Bernice Belton's Memorial

A lot of people our age are dealing with the vicissitudes of aging parents, but neither my wife nor I have living parents. Indeed I never knew any of my grandparents and being child free our place in the constellation of generations is a bit murky sometimes. Bernice Belton died in Santa Cruz a few weeks back at the age of 87 and she was as much a godmother to my wife as anyone formerly living. The memorial service was set last week and thus it was we flew by commercial airliner, my least favorite form of travel from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco. Saturday afternoon found us immersed in renewing old friendships. Barbara, our former realtor.Mitchell my wife's boss grinning at me from across the room. He leads the contract public defender office where my wife worked for years. My wife told him she needed a sabbatical a dozen years ago and sailed off with me to Panama. From a pay phone in Costa Rica my wife called Mitchell and he said,"So when are you coming back?" A burden of law lifted from my wife's shoulders as we strolled back to the dinghy pulled up on the shore of the Gulf of Nicoya and we resumed our journey sailing to Key West. Michael in the blue shirt is another in the coterie of Santa Cruz lawyers we spent some considerable time reminiscing with during the preamble to the service. Mary, below, another lawyer......and the object of the gathering, now available only by photograph as she is nothing more than ashes and memories at this point.The master of ceremonies Jess Brown was emblematic of Bernice's wild life. Herself a dedicated leftist of the old school and gentle Jess the head of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau, a Republican and Bernice's constant helper. Odd but true, in a world always more polarized.Pete, and his wife Amanda sitting at our table because Pete was on our catamaran when we sailed away from Santa Cruz all those years ago.Frankie fresh from New York telling lies about their early years together in the Big Apple, remembering Bernice's first husband Irv and putting together the pieces for her California acquaintances who may never have heard the stories from the master story teller herself. Bernice always claimed to feel exiled from New York City.Annie with more stories. The generations past always get my attention because I am a firm believer that without knowledge of history the present makes no sense.Julie, of my wife's generation telling stories about early life in Santa Cruz where the relatively young university hired people at random it seemed to fill positions. Bernice worked with students as an advisor for a while and as she used to tell it she learned more from them than they ever learned from her. Paperwork was not her strong suit. The formal part of the memorial was interrupted by a recreation of Bernice's favorite past time: politics. Former Mayor Jane Weed presided over a mock council meeting and invited public comment. Mike Rotkin another former mayor and socialist-feminist powerhouse of the 70's and 80's and still on the city council today was also at the table.My wife pushed me to speak and I said a few impromptu words about my time reporting on daily life in Santa Cruz and the also the encouragement Bernice gave my wife to leave her home town and make a new life in the Keys.Bernice also had arthritis and appreciated the milder climate for my wife's disease. Bernice was no cook and much was made of her lack of skill in that area. My wife tells the story of how Bernice invited us to her home for one thanksgiving and promptly called back to remind my wife that she it was who would cook the turkey for Bernice after we accepted the invitation. One comment about carbon dating Bernice's spice rack brought a round of laughter. Her banana bread recipe was not to joked with though.Indeed there was a copy of the immortal recipe included with the program.David Winters a noted local musician offered his own tribute, a rendering of the Internationale,. Billy Bragg says it is only appropriate for certain occasions and he's right. This was one of them. The event was recorded for community TV, though many of the public figures of Bernice's generation were not present. Time passes and memories fade. "Stand up all you victims of oppression..." State Assemblymember Bill Monning was on hand. One of the good guys in Sacramento.The left in Santa Cruz had got upset with Mike Rotkin on the city council. I wanted a chance to talk to him because I remember him well but that didn't happen. Pete was watching it all.Sara offered her memories of Bernice as the program resumed.Bernice touched a great many people.Her niece Linda from Texas gave a speech that cracked everyone up. The dry southern sense of humor was refreshing. And finally the daughters, Nora (glasses) and Donnie.

A final song from Cliff and Sara...... and a chance to catch up before splitting.We decided dinner could be a tribute to Bernice at her favorite (Chinese) eatery and Barbara and Marty and their daughter agreed so off we went.

Omei makes a mean Lemon Chicken, Bernice's favorite, a dish that only I usually enjoy apparently. I got to have it one more time that night.

A few more reminiscences,...and we split one more time. Layne and I closed the evening in high excitement in the local Publix, er, Safeway. A mega-supermarket with endless aisles of consumables. Including sophisticated Italian scooter....coffee?The place was vast and thus vastly entertaining for people like us used to the more modest proportions of Searstown.

Somehow it is all entertaining when one is on the road.

Conch Republic Count Down

I was quite surprised to hear Key West Mayor Craig Cates announce on the radio that in about three weeks, on the 23rd precisely, Key West was declaring independence, this time for real, 29 years after the famous first independence declaration. A lot can happen while one is away on vacation for a few short days...

Supposedly this whole new dreamland will make little difference for us, as we live inside the borders of the new Conch Republic and work for us will continue as normal, she with the Conch Republic Department of Education and for me with the Conch Gendarmerie. However reticent I may feel the new border signs and Customs post are supposedly going up soon on the south end of the Seven Mile Bridge, while at the airport the new signs are up already in preparation for the celebrations.

The last I heard the new Conch Cabinet is negotiating furiously with the US Navy at Boca Chica to work out fees and rental agreements for use of the prime Conch Republic airbase but the future of the US Navy presence is entirely uncertain at this point as France is said to be interested in basing some nuclear subs and fighter aircraft here. As part of their inducement the French are also offering civilians with Conch Republic passports access to their future officer's mess and lots of Conchs are ready for some French cuisine and bowling on base. Fat Albert is to be relocated to US territory north of the Seven Mile Bridge from what I heard at breakfast yesterday.

The new currency is supposed to start circulating soon, though it is unknown exactly when, and it will start out at parity, one for one with the US dollar, according to the Blue Paper. I've also heard that the Seminoles will be starting a new no-limit casino on Sugarloaf Key as soon as they can start construction. Scotia Bank of Canada is supposedly taking over the Wachovia building on the Boulevard to take advantage of the Conch Republic banking laws. I think the President-to-Be of the Conch Republic is expecting massive fresh income from these offshore activities as Americans will be keen to get money out of their failing system and into ours where privacy is assured and taxes will be unknown and Conch dollars will be backed by gold bullion. It was also exciting to see the San Carlos reverting to it's original owner, the Cuban government, soon to be home to the Conch Republic's first foreign representative.

They say the US Consul will be housed at Boca Chica if they can work out that agreement, if not the US Consulate will be behind the Red Garter on Telegraph Lane. Ferry and air service to Cuba are also supposed to start, passengers only at first, the day after independence day, which will be April 23rd. The Cuban Embargo will no longer apply down here, south of reality. In light of all the trouble our neighbors to the north are having in the US of A it's not surprising a few enterprising business people decided the time was ripe for a new approach to government but I guess I have to admit I am surprised by the speed with which they acted. My wife and I did consider leaving and moving north to preserve our US citizenship, per the US State Department's latest directives, but with the United Nations guaranteeing independence and a peaceful transition for the world's 191st country we decided to stay and try our luck. Today, we said to each other quoting the new republic's most famous figure from history, "Today," we said, "is the day."

All Photos from the Internet.

Santa Cruz Life

Yesterday we missed lunch at Duarte's (pro: Dew-Art, the "e" is silent) in Pescadero, today we see how one lives the good life in cold rainy Santa Cruz California. All it takes is a sense of adventure.The Pie Ranch wasn't around when Layne and I lived here years ago, but it's here on California Highway One today and it does good work giving at risk kids a taste of the farming life. They also sell home made food. They grow some lovely vegetables too. We bought strawberry preserve and a walnut pie. My wife loves pecan pie more than anything and this, they promised was as close as you can get and even better. They were right, by the way.For lunch we shared a rich delicious onion pie.It was this sign that sucked us in, just north of Ano Nuevo State Park. How can you not slow for pie?The central coast of California is a wild and wet place. There are hardly any all weather anchorages on this rocky coastline. Monterey was Spanish California's capital in the 17th century because Monterey Bay is one such place. Sailing a small boat up this coast in the teeth of northwest winds with huge seas was a cold hard overnight sail when I wanted to take my boat 70 miles to San Francisco.Somehow years ago they built a cement plant in Davenport, the only industry on this agricultural coast. They also built rail lines for two trains a day to the plant so you don't see trucks tearing up the highway.

This is not swimming country as the cold Alaska current sends water down from the far north and the waters year round are cold enough to give an unwary swimmer a heart attack.Santa Cruz county grows wines and wineries display their wares around town. My wife loves to taste wine and pack the bottles in bubble wrap and store them at home on Ramrod Key to drink and enjoy and think about where they came from.If we lived in Santa Cruz we could bring an empty bottle to Scones and buy a refill of their Hedgehog table wine. As it is Homeland Security won't allow us to carry a bottle as carry on. Just too risky in our risk averse fearful little world. I much prefer road trips to flying.

So much wine, so little time.My wife attended Duke University for a semester but came home to California to graduate from here. It was an alternative school that gave no grades, professors gave narrative evaluations of their students upon graduation. These days this is becoming a boring scientific place in pursuit of the practical. As proof they grade students now.It is a beautiful campus perched on a hill overlooking the city, growing year by year and sucking up more of the city's water and creating all sorts of development problems for a city that theoretically opposes unbridled development. The campus is exempt from city regulations.Set among the redwood trees the campus winds this way and that.It was Spring Break last week but these are serious students and they don't typically descend on the city below and drink themselves into oblivion.There is precious little team sports here either so I was never exposed to football mania and stuff like that, even though I was never a student here.They helped map the human genome here. That and water polo is their thing. And marine sciences.

California is broke but you wouldn't know it. They still fund things that garner them Nobel prizes and the like, at the UC system.The city on the hill overlooks the city of Santa Cruz set on the north shore of Monterey Bay. You can see why people who don't care for palm trees could argue this is a very beautiful place. It was 58 degrees when I took this picture. Warm by local standards.The mascot of the UC Santa Cruz campus is the banana slug, and it shows up everywhere. It's cute and they know it.The Cowell family foundation donated land to build the university on their former ranch. This barn is an historic ranch building. The idea was to make the seaside town a year round economic engine when tourists went home in September.Unfortunately this was the mid 60s and the campus became a hotbed of leftist revolutionary theory and the fuddy duddy city fathers lost control of their one horse city to the young graduates who came off the campus and wanted to create a Utopia by the sea.They succeeded for a while in their efforts to turn their backs on development and the growth paradigm. Then Silicon Valley came along over the hill in San Jose and brought huge wealth to buy out the lovely little seaside town. They turned the little hippie town with a university into a telecommuter's paradise with name brands and a reverence for the material over the spiritual.The debate continues, students bicycle, scientists drive foreign sports cars. Now it is the turn of the socialist-feminist city council to turn their backs on their beliefs and make compromises on box stores and housing costs and reducing bus service and all the things rich people don't really need.They do have a few palm trees in this frigid climate.

Hoodies are year round wear on the California coast.

I keep seeing similarities between Santa Cruz and Key West. Here's the local Fausto's Food Palace.They sell bumper stickers in Santa Cruz, not "One Human Family" but "Keep Santa Cruz Weird." I think that when you have to consciously work at keeping a community weird it's too late.