This is July the fourth, 2001.It’s 9:30 pm. The Fireworks are starting and the train isn’t even here yet. Yvonne is on it, coming from Fort Worth, to visit with Dorothy and me. The fireworks are for Independence Day celebration, and take place only two blocks away from the train station, at the Jack London Square in Oakland. Coincidentally her train was to arrive at 9:23. So it’s very fitting that we celebrate her arrival with the fireworks.
Here comes the train now! Dorothy and I are really excited. What a way to arrive. Big crowds of people. Noisy but extravagant fireworks and a beautiful cool but still balmy evening.
Its been close to twenty five years since we saw her. But look! There she is! I’d know that “Cow-town-gal” any where. She hasn’t changed a bit in looks. From child to woman, she is still the same beautiful person.
Yvonne was traveling very light. So we just greeted and watched the fireworks, until they ended. We tried taking photos, but as you can see, the fireworks overpowered everything else.
I had parked in a delivery driveway at the station, so we were able to escape the crowd and downtown real quick. Once we reached Berkeley, we stuffed some BBQ ribs and potato salad into Yvonne, while she told us all about her train ride to here.
When we first arrived inside the house, Yvonne presented Dorothy and me with a most beautiful, thoughtful, loving and warm quilt that one could imagine. It’s hand stitched, and as her Nana would have said; “With a prayer of Love in Ev-er-ry Stitch.” From my story of Joe Bill, she had taken the thoughts of the Shoulder Angel and used it for the theme of this precious quilt. I’m sure she had to spend months working on it. We will cherish it throughout our lives.
From my life in Texas, I recall the all night “coon hunts.” How we would take some hound dogs, and go out in the evening then hunt and camp all night. Chasing howling dogs through the wooded areas, (removing ticks when we slowed down) trying to find where the hounds had treed the coons. We had all night camp fires, hot-dogs, coffee, and marshmallows. I promised Yvonne a better kind of hunt here in Berkeley, hunting for “Porky Pines.”
The next morning we were all up early and excited to get on with the hunt. But first, there had to be bacon and eggs with burnt offerings from the new toaster. I could have burnt it that well over a camp fire. Then there was the bacon. Never a bad piece from the old microwave. But this one took three times as long. Although it did come out good.
I had studied the roaming of the Porky-Pines in preparation of this hunt and really thought I knew where to start. So it was off to Fourth street. There’s lots of knew little shops down there. The rarer a shop is, the more likely to find one. We only patronized one on fourth street. It seems like all of the others had gone “high class”
and commercial, except for the Discovery and the glass blowing shop.
So we crossed the freeway and headed for the water front and Marina. The wind was up pretty heavy and the two foot high swells on the bay were white capped. It was even too cold to get out of the car. This is the fifth of July and we are all wearing warm jackets and sweaters. Guess the Porky-Pines were honkered down and hiding in this area.
As we were departing the Marina area, we spotted something off to the right, just before getting back to the freeway crossing. I pulled the car off into the dirt area and we all got out looking, with cameras in hand. Nothing there but a fish smoke house and Deli. So we ordered from the Deli and had lunch at an outdoor table.
When we left there we headed for Solano avenue. There’s lots of shops there. The first one we tried was a Native American Indian Shop. It seems like every American Tribe was represented here. With enough interesting stuff in there to start any red blooded American thinking! We turned everything in there upside down, but no “Porky-Pines”. I talked to a local who told me they were running up in the Berkeley hills. He said along Grizzly Peak Road, near the Space Sciences building and at the Lawrence Hall of Science.
Now on with the hunt. This time it was a Bone Shop. Complete with a live snake, twenty feet long. What an interesting shop that was! There was rocks, fossils, bones, skeletons, skulls, beetles and jewelry, to mention a part. But alas! No Porky-Pines.
(Get photos of the two stores for here)
We were getting pretty tired by now and decided to retreat for the day. So we went home and just enjoyed our visit. Later we ordered some Chinese food to be delivered. Not so bad! Beats hot-dogs from a camp fire. And the weather and sleeping was much more comfortable then a summer night out, in central Texas, with ticks and dogs.
The next Morning we just visited and enjoyed each others company. Had a leisurely breakfast and talked a lot. Dorothy had decided the hill and campus area was a little to rugged for her to attempt this morning. So Yvonne and I went alone on the hunt.
We passed the Space Sciences Building on the way up. I pointed it out because that’s where I had worked for so many years. Then just around the corner and below Space Sciences was the Hall of Sciences. We stopped there, always looking for Porky-Pines and trying to find some one to talk about them with us. I guess they were all too young. The University of California owns and maintains the Hall of Sciences for the exclusive reason of introducing school children in to the fields of the Sciences. They can learn about Chemistry, Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics and Electronics to mention a few. Also a large quantity of information about Ernest O. Lawrence. He was the first man to split an atom and inventor of the Cyclotron as well as instrumental in the invention of Atomic Bomb, (a reputation he wished he had not acquired.) When I left the U.S.Navy, I went to work at his Berkeley Radiation Laboratory and spent six years there, before going to work for the Space Sciences.
Now it’s on to the top of the Berkeley Hills on Grizzly Peak Drive. The views should have been the most beautiful in the world. But the hot weather (upper eighties and nineties) we have had for the last few days have caused some very rare smog over San Francisco. We could see all of Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, parts of Richmond and part of San Francisco and the four Bay Islands. But the smog didn’t permit views of the Golden Gate bridge or Farallon Islands. Grizzly Peak Boulevard is a very narrow two lane road, with two way traffic, running along the ridge of the Berkeley Hills. Sometimes you are looking east to Contra Costa county and sometimes to the west, over the bay.
Look Yvonne! I stopped the car quickly and we both hopped out, nets in hand and headed for the spot, under a very old tree. Low and Behold, she netted the biggest Porky-Pine I’ve ever seen. What a huge body it has! It’s a
massive silver back! That’s really Porky! Using the most humane method we could, we silenced it and bagged it in a box I had in the trunk of the car. Exhausted from the thrill of the chase, we decided to go down to the North Gate Drag and do some bragging. Besides it was time for some good coffee.
We proceeded down via Strawberry Canyon road. It winds around the Radiation Lab, Past the Olympic swimming pool , Tennis Courts and the U.C. Memorial Stadium, where all the big games are held. Then we reached Gayley Road and turned North passing The Greek Theater. Note; the Hayward fault line runs under Gayley Road here. When we reached the North Gate Drag, we parked on Euclid then walked just a block to a neet little coffee shop. We each had a Hazel Nut Latte and sat inside at a very small table. We had purposely left the Porky-Pine in the car, because the site of them seems to turn some people off. So the conversation here, was all about Me. But I survived!
From there we went down on North Shattuck Avenue and found students laying all around the street, eating pizza. They were sitting on benches and chairs, and squatting on the sidewalks and even picnicking on the grass in the middle of the boulevard.
It seemed only fitting that we joined them. So we did. The pizza house was just that. There were three people running it. A man was putting pizzas in and taking them out of the oven as fast as you could imagine, as he spun the raw dough for the next. A woman was putting the toppings on the raw ones and then cutting and either boxing the done ones for take out or putting on paper plates, for inside and sidewalk eating. Another woman
was taking orders and money then giving you the order. It’s kind of amazing, since the whole of the place was only about seven feet wide and thirty feet deep.
We ordered a slice each of the daily special. There was only room for two tables inside, each seating two, on one side of the place, and a line for ordering on the other. Outside and in front of the pizza house was a garbage can for trash and a plastic box for putting the plastic paper plate holders in, along with another for empty bottles. There was a few tables and chairs on the wide side walk, but they were in use. We sat on a wood bench like seat bordering the flowers alongside the place.
At this point it’s just too hard to hold back telling someone about our Porky-Pine, so it’s home we go, to show and tell our Dorothy.
We spent the rest of the afternoon just enjoying a great visit. Until I mentioned my making a Mexican dinner. But Dorothy to my rescue, suggested we go to Juan’s Place, on Carleton St. here in Berkeley. That sounded good to me, because I knew he was an adventurous Hombre and thought he may have some input on Porky-Pines. Juan’s Place
is really a really nice place to have a Mexican dinner. The atmosphere is very fitting. The only thing missing was a Guitarist, a Trumpeter and a dancing Seniority. I offered to entertain but Yvonne and Dorothy didn’t think it would be necessary. The ladies both had sensible dishes, but leave it to me. I had the combination. Some of everything, you know?
To my astonishment, Juan didn’t have any pictures of Porky-Pines, but there was plenty pictures of everything else. Some were real mean looking Hombres.
(Get photos of Juan’s)
By the time we got out of there we decided to look for a desert without chili or cactus. Dorothy suggested ice-cream. Sounded good to us. We cruised Solano Avenue. But All the good parlors had closed. So we went to a soft ice-cream place and got our fill.
The next morning we compared photos at the computers and took advantage of a very welcome visit the last few hours with Yvonne. Then it was off to the Oakland airport where she took a flight back to Fort Worth. I promised to take the Porky-Pine to a taxidermist and send it to her later. What a Wonderful Time We Had. These are the kind of times that last forever in our memories. 
BERKELEY PORKY-PINE
P.S.
We took other pictures and you may view all of them in an album by clicking on the blue photo album below. There are eight pages each having twelve photos.
PHOTO ALBUM
