike the minute-and-a-half features I was accustomed to seeing from local television news.
He wasn’t much for the so-called rules of producing video stories. His segments were essentially shot in a rambling style with the host inviting the videographer to follow him as he walked through museums, nature settings, and iconic California sites. He’d even have the camera roll while inside the vehicle he drove as they would tour all over the state. There wasn’t a lot of editing to the shows. Most of the segments were shot “freestyle” with the host telling his videographer to “pan over there” or to “zoom in on this”.
A friend of mine who is in the television news business says Huell probably broke over ten-thousand rules of television story construction. That may be an exaggeration, and it misses the point. California’s Gold was off-the-cuff television. It was heartfelt, and thanks to the homespun narration, it was entertaining.
Over the years, I saw Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Chico, and other places first on California’s Gold, then later on my own. Huell Howser made the introduction; I did the rest.Good friends saw to it that I take in Yosemite, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hollywood when I first arrived in California in 2004. But it was Huell Howser and his California’s Gold program that made me anxious to tour the Missions along the coast, and curious to explore the geographical center of the state at North Fork in Madera County. His program fed my desire to find the places off the beaten path. I shared some of those places in my book 9 From 99, Experiences in California’s Central Valley, in 2010.
Since my first impressions California some nine years ago, some changes have taken place. Highway 99, while still not the greatest travel thoroughfare in the state, has gone under some improvements that include more six-lane stretches of roadway. The real estate market is making some recovery after those very lean years when the recession hit the region the hardest. But many things have stayed the same. And thanks to Huell Howser, many Californians were able to see and learn more about the history of the place we call home.
We can thank Huell Howser, for taking many of us off the beaten path all these years.
Steve Newvine is a former television journalist and author of 9 From 99, Experiences in California’s Central Valley. He lives in Merced.
Business Cards
I managed to save at least one business card from every job I had where a business card was required. Looking back on them now, I see these cards as symbols of my professional life.
The very first business card I had didn’t have my name on it. I was a summer relief account representative for a radio station. Management did not want to invest in a box of calling cards for someone who would be with them only a few months.
I remember typing in my name of some of the cards so that my clients could ask for me if they called back. If you ever sold radio time, you would know that no one ever called me.
I have cards from my years as a television journalist. In fifteen years as a reporter and producer, I amassed cards from television stations affiliated with the three major networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC.
I got out of the business before FOX became a television network. I have cards with a different look from the same station as frequently these stations would change their logo to give their image a new look.
I have cards with logos I either designed or approved the design of from a couple of organizations where I was the person in charge. I wasn’t much of a designer, but I did insist on one basic principle for the layout of a business card: the phone number had to be in a typeset large enough for the naked eye to see.
Even today, many business cards try to cram too much information into the small space. The most important thing on the card, the phone number, is often so small that I feel as though I need a microscope to read the number.
I also have a card from the time when I was looking for a job. It had my name, address, email address, and phone number (all in large type). Someone told me I should put some highlights of what I could offer an employer on the back of the card.
I didn’t want to spend any more money on printing, so I left it just the way it was. Fortunately, I wasn’t out of work too long.
All of my business cards read horizontally, as opposed to some cards you see where you must turn the card a quarter turn. Someone said this was a good idea because it would stand apart from all the other cards someone had.
As a person who accepts business cards from associates, I can tell you that I’d rather have them the standard way.
When I think of unique business cards I received over the years, two examples come to mind. One was from the Eastman Kodak Company. Their employee business cards back in the 1990’s were photographs, printed on Kodak paper (“for a good look” as their commercials at the time would say).
allen bailey
The other unique card came from Allen-Bailey Tag and Label, Incorporated in Caledonia, New York. This manufacturer of tags and labels for industrial, medical, and professional applications uses a calling card that is a business card size version of a price tag complete with reinforced hole at the top.
They still use that design, and according to company Partner and Director of Marketing Richard Phelps, Junior, the tag style goes back to before 1975 when he joined the company. “It was a man by the name of J. N. White who I believe first proposed it to Allen-Bailey,” Richard says. "JN was our resident artist at the time and he went on to found his own company, J.N. White Designs.”
Richard says in his nearly forty years with the company, the card design still gets lots of comments. “I've yet to hand out one of my business cards at a show or face-to-face with customers when it does not generate a response for its uniqueness.”
This year, Allen-Bailey added the QR Code on the back of the card. The code is linked to the company's website. The company is looking to link the code to the person's individual contact profile within Outlook.
I look at the business cards I had over the years, and I think about each and every job I held. With all the changes in technology and business practices in the digital age, it’s nice to know that one tradition, the exchange of business cards, continues to thrive.
Nothing beats the old fashioned business card.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced. He’s grateful to the team at Allen-Bailey Label & Tag for providing him with a picture of their current business card.
Meeting Bush 41
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in the past several days about former President George H. W. Bush. Some may know him better by the label “41” or “Bush 41” denoting that he was our nation’s forty-first President.
He’s the only President I met in person. While I have been at individual events where former President’s Ford, Reagan, and Clinton were speakers, I actually had the privilege of talking to the man who served from 1989 to 1993. In fact, I encountered “41” on three occasions.
The first time, he was candidate George Bush running for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1980. I was a television reporter in Binghamton, New York. By the time his campaign reached upstate New York, many believed Ronald Reagan was about to lock up the nomination.
But George Bush wasn’t giving an inch. He told a group of supporters, and the curious, that he would campaign in every state in order to win the nomination. I was very young, just out of college, when I asked him the question that would immediately tell him how much I knew about national politics.
“Whose the frontrunner?” I asked in a private interview shortly after his speech.
“Reagan,” he answered without acknowledging that I nervously asked a very lame question. Everyone knew Reagan was the frontrunner. The question shouldn’t have been asked in the first place. He treated my question with respect. I was impressed.
Eight years later, I would be covering the Republican National Convention at the New Orleans Superdome as a special projects producer for a television station in Rochester, New York. My job was to coordinate our crewand review news copy for content so that daily reports could be fed via satellite to our station. I still have my press credential from that convention.
Vice President Bush came into town with no doubt who would carry the party right to the White House. Three things stand out for me about that convention in 1988. First, was the thunderous applause given President Reagan when he entered the convention floor earlier in the week. Second, was the line from the acceptance speech nominee Bush gave on the closing night of the convention: “Read my lips, no new taxes.” Again, the applause was deafening.
Third, was how sleep deprived I was upon my return home. For about a week, I could take a nap on the spot anywhere and at anytime.
My wife and I met former President Bush about four years after he lost his bid for a second term to Bill Clinton. Mr. Bush gave a speech at the State University of New York College at Geneseo. As the head of the local chamber of commerce, I was invited by the College to meet the former President at a reception immediately following the speech.
We waited in line until it was our turn to pose for a picture and shake hands with the former President. My camera ran out of film so our picture never came out.
But I did shake Mr. Bush’s hand, and told him of our first encounter some seventeer years earlier. I was not at all surprised that he did not remember that encounter.
My wife managed to ask him if he had any advice for raising daughters. She recalls he smiled, and said something about how he was no expert in that department.
Meeting a President, regardless of party loyalty, is a special thing. I felt privileged to have had that opportunity.
And it was an honor to meet a man so genuine as George H. W. Bush.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced.
Favorite Holiday Movies
Why should anyone care to read about what are my favorite holiday movies? My list can be a conversation starter when the office Christmas party gets boring. Or better yet, three of my all time favorites are playing in December at the Merced Theatre.
So, in no particular order, here is my top ten list:
White Christmas. This Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Ellen film about a group of successful entertainers who try to save a retired Army General from financial ruin has been around since 1954. It was on television when I was a child and I don’t believe there’s been a season since when it wasn’t on someplace during the holiday season. The movie inspired a musical that played at the Sonora Playhouse two years ago. The film was screened in “beautiful Technicolor” at the Merced Theatre in early December. My wife and a friend enjoyed it for the first time in a real movie house.
Christmas in Connecticut. Probably my all-time favorite that combines the screwball comedy era with the holiday film genre. Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan star with wonderful co-starring performances from Sidney Greenstreet, S Z Sakall, and Reginald Gardinier.
Home Alone, II. It’s rare when the sequel is better than the original. Home Alone was a pretty good movie, but the second movie (with the subtitle Lost in New York) tugged at my holiday heartstrings deeper than the first one.
Holiday Inn. With Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. This is the movie where the song White Christmas was first introduced. Aside from the blackface version of Irving Berlin’s Abraham, the songs deliver and Astaire’s dancing with the firecrackers is worth the price of admission.
The Santa Clause. Tim Allen’s performance of a man who must become the big fat man in the bright red suit worked on many levels, including the struggle divorced parents have managing visits for their children around the holidays.
It’s a Wonderful Life. It never disappoints to see Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey character sink about a low as one can sink, only to be saved by Clarence the angel who shows what life would have been like had George not been born. This one also made it to the Merced Theatre in early December. I hope it comes back to the Theatre next year and plays closer to the Christmas holiday.
The Bishop’s Wife. I’ll watch just about anything with Cary Grant, but his interpretation of Dudley the angel just captures my soul every year. There are outstanding performances from David Niven who plays the stressed out bishop, and Loretta Young who plays the understanding yet suffering wife. There are also wonderful supporting performances from Elsa Manchester and James Gleason.
Family Man. While not in the same league as It’s a Wonderful Life, this story about a man who wakes up living the life he would have lived had he not chosen career over love is very good. Nicholas Cage is the beleaguered man, Don Cheadle is the angel, and Tea Leoni is the wife. You see a shot of the Twin Towers in New York City in this pre 9-11 movie. This movie is a winner.
A Christmas Story. This retelling of a Jean Sheppard short story based in the 1940’s broke new ground when Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) began airing it over and over during a 24-hour period beginning Christmas Eve. Whether it’s the tongue-on-the-utility-pole scene, the little brother getting bundled up by Mom to go outdoors, or the old man’s struggle with the furnace, I laugh all through the movie every time I see it. It will play at Merced Theatre on Christmas Eve day, but it’s bundled with the direct-to-video sequel and the admission price is doubled from the $5 per person for the other movies being shown this season.
A Christmas Memory. Though not a theatrical release, this 1966 television film with Geraldine Page is loyal to the Truman Capote short story about a young boy raised by aunts in depression era Alabama. Aside from the compelling performances, this is simply a movie that you don’t see at the stores. In the few times I’ve seen it in the past forty-seven years, I’ve never been disappointed. Even though the movie is hard to find, you can look up the Capote short story on line. It’s a beautiful reading experience.
Enjoy any of these movies with family and friends.
Happy Holidays to you.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
My Uncle Ken and Drop In Visits
We had a not-so-unusual social tradition growing up the sixties and seventies in upstate New York: the drop in visit.
Often, my parents would decide that we should “drop in” on different relatives or friends. Conversely, these many relatives and friends would “drop in” on us all the time. Rarely do I recall a phone call in advance of a visit. It was just the way we did things back in those days.
My uncle died this month. Kenneth J. Snyder died at a nursing home in upstate New York near where he lived for the past forty years. I didn’t see much of him in most of those years.
I was busy with my life: living away from the region where I grew up, raising a family, and earning a living.
I remember Kenny in a number of ways. The way he dressed made an impression on me when I was a kid. He lived about an hour away from my family. It seemed as though every time I saw him, he’d be wearing a sport coat and tie.
I never knew whether he had achieved some level of success in the 1960s, but when he came around to visit my Mom, he sure looked successful. Having been raised in a blue-collar family, Kenny was the first family member I knew who wore a tie and sport coat on a regular basis.
He also mastered the art of the drop in visit. He would usually come by on a Sunday, and usually before or after he visited his Mom and Dad (my grandparents). Sometimes, he’d have his wife and children with him. Most times, I recall, he’d drop in solo.
I remember at least one occasion when he stopped in to show us a camera he had acquired. There are two pictures of my sister Becky in the family photo albums that were samples from one of Kenny’s cameras.
I also knew my Dad liked Kenny. He liked having him “drop in” to visit. There was a period of time when Kenny stopped coming by and I knew that bothered my Dad. It probably bothered my Dad more because he knew it saddened my Mom to lose contact with her brother.
A lot of things in life sort themselves out as the years pass, and that time when Kenny stopped coming around ended in a few years. In later years whenever my parents visited my young family and me a few hours away from my hometown, they’d leave a little early so they could “drop in” on Kenny on their way back from our home.
When my Grandpa on my Mother’s side of the family passed away in 1969, Kenny lost his Dad and a part of himself. I recall overhearing him ask my Grandmother if he could have something, anything, that belonged to his Dad. I believe my Grandmother gave him my Grandfather’s ring.
I liked Kenny and he liked me. When he heard I was engaged, he told my Mom that he’d drop everything he was doing to attend my wedding. Sure enough, he brought his oldest son JJ with him to the ceremony in 1980. I never forgot that.
A stroke sidelined Kenny in the late 1990s. I saw him at my Mother’s funeral, his youngest daughter’s wedding, and at a family reunion my sister organized in the early 2000s. I moved to California after that and assumed I might never see him again.
But as my father greeted me at the airport in November 2008 for a visit that coincided with Dad’s seventy-fifth birthday, he made a suggestion.
“How about we drop in at Kenny’s place?”
We did “drop in” on that November morning four years ago. We visited Kenny for about an hour. That was the last time I saw my uncle. Someone once observed that we never really know that the last time you visit someone will be the last time you’d ever see that person. That was the case for me on that day in 2008.
Kenny-school photo
B & W photo caption: A clipping from the Boonville (NY) Herald. My uncle Kenny is on the far right in this picture of the Photography Club at Constableville (NY) School. Courtesy: Ramona Salmon.
I sent him a note and a clipping of an old photograph from my hometown newspaper this summer. The picture was of the photography club at the school he attended.
I looked up Kenny’s obituary after I heard the news of his passing. The obituary said he was a self-employed TV repairman for many years, that he enjoyed country music, dabbled in photography, and liked spending time with his grandchildren.
The article didn’t mention how he impressed his nephew at a very young age by the way he dressed in coat and tie. The article also didn’t mention how he enjoyed drop in visits.
But those are the things I’ll remember about my uncle Kenny.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced. He’s published Grown Up, Going Home, a continuation of his reflections on growing up in a small town. The book is available at Lulu.com/SteveNewvine
Missing the National News Magazines
Newsweek announced recently it would be on-line only at the end of the year. The printed version will cease publication after nearly 80 years. Over the years, I subscribed to Newsweek, Time, and US News and World Report . I rarely got more than one subscription at a time. I looked forward to these magazines when they arrived in the mail. They usually appeared early in the week (the news magazines now come in the mail toward the end of the week).
As a working journalist, I saw the magazines as a necessary tool of the trade or even an investment in the maintenance of my career.
I read the stories revolving around what was going on in Washington, DC. The writers were given more space to delve into an issue. Often, the editors would offer a sidebar piece to the main story. I gained new perspective from the columnists who would appear regularly. After reading an issue, I felt a little bit better about my understanding the big topics happening in the nation.
But as with all things in life, change happens.
The start of CNN in 1980 followed by the explosion of cable news outlets in the succeeding decades evolved to the point where news and information became available instantly. In the recent decade, analysis appears hourly on the cable news shows.
The audience for a weekly news magazine has dropped as readers now seem able to get all the insight they need with the push of a television remote switch. The Internet has also forever changed the printed news delivery model.
The model isn't dead, but publishers have been challenged to compete in the cyberspace age.
For many readers, waiting for the magazine in the mail no longer seems like a viable option in today’s shortened news cycle. There was a sort of comfort I experienced reading the news magazines. Maybe it was the notion of thoughtful analysis. Cable television is great with the gut reaction, but the magazines provided a more measured weighing in of news and commentary.
And maybe, just maybe, it was the idea of curling away for an extended period of time away from the television and away from the distractions that fill the day to relax, read, and understand a little more about the stories making news.
Over the years, I have noticed the magazines were becoming thinner. What once took me over an hour to read with promises to myself to return later in the week to less time-sensitive articles, now takes me fewer than forty minutes with no return visit to pick up anything I may have skipped on the first read through.
With the airwaves now filled with “round table” news shows, the news magazines seem marginalized. Time will be the only major one left publishing a paper version every week. US News and World Report led the move to on-line only a few years ago. I still subscribe to Time; out of loyalty to the brand and a very attractive subscription rate. I’ll stay with Time at least through the end of the current subscription.
Maybe by then we’ll see the pendulum begin to swing back in the other direction. It does’t look likely, but who would have thought on-line magazines and newspapers would become the trend it has become.
I long for the days when the magazines were special. Some were so special, they were kept from the weekly recycling bin. I saved a few issues over the years including Time’s issues on the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison, a handful of issues with Ronald Reagan commemorating some of his presidential milestones, and the 9-11 coverage among others.
I often would save the Person of the Year or some other special issue of Time and its counterparts. They have become icons from special moments in our nation’s most recent history. I’ll miss that part of the weekly printed news magazine more than anything else.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced.
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