Saturday, May 23, 2009

Antioch

ANTIOCH.
Today is Wednesday, May 20, 2009. Our Outing today is lunch at Humphrey’s restaurant in Antioch. The city of Antioch is about 200 years old, and was named after Antioch of Syria. This nice restaurant is almost 20 years old, and named after the famous “Humphrey the Whale“. The restaurant was dedicated on November 15, 1990.
This will be an interesting trip for me, because we lived in Antioch 50 years ago! Our first home, after I graduated from Cal-Berkeley in 1949, was an apartment at 700 H street. Our next abode in the city was after I returned to Antioch in 1953, after serving in the Air Force during the Korean War. We rented a small house at 1601 C street. In 1955, we had our first real home built. We bought the lot at 16 West 16th Street (a cul-de-sac) for this 1000 square foot house.
Our mini-bus left Quail Creek at 10:08. Besides Tony and Fabi, there are six residents on board. The bus seats 12. I don’t understand why more residents aren’t interested in these great “Outings”.
The weather is sunny and clear, but with hazy visibility. A temperature inversion aloft must be involved. My gas report: Shell @ $2.42, Chevron is at $2.51 and Arco at $2.50 June Futures are around $60/bbl. Gasoline prices have slowly crept up. They have increased around 30 cents a gallon during the past month. While a penny a day- average doesn’t seem like much, but try multiplying it by 365! Cal Tran is still heavily involved with the new Texas Street off ramps, and the new diamond lanes between the east and west- bound freeways.
We head out Highway 80 West. Traffic is light. We pass a few trucks with containers, probably heading to the Port of Oakland. A container ship must be standing by to be loaded. Now, we pass a car hauler. They used to contain new cars. But, with the depressed economy, the driver is probably headed to pick up new cars at a Chrysler dealership!
We exit I-80 onto 680 South. We have gone from four lanes to two - less traffic, but compressed. I can see majestic Mt. Diablo in the hazy distance. We are passing the governments “Mothball Fleet” anchored in Suisun Bay, off to our left. This collection of idle ships was started after WWII. The government’s theory 65 years ago was that it would be cheaper to preserve the ships than to build new ones to fight in future wars even taking into consideration of the high cost of removing the Cosmo line. Plus, they could be mobilized faster than building new ones. The trouble is - that never happened - except for a few pulled out during the Korean and Viet Nam wars.
We pass the Benicia Industrial Park. I wonder who is using all that warehouse capacity. We are running parallel to the mainline railroad tracks. A large -yellow tank farm sits off to the right. We are approaching the southbound Benicia-Martinez bridge. What a fantastic view! To the right, I can look down the Carquinez Straight and see the parallel two Vallejo-Crockett bridges on I-80. To the left, I can see many miles up to the Delta area, where the American and Sacramento rivers merge. This bridge is one-way traffic heading South on 680. To our left is the railway bridge and east of it is the new one -way-northbound 680 bridge.
We exit 680 on to Highway 4 heading eastbound on Highway 4. We pass Buchanan Field off to our right. It reminds me of nearby Concord Estates. We bought our first home in this new subdivision. We moved in from Antioch in 1951. Six weeks later, I was recalled to active duty by the Air Force. This was during the Korean War. There is a large Mobile Home Park, nearby today. This is a very busy highway - carrying mostly commuters.
BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) runs on tracks between the east and westbound freeway - to my left. This is the end of the line. We are approaching the large PG&E Power plant in West Pittsburg - off to the left. Initially, it was installed to furnish power to Columbia Steel - a subsidiary of U.S. Steel, and Dow Chemical. The steel plant has been shut down, and I presume that Dow is still operating. We pass a car hauler unloading cars at a dealer. This is a strange sight in this depressed economy! We are going through an underpass. When we lived in Antioch, the underpass flooded every time we had a good rain. You can guess the traffic problem it caused - even back then. The U.S. Steel buildings are still standing along the delta off to the left. I am surprised that they haven’t been torn down to be replaced by a mall.
I worked a Columbia Steel - first as a production Planner, and then as an Industrial Engineer. I started working there in 1949 - shortly after graduating form Cal Berkeley. I left U.S. Steel in 1958 to work in Hawaii - as an Industrial Engineer at Olokele Sugar Company, a subsidiary of C. Brewer & Company, at Kaumakani, Kauai.
We are in Antioch now, at the intersection of Tenth Street and Auto Center Drive. We have just passed an old canning factory. It appears to be closed. At West Fourth and L Streets, we turn left to the Marina area, after crossing the railroad tracks. We arrive at Humphrey’s at 11:05.
A lone whale apparently got lost about 25 years ago during it’s Mexico to Alaska migration. It entered San Francisco Bay and migrated through the Carquinez Strait, up the Sacramento River and under the Rio Vista bridge. The whale ended up in a dead-end slough, about 40 miles from the ocean. The whale had passed from salt water to fresh water. The whale hung around for about three weeks Most people in the Bay Area followed the whales daily progress. As I remember there was a contest to name the “lost” whale, and “Humphrey was the winning name.
I don’t know what it cost to coax Humphrey back to it’s normal habitat, but it must have been beaucoup bucks! Many agencies were involved in coaxing the whale back to the Pacific ocean. Their trial and error techniques were very interesting - a flotilla of boats made unpleasant noises behind the whale, trying to coax him downriver. When that didn’t work, they played recordings of feeding sounds and other whale vocalizations. He finally swam under the Golden Gate bridge and was home free!
Humphrey was spotted again in 1990, about five years later. This time he hung around in the water north of Sierra Point in Brisbane. He became beached on a mud flat between Sierra Point and Candlestick Park. Again, he was lifted out of the mud courtesy of the Marine Mammal Center and a U.S. Coast Guard boat. His last sighting was in 1991 in the vicinity of the Farallon Islands.
Humphrey was a Humpback whale. These giant mammals can weigh up to 40 tons, and reach 40 to 50 feet in length. Individual Humpback whales can be positively identified by the unique pattern on their pectoral fins.
Antioch ,of course, has changed a lot since I lived here. While I still see some familiar landmarks, most are new to me. Antioch had a population of about 13,000 back in 1958. Currently, over 100,000 people live here. It is primarily a “bedroom” community.
After a delicious crab and shrimp Louie, we left the restaurant at 1:30. We went out L Street, past the Contra Costa Fairgrounds, and back on to Highway 4, Eastbound. Tony exits at Highway 160. We pass another large power station near the southern anchorage of the beautiful Antioch bridge. It feeds a high tension power lines running to the north. The bridge was built in 1978 at a cost of 34 million dollars. It rises 135 feet above the San Joachin river and can be for miles around. The bridge links Contra Costa County with Sacramento County. We are driving along the river. No wonder it is nick named “The river road”. This is the route that Humphrey followed 25 years ago.
We pass a goat farm and many cattle grazing. We pass Brannan Island, which brought back many happy memories of our family’s-group camping. We are passing a large grove of eucalyptus trees, and then many fruit orchards.
We turn left onto Highway 12 and pass over the river on the Helen Madera draw bridge. Fortunately, the bridge isn’t open for ships or boats, to pass by, or their would be a delay. We are passing through the small picturesque town of Rio Vista. Gas is higher here - $2.58 at Shell and $2.46 at Arco. We pass the Trilogy residential housing complex on the right.
We are passing a huge wind farm on our left. It must cover 50 square miles! You don’t realize how large these electricity generators are until you get close to them. The support column has to be large enough - not only to support the tremendous weight of the three-bladed huge propellers, but also to provide a passage way inside, for a man to service the unit. Some mills are turning and some are not. I don’t know if the farm is programmed that way or if it is an anomaly. Even more interesting, the blades of a small windmill are turning in an opposite direction than the huge one. This condition reminds me of the winds at the Oakland Coliseum, during the A’s games - the left and right field -foul line flags, often were blowing in opposite directions! Speaking of windmills, a little farther on were two old fashioned windmills which were used to pump water for the cattle.
They used to call this stretch of Highway 12, “Death Alley”, there were so many fatal crashes from nutty -speeding drivers, passing cars in “blind” spots on the narrow highway. To make a divided four lane freeway was too expensive. So Cal Trans has placed poles, or concrete barriers, along the center line. This has helped a lot. I haven’t read of a fatality since!
The huge Travis Air Force Base is a few miles to the right of us. It is home to the huge C-5 Galaxy aircraft.
We are passing the Lawler subdivision on our left. Tony turns right on to Walter Road, and back to Quail Creek. There is a lot of local traffic. Back to Quail Creek after a nice afternoon at 2:45 - in time for a nap before dinner!
Tony tells me that our round trip covered 95 miles. It was an especially interesting ride, because he took the great circle- route, to and from, rather than retrace our outbound drive.
Ray L’Amoreaux
May 23, 2009.

2 comments:

Melissa said...

I remember having a picture book as a child about Humphrey the Humpback whale- it was one of my favorites! Several months ago we had a whale in the harbor in San Diego, he was here for a couple weeks, but eventually he left. They named him Diego.

Ray L'Amoreaux said...

Dear Melissa:Thanks for your interesting commrnt.
Thanks,too, for remembering Grandma with your thoughtful birthday card. Love, Grandpa.