My Santa Rosa Memories

My Santa Rosa Memories

By Joel Elveson

I am going to do something different than what I have ever done as far as how I start my article is concerned. My norm is to go right into the article with no introduction as to what I am writing about. This time around I find it necessary due to yet another tragedy of epic proportions that I felt the need as well as an obligation to put into words as the effects I feel on a personal level as a result of ALL the tragedies that have enveloped us one after another. The horrific scene of the senseless slaughter by gunfire that shattered the night in Las Vegas is still fresh on just about everybody’s mind. We are at a loss to find out what made a man so determined to kills as many innocent people as possible.

This week wildfires raged across the picturesque city of Santa Rosa, California. A growing hub located to the north of San Francisco. Santa Rosa was located just south of the wineries in beautiful Sonoma County. In the wake of these fires many if not all of these wineries were destroyed. The power from the gut-wrenching scene of Red Wine boiling from the intense heat to the point they resembled blood. Napa Valley which is a neighbor of Santa Rosa also saw its wineries many of them had been there for years producing some of the finest wine grown from grapes that were nursed to blossom as they did burn like sticks on top of a barbeque grill.

Santa Rosa is a place I lived for a couple of years after I moved out of my parent’s apartment in The Bronx, NY. Part of it had to do with the cold weather, part of it had to with commuting on ice cold metal cubicles known as the New York City Subway. The move was also brought one by having met a girl by the name of Alison who I had met on vacation trip awhile back. Alison was affectionate and funny with an infectious laugh with a smile that could melt any glacier.

Despite the fact that Allison had a boyfriend at the same time she invited me to live with her in her apartment at 101 Elliot Avenue that was right across the street from the Santa Rosa Junior College. I remember the trees swaying with the gentle Northern California breezes. The campus was enshrined by nature and easily viewable from my window. The three-story walk-up apartment with the swimming pool in the back is no longer. Alison and I swam in that pool regularly.

The Coddingtown mall where we used to go to all the time has now been reduced to rubble. Only sticks remain from the stores we visited. The supermarket across the street from us is now gone. The Four Corners (I think what that section was called) with its waterfall is gone forever. I remember coming out of the office building where I working for a telesales rep for Solar Energy Company (yes I did sell Solar Energy during California’s rainy season with good success.) and running out to the street to catch a bus or something. I was immediately confronted by a most unpleasant Police Officer who threatened to arrest me for Jaywalking. The fact that I was from New York not only did not endear me to him made him even more determined to inflict punishment on me for my heinous crime. I never did go to court but when I did return to New York there were warrants for my arrests waiting for me. Since I never returned to New York there was jurisdiction make the summonses a moot point.

Alison and I during our time together took many wine tasting tours. I fell in love with Sebastiani Wine. I got perfectly drunk imbibing many different samples of wine. Sonoma was so peaceful and tranquil. Now there is nothing left but memories and devastation. Highway 101 that took you into San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge (what a spectacular view) traveling through the fog as it slowly lifted over the Bay Area to reveal Alcatraz Island where the Birdman of Alcatraz was incarcerated for most of his life. The mesmerizing sight of the windsurfers gliding effortlessly over the bay waves made our hearts yearn to be out there. The closet we have got was our walk over the Golden Gate Bridge.

I remember the long bus ride from Santa Rosa into San Francisco where along the way you saw cows freely grazing in the fields. I was also treated to the sight of crops reaching skyward. Then, of course, there were the windmills that this boy from the Bronx had never seen before. The windmills gently massaged the crops back and forth in the golden sunshine. Now it is all gone. Nature at the direction of G-d (or so I believe now but not back then) sent us our powerful messages that were designed to remind us that he who created the world and all its beauty and who could effortlessly destroy it if too much evil came from man.

Highway 101 is no longer as this six-lane highway became a graveyard for those who got stuck in their cars and could not get out. Santa Rosa had a certain charm and eloquence it. My only complaint was that pizza was not sold in slices. You had to buy a whole pie and eat it with a knife and fork. Alison in New York could not figure out how to fold a slice of pizza in half and eat it. This was especially normal in the Brass Ass back in California where a pie was served to you on a large platter. The wine was great though. She eventually took a plastic knife and fork to eat her pizza during our visit to a New York pizza shop. The patrons in the pizza shop looked at her with disbelief. We all shook our head in disbelief as well but chalked it up to Alison being Alison.

San Francisco Airport was closed and presumably, the cable cars that chugged up the steep hills in San Francisco as the moon shining brightly followed us wherever we went were shut down as well. Fisherman’s Wharf along with Ghirardelli Square whose chocolate factory filled the air with the aroma of freshly made chocolate. I spent much time there. The atmosphere down there was lively with the people being so friendly. The dense smoke put a sudden halt to the Cable Cars along with all the restaurants as well. It’s all gone now!

Moving back in time I remember my first night in Santa Rosa. The stars twinkled at me unceasingly until jet lag caught up with me whereupon I fell asleep on my warm relaxing waterbed. I awoke alone in the apartment as Alison was attending classes. A couple of friends of mine from Brooklyn took me around town to some of the best burger places around where the soda had a fizz to it that lasted until the bottom of your cup. The drinks had so much caffeine or sugar in them that I thought I was high. Now it is all gone.

Unlike the ferocious traffic that is so much a part of the New York culture, I could not get over how in Santa Rosa all you had to do was get off the curb to cross over to the other side and much to my amazement the cars stopped in their tracks to let you past. Never a honk of the horn was heard. As soon as you pressed the button to cross the street the traffic lights turned instantaneously red. Being a kid at heart I had to continually stop traffic by pushing that button or pretending I was going to cross the street.

The local supermarket (I think it was Albertson’s) that was just down the block from our comfy apartment that was occupied by mostly college kids so it was party city would unload your shopping cart without you having to lift a finger. Change was put in your hand with a smile. The stores along with the streets around them were immaculate. I was never quite sure if I was dreaming or was it the sweet-smelling California air that hugged me with unending love.

Petaluma was a town outside of Santa Rosa where the movie American Graffiti was filmed that gave rise to the hit TV Sitcom Happy Days. Fonzie (before there was a Fonzie) was everywhere. 57 Chevys with the convertible tops where what the kids drove through town. There was something called low riders which were cars that were built so close to the ground you could reach out the window and touch the road. Now, much of it lay in ruin. Waitresses on skates brought your food right up to the window of your car. That was pretty cool if you ask me.

The same fate that befell Santa Rosa, was felt in Rohnert Park and Cotati. The only time I was in Cotati was when we went to this bar to see New York Folk Singer Tm Paxton who as luck would have it remembered us from New York. Tom was flabbergasted to hear my new found California accent. Dees and doze never fell from my mouth. Now it’s all gone.

Today I read with sadness that several thousand more people had to be evacuated from Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa that had become my new hometown is burning to the grown. Wildfires are still continuing to burn uncontrollably all over town. Injuries, loss of life, evacuations, and destroyed homes are now the new reality in Santa Rosa. The railroad station is no more while the roads no longer have those reflector lights on them to help you see where you are going.

For me, although I have not been back there in many years (at least 31 years) I still feel a sense of loss tinged with great sorrow for all the suffering the residents are now enduring. Life as I knew it over there might be gone forever. A spark catapulted into the air was all it took to start this cataclysmic event to rise up in rage directed at nobody in particular or anyplace, in particular, seized control of a town with a college that sat majestically inviting all to come in and be a part of its community. Now it is all gone.

What can I say to myself or what can I do to come to grips with the loss that was so much a part of me is gone perhaps forever. I yearn for everything to be okay but it is not okay. Is Alison okay? This I do not know. Her sisters, her mother from Burlingame, fake Uncle Jack are they still alive? Is it possible for somebody who knew them to send out a tweet or a Facebook to update how they all are?

Y

es, I still feel Vegas. The unanswered questions, the changing stories spin around in my head as if they were on a gyroscope. How was it normal that these many guns that the shooter carried with him with nary a question being raised or an aroused curiosity why one lone person needed the arsenal he had? Why did Mandalay Bay not have their curiosity level heightened with the collection of weaponry that Stephen Pollack had with him? So many people are asking why but no response to that question of why? May it never be again! Who can console those whose families whose lives were turned asunder from bullets flying everywhere? What can be said to those who are laying in hospital beds not knowing if they will live or if they will die? All those guns in plain without an eyebrow being raised sits as well as the loss of our innocence.

Santa Rosa’s horror was not the making of a person. Santa Rosa and the surrounding areas that now lay to waste also begs us to question why or how could this happen? Were there any warnings that a drought or something to that effect begged for this to happen? The people, the animals, the land have lost so much. Will a walk in the morning mist ever be the same again? Guns being shot with all intentions to kill followed by an unleashed fury of fire are hard to come to grips with. North Korea wants to destroy us. The fires in California rage on with no real end in sight. How can all of this be? Without the least bit of uneasiness, I, again and again, ask why with all of our resources, space satellites and more how did this inferno give no visible warning? All this space junk floating way above our heads sucking up our tax dollars produced nothing in the way of clues and certainly not coming forth with answers.

It only takes one word, one sentence; one thought sounded out loud can inflame somebody who is on the edge. Where there is rage death trails close behind. Rages are never quiet or quietly whispered. Rage is anger that has just exploded into an inferno that wants to take away from others that which is irreplaceable that which we have come to know as life.

To Santa Rosa may your nightmare end as quickly as the first flames rose up to lick the sky. May you rebuild what once was a pretty damned good place to live. The loving kindness that your residents and visitors produced a clinic about simple human decency lives on forever. Let the wines start their descent into bottles to be enjoyed in short order. Rebuild and if possible recreate what was so suddenly lost in this one of the worst fires we have ever known. Let life spring forth once again. Please say a prayer for all the victims of ALL tragedy’s that have unfolded one after another. May it never be again!